timaeus222

For some reason this could probably have been written in a Scarborough-Fair-like style, IMO. Interesting style there, awesome harmonies. EDIT: lol, looks like a lot of other people think that about the melody too, after checking out some random youtube video comments. Hilarious how it happened to be used in an actual waltz situation. xD

Yeah, I managed to make a rather rich pad with detuning, envelope edits, flanger, chorus, and EQ. ;D I usually just layer arounds using the layering tool, and EQ that. If I have to make them fit with each other, I just edit their internal EQ. :3 Hm, maybe note cards will help you?

sup, thought I'd post mine here too.

Starts off slowly, rather static pads 'n stuff. The source melody finally comes in at 1:16. However, while the melody is playing, nearly nothing is really dynamically changing in the background. At that section you have rather static pads that actually don't even change notes. Something interesting at 2:23. Well, interesting and odd. No idea what that voice clip thing is, but it sounds awkward and out of place. Great pad there though. Could be more dynamic like noted earlier. 3:21 is kind of strange. Why is the voice stuff there? Any way it contributes to the song? 3:41 - whoo, some drums. Why did you choose to put those drums there? Why not earlier? Why so sudden? Well, I'm asking that because there aren't really any transitions... well... anywhere. Things just happen, apparently. 4:30 - Guitar? Where did that come from? You see what I mean? Nice pads near the end though. I wish those were there earlier in the song. Okay, so you get the idea, right? I don't hear any transitions, and sounds are generally static. Ideas weave in and out with no precursor, no warning, no pattern, and therefore are just abrupt. You need more dynamically changing backing, clean transitions, and meaningful sections in the remix. Right now it sounds like a bunch of pads with ideas thrown together. Good start though. Could also be shortened.

Hm, looks like you can probably accomplish something close to what you did with Fat Mode by just detuning the oscillators. Way less polyphony too!

lmao, but that's 64-bit float. I use 16-bit dither.

Sounds okay on my bad earphones (not home right now), but the ending just needs a few more notes on the arp to end it. You ended it on a weird note, basically. Maybe another note one whole step up from the current last one, bare minimum.

I gotta say, that source is awesome! Dat FM bass. Great sound design on the remix. I can't say any more because soundcloud is crashing like crazy on this iPad. Makes me want to go and remix it... and add to the 5 remixes I have going on at once.

Awesome. I loved the half-time sample-rate-reduction segue into the solo. Really captures the feel of the original AND expands significantly. Sweet funky bassline as well. Well done! PS: You made me figure out how to make a specific type of sound I couldn't wrap my mind around before now.

I sure did send mine!

Yeah. During that break, the left hand is hard to hear clearly. The saw lead that comes in afterwards is also kind of obscured, probably because of the reverb high and low shelves clashing. I think this can be salvaged with a little more work if you're willing.

In that case, maybe you can try lowering the wet mix on one of those and re-evaluate afterwards? Usually reverb mud is the result of a high wet mix or a low cut being too far to the left (and thus reverberating the low end too much).

Sounds like your problem is just a lack of sounds. In that case, I recommend you go to KVRAudio and try searching their database for instruments that you want. There are lots of free things, and if you like something that you want to buy, that's fine too. A lot of the better stuff is commercial.

That's just how I am. Whenever I try listening to orchestral music, I don't hear anything that gives me inspiration. I just like it and move on. The "I don't write orchestral stuff" being a reason is just a theory. No big deal. I tend to find more inspiration from more nuanced sounds, ones that can be synthesized with the more modern synthesizers, like some stuff that comes from Zebra or FM8 or something similar. Yes, orchestras can sound nuanced, but not in the way I'm thinking of. It most definitely is true that I can appreciate orchestral music for its harmonies, articulations, dynamics, arrangement, and all that, but it just doesn't bring any cool ideas to my mind that I find worth pursuing. That comes from my previous experiences, not hypotheticals.

