timaeus222

I did take piano lessons for 9 years, but that just helped me improvise, and I didn't really learn music theory seriously at that point. I just write something if I think of something, but maybe around 1~4 hours a day, usually 2.

I'm not sure how to download that. I tried emailing it to myself. Didn't work.

It's definitely an improvement from before. It's kind of odd now that the snare is panned though. I think the 0:31 phaser bass is coming in too quickly. Maybe you could try fading it in. The 0:47 overhead drums are good, they just need to be a bit louder, because they sound like they're there but not obviously there. Right now it's like how hi hats usually tend to not be heard on the first listen. 0:50 is more full, but try to use a different bass there, or EQ it differently because it's really muddy. You could go the traditional route with a "reese" bass if you have one, or maybe a Pulse Width Modulation bass? I guess 1:20 could be a bridge, but the arp needs to have more variation. Going back and forth on those notes gets pretty grating. Maybe you could do some faster notes sometimes, like a glissando. Also, 1:55 sounds like it needs a transition, like a cymbal or something to connect the sections.

Organic, as in acoustic? Or vinyl? Both are "organic" to an extent. Some vinyl have an organic quality to them, and some vinyl are not, and it really depends on the sample pack you choose. I'd suggest When Alien Drum Robots Attack and MPC60 Vol 3 from goldbaby.co.nz Generally you can stay with the chord for the bass, but sometimes you can have the bass play "outside the box". For example, you can have a bass note one octave plus one whole step below the highest note in a chord and it could sound jazzy. A D chord with a G base would be a way to write a Dsus4 chord with the G shifted down an octave so it sounds less dissonant. In music theory it would be written as D/G. By the way, I don't really know music theory formally. xD

This is just personal preference, but 0:06's sub bass would be more pleasant if it was either an actual bass or high passed to eliminate some of the lowest sub bass frequencies. I'd say the acoustic rimshot could be layered with a mildly high passed snare with a pop-up feel to it. If you imagine a person hitting a snare drum and quickly lifting their hand after one hit, that's what "pop-up feel" means. 0:22 plucky lead is slightly too soft by about 0.4~1.2dB, so it feels too distant to be purposeful. 0:41 bass had the stereo image avaris would be looking for, but try to accomplish that without using a phaser, because a phaser may have presets that are supposed to do that already. It would mean you did that by accident. 0:44 is pretty bare with that squelchy synth. It needs something to lead into the DnB section, even if it's supposed to be a pseudo-fake-out. You could add in a white noise sweep downwards or something resembling that for the effect I'm thinking of. 0:49 has no cymbal, and the hi hats are mechanical. Why are the hi hats that fast, anyways? If you're going to do that, try having the highest volume being the first, second highest volume being the third, and third highest volume being the second and fourth hits I suppose. I wasn't sure at first what's in the low end. I thought it was a double bass, but it's an electro pluck bass. The snare should also be stronger here, and not just a rimshot. The lead also is not fitting either. It should be an elongated, flowing, somewhat floaty lead. 1:20 could be muddy, but to make sure, you could automate a high pass on the bassy instruments downwards from a point where it doesn't clash with that ambient impact, until the impact tail is over. The bass at 1:20 is actually really loud in a particular frequency, not necessarily in volume. 1:20 - 1:56 doesn't seem to have a direction to me. Based on what you wrote, I'm just waiting for some sort of buildup, but it never happens. The 1:56 automated arp staying on the same note a lot of the time is pretty repetitive. Keep working on it. Some of the sounds are interesting. You just gotta figure out which ones.

Okay, now it's more listenable. It's still too loud, but not to the extent where it's clipping and unbearable. The next thing you should look at is a sense of dynamics. The song, even with soundcloud's sub-par waveform rendering, looks and sounds like the same atmosphere, energy, and feel the entire time. Think about how you want it to start, how it should progress, where you want to go at each particular moment as you write it, and how you want it to end in a satisfying way. In each section, there should be a distinct atmosphere that separates it from other sections to show that it indeed is supposed to be a different section. For example, you can have a high energy section followed by a breakdown section that slowly, but not too slowly, builds back up to high energy. High energy is great, but too much of a good thing can be bad, as you well know. Afterwards, pacing is another good point of discussion. As you focus on dynamics and progression, you'll likely encounter issues with how long you linger on with any particular section. It doesn't make much of a difference how much you like it, because you wrote it, and you're usually biased towards your own work in a subjective way more than an objective way when you first start out. Here's where asking for community feedback really helps. They can help you develop a sense of when to move on to another section, how to connect them, and how to establish a good level of energy in each one to keep people's attention. From there, you could work on either sound selection common sense or equalization common sense. Personally, I believe the sound selection is the more important route, as without good sound selection, EQ won't give you as good of a song as you can get with better sounds. Without good audio input, you can't get good audio output. EQ is easier to learn than sound selection common sense, but it's better to focus on sound selection and learn EQ along the way.

