timaeus222

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude. This mix hits all the right notes! That FM tibetan bowl-like sound at the beginning was a great start to the remix. That atmosphere is AMAZING, and THOSE SINE ARPS! This even sounds a bit creepy and like a cinematic score. Incredibly impressive production, and like Vig, I have NOTHING bad to say. Man, 2014 is getting to be a GREAT YEAR!

For the first time, I'm actually going to disagree with Larry here. The production at 1:20-2:24 is quite solid, and things are well-separated. You can hear all the components of the mix individually if you focus on them, and there aren't discernible buried instruments that I can notice. The drums are indeed on the slightly weak side, but it isn't that big a deal for me. They're good enough IMO, and the overall production on the whole track up until 3:13 is only a bit problematic. 3:13-3:44 does get very muddy in the low-mids though, that's for sure. I'm surprised that wasn't mentioned. 3:46-4:16 was better, and more serviceable, but 1:20-2:24 was more solid than that. Still a very well done arrangement, and the production, while problematic, is good enough to me---perhaps "borderline YES" at worst. I like it.

Aw yeah, DigiE is back! Not much to really nitpick here other than the slight clipping at 3:29, 3:43, and 4:18, and the abruptly faded tail at the ending. Awesome bass after 4:18. Great job, guys!

Hey Steve! Welcome to OCR, and I hope you have fun here! I love remixing with your wife (boy, that would sound weird out loud)!

Normal comments: The main issue is that the sample quality is pretty lofi. Normally that wouldn't be that much of an issue, but this isn't supposed to be an arrangement for submission, so that officially becomes significant. Specifically, the bells and organ sound thin, the bass and lead pads sound simple (polyphonic low-passed saw wave), and the intro keys instrument sounds "basic". The atonal bells do hold their own, though. The high bells at 0:48 are pretty bright to me, and they hurt. Something you can look into is the low cut on the reverb on the intro keys instrument. It's too low, and that low end ambience clashes with the low pad that's acting like a bass.

Hm... Seems really quiet. I can't really understand the vocals over the plucked instrument because of that, and there's a lot of reverb decay from the backing vocals. LOTS of line noise from the computer. Also, the atmosphere is mostly the same throughout, so I can't tell whether or not I'm at the beginning, middle, or end without looking at the timestamp.

Okay, although that's what it sounds like to me---a 909 snare, mostly. A similar-sounding snare was on TGH's Secretive Terrors ReMix, but to me it worked there because it was thwappy and noise-gated. Just personal taste and context though, nothing more. And I did say "phaser-like", with the reservation that I could have been wrong. This WAS your first foray into dubstep, so with this being your first, it IS still quite good. Anyways, I know these days, almost 2 years later, you CAN do much better and I believe you've improved a LOT, so I'm looking forward to what other future subs you have in store.

Gosh, that 808 kick. I'm pretty glad OA tamed those subs. Hella smooth sax. Based on 0:23... I'm guessing alto sax? I'm honestly stuck between alto and tenor. Man, the percussion on here is sweet. The vibraslap is niiiiice. Piano is oddly lofi, but meh, ok. It fits in context.

Man, why do so many people treat the 909 snare like a sufficient power snare on its own? Layer that bad boy! The dubstep portions didn't really do it for me not because I have anything against dubstep, but because the wobbles were pretty transparent due to the phaser-like effect on them and pretty thin due to the choice of filter used. The way he worded his writeup, NutS seemed to be really hyping up the dubstep, so naturally I was expecting a lot. The big pitfall of many dubstep tracks is the over-usage of the same wobble sound throughout much of the track, as is the case here IMO. Ah well. I get the feeling this mix was really old, and I think these days he could have done better. The arrangement suffered a bit from the intent of dubstepping our brains out. Other people may like this track more, but it just didn't do it for me subjectively, sorry.

I thought the intro piano was pretty quiet and unusually distant, and that the other elements at that moment seemed more tasteful from the sound design perspective. Great bell at 1:35, and the trebly sweeps are really well done. Bass at 2:00 was a bit much in the 60Hz for my headphones, to the point of it being grating after 1 or 2 minutes, but it may just be me. The arp at 2:22 and other similar spots was pretty loud, while the bells at 2:55 and other similar spots were pretty distant, but I guess it's ok. I thought the same as Larry at 4:15 with the leading strings; a little underwhelming compared to the other electronic elements due to the somewhat flat articulation used. The lead at 5:18 is a pretty nice sync lead, and certainly tops the strings. I wouldn't say, then, that the strings were meant to come off that way, but oh well. Not repetitive enough to be a track where people will want to skip around on it, and nitpicks aside, pretty solid track. Good job man.

Yeeeeah, the trombone in the intro threw me off, too. xD At 3:35, dat trombone cut off. Oh well, other than that, pretty neat arrangement. I liked the wah rhythm guitar, and the lead guitar is hella expressive.

Gosh man, hope you get that settled.

