timaeus222

I actually write in loads of styles, but I could narrow my style down to glitching and complexity elements (usually is dubsteppish). Yeah, I know, pretty descriptive, right? You know what, I'll just list a bunch of the styles I've tried before, just to give you guys a perspective of how hard it was to actually narrow this down: Metal (Gunstar Heroes, Plants Vs. Zombies DnB, Shadow the Hedgehog, Final Fantasy 6, Mega Man 9, Metroid Prime) Drum & Bass (Mega Man 9, Plants Vs. Zombies "medley", Mega Man 7 + Mega Man V (GB), MegaMan StarForce) Dubsteppish (Plants Vs. Zombies, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, Gunstar Heroes, Mega Man 7 + Darkwing Duck, Metroid Prime) Orchestral/Cinematic (Donkey Kong 64, Flashback, Shadow the Hedgehog, Plants Vs. Zombies DnB) Dance (Yoshi Touch 'n Go, Mega Man 7 + Darkwing Duck, MegaMan Battle Network 1-6 [but not 3]) Atmospheric (Yoshi Touch 'n Go, currently-unreleased stuff) ...etc. But if you look at all of the ones I listed, it seems like 9 of them have glitching, loads of layers, and over-the-top automations, so... yeah. I'll pick... ... ... the currently-unreleased Gunstar Heroes ReMix (you'll see on September 9th!). I would have said the Darkwing Duck one, but funk isn't my thing; I just did that because I wanted to have some fun. I can say for sure that I do have a distinctive collection of sounds that sets me apart, though. Slowly but surely, I'm creating a very unique sound palette. I don't actually want to settle into any particular style though. Because that would be boring, right? Dynamic styles are where it's at.

IIRC, there's still space allocated on the card for files, so even if you delete the files, you do still need to reformat the card to remove the allocated memory.

I'd literally have one day (I have no access to my computer until Friday evening, and church occupies me until past 3 PM PST sometimes). Dunno what powerful stuff I can really do in that short time for three themes, one of which I haven't had time to experiment with. I'd much rather go on Week 8 or 9, to be honest, so I'd have time to make something worthwhile. I have something done right now, but it's not a full arrangement and it only incorporates Junk Man so far. I really want to finish that. Orion says he just "won't have time", so I don't know about him, and Cosmic says he "can go in the second or third week".

The rhythm issue is gone on the bongos. Nice bass tone so far, even if you didn't do live yet. If you can imitate that bass tone for the live recording, that would be great. It kind of reminds me of the Jaco fretless bass. The violin at 2:59 is pretty fake-sounding, and I think you know that. The sequencing gives it a weird retrigger-like envelope effect on each note. Otherwise it sounds great. At least, on my bad headphones.

Even though I don't have my good headphones with me right now, I can hear the lead at 0:34 is still sticking out too much to some extent. Is there any reverb on it? If you put some, please make sure the low cut is only as low as the bottom of the frequency range of the synth's notes. i.e. if the lowest note it plays reaches 300Hz, put the low cut near but not over 300Hz. If the synth doesn't ever play at a frequency range near the low cut, that low end ambience isn't always necessary. I can't say it's concrete advice, but it's generally the case. That might not be the sole reason for the lead sticking out, though. Maybe the E. Piano is too quiet. Again, can't really tell because I'm using different equipment atm (skullcandy earplugs). You'll want to go back over your instrument balance since you switched to soft knee for this track. It'll throw things off a bit, as your mixing decisions made earlier were influenced by the hard knee limiting and your avoiding overcompression. I also think 3:38 sounded like an ending followed by a reiteration of the intro that ultimately didn't introduce anything new except for the drum rhythm, some glitching, and some new lead notes (until 4:21~4:32).

Here's a semi-official source breakdown from what I could hear: Source Breakdown: 0:09 - 0:23 = Source 0:25 - 0:41 = Source 0:43 - 0:49 = Source 0:52 - 1:00 = Source 1:02 - 1:11 = Too liberal* 1:21 - 1:27 = Source 1:29 - 1:38 = Too liberal* 1:50 - 1:59 = Too liberal* 2:17 - 2:33 = Source 2:36 - 2:45 = Too liberal* 3:10 - 3:19 = Too liberal* 3:21 - 3:39 = Source 3:53 - 4:00 = Source 14+16+6+8+6+16+18+17 = 101 seconds 101/252 = 40.08% < 50% * = Parts that seem to be source usage but are too liberal IMO and it doesn't quite sound like it connects back to the source. You can add 45 seconds to source usage if you look into that, which would bring you above the 50% guideline (126 seconds) towards 57.94%.

I'm not sure what you wanted me to get from the video. I really just got "boost the crap out of things and take out what you don't want." I'll keep those two sections in mind, 1:44 and 2:23. Maybe I'll do some sort of glitching on the background FX? I usually just do that instinctively.

