timaeus222   Members

After watching Dan's video, I want to add that it's not a resonant filter you should be working with to make that sound. Resonant filters give a vocal table between Ooh and Aah. At least, that's what I've been hearing when I used resonance. This particular sound sounds like it's... going from Ee to Aah, somewhat. Kind of like Ee to almost Aah, with lots of detuning and an LFO on a bandpass filter.

I usually don't find any inspiration from orchestral music---I don't write orchestral stuff, so it doesn't help me to listen to orchestral music for inspiration.

Might be some sort of resonant formant filter on a pulse wave with a lot of weird pitch bends.

Nice, reminds me of Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. Something of note, the piano playing is slightly off. Examples: 0:53 (between hands), 0:59 (between hands), 1:59 (rushing a bit), 3:49 (wrong note?).

Great deviation from the usual, Will! Yes, the violin sounded kinda fake, but it had some really nice attention to the articulations, so it wasn't all that bad. Fantastic interweaving of sources!

Cool, good idea with the LFO controller on a pitch knob. My MIDI keyboard does have a pitch wheel of course, but it's hard to record pitch bends on it because it has a spring-type thing that brings it back to center every time, so it "clicks" as it passes center. That's why I tend to use LFO modules. I can just adjust the rhythm and it's always synched to the tempo. Then I can automate the LFO rate if I want, without having to record it in live, where mistakes can happen that delay that perfect recording. There's also that need to fix LFOs later, and if you record it in live, it tends to be tough to fix it since if you don't have a Delay feature in an existing LFO module, you don't have a way to adjust how early or late the LFO comes into full effect. Of course, remember that there's a lot of uses for LFO. Most people use it on pitch, but you can also make it a wider LFO that reaches more than just a whole or half step for more dramatic vibratos. I noticed you adjusted the strings. Unfortunately now they sound pretty fake. If you can, make the attack shorter, and the release slightly longer. I think spiccato-ish strings might work better there. 0:58 - just personal taste---you could make it last even longer, and then automate the volume down. Or, even better, you could automate just the dry signal down, and it'll sound even cooler. 1:12 - still sounds a bit bare there. Sounds good on its own, but it would be way better if something else was playing alongside it. Perhaps a resonant sweeping digital filter? The drums overall seem to be on autopilot to me. I don't hear a lot of fills. Additionally, the kick and snare are quite weak. Needs more layering on the fundamentals (80-140Hz for the kick, 200-300Hz for the snare), and some saturation to add some more power. 1:16 - Here's where it gets really muddy. I tend to do this, so maybe it'll help if you do a notch in the EQ in the bass exactly where the kick lies, so that the kick has some more room to breathe. You could also high pass the 3o3 arp to accommodate. Or, you could automate a high pass by automating an EQ band's frequency. Recently I started automating EQ bands to adjust to certain sections in a song. 1:47 doesn't seem to be gelling to me. I'm sure you'll polish it a bit more, but I just wanted to mention that.

It doesn't matter. People have posted unfinished arrangements before, and it works out. The intro sounds like a beginning to an electronica/big beat track to me, but you went a completely different direction with that cello-thing. xD I think that acid arp might have too much in the 300-500Hz range, but only by about 1-2dB. 0:45 - the lead is pretty interesting, some nice PWM stuff. Try adding vibrato on that. Also, lower the extent of the LFO by about 4% so that the PWM effect isn't as dramatic. 0:58 - the drums should be different here, as it sounds like a small bridge. Maybe high passed or band passed? The tail of the lead there is great, but I would prefer a longer tail there on the pitch drop. 1:12 isn't quite as effective as I would imagine you wanted. Needs another sound to accompany it, and possibly the arp could be twice as fast? 1:30 - Great lead there, but maybe the vibrato needs a longer delay before it comes in. See if you can do that in the LFO module. Hopefully there's a Delay button (more like attack). Sounds good so far, keep it up.

The voice could use some high-passed stereo delay. 0:36 - the bells sound a bit thin. Maybe layer something to give it a tone with more body. The kick could use more punch. The thump and click is alright. 1:45-1:53 - nice wubs. Should be twice as long because it's one of the more interesting and creative parts. This would be a good improv part for the wubs. The wubs are also kind of obscured, at least on these cheap earphones I use when I'm not home. 2:28-3:02 - Eh... here's where the wubs get kind of gimmicky. They're getting overused here. Change up the synth patch or arrangement there. 3:57 - perhaps fade the bass out by 4:02, in a linear volume automation. Track needs a better ending. Sounds like a fadeout to me. It's OK overall, needs some polish and detail fixes. Almost there.

