timaeus222

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.

The Blue Blurber

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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.

I'm definitely going this week, and DAMN, this is going to be funky.

Great, now you're going to make me want to get more NASTY than you. Holy cow though, that's a lot of treble.

Of course, but it's also a great learning experience.

I recognize the drum samples I used with you earlier. The 0:30 and 0:40 cymbals are actually too soft, and they're hard to hear unless you listen more than once. The 0:38 gate width is still too long. Try making it a 50% width gate. The 0:40 dance section has drums that, yes, don't fit. The kick should be stronger or louder or both, and the snare would fare better with some mild noise gating to shorten the tail. The 0:43 double snare hit sounds like it's the same velocity. You can lower the velocity of the second hit and add a third hit after the second hit. [X][_][X][X] The 0:47 swap between the two hard-panned guitar tracks came off as awkward to me. Maybe if it was embraced a bit more, with a higher volume and slightly longer decay. At 0:48, there's a balance issue between the guitar and drums. The guitar is too loud, and the drums are also too soft.

Really? Alright then, I guess I can take that as an "OK". Just to clarify though, it's the synth on the left that plays something similar.

It's REALLY subtle, but you can hear a choir-esque sound in the background here.

Change of plans... if Cosmic Sounds ends up not being able to do week two, I'm gonna do week two and he'll go week three. If he can go week two, I'll do week three as normal. I'm probably going to be doing week two, it seems. I also wouldn't be against that Aladdin track suggestion.

This is a question you've answered before, but it's a different type of situation. Similar question answered here: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=34717 My version of the question: I'm writing a ReMix for submission, and it uses a countermelody line inspired by Billy Joel's . The countermelody is audible, but not the main focus, and it's pretty subtle. Snippet 1, Snippet 2Essentially, about 25% of the ReMix uses that in total so far (it's about 90% of the intended final length at the moment), in those two sections specifically. Assuming this would have passed based on production, would this still be eligible, or should I adjust the notes (I wouldn't have a problem removing the countermelody altogether in Snippet 1 to make some headroom)?

:d :d Wait, how did the YouTube links get lowercased in the quote?

, or ?

At 0:13, the piano is about 0.4~0.8dB too loud, to me; at 0:30, you should try a cymbal to signal the low pass; and at 0:38, the gate width is a tad too long, IMO.

When you use Zebra patches, it's wise to check in the Mixer section of the oscillators (Phase/Sync, Osc FX, Mixer) and look at the Width knob. If it's all the way up, it's really wide already, so widening it with Fruity Stereo Shaper is somewhat redundant. As you might imagine, if the Width knob is at 0, then it's mono. Hm... yeah, I hear the pizzicato now. It didn't really sound like pizzicato at first, though. I think it's because it's a sample that's a little far from the mic, which makes it a bit duller. When I write string parts, I do a little more than just EQ and "String Section Hall" reverb (ArtsAcoustic preset with less wet mix). I put it closer to the listener with Fruity Stereo Enhancer's phase inversion since an orchestral diagram has strings pretty much next to or right in front of the conductor.

lol, I hear the intonation in that. I would have just said "wtf" and left it that, though, if you hadn't pointed it out. Here's something I just now noticed. It's in the treble range, so I guess my older headphones were just that bad. at 0:34 - 0:39 (0:29 - 0:34 in the MP3), there is a buzzy PWM bass seeping through.

Just to clarify, Zebra is the only synth I know of that displays exactly what you're using and nothing extra, which I find very convenient. Even though I've stayed with it for over a year now, I still believe it's relatively easy to use if you work with it enough. I understand if you aren't sure how to get a thinner filter on Zebra, but I believe it just takes some experimentation with envelope depths, filter choices, and wavetable drawing. I'm not sure though why you said Massive has a thinner filter than Zebra, because we both know Massive can create some pretty fat dubstep wobbles. Although Zebra is also capable of doing that, it's actually much harder from my experience using it because the wavetable that Massive has is very close to the typical target tone, and in Zebra I've had to play around with it quite a bit to emulate the fat sound of Massive (in fact, at one point I've managed to recreate the Modern Talking wavetable somehow). Maybe you're just comparing the initialize patches?

Hm... did you do any stereo separation? I can hear the wind, shakers, triangle, Damage drums, pseudo-chime (2:19), organ, flute, and strings, but I don't hear the brass very well. I kind of hear something that sounds french horn-like at 2:30, but its timbre is really similar to the flute at that point.