timaeus222

This is one of my favorite Metroid Prime remixes on the site. Loved the melodic embellishments, tangents, and direction in general. I hear Vig's crits, but man, some nitpicks there! My favorite instrument is that distorted rapid arpeggio that plays alongside the guitar. Slick production, slight lossiness aside. ;D

I think this is a great improvement. If you want it as a Bonus, I personally wouldn't have any more (major) crits.

This is excellent. One of the best remixes I've heard in a long time, and that's saying a lot. Still retains your style, but incorporates some effective film score-esque elements that create quite the brooding, freaky mood.

Eh, pardon me, Mak, but, er, rabbits is bigger than penguins. Happy Birthday!

Maybe it's just me, but 1:04 - 1:18 was a little bare, and I thought the bass was staying still a little too much in the first bit of that portion. Not a big deal though. I agree that the drums and guitar were a little pushed back in the mix, but I also agree it's not that much of a problem. I actually liked that transition at 1:53. Maybe the transition could have dragged on for a few more seconds, but a pretty sweet style shown there and everywhere else IMO. Loved the lead guitar and synth parts especially. I loved Scaredsim's "Turrimann" back in the day, 3 years ago. I like this almost as much, and that's saying a lot!

Oh yeah, I hear what the bass is now that I'm listening on my main headphones. This is something that's gonna happen---when you get new headphones, you have to get used to them, and if they're better than your previous pair, you have this 'obligation' to raise your mixing standards (or at least, I did). I can hear that bass now, but not with the other headphones, so that means the bass mixing can be clearer. And the low impact at 2:50... I could barely hear it with either pair of headphones =P

Brain twins. That is all.

Somehow I still find that funny.

Well, yeah, that's of course the idea. I just wasn't talking specifically about that. Yes, you're supposed to keep tracks on an album at a relatively close loudness so the dynamic flow makes sense and people aren't thrown off by drastic discrepancies in necessary listening volumes, i.e. ending a song quiet and proceeding into a very loud song is obviously going to be startling, and proceeding to a quiet intro from a loud song causes people to turn up the volume, only for the quiet intro to proceed into a loud portion, which is then too loud. Yes, you're supposed to be near a 'standard' dB RMS, more or less, but that's straightforward, at least to me. So no, it's not as if I don't understand that, it's that I didn't talk about it. Maybe I also just mixed up the cause/effect or wrote ambiguously. i.e. it's not that you should mix loudly so you can incorporate more details into your music, but that it's the consequence of mastering loudly that you can hear more detail in certain music without changing your volume. It's not a case of being careless if I didn't know I was being ambiguous. That's almost like saying speaking in ignorance is a result of not having time to proofread your notes. I'm not constantly on here, repeatedly revising what I say in the past before someone else reads it (sometimes I stay logged in for a long time, but that's only so I don't have to type as much out of sarcastic laziness). We're both in college, so you should understand both our perspectives here.

Well, here's my reasoning. The louder your music is, the more dynamic range you cover, but again, obviously, you don't want to squash your dynamics. I know if you keep pushing the limiter, you're going to either get overcompression or overcrowding, and if you get either one, you lose transient detail and uppermost treble, at the very least. But, my point is, something at, say, consistently -5 dB peaking amplitude vs. -2 dB peaking amplitude has details that are less audible, and you end up having to turn up the volume to hear them. That's why when I downloaded zircon's "Vessel of the Void" and saw that it was peaking at -3 dB consistently, I re-mastered it to 0 dB and the bass was siiiiiiiick. That's if you get too loud. I'm referring to quite below vs. near the 0 dB peak, or at the 0 dB peak vs. a little above (with a tolerant limiter, of course).

Well, yeah, you need it for a violin/piano arrangement; that's what the image said. What purpose is it for? Kickstarter? Selling it? Personal use? Free sharing? How realistic is it supposed to be? Give more information.

Ohai, Damage drums. anyways: I'm actually finding the strings pretty distant compared to the drums' prominence at 0:16 - 0:49, to the point where it gets a tad muddy and wherever the strings show up again. At 0:49, I agree, the brass and strings could be more present since they're kind of pushed back by the amount of reverb on them, and wherever the brass or strings show up again. You brought a sub bass or somethin' in at 1:21, right? It's hard to hear, and I think it just adds some muddiness, so I think you should give that a look-see. I would try sidechaining the Damage drums to it, so that the bass creates presence in the low end but isn't really just there to take up space and be some sort of semiaudible padding. I like the breakoff at 1:54 - 2:18. It's very bass-oriented, and it's hard to do well. I honestly think the reverb on the strings is the only thing I would really critique in that part, but I dunno, maybe it's already partially baked into your samples? At 2:46 - 3:23 it gets pretty stuffy, and the drums get lost under the sub bass and whatever is happening with the strings (I can't hear it with these secondary headphones due to the reverb washiness). So overall, it's mainly issues with the reverb for me in terms of how present the strings and brass are, and the subby bass adding unnecessary low end mud. The sounds are cohesive, and the arrangement makes total sense and works well in isolation. But yeah, mostly, reverb and bass clutter. You might want to try this as a reference track.

