timaeus222

Since you improvise in some form, try getting a MIDI keyboard. You can improvise your ideas there while you want to write a new part.

This may come off as strange to some, but to me it seems to make a difference. There was a day where I stayed up until 3 AM EQing the bass on a song, and I could hear how well I was making progress. That morning I woke up, I felt like I couldn't hear the bass as distinctly as I did the night before, but it still sounded good. Is there a time of day or night that you guys find your ears most fine-tuned when EQing either tough bass sections or treble sections?

ArtsAcoustic Reverb and Valhalla Shimmer are pretty good too, since you're working in primarily orchestral.

Not bad. It'd be even better if you actually played piano. I can tell that's sequenced.

That makes total sense, actually. It explains why zircon has all mono samples in Shreddage 1 and 2.

Yeah, I realized that, then went back and edited my post. xD EDIT: At 0:50-0:57, the organ was hard to hear once I tried to hear it just now, so it's a little buried under the scratches. I could hear the higher frequencies, but not the individual notes. Something I consider when mixing is, "can someone with enough skill and the same materials as me recompose the track note-for-note with the exact stereo image and instruments?". Of course, that's not a rigidly structured "absolute rule", but it's generally a good guideline I like to follow.

Is it weird that I read track 60 and thought it said "Cluster F*** Missiles"? xD That said, DAMN, that's a lot of music. A good amount of it is awesome too.

I'm sorry if I came off harsh, but that's how it goes sometimes. Just assume that I'm not trying to be mean, because if I was, I'd be a pretty terrible person. I definitely mean well. Opinions are bound to be disagreed with, so it's not unusual that Radiowar disagreed with me, and that's what I emphasized. Oh, okay. I guess since the organ was panning rather heavily and playing the melody, it was a bit harder for me than for you to hear it. Paying more attention to the organ, yeah, I can hear Cold Man now. It just took a little side-by-side comparison. Hm. I actually thought you used the Fruity Scratcher, to be honest, but I gotta say, that's some good use of your samples. I'm thinking he meant high pass the lower frequencies of the cymbal? China samples happen to usually have not much above 16000Hz, I believe, from samples I've encountered.To clarify what I said, try scooping the frequencies of instruments that lie near the frequency range of the trumpet's semi-low-mids range (between low mids and mids) via automation on the EQ tokens/bands while the trumpet is currently playing, and then automate them back to where they were when the trumpet is not playing. If you're wondering where I get that (ridiculously detail oriented) idea that I actually do keep in mind, .

I just noticed the reverse cymbal at 1:10 is (mostly?) panned left, and the cymbal at 1:11 is panned right. =0 1:57 is a huge improvement. Perfect fix thar. =D The supersaw also sounds loads better.

Of course you disagree with me, it's my opinion, mostly. A subjective suggestion with a hint of objective that would only have improved what was already there. Anyways, now a full review: I don't think the record scratches were too thick in the frequency range, but they were used a tiny bit too often, and the repetition stands out, especially how it kept going at 0:38 at nearly the same volume on each usage. It kind of covered up the hi hats, being near their frequency range, but I had a hard time hearing the left-panned hi hats in general, actually. IIRC, I thought you said the first 25 seconds were original. It actually sounds kind of like the Cold Man slap bass slowed down to me. That may be close enough to count as source usage. The brass section, like I said, was pretty solid for the most part. At 1:23, though, it sounds like a mix of swing and no swing, which made it sound a bit off-tempo to me. The fourth note sounded like it came a bit early. At 1:33, I notice the cymbal is a little too quiet, but not by much. Maybe around 0.6~1.2dB. It just needs to be loud enough to be noticed right away, and I didn't notice it right away. At 2:08, the harmon mute trumpet lead is fighting a bit with the organ and scratches in particular despite the thin nature of its frequencies, and it would help if you automated a scoop in the semi-low-mids of the organ and scratches to make room for the trumpet's lower end frequencies. Overall, aside from the bass, I'm not actually noticing Cold Man very easily. Any usage that I'm not hearing here?

I'm in no way an expert on Logic Pro, but it sounds like you're saying there isn't a reverse function in it. If you get Audacity which is free, I guess you could use that to export a bunch of cymbals reversed. I'd expect the drum kits in Logic to reference samples from somewhere.

