timaeus222

The percussion is pretty good. I think the snare could be a bit more tight, though. The decay is a bit long, and I was thinking you could shorten it a bit and give it more of a smack or thwap. The kick is close to a pitch envelope kick, but it's not super awesome. Try finding another similar kick that sounds better, or layer on a more thump-like kick and make that a bit louder in the layering. The square-ish lead at 0:36 is a bit soft and unexpressive. Try adding some vibrato and ambience, and raise the volume. 1:25 - The poly-saw synth that acts like spiccato strings could use more impact. It's kind of buried behind the acid-bass-like synth playing at the same time. The drums could use a bit more variation and transition work. The ending is nonexistent. Sounds like a copy+paste to me. Lead sounds bare at the end by itself, needs more TLC.

Before 1:05, the drums are pretty weak. I can barely hear the kick, and the kick is mainly low frequencies. Afterwards, the snare starts coming in, but the kick is still barely audible. Just choose better samples, and that would help a lot. Layer your drums. If you have good samples, you don't need too much processing other than a little bit of compression and room reverb. The arrangement has kind of a plodding pace. The drums need much more variation, and the pace feels constant almost the entire time. Replacing some sections could work.

Fantastic. Energy remains awesome, breakdowns are really nice, especially that first one. I wasn't really feeling the second one at 1:45, but it was still good! Solid mix.

Loved the mandolin breakdown and the instrument interplay. Great job, Vurez!

The snare is fine to me, it's just too soft IMO. The toms are a bit weak though. Either make those louder too or layer them. 1:52 feels a bit bare. Try to add a few more things there, like fret slides, or neck scrapes, or something. 2:14 feels either muddy or overcompressed. The bass might be too loud there, or maybe you forgot to sidechain. It's happened to me before; one time I thought I sidechained, but I forgot to select the sidechain signal number, so it's like it wasn't actually doing anything. The lead guitar feels a bit distant most of the time, so see if you can bring it out a bit more. The open hi hats and cymbals too, near the end. The ending feels a bit weird since you had toms end it, and still left in a tail. Personally I would have ended it after those tom hits. Sounds good so far!

Generally, it's good to have headphones too since they pick up some things you don't hear on speakers. To clarify, I think you had single notes in a synth in an arpeggiator mode where the synth plays specific notes that change in accordance with pitch shifts. For example: --- Note # --- Pitch Shift --- 1 --- 0 --- 2 --- 0 --- 3 --- 1 --- 4 --- 5 --- 5 --- 2 --- 6 --- -7 --- 7 --- 8 --- 8 --- -5 --- 9 --- 2 --- 10 --- 3 --- 11 --- 12 --- 12 --- -12 --- 13 --- -10 --- 14 --- 6 --- 15 --- -2 --- 16 --- 7 If you played the note A4, then the following notes would be cycled through: A4, A4, A#4, D5, B4, D4, F5, E4, B4, C5, A5, A3, B3, D#5, G4, E5. Those notes would be different for each note you play, and sometimes the notes won't line up with a good harmony note. That's what I'm hearing with that dissonance I mentioned.

Well of course. But if it's mixed well enough, it would have just sounded "ear-blasting". ;D

That is awesome, I love Alex's Jazz Jackrabbit soundtrack.

I wouldn't agree with adding sub bass, specifically. I would say add a bass in general. If it's going to be ambient, there should be a bass somewhere in there. Something FM could be cool. Occasional miscellaneous effects would be interesting too.

Nah, that "thing" isn't a dealbreaker for me. Just a weird thing with the glide or something, no clue.

Yeah. At this early stage though, that's all I could really say about it for now.

I think the clap is a bit weak. It's lacking the high end that I would prefer on a mix like this. Try for a semi-short high end "kp". The bouncy arp is kinda cool. I have a feeling it's from an arpeggiator voice mode in a synth, so that's why it's dissonant sometimes. You should try to fix that with either the UI or some creative sequencing. There's not much going for you in terms of excitement. It's quite a bare remix, but the sounds aren't bad. You just need more layers in the song, at this particular moment.

A lot of the bass and drumwork was influenced by zircon's 'Daft Drafts', so all of that was purposeful. The sine lead was leading into the upfront saw lead, so it was a little quiet for a bit. Glad you didn't notice something super-specific that I notice every time (which no one else notices) and can't figure out why it happens. I hear you on that remark about claps being cheesy. Sometimes they are, I get it, but in the case of this snare layering, it shouldn't be all that bad. Definitely the style I was going for here. The later unlayered claps are all chimpazilla. Eh, I still liked them being there. ;D At 0:52, the lead ends early to show off the ambience and delay. Thanks! Yeah, that Castlevania remix was one of my first remixes, but since then I've been designing my own sounds, and in Zebra in particular; all but about 3 or 4 patches in this remix were made just for this or taken from my Zebra soundbank. @Chris: Batman apparently means thwap. I never heard it either before like 2 days ago.

Interesting sound. It would benefit from a bit more ambience on the phasered percussion, and perhaps a bit of high passing on the sub bass, but otherwise this is great.

I had this before it was an OCReMix. xD Great stuff. Loved that soft moog lead at the end a lot.

1:38 = Time signature change. It's not the best ending, but it works well enough. Good job.

Work with the DAW that best suits your workflow. Just use what you know how to use best. If it ends up not doing what you want, you can always ask someone to contribute some cool WAV files.