I actually meant exactly what I said, but I'm gonna clarify some more then. I was saying that based on bLiNd and Sole Signal's skills with bass presence as an example, they match each other's level of skill very well. In a case like that, if the client truly can't tell who's better at mixing bass in particular, a degree would make a difference. If the client were to look at their musical styles, not skills, and decide which one fits their purposes and intents better, since bLiNd does mostly dance music, and Sole Signal loves to do cinematic and orchestral mainly, their compositional styles are pretty distinct, which makes the decision a bit easier even if a degree wasn't considered.

Yep, I agree. Try lowering the overall gain by, like, 5 dB. Seriously. You also need to not use a soft clipper.

I need to make this clear. There are some clients who won't hear much of a difference between your level of production and another person's level of production, and the main thing they'd look for is what styles you're capable of. If that's the case, the degree might actually be the deciding factor. If they CAN tell though, then it's safe to bet that polishing your portfolio is the better way to go. For example, let's say we were to compare bLiNd and Sole Signal. They both have a really good handle on bass presence, but to the general client, would they be able to choose if neither bLiNd nor Sole Signal had a degree? Maybe not. Would they be able to choose based on musical style rather than production quality? Yeah, probably. In the end, field experience is key. People normally care if you can definitely do something, not that you can theoretically do it.

I don't know if you feel like leaving it narrow like that, but it'd be nice if you did some panning and stereo imaging to make the mix more 3D.

This is actually pretty cool. There's some odd stereo panning on the kick drum and the weird tom-like hits at 0:29 though. 0:44 is alright, but it could also be improved with some automated resonance or a little extra reverb or both.

Take it from me; you just might get it.

The thought of sampling to me brings the idea of laziness or the inability to recreate something well enough to satisfy your tastes. Even though I've never sampled anything before nor will I ever (aside from granular synthesis), I'm not entirely against it occurring elsewhere. As long as it's different "enough" from the original and shows a significant effort to modify it, I'm okay with it. After all, if sampling were automatically wrong or illegal, granular synthesis would be kaput, right? If someone can tell it was sampled, though, that's when I say it's not done well enough to warrant an "OK", but if the artist is credited and/or negotiated with when necessary, I don't mind that much.

Yeah, please take a picture. It seems a bit vague to me. Not that I know of, as it's a new feature. It's even emphasized on the release video.

A degree is helpful, but not entirely necessary all the time. If you want a degree, it's still a good idea.

Hearing just a little overcompression from the kick, but not a huge deal. Interesting electro-retro remix.

This is one of my favorite games, and you definitely had a smooth arrangement here! Loved the transitional choices, and it flows really well.

1. If you're saying what I think you're saying, you can use the slicer to chop up the patterns. Click the ones you want and then click again to paste. If you're talking about the result of the "playing truncated notes" feature, try unchecking it in the Audio Settings. I'm not sure if that toggle is still there (I decided not to upgrade). 2. You don't have to adjust the micro-adjusting intervals if you don't want to. Just hold Alt and click-drag. That's max precision. 4. Looks like it's just a faster way to write in notes, but I wouldn't have been a fan of it. Seems like it lets you change your mind on what notes you write as you write them, though it's easy to make mistakes with it if you accidentally click...

I don't think Infenro is necessarily looking for dubstep wobbles only. could be something worthwhile to try to make, or maybe (the tremolo sweeping resonant bass in the background). The tone itself is usually based on experimentation and knowledge of your synth. If you have a synth that can route oscillators serially, this will help. You could try an oscillator routed to an FM oscillator for a distorted buzzy sound. Overdrive it afterwards, and then do the standard LFO to test it. Add a little resonance for some strength. Don't overdo it, because some people do that, and that's sometimes why dubstep gets grating. That's a generic wobble.

The way you can tell is by looking at the strength of the drums compared to the background material. The background you have calls for softer drums because you used strings and nature sounds in a calm, slow way. The drum samples you used felt too strong to fit.