You could get that kind of effect simply by pairing a cymbal and a reverse cymbal, lining it up, and softening the transients. Other than that, if you're talking about the slow orchestral cymbal rolls, you could try the CymbalRoll_4.sf2 file from Nutritious's FL template (although it seriously sounds like one sample mapped across a bunch of keys >_>). That's what you get for free, afaik.

I get what it is you were aiming to do, and I do that kind of thing sometimes; the main reason for what I noticed was probably the bass sequencing right before 1:17. I had a suggestion for a neck slide on the bass right before 1:17, plus a reverse and regular cymbal. To me, that would have been all you would have to do to really nail that connection, preferentially.

The timpani-like drum in the beginning sounds pretty robotic with the triple hits. Adjust the velocities so it rises in volume on those. The brass is obviously from free material, but you can peak EQ the high end up for the bite real brass can have.

In case you're curious, the ones I have aside from that soundfont are the synthesized ones from Zebra, and .

At 0:27, the reverb and delay on the piano has a little bit too much feedback, so it's returning the wet signal for a little too long. If you reduce it by about 5~10%, it should be fine. At 0:57 or so (wherever it is that it's the middle of 0:55's bass drum-esque hit and 1:00's low pass filter), you could put a sweep of some sort that signals the low pass, maybe a decimated tremolo sweep. Right now it makes me want the low pass to not come so early. I think a phaser transition at 1:09 would fit in pretty well. Just automate the effect on and off. The snare isn't bad, but it has room for improvement. Right now, it sounds like it's high passed to make room for the kick frequencies. Try removing any sort of high pass you have and instead, notch the snare where the kick fundamental is, and do a narrow peaking band for the kick at the same spot. If your snare wasn't high passed at all, then you need a low end punch layer. It should be most evident at 1:33 where it's exposed. 1:34, without the snare, sounds more lo-fi than before, so the frequency distribution of the drums is a bit off. I guess you could try a narrow peaking boost on the kick near 4000Hz and see how that goes. The transition at 1:55 can use some more detail-oriented fixes. Maybe some retro toms, or something more to fully connect the sections. The strings at 1:58 are too loud, as the choir there is just barely squeezing through, and the brass as well (the brass is faring a bit better). You could also do a little scoop on the EQ of the strings where the brass' "bite" would be, but not boost that frequency in the brass (because it's strong enough). 2:11 really has it packed, and I could barely hear the transitional kicks. You might need to adjust some velocities there. The supersaw lead at 2:19 is a bit too detuned, and it creates a buzzy, somewhat grating sound. 3:06 has a weird granular sound fading out. Not sure why it's there. Believe it or not, the production is actually pretty good on this so far. I liked the bit of decimation at 0:34 btw.

You should feel good about it. I have an E. Piano Kontakt library, but I find that (free) soundfont to be a really close second.

Hehe, he made it by one day. Talk about close. I really don't mind about source usage all that much when listening to this, as I never played Metroid before anyways. Great jazz adaptation. Pretty icy smooth.

As I had said in my review earlier, 1:17 felt a bit disparate with the jump in dynamics as compared to the section before it. You had essentially a full soundscape, then just an organ for a bit, then back to full. It might just be the source having been shifted to the left, eliminating the first few seconds of source from that climax, that contributed to that. Aside from that, it sounds pretty good.

Well, the volume issue is fixed. I would hope that your DAW shows you volume changes in dB though. So far it's a good effort, but I'm not sure how the song is supposed to progress. Currently, it sounds like somewhat random effects pasted in. Try thinking about what you want to do after each section, and compare it with what you already have. It might not match.

This, as well. Some new guys try adding variations that really don't contribute to flow, and that's not how it goes. Get a feel for how a real drummer would do it, and emulate that rhythmically, whether it's with an electronic or acoustic kit. Also, replacing drum sounds and using the same rhythm for those new sounds isn't automatically considered "mixing up drum patterns". You do still need new rhythm.

Ignoring the quality of your samples: Yep, the non-drums are too quiet, but the drums are a good volume by themselves. Just lower the volume of the drums by about 1.6dB, and by the time you increase the volume of everything else to a suitable volume, it should all stack to reach -0.2dB or so.

Sometimes you can get away with not changing up your drums that much if everything else changes well enough and often enough, but it still remains important to at least not use an unchanged, untouched drum loop.

I can't say I *really* did that super seriously, but as I was searching for my top five picks, a good amount of themes got stuck in my head, so I recognized them well enough.

This is pretty awesome. I think your arp at 1:16 to the right is my favorite patch in this remix.