timaeus222

Wow. This is one of those mixes that you really shouldn't skip through, not because it has such a wide span of genres, but because you don't want to miss anything. Been a while since I've put something on repeat.

Well, that's true, a melodic focus isn't necessary, but I do think some sort of leading contour could still shape, say, a desert track, using your example. It doesn't have to end up being a melody, but you could hypothetically hum a melody on top a chord progression you try playing, but then not put a melody. It can just guide the chords you write (or help you visualize which chords you could write), knowing that one can write a chord progression to any given melody (in principle). And then, that wouldn't have a strong melodic focus, but it may be easier to construct by using a leading contour as a guide.

As a note, whenever I write a song with a strong melodic focus, it does go case-by-case whether I write the chords first or the melody first. I do get that sometimes the melody can be hard to think of, or to be original with if that's an issue one has. Most recently, I did what @TTT was describing: playing out something rough on keyboard and getting that down to MIDI. Then, I dumbed it down to a more basic chord progression as the intro to an original WIP, with plans to, later in the arrangement, add in the full deal of what I was playing. A few months back though, I also wrote and finished an original where I thought of the melody first, playing chords with my hands and humming the melody on top of it to test it out. Then, I used the melody throughout as a motif, to try to make the listener familiar with it... and perhaps even make it more catchy. This is done, but here's an early WIP example. A few years back, I actually had a burst of inspiration in college and sat down in the library to mouse in raw sheet music for one of my songs, purely because I thought of the melody first (I was humming it on the way home every day for a week), and then the accompaniment came to me while sketching it. Here it is: https://www.noteflight.com/scores/view/3829339a06f1f5fefe6c1978a5ac8a4dd86e0894 And here is an early WIP of the now-finished song. In all three cases, in the DAW itself, I did write the accompaniment first, but I had the melody in mind early on in the second and third cases, and sketched the major bits in the third case outside the DAW.

Menu 1 and Final Destination are two SSB themes that never really get old for me. DaMonz has shown that he can improve upon a classic, and make it his own!

I think even though the ending is the same, the ending works better now, because of the fix on the production in the low end; now you have noticeable high pass automation, which has more contrast than it did originally. Comparing to the judged version again, this is much improved! It has more bass body, less shrill highs, and leads that are more foreground. The track is also at a good loudness now. Perhaps one final thing I might do is let the final delay go on a bit longer, and fade it out a bit more slowly. I didn't think it was too short, and would chalk it up to a nitpick, but each of the judges seemed to think so, and it's an easy fix, I think.

Regarding "Time Traveler", I think the low bass is kinda flooded starting at 1:37, and would do a small cut (1 ~ 2 dB) on those low-drum samples at around 60 - 80 Hz. That may help give headroom for the guitar to breathe, since (and I'm guessing here) perhaps your car has the bass turned up? If you do that, I would suggest you do it in context (meaning, instead of isolating the drums and EQing, EQ the drums without muting all the other tracks). Another reference I like to use for low bass (sub bass, bass drums, gran cassa, etc), for cinematic music, is this.

Are you saying you've only tested listening through the headphones on your own music? If so, you may want some reference tracks that should be clean: General reference (orchestral) Low Bass reference (glitch hop) (yes, it's my own lol) Upper Treble reference (Rock / Drum & Bass) Right now I don't have my good headphones with me at school, so with these temp headphones, I wouldn't be able to give proper feedback on the low bass (which is lacking) or upper treble (which is overly boosted). For example, when I write something on these temp headphones and I think the bass is good, it's too much when I go home and listen on my Beyers, and I spend a few hours fixing it (both partwriting and mixing; if it was just mixing, it would take less than an hour). However, if I am looking for overly weak treble and overly boosted midrange, I can do that.

I would give it a day, listen in the morning, and then see what you think, but if the preset is for a lower impedance, I would think there is overcompensation, since the 250 ohm headphones need more drive than the 32 ohms. I am curious though, whether the effect of Reference 4 can be turned down, so that a parallel correction (some percent of on/off) can be used instead of the full correction.

Took me long enough to hear this, lol! I'd call it a SMASH hit, with some BURNing solos, showing you once again that WILL shall ROCK. Too much?

