timaeus222

Well, simply put, the instruments are more or less generic MIDI-instrument-library-based. Basically, the sounds used are dry and plain, and very little mixing is required for this kind of song. 1:18-1:23 was pretty good sequencing though on that square lead.

The first few seconds did not contribute to the song, IMO. It felt off-tempo. Guitar sounds mechanical and definitely fake. Too many hammer-ons and portamentos. Bass guitar is too loud near the 60Hz range. Sounds like it was just instruments replacing prewritten MIDI.

My belief is that if the end result sounds good, then the song is good. Even if your instrument reads as out of phase, the overall phase cancellation result would be pretty complex, so if it still sounds right overall, don't worry about it. I've never actually had any noticeable issues when I do wide panning. It's actually helped tremendously with my sound clarity and distinctness. (Just in case you're a little skeptical, you can try looking at my soundcloud if you want to)

Hm, you shouldn't have to simply low pass the lead like that. Isn't there a resonance knob in your synth? If you just low pass it, you take out the higher frequencies that help it to pierce through. If it's resonant, then it's boosted too much in one particular frequency range, but it moves with the current note being played (i.e. it's a keytracked/keyfollowed, internal EQ issue), so to lessen it, you'll have to turn down a resonance knob in your synth that should exist (it's a relatively common knob). I mean an actual, typical cymbal. I didn't really hear anything resembling a cymbal connecting those sections. Weird, it sounds a little bit different at 2:30. Did you add something else that also has delay, or change the snare velocities or sequencing? I don't know what DAW you're using (it's not in your profile at the moment), but do you happen to have an EQ that lets you see the frequencies that your instruments are occupying? Something like this (ignore the oval)? Wait a minute, are you sure you said that right? You said "the sub bass is side chained to the kick and snare." It should be the other way around, as the kick should be heard over the bass. It's also not entirely necessary to sidechain the snare to the bass. You could just do a peaking EQ at the snare fundamental (200~300Hz or so) and a notch EQ in the bass where the snare fundamental is. That should make some room; you could also try that with the kick. Another solution or additional thing you can do is pan the effects you have a little wider using ping pong delay that has particular delay times. If you make it so you can't hear the distinct echoes by speeding up the delay times to a certain extent, then it'll sound wider without sounding like actual delay. That should help with, for example, your wub-like bass at 3:13.

Have someone massage your hands if they start to hurt. Could be carpal tunnel. Hope not.

0:41 sine-like wave is too resonant. 0:55 - where's the cymbal? Dunno why, but the snare sounds wide to me. Should be panned center. Check the mix's low end some more. Still a little iffy. 2:30 snare delay is too much. Try using 2:18's snare delay feedback level at 2:30 and removing it at 2:18. 2:44 lead is same as before, and washed in reverb. Makes low end muddy. It's most obvious at 3:14 that it's cluttered spatially and frequency-wise. Snare overall is a little dry.

If you really need to, just PM them, assuming you haven't yet.

3:00 or so was the one part that stood out to me as cluttered, but aside from that, pretty well done!

Yep, arrangement is too close to the original. You even have the same little gliss in the beginning.

Chroma Car Keys was pretty cool. Guitar could have been less mechanical, but it's not a huge deal. Filler effects could have been a great addition, like white noise sweeps, etc. Speeding Ticket was missing some bass, and mostly the low end was a problem. I couldn't really get much low end power from it, from either the bass or the kick. Treble was an issue too, but less so. SDG II sounded pretty standard, although using the right articulations would also help with the realism; try imagining a real guitar player and that should help. i.e. use Tapping Mode if you actually want genuine finger tapping, use legato for fast passages, etc. H2Oil was a nice step up from the other three, but I think the intro pads were a little too quiet and simple, and needed a more evolving tone. Try looking at for an idea of what I mean for the pads. 0:34 synth lead was slightly too quiet in volume (not velocity) and thin. At 0:54 in particular, EP could have used louder tines, or just a quiet bell layered on top. It isn't needed in other parts where it's less exposed. 2:29 guitar could benefit from some chorus. 3:02 sine wave would be nicer with some slightly heavy vibrato. Would have been great if there was something to connect 3:55 and 3:57 together, and some richer pads at 3:57. These sound great overall, and just need some polish.