I think the synth at 0:33 is unfitting for a lead sound there. Sounds like a saw lead that has a envelope on the cutoff with a long decay and no sustain. It might be better if it was softer, more like a moog lead's cutoff freqs. I've always found 0:57 abrupt. Intro it better. CSD stuff can easily sound out of place when it's not mixed well enough. In that section, the low war drum hits are kinda obscured, IMO. Could just be me and my skullcandies as I'm not yet home. Cymbals sound out of place at about 2:00. Actually, from that point on, the percussion sounds disjointed when compared to the rest of the instrumentation. Sound choice is OK, but needs some production love, smoother transitions, and more cohesiveness.

Bump. I'm kinda curious on what people think of the Dubstep section (2:00). I tried doing some more to the mastering since then, but it didn't work, so I left it as-is. In retrospect, I should probably have taken off that master compressor before doing any fix-it tries. xD After any comments, I might take yet another shot at this later, now that I've realized that.

No, don't randomize velocities. No one plays woodwinds at random volumes. Adjust them so that the phrasing is more clear.

The reverb is slightly too much. Things are blending together a bit too well. If it's slightly too much on these headphones, it's probably too much. Reduce the wet mix by about 1 dB. The piano does sound pretty thin when it plays chords. Maybe EQ up the treble to brighten it up a bit. 2:34 - the bells are too loud, or too wet. It's burying the sax.

Okay, I've checked out the source... Yeah! 6/8 is real flexible. I'll give a stab at it later! Ideas be in my head and be stayin'. =D 3 and a half months? Totally doable. Example of work: https://soundcloud.com/chimpazilla/cloudhopping-yoshi-touch-go-by I'll probably be going with a metal/dubstep/glitch/electronica mix. ;D And this will likely be the last simultaneous mix I'll be doing, lol. I'll have... let's see... 4 WIPs going on at once. xD

Since you appear rather new, I wouldn't suggest using multi-band compressors. I've been doing this remixing schtick for almost two years now, and I've never touched a multi-band compressor and stuck with it, nor have I ever wanted to. I'd suggest turning it off for now and working without it. Then when you think the remix is all done, turn it on and see if you like it; if you don't, just take it off. It's not necessary. Why compress when you can manually adjust volumes and EQs yourself? Hm, that guitar just might be from Omnisphere; just sequenced half-decently. You should try some overlapping notes. Not entirely sure, but that might give you a fret slide if it's indeed an Omnisphere guitar. 2:20 and 2:47 could benefit from that, amongst other places. The snare/clap layer is pretty good. Stylistically, it's not what I would lean towards, but it's not bad, objectively. The sub bass drone isn't necessary, and it's probably what is driving your track to overcompression. Obviously, lower frequencies are "louder" relative to higher frequencies. In this context, louder just means its amplitude is generally much larger at any relatively similar volume perception. The kick is actually a bit too bassy. Try layering something more punchy on the kick before 0:54. Then, if you can, shorten the tail on the bassy kick layer just a little bit, so it doesn't interfere with any basses you happen to have. More drum variation would be great too. 2:07 - It could just be my preference, but the guitar either sounded off rhythm or it was on the first beat with the first note rather than the expected second note. Same at 2:12. Maybe you could shift the whole chunk of notes left by one note. 2:53 - The kick buildup there could be more gradual rather than "terraced rhythmic changes". How about two half notes, then four quarter notes, then 4 eighth notes, then 4 16th notes? Something like that. Or a snare could be better and less muddy. 3:36 - I can't really tell that the strings are the lead. I know they are, but they don't sound like it. Maybe more intentional articulations there? 4:19 and 4:23 - the drop could be more obvious. The rest doesn't sound like an outtro to me. Try leading in to the ending. Sounds are good, just refine the arrangement and articulations.

I can't resist either. After reading this: "When SEGA threw down the gauntlet and Larry made the challenge for ReMixers to create arrangements from the Sega Pico platform, [zircon] couldn't resist..." I feel like Andy actually said to himself... "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED."