It takes a certain mind to proceed with this kind of vision and invest in it; each song has a logical progression to it, in both textural development and arrangement. [For example, "Constellations" is largely atmospheric, and it can be hard to nail proper textural progression while maintaining interest. You got that balance.] There's a large amount of stylistic diversity here, but I can hear the jazz influence (in terms of the chord progressions and time signature modulations) and the attention to detail that I would attribute to you. In terms of mastering, the track flow also makes sense. Great job! I think my favorite track is "Colour of Time".

tldr; you get out what you put in. ----- A good way to verify this is to rip audio using Audacity's "Windows WASAPI" audio host, and then render as WAV; then, encode using WinLAME into an MP3 using VBR1 on the "High" Encoding Quality setting. That should be enough to allow for what should be the highest bit rate based on the current time in the song, rather than providing a flat bitrate for the song (like you would get with CBR). [I do think that youtube is more efficient in its audio compression than soundcloud. I always hear a slight, or sometimes quite noticeable fidelity issue with the upper treble on soundcloud.] ----- Here is an MP3 based on the steps described above, of the first video from 2007 I showed, a raw AVI recorded of a 160 x 144 dimension video: https://app.box.com/s/r750tyd1hxufw6vda13j500qsanbewfw The most prominent bit rate range it has in WinAmp is 112 ~ 160 kbps; it goes no higher than 160 kbps. I think that sounds pretty accurate... it is just an emulation of a GBA game. Here is an MP3 for the second video from 2016 I showed rendered using Adobe After Effects and Sony Vegas on the highest settings possible, with the audio stream before uploading being the original VBR1 MP3 file that would be distributed on OCR: https://app.box.com/s/ytv60g8s766ban58qrx3iehjl3n3xr9c The most prominent bit rate range it has in WinAmp is 192 ~ 320 kbps; it goes no lower than 192 kbps. The actual MP3 I put in, for comparison, can be found here. Based solely on bit rate, these are nearly identical, with a few flashes of 160 kbps in the ripped MP3 above. Based on an explicit A/B comparison, I can tell that the actual MP3 sounds slightly better in the upper treble. But I think youtube did a pretty good job at keeping it sounding good, even if it's not identical. And for good measure, here's a third test with a third video, this time from 2009 processed through Sony Vegas (instead of uploaded as a raw AVI) into 720p HD, but recorded in the same way of a 160 x 144 dimension video. The MP3 that resulted is: https://app.box.com/s/bgq8bnn9as35tzyq7igpulgub5x87eh1 The most prominent bit rate range it has in WinAmp is 128 ~ 160 kbps, occasionally making it to 224 kbps and occasionally flashing 112 kbps; it goes no higher than 224 kbps. This is fairly consistent because the recording input was the same as in the first video, so it makes sense that the bit rate ranges are similar, but the bit rate is slightly better because it was rendered at a higher audio quality ceiling instead of being uploaded as a raw AVI. ----- So yes, the audio quality ceiling that you feed into youtube does "change" what bit rate you get out... because you get out the bit rate that you put in (more or less). I'd say, oh, about 95 ~ 98% of the original quality stays. I'd approve!

Experimental is fine, but yeah, it can be hard to pull off. Redg manages to pull it off: However, in this case, I do agree with @Cubeshark that this is a bit too sparse. You may want to add something to fill in the gaps, like a glitched drum loop to add interest, a pad to create some sort of tonal filler, or a bass to glue the mix together. Near the end of the mix, the glassy pad you had was doing that job. Something else you may want to consider is finding a structure; I typically want to be able to skip 15 seconds forward and notice a forward change in something, whether it's faster hi hats, more bass, less drums, etc., rather than just a change. Something where you can tell whether you're in an intro, a "chorus", a breakdown section, an outtro, etc.

I like me some Psytrance! Seriously though, this is nicely engaging, with some good pacing and development. Great work!

Nice, a 3-month wait! Indeed, they're getting faster!

As a passing remark, to me this sounds like you've used some 80's synths on top of distant cinematically-produced electronic drums. The drums sound a little strange IMO, because they're very low-passed. One example I can think of with similar sounds is: Hopefully that provides a basis of comparison for the kind of drums you may or may not want to go for. Also, in the reference, the starting background soundscape contains a DX7 electric piano and a sine wave with portamento (not to be confused with portmanteau :P).

It seems like the audio compression is to about 126 ~ 128 kbps AAC in an MP4 container. This link analyzes the video for the bitrate: https://www.h3xed.com/blogmedia/youtube-info.php Look for "audio/mp4;" under "type" and then locate the bitrate on the far left in "bps" (bits per second). As far as I can tell, even some of my old videos back in 2007 have retroactively-revised bitrates to be about the same as one of my more modern videos (rendered at 720p HD with 320 kbps audio, iirc). If you were wondering, after 2013, video resolution chosen on YouTube no longer affects audio bitrate.

@PRYZM You do what works for you; I just wanted to present what I find to be the most useful features in FL. Also, I just find the Parametric EQ 2 visualizer to be intuitive. I haven't been able to get used to other visualizers that I *have* tried, like FabFilter Pro-Q and TDR Nova. I still use them, but I always go back to Parametric EQ 2 as my main.

