timaeus222

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?

Could video game speedruns be posted in this forum, or should it go somewhere else, or is there no good place at this particular moment?

You say all those things, but you're assuming he's guaranteed to "get" what you're suggesting. Clomp? Honestly, never heard of that term. Hakštok might not hear things the same way, and I highly doubt we two hear things the same way either. When you give feedback, it's a good idea to keep things simple, familiar, or suggest more than one method of adjusting something to your preference.

Have you tried adding some distortion? Oftentimes I can get my sounds to be much richer with simple distortion/overload (and occasionally some frequency self-modulation via the OSC input signal for misc. FM sounds). Or it could just be because your synth doesn't have an engine that creates waveforms sounding quite like that.

Sounds much better than before! It seems like the vocals may have too much delay. The "feedback" is what you could decrease if you want to decrease the intensity of the reflections, and I think you should give that a try. Just enough so it's noticeable that the ambience changed; try to find a balance. Since the vocals are pretty prominent throughout the mix, it's pretty important to get those just right. The dubstep section is pretty well done. I don't mind that the wobbles are in the back a little, as the source melody is on top and that's what you want. If the source was buried I'd be concerned. I would actually lower the volume of the wobbles and EQ up the characteristic frequencies that you find important in bringing out the most interesting parts of your wobble sounds, while also notching the EQ at clashing frequencies on other instruments. Something else I would have done is added more variation in the wobble sounds. It sounds like just one sound throughout, so maybe you could try making varied wobble sounds that have a particularly nice flow to them. This might give you ideas. Try listening to the dubstep section at 1:45.

Pretty fun arrangement! Nice job creating a peppy and vibrant atmosphere!

A more concise/straightforward/unambiguous way of saying that is just: Please try to put enjoyability first, but consider production values as well when voting. If voters didn't have to consider production values, what if they chose not to? If there's a clear differentiation in production quality between two mixes of similar enjoyability, then production values shouldn't be optional (or else it's just a "flip a coin" decision). Then someone who had a really well-rounded entry with great production and a good arrangement might not get more votes than someone who had just as good of an arrangement but worse production. It keeps things more consistent, IMO.

Darke is still working on it, or still hasn't had time to work on it. Be patient.

It just sounds like a supersaw with vibrato and pitch bend. The exact timbre is gotten from experimenting.

Marriland and Bikdiponabus.

I highly recommend Impact Soundworks libraries if you have Kontakt, because they always make and/or publish very detailed, intricate libraries with emphasis on quality and ease-of-use. u-he Zebra2 is also a fantastic starter synth. Although it costs $200, it is entirely worth the purchase due to its intuitive workflow (only shows you modules you are using, and adds complexity as you desire) and the wide variety of sounds it's capable of producing. I could list a few right now: e. pianos, sitars, funky basses, dark/dirty basses, harps, harpsichords, clavinets, sync leads, sine leads, plucky arps, sound effects, percussive fills,..., and so on. Basically, it does everything and more, and the sound quality that comes from them, with the right sound designer, has phenomenal potential.

This isn't bad. Although the harp is fake-sounding, the sequencing is leaning in the right direction towards realism, save for a few velocity stiffness issues in the triplet notes and the minimal differences in the RR timbres, if there are any at all. However, harps are nearly the easiest instrument to make sound humanized I suppose. The strings are more prone to fakeness, but the sustained articulations don't sound as fake as the brass backing is, save for each note not ending a bit after the next note starts. The samples for the brass sound like horns, but not clearly what kind (French or English). 1:04 is where instruments start to sound surprisingly dry. Maybe it was because the strings filled in the ambience gap somewhat, earlier. The violin lead at 1:33 would be very hard to sequence well, so props for trying anyways. 2:07 also sounds dry since the harp is by itself. It doesn't hurt to have just enough reverb so that the spatial feel changes a little. It's enough if you can hear that it has some sort of decay. The instrument at 2:13 sounds extremely fake. I honestly can't tell if it's a messed-up bagpipe or a bad zourna, but my guess is a suuuuper fake zourna. The articulation for grace notes keeps repeating over and over again, so it's... The violin lead at 3:02 is okay, as its volume is at least swelling somewhat, but the notes it plays are disconnected and sound like it's swelling from an internal envelope with no release. The drums at 3:12 honestly imply dance or dubstep somewhat, but not ethnic orchestral, due to their conveyed power, so they don't match the intended mood. Clickiness in the kick and Roland TR-808/909 snare qualities imply some sort of dubstep/EDM/hip-hop/rap genre. Overall it boils down to mostly sample quality and sequencing issues, but some production issues that don't have to be addressed right now. It's okay as it is now, but it could be described as "lofi", "held back by sample quality", "not realizing its potential", etc. Keep at it.

Sounds MIDI-esque, or very conservative. There is overcompression while the kick hits. The drums also sound very sequenced and messy due to almost no drum compression and velocity variation for realism. Even if you say they're real, they don't sound real. The dynamics of them are too flat. It's also likely that your bass is playing sustained downstrokes or sustained upstrokes only... the whole time, which bassists don't do, by the way. They alternate because they're human and humans can't do repeated picking in one direction for all that long before getting hand stress. Constant sustains are also repetitive and not representative of how a bassist would create a "groove". Something to think about, and it really means you can't rush things so much. Music is written so people can enjoy your creativity and so you can enjoy it too. Don't ruin it by rushing to write a song "just because". Take your time.

Starts out pretty trance-like with rather sparse textures. Uses some TR-808 percussion (google it) which, bare/dry and unlayered as they are now, sound thin and weak, for future reference. Various plucky hits at 0:16, 0:19, and so on are too loud and resonant, especially at 0:39, 0:41, 0:44, 0:48, 0:50, and other timestamps past these. In other words, they stick out too much and hurt. EQ down the loud frequency boost you have somewhere, maybe near 6000~10000Hz. I don't know what DAW you use, but just do a thin EQ boost (+4~8dB), sweep across the spectrum slowly, stop when you hear something really piercing, and pull it down (-6~-10dB). Also, starting at 0:26, there are weird bumping noises in the low bass that have me wondering what is actually making them. I don't want to wonder what they are; if you want them to be part of your stylistic choice, they should be more noticeable and distinct. The brass lead is fake-sounding, for future reference. It sounds like a free soundfont or a synth brass patch. Arrangement-wise, it sounds pretty simplistic, but I honestly don't hear the connection between the and the remix. Anyone else hear anything? Also, funny how the source link is better audio quality than one other that was posted 3 years later... Don't get discouraged, but there's a long way ahead to learning, and if you're willing to learn, we'll help!

wat. lolnotdisjointedatall.

The problem is laziness, seems like. If you take the time to learn something, even if it takes you a year, it's going to work out if you're dedicated and not lazy, or if you have lots of time on your hands. Sound Synthesis, for example, takes loads of time to learn, so it's not your fault until you quit or pause for a significantly long time. If you're good at synthesis, it gets to be pretty fun and satisfying to make a cool sound, and that should motivate you to do more. Honestly, it took me about a year to really learn the ins and outs of Zebra2 and know how to make much of what I hear, but now I can often recreate or generalize how to recreate what I hear, which is quite useful.