timaeus222   Members

Seems to be a style of these four to start off a little conservative and personalize it later on with rad solos. I checked out their old music, and they kicked up their game since a year ago, and it was already good back then. Totally groove to me. The solos demonstrated plenty of skill, music theory prowess (or just really good ears), and some excellent arrangement flow.

It's been a while, but I think I can come tonight!

15 yeeeeaaaaaaaars!

Interesting juxtaposition between the major-key and minor-key portions; the Lavender town theme seems to lend itself well to both moods. The dubstep was also really well done. Could tick some people off, but I personally think it's on the borderline of like-dislike (I like it, anyway). Keep up the good work! Hope to see more of ya.

Theory may not work for everyone. I personally know the bare minimum about theory (scales, chord names, etc.) and I don't feel like I really need more than that; it's weird, but I've made music with harmonies I can't explain, which I honestly am okay with as long as I like it. I would read a manual on your synth, try to figure out what the knobs do, and recreate some sounds to refine your sound design imagination. Maybe try to transcribe simple songs by ear and write your own harmonies to them, see what works, and see why it works (note relationships, like basic intervals, even). Maybe imagine chords in your head, write them out, and see if it matches what you thought. Listen for other peoples' chords and try sequencing out what you hear.

It just sounds so transparent. This is exceptional.

Yeah, I agree, the structure of a subtractive synth is fairly straightforward to understand, if you take the time to read up on it (I didn't when I first started ). Basically, you usually start with an oscillator (might be called VCO for voltage-controlled oscillator), which is a module that gives you a starting waveform, such as saw, square, triangle, sine, or maybe noise; send the output through a filter (might be called VCF for voltage-controlled filter) that attenuates/cuts out some frequencies or changes the width of the frequency band (small width = resonance, high gain = brings the pain; no gain, no pain! ); and optionally modulate/modify with things like a low-frequency oscillator (LFO; inaudible) or an envelope (ADSR; attack, decay, sustain, release). I think if you get used to imagining what happens through that process, even just how the input sounded and how the output could sound, you can think up sounds and decide "okay, to make this sound, I should probably do this, then this, then this." or "I have this sound somewhere... it's on the tip of my tongue... now where was it?" FM is a little funky (also an inside joke, 'cause you can make e. pianos with it!), and the theory on that was pretty hard when I tried to read up on it (I ultimately just figured it out by experimentation). It's essentially when a waveform gets stretched and compressed according to the slope of another waveform over time (stretching = positive slope, compressing = negative slope). What you get is a sound that becomes buzzier as the frequency increases; some might call it "gritty" in some cases, or "glassy" in other cases. It gets even more interesting when you change the pitch of either the incoming oscillator or the FM oscillator, since that changes how the wavelengths of the waveform line up a bit, creating less "standard" modulations. Wavetable is more or less just a way to draw your own waveforms, or use predrawn waveforms. It's not much more than having more interesting "basic" waveforms to begin with in a synth.

Oh yeah, that's another good point. Sometimes there's a particular type of instrument that you know you want to use, but maybe you have multiple samples or VSTs that can give you the tone character you want. For example, if you realize a piano would really make the song, you have choices between a hard-toned piano, a multi-velocity-layer ultra-realistic piano with a range between soft and hard tones, or maybe one from a specific set that's just really unique (like Roland SC-88, or FluidR3, or somethin'). Also, you could even go more specific into the sound's playing capabilities. Do you want it to sound legato? Retrigger? For example, I would generally use legato for synth leads, or retrigger for a pitch-envelope bass or a cinematic "pulse" bass (not a pulse wave, but in the sense of straight quarter notes in a horror genre, perhaps), or something like that. (If you're using a real instrument, that can be read up on, since flutes can't only be played staccato, cellos can't only be played legato, etc. but that's obvious)

I pick my instruments based on the mood I want to evoke and the frequencies that are empty at the time. It really depends. I think it'll help quite a bit if you synthesize your own sounds so you can ingrain how it is a sound is made, and that way you can try synthesizing them in your head as you imagine them, and look for what you're imagining. In time, it can become straightforward to think about how you want realistic instruments to sound before you pick them out and process them (because real instruments are usually less complicated than synthesized sounds, if you already have a base sample ).

Played that four years ago in my high school's talent show, I think.

When I said that, I was referring to the low ambient hits and distant snares coupled with the sustaining bass.

Yeah, I agree. Some of the old artists that I used to like, I'm now turned off by because they really weren't that good So yeah, I would listen to more varieties of music. Get inspired by new music.

Okay, and now the minor nitpicks: - 1:50 was where I was hoping a change would occur in the lead melodic contour - 2:13 would be where I would hope for a slightly different soundscape; something where the sync lead was swapped out for something else (like the bell at 3:04) to highlight the ambience of the supporting instruments before you drop off at 2:42. - Personally I would prefer the sync lead be less retrigger-like and more legato, because it could make it more soaring and evocative. Sorta big but not major thing: - 3:34 is flooded with bass; if you didn't have drums there, I think it would sound less flooded, especially considering you are nearing the ending anyways. i.e. I think 3:34 could be your outtro, rather than a climax that drops off to a quick rehash of the intro. Overall though, I love the soundscape, and the arrangement mostly works for me. It's just those things above that I would have to mention. If you want to submit this to OCR, I don't think it's that far off.