I don't know what samples you're using, but realism is a big problem here. You're trying to sound realistic, so humanization and good samples are a great idea. Maybe effective sequencing can let you get by sometimes, but other times you just need to use those special articulations well. 0:18 strings are not fake-sounding in terms of the samples used per se, but the articulations make it sound like the strings are falling behind. You need to give it a phrasing that makes sense, like someone is actually playing. 0:49 flute does sound like it's falling behind. Definitely because of the attack of the articulation(s) used. 1:16 is really suffering from weak samples. A stronger low string section would really improve the intensity level quite a bit. The reverb low cut is also killing the power. 1:40 isn't as powerful a break as you could have done had the cellos/double basses been a bit closer to the mic. 2:00 is oddly pretty good. Of course, it does have room for improvement, but here it's mainly the reverb that's the problem. Same with 2:31. I highly recommend this badass for your cinematic inspiration.

Well, the arrangement gets pretty spastic and goes plenty of places too quickly, but glad you had fun.

HEY. HEY. HEY. I could've sworn I said something, like, a year ago, but I didn't. D: By far the most variations I've ever heard on any one section in a source material. It took a few listens before I could really appreciate the amount of work it took to reiterate the same notes in completely different instrumentation and atmosphere, but this is masterful stuff. <3

It's not the pauses I don't like, but the way you handle those pauses. Before each one, there's only the decay of certain instruments (piano, chorused guitar, synth SFX, birds, etc.), but nothing much to connect each distinct section. If you look at 0:38, 0:51, and 1:03, they all end the same way---with a piano decaying. From 0:32 to 1:09, it sounds like three iterations of the same chord progression, the same instruments, and the exact same guitar notes, even though they're slightly different articulations, plus a few new but pretty subtle modifications. For example, 0:44 is just 0:32 repeated with more overhead drums and background bells. 0:57 is just 0:44 repeated with new bell notes, but the bells are background based on how you placed them, so they aren't extremely noticeable the first listen through. 1:34 sounds like 0:32 without the strings and with a quiet little delayed mallet instrument added. Basically I'm asking that you think outside the box some more and find a way to connect those sections rather than just repeating them exactly as they are with slight, hard-to-notice variations. I notice them, but I notice a lot of subtleties, so don't count on my noticing them as a confirmation that you've done enough to differentiate the sections. , but you don't have to be this drastic in atmospheric shifts. Notice how the same Devil's Lab theme has loads of variation, though. Up until 1:18, the ReMix is still using 0:00-0:39 in the source!

I agree, it feels like you low passed the master or something. I'm not getting stuff above around 16kHz or so. Low end feels muddy for some reason. I guess it's the tone of the bass. Pretty obvious at 0:49 that things are being cluttered. 1:02 needs more stereo separation to sound cleaner. The supersaw lead is sort of overpowering the backup saw one octave down. 1:46 didn't feel as powerful as it could have been since you could have gone a tiny bit farther in the high pass automation, not to mention the unclear bass from before weakening the impact. Improving the bass clarity should help a lot with more than just this. 2:16 had some interesting gating, but it wasn't very noticeable due to the really thin gating widths. 2:34 tempo shift into a swing feel was a bit abrupt, and the new tempo was a little too slow. I'd say bump up that new tempo by 4~8 BPM. The new swing section is pretty cluttered in the highs as well. i.e. 2:45 gets too busy. 3:08 tempo shift is again too abrupt. Maybe you could do it less of an exponential slope, and more linear. Nice ideas, needs production touch-ups.

Duuuuuude. Happy birthday zircon, BlackPanther, and Anorax! PS: I just sent you a present, zircon! =D

Sounding much better. 0:50 is a little risky. EQ-wise it sounds good. I think you should lower the volume of the sounds used there about 0.2~0.6dB each though, at least until when you lower them it actually makes a difference. i.e. Let's say they peak at 0.6dB. If you lower them until they reach 0dB and you've had a soft knee limiter on the whole time, they should sound like they're at the same volume. Personally, I thought the first minute was much better than what came after. I think you should keep polishing what comes after until you're satisfied, because the first minute trumps the rest by a long shot. Ending is a bit weird though. Maybe you can use actual door knock samples.

