timaeus222

lol, I didn't talk about the mixing before because I was wearing bleh headphones. Seems like my comments about reverb & those other things can still stand, since I hear essentially the same amount of reverb on these headphones (and these are wayyyy better than those skullcandy earbuds I was using earlier). It sounds like the frequencies in general are pretty well-balanced. There are a few high frequencies that are clashing between the leads and arps, and the first and most evident example of that is the bitcrushed arp at 0:14. Also, the way the instruments occupy their frequencies can be refined. For example, if your kick was occupying lots of your sub bass, then if you lowered the sub bass there a little bit and had an actual bass sound that reaches that low (that isn't a sine wave sub bass layer), it could sound more pumping. The main thing I'd say is the kick can definitely be stronger through some drum layering and tighter compression, as it's used so much throughout. The only glaring problem is that the drums can use some variation like I mentioned before, and the part at 2:52 has two lead sounds with nearly the same timbre, and while the actual lead sounds fine, the arp sounds very similar, so it's making the lead blend in too much. Simply tweaking the synth patch for the arp could be sufficient.

It's still case-by-case, but as a general rule, count all the seconds where your remix uses any part of the source, and long held notes belonging to one part of the source may not count for as much unless the source has a long note like that too (like a more progressive source track with long held chords). Do this for all other source tune section usages and then divide by the number of seconds in the remix. Some judges might differ in opinion as to how well the source connections are made, and that could go either way. i.e. if you took Section "A" in a source tune which lasts 16 seconds, and you used that entire section in your remix for 25 seconds. Let's say that the last note in section "A" is only 2 seconds long, but you let the same note in your remix (of the same tempo) go for 4 seconds rather than 2. The last two seconds may not count since more source usage could plausibly be added as countermelody on top of those two extra seconds of the held note, like an arp or something. If your entire remix was 150 seconds, then it's not (25/150)% of the entire source usage, it's (23/150)%.

Happy birthday!

*coughLarrycough* But yes, I'd second that >50% is still a good idea to aim for. 48% is a bit more risky and is more of a case-by-case thing.

Welllllllll he *was* wanting a mod review and saying and . : D

People do this a lot, actually. It's fine. I mean, if WillRock did this track which has a very obvious reference in sound design, structure, AND title to Final Countdown, I'm pretty sure others reference some remixers too. Influenced remixes are great.

I second OA on Jillian and diotrans. The rest I'm not so familiar with, but I would definitely recommend those two first.

I just want to clarify that ReMixes don't have to contain at least 50% recognizable source; it's not a hard-and-fast rule, just a guideline. Depending on the circumstances, a borderline source usage can be accepted. For example, 48% source with sound design that is reminiscent of the original's soundscape could add a little bit more source "usage" and make the arrangement lean more towards enough source usage in the end. Mod Reviews should be asked for when you're very happy with the feedback you got from the general forum-goers and want higher "level" feedback (really, "level" just means experience, not better than/worse than). You can set your topic to mod review, but if you don't PM a mod directly, it's not the mod's fault that he (all the mods are guys it seems) didn't give your remix a mod review. The topic can get lost, and your mod review might just not happen. If you want people to review your track, when you're new, it especially helps to either try giving feedback to other people first or ask someone whom you've seen give lots of feedback to others recently. Okay, gonna give my feedback: Textures sound pretty sparse until 1:18. The intro PWM pad is a bit static; the filter cutoff goes up too quickly and just levels off for the entire note length, which makes it sound longer than it actually is. The first arp is OK, but the bitcrushed 3o3 arp is very mechanical, especially at 0:14 with the fast notes, but at other places too; it needs velocity variation or a more drastic LFO depth to give more of a sense of dynamics. Overall, the song up until 1:18 has lots of very exposed and somewhat dry sounds IMO. Yes, you have delay, but a small amount of reverb would help blend timbres more smoothly. 1:18 starts acquiring a fuller texture, though the dryness of many of the sounds leaves a good portion of that section sparse again when only a few instruments are playing. The lead at 2:00 is most negatively affected by its dryness. Some of the sounds you're using don't really need the extra reverb, just the ones you don't want so far in front. If you put reverb on the lead and simply lower the volume of some other things very very slightly, those dry sounds could be compensated by the lead's reverb. It's not quite the same idea as putting all the instruments in the same room, but it's close, and it's a safer way (than reverbing everything) for a person of your experience to add reverb without muddying things up too much. The last thing I notice is that the drums are very weak and repetitive, and the snares are very quiet. The snares are especially quiet at 1:58, for example, and the kick is very dull-sounding (dull means not much treble, it doesn't mean boring in this context). The drum patterns can change more to maintain interest, and I'd guess that you have less than 10 patterns throughout the whole song. It's not about the number, but about the effective means of variation. If the drums are easy likeable, then the repetition is less of a bad thing, but if the drums are not well processed, the repetition does get to be too much. From what I can surmise, I'd say the specifics of drum compression may not be entirely accessible at the moment, so unless you do want me to write out some advice on drum compression, I'll just not and point you to trying out drum compression plugins on your own time. Some examples include The Glue by Cytomic, D2 by de la Mancha, and BLOCKFISH by digitalfishphones (from the Fish Fillets package). Only The Glue is commercial of those 3. Overall, many instruments can have a touch of reverb, some major instruments need reverb to sit in the mix, repetition can be lessened, and (mainly) the snare can be louder. This is not quite at the OCR bar yet if that is in fact your goal, but it's getting there. It's listenable and not grating, which both mean great things.

