timaeus222

I loled at the 8/14 mixes submitted. Now I don't feel so bad about this team.

I don't know what's up with Cosmic, but he probably won't have one either guys (I didn't get any PMs), sorry.

I'll keep this on my to-do list. I can't say I was expecting this already, but I'll take it.

It took listening to 3 songs separately before I realized this is a continuous play album. That's pretty awesome. <3

It's still a bit hard to notice that difference, but I tend to notice it more easily if I go from the better encoding to the worse encoding when comparing. Also, it doesn't hurt to make another soundcloud account.

In no relation to this actual conversation... Bandcamp streams at 128kbps, which is worse than the original track typically is at. Most people can't tell the difference between 128 and 192, but some of us here can. I can attest to Soundcloud streaming at 128kbps as well. So really, neither of them actually sounds better. It's psychological. That said, sharing is fine. Just try not to post, say, 4 in a row in less than an hour (I noticed you posted three remixes and one original in around 20 minutes). Post in moderation, and people will believe that you didn't just rush all those songs. Rushing tends to produce results with some mistakes.

Sweeps and drones. Any nuanced sweeps and drones tend to draw me in.

Okay, I'm gonna try and give a *pseudo* mod review and pretend I never heard this before. Just something someone else suggested I try. Pseudo-Mod Review: Nice phaser bass. Good subs here. Some elements sound like they're a bit buried behind the bass, though, perhaps due to the overboost near its fundamental (such as a sine wave's 64Hz fundamental on a C4 pitch). This particular kind of loudness has a very distinct way to tame. You see, every instrument occupies very specific frequency ranges for each particular note you play on it. Basses act similarly, shifting the range by ~10Hz per octave (from what I observed), and because of that, merely scooping the offending frequency on an EQ plugin from your effects rack won't fix any strange overboosts, as external EQ is statically locked into wherever the edits are, but the internal EQ ranges will move with each bass note (i.e. EQ with keytracking/keyfollow). Depending on the synth you're using, you might be able to put in an internal EQ module or a voltage-controlled filter (VCF) and put a little scoop near the fundamental. It's just too loud in comparison to the subs, though in my opinion the subs are at a great volume. I dig the processing on the wobbles; it's not too resonant, and it pulls off the dubsteppish nature of this track fairly well, though they could stand to be less high-passed. As they are now, they sound pretty thin. This sounds like an issue with a decision on where to allocate the low bass frequencies. "Should I focus the low bass on some sustained layer or should I low pass the sustained layer and bring in some low bass presence to the wobbles?" Something to that effect. The glitching was welcome. The electric piano usage is quite unique. It really works from what I hear, and is a great juxtaposition between lightness/airiness and dark wobbles. For some reason, 0:34 - 0:47 sounds a little bare in the midrange to me. Maybe you could include the bells you put in at 0:47, an arp, or something else accomplishing a similar purpose, to fill that in. Something that suddenly stands out a little bit at 1:14 is the strange piercing resonance at about 12900~13300Hz. If you put a narrow band stop or deep thin notch there (-12~-14dB), that should help fix it. Other than that, perhaps polish the kick, snare, and bass synth timbre some more. It's still coming off as not quite there, but the subs on the bass are great! Try looking back at the example I showed you (this one, which actually isn't using any extra sub bass layers), and if you do an AB comparison, there should be a noticeable difference in the bass, kick, and snare, even if you don't have sub woofers (I don't). The snare generally sounds good, then when the new bass layer comes in, it suddenly feels a bit quieter/more buried than before. The kick is pretty good. With some parallel compression, you could add some more glue to it and it can sound even stronger without overpowering the bass subs. I have no major issues with the arrangement itself. This is almost there, keep it up!

I highly recommend zircon's tutorials. If you love to use FL, definitely buy this.

The bass is too loud near 95Hz or so, but the tone is good. A bit too much low end ambience on the reverb in the background instruments, and your vocals have a lot of distortion artifacts as well as some remaining sibilance. 1:06 is especially an issue and you should look for more rough instances like that. The rest of the percussive stuff was pretty OK in my book, but the mastering leaves the non-percussive material with room for improvement. The kick is great, it would be fine as-is. The snare could use more thwap with some layering.

