timaeus222

I never said a thing about guitars or bass. Where did you get that idea? It's not the sequencing of the kick that is the main problem (I didn't even mention that). The timbre of it covers too much midrange and the volume of it is so high that it steps on top of the other instruments rather than setting a solid bass foundation. "Blasting" just means playing often and loudly. It doesn't mean anything specifically related to double pedal kicks. I was referring to the drums overall. You could have done a dance track with that kick and I would have said the same thing. Try not to "fall in love" with your track so much that you don't want to change anything. Being in the workshop forums is about being open-minded and being willing to try the feedback that is given if you really feel it applies. If more than one person says the same thing, it's probably not being imagined.

There's some nicely designed reverb here. Just enough ambience without washiness. I agree that the intro piano is a little mechanical, but not so much that it detracts from the piece. Great job on this, Mike and Aaron!

Maybe a harp arpeggio and a cymbal roll instead of a crossfade?

Zebra2 is the bomb. My resolutions: - Talk more - Finish as many remix WIPs as I can - Survive college

Okay, my mistake. Anyways, sfz and sfz+ are alternatives if you want.

Congrats on the mixpost, Jordan and Kristina! You did a great job with this too, Wes! (I loved the "round robin" outtro) I could hear the strings and oboe issues the j00js were hearing, but I'm sure even now, you guys could find something to nitpick in your own mix, so I'll leave that to you. Overall, pretty solid track.

Check out Chris's music! This guy is a great buddy of zircon's.

@ OP: FL Producer edition will come with the soundfont player.

These articles might help you: Effective Use of Reverb Part 1 Effective Use of Reverb Part 2 Using EQ

It's fine, of course we were just kidding. Well, first of all, the sounds you chose are pleasant. Kind of basic sounds, but they're not grating for the most part, to me. The piano at 0:07 stuck out to me first. There's quite a bit of reverb on it, but the low cut on it is not moved up, so there's some ambience that covers the low end too. Also, the frequencies of the dry signal (ignoring the reverb) are too low, making it sound like it's being hit harder than it actually is. A high pass on the dry signal could help free up muddiness later in the mix. At 0:15, the same piano clashes with the low-cutoff arp, so that's one instance where it might help. There's also too much reverb on the supersaw. At 0:48, the distorted chippy arp there is dry, which you may have done to compensate for the reverb on the other three instruments. If you balance out the reverb amounts, it may help the clarity of the mix. Something else I noticed is that the mix is generally not extremely 3D. At 1:30, the arp playing widely is a good start at making a 3D stereo image. However, at 1:48 - 2:12, things are getting extremely muddy (especially at 1:58), and it's not helping that it's supposed to be a buildup. It's certainly less muddy afterwards, though. Also, at 1:58, there's some sort of resonant arp that gets a little bit grating. If you attenuate that muddiness, you may feel less of a need for that much resonance. At 2:40, you can hear the cymbal being very distant. That's a sign that this track is being pushed too loudly and getting somewhat overcompressed. The source usage is a little basic. You basically repeat the same 12 notes for well over half the track. At 3:35, there's the first sign of any sort of usage of filter automation, even though most trance I've heard loves to have that. It's mainly because it's a prime source of variation and helps to keep the listener's interest, even with a stale beat such as this. Speaking of the drums, they are definitely on autopilot for most if not all of the track. Add some meaningful variations, and don't just copy/paste the same four-on-the-floor pattern throughout the whole song. It's not a bad thing per se, but at the same time it's not a good thing either. I don't mind the ending, but I'd sure like the muddiness to be addressed. The arrangement could be passable, if the repetition issues are looked into. The repetition and the muddiness are the two major issues for me.

A friend of mine liked this, so he put this on his game Keyboard Hero!

The first thing that's apparent to me is, yes, the kick is too loud. There's loads of ~80Hz and ~150Hz on it, but it's a clicky type of kick, and that gets a bit more grating than, say, a tight, thwapping kick. The wobble bass is too loud, too at 0:34. It's really narrow, upfront, and taking up the center of the soundscape and making things muddy near 120~200Hz. I also hear the glitching being out of place in most spots. It doesn't flow as well as it can. You can use it for stylistic flair, but it may work better simply as a ~60% mix level to make it not so jarring, and you may need to get more comfortable with envisioning glitch effects first before adding so many of them. You need to evaluate whether or not a particular section really needs a glitch effect, or if it will just be jarring. It's pseudo-orchestral, so having the wobble bass so upfront and the glitching so prominent makes this sound weird. If the bass was more tightly woven, it could work, but this still needs more TLC in that regard. The orchestral elements sound alright. The sine wave is OK, but it doesn't feel like it's sitting in the mix well yet. Maybe if you fix the muddy production around it, it could work more.

