timaeus222

I was waiting for zombie tunez.

Oddly enough, I already notch my bass where my kick is. It's weird how there's nothing about sidechaining on there, though.

Volume is good now. It's hard to get a good pacing on a source like this, though. Can you think of a faster variation of the melody to put in (i.e. 8th notes instead of quarter notes, etc.), maybe with some bells? 1:42 would be a good time to do that. Just a few filler notes in between sustains would probably be sufficient. Right now the instrumentation is really slow, and with all due respect, it's bound to put people to sleep.

It's not that the wobbles are too wide, but it could be the case that you didn't sidechain it so it sounds muddy. However, I do honestly think that the timbre of them should be adjusted to better complement the drums. They don't necessarily need to be less or more harsh, just different. Dubstep timbres are hard to describe without actual examples, so I'll ask that you try experimenting with that suggestion in mind. They also appear to be slightly too loud; you could try bringing the wobbles down in volume a tiny bit (and switching leads, too?). It would also be interesting if you tried some panning effects, just to up the complexity. I believe the low end of the snare is troublesome more in terms of the samples used, rather than the EQ, for the most part.

Great adaptation to a minor key! That isn't done very often---only , AFAIK, so good idea.The left hand sounds a little muddy, so perhaps your reverb needs a slight bump up on the low cut crossover frequency. The piano itself might need some more velocity adjustments if it's MIDI, because it seems the reverb could be covering up some mechanical imperfections. The drums at 1:13 were unexpected, so try adding a reverse cymbal or some sort of leadin there. For some reason the drums seem to all be panned center except for a hi hat and a ride. Try panning like a real drum kit. The one in my high school's choir room has the Hi Hat on the left, Cymbal/Ride on the right, Snare slight right, Kick center, and... one Tom. Toms should be: Hi Tom right, Mid Tom slight right, Low Tom slight left (more left than the Mid Tom is right), Floor Tom left. It's also useful to try out some mid-side and/or bus compression and room reverb to see if it helps any on the drum punchiness. Make sure you sidechain the kick to the bass you added. It's also helpful to add automation to lower the frequency bands below 150Hz or so on the piano to make room for the bass.

It's really quiet. In fact, it peaks at -10~-7dB. The pacing is okay, but it's not going to be a meaningful listen. As much as you want to make it ambient, ambient doesn't necessarily mean background music, but this does sound like background music. See if you can find a way to put some more interesting textures into the arrangement, rather than letting your sub bass and nature effects carry the whole song on their own. When I read ambient, I was expecting lush pads, which did not show up. Maybe it would be a good idea to audition some pad samples. As far as I'm concerned, the first real lead is at 1:31. Right now, it's bleeding into the background because it's too quiet. Try bumping it up about 4~5dB and boosting at the 1500, 3000, and 6000Hz ranges a little bit with peaking bands to bring out the presence of the lead. Also, try lightly high passing the sub bass, just so it isn't so 'boomy'. A good example of an ambient section in a song would be this one at 2:03 - 2:56. It does not mean drums are necessary, but they would liven things up a bit. In other words, this particular version wouldn't make it on OCR because of these reasons: ARRANGEMENT / INTERPRETATION [X] Too liberal --- Possibly, due to the long sustained pad-like 'drones' PRODUCTION [X] Too quiet --- Needs a volume bump of about 5 dB [X] Low-quality samples --- The tones are not quite nailed, IMO [X] Mixing is muddy --- Possibly too much low end reverb, and sub bass is a bit loud compared to other instruments STRUCTURE [X] Not enough changes in sounds (eg. static texture, not dynamic enough) [X] Pace too plodding --- Even for ambient. [X] Too repetitive --- Yes, even for ambient.

I have no issues with that. By "done", I meant I'm ready for it to be checked on. I put the 44kHz 1411kbps stereo WAV just in case you happen to like it how it is, and so I can simply update the file in Box as I update, without having to send a whole new email with a new link to the new WAV.

