timaeus222   Members

With the tempo comment, what I mean is that sudden tempo switches can throw people off guard. It takes time to ease into a new tempo, and I personally don't do many tempo changes because I think it's hard to make it work without raising eyebrows. With timings, YMMV; with nonphysical instruments I don't mind as much, but with realistic instruments, stiff timing highlights how sampled they are, and even slightly random timing in either direction (a few ms) helps. Besides what I mentioned, I don't have anything else to mention; maybe it doesn't seem like much, but I think it's enough to last you if you keep referring back to this list and seeing if any of these still are issues.

You can download it and load it into an audio editor. It should display the waveform amplitude vs. time.

Just edit the first post and add a Mod Review tag to the first tag on the list. Use the Full Editor and you'll see it.

Here's a summary of the main things I would look at: - Multiple different tempos (I didn't mention this earlier, but it sounded like you switched tempos a few times without signaling it first) - Clashing harmonies (again, didn't mention earlier but it's there; it sounds like your backing instrumentation has chords in a different key to the leading instrumentation) - Loudness of certain instruments (like your synth lead playing the Chemical Plant Zone melody and the slap bass VST) - Checking reverb amounts - Minimizing the amount of EQ overboosts - Checking velocity magnitudes and timing offsets to reduce stiffness and improve realism

No problem! Stitched sequencing is when you use multiple instances of an instrument, each sourcing from different sets of samples, and you spread out your notes over the set of instrument instances so that some MIDI channels play sustain, some play vibrato, etc. But maybe you're not doing that. Variation in tone is a bit subtle; there's something called Round Robins in sample libraries, which basically means a set of samples of the same note is rotated so that not the same sample is played every single time. If the same sample is played multiple times in a row, I tend to call it "machine-gun-like". The variation in tone is not always obvious. Reverb can sound in various ways; there are more metallic tones, more ambient tones, and so on, and it depends on the balance between low-mids, midrange, and treble reflections (if those settings are available). If the difference in tone is too drastic for example (and this is exaggerated), maybe an instrument sounds like it's in a closet, but another instrument using a different reverb instance sounds like it's in an auditorium.

Koto-ish When the koto (or whatever it was) first comes in, at about 0:00 - 0:08, the velocities just register as stiff to me; did you adjust the magnitudes and quantization? It feels quite on-the-grid, and it's especially noticeable because (and when) you're playing chords. I usually write the bottom chord note coming first, and the top chord note coming last. If the person is plucking two notes at the same time on different strings, then I just slightly offset the timings in whichever direction since one finger might just be faster than the other. Consider checking this stiffness in other spots for the (presumed) koto---even a few ms of offset matters, and it really helps to adjust the velocity magnitudes on each chord note, too. I tend to have the first note quietest and last note loudest on a strummed chord, and for plucking two notes at the same time on different strings, they may be close in velocity more often than not. Also, I'm not sure how the ADSR envelope for the koto is set up (or if you can look into that at all), but assuming the release is low and the decay and sustain are high, perhaps if you want to minimize the amount of times the (seemingly pre-recorded) vibrato is heard, I would guess that you can just shorten the length of the sequenced note and it should stop the note before it reaches the pre-recorded vibrato in the sample. With a sample like that, I would try to minimize the amount of pre-recorded vibrato that ends up playing so that it doesn't sound so fake. Ideally, if possible, you should adjust the ADSR envelope so that the vibrato hardly ever plays, and then record your own vibrato manually using pitch bend "event edits" or "automation clips". That way it's more human. By the way, with "pre-recorded vibrato", I mean "baked into the sample". (was that "stitched" sequencing of more than one instrument instance?) ----- Erhu I agree that the erhu doesn't have much realism; its slow attack coupled with its same-y tone makes it stick out as lacking variation in tone (through round robins). I also find that ride sample that comes soon after, a bit distracting (the one panned rather far right). ----- Big Picture / tl;dr (major: reverb, timing stiffness, velocity magnitude sameness, vibrato sameness) Overall, this kind of reminds me of the Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon OST (great OST). This atmosphere works pretty well in terms of the instruments chosen. Still kinda rough around the edges on getting the instruments to sound realistic (various stiff areas in the timings, especially with chords, and the amount of times a seemingly pre-recorded vibrato plays). Another good idea is to keep the instrumentation sounding like it's all in the same room. I think the ideas are pretty good so far, but I also think, if you have the options available, refining the cohesion between reverb tones (whether the reverb is primarily low-mids, midrange, or treble reflections, where the low cut and high cut of the reverb "wet signal threshold" are, etc) would help. Unfortunately I think it's something you'd have to isolate in your DAW and listen for, and it's not something I can hear in the full context since it's pretty subtle. Generally, low-mids reflection adds low end ambience, midrange reflections may sound a bit metallic if overdone, and treble reflections should sound "hissy" if overdone. The low and high cut basically jointly mark the frequency range that the reverb will affect. Everything below the low cut frequency won't be affected, etc.

For 2002, this is actually pretty good! I liked it! One of your better old ones IMO. This is very listenable, even today. Cool e. piano sound! I wonder if you've tried the jRhodes3 soundfont yet; that's my favorite free e. piano sample, and probably the best free one you can get in terms of round robins and tone (otherwise I just use my synthesized e. pianos, or I whip out Neo-Soul Keys).

Sounds great! My only minor complaint is that maybe it could have had another second or two of tail at the end (it seemed to end a touch too quickly).

What I heard was a note that had a sudden volume dip for a short moment. If it was a low velocity note, I think it would just be quieter. Maybe a volume or CC11 automation got a stray low point, or it wasn't as smooth as it could be. Really though, it's a very minor point, and I only pointed it out to help Neifion with attention to detail. It doesn't detract (IMO) from what is still great.