Your mom's cancelled.

Like before the 80's I guess. But obscure games are welcome.

Happy birthday, Darke! Someone get him his Apex mix!

He didn't say anything to the effect of "Here's something I did." or "Here's something of mine that you might like." It was closer to "Here's something someone did." or "Here's something you might like." He was ambiguous in that he didn't say at all who made it. He just said he found something interesting. I also said it was clear that it sounds like he was sharing someone else's work, not that it was simply clear that he was. Now let's get back on topic, shall we?

Yeah, you don't have to say what samples you're using in the song title. It's fine if you do, but it's not conventional. Great song, though.

The acoustic piano in the intro is definitely mechanical. Maybe this will help with the distinction between mechanical and not. I agree with MindWanderer that the kick at 0:30 is overpowering. There's a disconnect between the power of the kick and the atmosphere implied by all of the other instruments. This is probably caused by too much mids and by the tail on the kick. It's also too loud in general. There may be minor clipping at 0:56 from the snare. Dunno if it's just YouTube. 0:57 has loads of muddiness. You need to refine the EQ on the low mids and treble, bring down the resonance on the piercing arp, and clear up stereo space for the lead. The strings have too much reverb in the low end, too. It's really cluttered there, especially in the 200~1000Hz range. 1:29 shows how loud the kick really is. It's clearly the loudest thing there. It can be that loud if EQed carefully, but the other instruments would have to come up too, and you would have to be meticulously watching the dynamics there to not clip and not overcompress the track. 1:48 to 3:33 is way too loud all across the board. There's definitely clipping and overcompression, and everything is just fighting for attention. Figure out what you want in front, what you want as accompaniment, and take out what you should not need. You don't need the drums blasting and being the center of attention, and you don't necessarily need the strings on full power either. You can have loudness and , but this isn't it (that track is slightly muddy in the louder parts, but not overly loud). The later parts of this section are quite grating. And of course, 3:40 suffers from the same problem with the mechanical piano as in the intro, just so you know. Overall, the dynamics are pretty flat. You start out medium, go up to medium loud, and then coast at loud for about 50% of the track before terracing down to medium. Ensuring that your dynamic curve gives you headroom to go higher makes for a more complete and nuanced arrangement. With how the production is here, it's enough to make it a priority to fix the production first and the arrangement second. If you can't hear the arrangement for more than a minute without stopping the track for a grating feel, the arrangement can be fixed however you want and it wouldn't make as much of a difference as fixing the production enough to make it more listenable. Even lowering the gain on the Master by 8dB or so could make it easier to critique. I didn't want to say all these negative things, but that's what I'm hearing man. If you aren't sure whether you want to add more elements or take something out, just take everything out except the lead, bass, and drums, and pick and choose which elements you want to keep most for the midrange. Keep trying.

Happy birthday man!

Nice! I like it, it compares well to .In all seriousness, you might want to publicize your remix.

Okay, I've added the reverse cymbal to 2:19, lowered the volume on the sine wave at 2:16, and fixed the mechanical velocities of the exposed piano at 1:29 - 1:37 (that'd actually be the largest issue I had). Updated the sent version. (the remix stems remain the same, though, because laziness ) If you're curious, this is the updated version: https://app.box.com/s/hg1xob12a7rlwinvqw30

In the OP. It's pretty clear that it sounds like he's sharing someone else's work. "You might like this, so here is something I know of."

Thanks, Brandon! Yeah, the Edward melody was really hard to integrate with this, and I definitely had to change up a lot of harmonies (1:16, for example). For some reason though, I'm really not sure what's sticking out to you at 1:25. I'm trying, but it sounds like a regular chord modulation to me. I do get what you're hearing at 2:19, though. Yes, there are reverse kicks there, but a reverse crash would help. I think I could fix that 2:19 part up right now; I only just submitted this a few days ago.

I made a Bohemian Rhapsody instrumental recreation for Organic Chemistry karaoke. Feel free to rock out to this! : D https://app.box.com/s/dadi022swuaxbs566059

I definitely agree, especially with the title track. There's something for everyone!