timaeus222

The background strings and foreground violin were fairly detached, but besides the artificial nature of the strings orchestration, I like the soundscape that was accomplished, and the intended semblance of a dream-like state was a solid success.

Yeah, that's definitely much better. Particularly compare at 3:26 between v3 and v4, and you should hear a difference in the reverb tail; in v3 it's pumping from being too loud against the limiter, and in v4, it's just trailing off like normal. Now that the overcompression is lessened, the master track volume (on the master track mixer slider) can be brought back up (by about 3 dB).

This is still overcompressed. What it sounds like is that you simply lowered the master volume and left the overcompression there. What you should do is lower the volume of each individual instrument --- there isn't a shortcut to this. The piano is suffering from the overcompression, so its transients aren't heard.

To be honest, I can't hear the difference between 0.6.6 and 0.65. I think it's less overcompressed, but it more or less sounds the same on these temp headhones I'm borrowing. But 0.5 going to 0.6.6 is a huge improvement in clarity and fullness.

Hm, I'm now hearing some overcompression coming in after you had raised the volume. How about instead, you try lowering the volume back to how it was, and then use master track parallel compression to raise the volume? (parallel just means half the signal goes to the compressor and half doesn't.) That way, the limiter doesn't overly compress the mixdown, and you have more control over how that works out. I think it's the part that incorporates the orchestra + choir that feels more overcompressed than the pure metal parts. Alternatively, I could just mix it myself, if you want.

Nope, there's not too much bass. Besides that, just a few things: It seems to me like the lead guitars might be sharply low-passed at around 7000 Hz? Or maybe it's just how it was recorded. If it wasn't due to the recording, you may be able to ease up on that low pass to brighten up the leads. This is noticable at 3:18, for example, when the leads are exposed. The whole mix never reaches below 50 Hz; not sure if it's because you high passed it yourself or if it's due to the recording(s). The hawk at 3:19, for what it's worth, didn't really sound like a hawk to me... it sounded like an EDM sweep because it was so resonant at 4800 Hz; may want to tone down the EQ at that frequency maybe 2-4 dB so that it's not so jarring, at least to me. I think if you cut the transition sound at 4:43 at 30 Hz by about 2 dB, you can bear to raise the volume of the entire ReMix by about 3 dB (at which point I think it's at a loudness that more closely matches other modern metal tracks). At 5:38 - 5:57, there seems to be a bit of clipping. Do you have a limiter on the master track? I love the composition though. What I said above was just mixing advice, not huge issues (though I would still try to raise the volume of the mix by about 3 dB if possible, and I would check the clipping). I think what you may get dinged most on is actually the non-metal portion, where you have the strings, choir, and brass exposed. For example, the brass noticeably has a very similar volume envelope on each note, which can be varied by your own CC11 (or at least, volume) automation. The choir also feels a bit flat in terms of dynamics in this section, and can be more "phrased", if you know what I mean.

Nice, I like the double-time feel of this. I would prefer that the bass part be more interesting before 0:43; the octave jumps are rather simple. The vibraphone feels like a soundfont (particularly with the phase resets and sample skips on the fast runs at 2:22 - 2:55). It just feels kinda thin and dry and could use more reverb to fit in the mix; there's also a sample glitch at 2:06 on the vibraphone. I would definitely try to find a better vibraphone VST. I also think that this has gotten rather long. The drum patterns start to feel same-y by the 3-minute mark, so the dynamics just all blend together a little too well, and I just get lost in determining where the piece is actually going. i.e. it feels repetitive in the sense that I can't tell when the dynamics are changing and the arrangement just feels directionless/meandering. The raw composition though is excellent. I think the main issue is really in the vibraphone sample, and the dynamics could use more variation to provide more obvious contrasts. You may want to shorten the arrangement as well, to focus it more into a proper direction.

The FluidR3 soundfont has a great sleigh bell sound. Add some reverb on it and it's great for atmospheric tracks. It also contains my favorite harp (I use it more than the one in EWQL Symphonic Orchestra...).

