timaeus222

You can set the number of cores supported in Kontakt (VST as well), just fyi.

Are you using multiple Kontakt instances or many MIDI Outs? I would opt for many MIDI Outs instead.

That intro kinda irked me a bit with the stiff bells and piano, but it was short-lived, so that's aight. Nice dark, brooding soundscape there. Kinda wish the kick had more low end; feels too clicky but not thumpy enough, so Larry's not going all old-fart on us. Snare almost makes it through but is just quiet. Rhythm guitars have a bit too much low-mids. The writing's great though; dissonant in the good way, a fittingly unsettling atmosphere, and pretty heavy guitar tones. Nice work!

Well, it's not to say that you can't invite people to vote in the compo in general.

I agree with Necrox; the soundscape is lacking punch and life. Some congas or bongos with brighter tones would help liven things up; the ones you have are fairly muted. The hand drums at 1:08 are a step in the right direction, but at 1:24, it sounds as if they were repitched too much or something. Mainly, with regards to your percussion, the patterns are fairly simple, without much syncopation. Lots of quarter notes, and that doesn't really maintain interest for very long. Most importantly, the overall feel and energy that the piano at 0:07 and organ at 0:38 evoke did not change significantly. The mix doesn't really change gears, and if you just scroll through the mix 15 seconds at a time, you can't tell that you're listening to a different part of the track. In other words, the dynamics did not evolve and the energy feels too consistent. Somewhere halfway through the track at least, I would expect something to bring down the energy and a more expansive soundscape to come in.

The rhythm feels off to me. From 0:00 to 0:15, the harp and bodhran don't feel quite in sync with each other. It makes more sense after 0:15 though. It's just an awkward start. That bodhran clashes with the bass though, and either the bodhran should have some high passing, or it should be sidechained with the bass to minimize the muddiness. Not everything is dead center per se, but nothing feels significantly panned; at least some elements are wider than others, but there should be more meaningful panning. 1:29 feels awkward when that mandolin switches pan positions back and forth, so that is what I count as not-meaningful panning. It's like two people are alternating their playing, except they're playing almost identically. I agree that you have many instruments playing in the same octave and that contributes to the clashing. Isolate groups of instruments that have similar EQ ranges and consider what qualities of each instrument you want to prevail.

Some of the strings near 0:45 were a bit stiff, but it's minor (and so is the key! ). The blast beats were well-done; I don't often hear that working cleanly without an apparent pumping feel. Interesting fade at 3:26---I think that was meant to be for punch, but to me it felt a bit weird. Solid work though; great performance!

Good idea; maybe some of our ideas of duration vary anyhow. (I considered anything below 3 minutes as short, and near and above 4 minutes as long.)

Keep in mind that the track doesn't have to be long. It could be anywhere from a 1 minute loop to a full 4-minute track, and it's all up to the remixer.

I posted this like half a year back: https://app.box.com/s/x0y3aq91ntrkcyyu2bn4x0hhkxnpdpkk

Sounds like I'm either waiting in the elevator or in a casino playing Pokemon slots due to that vibraphone and syncopated piano chords. Also reminds me of the Mario 'Invincible' theme. Fairly minimalist beat, and not super great, but overall it's pretty cool.

I can see how this was probably well-liked back in the day. While this does start out fairly conservative, it gets more compositionally interpretive as it goes along, starting to get substantially more personalized at about 2:35. By the time it gets to the end, I actually want to play it again. Good job!

When I remix something, I consider what kind of mood I get when I listen to it, and then usually if there's a melody, I take the melody and write new chords under it. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xASXvoNU-5A When I listen to that, I hear an upbeat funky vibe that can be danced to, and so I slowed it down for an intro with an electric piano sound, leading into an electro house hook that uses that same melody with various basses underneath. https://app.box.com/s/j44ueda9bnjno6cw2zv90umfwvli6ptv And I have to say, I did not for a moment think it was going to be something that I would end up wanting to put a lot of work into, but I actually really like this now. If you're afraid of "not doing the original justice" or whatever, don't worry about that. The important thing, IMO, is to get the practice in so that you can improve. If you get yourself in the habit of doing something and finishing it, I think it'll help you with actually working towards finishing the track, rather than being unsure of what to do with it and not putting forth the practice as a result. The less hesitant you are, and the more you write, the more you improve. Practice!

Post the mix and let's take a look. That aside, it could just be that some issues that aren't that noticeable on your ATH M50's are more accentuated on your speakers or earbuds due to their frequency responses. That happens for me sometimes too---whenever I mix lead electric guitar, even when it sounds good on my Beyerdynamic DT-880's, on my (albeit rather average) speakers, I usually find a piercing thin midrange resonance that I didn't detect on my headphones, but is much more noticeable on the speakers when listening at a comparable volume. After I use my speakers to help me find the resonance and fix it with a notch filter, I listen to a before-and-after to check that it doesn't sound much different on the headphones after the adjustment. So, listen to your track on as many different audio systems as possible, make small changes until you find a good middle ground between the system that makes the track sound bad and your ATH M50's. That's what I do, anyway. It would also help to learn (if you haven't already) how to make fine-tune edits in your DAW, such as rolling the mouse wheel while holding Alt in FL Studio on a Parametric EQ 2 EQ band.

These days I've been writing first and refining afterwards ("going with the flow"). I find that if I keep reworking something in my mind, I won't get that far. It may work differently for you, but maybe you could try that for the sake of getting the practice in.

Hm. If a bass guitar may have been recorded live and then chopped and pasted in a way that makes it noticeable that it's choppy and wasn't played live all the way through, would I check "live-instruments" but not "live-recording"? (in other words, does "live-instruments" imply that you can tell the instrument is or used to be a recording, but clearly not performed publicly?) I'm thinking of this track, which has a noticeable hiss but a choppy bass that, in the intro, plays certain notes that have a phase-reset feel. (Then again, it could just be a bad sample that was recorded with a hiss in it. Or maybe I'm overthinking it. o.o) I'm tempted to just not check anything "live".

It goes without saying. Yes. Post more.

That bass and that hiss feel so off. I think the bass sample may have been recorded with the hiss in there, because you get that phase reset on each note. The guitar ain't bad but it's noticeably tracker or MIDI. The wide kick is really weird. It's an OK track but it just doesn't do it for me. :/

I think this sounds fairly 80s-rock. I like that old-school charm on it. The samples don't really hold well today, but I agree with Stevo on the feel I get from this.

timaeus222 Vector Point Engineering Sigma Fortress (Blizzard Buffalo in Final Weapon [X4]) Sins of the Syndicate (Gravity Antonion in Final Weapon [X4]) Sword of the Scavalier (Ground Scaravich in Final Weapon [X4]) Zero Tolerance

Well, considering Capcom asked OCR to do the album, I would think they have the rights to use the tracks on the album.

Wow, for such an old track, even for its absolute length, I find it a complete arrangement, and quite well-thought-out. This is a solid jazz arrangement with somewhat of a Latin feel to it, and some pretty good production.

Yeah, it's still 2 AM for him. =p

Gonna be a bit late on that next WIP due to the SFRG compo. I basically got two weeks free now though.

You should post that on the private forums instead. *nudge* EDIT: Thanks. =p