Oh, okay. Well, Shreddage 2 is still loading really slowly, both the original patch and the beta update, after reinstalling Kontakt 5. I'm gonna try the "Save Multi as..." option to generate .ncw files, as it seems to be creating them well enough. EDIT: Well, it didn't fix the large delay in the initialization of the patch loading, but it loads almost instantly now, once it gets past the freezing. Now it takes about 5 minutes total instead of 30.

I could try that. Did you ever get a weird glitch where the installer asked you to put the 32-bit VST plugin in C:\Program Files\FL Studio 1? It literally says 1, and every time I change it, it doesn't change properly, and I have to just move the .dll files to the VstPlugins folder manually.

I don't know how accurate you want me to be, but I have Kontakt 5.1.0, and the first released version of Shreddage 2 was made on Kontakt 5.0.2 (zircon did release a beta update on May 2, made with Kontakt 5.1.0.6366, which also managed to load, very slowly, on the Standalone Kontakt 5). EDIT: After waiting about 8-10 minutes, the S2 beta update finally began to load, and still took a while (~20 minutes), on FL in the Kontakt 5 VST. I guess that helped a tiny bit. At least it unfroze. Although, even then, after the patch itself finished loading, the samples are still loading too.

How would you 'reinstall' Shreddage? It's a library. There's no installer. :S

I just wanna make sure DusK and Dj Mokram know that my remix is done; still says 'WIP' in the OP.

This is really weird. I just got Shreddage II, and I tried opening it in Kontakt 5. It worked fine in Standalone Mode (took about 5 minutes to load, though), but then when I tried opening it in the Kontakt 5 VST in FL Studio 10, it basically freezes FL. I've tried waiting for about 30 minutes for it to load in FL, and there was no unfreezing. Every other library I have that was made for Kontakt 4.2.3 and above work fine, and load at a normal speed. Does anybody know what's going on? Could it have to do with the nkr/nkc/nkx method of compression as compared to ncw?

Very upbeat, sprightly (which, believe it or not, is an adjective!), and overall very nicely contrasted with the gruesome, trippy wubs.

A tad too much reverb, but everything for the most part is still clear (some bitcrushing suffered as a result), and I do love the approach. Risky with the low end reverb, but it works. No idea why I didn't notice this when it was posted.

I don't think I saw that when it got posted. A tad too much reverb, but everything is still clear, and I do love the approach. Risky with the low end reverb, but it works. /offtopic

I just submitted something, but I didn't get a confirmation email. Can a judge tell me if they got the email? I don't want to send two by accident.

Iiiii should probably polish my entry some moar then.

I actually think that the wubs should be adjusted to better complement the drums, and the kick and snare aren't coming through well enough yet. Also, this is by DJZaGa, not Rockos (or did Rockos write a different track?).

True, I do also promote creativity. I just believe that if you're capable of doing something that people will like, go for that; if you can't, do what you do best, polish it as best as you can, hope for the best, and try to have no hard feelings if a few people don't like it.

Don't worry, I still like dubstep, and some others would too, even if it's exposed, but IMO, mainly when it's done well. Do notice though, that so far, in many raw dubstep mixposts in the past, on youtube there's been an imbalance in likes/dislikes. For the benefit of the OP, here are some dubstep mixposts that were: Reasonably liked on YouTube: These ones received fairly good reception: Given an unfair glare on YouTube (none others come to mind, actually): Just something to be aware of. If you have wubs, they "must" be awesome wubs or people will be all ".

https://soundcloud.com/zircon-1/augment

It's actually kinda quiet. The guitar's good, but the bass isn't coming through there either. I think it's mainly the writing, with some detriment from the mixing.

A few nitpicks. The piano was very mechanical, the guitar and bass are muddled/muted/compressed, and the whole track feels overcompressed. The guitar was also a little narrow, both tonally and panning-wise. Arrangement shows some promise.