Okay, bad news here. I can't go this week, and neither can Orion nor Cosmic.

As stated in the OP, I actually used Spectrasonic Trilian's "Hardcore Thick Bass" multi, so it's going to be different and heavier. More low-end refined out of the box, as well. I don't have a high pass on the guitars to a significant extent. I think the crossover frequency I put was around 40 or 30Hz or something, simply to save headroom, nothing more than that. I do some meticulous notching, but almost never scoop significantly other than in the mids (which I fixed, IMO, as I did notice at one point that I over-scooped there). Some spots that I notched might have been in the low-mids, but I can't check right now. If I did that, it was to let the bass grit come through. I'm putting the most emphasis on refined bass, actually, but probably a bit more metal than drum & bass. I do have a Reese on hand, but I'm not sure if I can really fit that in while keeping in a good portion of the guitar chugging grit. I might give that a shot later when I'm actually home, but I doubt it can come through cleanly separated. Other info: I'm only using a bass guitar while I'm using a rhythm guitar. Otherwise it's a "synth" bass (a synthetic physical model-esque vintage bass) that may sound like one, but isn't one.

I don't have my good headphones on right now, but I can comment on sound selection and arrangement flow, etc. At 0:31 (and 1:36), the resonant WN sweep is pretty loud compared to the lead and bass. I can technically distinguish all three at once, but the lead seems a bit buried, while the bass is at the "right" volume relative to the drums, IMO. The lead timbre also seems a bit basic. Sounds like a simple square lead, to me. See if you can add more personality to it. Modwheel heavy vibrato, a mild LFO on an LP filter, etc. Tighter sequencing might help as well if you try the modwheel heavy vibrato (i.e. stopping the sound completely after some of the vibrato moments). Basically, treat the lead like you would an organic instrument in terms of phrasing, like you did at 1:03. And something you could try is an ambient hit and dropping the drums at 2:52 and doing a snare roll or tom roll to lead into the last note.

1. Yeah, I do that sometimes if I end up using loops where I decide to keep the kick sound or some other similar situation. I'm sure you're talking about a sample on a mixer track sidechained with something else, but not routed to the master. 2. I'm assuming you mean the bass guitar, as the gritty vintage-filter bass (such as in the breakdown section) sounds more powerful and crisp to me. I can't really think of a type of bass that could fit, nor do I think I actually have enough headroom (though I might), so do you have an example of what you were imagining? 3. You let the bass occupy below 60Hz and not the kick? Hm... So is having a kick with a kinda long tail a good idea on a DnB track? I think I had a kick plus a short and tamed 808 sub kick layer. I'm also guessing the scoop you're talking about is one that involves lowering the mids until but not past the moment when the timbre sounds hollow. Also, @Argle, Kristina and I do have Stutter Edit, but I didn't use it here. It's actually LoFi Plus (and occasionally dBlue Glitch) doing the bitcrushing, but I could do something with automation I suppose to emulate "that one" Stutter Edit effect. It's just an automated sample rate reduction combined with an automated resonance reduction (thin bandwidth of a band token combined with a high band token gain creates a resonance) and an automated high pass sweep.

Aw yeah! Neat detail work on this, loving it! I love the bitcrushed sweeps, wobbles, and vocaloid material. And what's wrong with perfectionism, bro?

My mistake. Sorry about that, and I edited my previous post.

Alright, let's see... Yeah, it definitely sounds different. For some reason or another, the very first impact sound is... wide. Also, now it's more evident that the 0:34 lead is too upfront with minimal reverb. The snare is a good volume at 0:12, but it ended up quieter at 0:14. In a sense, while the hard knee lets you know when something somewhere is too loud by compressing more, the soft knee actually lets you hear more detail in what you did, especially at 1:28. (There also happens to be a slight timing issue at 1:27, I think) If you choose to continue this mix in soft knee, these are things to consider: If something is too loud, it would lose some transients (usually ends up being subtle treble content from what I've experienced) rather than overcompress the entire mix. Overcompression is no longer an issue; that is replaced by overcrowding, and if boosted beyond ridiculous, clipping. The kick is indeed coming across stronger than before, and I'm hearing more treble on the entire track than before (but it's not overdone, at least to me, in the high end), such as the very thin peak on the kick at ~12300Hz. I can also hear more high end on the 2:41 bells than before. You're definitely right about there being less bass (~2dB less), which is confusing until I read that you used a multi-band compressor. However, it does leave you more room to boost the bass, then, since overcompression won't show up in a soft knee situation. I do hear more low mids detail on the bass though (especially at 0:44), which is great! The staccato strings at 2:55 came out more, and I actually didn't notice them before. Something I tell myself is, if someone else with the same skill, the same plugins, and the same audio equipment could recreate what I composed just from listening to the song multiple times, then I'm set. If you can say that, then the clarity of the mixing is just right.