There'll be enough stars, 'cause I'm signing up as a star for this one! Why not! I'm pretty flexible with whatever genre you wanna do or instruments you wanna use. Some of my strengths are drum programming, bass mixing (I can finally say that! ), and humanization. Random example stuff: https://soundcloud.com/timaeus222/lets-upset-a-troid https://soundcloud.com/timaeus222/desert-themed-wip Oh yeah, and I use FL Studio 11, but I'm cool with stems if you don't use FL. I clearly love synths of all kinds, and I officially play piano, but I have learned how to "play" (sequence realistically) electric bass, electric guitar, and (more obviously) electric piano. If you need to contact me, Skype is the fastest way, but PM is fine too.

Someone asked me to help with mixing metal, so I did this. In the end, I finished a template that can also act as a helpful resource for you guys in one fell swoop! This shows specific things I did to mix a recreation of a portion of a heavy metal track by Ian Dorsch, but described in a certain way so that it can be applied in a general sense too. The compression is more specific than the rest, but the settings should be mostly transferable between corresponding plugins. This zip file has stems, screenshots, descriptions/reasoning, and the two free plugins used (endorphin and TLs-Pocket Limiter). Everything difficult has the purpose of each part explained so that you learn the concept, not the specific edit. Just to be clear, this is a non-ideal case. Metal Mixing - A General Approach (ZIP, 62.3 MB) Ian Dorsch - Subterrenea Full Original Ian Dorsch - Subterrenea Snippet Original Ian Dorsch - Subterrenea Snippet Recreation Unmixed Ian Dorsch - Subterrenea Snippet Recreation Mixed Also, this is not "how to mix metal and there's no other way", it's "how I chose to mix metal for this case". Fun fact: I used Groove Bias for the drums. Yes, that's right, an acoustic kit typically meant for jazz fusion, downtempo, and the less aggressive genres, used for metal! This just shows that it's not about what samples you use, it's how you treat them. Shreddage II for guitars and Trilian for bass.

It's okay, I was actually really close to finishing by the time you saw this. Besides, it can be another template at my disposal AND something helpful for you and many others. This shows specific things I did, but described in a certain way so that it can be applied in a general sense too. The compression is more specific, but the settings should be mostly transferable. Metal Mixing - A General Approach EDIT: As for your mix, the guitars sound a tiny bit hollow, as if they were high passed above 200~300Hz or so (this is just a nitpick). The bass seems wide? I used to do that, but I kinda stopped a few months back. Great snare tone, and the kick and snare are only slightly buried. The toms seem good. The newest version is actually quite close IMO, overall.

YES! This is how dubstep should be! Heavy, in-your-face, NO siren-like sounds, no senseless repetition, no corniness, tasteful sound design, clean production, and tight (enough) drums. Dat silent kick at 0:49. A large portion of the arrangement is a direct repeat, but other than that, no major complaints from me. This kicks butt.

Hm... You know, I'd make a video for this, but: 1) I don't know what DAW you use. Not a huge deal though. 2) My computer doesn't have a good enough processor speed to record at this RAM intensity for videos without significant lag and clicking. I'll recreate Ian Dorsch's "Subterrenea" demo for Shreddage II as best as I can with what I have, do some mixing, send you stems, and put screenshots of the EQing I did that you can recreate on your DAW, if that sounds cool to you. I'll describe the compression & reverb in a general sense, describe why I did each portion of each EQ (so you can make some sense out of why I did stuff and make EQ decisions based on my reasoning), and give you any free plugins I end up using. The EQ would do most of the work in the example I'm working on. I'll be using Shreddage II, Groove Bias Drums (whaaaaaat? ), and Trilian. I can't say I know enough to help with toms, though (the original didn't have toms, so the recreation doesn't have toms). Also, I didn't use the hi hats either, but those have such a loose range for pleasant EQing, so it's not going to be hard.

DAT CLIPPING. This is some serious comedy here.

Honestly, I just mix it however I need to, to make it sound good to me. There are a lot of YouTube videos that tell you "how" to mix metal tracks, but you don't know what audio equipment they have, so there isn't perfect consistency in the tips. I guess you could search those "tutorials" on YouTube, but you may not be a person who wants to sift through videos for practical tips that suit you.

This is not meant for submitting to OCR. It's just for improving. Hence, "Meat 'n Potatoes" compo. It's supposed to be conservative as possible.

Happy Birthday, Gar!

It at least catches my ears. Great deal, and would be well worth it.

Well, there's definitely less reverb, but the snare sequencing still comes across as repetitive, to me, especially because the velocities are flat and mostly unchanging. Most hits are the same volume and intensity, aside from the lead-in snare rolls. At 3:01, the hi hats are still mechanical, and every velocity on them is still the same. No human plays everything flatly, so having the velocities like that makes it sound like a robot is playing it. Also, the sequencing is very fast and the same sample is used throughout, so that adds to the robotic playing. If you listen closely to this at 0:33, it may help you with sequencing hi hats.

Welcome to the community!

Alternatively, you could also just use a soft knee limiter with a spectroscope, and boost the volume until the spectroscope shows the loudest peak touching ~-0.2dB (or 0dB, if you prefer). Soft knee limiters, unlike hard knee limiters, don't cause overcompression quite as easily (limiters and compressors act similarly in that they both push the excess volume down). Yes, I'm quoting Wikipedia.