timaeus222

The EP soloing shifting it back to major was my favorite part.

Okay, well, I don't know you at all, so that's established. Intro can throw a lot of people off. Pacing is disturbed by the tempo slowdown, and the vocal sample is a tad cheesy, especially since it says your name. Just because you're a hip hop artist doesn't mean you have to brand your name onto every song you write. Overall instrumentation sounds generic; auto-pilot hip hop drums (timbre-wise), static dry background instrumentation. Sorry, but there's going to have to be an improvement quality-wise and arrangement-wise. It's a start, but you're missing a cohesiveness to your remix IMO.

One of my absolute favorites on this album. Awesome jobs! =D

I feel like the strings are a bit muted behind the brass and seem to be the weak link here, but not a big deal. Good luck on the sub!

This does complete justice to both their remixing and their judging skills. Arrangement is intelligently done, prevalent sync lead love mentioned in the past is emphasized here, and OA's vast knowledge of musical styles really shines here. Recommended.

Quirky track that brings in a lot of fun!

Tempo changes were smooth and overall flow worked pretty well. Awesome job. =)

It's a nice improvement. A few new tools (like Fruity Waveshaper, for example), more memory support IIRC, a new pattern organization method, etc. Personally I think the new pattern organization is easier to use. Now you don't have to pointlessly click on the pattern in the Legacy Blocks section to be able to use the pattern (it's now a dropdown menu of patterns). It takes about a day or two to get used to, but it's helpful. You also don't have to scroll down to the last pattern in your list just to use it; you can access it from that dropdown menu which fits your screen, most likely. Workflow won't change too much otherwise, I think. I didn't think you could, but Kristina found that video. Use the FL extended memory version to get over the normal 2GB RAM limits, and yes, bridging is now automatic.

Hm, I'm thinking the snare is too resonant in the midrange, which makes it similar to a kick tone. 1:20 is where you can hear the problem best. The sidechained PWM bass may also benefit from a wide mild scoop in the mids to give the leads more room to breathe. Turning down the reverb on everything by about 2~5% should help the clarity too. Right now the crossover frequencies are overlapping a lot and creating low mids muddiness.

I'm actually emphasizing not the ability to write it all, but the ability to think of it all and then writing enough of it in before you forget it! Two mind-blowing orchestral pieces: - I actually managed to find time to recreate ~30 seconds of this one pretty decently; of course, I didn't have the same libraries, but I heard enough to rewrite it note-for-note. It was this song that let me realize the difference in quality between EWQL and LASS. What a difference $1000 makes...https://soundcloud.com/stephen-anderson/i-am-the-sentinel-credits - This guy is so pro... His bass mixing is spot on, his brass is perfectly in your face, AND he actually replied to some of my soundcloud comments.

Not bad. It would be cooler if you had more flashy trills, octave shifts, harmonic interplay, etc., but sounds pretty good.

Yeah, this is still a WIP in terms of arrangement too, but I've got a good amount of it done recently.

Makes sense; basically you're saying it sounds cohesive. Thanks.

Hey, no worries. I'm pretty new to the orchestral scene too. I can infuse orchestral instruments into my electronic music, but writing an entire orchestral piece is pretty tough. Mainly because of the many parts you have to write at once every step of the way; if only sampler engines could intelligently detect how many voices you have and distribute them to the right instruments based on pitch, right?

Something I've been working on recently for some reason that won't be revealed yet. http://soundcloud.com/timaeus222/dark-barren-world-wip

The rhythm gets bit lost in the beginning. It took me a few rewinds to figure out the time signature was 6/8 with a 5/8 at the fourth iteration. I don't want to have to tap my finger and count the beat like that just to get a groove going. Intro has just high and low brass and cinematic percussion (djembes?). Low end is muddy for the tubas and french horns, and I can't hear the individual notes. If your samples aren't doing it for you, write simpler notes for those low brass instruments. 1:08-1:56 gets really cluttered. French horn notes are bleeding into each other, and I can't distinguish the trumpet notes from the trombone notes (are you even using trumpets? Yeah, I actually had to ask). Basically, too many moving parts at the same time. It's like babysitting 3 or 4 hyper kids all with differing personalities. 1:56 sounds separate from what came before, so you'll be needing a transition there. 2:27 sounds a bit blocky to me. The straight eighth notes in the trombones and trumpets (and french horn?) disrupt the pacing a bit. 2:53-3:39 has the same problem as 1:08. Sounds to me like you're trying to use brass for everything, when you can totally use strings for some parts if you have them. This could be the inspiration you need. http://soundcloud.com/stephen-anderson/dinosaur-dna

I've decided to update my original picks too. Original post was updated as well. New picks:

Happy birthday! =D

Cosmic Sounds and I are pretty available.

Sounds like an awesome improvement from before, and now it's basically just samples that are your problem. Unfortunately that's pretty much only solvable by spending money on a sample library. Rarely are dedicated orchestral songs believable with free samples or soundfonts. This arrangement on its own would pass, but yeah, you'll need better samples to do this dedicated an orchestral remix.

Kick at 0:31 is quiet. I can kinda hear a literal click, but it's nowhere near the ideal strength. 0:52 organ definitely doesn't fit, and I haven't a clue what it's doing there. I think 1:03-1:14 sounds pretty dissonant in the wrong way. You can hear it pretty clearly because of the polyphonic saw wave you used. Speaking of which, I think that's a really plain saw wave. Needs a little more personality to its tone. Maybe some detuning and heavy vibrato. 1:22 has weird low bass notes that seem to make it muddy, and makes it worse on the rhodes at 1:26. 1:51 key change is abrupt. 1:59 pitch dropping gated effect is pretty cool. 2:28 needs more to lead into that ambient ending. Interesting concept, needs those updates.

The instruments were pretty basic, especially the percussion. The SMB1 overworld also had a wrong note. You tried to put it into a minor key for part of it, but it doesn't work. You stuck to the first OW for too long, IMO. Sounds like you did a MIDI remix and tacked on the other two in the same way. 1:08 is really jarring and there's nothing to connect the two themes. 1:56 tempo change to the new theme is really obvious. You had a good idea with trying to connect these themes together as they should be related a little, but it wasn't quite as seamless as it should be for it to be a medley with interest. Maybe it'd be better if you tried one song at a time first, and then later on when you get really familiar with these themes and transitions, you can try again.

That sounds so wrong. xD EDIT: Okay, I've made my picks. 1. Junk Man (MM7) 2. (MM9)3. Cloud Man (MM7) 4. (MM9) 5. (MM6)

I wasn't really saying that your instruments were actually from the MIDI library---they just had that type of quality. Because of the plainness of the instruments (for example, the default square lead), any song can be put together using these instruments without very much actual mixing at all since their frequency distribution is thin already. That's a sign that you need higher quality instruments if you want to do more serious compositions.