timaeus222

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.

'sup? Wanna build off of this? Just did it recently. https://www.dropbox.com/s/5zeftl80vmeqwjl/VV3%20Website%20Sketch.zip?dl=0 What specifically are you looking for with the design aspect? Coding I'm sure I can do.

Man, not many people may realize it, but the chord progressions and melodic contours in here are top notch. Jazz influences at their best!

Yup, they made it, with 7 hours to spare!

No, I mean their initial one. At least $270,041 was definitely funded. Either way, they're 96.8% there to their 2000000-pound ($3120530) goal and counting. (I just think it's funny how fast the numbers are going up)

still almost to that one, too (~93%)

Try thinking about it this way: What would you actually use from the list of libraries, and is THAT worth the $50 a month? I personally use everything I have, for some reason or another, so... yeah. EDIT: You don't have to pay $50 a month. If you don't feel greedy, $30 a month is just fine, for 7 libraries of your choice. I honestly think that would help if you personally have a problem with self-restraint. Why have something if you end up not using it?

lol Stretch goal: like, $200000~300000 Acquired: like, 10x that and by $ I mean dollars ofc

The best old Disney song of all time

I would go for #1; most concise IMO, and it doesn't make it so OCR has to have a plugins/libraries database (right?). The only "problem" is, if the person doesn't type in the developer name too, it might not be super identifiable, and perhaps ambiguous in certain cases. For example... sfz and sforzando may be the same Italian notation in music, but they're two different plugins---sfz by Cakewalk and sforzando by PLOGUE. So, MAYBE add a fourth option? One text box for the developer name, and one text box for the plugin/library name. i.e. u-he Zebra2 Cakewalk sfz Impact Soundworks Plectra Series 4: Turkish Oud

I wonder if it would help if you used two piano samples; one for the Salsa feel, and one with more reverb and more legato sequencing for the intro. I think based on what you were going for, the piano sequencing for the Salsa/tango sections are sounding pretty good!

If someone simply decides to completely alter the implied harmonies of the original and use their own, then it doesn't involve merely understanding the chord progression of the original, but rather, how to use proper chord progressions and bass lines in a coherent way with the original melody, as well. Even though I talked about replication of the original, the above is mainly why I involved the interpretation aspect---because if you stray from the original (like if you kept the melody and wrote everything else as new), you have less of a concrete reference for the harmonic structure and a greater difficulty in formulating a proper one, if that's not your strength. That's definitely your intention at least, sure, and I agree. However, if the point of the checklist was to provide specific bullet points, it could be pretty long; imagine if everything on the checklist was split into separate, specific points. (Hence, the first post states that it lists presumably common/generalized issues, rather than particularly specific ones, and acts as a "supplement to personal, specific feedback".) I'm not against including what you have, as you know, but my intention was to say that I would rather they be more general phrasings to be elaborated upon, so those who don't know music theory well have a clue of what the bullet point even says without having to look up difficult terms. It gives the flexibility for explanation in a way with which they are most comfortable. Again, I think the checklist is meant to be more general, and the reviewer can elaborate however he or she sees fit; if the issue does happen to be bad counterpoint, then that can be mentioned. If the reviewer doesn't even notice it, or doesn't use that keyword but still describes its principles, or doesn't even understand what it is and doesn't say anything about it, I think that's forgivable, because it could be too minor or too complex of an issue in the big picture. It would be an oversight to be sure, but in the long run, realistically, who's going to notice it? The more attuned people. Well, one of the qualifications to be a judge was that you 'don't have to know music theory', but you do have to be able to articulate your observations to a comprehensible extent. Because of that, yeah, some judges might not notice some of these issues, but again, depending on the remix/song, it could just be too minor to matter in the big picture or too complex to notice. In short, "it happens... oops". Just for the record, I don't think proper melody/harmony sensibilities are subjective, but it might be treated as such every now and then. Lastly, I'm not against these being on the checklist; I would just rather they be rephrased to be more generalized so that they're more "accessible" to the typical reviewer, and that's what I aimed to do in my previous post.

I think the checklist is mainly to cover the *common* problems. I don't know how easy these harmony/melody-related observations are for others to hear (some might even call it subjective ), but I think those can be covered using these more general phrases: Lacks coherence overall (doesn't "flow" enough) Can simplify clarify that it is due to a strange chord progression that sounds off; already on checklist Ineffective counterpoint In my opinion, this may be too specific and can probably just be a "personalized" comment that is "off the sheet" (AHA! I knew I could use this phrase somewhere). Not on checklist at the moment; would need elaboration / 4. Instrument/sound parts lacking cohesion in harmonic or rhythmic movement ("bad voicing" and "lack of agreement" were your phrases) --- Not on checklist at the moment; may need specific elaborations The last one (the interpretation of [or how they understand] the source tune, in a case where the person decides to retain some chunk of the original chord progression, involves inaccurate replication of the chord progression) is probably not general enough though; [irrespective of what you meant,] you can interpret a source tune however you see fit, as long as it sounds sensible and it reminds someone of the original. In some sense, this last one could potentially lead to all of the above, especially 1, 3, and 4 (or at least, I've seen it), but either way, it seems pretty specific. It has happened a few times in compos though, I do recall. [One might want to call this: Clashing harmonies ] Also, zircon did make this statement: ...y'know, if the checklist didn't cover what you wanted to say.