I was trying to find a different thread, but eh, I thought this was interesting.

Yeah, I agree that the intro lacked bass, but if you listen reeeeeally closely, you can hear a little sub bass. Personally I don't think this embodies true trance (not that I'm complaining), and I think that helps its case. Essentially I agree with djp in that it doesn't sound as repetitive as traditional trance, but also that it was still kind of repetitive. I really loved it at 1:08 when the more texturally full pads came in (I didn't think it was muddy there, but the bass was a little thin/boomy and not so much present as it could have been). The more generic trance parts with the supersaw and such were alright, and could have been better, but overall this is a pretty nice addition to the site. I think a fair amount of people would like this.

I don't know about a course, per se, but I think looking at how zircon writes his atonal music and trying to predict how he writes it can help you to write it.

Yeah, that's absolutely right. When I hear harsh resonances, it feels like my ear contracts a bit, and tells my brain that it hurts. Even if the resonance is minor, I still feel that slight contraction, telling me that it's actually there somewhere. Same when there's a high amount of sub bass for me. And with the 'making things sound loud without actually blasting the compressor' idea, I'm sure you know that that has a lot to do with how often the peaks deviate from some average peak value and the fullness of the frequency spectrum occupied by the instruments you're using. A full spectrum that peaks at about -3 dB every few seconds is probably a little 'louder' than a sparse spectrum peaking at -0.5 dB every now and then. For example, this is louder than this, but either one has a suitable respective loudness from what I can hear. The loudness also largely depends on the quality of your limiter. Personally, the limiter I use is very forgiving on loud peaks, so I don't have to worry so much about overcompression.

Louder IS better. The louder you master, the more details you can incorporate into your music. But obviously sausagefest waveforms are terrible. So yeah, context. Only mix loudly if you can tell whether you're mixing too loudly or not. If you can tell the difference in volume at +/- 5 dB, then that's great. Telling the difference in EQ peak level at around +/- 2 dB is better (that's as far as I can hear, personally). Honestly, I would prefer mastering at -0.2 or 0 dB, just like SnappleMan, and leaving headroom if it's a context where you don't need excessive compression to make things sound cohesive. I actually try not to use master compression if the track already sounds good.

This complete.

It's an interesting concept, but the beginning sounds (up to 0:22) are really abrasive and piercing, and the dissonance doesn't really sound right from what I can tell. I think you have a few different keys going on. There's a way to write good dissonance, and this dissonance here sounds less natural than I would imagine you were intending to go for. It sounds like you mixed minor intervals with diminished scales and tritone intervals, which theoretically clashes easily, often. Try sticking to diminished and tritone, or sticking to minor, or sticking to minor and diminished. Mixing diminished and tritone is hard, but mixing minor and tritone is just weird. Worth pursuing though, but it'll take a lot of work.

Whoo! http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02061 Or try this (how convenient). http://ocremix.org/forums/tags.php?tag=winter-holiday

Yeah, that's right.

Great job dude! I agree, it definitely sounds like Smash Bros. due to the march feel and the syncopated brass.

This is not that close to a straightforward interpretation of the theme, despite how it starts. Those cross-panning and orch-hit-esque contributions make this more of a happy and prospective credits theme than a reminiscent one IMO. The random fake guitar was funny and I think it still fit in well due to the mixing. There are times where I wished the harmonies did something other than what it did, but that's not a big deal. Overall this was still a fantastic and nostalgic way to end the album!

Nice ambient soundscape. I actually think there are problems in the EQ and playing though that make it fatiguing and loud, and additionally overcompressed. The piano starting at 0:13 is grating in that it has a resonance and it is somehow sustained in a such a way that it sounds more like a synthetic FM piano, and in that sense it hurts. At 0:51 - 1:19, it's most evident that the guitar has several moments where it has an isolated loud strum, and I think it's too loud compared to the rest, which for me, detracts from the strings padding that is laid out beneath the guitar. It's also a little stiff. These two above issues apply throughout wherever they appear. At 2:18, the vocals are indeed pushed back too far, and they are actually saying something, so understanding them is important. I can't understand them. Interesting shift to metal at 3:03. I think that was well-executed in terms of the arrangement flow and transition. I do however think that there's a distinct lack of bass presence until 3:32 or so. At that point it seems like the bass just creeps in under the radar, and it doesn't feel natural to me. I think it'd be better if the bass was foreshadowing its presence more obviously. It also seems that there are vocals at 3:36 that are completely buried. Unless that is somehow what you want, I don't think that they are necessary there. Personally I wouldn't purposefully hide vocals, in any situation, even if they are merely backup vocals. Overall, the ideas are good, and they make sense in this context. You have a soundscape that is sensible and coherent, and this is a plausible approach to an ambient/metal remix. I do think though that the slight overcompression (not extremely noticeable), the grating resonant piano, stiffly-played and occasionally loud guitar, buried (unintelligible) vocals, and overly subtle bass entrance detract from this too much. I think this is salvageable, but there's a lot of detail work associated with it too.

Okay, I've sent mine in (yahoo mail, "Dungeonmans Submission").