timaeus222

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.

Isn't it more confusing that way? Couldn't you look at the artist's accepted OC ReMixes if there are any, and go off of what you think of them production-wise? Or, you could see if you agree with them; popular agreement doesn't really indicate who is most accurate (there's that one phrase, "the ignorant masses"). Make your own judgments too.

You know you could just PM a mod, right?

If anything, I believe that they would be flattered. (I would, anyway, if it were to happen to me.)

Yeah, I love Guitar Rig as well. Although it is a guitar amp sim (and I do use it for guitars), I often use the Transient Master component in there for my drums.

What did you find most useful in Komplete? (I say that because it's pretty large/broad)

I agree with the crits, but ultimately I love how this turned out. It's interesting that this is kind of an organic/electronic glitch hop track rather than purely electronic, and I find that it distinguishes it well from other tracks of a similar genre. It's also a bit surprising that the bass in the glitch hop sections was the source sometimes, but it felt natural to me, rather than feeling forced. I thought the most creative part was 2:03 - 2:21, where you had a swung interpretation with some intermediate/neighboring notes.

Great execution! I like the almost-Complextro feel of this. Good job on keeping the dynamics varied as well. Dat ring modulation at 3:16. I did hear a new bass at 1:43 in the new version (it fits). At 3:36, I actually like the older version---the newer version could have had a less piercing lead there. So maybe submitting the wrong track was a good thing!

Yep, that is definitely a duduk! Really cool take on this theme. It's kind of tragedic and lamenting, indeed.

Yes. It's a simple tremolo. But y'know, the real thing would be less machine-gun.

Or maybe he's Mr. Popo.

The thing is, you have to spend more time than an hour to really have a decent idea of whether or not the track has potential. I would suggest that you give yourself at least 1-2 weeks, if not more, on the same track before you judge that it "won't be good" and suddenly decide to stash it away somewhere. You didn't even post it here for other people to give you input! (By the way, I think "Land of Pools and Masks" has the most potential out of all your tracks to be some sort of town theme. It reminds me of this: https://soundcloud.com/isworks/puddle-jumping-dressed-by)

Try finding a track you want to imitate for inspiration, and, oh, let's say, try remixing this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9GXV5ueRBY (something with a decently memorable melody that maybe you can adapt to multiple genre possibilities) or maybe this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kbl0s7tJDHA (something that has some interesting chords)

I second Serum. Been using it too, lately, and I definitely find it really intuitive (and also replaced Massive for me. ). Ever used Zebra? I find that to be extremely versatile, and the synthesis interface displays in a well-organized manner IMO. I have two audio demos here if they interest you. http://tproductions.comeze.com/demos/Z2CombFilterDemo.mp3 http://tproductions.comeze.com/demos/Z2FMMotionDemo.mp3 And a video example: I've been using Zebra for over 3 years now, and I plan to keep using it.

Hm, the intro kinda lacks the ambitious sort of soundscape I would expect you to go for. For example, at 0:24, I would expect a drone to fill the bottom and keep things full for the moment, until 0:48. 1:13 is where the arrangement really starts to represent your usual caliber. Even then though, beef up that snare. The ride is kinda covering it up on my side. In general I feel like the low end could definitely use a more impactful production value. Specifically, I found 1:13 - 1:55 to have some low end, but the bass synth lacks presence/detail. The arrangement lives up to your past ReMixes for sure, but yeah, overall... The production can use more impact on the low end (aka more intense bass mixing) and another run through filling the soundscape in a few somewhat empty spots. Oh yeah, and that ride. Would you be willing to collab on this? =D