timaeus222   Members

Good remake. Objectively it could use more TLC on articulations and MIDI CC for the fake orchestral instruments, but it's just a remake, so it doesn't matter too much.

Like before, 2:46 was a good spot to end on. The rest is another repeat, of 1:07 this time. Nice smooth jazz.

Errrr that is stretching (thankfully only one part of) the page. You might want to consider shrinking it or linking it. Yep. Hard to believe, but sometimes I find (or make) synthesized E. Pianos, for example, that are more fitting to (or even better for) particular remixes of mine than an E. Piano library I have for Kontakt. Another example... a synthesized electric sitar I had created one day fit into my Yu-Gi-Oh ReMix better than EWQL Ra's electric sitar, after I tried substituting in both to compare. I remember zircon talking on KVR in 2007 about EWQL Ra's sitar not being all that great before working on Sitar Nation, but the fact is that it was sampled, and samples are *usually* better than synthesized versions. =)

No, I'm not comparing myself to him. Though he is one of the best producers in this competition, he isn't the best producer in this competition. I'm not going to say who it is, however, he still has room for improvement in production and arrangement, as does everyone. I bolded what my points earlier had expressed. +100 Give them more than 30 seconds. Give them the whole song. I know it's a competition, but if you listen to one great song fully and one almost great song partially, the almost great song will tend to seem "almost good" or "decent". Be fair. That is all.

"you gave his ambiguity the benefit of the doubt." is what I got. The rest is my additional comments. Information in this case means a story, or auditory information, like arrangement content, ambience, head-bang or not, dance or not, etc.

What I'm getting from this is that you gave his ambiguity the benefit of the doubt. While 30 seconds is long to the listener, 30 seconds is not that long to the producer. To be able to fit engaging content in 30 seconds might actually be pretty difficult for some people, and if I were to take KgZ literally, it would be the case that he means the first 30 seconds (which apparently seems to be very close to what he said). I wouldn't just listen to 30 seconds and quit if I'm not interested in the first 30 seconds. What if the intro makes use of long, well-selected pads that convey 30 seconds' worth of information in 50? I would take Gario's approach and skip around a little first if I ever was somewhat skeptical about the intro. Then if I notice something really cool, I'd go back to see how it connects. Regardless, I still listen to the whole track in the end, and I give everyone a fair listen if their track is listenable---listenable being not ear-splittingly painful the whole entire time.

Minor production issues aside, I'm really diggin' this. This is an extremely smart arrangement with some smooth harmonic modulation.

I don't know how 0:50 got messy again. It was fine before, and now the snare is indeed buried again. Did you add more bass or sub bass content? I'd agree that ultimately, the arrangement when deconstructed has cool parts on its own, but when combined as it is right now, it doesn't sound like a cohesive piece.

Good start. The hard thing about this source is the lack of a memorable melody. Try to start off with a conservative arrangement, then vary it up as you go.

Yeah, he's a faggot for being an awesome OCR judge and moderator. Woohoo. Don't get butthurt because someone was being straightforward with you, and people will treat you better.

That I'd whole-heartedly agree with. It's not as much of a grey area as it seems. Opinion and subjectivity are grey areas, while technical comments and objectivity are grey areas. Opinion is purely based on personal preference. Objectivity focuses on technical aspects, like production, arrangement complexity, and arrangement flow. Subjectivity focuses on personal opinion that is slightly based on objective analysis, like arrangement flow, drum programming, and sound selection. As you could see, arrangement flow was something that was inside the grey area of objectivity and subjectivity, but I personally haven't run into very many of those situations.

Maybe it's the vague wording, but putting the producer at fault indefinitely, as it seems, is, in fact, very narrow-minded. I feel like blaming them all the time is just disrespect. If they put hard work into something, the least we could do is commend their effort and reward them by listening to their song further than just 30 seconds before making a solid judgment. If we hadn't done that all this time, few people would feel motivation to get good. It's not the producer's non-incriminating fault that people don't like their music as opinion; it's only their non-incriminating fault if people truly don't like their music objectively---from a technical standpoint. We don't control opinion to a good enough extent very often at all. "Fault" is just a terrible word without saying if it means "a reason" or "your problem". /offtopic

Maybe they should be, but the love for their own music might make them a bit oblivious to outside negative feedback, not to mention it's better to write what you love rather than what people love and to let them like what they want to like. If you don't like what you wrote, where do you get motivation to keep going? Also, five bucks = exaggeration of 2 cents.