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Okay, I should probably post reviews instead of leaving my thoughts private. SilvernixSP (he had a typo in the filename): The drum samples sound generically default to your DAW. It sounds like the drums are raw from FL Studio's FPC. Keys instrument is pushed back a bit much. Conversely, the bass is pushed forward too much. It's practically at the back of my head on headphones, for perspective. It seems like you tried phase inversion on it and kept it. The two basses are kind of fighting, and it's generally not a good idea to have two basses going on at once unless you know neither are going to play at the exact same instance. Overall, the soundscape is pretty bare without much to fill the midrange, to me. The instruments also gave a consistently low bitrate on the encoding overall, so you should consider getting higher quality instruments too. Cash: A bit long. Liking that first soft square lead, but it could use more vibrato expression sometimes. PWM bass is okay, but the style is asking for a better kick drum. Supersaw is too loud. Somewhat of an odd CSD transition. I'd never expect something like that to happen. 2:06 leads don't seem to fit together when layered. Some leads are buried, like at 2:36, for too long. Arrangement is a bit meandering. If you shortened this track and refined your ideas, it should flow better. Jason Covenant: Female vocal pads are interesting. Instrumentation is nice, but this is pushed way too loud. If this whole track were to be lowered by about 1~3dB, transients would add a lot more clarity and fix some overcompression issues you have. Guitars are definitely too loud. Bass frequencies are the main issue. Jivemaster: Kick is a bit too clicky and isn't actually very thumpy. Not a fan of the joke lyrics; could have been censored. Some drum samples are better than others. i.e. Snare is better than the kick sometimes, and the ride is better than the hi hat. Fricatives are a little too upfront and could have been toned down with automated frequency fixes. Arrangement is good. Obtuse: Generic dance instrumentation and vanilla synths, but yes, arrangement is great. Sequencing is better than the sounds used. 0:49 sounds half-time, but it's hard to tell with an obscured kick, for example. Basically, work on strengthening your instruments and processing them to make them sound higher quality if you can't make the money to buy something higher quality. A good reverb tool is a good place to start. Ben Briggs: The treble is too much for me. Interesting high passed bass (which turns out to be a lead later, sort of), but I think it's causing the low end to be hollow. The low end is covered somewhat by the kick, but the rest of it is pretty bare. Production in general is clean otherwise. Arrangement is creative. Thin mechanical claps at 1:18 turned me off. Pizzicato is mechanical at 1:25. Mechanical snare at 1:32 warns the listener for a cheesy break. That said, 1:46 isn't actually that strong. I guess it's because you used a sub bass for strength, rather than a powerful bass created based on good taste? Near the end (2:37), the high end gets pretty cluttered and nothing is really upfront in an obvious way. The harmonics of the chiptune bass got pushed back there. Lastly, the sense of dynamics is kind of lost here. It's loud pretty much the entire time. KingTiger: Intro is a bit strange with the automated phaser, but it got alright soon after. I think the phaser is a bit unpleasant though. Something's too resonant. Near 0:36, the drums are pushed back while the other instrumentation is too upfront and dry. The dynamics are lost here when the sections that could be softer (like 1:02) are way upfront, with the same drum samples. Bass is more well done than the leads IMO, though the bass could be a bit richer. Leads are generally plucky, squelchy, pulsating sync, or supersaws with minimal expression. The dynamics issue makes every section you have sound "the same", even though yes, I could point out differences. As a result, it somewhat adds a sense of repetitiveness. 3:49 should have been an ending, to be honest. That could have been a really nice ending. Jameson Sutton: Pretty jazzy. Sax is quite nice, and actually almost convinced me, though I've never heard a live sax before, I don't think. Maybe once, but not sure. While the soundscape is cool, it gets muddy at 0:46. I don't know if you then had a fretless bass, but I could kind of hear that, I suppose. Too much reverb at that section. EP is too left-panned for me since I'm wearing headphones. Sounds like 90% pan, but I think 40~70% pan would be better. Some harmonies are really awkward. No ending? Orion: Hey, buddy. You're aware of this, but the piano is mechanical. The double bass(es) are too loud in the intro. Great writing ideas that are undermined by muddy clashing EQs. Like I said before, the panning guitar is awkward to me. 1:25 lead is cool. I wish it was louder. I also wish the writing ideas were condensed more. Songs tend to be better if the writing is concise. Let the length come naturally. Try telling yourself to change things up in some significant way every 8 bars or so. Significant means, for example, adding hi hats, a new kick sample, new instruments, etc. Garpocalypse: I guess you took the common approach here with the marimba/steel drums and the wave SFX since it's an island. Guitar isn't as strong as you aimed it to be. Mainly, the limiter you have is leaving you scared of overcompression, so you mix really softly and increase the gain later, and in the end it makes your track weaker overall. The saw lead at 1:17 is too piercing for me. Overall, good ideas, but execution fell behind a bit. Amphibious: I don't know your musical skills very well, but this is pretty cool for such a short remix. I'm digging the funk in this, especially the gated saw. The lead could be a bit more expressive with vibrato, but that's just preference. Seriously though, try putting vibrato on a supersaw. It's sexy. Good work on this. I don't mind the length, but maybe if it was closer to 2:30, that would be even better. I generally shoot for 2:30 or more for length. If I were to rank you on an expressiveness scale... on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say you're at a 9 so far. Keep it up! Hylian Lemon: Neat writing. Same atmospheric intro idea as Gar. 0:20 harmony threw me off. Cool dBlue Glitching is cool. Chiptune stuff is great, seems to be a specialty of yours. The marimba stuff gets a bit plodding though. Pacing overall is somewhat too consistent to me in the leads, and I would have liked some sort of a meter shift. Kuolema: Interesting atmosphere. Almost brooding. Guitar sometimes fell behind the beat a little. It's also not extremely expressive. It sounds like soft strumming rather than emotive riffing. Hi Hat is noticeably close to center-panned (as you know) and too loud. Low end gets muddy sometimes when the kick, bass, and guitar play at the same time.

Same here, ~95% done. I had a really great work session this morning. 18 hours of project time so far! I'm just having too much fun writing this. xD Callin' you out, Ecto! EDIT: Just finished voting.

Yes. That's the technical way of saying it. Samples used. You can process them more.