Ah, okay. I was almost going to edit my post and say a noise generator was a possibility, but I almost never use that kind of approach. EDIT: I just tried that, and I did manage to get that type of sound created too. I had some white noise with some distortion, high resonance, and cutoff modulation on a bandpass filter ("BP RezBand").

How would you make a sound without an oscillator? I thought you need an oscillator to act as the input to get any sound at all?

It could be pitch-bendy, but it doesn't sound pitch bendy to me. It sounds like FM synthesis with loads of resonance and a modulation envelope on a low pass filter cutoff. Perhaps a little high passing too (without the modulation). It sounds vaguely like this sound at 0:55, though slightly less dry and more wet with reverb. It's not exact since it needs more tweaking, but it's closer than purely pitch bending a sine wave, as there's somewhat of a "retrigger-chirp-like" texture to the timbre.

I was in the need for more music after using generic ost megaman music so much in my youtube videos, so I looked for remixes and came upon DarkeSword's 'Beamsabre Beat v2', which led me to find more mixes weekly as I was uploading my Pokemon Crystal playthrough (there were new mixes every week back in 2008...) and then joining OCR finally in early 2011 once a friend of mine asked me to remix Castlevania's 'Bloody Tears'. Then I left for like four months to practice before coming back for more crits

There you go, hardcore dubstep done right. The bass at 1:14 was da bess. Totally vintage, and totally punchy. Drumwork is solid too.

It's the legendary baws battle, but I'll look into the gym leader battle theme or some others! ;D

There's no concrete way to make a sound, honestly. You need a generalized tutorial to apply to your own synth, which you then need to take, infer, and make your own sounds to additionally refine your abilities. I'm working on something like that now, actually. It's going to be gigantic.

Actually, the other way around; The lead could be notched or shelved down a bit in the high end where the tines of the EP lie to allow them to come through.

Hue hue, I whipped up a rather kickin' Pokemon X/Y WIP. PM'd.

Time for a new source breakdown! 0:09 - 0:15 0:16 - 0:23 0:25 - 0:34 - questionable 0:34 - 0:38 0:44 - 0:48 0:57 - 1:01 1:02 - 1:08 1:11 - 1:19 - questionable 1:23 - 1:27 1:32 - 1:40 1:45 - 2:21 2:22 - 2:30 2:31 - 2:38 2:40 - 2:52 - questionable 3:06 - 3:12 3:14 - 3:23 - questionable 3:25 - 3:33 3:35 - 3:42 3:44 - 3:55 - questionable 3:58 - 4:16 = 6+7+9+4+4+4+6+8+4+8+36+8+7+12+6+9+8+7+11+18 = 182 182/256 = 71% Minus those questionable parts = 133, 133/256 = 52% I counted source until the last note of the intended source fragment ended, so I'd say this is pretty much good to go for source usage!

Same here. =D

The lead sounds nicely upfront, actually. The E. Piano has a lot of reverb though, and not a lot of high end possibly due to that reverb. The lead's treble might be fighting a bit with the tines of the E. Piano when they're both playing at the same time.

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Hype

This turned out pretty awesomely, and it was a great learning experience! I learned a lot about bass mixing in this time.

Very true. With compos you just have to compose as fast as you can, and polish later. Doing it a lot will help your workflow.

Well, this is pretty cool, especially with the major tonalities by the lead synths in a minor key. My only gripe is the drum programming isn't tight enough during the halftime sections, so I agree with Deia. Everywhere else is awesome.

When evaluating a particularly tough mix (for example, a medley with 5 sources and nice cohesion), have you ever resorted to asking the remixer for a source breakdown, or has Larry simply been figuring out the source usage like a baws?