timaeus222

That's fine, I'm self-taught too. As for the piercing upper mids, I can't really give a very small range without being at home and looking at a downloaded audio file, but I'd estimate it to be 4000~7000Hz. If you try scooping the frequencies a little bit there, and raising and lowering the gain on that frequency band at that location, see if you can hear a difference that you like. If you raise it up, it should eventually get piercing enough for you to hear, but depending on the person it may be higher or lower than for someone else because everyone's ears are different. In FL Studio in particular, it's easier because the EQ module lets you see the frequencies being occupied so you don't have to use only your ears. Fortunately, that's what you use. The brighter the signal, the stronger it is. The thicker the signal, the higher the chance it has of clashing with something else nearby in the frequency range. Yeah, essentially the bass instrument frequencies and the kick frequencies are "slurring together". That's one possibility. Another possibility is that the drum sample itself is just bad to start with, and you'd need to accommodate for that with boosts in the strength frequencies and/or cuts in the problem frequencies. For example, ~4000Hz often for a little bit of high end click, 81~140Hz often for a low end punch, and 20~80Hz often for a low end boominess. Again, often, but not always. Probably a third possibility I'd think of is that you haven't yet learned about (or known to look up if you haven't heard of it) sidechaining. Sidechaining is a method where mixer track A's output pushes down mixer track B's output (at a certain slope and intensity, which can be experimented with) without actually doubling mixer track A's output. In other words, mixer track A is linked to mixer track B silently while A is linked to the Master track at regular volume. This is useful when, for example, you want your kick and bass to gel together. The kick can push the output of the bass down only as the kick plays, and the muddiness is avoided. The reason this is a better way than scooping the bass and boosting the kick (or vice versa) in the same frequency range is that you maintain the power/body of the tones for each part. The kick doesn't lose low end power, and the bass doesn't either, yet their frequencies don't clash audibly.

I got like a minute done Gotta figure out how to integrate Edward's theme some moar. D:

Yep, this happens with all new Windows Vista/7 computers afaik. I turn that off too. Just doesn't give authentic sound when it's on. It does not directly affect the exported mp3, it affects your audio output/playback. ASIO is an entirely separate driver from your Primary Audio Driver, so your DAW preview is natural since the output/playback in there uses ASIO. After exporting, your computer uses the Primary Audio Driver for audio playback, so it only seems like the mp3 was messed with. It wasn't. You just hear a modified playback.

Yeah, you're on the right track. I'm not sure how else to describe my suggested process though. I can provide an example of the timbre I'm thinking of, but I wouldn't be able to tell you the specifics of how it's made since you're not using Zebra, you're using Massive. However, it's doable because I recognize that this suggested timbre was made with Massive, for sure. https://soundcloud.com/isworks/shreddage-2-nuclear-dubstep-by (0:41, 0:44, 0:51) Btw, I'm referring to the very first wobble sound at 1:04.

Sounds a bit quiet to me. Maybe raising the volume of the rhodes and adding a bit of saturation could help. Also, I don't think the 808 snare works in a jazz context. The kick is OK, but the sequencing is odd to me at times.

Sounds like B/W-esque. This doesn't sound realistic though. That aside, this sounds exactly like the original's notes, key, rhythm, tempo, and harmonies. If I'm reading you correctly, you were just doing this for fun, so... no comment on the conservativeness nor the realism issue. Since this isn't exactly intended for OCR, as I believe is the case, it doesn't have to be realistic. However, if you were to want this to sound realistic, this would be what you may end up going through: First of all, you would need resources that allow you to sequence realistically, and that pertains to sample libraries with keyswitching and MIDI CC, as well as your ability to work with them and write realistically. Realistic orchestral writing requires careful studying of the individual instruments in an orchestra (tuba, french horn, trumpet, trombone, violin I & II, viola, cello, double bass, oboe, clarinet, flute, bassoon, glockenspiel, piano, timpani, chimes, cymbals, bass drum(s), misc. perc. [such as clave, guiro, vibraslap, etc], and harp) and how they sound in real life. Basically you'd have to reproduce that quality with careful velocity edits, keyswitching (using particular articulations---types of expression---at any given time), and MIDI CC (for volume swells to add that extra piece of realism). Not to mention there's still some mixing involved in the forward/backward stereo imaging (reverb + minimal delay), left/right stereo imaging (panning), and making sure the reverb sounds cohesive all across the board. Something to keep in mind, perhaps.

Happy birthday, Roentgenium!

Aw yeah dude. Really nailed those heavy drums, for sure. I do drum compression with a perfectionist mentality, so that means when I say those drums are pretty damn awesome, they just are. Production overall is way solid, and the arrangement, while just barely over the 50% guideline, is hella sweet. The sound design is sick too.

Hey Flex, if you do another remix sometime where you want some dubstep, hit me up for a collab.

Sounds better to me; I just think the first wub at 1:04 sounds very transparent. If I were to picture this wub, I'd literally see something transparent, but my personal preference leaves me wanting to see a morphing blob of slime, if that makes any sense. I can analogize transparency with the amount of detuning smearing the timbre. If you want, you could give another shot at making the sound seem less detuned, but I'm not necessarily suggesting you to only turn down the detuning. i.e. a different method of synthesis or simply a different starting wavetable or filter will make it sound differently transparent. Maybe try some FM synthesis, or simply slightly lowering the detuning on what you have already and adding a bit of waveshaping/distortion either externally or internally to scale the harmonics.