Haha, sounds exactly like that one mix we submitted on Mar. 17, 2013, sound-for-sound. *coughgamestartswithPcough*

I like music for its complexities, harmonic interplay, and sound design. Anytime there's a cool chord progression, harmonious sounds (atmospheric pads and rich FM basses, electric rhythm guitars and wubs, etc.), cool sounds (certain dubstep wobbles, nuanced leads, 'ear-candy' filler sounds, etc.), interesting note exchanges, or anything of that sort, I'm probably going to dig it. In particular, I love E. Pianos with a lot of grit, distorted pulse leads, FM basses, well-designed wobbles, etc.; anything with all its textural details polished, performed, sequenced, and/or modulated with care and effort. I definitely compose my music with qualities I like to hear, but I choose my sounds very carefully so that as many people could like it as possible. I select them such that there aren't displeasing aspects to the extent that even people who don't like the atmosphere subjectively would still say something to the effect of, "it's not my genre but it probably sounds good for whomever likes it". However, even thinking about that, it doesn't really limit what I choose to do, which is a plus. There's so many different types of sounds and so many ways to tweak them to sound unique, so it usually ends up pretty crowd-pleasing in the end without sounding strained.

I agree that the pad in the beginning is off-time, and it's due to the sequencing and its amp envelope attack. The clap is thin in this context. The sounds are still pretty basic, and only two are actually at a decently high level of quality (1:01 bells, 0:29 sweep), objectively speaking. The bass is OK, but it's definitely fake in sections where it's supposed to be a bass guitar, and better in tonal quality on the lower notes in sections such as 0:51. There is in fact dissonance, at 0:38, 0:45 and 0:48-0:49 for example. It would help to audition chords prior to writing a section to avoid these dissonances.

Alright then, thanks for trying anyways!

I would never have known if he had it. Honestly, Trilian is "very highly acclaimed", as it seems to be on the reviews on the Spectrasonics site, so I would have been happy with whatever sound came out of it (and I tend to always be). The WAV I sent back was a little off at the slowdown, but Argle could have easily sliced the WAV if it was off there. If I could do it, and I can, then he could do it. The only reason it was off was because of the last tempo change. I had to automate the tempo myself to get it perfect, but even then it got off after rendering. I also did very specific EQ on the bass to give it the low end power and polish.

Do you think you could add that I supplied the bass part? Thanks!

I, for one, loved the vocals and their production. For me they filled out the arrangement, and the timbre fit rather well. The execution was really good, and the backing instrumentation fits in very nicely.

YEP! That's been on my playlist since I was a Sophomore in high school almost 4 years ago. I remember playing it to my friend while on a choir bus trip back to the school (around 9 PM, hur hur).

