timaeus222

This is an example of compression on the Master track actually doing something helpful ("Smooth Surfing" Before->After). Instead of turning the track into overcompressed mush that clips, it glues the components in the track together, evens out loud peaks, and makes the drums punchier. That's the kind of heavy compression I could live with. Doesn't have to be super obvious.

Well... consider your inb4 confirmed. When I listen to this, I hear lots of quantization in the guitar lead, tubular bells, drums, etc. that makes this feel "stiff" and robotic. The instrument choice is also a bit odd. Fake guitar lead, with a funk keys/guitar sample? Is this rock or is this funk (I thought it was prog rock?)? The organ fit in fine though, IMO. That guitar lead however, needs to be replaced with something more expressive, like a synth lead with heavy vibrato, or even a real guitar recording. It would still give a prog rock vibe, but at least it would be more evocative. The most important concern though, is the repetition. Literally, the entire second half of this is a copy and paste of the first half; why repeat it if all of the content has already been heard verbatim? What I would suggest is cutting it down to 2:52, and if you want to write something more, differentiate it from what came before. Avoid simply writing something short and repeating it a second time note-for-note, instrument-for-instrument (if you do that, it's a loop, which is OK as OST VGM).

Modes are basically asking you to shift your hand to the next note in the original key while retaining the intervals of the original key, and use that as your "new" key, so F# Dorian is E major starting on F#. (Personally, I found it confusing too that "F# Dorian Mode" means it's the Dorian mode in which you start on F#, rather than the Dorian mode of F#, which starts on G#.) Notice how its four sharps are F#, G#, C#, and D#, which implies the Ionian mode (or original key) is E major. It would help though if you showed us the actual piece.

If you really want to do it well, try reading this article. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan08/articles/pianorecording_0108.htm Like Gario suggested, it would be optimal to have two mics. One to capture the ambience of the room, and one to capture the direct sound of the piano. For example, an omnidirectional mic helps you capture the ambience and width of the sound.

I'm perfectly fine with heavy compression, so long as it fits the style of what you're going for, it's all intentional, not overly loud volume-wise (regular-old volume, for example, but also in terms of how much clipping there is), and it doesn't accentuate the harshest frequencies of the most annoying (or least accessible, to be nice) sounds in the mix. i.e. Part of the reason why I hate certain dubstep is that I tend to hear quite resonant wobbles and repetitive sirens (it's not THAT interesting! GOSH).

Well, the judges placed upon themselves the obligation to be fair and be the least subjective as they can. Sometimes they have to reject something they love for poor production, pass something they don't care for out of respect for a great arrangement, and so on. That comes with the expectation that sometimes a ReMix will pass where the panel is split, or sometimes people will get mixed reactions, etc. One might expect that from rap, hip hop, dubstep, metal, and joke tracks, from what I've seen. Oh well. If fans are directly considered, then it would be closer to a popularity vote than a fair vote, by my interpretation. Larry also gave that remark with a grin, so... grin... too? But if you really want it...

That's a word I see many people get mixed up, so that's why I suggested something different ("there was"). I've just never seen it used for placing an event in a room rather than placing a physical object down onto a surface. It can be in some sense, though ("...the scene was laid..."), so alright.

Okay, maybe that was rather suggestive.

Agreed. It would also make the subsequent "He" less ambiguous (even though we're obviously talking about Ryo in the bio). Also, "lay a greater shock" feels odd; no one's placing anything down on a surface; it's just a location where a tense event occurred, so wouldn't it be "lied a greater shock"? Or even forgo lie/lay and try a different phrasing? How about instead of: "Inside the dojo lay a greater shock: Ryo's father Iwao was facing off against the intruder, a man named Lan Di, refusing to hand over an item known as the Dragon Mirror." what if it was: "Inside the dojo there was a greater shock: Refusing to hand over an item known as the Dragon Mirror, Ryo's father Iwao was facing off against a male intruder, Lan Di." Or, if you wanted to break up the flow and not use a colon two sentences in a row: "Inside the dojo, Ryo's Father Iwao, facing off against the male intruder Lan Di, fought to keep possession of an item known as the Dragon Mirror." or similar. It depends on what you want to be most important in the sentence. In the original version, the event with Iwao facing off the intruder seems to be the most important part, but Iwao seems to be losing based on the wording. In the first suggested revision, the Dragon Mirror seems to be the most important, and the meaning is barely any different. In the second suggested revision, the event with the intruder seems again to be the most important, but it also might be making Iwao seem stronger in comparison to the original version (which might not be exactly accurate, seeing as he lost). Just something to keep in mind when you want to emphasize certain areas of a sentence over others.

This guy has two published on OCR. http://ocremix.org/artist/13042/worldsbestgrandpa

If I really wanted to be pedantic about this, I would say the guitar wasn't particularly rhythmically tight enough. But I found the vocals distractingly bad (so bad it's good) enough that eh, I can accept this as a joke track that's just good enough.

For both our sakes, I hope you get your first pick so that I get mine. =P icwutudidthar

Not to mention it's apparently the same as Squid Adler...

They're gonna have their own creed and everything.

Or rappers.