Seems like a straight MIDI remix with some C+P and original drum programming to my ears. The dynamic lead synth in the beginning sounds like a low octave sync lead to me. Sounds pretty good, but slightly dry. Might also need some high passing around 100Hz to leave room for the pluck bass to play. 0:22 - when the drums came in, the cymbals seemed over compressed to me and they're probably hitting the hard knee limiter too hard. Make sure your drums are routed to a good quality compressor. Density MKIII might do the job with its M/S drums preset. Sounds somewhat muddy too, so make sure your EQs aren't clashing. 1:48 got interesting, but then the delay drums at 1:56 (the ones that sound stretched/slowed down, low passed, and heavy on the reverb) just don't work. Might be the sound you wanted to go for, but it doesn't sound all that great, personally. I think from there, you finally add some actual personalization to the remix, though. Try to do more than just that type of personalization! Make the pre-1:48 sections more personalized!

Yes, and I'm totally fine with reverb for an atmospheric feel; however, it seems you have reverb on nearly everything. I hope you didn't lower the dry mix on any of them, because that just obscures the instruments even more. Try getting rid of all the reverb and then re-applying the reverb now that you can gauge it one instrument at a time. I think from there you can have a better idea on how you should go about it. I personally just use enough to make the instruments sound like they're in a room, in most cases. It could also help to know what instruments you want to reverberate at what frequencies. For example, you would probably benefit from a low cut to about 100-150Hz on the reverb (NOT the equalizer!) for a piano. You could also benefit from a high cut on the snare at about 14000-16000Hz. It can get difficult to judge reverb simply because you, like most people, like what you did first, not what people want you to change. Totally fine, but please take the advice and give it a try. If you don't like it, then it means you might need to develop your ears a little bit more by experimenting with your reverb plugin and training your ears to prefer certain types of reverb over others (plate, room, hall, etc.). The same goes to instrument taste.

I actually just used to use noteflight.com for composing sheet music. I generally only do that before I play something in live that isn't intuitive. If it can be improvised, I just improvise it in directly. I would still find that site great though. To me it's easy to use and it can export with, at least, terraced dynamics. I pretty much always use the piano roll nowadays.

Yes, reverb can work. I'm sorry, but in this case, I'm certain it's too much.

Well, your bass waveform looks pretty close to how it looks on a more professionally produced song with that type of bass. Good sign. Definitely sounds cleaner in the low end. 1:05 has some sort of organ playing, but it's quiet. Did you want it that quiet? 1:46 sounds normal now. If you really feel like it, I would recommend automating EQ bands to lower unnecessary frequencies in the busier parts, like 1:32, 2:02, etc. Then when that section is over, you can just automate them back to where they were. That way it'll sound cleaner at that section, and then still sound normal before and after that section. I can hear the snare the whole time now too. The hard knee limiting on the master is what is making some of the stuff hitting the limiter duck a little bit much, but it's negligible at the moment. That's why I asked if you did soft knee or hard knee limiting. The ending needs a little more work, but not much is necessary. Humanization is needed on the strings if you can with what you have. If you have anything organic you feel you should add, go ahead. Remember that organic can just be non-synthetic-like, rather than real. i.e. bells can be called organic, and so can wah clavinets.

Yeah, the lead guitar, at least, is still flat by a few cents.

Wasn't really digging the flanger stuff at 0:39-0:57. Kind of a poor choice, actually, no offense. Drums and percussion felt out of place. Tambourine acting as a hi hat was pretty grating (repetitive) and mechanical (machine-gun-like). 2:24 - Organ sounded particularly dry here to me and grating as well. Needs some room reverb. I stopped listening at this point, even though I do like Mario. Sorry.

Things sound really muddy in the busier parts. Piano and other leads are buried. Everything has too much reverb and things are bleeding into each other. Clear up the clashing EQ and fix the reverb.

Yep, exactly what I was thinking of with the snares that were there before 0:28! The snares sound loud enough now, and I can hear them. The 1:15 reverse claps work great. I'm not sure what's going on at 1:46.5. The lead is un-detuning itself or something right before 1:47 and it feels weird. At this point, I feel you just need to work on humanizing your sounds and fixing little details. EQ sounds OK. It could be better, but it's getting there.

I probably won't make something more than 4 minutes long, so... I'm a little over halfway done, I think. =) FIERCELY BATTLE!