timaeus222

To me they sound like trance or hip hop adaptations to the original themes, retaining the melodic aspects of the song but depending generally on textures and drums to substantiate their interpretation. I'm actually going to stray away from the idea that perhaps you're looking for specifically trance or hip hop, or the original plus drums, or something like that, and suggest what I think you are looking for in general, yet is not necessarily trance or hip hop-like. "Cool" is pretty general, so we'll see what you mean by "cool" when you see what I put down below. http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02767 - Electro Funk adaptation of 'Vampire Killer' http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03060 - Metal/Drum & Bass ReMix of Pokemon X's 'Legendary Battle' theme http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02770 - EDM/Funk adaptation of 'Bloody Tears' http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02522 - Glitch/Dubstep ReMix of Super Mario World's 'Sub Castle BGM' http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03036 - EDM medley of Mega Man Battle Network series title themes http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02028 - Psytrance ReMix of Hakan's theme from SSF IV.

Yep; Edirol Orchestra and Edirol Hypercanvas are very similar to the Roland SC-88 orchestral samples, which were used in games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Suikoden II.

What about rnn (did art for For Everlasting Peace) or Jared Hudson (been posting character art on OCR)?

Content that isn't from the source tune, to illustrate that you've made the effort to re-arrange it, but to also integrate your own ideas into someone else's ideas.

If it's a track that loops verbatim, then yeah, it wouldn't fit into the OCR guidelines of substantial interpretation. Try incorporating more variation and some original content in there.

I got the sudden urge to mix these three sources while I was waiting for a ride home from school.

timaeus222 Gate's Secret Dream Lab (Shield Sheldon in Gate's Laboratory [X6]) You Know The Game (Gravity Beetle in Gate's Laboratory [X6]) Beautiful Bloody Bats (Dark Necrobat in Gate's Laboratory [X6]) Zero Tolerance

I think you should start by finding a new limiter that is more tolerant. I would suggest TLs-Pocket Limiter as a nice free one. I got it 3 years ago and I still use it today. Since you have FL, try using the Fruity Parametric EQ 2 and looking at the visualization more closely. The brighter it is at a certain frequency range, the louder those frequencies are. You always have the option of comparing specific ranges visually to find EQ clashes if you can't hear them yourself.

How's this going?

Production So, a prevalent issue I'm hearing here is that your volumes are so boosted that it's causing something called overcompression. What that means is that your limiter is rapidly detecting loud instruments and is pushing them down very often. That creates this "pumping" effect which is generally unpleasant to listen to (sorry). That's the "muddiness" that DragnBreth has mentioned (although muddiness really means frequency clutter in approximately the 100~500 Hz range). As for actual muddiness, it's a bit hard to tell, so maybe it'll become more easily detectable once the overcompression is lessened. Also, there's a really weird volume drop at 1:00 for some reason. About the overcompression, I'm just going to take a not-so-wild guess and say that your drums are too loud. Try comparing the amount of pump the track has with and without the drums. Without the drums, I'm highly anticipating that there will be quite a bit less. If so, that's a sign you need to turn them down, at the very least. You should also check your bass instrument, because that's potentially also too loud. Arrangement In terms of the arrangement, it basically just goes right into using the melody without an intro, and I usually like to give my tracks a logical structure. Instead of just jumping right into using the substantial parts of the source tune, I would try to lead into it, transition out of it, and later come back into it. That's a pretty general (and probably vague) way of saying that you should incorporate more interpretive sections in this track that differentiate it from the original. A more specific way of saying it is to just have an intro, a "main" section, an energy dropoff, a buildup, another "main" section, and an outtro, or something similar. Try to make it so if you close your eyes and listen, you can see that it goes to many places (logical progression) instead of in a circle (repetition), and gets higher energy as well as being more subtle every now and then (dynamics). If you want to learn more about structure and dynamics, I highly suggest closely listening to this track: http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02488 Try picking out the instruments. Whether or not you know what instrument is what, just try to distinguish where they are in space (and where they move), their relative volumes, and possibly their approximate frequency range (e.g. hi hats are upper treble, basses are sub to low-mids usually, leads are generally midrange to upper-midrange, etc). Each and every instrument or sound in this ReMix has its place and role---nothing felt unnecessary IMO.

