timaeus222

I tend to think of it this way: if you write it and you know you can mix it, even if someone else couldn't conceive of making those sound selections, give it a shot. You CAN mix a supersaw, noise sweep, and detuned saw pad together, but it can be difficult to pull off. I just don't do it because I have a bias against supersaws. Sometimes I hear "don't write two bass lines at the same time!", but I've layered the sound of a slap bass and a dubstep bass together before; I couldn't just use the Layer tool in FL since the slap bass had keyswitches (meaning I couldn't write one bass line and assign the same exact one to two instruments without clashing), so I had to EQ them manually, and y'know, it worked IMO.

I think you should listen more closely to real instruments, because everything here needs more realistic velocity variation. The open hi hat on the right is rather loud, the clap-snare at 0:15 and elsewhere is quantized with no velocity variation, the synth leads all throughout are only sustaining with no expression, the synth guitar and strings are lacking realistic velocity variation, etc. As a result, I just hear a lifelessness to the track. In other words, it sounds like you downloaded a MIDI and replaced instruments, keeping the velocities all the same (which you didn't, but it sounds that way). Try listening for the expressiveness of everything in here. There's motion, vibrato, a purposeful stereo field, tonal variation, interesting chord progressions, a full soundscape, etc.

Well, I guess it works for me because I've been refining my sound selection instincts over several years; I've been mixing as I go since 2013. I just pick sounds that I feel go together in EQ, timbre, and stereo width. For example, I wouldn't pick a supersaw and match it up with a noise sweep and a thick detuned saw wave pad. Too much treble going on.

Yeah, it actually IS supposed to be used to explain music after-the-fact, to get an idea of what the composer did and how one could accomplish something similar. I don't actually formally think about music theory while I write. Also, @ GLL: I tend to mix as I go, so that I can hear things in context. I feel like if I mixed at the end, it would drastically influence my sound selection.

I agree that it's C minor (besides in the dissonant section, where it's less clear). The scale used as the main melody is a minor scale that definitely contains Eb and Ab. Eb major is Ab, Eb, Bb, so we're in the C relative minor, before 1:02. There, it switches to Eb minor, containing Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, and Gb. On the repeat at 1:15, it sounds like it should go to Bb to resolve into a Bb relative minor key, but the composer decided to use what sounds like the 2nd in the Bb minor key at that point as the root of a C minor key on the repeat. Seemed forced to me, but ah well.

Oops, you guys are gonna hear more dubstep this round. =P

I tend to get inspired by the soundscape of music that really resonates with me. For my round 2 entry, I basically imitated the vibe I heard here (unless you already saw me post it lol): https://soundcloud.com/biggiantcircles/borderlands-2-tropical-paradise-exploration My thought process was that I listened for what I recognized and considered how I could do it. I recognized that it had granular pads (-> I used glassy pads), congas/bongos (-> I used djembes and other world percussion), wooden percussion (-> I used Damage and various auxiliary percussion like shakers, claves, and rainsticks), a steel-drum-esque arp (-> I used various bells I synthesized in my free time that sound like they belong in a tropical rainforest), etc.

I find it's easier to get an idea of what to do on your track by listening to new music before your week starts.

icwutudidthar Bring down our expectations, so we think good is amazing.

Hell yeah; exactly fits my vision. Time to hearken back to my days working on that Gunstar Heroes ReMix! Prepare your bodies!

(The channel would be #ocrcompo)

What about a resub flood? xD

Just a reminder that Zero Tolerance's plan is for either pu_freak or I to go again for next week, while in the meantime, Mak is away until September.

There's a high probability that the song will be the complete opposite genre if you swap it with another identical one, so don't do it! #badelectronjoke