I didn't know he wrote for Land Before Time. I'm pretty sure I had up to the 9th movie on VHS back then. RIP

Then let's do it? C'mon man, I'll even lend you a hand. (and by that, I mean collab)

If a source tune has vocals, and someone made a ReMix for OCR with the same lyrics, but a different melody and harmonies (but similar-sounding blend to the harmonies), would that still count as source usage? Specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKye8frl9Qc - Original https://app.box.com/s/d7wsat6dt4dlx8ul9yjzqij3xdh3vkd9 - ReMix The original seems vocoded, and mine is vocoded.

I play piano, actually. They sounded pretty seamless to me! Based on the amount of talent it must take to play through the songs, I figured they would take more than one take, but based on just the sound alone, they sounded like one long take in the end, which makes them sound even more impressive!

The track is private.

Um, does your bass have reverb? I'm pretty sure I hear something like it at 0:08, and I... don't ever hear bass with reverb, honestly, because it adds extra low end ambience that clutters the mixdown below 200 Hz. Also, and more importantly, the piano in the beginning sounds plunky (in other words, like someone played with one finger the whole time), and the FL Slayer instance coming soon after just immediately makes me wonder, "what did you intend for this soundscape?". There are also some pretty resonant sounds every few seconds in the more energetic sections (pretty much, everywhere except 3:29 - 4:00). You said you have more reverb now? I don't think it really helped enough, unfortunately, because those resonant sounds still hurt. I think you should try reducing the resonance on everything that has a resonance knob, and lower the volume of the entire remix by about 2 dB. Overall, the things I would say are most important are that the guitar and piano samples aren't very convincing as realistic samples (did you adjust the velocity timings or values at all?), and the mix as a whole feels very painful above 2000 Hz. I would suggest perhaps practicing with EQing by sight (brighter on the Parametric EQ 2 means louder), and that may help. You did have some good spots where the energy level changes to relax the listener a bit before getting back into the action, but I had to skip around every time I heard a resonant sound to not cringe, which was every few seconds, so I didn't get to hear much of that. :/ What headphones are you using (e.g. AKG K240, Grado SR-60i, Sony MDR-V6, etc)? That's probably influencing a lot of your EQ and sound-selection decisions.

Are you going to keep working on this? It's a good foundation so far, but to me it feels like a temporary sketch of what's to come. I think it could have less copy+paste, more varied bass patterns, and an update to the breakdown section. The bass pattern keeps doing the same filter motion, and it could be a longer pattern instead of one short one repeated a lot. The breakdown section has almost nothing happening other than one arp and one lead, and then the same bass with the same motion starts coming in again (try a new bass perhaps?). I personally take advantage of my breakdown sections and really have a lot of fun to make it the best part of the track. Maybe you could try that too?

This is actually really good. Even on the interpretation level, I honestly think some of these should be submitted to OCR. I listened to that Super Mario 64 / Zelda:OoT mashup, and you had some pretty great chord progressions and melodic contour alterations from the originals, but I still recognized it. The mixing was impeccable and your dynamics were pretty excellent. Were these in single full takes after lots of rehearsal, or performance segments stitched together?

Thanks, guys! I used presets I made before, and I used the "Recent files" folder in FL Studio to pick samples I used yesterday. With my volume on though, it was improved for about 30 more minutes: https://app.box.com/s/s9qoxr6rkdbeflqo1qtd728cppn0y8vm So that's what I would have done with my volume on for an hour. (didn't really think about what I wanted to write though; I just let it flow out) I'm stopping this song there though, but it was a fun experiment! EDIT: Now that I think about it, it kinda reminds me of this feel: http://zirconstudios.bandcamp.com/track/oasis-epsilon mixed with this melody: https://soundcloud.com/zircon-1/no-regret-ft-chris-gordon

I technically got done with something in 28 minutes. Now if I can successfully post it here, that would be great (been getting Internal Server Errors) EDIT: https://app.box.com/s/1il3nbc3myyvuye0nbkgjowe97w2e64u

That's just from harmonizing a basic saw wave as the modulator. I forget if you have the full FL, but the default setting on FL Studio's Vocodex sounds like that. http://www.image-line.com/plugins/Effects/Vocodex/ The demos don't really show that, but try it at a high octave to make it sound less "buzzy" and more "pure". Here's an example of a similar tone: https://app.box.com/s/lqt82xe7illo300ntn1qfnehwel6duji

Alright, yeah. I'll make a short, maybe 1 minute song later tonight or tomorrow and we'll see how it goes. xD

Hehe, I think that would actually be pretty fun. I almost always mix and master visually, and I sing quite a lot. Obviously if I do like how it goes I'll polish it up later with the volume on. BONUS: Try doing it without playing an instrument in real life. You may not know what key you're in, but knowing your intervals, it shouldn't be all that bad! Before or after picking out sounds, though?

Yeah, I have no problem with things being more automated these days, and I'm all for keeping design standards consistently high, but in case you missed it, I did ask, is it possible to go back and edit (online) the generated code later to do particular design changes (small ones), or would I have to ask you first so you could send the raw files yourself?

Well, I was actually pretty far along with this; the dropbox zip file I provided is the latest one as of right this moment, but it's fine. My main beef with templates is that I don't get control over the formatting of the generated code; I'm sure you know how there's a bunch of white space in it. I'm alright with going with the template. I do want to know though: is it possible for me to clean up the formatting of the generated code later (tabbing, spacing, linebreaks, etc)? Y'know, just because I like to write the raw coding and have it be readable... at the same time.