timaeus222

The leads were like that because I purposefully wanted to draw attention to the leads; they are, after all, leads. They might be a tad loud, but definitely not excessively. No idea what 'batman' means. I thought about the shakers when editing them and that's why I ended up lowering their mix balance after they were first put in; one of the things I never did mention. The bass bell glissando couldn't really benefit from external EQ because it's sweeping the spectrum. Probably the only thing that could be done is reduce the internal mids a bit. Not sure what else you could mean. I did add some room reverb, it's certainly enough without making the drums distant.

The piano sample probably wouldn't pass, but everything else sounds good enough. The lead is a bit obscured because of the louder backing, but otherwise, pretty good with just FL defaults.

The beginning leadin wind-like sound is a bit bass heavy. The bells are somewhat bleeding into each other without much of a tonal clarity---I can't really tell what notes they're playing. The kick is extremely weak. It's all click and no thwap. Spend some more time layering kicks here, and it could sound a whole lot better. The snare is also weak. Not really any low-end punchiness, and, although not necessary, not even any high end sizzle; just some mid-heavy 808-909-type timbre. It's also sounding rather distant and quiet. Whatever's going on with the compression on the mastering, it's mutilating the kick and snare. Bass timbre is fine, maybe a bit loud. Piano is good, maybe a bit dry. Missing some slight delay, possibly some ambience. 2:51 - lead is compressed for no apparent reason. Sidechaining everything, or having the song sound like it's happening that way, is quite tiring on the ears. Get the structure varied a lot more. Change things up more drastically more often. Sadly, I can skip through more than half the song and not miss anything. It's got potential with the sound design, but it needs an overhaul on the arrangement.

Thanks, Cody! That's one of my favorite parts too, and one of the sections that I put in on the very first time the project file was passed to me.

Oh, that 'glitch effect' is an automated sample rate reduction. You're a great collab partner too! =vD

The EP sounds fake. Take the time to find a better sample. Good chords though. Nice pulse bass. The drums are kinda interesting, but it doesn't seem like they fit the sound you're going for with the other instruments. It sounds like you're mixing Roland-TR (hip hop), dance, and breakbeat samples with an acoustic-esque set of instruments. Good ideas, but check that your instruments are cohesive.

If you're concerned about the bass, don't use a sub bass. I honestly never use sub basses, and I end up hearing a sub bass in my songs anyway. The lead is actually too soft though, especially at 1:00ish. The kick is typical for psytrance, but try layering in a clicky kick, so that it's at least more audible. You can probably layer more in here. It's either really bare or imbalanced with the bass being way louder than everything else.

Well, it's certainly better than Safwan Matni's Oud VST, that's for sure.

WOAH, that oud from Emm Knagalis is AWESOME. I was a bit worried there when it said "AU and VST for OSX". Then I saw the windows symbol at the top of the page. I know what I'm gonna do. Grab that VST! ;D

You should upgrade the bells in the intro. They're a bit plain, so try finding a more interesting mallet patch. This is sounding middle eastern, lol. Not a bad thing. It'd be really cool if you had some mideast instruments in here, in that case. Saz, Oud, Dulcimer, Mandolin, Zourna, etc. Sounds like a Zourna and Dulcimer or Electric Sitar might fit in rather well. i.e. Electric Sitar at 1:15ish (if so, you'd need some adjustments to the sequencing to avoid notes bleeding into each other due to the Env release), Zourna/Saz (or both, layered) at 1:35, etc. And do tell me if you can find good mideast instruments, because I have no clue where to find good ones. ;D

Personally, I'd recommend you avoid having any lead panned so far left or right. I don't think I've ever heard a song where the lead wasn't panned center. Right now, it's like you have some leads panned opposite to the backing. Don't pan the guitar and bass on opposite speakers though. Pan the bass center and double track the guitar(s). ...You had guitars? I didn't hear any. I heard sustained and plucked saw waves, vibrato sine wave bells, triangle waves (during the part with the odd pulsating tremolo thing in the right speaker, before the portamento saw wave), and some other plainly synthetic sounds. Double tracking is hard-pan left and right with two signals, but for the sake of making it wide yet not too wide, try 90%. Basically, you have one track panned left 90%, one panned right 90%, and both having complementary tones. 90% feels just right on headphones, and the 10% difference played on speakers is almost no difference. Then when you've done that, just high pass the guitar above about 200Hz, and low pass the bass above about 300Hz, then sidechain the kick to the bass, so that it'll push the bass down for every time it plays, until it's done playing, reducing some muddiness.