Much better loudness! Intro is just the right volume, in terms of perceived volume. It still feels overcompressed, though. Good job on making the stereo field wider. That helped. The revised version still has some prominent issues that would keep it from getting passed. What I hear is the following: 1. The intro bells and synth pluck are lacking velocity variation and the instrument playing the bass part lacks motion (the motion concern is minor). This combined makes the instrumentation overall feel stiff and robotic. This continues throughout. 2. The arrangement approach is rather straightforward (easy to predict what's going to happen next), using a generic chord progression (namely, C B Ab B for C major); nothing intrinsically wrong with that, but it's not very standout IMO. This is mainly due to the way the bass part is written, and there are also a lot of I-V-VIII (e.g. C-G-C, F-C-F, etc) arpeggios, making it repetitious. 3. The drums are buried behind the rest of the instrumentation and are therefore lacking punch and definition. 4. The instrumentation doesn't really change gear much, until about 2:04, which is after a significant portion of the track has passed by. 5. The mixing is muddy and washy (low-mids clashing and high reverb). The EQ can really use some low-midrange scooping on the synth strings pads to make room for your... "cello" arpeggio? It's a bit odd to be using what sounds like cello to play so much arpeggiation in a dance track IMO. The reverb is also pretty high on the pads and distant sounds (e.g. the high synth string at 2:16). I've bolded what I considered major. Here is what I would do to work towards fixing those things: 1. Try thinking about how a pianist might emphasize certain notes. Learning how to play piano if you haven't already is a helpful resource you can have to writing more realistic velocity variations. 2. If you add an interpretive section, it can help offset the straightforward nature of the rest of the track. You have the advantage that this isn't that long yet; people may have the attention span to listen for another minute or a minute and a half in this genre. Perhaps you can extend 1:22 and write something original there that breaks away from the progression you keep using and the almost-unchanging bass part. This way you can incorporate some dynamic contrast. 3. Find more punchy drum samples and try layering them on. I don't know if you're still using FL11, but the Layer tool is very useful to have. Practice with it! I like layering Goldbaby's drums, such as When Alien Drum Robots Attack Vol. 2 and MPC60 Vol. 3. It's about $60 total for both, for over 3000 drum samples. Pretty great deal IMO! 4. This is similar to 2, but essentially, 4 happens because of 2. Because the arrangement was straightforward, and because you may have become attached to the way things were written as you wrote them, you seem to have copied and pasted a lot, giving a repetitious structure. If you work on 2, I think you may touch on 4 at the same time. 5. Maybe even make that "cello"-soundalike an actual bass synth and give it some filter motion. A cello normally is supposed to sound human, and because of the way that instrument is played, it's almost as if it was accidentally written unrealistically, rather than intentionally as a backing element. I would also reduce the amount of reverb in the pads and raise the frequency of the low-cut on their reverb to decrease the amount of low-mids clashing in the EQ. Other less major but still significant things: - The bass drop at 2:00 feels out of place. Try putting it at 2:01~2:02. I think that would make more rhythmic sense. (minor) - There's a clicking at 2:41. Is it from your "cello"? Seems to be the exact same rhythm. You should work to remove that clicking, because it's an artifact that doesn't add anything. It's an enjoyable listen otherwise, since I can get past the overcompression and generic writing, and this is a great improvement so far, but there's still more you would have to do for this to pass. From a technical standpoint, it's mainly lacking the following overall: - Clearer mixing and less washy soundscape - Significant and meaningful velocity variation to eliminate mechanical partwriting - More interesting chord progressions (helpful but not strictly necessary) - Reasonable repetition in the ReMix structure for familiarity, and not just a bunch of autopilot parts copied and pasted.

Yeah, Doppler is subtly the first half of most of the melodic lines, but it is used throughout, much more than Cyber Peacock! http://ocremix.org/community/topic/41336-mega-man-x-the-sigma-fortress-remix-gauntlet-2015/page-17#entry791676

Sign me up for this! Raring to go!

Have you tried Impact Soundworks: Reforged? They sampled found metal for Kontakt 5.

Well, overdrive/waveshaping strengthens all of the harmonics until they all reach a ceiling (at which point a sine wave begins to look more like a square wave), but the strongest harmonics are most easily audible, so the change in the character of those tends to be noticeable first (in other words, they reach the ceiling first). So, if those harmonics reach the ceiling, and you increase the overdrive further, the strongest harmonics then clip first.

I tend to recommend the dual-band compressor endorphin as a post-distortion compressor. It really brightens up my drums whenever they are lacking the presence I want them to have. One note I should say though is that if you use both distortion and compression, just be aware that compression affects the strongest harmonics most, and distortion strengthens those strongest harmonics most noticeably, so using both for the same instrument may come down to thinking more methodically about how you want to go about it (otherwise you might overemphasize the click of the kick, for example).

=D As for distortion, I suggested that since certain methods of distortion strengthen the strongest harmonics of a sound. I tend to use overdrive or waveshaping (I like Fruity Blood Overdrive or Fruity Waveshaper); if you apply overdrive or waveshaping to drums (carefully, to avoid getting an overly-clipped tone), I find that it can bring out characteristics of the tone you may not realize are there on the clean sample. Since those characteristics that are most noticeable are the strongest harmonics, and one of these is for example, the fundamental, it'll add punch.

Not disagreeing with you on that. It just wasn't obvious that doing the same thing manually could turn out differently than doing Wrap Remainder.

It stems *from* an arrangement problem, yes, but I only get a significant issue with it with Wrap Remainder. When I emulate that as I manually make a looped extension of the track, it isn't nearly as noticeable. That aside, I find that if I render one OGG with Cut Remainder and then one with Wrap Remainder, then playing them in sequence makes the looping issue fairly unnoticeable, but that would require playing two files in sequence (and then playing the Wrap Remainder OGG every further time) in the programming. If it's possible for the programmer to do that for the game, I would try that.

It's a looping problem, since it was done with Wrap Remainder, just like Schematist; the issue that gave the eh loop was that there was harmony clashing, even though all the notes were in the same key. It just so happened that the tail was of a clashing note, purely in terms of the interval and just the bulky tone of the toms. I didn't expect to hear this issue, and it wasn't really obvious until I created the loop and listened back. (I'll add that this issue was somehow not as prevalent when I merely looped a WAV of the same track to be twice as long)