I like the way the track opens up with basically a jazz chord ostinato with filter modulation. It gets a little repetitive with that though, since that goes until 1:09 without changing between that many chords, so that chord repetition could have been remedied with a few more chords interspersed within that timeframe. So, 1:09 is where the track started getting more interesting for me. When we get there, I appreciated the shift at 1:24 to more of a "Big Beat" type of feel, although the dropoff at 1:39 was rather sudden. Even something like a change in the drum pattern near 1:39 to signal it would have helped. When we did get to 1:39, that was the highlight of the track for me. Finally we get some meaningful dynamic contrast, IMO. The bass could have been heavier there, but no big deal (you had basically a low, detuned saw, whereas something closer to analog and/or FM is what I would have done instead). From 1:39 until 3:55, the flow was great, and worked well. In fact that is my favorite part. The siren transition was OK at 3:55, but I would have done something closer to a resonant FM tone instead (sounding somewhat bubbly, in other words); just something to consider as an alternative at some point. The solo starting at 4:06 was a good change of pace and did incorporate originality. It was making a lot of jumps, though, and in that sense it makes the melodic contour sound somewhat meandering to me. Maybe some spots in the solo there could have a few long notes so that there's more of a separation between phrases, if that makes sense. But that doesn't really make it a bad or not-good solo necessarily. I understand if you wanted to keep the empty feel of space. It's good, and it just could be a tad better. I do like this overall, but in the future, I think you could work on the amount of repetition you have, and when in your structures you can incorporate more dynamic contrast for maximum effect. Nice work!

That nurse's voice is so silly. This whole ReMix is silly. *KOFF KOFF KOFF KOFF WEEZ(ING)*

I think Clem pretty much nailed it calling this "deceptively simplistic". Arrangement-wise this is not your run-of-the-mill house track. It starts off pretty basic and sparse, with a thin kick, simple bass, and a rather nasal lead (like Clem mentioned), but compositionally this actually deserves repeat listens. If not for the simple tones and the slightly unusual structure, I think this would have been closer to a DP.

To be fair, at 0:23 you did layer on another piano line, but I am strongly convinced that the arp line underneath it at 0:00 - 0:12 was copied at 0:12 - 0:23, 0:23 - 0:34, and 0:34 - 0:45. However, by the time I get to 0:23, I expect more than the thin piano playing. Where's the low end? By "no layering", Skrypnyk probably meant that the textures have no variation at 0:00 - 0:45, which is correct; it's only the same piano sample doubled, and in terms of EQ, I don't hear any difference or immediate contrast when the top piano line comes in at 0:23. It all sounds like one instrument, except you have a lead line that presumably you would want to be heard prominently. I would say that either that top line is too quiet, too similar in texture, lacking enough motion in the melodic contour to draw attention to it (I understand that this one can be tough to address), or all three. I would suggest that if you want to keep this repetition going for 45 seconds, use a distinct-enough piano sample for the top line and at least give some sort of EQ contrast to the repeated piano arp line (0:00 - 0:12) by the time you get to 0:12 - 0:23. i.e. allow more sub-200 Hz frequencies to come in using automation, if those were high-passed previously. You can also do something arrangement-wise (though it may be hard to think of it in the first place), and that's to add a lower piano line that plays some sort of more-noticeable bass-range counterpoint at 0:12 - 0:23. Surely you have a sample that can reach below 200 Hz and at the same time be played more loudly than what's here now. Then what you could look at next is how to further make the textures heavier and heavier until you get to 0:45, in segments of 0:12 - 0:23, 0:23 - 0:34, then 0:34 - 0:45.

That real-time divisi is so good.

Panning implies an imbalance between the left and right, so when I say "wide implies it's in both the left and right speaker in far positions, just so you know", that emphasizes my suggestion to have the signal be in two far positions. To do that, you would need either two signals panned separately, or one signal with specialized delay (I let him decide which way to do it, but yes, I could have just said specifically how I would do it). When I listen here, I hear a narrow signal, not one I would term "wide". (I should also clarify that if you pan 100% left and 100% right and you lower the volume, that does not turn it into a centered signal; it's just a quieter wide signal. The signals in the two stereo positions remain the same, but each signal's volume was just lowered) Ideally I would rather have two different guitar takes panned at around 90~100% left and right, respectively, and the takes should be different enough in timing, tone, and offset in such a way that the overall perceived tone of the guitar sounds bigger, and a more complex tone is more easily achievable in this way than with one tone with that specialized delay (ping pong delay with small echo times [<15 ms] that are imperceivable to the human ear as distinct reflected echoes, and instead are perceived as one wide signal). Just so you have a point of reference for panning for electric rhythm guitar (and it doesn't have to be omega-heavy deadly doom metal), here's a narrow sample of a recreation I did of a friend's band's metal song that approximates your panning, and a wide sample of the same thing, but how I would actually do it. Just to be clear, there is no exaggeration here on any of the guitar panning. Both the drums and guitars have their panning altered, while the bass stays centered. (My suggestion of this panning in far positions should help to free up some of the low-mids that gets cluttered later in the track)

Unless you mean literal sampling, everything is cited here, and based on the source tune names (which I am rather familiar with from playing the game as a kid), it does look like every source tune is rooted in SM64: http://ocremix.org/album/56/super-mario-64-portrait-of-a-plumber Technically, Metallic Mario (and Wing Cap Mario) is built off of "Invincible", but that's recycled throughout many Mario games anyhow, and it is personalized for SM64. If someone did use a source tune not from SM64, I would like to believe that it's only as some sort of small cameo. Literal sampling is encouraged to be minimal on OC ReMixes, so no, not all of the music samples SM64, if at all.

Cool ReMix, bro! I like this OST myself, and you'll be hearing a ReMix from this game from me as well (subbed in April, YEAH)! Neat use of the Omnisphere jazz doo-wop vocals. They fit in pretty well with that energetic slap bass and cheesy fake brass.

I've run into a similar situation. I did dispute it, but then the copyright claimers just denied it. Nothing else happened, but whatever, I still have my account intact. I decided to let it go to avoid actual (and wrongful) copyright strikes. Although... I dunno, maybe those claims disappeared, because I don't see them at the moment.