timaeus222

This is really cool! Good to see more work from Jill!

Well, it's not really something that I personally like, but it's pretty clean-sounding, and I think it sounds better than more typical trap music IMO, so I think you accomplished what you wanted.

Yep, that's been asked earlier (in the "Welcome to the New Forums" topic here), and hopefully it can be addressed.

Yeah, no problem. Even though you do want it to be staccato though, the timings won't be spot-on in real life; for example, if you play a chord quickly, there's a minimal amount of time where your hand is still on the piano before it's lifted, and so the leftmost edges of each note and the rightmost edges of each note won't line up perfectly. That means not every finger on your hand will hit the piano or leave the piano at the exact same time, and that's what makes it more human. Even if you offset the notes by the smallest offset amount that you can manage (even a few milliseconds), it helps. While the notes for this style are probably going to be at similar velocities, sure, if the velocity response of your piano sample is low, the variation in tone that reflects the variation in velocity will be low as well, and vice versa. So, listen closely for the variation in tone, and try adjusting each individual velocity a bit to see how much and in what way the overall sound of the chord changes (slammed, medium, soft, or somewhere in the middle), as an experiment. Alternatively, you can also try changing the velocity response, if you have that kind of control in your VST or sample library.

Yeah, I think it lived up to the hype. Kinda odd though how no one wrote or was asked to write an artist bio for themselves.

This is pretty elaborate! I thought the sax solo was a pretty risky choice and felt a bit sudden when it came in, but no big deal. Alex's vocals... I dunno, I guess they didn't need that much delay; the delay could have had a lower high cut to affect the more hissy syllables less, but again, not a huge deal. Later on though, I agree, they were pretty unintelligible. Regardless, all that doesn't really undermine how good this is. Great work, guys!

Listen if you like dog squeeze toys or rubber duckies. (Who doesn't?)

I thought that some of the tempo changes made me land into a tempo that didn't always quite feel right; sometimes the new tempo was a bit too slow (like, 4~8 BPM), sometimes a bit too fast (again, like 4~8 BPM). But other than that minor thing, which is hard enough to think of and accomplish without a proper sense of tempo and rhythm, this arrangement is totally bonkers. Only you could think of this.

I agreed that the initial glitching was a bit too superfluous (I mainly found a problem with this because one of my specialties is glitching), but it started making more sense after 1:20 with the chippy lead. Before then the arpeggio flow felt odd/chaotic/too dissonant to me. Best part was at 2:21. Great job expanding the source harmonies!

You should check your bass sounds and see how much frequency content there is below 200 Hz. Try low passing near 200 Hz and seeing if the frequencies below that feel strong. If not, try looking at how the sound was made in your synth and see what could have decreased the amount of bass below 200 Hz. Maybe you decreased it in an EQ plugin, or you used too much overdrive/distortion in a filter within the synth, or something else.

Gentle reminder that if anyone needs any help on their mixing, feel free to collab; I'll be available!

Even churches are motivated; they're telling us to eat Jesus's flesh and drink his blood to become immortal, and plant our seeds of worship. Even they want us to be zombies! That's a sign, right?? *nudge nudge*

The Remember Me soundtrack, which GLITCHES AN ORCHESTRA, WHAT?

I develop one skill at time, doing a bit of it every day to make it more natural, like muscle memory, but I only try when I feel the need to learn it. I don't really play the drums, but I can imagine someone playing drums and that's good enough for me. Similarly, I no longer play the guitar, but I still can imagine an expert guitarist and sequence a realistic electric guitar as if that person was playing it. If I do something with an instrument in a day, I usually end up aiming to recreate something I hear.

What happened at 1:18? For a bit it felt like a note got pushed down in the middle, and then at 1:20 it was fine again. Otherwise, sounds really good! I think it comes pretty close to the original.

What "selected knob"? I think it's more likely that your individual instrument volumes were too loud, and your Limiter just pushed them down. Without the Limiter on, does your Master track read red? Regardless, did you change your default sound settings on Windows? You need to make sure the Sound settings for the so-called "Playback Enhancements" are turned off, because they alter the final result of your listening experience, especially the loudness. They will affect how you mix, and won't give you an accurate perception of your music. On Windows 7 (Sound > Playback Device > Properties > Enhancements), the options are called "Environment", "Voice Cancellation", "Pitch Shift", "Equalizer", "Headphone Virtualization", and "Loudness Equalization".

Note-wise it shows promise. I think the buildups are all the same though, and in some cases it works and in others it gives a false sense of energy. The buildup you have at 0:08 - 0:16, 0:39 - 0:47, 1:01 - 1:09, 1:27 - 1:31 and 1:42 - 1:46 have identical snare sequencing and/or ambient hits, but they're all used for different purposes. The first and second ones prepare me for something so high energy that I feel disappointed when I don't get that. The third one makes some sense, but I'm still not getting something as high energy as you make me anticipate. The fourth one didn't even build up to anything (if it wasn't there, I wouldn't notice a thing different), nor the last one either (is this track incomplete or is that supposed to be an ending?). Huh? Drum programming is supposed to reflect the current level of energy in a track, and evoke a sense of where you are going, structurally. It can also set a particular mood, or, in buildups, make you anticipate a change in the level of energy. Try thinking about what you want your listener to think by the time they listen to the end of the buildups you do, and if your writing doesn't imply or match that, then it doesn't make sense for the buildup to be there, or it doesn't make sense for the buildup to lead to that particular section in your track. Snare buildups with continually subdivided hits implies the anticipation of quite a high energy section. Also, while not quite as important since it's supposed to be for a game AND it's supposed to be EDM, in my opinion, the piano notes sound too mechanical because they're detached at times when the notes played make more sense objectively to ring on rather than stop suddenly in the middle of their decay (0:00 - 0:02, for example, is easiest to notice IMO). To be more specific, it sounds like they're literally being muted as they're being played, which I have never seen a real pianist purposefully do. What you could do to help this is to, again, practice using reverb and putting it to use. Reverb would have helped to hide the mechanical notes on this piano sample. tl;dr: Practice more with reverb, and try to think about when your buildups sound anticlimactic or out of place. For a cliche example of what not to do in EDM: https://soundcloud.com/zeb-ro/hashtag