No problem. Also, before you possibly go off wondering what a resonant sweep is, here is an example: http://www.zirconstudios.com/music/demos/Z-Squared.mp3 @ 0:55 (If you have no idea how that's made, I have no issue making a WAV file for you to use, just PM and ask)

Hopefully by "once I downloaded FL Studio 10", you mean you purchased FL Studio 10, because you'd have to go back into it, not recompose it completely; that's not going to work out well. Some sounds are nice, lots are generic. The first synth is very dry, but the sound itself is sufficient. i.e. The ambience is lacking. I hear some slight ping pong delay, but it doesn't sound like it's in a room, so the wet mix is a bit low on your reverb. Just don't overdo it. It's been said so many times, but use your ears. It's possible to overdo reverb and make things blend together too well. If that happens, your song will sound distant, and no instrument will be obviously "close to you" 3D-wise and leading. At 0:12, the low-passed almost-supersaw synth is one thing that's causing muddiness. Either you low-passed it because you were on bad headphones with excessive treble, or the sound itself was lacking treble in its internal EQ, so consider both. It's likely that this synth's EQ is clashing a lot with your first synth as well as the saw leads that come later. At 0:38, when the kick's clarity starts being important, it's not clear in the bass frequencies. Knowing how the people who like to use these hip-hop style of samples (Roland-TR808, 909) love that sub bass (no offense), it'll do you loads of good to sidechain the kick to any actual bass instrument you might have going, or you'll have an overload in sub bass frequencies, really. That would clutter your mix and either cause overcompression under a hard-knee limiter like Fruity Limiter or clog up space and obscure other instruments under a soft-knee limiter like TLs-Pocket Limiter. Something else you could do is to cut out the most unnecessary bass frequencies (below 35 Hz) using Parametric EQ 2, or maybe use a compressor like endorphin to cut out bass frequencies in general to tighten the sustain on the kicks and leave room for instruments playing near the current time in the song. Instruments overcrowd each other around 0:48 and create overcompression, so it's likely you're using Fruity Limiter. Try mixing without a limiter first, and then putting it on when you're ready. Make sure your drums are the loudest instrument in your remix, and everything else does not hit the limiter significantly hard. That way, your drums will be heard. Seeing as how they carry the rhythm and excitement, it's essential they're clearly heard all the time. Since that is expected, it'd be in your best interest to practice layering drum samples in FL Studio using the "Layer" tool. Try watching this for help on this. I'm sure you could apply that to your 808 and 909 samples. Also, apply a good quality compressor to your drums so that they will sound powerful, but not hit the limiter. Since a compressor acts almost like a limiter, it would not only give your drums a powerful punch if done right, but also stop the limiter from pushing the drums down.Another reason for overcrowding is the instrument choice. Think about what you can "afford" to replace, and replace them with something better! Don't, for example, choose a saw wave for a lead, a bass, AND backup. It'll sound terrible, and it won't work. The same applies to more varied instrument sets. For example, a supersaw as a lead can work, but when combined with a PWM bass like this as well as some acid arpeggios (3o3's come to mind) and un-sidechained hip-hop kicks, things will sound extremely muddled, messy, and incomprehensible. Choose instruments wisely. Pick ones that can logically occupy their own spot in the frequency spectrum without significant EQ cuts or boosts, and mixing will be a lot easier. If you don't have any good instruments that you know of, well then find some. There are lots of free things out there that you can get and they could sound great if you process them well enough. If you like music enough, you could save up money to buy something great that you would definitely use and like. Most commercial products have audio demos and/or video demos, so remember to check. The arrangement itself is alright. Put bluntly, I was able to skip through over 3/4 of the mix and not miss anything interesting. It might do you some good to cut out repeated sections and shorten the mix. I'd recommend shortening it somehow until it's about 3-4 minutes, at least for this arrangement. I'd recommend replacing instruments first, and then deciding what part of the arrangement you want to keep, and then working on the production.

More high quality instruments, and you'll improve this loads. Piano is quiet, distant, and a bit dry. Some harmonies didn't work, like 1:57, 2:04, etc. Hopefully that's live-ish, and hopefully as MIDI.

Production sounds good as it is now, good job!

I think the Broken CD retrigger effect is way overused in this song. Take some out (especially leading into the small breakdown), and change some others to new effects. I counted over 8 uses of the same Broken CD retrigger effect in, like, 30 seconds. The ending needs work. Otherwise the arrangement is pretty solid. Production-wise, kick can have more thump and click, everything else is fine as-is.

The arrangement is bad, the EQ is good, the melody is great, like at 0:22.

I love the atmosphere! It reminds me of some cyber-punk stuff by zircon's recent album, Identity Sequence. The resonant LFO panning sweeps are cool. Arrangement/Production stuffz: The EP in the intro needs some ping pong delay and slight reverb. The mix does sound dissonant starting from 0:47. Everything before that is fantastic, don't change that part of the arrangement. So work on the harmonies after 0:47. Nice occasional glitch effects on the drums. dBlue Glitch? If so, I think you'd love iZotope Stutter Edit (although it's $200). Liking the lead at 1:40, but add vibrato to it, and a little bit more treble (maybe about a 2 dB boost on the EQ at about 10000Hz. Like Melbu Frahma said, 2:33-2:36 is kinda sudden without a transition (though I noticed it before reading his post). How about dBlue Glitch's retrigger, plus a cymbal at 2:35 (or a resonant sweep of some kind)? Afterwards it kind of repeats stuff we've heard before and fades out. Make the stuff after 2:35 a little more dramatically different, and make a better ending. Great job so far!