Whoops, I was actually referring to your master limiter. It looked like hard knee to me on my spectral analyzer; could be a mistake on my part.

Part of me wants to say put the credits as "???" and put in a disclaimer saying you would change it if the original author comes along and tells you they made it. However, that would mean you'd have to trust the person who said they made it, and you'd also be at risk if the author wanted to report the video for copyright infringement. I'd much rather say don't use it, and try asking around.

Hm, I can tell you worked on the drums. The kick can be even stronger, but for a hard knee limiter job, it's actually really good. It does reach a low enough frequency IMO (it reaches around 33Hz or so). I don't know if you've ever considered testing out a soft knee limiter and seeing how that goes. As for the snare, I'm hearing a clap layer, which actually has a long decay that makes it sound a bit weird on the four-hit rolls, especially at 0:13. Try finding a layer with a shorter decay but still a strong fundamental, which tends to be near 200~280Hz. I'd imagine the snares after the intro could work with a TR-909 snare layer, as with that being the top end layer it gives part of a rather typical dubstep snare tone. Actually, at 1:43 you seem to have a snare tone that matches what I was just talking about right here in this paragraph (snappy and similarly pitched), but if you were using the same one since after the intro, it's not coming through completely. A trick I like to do is do notch EQs at the snare's fundamental on other instruments. The bass, lead, and backup in particular would be candidates for this trick. The drop at 2:13 is actually pretty strong, but currently it's, I guess you could say, 90% of the way there. If you can boost the range 27~56Hz, let's say, 2.4~3.2dB, that would be "100% of the way there". Another thing I noticed is that at 2:41, the bells are either a bit too quiet or don't have much high end (I'm thinking it's the volume). Maybe you could try boosting the volume by about 0.4~1.2dB? Overall, great improvement!

I guess you could try Windows Movie Maker with the HD rendering plugins for "simple YouTube videos". Both items are free.

Nice! I usually don't like rap, but I liked that. Something you could try for next time is VirtualDub's "nearest neighbor" resizing filter (available in the "Filters" dropdown option). What that does is resize a video, making it look like it stretched the size of individual pixels, and that ultimately gives you clearer video quality than any typical resizing job. If you try that and resize to 640x480, or 1280x960, or something near the size that you think is good enough for the quality you want, it should give better quality than simply inserting the clips you already have into Corel 6X and rendering it as-it-was. It wouldn't take more than 10 minutes of your time per video, including the rendering from VirtualDub (not to mention you don't have to watch it render). The setting up should take less than 3 minutes if you wanted to try it. This is something I started doing recently ( an example), and an example of how a similar video of mine looked before I did it (that remix is soooo old). Notice how on the first one, you can actually see every single pixel past 0:18, and on the second one, it's more blurry, so there's that difference for you to decide between.

If you ever get stuck trying to find a particular patch sound that you need, PM me and I could give a shot at making it for you on Zebra2. Many of the sounds I hear are just emulations of old synths, like the Minimoog you have, the Juno, the CS-80, etc. Some others are mods of pretty common sounds. Ectoplasm's arp is a mod of a 303. Colours of Rain has some soft saw pads, vintage filter basses, ambient hits, and bells. Zircon's Zebra Tetralogy, which you have, would do the trick with the pads on Flow and Scottish Highlands Walk. I also recommend Arksun since some of the leads match the one on Ectoplasm, but past that there's still loads more great stuff to try out in that bank. Scottish Highlands Walk starts off with something you can get from OP-X Pro II, I'm 90% sure of that. I really can't remember what the patch is called, but it sounds like a soft E. Piano to me. There's loads of magical stuff though that you might be able to find since some demos on youtube name the patches off.

I edited my post. DarkeSword said:

Yeah, I have a computer faster than the current one you have, and I still get some buffer underruns on extremely large projects (ones that take up around 1.2~1.6GB RAM usually), but it doesn't bother me as much as it would other people because I've talked so much about humanizing velocities and timing that I naturally fix it to a pretty close result compared to what I could have gotten. For other people, it might cause rhythm issues beyond what can be manually humanized. It wouldn't be that much of a bother if you start off using the MIDI keyboard on an empty project and work with that until you get to a point where you get the latency issue (maybe near 400~700MB RAM). As you start out using it, you might just be using it to get ideas and to develop early WIPs, but I don't think it'll be until much later than a few weeks that you get used to using it for humanized timing and velocities.

Hey, it means a lot that you publicly thanked me like this, seriously. Thank you from the bottom of my heart (what about the top of my heart?), and may I say, I'm totally looking forward to both our tracks on Gunstar Heroes to get published (and others' toooooo).

I'd recommend getting a newer computer first, and then getting the MIDI keyboard, if prices aren't convenient. If you get the keyboard first, by your computer specs you're going to get a lot of buffer underruns in your busiest project files.