If you've often found yourself writing music with specific instruments, and then later wanting to replace them, you should find that the notes you wrote for those instruments suits those instruments, but may not suit other instruments. That's normal. What would really help is if you learned how to adjust your partwriting and adapt it to the new instrument. To do that, I would suggest you learn the capabilities of the new instrument---know what it can and can't do, and how you should write it so that it sounds natural, logical, or "flowing". ----- For example (this is completely general and might serve as a starting point), after writing a melody on piano, it will not work if you simply swap out the piano VST for a violin VST without doing anything else, no matter how good the violin was sampled. You would have to at least check the note overlaps to see where the phrasing sounds more natural with overlapped notes, and where it sounds more natural with a re-bowed (not-overlapped) note starting a new phrase. You would also have to incorporate a variety of articulations that a violin has but a piano does not---writing a short note for violin using a legato sample doesn't make it act like true staccato, but writing a short note for piano using a "standard" sample is closer to true staccato, for instance. Another example is that violins can do a portamento, sounding almost like a pitch bend (but not quite), but pianos sure can't pitch bend in real life (even though they can still do portamentos, those sound different from violin portamento). Here is an example of a pretty cool piano melody (I know context matters, but I want you to be able to hear all the details of the instrument): https://app.box.com/s/b3iw29h1iropynzqmpk8hshejn1iqt09 Here it is with the piano VST replaced with a violin sample library (untouched MIDI notes, removed delay): https://app.box.com/s/gpc7il9sup09scuginr44re0tym5tpha Hear how disjointed and awkward it sounds? Surprisingly, it's not terrible on the fast runs because of the bow-switch legato triggering on note overlaps, but it's not good either because of all those messed up notes wherever there were harmonies for the piano. Coincidentally, the highest note is actually outside the range of the violin as well. Now here it is adapted to the violin sample library using the suitable reverb, (mostly) better notes and rhythm, and the proper articulations (re-bowing, slurs, portamento, etc.) and MIDI CC automations (CC1 for vibrato, CC11 for expression+volume, CC14 for vibrato speed): https://app.box.com/s/8roeaysu4q5zd5jno1qjsihdn4oziyyx It's not perfect, but it's much better than what you get from doing nothing to it. It's actually got the slurs, vibrato, staccato, and portamento that were previously missing. ----- For you, what I would suggest is trying to decide on your sounds/instruments as you go, rather than after you finish your arrangement. Whenever I write music in general, I often find that the first sound I pick is important. That's because whenever I pick sounds, I try to think of whatever sounds match it best, and then use those. That means if all goes well, then I'll have a track of cohesive sounds, and so the aesthetics of the first sound determines the soundscape of the finished track (at least for me it does). Furthermore, since I write parts for my sounds as I pick them, they tend to fit those sounds when I'm done. If I went through my old music that is already done and satisfactory, and I swap out some instruments for something else, it would be hard for me to pick new sounds to replace them, and I would almost certainly have to rewrite some of my notes to adapt to the new sounds (yes, even if it's a synthesized sound replaced with another synthesized sound).

I thought the drums were just fine and not too thin, actually. I tend to find rimshots a good choice for an ambient percussive snare-like hit. Alternatively, the splash of a regular electronic snare could have replaced the rimshot later on for percussive variation, but that wasn't necessary for this IMO. Or, a soft tambourine could have worked as well, as an alternate "snare" in addition to the rimshot. As for the arrangement, I agree; melodically things didn't vary too much on the repeat, but texturally they did, along with some subtle differences in background notes. I found it just bordering on a good length, and it looks like you had a lot of fun with the reverb. Could have used a touch less, but it's not a huge deal IMO. Great job!