I kinda agree with Kristina that the first saw lead was a little underwhelming. It's lacking some extra expression to make it even more interesting, and it feels a bit too low-passed to cut through. It's not so bad that I'd replace it, but it could have been a bit brighter. The marimba/xylophone that occasionally comes in feels a touch sharp, but nothing major (hah, get it? Sharp... major... ). The track overall sounds slightly lofi (~16000 Hz and above are rolled off or not present). I definitely hear the anime-opening feel though, and I think it's cool how well it reminds me of that. Kind of like if Phoenix Wright (or even Dragon Ball) had a new anime season and this was the opening theme. Feels like an elevated 80s~90s-inspired track.

I gave a quick listen to each track, and it sounds like the main thing I think you could improve on is avoiding overcompression (or overly intense sidechaining) in Safe in your Arms and in Altered State. Similarly, Dub Moon Rising is strangely quiet overall, and feels overcompressed, or you have a dull kick drum that is coupled with overly intense sidechaining. It's odd since it's dubstep and I usually find dubstep songs on soundcloud to be very loud. It's not wrong to be too quiet, but I don't want to have to turn my volume up for your song but then turn it down for others. Mainly I would work on trying to find a better limiter that is more tolerant to your loud mixing (relative to the limiter threshold), such as TLs-Pocket Limiter or FabFilter Pro-L, but I would agree that compositionally the songs could have a more well-defined structure and a more logical flow to the arrangement. Currently I can skip through them without missing anything climactic or hearing textural contrasts. If you can skip about 15 seconds along your song a few times and you can tell that something feels substantially different, you'll be on the right track IMO. An experiment you could try is to listen to your songs with your computer monitor turned off. Soundcloud may cloud your judgment on how good or bad your transitions and flow are because you can see the waveform and you can usually tell what's going to happen (it's gonna get quiet here; it's gonna drop here, etc).

Did you accidentally change your accessible range in the VST wrapper? In a VST channel, under the Plugin tab, there should be a mini piano strip. Normally the C5 is highlighted orange. Try dragging the left edge of it all the way left until you reach the beginning of C0, and the right edge of it all the way right until you reach the end of C9 to expand the accessible range to 100%.

Classic Chimpazilla with the groovy disco feel! I think the melodic syncopation was an effective way to adapt to 4/4. I think maybe the gated vox could have left at 1:39, but it's no big deal. Dat zircon lead though! The highlight of this track was 2:12 - 2:44.

Hm. Well, I like the atmosphere you had going on. Nice touch with the subtle plucking starting at 0:46 on the right. There were a few compositional choices I think could have been improved though: - The OSC-sync-like phasing sound at 0:56 - 1:13 feels like it goes so low that it loses a tonal center, and I guess I could describe it better by saying that you could hear a similar effect by playing chords on a piano. If you play a C major chord near middle C, it sounds great. If you play it 4 octaves down, it sounds like mush because the frequencies are more closely spaced. In this case, I think that's happening, but on that phasing sound. - At 1:44, it felt like something bassy was introduced, but it felt indistinct. Something percussive, maybe a bass drum. It comes back at 2:01. I think it could have been replaced with something more audible, because it clashes with the bass sound you seem to have there too. Overall I do dig the vibe you had when you introduced that sound at 0:20 (was that the nyckelharpa?), and there are some subtle additions to the soundscape that ultimately help fill it in. It's mostly cohesive, tonally. I just think stepping back and listening to the big picture, and seeing if everything sounds distinct enough, would help on making a clearer track.

Early on, I like the atmosphere. The pad is active enough for me that things feel full enough, so far. Nice bass line. At 0:52 and on, I agree with Joe, but I think the melody is too thin, to be more specific. I would rather it come out more in the midrange, rather than above the upper-mids. It needs a more midrange tone to fill in the hollowness of the soundscape. The soundscape continues to be hollow throughout. I think this is the biggest issue. There is a large gap in the midrange frequencies, which makes the frequencies above ~2000 Hz seem more piercing (though they are a little piercing regardless), at least at 0:52 - 3:12. What midrange elements you have are just too quiet to contribute significantly enough that they matter. They should be louder or there should be more midrange content. I personally didn't like the sax/flute parts. They felt out of place to me, narrow, and were more lofi than the other instruments, so for me, they stuck out too much as lower quality, in terms of fidelity. A bit of personal taste here. At 3:12, you did have that quick piano interjection, which helped for a few seconds, and then the midrange becomes empty again, until 3:44. Why not use that piano earlier on? You had something going there. At that point until the end, the melody still stands out as piercing to me, even though the percussion fills in some midrange. I didn't mind the ending as much, but I see where Joe's coming from. Overall, the major concern I have is that the midrange is too empty at 0:52 - 3:12 and 3:16 - 3:44, and the bells are a little piercing all the way through 0:52 - 4:18. To help the emptiness, I think a thicker melodic instrument with more upper-mids and mids would work better, and I think there should be more midrange elements or louder midrange elements. It's a pretty good skeleton so far; just needs more meat.

Joe has a way with quirky arrangements that work rather well. This is no exception!