The production for me wasn't as tight. I'm not getting as heavy of a sound as you seemed to want to portray. I know this is a sample library, but it's still heavier. Maybe it's because they're riffing on a low A string, but it's still the case that the bass is really refined. If you listen to that and then go back to this, it's much less heavy in your remix. I know sample libraries were made to be perfect, but sometimes live can sound better than sample libraries. Decent production, but it does have room for improvement. Your drums appear to be lacking some treble above 16kHz, the kick is not coming through very well, and neither are the toms. 1:38 is extremely muddy. I can barely hear a kick there, which shows me that you're using a hard knee limiter in digital software, meaning you have the resources to get this fixing going! The piano at 1:50 would be called out for sure on its mechanical velocities and timing, and maybe even on its sample quality if this were to be submitted. As far as I'm concerned, 3:00 is your ending. The rest is nothing more than a repeat, and you wouldn't lose much content as 3:00 is a pretty good length anyways.

I'm not against your view necessarily, but the phrase "full control" might not be entirely accurate, and I just want you to be aware of that. You, specifically, may have full control, maybe, but not everyone does. If the producer doesn't have the skill or knowledge to make anything other than the annoying type of dubstep wobbles (back to that example), and they don't know where to look to improve because it's outside their realm of knowledge (which is the case with many people, in the sense of searching skills), they don't have "full control" of how the patch sounds as a result. Any producer who loves what they do may or may not be completely "aware of the consequences that people might perceive" differently. That's my five bucks. /pun

Just wanted to shed some light on this: There are times when people can't express why they like or dislike something. I did a speech in my speech class in April or so (redundancy is redundant) about music appreciation and I started with a survey comprising of these questions: Who likes music because... 1. It's catchy 2. It's cool 3. You just like it, and you don't have a clue why All of those questions were answered with a hand raise from at least three people. That's why it's so hard to get people to like details that are interesting to the composer or producer. Here's a crude example: Dubstep wobbles. The difference between a good one and a bad one is the amount of resonance and the choice of whether or not to include a large amount of wild pitch bends (you get what I mean). Some people would just say "okay, moving on" if there's excessive resonance. Others would say "Hey, this isn't that bad. Not sure why, but eh, I'll keep listening for a bit" if there isn't. The important thing is that they can't express why. So then if that were the deciding factor of a liked or disliked song, it really would be the audience's non-incriminating fault, because ultimately the producer didn't have a problem with publishing it like that. I've never liked Skrillex and I never will, but it's not because I'm against dubstep, it's because I'm against his style of dubstep.

Yes, but the issue here is that you said the producer or composer is "always, always, always" at fault, even if people hate a great song subjectively because of the genre (that's what I said in my last post, and you said "Yeah. Completely."). In this case, it would be the people's "fault" (though it should not ever be said in such an incriminating way) for being biased against the genre in the first place, because the composer did a great job conveying that genre, and purely on opinion, that's what the people thought. That's how a few dubstep producers feel when they get an OC ReMix passed, for example.

Aside from very minor nitpicks on sound selection (some leads), really well done on this. I almost thought you were going to go Battle Network 3 at 1:58, but it wasn't in the source list.

So then, if the buildup is ultimately awesome objectively in an OC ReMix and the judges fawn over it, but is in a genre hated by many people subjectively, it is then the producer or composer's fault that the people hate the song? Something's wrong...

Absolutely. If you really want to show this compo some love, give the entries a fair chance and listen to them in full! Then I guess your standards are too high for OCR then, because I find zircon, for example, to be a complete and utter genius, and he still does 1 minute buildups sometimes, like in . It could be boring for some people, as it gets DnB at 0:51, but is ambient with rich bass in the intro, still with very interesting sounds. It's not about wanting to listen to them again, in this particular compo. It's about finding enough highlights in the remixer's effort in arrangement, production, and enjoyability to make you want to vote for them. It feels to me like your standards are outside the realm of this compo (whether higher or lower it doesn't matter).

It's not immediately obvious (sine waves are sneaky), but mine did. And at the 32 second mark a more obvious cameo of my Robot Master theme comes. If that's your criteria---production primarily, and if everyone were to use the same criteria, then no amateur would ever get voted for, no matter how amazing their arrangement is. Is that what you want? A completely badass arrangement undermined by production to lose to a downright terrible arrangement highlighted by good production and sound design?

Okay, now that I never realized I could do.

That's true, but with automation you can also evolve the timbre over time, rather than having a rigid tone the whole time. Automation helps a lot with progression, and it's independent of the synth phase/position. I believe you're talking about Multi-Stage Envelope Generators, which are still just a form of shrunken automation.

Ah, okay. Thanks. I was never in a real music theory class, I was just asked to apply it during my years in choir.

Weird, that actually sounds like a different definition to me. The way you said it, it sounds like your context of "Parallel" is multiple usages in a row, whereas I'm thinking of the interval. I don't think I was ever clearly taught what "parallel" really meant and just heard examples from my teacher, so I assumed it was "parallel thirds", "perfect fourths", and "perfect fifths". I've always thought parallel meant "played at the same time" 'til now.