Then why not post it here so we can give you advice?

Yeah. I found "growing up" to emphasize an expansion of skills more than progressing into a more difficult area of learning.

I didn't think the 0:47 harmonies were necessarily clashing in a bad way, per se. There could have been slightly better chord choices there, but what's there is fine by me; I got what you were going for. I don't really understand the violin in the breakdown at 2:02 and 3:04 though. It sounds too "pulsed", meaning that the attack envelope is consistently too slow. I think it could work better if you wrote it staccato for the first, third, and fourth notes in each repeated phrase, while the e. piano in the background could be sequenced a bit more quietly so that it doesn't take over. Right now I find the violin lagging, rather than being a tight "solo". The violin's really the only huge deal IMO. The arrangement is really transformative as usual.

If it's any consolation, I'm willing to master the album to get it as consistent as possible. I did the mastering for the BadAss V3 album recently.

YMMV, but just going to elaborate on some of this with my own thoughts/perspective. I agree that arrangement and orchestration is a great skill. What I think is that the difficulties of traditional orchestral soundscapes, specifically, lie in not the textural diversity of the instruments (because of the more-or-less set structure of the orchestra after its development over the years), but the complex compositional layering. Sometimes you may hear talk about a "wall of sound", which is this idea of complex layering that makes it sound like a large portion of the orchestra is working like a single "unit" to sound big. That contributes greatly to the "completeness" of an orchestral soundscape. You also tend to use cohesive reverb on many instruments so they sound like they're in the same room, meaning few variations on reverb qualities should be apparent and the reverb isn't excessively washy necessarily, so rather than depending on reverb nearly as much to fill in the soundscape as in some electronic arrangements, you depend more on adding particular instruments to fill particular roles to fill in the soundscape. Because of the more-or-less set structure of an orchestra, you have fewer choices to pick from. In terms of arrangement, well, there is the fact that each orchestral instrument is designed to play in a certain way; you can try to bow a regular woodwind or blow on a regular string instrument, but it won't sound conventional. There are more ways you can play synthesized instruments (which don't have physical restrictions necessarily), and they don't usually have as restrictive pitch ranges or as particular playing techniques as orchestral instruments do. As a result, in order to really make impressive arrangements, you have to understand the intricacies of (1) what playing techniques are possible for particular instruments (is it possible for anyone in real life, ever?) (2) which are natural for live players of particular skill levels to do (would they do it in real life? Could they succeed?), and (3) which sound better than others in context, purely in reference to the song itself. That doesn't yet include the chords, melodies, expression controls, and so on that you could do. That overall, IMO, is much harder than finding the right sound to fit into your electronic soundscape and writing the most suitable chords, melodic contours, and expression controls for your synths.

Interesting, I never really realized that MIDI CC has been called "Continuous Controllers" before---I've also seen "Control Change". ----- What it sounds like to me is that you like these orchestral instruments because they're already made *for* you, as if they were "organic presets", and you can just pull them out as a "shortcut" to getting music written relatively quickly (not out of laziness, but ease). With electronic genres and the usage of synths, it basically asks you to put more effort into making or editing your own sounds, but with practice, over time you should end up with a pool of sounds that you can pick from and tweak for context, nevertheless. I understand that these sounds may feel more diverse than orchestral instruments, but if you continue to work with a variety of sounds, you will implicitly be training your ear to pick sounds that match not just by convention but by your own judgments as well. It'll take a while, but eventually you can get your synthesized-sound selection ear up to par with the perhaps more "concrete" task of picking orchestral instruments. What I would do if I were to shift over from writing mostly orchestral music to mostly organic/electronic hybrid or fully electronic music, is: - Find what electronic genres interest you. Drum & Bass (fast tempo)? Dubstep (halftime tempo)? Trance (medium tempo)? A mixture? Other? - Find a synth that you think would introduce you to the sounds you would need to practice writing in the genre(s) of your choice. As I always do, I would recommend Zebra for its diversity in sounds and intuitive workflow (although it's expensive, I truly believe it's well-worth it), or if you want to ease in, TAL-Noisemaker has been recommended several times before by Rozovian. - Practice using that synth, maybe gather presets that have already been made by other people, and perhaps pick ones that you think fit together and organize them. It tends to be that the preset developer tells you outright what genres their patches generally fit into, because it helps them target specific audiences. - Try using those presets in a song and seeing what you can edit in them to fit your context - Maybe try making your own presets that match your "musical identity" if you find it fun to use the synth