I would actually recommend the SR-60i rather than the SR-80e, as it's even flatter: http://graphs.headphone.com/index.php?graphID[0]=393&graphID[1]=353&graphID[2]=&graphID[3]=&scale=30&graphType=0&buttonSelection=Update+Graph but yes, Grados is great for sub-$100 headphones. The SR-60i was kinda itchy for about a month, but after I broke it in, it worked great.

The dissonant, proggy progressions really take the cake... and bake it until it's golden brown. I don't even know if that makes sense but let's go with it.

It's incredible how much interpretation DDRKirby could squeeze out of the iconic mario motif. Gonna be an OCR classic, I know it!

Not sure how that happened with you, but I have a temp Windows 10 laptop and it runs plenty of VSTs just fine. TruePianos, Zebra2, Serum, Kontakt Player, etc.

I see what you did there.

I like that it was changed to 6/4 instead of 4/4. I do think however that this is a pretty simple arrangement. The notes are followed from the original pretty closely, and there are really only two or three textures: the drums, a bass, and a lead. Usually, a full-enough soundscape also involves a chordal instrument. Also, the arrangement is fairly repetitive. Six notes are repeated many times after the first 12 seconds. This is a tough source to remix, as it basically asks you to incorporate your own original motifs to break apart the repetition. Here's an example of a remix of this track: See if you can focus on the notes that are not the Underground BGM and see how they interact with the source.

You should use both mic positions and reverb. Mic positions for presence/"dry mix", and reverb for perceived depth. Generally, you want mostly close mics for the flexibility of using reverb, but having some percentage of stage mics enabled helps creates natural width. As for reverb, this video may help you to remember (?) what each reverb parameter does. I would use reverb instances on collections of instruments, namely a separate instance for each woodwind ensemble, strings ensemble, brass ensemble, etc (i.e. in a Send). You've seen this image; maybe go back to it and see what you now can get from it (remember that the times are decay times). Here are some posts I remember that may help.

I really like NastyDLA MKII as a delay plugin. The graphics are quite nice, and the output is rather clean. s(m)exoscope is a useful waveform display plugin that has helped me check whether something was too loud.

Pretty much what @Skrypnyk said. Automation is a convenient way to turn knobs and move sliders in a pre-programmed fashion. The great thing about automation is that you can pull off tricks you can't do in a real studio (unless you had like 5 people working your mixer at the same time), making production on a DAW that much more powerful. For instance... You could automate the EQ bands in an EQ plugin so that the mids are scooped for a certain section of your song with particularly thick textures, but only for that section, for your chosen instrument(s). You could extend the range of LFOs (a tool that basically wiggles a knob or slider back and forth at a certain rate and slope) within a synth. Some (most?) synths have a limit to how slow the LFO can be. Sometimes you may want to assign an LFO but make it last like 20 seconds for half a cycle. Well, with automation, you could just construct an envelope that imitates a really slow LFO, in your DAW, by assigning the automation to the parameter of your choice in the synth. You could gate your sounds manually, if you don't have an algorithmic way of doing it (simply automate the mixer track slider down to 0 and back up to how it was). All of the above at once? and so on. This video may be a good exposure to production talk: The blue, purple, and yellow playlist elements are examples of automation clips.

Yeah, I think I mentioned that I was only inspired by it, and I seem to recall that Larry said simply having the word "Memory" spoken a few times didn't really count towards its source usage. @djpretzel what do you think?

I think this is one of the fullest soundscapes you've managed to put together. Clearly it's crucial to nail the atmosphere here, due to the repetitive nature of how the sources are compositionally used, which you did. The reverb is spectacular, and despite spots that have minimal percussion, there is an appropriate amount of syncopation groove going on to keep the piece from getting too stagnant. The structure is not immediately apparent, but wherever it takes me, it's rather inviting. It's mixes like these that make me jealous how long some people's remixes can be.

Haha, well, I appreciate your open mind to it! It's a good trait to have. Yeah, the trumpet placement in the stereo field is kinda hard for me to describe. It feels "small", having less reverb than the elements around it, and as if someone took a stereo enhancer and used it to sum the left and right channels. It's not a huge deal, but I guess @Smooth4lyfe1987 might have thought that was a sequencing quirk. I'm not sure what's currently in the mixer for it, but you might be able to help it by adding some subtle ping-pong delay at a low feedback time (less than 15 ms) to widen it (that would echo it to the left and right, and 15 ms is the limit for the human being to be able to hear left/right channels distinctly from each other). The critiques I had earlier were just for improvement though; I did enjoy this overall, and it's a neat style I don't hear often.