Maybe I can put this in a less demeaning way, since your wording sounds just a tad harsh. Not every song absolutely has to be composed within 3 hours ("Picolescence" by zircon), or 9 hours ("Expansive Networking" by me), or 24 hours (One of my remixes for GBC 25th Anniversary album), or 3 days ("Time to Oil Up!" by zircon), or 9 days ("Cloudhopping" by Chimpazilla and me), or 2 months (a few of my older, kinda bad remixes), or 4 months (a few of my better remixes), or 6 months (this SoR remix). If you've spent 6 months on a remix without a 1-2 week break, that's too much time. Even 4 months is too much. Limit yourself to 2 months max on something. Arrangements tend to come along better as you're writing a song, not when the whole arrangement is already done and needs to be adjusted somehow. You know how humans are; "change is bad" and all that. You can most definitely think your remix is good simply because you're used to it. Just because you're used to your remix doesn't mean it's good. If it's not getting good quality crits (which can absolutely sound negative or positive) after 6 months, just move on and start another remix. Writing music is about learning the process and having fun. Have that fun. Time doesn't decide how good a song is. The better you get, the faster you might be able to compose a song. Inspiration doesn't come right away. You just have to know when inspiration happens to be good enough to carry you through an entire song and have it sound good. Conversely, spending a lot of time doesn't mean it'll be good, either. You just have to gauge your skill level as you go so that your expectations aren't too high above your abilities. Don't rank yourself higher than your capacity, or you'll be disappointed in yourself for no sufficient reason. "Why am I not as good as him?" "How is it she can do that and I can't?" Who cares? Develop your own skills. When you can figure out for yourself how those people did that, you're probably close to how good they are anyways. Maybe even better if you give that extra effort. Keep writing music and getting feedback. So Rozo made a mistake saying your SoR arrangement was good enough. Rozo doesn't always do arrangement crits, so it's totally possible he could be wrong sometimes on arrangement crits. I don't do arrangement crits often either, but if I really like a remix WIP, sometimes I take a shot at examining the arrangement. I personally tend to lean towards the more negative end of crits because being too optimistic could bring false hope. That way, if something good happens to a WIP given mostly helpful yet negative crits, the remixer will just feel even more awesome when it turns out to be better than he/she thought. Life is all about risks. You know the rest.

A few months, huh? Who knows, I might give "Defeat them all!" a shot later. I haven't heard the source yet, I don't think. Maybe I'll have time to take a look at home tonight and brainstorm. Forgot to bring headphones with me today.

I personally wouldn't suggest that until the end, and only if it's a REALLY good quality compressor like The Glue or something. I'd suggest switching to a soft limiter like TLs-Pocket Limiter or NoLimits (although NoLimits is admittedly a bit unstable).

You should try again anyway. Meh, the judges were being nice with the crits, just read between the lines. If you're a person that can bear to adjust an arrangement you already finalized, go ahead. Worth a try. Then ask someone to comment on that again in this topic. Arrangement is a tough judgment call, can't get it perfect right away every time, not when you've just recently become "good" (I'd call myself "good" as of New Year's Day 2013, after 1.66 years). You probably just didn't have all that much time on your hands to practice, or did much of the same level stuff without looking for new and interesting techniques, or something tough in your DAW, or something. It also helps to have the ability to envision a mix in your head, so you can just try out ideas in your head and then use your sense of judgment to decide what to use and what to scrap. So yeah. Stay here dude. Don't expect to get something posted within less than 50 OCR forum posts and the rather minimal amounts of advice that you can get within that amount of time on OCR. Not extremely likely IMO. You need more time here to improve your skills in the right direction. I think if you came here earlier than your apparent sign-up date, you probably could have had a mix on the site by now, but wutchagunnado.

Well, for one, you could give it a title that doesn't have "medley" in it. Smooth out the transitions, upgrade the sounds. Start there.

Holy cow, this sounds really muddy on skullcandies. I also hear loads of clipping. o.o Hopefully it would sound better on good headphones. Left those at home. EDIT: My bad. I actually had two windows open at the same time, each playing offsetted (apparently Firefox things offsetted isn't a word) youtube video previews, and they screwed up the sound. xD Yeah, sounds great.

You probably still need to assign velocity responses to the amplitude knobs in each oscillator. Right click in one of the three tiny squares below each "Amp" knob and link to a yellow "V", then click-drag up, starting from the V as it is inside the square. Go to about... the 1:00 position. It should highlight a partial yellow ring. And yeah, I did hear that there might be a whole ton of subs. I heard a little bit on headphones, so it's likely people with subwoofers will almost freak out. xD

I think there's too much reverb on all the instruments. I can't hear anything, really, because it's all bleeding into each other. I can't really hear the snare/clap layer either. Organ is poking through barely. Pads might be the issue.

I can't really hear the hi hats most of the time when the Massive bass comes in. I'm thinking the bass might actually be too loud, and it's obscuring certain other soft instruments. 1:30 - Something weird happened there and the vibraslap got compressed or something. Same at 3:36, but with the cymbal (and other cymbal instances). 2:12 - the offbeat square-wave-hybrid keys instrument sounds like all of the notes in those chords are the same velocity. Try changing the velocities to make each note a more natural volume. Try imagining yourself playing a piano. Bass glitch improv sounded pretty cool! Great job! 4:15 - the lead there is somewhere under all the choir stuff, but it feels distant there. Maybe you could do a more upfront lead that kinda fades out slowly?

I'd suggest just finding a synth that can make the type of sounds you want. More control over the sound is what I always look for. Arpeggiator voice modes are just a 'lazy' way of quickly testing arpeggios simply by playing chords, (or a way of playing in live, I suppose). Yes, you can write your own pitch shifter patterns in an arpeggio sequencer, but those are pitch shifts. You can't just play a whole bunch of long single notes and automatically get a pattern that fits every situation. Much more flexible to just write your own arpeggios.