Yeah, you could probably merge the checklist posts and the "ATTN" topic's first posts.

All y'all are crazy. The PWM lead simply rises over the top of the heavy guitar, so it makes total sense for it to be used.

I agree that the piano by itself in the intro isn't enough; in other words, it's too sparse IMO, for 40 seconds of material with nothing else. I get that you were probably going for an isolated feel with the pause at 0:18 - 0:23, but it just makes the track sound unintentionally simple and empty. The thing is, does it make sense without the video? I would say no. The violin sample tone is alright, but the sequencing is lacking in realism. I can tell that from the phase reset that occurs on every single note. Each note repeatedly swells in the same way. It may not be obvious on the lower velocities, but that's what's happening. That's a sign that it lacks round robins, which are crucial to realism. The sample also appears to have the exact same volume envelope every time. A human being is more random than that. No human being plays the same exact thing over and over again, in the exact same way, 100%. You have to figure out how to overcome that with your sample, using volume automation and really paying attention to the swells you get as a result. It can't be assumed that you always get what you expect when you do something in a DAW, and this should be kept in mind. The harp is indeed loudest near 1:00 and on. The timing also seems a touch off on the second note in each copy+pasted pattern. You may have wanted it to be the melody, but if so, I don't often hear harps as melodic instruments unless in subtle circumstances, so keep that in mind. Maybe consider changing instrument roles around. Yep, the guitar strumming is strum-down only. What is better is if you imagine an actual guitarist, because they do not strum down all the time. That is not efficient or realistic technique. You can tell that it is only strum-down from again, the phase reset of the sample. That is almost always what happens with samples that don't have round robin. Keep in mind that with round robins, you can play multiple samples per note on the same velocity. Without a decently complex algorithm (a cycling script, which you don't find in soundfonts), you can only play one sample per note per velocity. That means unless your simple plugin has different samples at very slight velocity differences, you cannot get altering up/down strums without literally alternating your sequencing for each note, without round robins. You may be able to do it by repitching each note a bit and then writing the note in so that it's the same pitch again, shifting the harmonics with a degradation trick, but play around with that before you actually do it if you do it. Most importantly though, yes, there is a lot of copy+paste with layering of elements. It's really not enough IMO to add variation. Change the actual notes, too. Your instruments are not electronic---they're organic; treat them like organic instruments and the fact that they are played by real people. Real people don't play the same thing over and over again, whether it's the notes played or the playing style or the tendencies in their technique. Subtlety substantially matters here.

This sounds like something you could probably get a high school choir to sing and it wouldn't sound out of place. It's got this feel of soothing comfort in that when you're in the library, you have the means to appreciate (in solitude?) the beauty of the language, interpretations, and perceptions you find in each author's work.

timaeus222 Overture 20XX (Crystal Snail in Observatory Hall [X]) Brewing Beerliever (Blizzard Buffalo in Observatory Hall [X]) Go Ahead And Jump (Vanishing Gungaroo in Observatory Hall) Zero Tolerance

Just so it's clear, the title of my track has that hyphen so it's "Sky-High Rollers"---that way, the rollers are sky-high, and we got none of those high-rollers that are of the sky sort.