I don't hear realism issues with the trumpet. Actually, it's more an issue that its stereo placement is oddly narrow. I thought the section at 1:46 with the lush pads was a much needed breakdown. I do think that the drums sound fine, though the bass seems a bit too heavy (I would make sure the kick is sidechained with the bass). Maybe the overhead drums (cymbals + ride + hi hat) get overly phase-y and a bit abrasive, like at 0:55, but they're clearly, well, present. Especially at 4:20 though, there is overcompression in the loud parts. Btw, the video has 38 seconds of silence at the end.

Happy New Year everybody! To celebrate, I'm releasing a brand new ReMix of the Naruto main theme: I will give a heads-up that this contains significant elements of DUBSTEP, but definitely not anything like dubstep you are probably familiar with. Whatever your tastes are, it's the new year, so let's try to keep an open mind to any and all music! As a background, I wrote a Naruto ReMix before, in 2012: I look back on it, and I really do still like what I did in 2012. The production wasn't particularly impactful, and the dubstep execution was only half-decent, but the composition was surprisingly good on the guitar. However, I realized that I could do *much* better today on the general production polish, as well as on the execution of dubstep. So, I wrote this while in my first semester of grad school, in three months, using mainly u-he Zebra2, Xfer Records Serum, 4Front TruePianos, Impact Soundworks' Juggernaut and Resonance libraries, and various commercial drum samples. This combines cinematic and dubstep aesthetics to create a nuanced, tasteful feel on the low-energy sections, and an aggressive, all-out soundscape on the drops. There was particularly special attention to detail on the dynamics, the "size" of the sound design, and just trying to get every aspect of this mix to be as polished as possible. As usual, I accept any and all opinions, but please keep them civil.

Possible titles: Indivisible Drop the Facade Push Your Limits ----- Hilarious vocals as usual! Yeah, it's pretty conservative (the melodies are almost note-for-note, except for some parts humans can't sing fast enough to do), but I do hear some differences. Your 1:00 - 1:13 is definitely not in the original, but it sounds like the original, so I'd count that as a plus. The solo break at 2:13 - 3:18 was a great addition, and makes up 25% of the track. This follows the source notes pretty closely, while adding semi-original transitions and an original solo section. Hard to say, but I think this is a bit over the fence? It's a mix of fairly conservative and fairly original, rather than all evenly interpreted. Small nitpicks: I think 3:15 - 3:18 was kinda out of place, and I think that 3:15 and 3:18 would still connect with that piano bit taken out. Or, what if you let the guitar note ring out at 3:15 - 3:18? I would also go back through and check your pitch, such as at 0:30 - 0:32 (pretty noticeable) and 0:41 ("set", very slight). The production's a bit raw but even in the guitars, and oddly clean (un-punchy) in the drums. I think the kick is acceptably audible, but the snare could be stronger; the rest of the drums work for me. I wonder if the bass guitar could be EQed to get a bit heavier? I might use this as a reference. Clutch ending though.

Agreed with previous posters. To improve in your musical writing ability, you *can* look to others for inspiration. But, a good artist knows the limits of his/her resources, and needs to learn how to expand those limits, whether it's the VSTs owned, or one's ability to use them, or the headphones, or one's ability to construct a good composition, or whatever else. If someone else's piece makes you feel inferior, it's probably not something you should try to exactly emulate. If you still want to try to make something similar, try it, but don't treat it as, "oh, it's not the same so clearly I failed". Treat it as, "mine doesn't sound as big or tight, but I think otherwise I'm kind of getting the idea." Track down what it is that differentiates the original from your try. Is it more compressed? Is there more reverb? Is the stereo field more spacious? Are the sounds more layered? Is there filter motion I don't have? etc. These are the types of questions you should ask, not "how do I make this, but not crappy?".

I have to say, I appreciated the personalized contour on the e. piano partwriting. It takes good effort to take a well-known source and use your own chord progressions. For me, the soundscape could have been a bit more filled, but aside from that, this certainly stands out in a good way.