Moar. Heated Plasma Gun - The beginning organ is really loud and low quality and muds up the mix. The first real issue I noticed was the offkey lead at 0:16 and other spots, such as 0:59. It's a minor third too high, if I'm transposing it correctly. I'm really just doing it by ear. The 0:43 lead would work really well in an ambient section if you ever want to try something like that. The bass from this point on is very static in the sequencing, but the tone itself could be good with more refined EQ. Overall, the instrumentation is pretty basic, and some sounds *are* good in quality, but they're used in an awkward context IMO. Storm the Games! - Really nice drums. They could have used a bit more taming with compression though, as I hear some distortion artifacts. You do have a good DnB base here in regards to the drums and the bass themselves. At 0:36, that *is* a good bass timbre, but it's too loud, and doesn't work very well as a lead. At 1:11, the lead is good, but it seems very wide, or just very panned. I don't really hear anything in the center. Even though wide panning is good for stereo imaging, too much and it still becomes mud anyways. The 2:05 fade seemed to come at an entirely separate tempo. I really couldn't tell that 2:12 was a buildup until the DnB just came out of nowhere, in a sense. Pretty loud overall, and could have used some more careful balancing. Wily Must Die - Good piano timbre. Seems a little bit on the lower end of sample quality to me. The vocals starting at 0:33 had interesting reverb, though the high cut was too high, and it brought out the sibilance and fricatives too much for me. The recording quality was also a bit strange to me, and somewhat lo-fi. It sounds like some low end is missing, or the mids are boosted awkwardly. 3:06 felt a little stiff to me on the piano. I don't know if you quantized any sort of live MIDI playing too tightly, or if it was something else. Aside from that, nice (prog?) rock track. For Everlasting Peace - This is actually rather good, even for free samples off of Reason. The strings in particular were well-sequenced, and the tubular bells were a nice touch. The brass was easily the most fake of the samples you used, but aside from that and the loudness (quietness) of the mixing, this is still pretty good for what I think is one of your first tries at orchestral. Blam - Apparently, not Disney-related lol. Nice Prodigy vibe. Personally, I did feel the distortion was a little bit too much, even if it's technically accurate and intentional. Not by much though, maybe 5~10%. Rabcandy did a good job on the vocals too. I did think the bitcrushed wah bass was too upfront, as it overshadowed some of the source usage a bit sometimes. Prototype #2 - Awesome lyrics. The background instrumentation was a bit basic, and there was quite a bit of lyrics in comparison to the actual time used for instrumental sections. I think if you polished up the backing, it could come rather close to the awesomeness of "Oil Ocean" already on OC ReMix. Oh, and PLUTO'S NOT A PLANET ANYMOAR. DEAL WITH IT BRO. UMADEON, BRO? - I'ma use this opportunity to comment. I did have some issues with merging different tempos because I had such exciting ideas that I really wanted to come together in one song, not separate songs. Ah well, I did what I could on that end, and I'm pretty happy with the Madeon vibe I injected into this "heavycore" track. Oh, and the dubstep at 2:16~2:34 is me callin' you out, NutS. My Castle is Burning Down - Good DnB from you, Esperado. The piano was low quality though. Sounded like 4Front Piano or something. 0:38 - I noticed that SFX thar. It's also in In Everlasting Pieces. 1:20 sounded like distorted mic feedback. Overall, I think the production is really bringing this down. It sounds like it should be high energy, but the drums are rather weak, some of the basses are very basic saws (like default saws with little other mods. 1:48, for example) and one other bass is actually really loud in the 95-ish Hz range. Amnesia - Good first effort at trance. Psytrance, if you want me to get into particulars. As a personal taste thing, the snare was actually not tight enough. Visually, it makes me picture a snare being slammed every time, and its mids were kinda cluttering the mix. The kick was not coming through super well, regardless of the apparent trend that psytrance uses clicky pitch envelope kicks. A good boost at the fundamental and near 4000Hz should help a bit. As I often say, the clarity is hurt due to the many instruments someone has using the same waveform, and saws in particular suffer the most from this choice because of the many harmonics it has (which I'm sure you know all about) that give it a powerful timbre, second only to the square wave in body. Typically, saw waves tend to pierce and dominate a mix, which is why saws tend to be good leads, and detuned saws fill up soundscapes rather quickly. The repetition probably would have fared better if there was more clarity, IMO, as I do believe you're a stickler for good arrangements. Third Wave Roboethics - The pads were well-designed, but the 0:28 strings were pretty exposed and fake. Not really sure that they actually fit in this particular context as they are. The chiptunes are definitely the strength here. I like the C64 arps. The rhythmic changes and bridges were also very welcome. The lead fills and neighboring notes/trills were great. I love little details like that. What you didn't have in vibrato you made up for in portamento (and the 1/32-or-1/64-synched square-wave-sloped LFO in the C64 arp). In Everlasting Pieces - Can't believe you accidentally picked almost the same name as Xarnax. Nice FM work. Drums were pretty good, though I thought the mids on the kick were a little too prevalent still. At 1:07, the FM thwip was pretty resonant for me, and probably could have used some ring modulation to tone that down, or just a lower frequency on the self-modulations (that kind of timbre comes from a synth modulating its own frequency). In the breakdown at around 1:32, I thought the lead was too quiet, but not buried. The bass was a bit louder than it though. 2:02 - Aha, that SFX. Good work overall arrangement-wise.

Actually, that's literally what I was thinking, only I didn't write it out. xD

I understand---just expressing my perspective! ;D

Thanks! The lead at 0:52 is something I made a while back for fun; a C64 chippy lead with some extra XY controls (though I didn't have the time to implement those into the track). Funny, 1:37 is my favorite section, and 2:16 was just some dubstep craziness.

For some reason or another, I think the production took a step back at pre-0:31. I did really like the instrumentation there earlier, and it was merely the source notes themselves that were hard to recognize. I still stand by Kristina's and my sentiment on the snare being too powerful as a 909 at 0:32. On one hand, you have the baroque-friendly harpsichord and grungy bass, and on the other you have a snare fit for dubstep and other high energy genres. So then, which are you aiming for? Chill or high energy? Having both in one is a bit of a strange dichotomy in most cases, with this being one of the exceptions due to the drum sample choice in particular. Drums can convey rhythm, energy, and power, among other things. The timbres you choose for your drum samples is going to have a huge impact on whether or not the overall instrumentation is cohesive. If you have ridiculously strong drum samples but the rest of the instruments don't follow suit, it is likely to sound awkward and stick out. The kick is good in terms of the polish in the timbre, and I wouldn't mind too much if it was left as it was, but it *can* also fit in a balls-to-the-wall heavycore mix, such as in works, so it might not really work in all sections.

Poo, I have something to attend at exactly 9 EST. Perhaps starting at 9:30~11 PM EST tonight would fit in well for me in particular. Anyone else?

Dat guitar tone. <3