Sounds great so far. It'd be even better if you vary the lead notes a little more at 0:33~1:02 since it feels like that section is really similar to what came before it. For some reason, the cellos/double basses at 1:02 sound more muddy than they were previously. Try checking the velocities and seeing if they're playing strongly enough, since I can barely hear any of that trebly attack (Try listening to to imitate cello/double bass articulations. Although the strings library used is LA Scoring Strings, you could just peak-boost the treble carefully and that should be pretty similar even with the hall reverb). I think it's a problem with the reverb being too much, but you can't really do anything about that internally, unfortunately. I guess you could do a little more EQ carving. High pass whatever doesn't ever play low enough to occupy those frequencies, and that could help a little. 1:33 is cluttered still; it sounds like the "only" way for the brass to come through is to do sforzando or some other strong attack sample. Let up some on the master compressor gain, or put in a volume control effect on the master after the compressor in the effects rack (Last year or so I used to think it didn't have a specific order, but it DOES!). That might give you room to be more flexible with the articulations. Boosting things too loudly is gonna squash the transients. Letting up even a little could help a good amount. The cymbal at 1:46 or so seems to have come a little early, maybe around a quarter of a second or so. Try to get it to line up with the first beat. The compression here is also making this feel too packed. I just think it could be the compression or just the velocities, but I'm leaning towards the compression, since the articulations sound fitting (aside from the brass sounding sforzando almost all the time). Overall, the balance is a whole lot better! The main issue is the master compression being too much, which leaves you having to use strong articulations on the brass just to have it be decently audible, but you shouldn't have to. Great work so far!

I agree that the piano should have come up a little bit more, but I'm not really a fan of the drum sequencing here; the rapid kicks are interfering with what the piano is doing. It's like mixing hip hop with solo piano. It even feels slightly bare at times. The pads are quite nice though, and the bells are neat. Nice triplet at 2:54. D'oh! Fade out! x( Oh well, great job anyways!

Dun worry, there was one. I just used that as an example of guitar+bass mixing. ----------- Hey Gar, you should make a copy of the project file, then try not high passing your guitars so much on the copy, and instead try dipping your guitars where your bass is. See how that changes the low end power. I'd high pass the guitars on a relatively gentle slope near 25Hz. Something kind of like this. I think the flute should be louder in volume (rather than velocity of course) by about 0.4~0.8dB. 0:21 is missing some low end to me. Could be that guitar high pass at 200Hz. You may just be overthinking things. You still want that guitar picking frequency for the "presence" to remain along with the bass bite. For some reason I'm not really hearing that kick at 0:35. I can barely feel it, so I don't think the click is really there yet. It's better at 1:36 oddly enough. Something's up. 1:40 glitching could be a tiny bit louder, maybe +0.2~0.4dB. Is this on a hard knee limiter? That could be why things aren't getting too loud that easily. Try letting up a bit on the look ahead setting. Just watch out for clipping, or tack on a soft knee limiter next in the chain to transparently catch peaks. I could feel a little bass at 3:24, but it's not really powerful. Getting there.

Lots of attention to detail here. Pretty fun and varied the whole time. Great job!

http://soundcloud.com/timaeus222/fun-with-granular-synthesis Some rather hilarious fun I had playing around with granular synthesis.

Taking a look at the pacing, I'm finding it pretty plodding. That's mainly because the first drone-like pad has a pretty static texture. Although there's other stuff happening around it, like anvils (with tape delay?), plucky portamento synths, filter envelope basses, etc., the pad itself doesn't keep my attention very well. I find the stop at 0:43 very strange. Sounds like an ending, then suddenly a guitar comes in. Same at 0:57, 1:10, 1:22, and 1:35. That messes with the pacing a whole bunch. 1:58 anvil is a tiny bit resonant or too high in treble. Based on arrangement, I don't believe this would pass, but the production is great, and the instrumentation is cohesive.

Submitted already? Aw, I would have suggested you layer that kick some more, because I can barely feel that thump. Some slight low passing on that 0:28 lead would have helped too. Great arrangement though. If the above turns out to be minor nitpicks for the j00js, then you should be fine.

The highs are just 10kHz+. Reverb is pretty basic, so you ought to get familiar with it and Delay.