timaeus222

I have the KORG Microkey 37-key, which is 3 octaves. The keys are a bit smaller than a regular piano, but it's compact, I like it, and I can still hash out lots of ideas on it.

I'm sure he does, though it *is* a pretty short time. My personal fastest is 5 hours, but even then it was only 1 minute long and I spent 10 more hours on the bass mixing because it was ridiculous on the low end presence.

Yeah, definitely. Those kinds of people have almost zero bias on production values, so they tend to be almost entirely subjective, which is great for arrangement practice. Of course, something more than "that's pretty cool", or "nice" would be helpful.

Oh mah gawd, 17 hours? Good luck. =D

I can't say I really know of a reading like that, but I'd say practice improvising basslines to a song you're familiar with. I was in jazz choir for only a year and that really helped me to improvise basslines, and that actually helped me write chord progressions based on those basslines. I basically just get a drum beat down, write a melody, hum the bass, write that out, write the chord progression that I hear in my head, then adjust the melody as I need to.

I said this on YouTube earlier: yeah boi.

Constructive criticism is good, if you trust yourself in giving advice or you want to give advice.

DAMNNNNNNN this is funky!!! Not only that, but it's produced at the quality of 2013's stuff. So worth the listen. GET IT!

Same, but in the Community topic. Also, get hyped for the final round mixes! Rush Riders are going all-out this time! Even more so than Round 2. =D

The lead guitar might be a bit off-tune, yeah, if that's what you're looking at primarily.

Happy late birthday! xD

I liked Brandon's idea of releasing some stems to help people practice their mixing, so I took the time to do this for you guys as well. This is my round 2 entry for the Wily Castle ReMix Gauntlet, and it's more complex than the general person might initially notice. That's why I decided to render these stems so people can see what layers actually went into this mix and perhaps further refine their sound selection skills by having this as a reference. Now, the actual mixing/mastering process took a ridiculously long time because it was very difficult (12+ hours out of a total of 28 hours), so some things have been already processed a little to help. You guys have been so awesome since I've been here, and before then too, so here's something for you guys to help you grow as artists! Looking forward to incarnations you guys come up with or any questions you might have! Stems: 19 Stems & Misc. Info (47.52MB OGG, 176MB WAV) Original ReMix for reference: Funky Moles & Trashy Ducks

Teh birthday of happiness is upon you.

While I agree with some of this, even though the YouTube description is "not even 5% of the description that an artist can rely on for promotion and information about themselves and their music to be communicated to listeners", it's the top two lines. They prioritize making it known who the remixers are because those two lines are on the very top. The staff doesn't want to seem biased for any particular person or group, or certain people will get more popularity than others, and that's not how OCR rolls. Every artist is as important as any other. Any YouTube commenter who doesn't know who actually wrote the ReMix didn't read the description. The info's right there, so if it doesn't register, it's not OCR's fault. I've been a YouTuber for long enough to be able to affirm that too many people on YouTube don't read video descriptions. I go "oh mah gawd read it" every other day.

Too late. Yeah, I don't think OCR "will not accept this style of music anymore". They're open to everything, but the panel still prides themselves on accepting quality music. This ambient style is merely tough to make work, but if it is made to work well enough then what's to say it won't pass?

I think the wind just blew the vote up into space.

I like 9PM. I always end class by 9PM EST, though on Friday I wouldn't mind 8PM PST so I can join before I go home.

Weird. Alright, hope you get that resolved man.

smexoscope might help ya there.

I can hear the melody. It's definitely there. The mix overall does feel too lofi though, and it's because of the octave chosen for the leads and the apparent volume. The pads should contribute more than they do now, for an ambient pseudo-glitch mix (I hear some reverses). Those resonant sweeps are certainly distorting with a whole lot of resonance in thar. Especially at 2:03. You can clearly see that even in soundcloud's inaccurate waveform view. Some examples of great pads/ambience:

Wow, no one responded to MindWanderer's review plea. Okay, I'll do it then. Again, these are all objective. Pond Scum Phoenix - Wow, this is actually really loud. Nice swing rhythm and great source interpretation, but there's a really drastic imbalance in the frequencies. A whole bunch of subs and upper treble, and very little upper mids and filler frequencies. For the most part, there's a lead, drums, bass, and sometimes an arp, but not much filler material such as pads or other sustained instruments defining a chord progression. Something to think about. Liquid Metal 2 - Mixing for the most part is good. Vocals are intelligible. Out of personal taste, I would have liked the vocals to be pushed back just a little bit. They feel a touch too dry even with the reverb you probably did put. Also, 2:14 might have a weird rhythmic hiccup in the bass? Didn't really get into the hip hop section. Just not my thing. Meat. Archetype Stone - Nice implementation of those chiptune SFX with the orchestral intro. Great bass. Interesting dubstep section. Nice drop at 1:46, though I expected more sustained bass after it. Ah well. I suspect you ran out of time. Waterfall's Return - Really quiet and muddy. What I would suggest is you do whatever it is you're most confident in doing, and practice what you aren't yet confident in. Harmonically, there isn't too much going on, and the percussion is clashing with the waterfall SFX. Perhaps you ran out of time too. Komo Sanctu et Shadedog Morientia - I liked the intro. Source usage was well done. The writing was good, but the production brought it down some. It's peaking near -3dB, and in Larry's words, "It's like hearing a good sketch/mock-up version of a composition where all the meat isn't on the bones; everything sounds flatter and less expressive than it should as far as conveying the energy inherent in the arrangement." This almost sounds like this, tonally. With good production and mastering, this actually has a decent chance of passing the panel, dude. Circuit Breaker - Pretty good bass. The snare was pretty resonant though, at ~10000Hz. Awesome chiptune work. The really high notes at 1:16 were quite piercing though, especially because of how thin the timbre was without much modulation for those notes. Overall, really fun mix. Slash Through Space and Destroy - Nice work. Things seemed a little overcompressed and just a little bit quiet, but the guitar work was great. Sources were well-integrated. Sometimes the bass was pretty cool. The kick had far too much mids though, and I don't know if you put distortion on the drums but they sound like they're clipping a little via purposeful distortion. Poo fadeout. My Wily Valentine - Nice improv. Reminds me a little bit of Andy Timmons's stuff, as well as the "Memories of a Master" OC ReMix.

Welp, this week we're going organica de la epica.

Kinda hard to hear, but it sounds like a variation on the 80's acid house bass with a little bit less resonance. Maybe you can apply the concept from here, which teaches how to make the acid house bass: Basically, a pulse wave with overdrive and a certain amount of resonance. Not sure if your synth has a close enough filter, but that's the general description. XMF stands for Cross Modulation Filter, which is FM-like, and FilterFM makes the input signal modulate the cutoff (which is essentially self-FM)..

I honestly have no clue if Rush Riders are going to have a finished entry, but we're working hard! Approximately 2 minutes completed so far. Estimated 3~3.5 minutes maybe, of a constantly evolving arrangement.

Do use your butts to master the track. Then record a video and tell us how it goes. We'll be happy to support you.