I actually prefer both (yes, I've done orchestral, recently). Velocity-sensitivity gives me the performance I want, in terms of the order/flow of the articulations used, before outlining the dynamics with MIDI CC; I basically try and decide how I want it to sound before I do it, right down to the articulations and the general volume I would want it at.

Just wanted to provide a quick thought. Generally it's good, but I think the major issue is the sync lead line that comes in. It sounds like it's playing a few quick notes, then some longer notes, and to me that sounds noodly, rambly, and as Michael said, meandering. For me it makes the arrangement feel directionless until the next breakdown section. I don't think it drives the arrangement forward, basically. It leaves me thinking, "okay, when is this going to change gears? It's still going on at this dynamic. Is a more concrete section going to come to offset this section, which I am phasing out of?" Any other thoughts I have are rather minor, so maybe I'll mention them later.

Plopped in some feedback!

I remember telling this guy 3 months ago that this would definitely pass on OCR, easily. Look at that, it did! Totally deserved the DP.

This week was quite possibly my favorite week in general. Lots of good things happened!

It was just a timing issue on the genre switch. The tempo is still about the same, but the playing was rushed early on. I think the lead guitar is too loud, and the intro had too much bass. It's overcompressed. Other than that I'm not wearing my good headphones right now, so I don't really have much to say about the mixing. I don't think there's not enough development in the arrangement to warrant the length. 1:54 is OK, if the structure is changing quite often. It would be easier to make the remix longer and add more dynamic dropoffs and variation to add more substance to the listen. This sounds like it could have gone at least 30 more seconds.

Yeah, the judges check and make sure that anything that would become a copyright issue or is not written for a game gets a NO override.

Unless it's sarcastic

This topic addressed the same request.

Have you read the other posts here saying that the poster says he or she is confused? It's not just me. <--- I already said that. And those people (e.g. PI511, Anorax, etc.) therefore made the same conclusion I made. Are you going to criticize all of us, or just me? Like I said, it's inherently a dilemma, based on how people change their standards on who they call anti- or pro-. You mentioned the double standards inherent in the GG situation, which I quoted below for extra emphasis. I already expounded on the dilemma. I'm not making this up. Take it or leave it. Not worth my time to discuss analytical and synthetic practical propositions or subjective relativism. You can read up on that if you wish, but I am NOT subjectively relative. In fact, I'm much closer to favoring objectivity than subjectivity by a long shot. I already addressed this. You criticize, and you have to do it very carefully. If you don't, you risk getting 'doxxed', etc. The double standards that you continue to assert would create this dilemma. And again (with the purposeful double negative), although we ought to try to fix this, it's too large of a problem to try to fix unless a fairly high number of people actually can and choose to do it. It's so large that, as you said, "the GJP members and their supporters' proven behavior is barely even mentioned", i.e. GG overshadows them in that we might actually be too afraid of them to attack them, yet we don't want to do nothing. We're torn. In despair over this. Honestly, you'd be debating "why aren't things more ideal?? Why don't all people do what they ought??". Well, the world isn't ideal. Not everyone does what they ought. We make large simplifications and assumptions to understand it, in many cases. For example, how hard is it really to distill real life phenomena down to mathematical equations, integrals, etc.? How hard would it be to calculate the Schrodinger equation in full detail for something above Helium (the answer is, time-wastingly hard, and you're going to make at least one mistake)? Why is it most (not all) philosophers accept that humans are superior to animals in intellect and not question much of it? Why is racism still a problem? The list goes on, and I'm not going to ask you to answer the previous question, obviously, for the very reason I'm even talking about it in this light.But anyways, that's only to illustrate the point that we can't approach solving a complex problem such as this one thinking that there's a great possibility we can fix it (No, I'm not saying you said this. I'M saying this; get that straight). We have to approach it with a certain skepticism... a tight filter. After all, there were posts in this topic (which I'm not going to bother to try to find, as it's fairly clear) mentioning something like, "how can you tell what GG articles are telling the truth and what articles are just voicing smartly guised lashes against GG? How do you know which ones to trust?" Again with the hostility, as if I'm trying to waste your time or something. Ignoring. There's nothing wrong with saying etc. I'm not going to bother trying to find the list of people who have had similar things as above happen to them. I don't care if I say etc. or et al. or and so on. It saves time. And I already addressed this above in another way. They're complex moral issues such as this one (see summary) that are most easily solved by changing habits. Changing habits requires changing fundamental beliefs. That takes the cake right there. You realize how hard that is, right? If the so-called supporters were truly seen as supporters, they wouldn't be attacked. There's likely an emotional factor or something that blinds those attackers, because under the supposition that some supporters got attacked, that's just preposterous and ought not to be happening. Any truly rational, sober, sane being would not attack his or her or its community unless out of some uncontrollable state of being.