This is what I agree with. 1) It does kind of make sidechaining a pain. What I do then is I use a "silent" kick. Sidechain using a kick, then don't send it to the master track. That way I can just sequence a kick to line up with the drum loop and it'll be as if the drum loop kick was sidechained with something else. 2) Some drum loops do have unique drumming patterns. For example, if you analyze the drumming I did in this WCRG track at 0:52, you'll see it's NOT standard DnB rhythm. It's a strange rhythm once you listen closely, as it's sort of dwelling on the part right before the second half of the standard rhythm, then it squeezes in that second half without as much of a gap in the kick/snare rhythm. Some drum loops I own from Bladerunners do that, and I wouldn't have thought of this rhythm without hearing those loops. However, I'm fine with using loops in the final track, and in a case-by-case basis, I'd just be okay with it as long as it's integrated well and doesn't stick out too much as an obvious and repetitive loop. In other words, you could use it as part of the track (such as high passing it and using it as a hype-loop™), but if it is the main part of the drum track, it tends to be repetitive as it's more emphasized/exposed. 3) I always edit many components of a synth preset if I do indeed use a preset. Usually the sound ends up vastly different, and if it was modified from an old one I was working on and I like it, I just save another version of it in case I want to go through with adding modulation controls on it later. But yes, usually you have to tweak the reverb/delay, possibly the stereo width/panning LFO depths, and maybe the timbre if you're that selective (like me) to fit into particular tracks. Some sounds have a characteristic timbre because of the FX used (reverb, for example, could be a major component in a particular horror sound/scream), and in those cases I only minimally adjust it, or I tweak my other writing a bit to accommodate it.

Actually, 1:04. 2:08 sounds fine to me. A tad quiet but I like the timbre. I don't think it's all that weak.

The arrangement sticks quite closely to the source. That's the first thing I notice here. I also find the snare rhythm at 0:12 a little bit odd. 0:35 is pretty interesting with the dubstep influence. The kick is clearly nice. The drum loop at 1:00 bothers me like Byproduct had said. I think it's because you're mixing a fast rhythm with a plodding kick+cymbal rhythm and the pacing is conflicting. I agree with Byproduct that the drums before 1:00 seem to fit better in their respective sections. At 1:28, the guitar panned far to the right does seem a little dragged on due to some sort of overboost near 3000Hz or so. That's where people tend to boost for more distortion presence on the guitars, but that's a common pitfall as I had found on some video someone showed me. 3000Hz is not always the answer, and it really takes a lot of trial-and-error to find what guitar sound/EQ/amping fits best to many people. The drum loop doesn't bother me here as much as the guitar does, as this section could have a genre shift and still work just fine, but it couldn't hurt to simply write on another layer of your own drums on top of the loop there to add more of your own flavor to that section. I personally don't mind if someone uses loops, but I consider reasonably good integration of loops to be pretty important. I know the source pretty well, and I could say that I hear close to 90% source. It's not like that percentage by itself makes this too conservative, but the remix is quite similar to the source in pacing, tempo, key, and harmonies. Even though you aren't planning to sub this, those would be my main points of concern, as the production seems passable (the orchestral sequencing is questionable).

The wubs can fit, but they just don't right now, mainly because of how generic/thin they are. See if there's a way you can scale up the lower harmonics a bit. Some sort of waveshaping/distortion could do that in the higher harmonics, but I'm not sure if you can do that for the lower harmonics without a specific feature. That'll make it phatter, like this. It's chill but dubstep.

I thought any amount of 'official' music used counts as copyright infringement? At least, that's what I recall learning in econ in high school.

Yeah, tone down the treble on the bells. The bass at 1:36 is also a bit muddy. Also, the kick and snare could have more punchiness. The kick is a little weak, and the snare is slightly buried.

dBlue Glitch v1.3. Precursor to v2.0.2, but free. It doesn't even have to be for just drums. Tapestop, FM resynthesis, Retrigger, Shuffle, Reverse, Bitcrush, Gate, Delay, and Stretch. At first it may seem pretty recognizable when people use it, but you can easily personalize how it sounds with the knobs and parameters. http://illformed.org/downloads/illformed_old_vst_plugins.zip The other three are older than that, and Glitch v1.3 already has them implemented.

But but but... Edward's theme is soooooo weird

I use drum loops for DnB stuff. I do process them in certain ways, but they're still loops. Basically I have them, plus some sort of effect, then I layer on selected drum samples timing-wise if I want to, and glitch it up sometimes. It's not necessarily a shortcut either, 'cause you may just not have those drum tones. It's not cheating. It's using your resources. It's not a bad thing to use synth presets either if you just happen to like those sounds. However, if you want to be more original and sound distinct from others, you might as well start making your own, and someday you'll figure out a good palette of sounds.

That's hilarious. NutS and Brandon were both in WCRG, Chimp and I collab all tha doo da day, and Chernabogue and DusK were both on Gunstar Heroes.

Sounded great til dat ending. Still some great sound selection though.

Thanks, Crulex! Yeah, the intro was meant to be spacey and futuristic.

Wave Race 64.

5:21 - lolJurassicPark

I agree. Gotta get that fixed. Also, the kick and bass are really muddy. I can barely hear the kick and the bass is quite boomy. The snare is a little buried too.