To be quite blunt here, the slow down ending is pretty lame. It's almost as bad as fading out. You gotta make a different ending, for the love of God. xD

How convenient, I'm not home AND I brought my skullcandy earphones, so I'll hear EXACTLY what you have. For reverb and compression, just experiment with them on your own with an empty project file and then bring that into this mix later. The first resonant filter sound is cool, but it sounds weird hard-panned left. Maybe panned left 75% would be better? Same with the following saw wave. Make sure you've sidechained the kick to the bass. Just don't overdo it; turn down the release on the sidechaining a bit and don't make the threshold too low or ratio too high. The low end is currently really muddy. The bass is cluttering the low end because the kick isn't sidechained yet. The kick is hard to hear because of that, and so are the little resonant filter sweeps. The portamento saw at 1:58 is a bit out of place. Maybe don't do overlapping notes so much. The soloing afterwards is somewhat disjointed from the mix; it's meandering quite a bit, so adjust the notes some more so that it sounds integrated with the backing. 3:24 is a bit jarring as it suddenly became bare as a builddown, but it wasn't foreshadowed. 3:36 - the bass is panned hard left, which is weird, like before. Try panning everything 75%, not 100%. IIRC, it'll sound correct on headphones and borderline correct on speakers since headphones are more impacted by panning. Since the timbres are so different on either side, it's unbalanced and awkward. There's some interesting sound design in this, so it's got potential! You most definitely need new headphones, though. Like $60-$120 range. I'd suggest Sony MDR-V6 or Grado SR-80i, either for $100, I think. Grados are arguably a bit better, though, after I tried and stayed with the Grado SR-60i. Not sure about the Sony MDR-V6, but it's comparable.

Great skills, kinda short.

Happy Birthday, Deia! =D

I like Dream Theatre too. I'm sure Steven Slate Drums has a Dream Theatre preset as a signature kit. Also, be careful on the highs for the snare. Too much and it's just hissy rather than powerful.

And of course, not every DAW can render in FLAC. I don't think FL Studio can. WAV is totally doable. Close enough, right? Or just 224-320 kbps MP3. What song could there ever be that really needs that lossless compression, right?

Basically a section where the energy is brought down, less heavy, and, usually, more interesting melodic content (since there's probably less drum action), though not necessarily more complicated melodic content either.

What the eff? This is improvised? WAT. So many random notes IMO, but they seem to work to me. Never heard the source before, but sounds cool. My god man, calm down, this piece is crazy fast. xD Also... OMG DAT CHEESY ENDING

Am I the only one who noticed djp's two recent Star Wars references? "In a galaxy..." and "the force is strong with this one." xD Dat percussion. Mixing some clicky 8-bit sounds into the percussion and incorporating some light wubs was a good way to mix things up a bit in the middle of the track. In general, it is a bit slow, IMO, but not terribly so. Good change-ups, and overall some alright sound design. Good work dude. "Magically bluesome." he said with a straight face.

I agree, the lead that starts after the pikachu SFX is getting drowned out. Same as everywhere else, so just lower the rhythm guitar mix level about 0.5-1dB. Also add a breakdown section. Metal like that for 3 minutes is a bit crazy IMO. You need to have a section where you tone it down, so us non-metal lovers can, I dunno, live with our faces unmelted.

I'm talking about the currently dominating lead. Why would I look at the guitar there?

The crackling is from excessive CPU load and getting near the RAM max. If you're constantly at 98+%, you just might get crackling in your rendered songs as well.

The piano should go away when the guitar comes in, IMO. It sounds like it's just there, taking up space, after the intro. If you can, try getting a different kick. It's also a bit too loud. The track overall sounds overcompressed. The cymbals in particular are dominating.

This is pretty funny. The singing is a little tentative and strained, but good idea.