Well, there are several highlights about FL Studio, most of which I don't see in other DAWs... The parametric EQ 2 plugin is by far the most useful that I have ever used. Its visual representation of frequencies is absolutely critical to my workflow, personally, because I can simply look for what frequencies are clashing, even if I can't quite locate it by listening. If I didn't have that, my workflow would probably be at least twice as slow. The pattern system is actually useful for workflow... it's meant to assist in writing electronic music, which will have repeating elements. They can be copy/pasted, and Make Unique helps in making quick variations. It may take some getting used to, but if Image-Line removed that, I'm sure most users would complain at this point since they're used to using it. Who ever said that they "promised to remove it"...? The piano roll is filled with useful workflow features, like the following: Ghost notes, for complex harmony writing. Resize groups of notes by holding right-Shift and resizing from the right. Good for writing polyrhythms, triplets, etc., without changing the grid snap. Copy/paste groups of notes or patterns into the next bar (Ctrl+B), good for writing, e.g. bass or hi hat ostinatos. Mini-playlist preview right above it, good if the pattern is long and you want to see where you are. Change the time-signature within the piano roll pattern, separately from within the playlist (say, if you wanted to write a 15/8 bar in the playlist that was 4/4 + 7/8 in the pattern). and so on. TOOLS > "Dump score log to selected pattern" allows you to paste what you have been playing on your MIDI keyboard for up to the last 2, 5, 10, 20, or 30 minutes, if you realize you played something cool by accident but you don't remember what you played. Free lifetime updates! Need I say more? Have you tried it first, before judging...? ----- In regards to the OP, @Deadpigeon, FL20 is now much improved in recording capabilities, and I can sincerely recommend it for both writing electronic music and recording band instruments, after the new update! Of course, you can try the trial version for as long as you like, before deciding (the only drawback is you can't re-open a project file you saved in the trial mode using the trial mode).

I would go for it. I think the workflow enhancements are well worth the upgrade, but you'll want to read through the updates to see roughly what of the new stuff is useful for you. https://www.image-line.com/flstudio/history.php Or the quick version: FL 20 in 4 minutes / in 15 minutes FL 12.5 in a minute / in 21 minutes FL 12.4 in 11 minutes I don't know where you paused, but in particular I found these notable improvements (and this covers pre-FL-20 to some extent): Per-bar time signature change (you know why!) Live preview of recordings, and ability to consolidate MIDI into bounced WAVs with undo Stretch/compress entire groups of notes using right-Shift and click-dragging from the right-hand side. This can be useful for generating polyrhythms. Mini-playlist preview above piano roll, so you know where you are New Fruity Delay 3 VST (you'll love it!) Link a bunch of channels one each to sequential mixer tracks using Ctrl+Shift+L! Really helps when mixing with stems. Ghost notes (maybe new to you?), great for writing complex harmonies. Vectorial interfaces for certain VSTs etc.

Super Audio Cart has replicated SNES sounds (as well as exact samples from Famicom, C64, GB, SMS, 2600, GEN, NES), with an extensive 4-layer synthesis engine, mod matrix, fx rack, etc. Comes with over 1000 presets. May be worth looking at! https://impactsoundworks.com/product/super-audio-cart/

I'm ecstatic, for literally all of the updates in the video, especially the track bouncing, time sig change, return of the graph editor, and pre-computed effects.

MOD REVIEW Hey, good to see this going again! Alright, let's take a fresh look at this. It looks the judges' main concerns were the lack of clarity in the lead work, the amount of distortion going on, the lack of a justified ending (whether it's a fade-out or not), and the overcompression. I do hear that there is less reverb on the lead and an improved amount of clarity. I might experiment some more by lowering the amount of delay on the lead a bit, as the lead work is still somewhat blurry. Is there something accompanying the lead at 0:23 - 0:45, 0:56 - 1:19, and 2:07 - 2:28? I think I might be hearing something with a similar timbre competing with the lead, but it's hard to tell. For another reference on the amount of reverb and delay for lead accompaniment on a DnB track, perhaps consider this. As a note, I would suggest experimenting at 1:45 with a different and more upfront lead to see what you think. You might want that lead to come out more there because it's relief from the energetic main sections. The previous version had a pretty high amount of distortion, and I think it's more balanced this time around (but I can't be too sure because soundcloud doesn't properly encode high treble on playback). I think at least that the overcompression is decreased, because for example, at 1:07 the crash did pump the track in the previous version. It doesn't do that nearly as much now, but instead some sounds like the crash are more distant. Do be careful and keep watching out for overcompression. I think it's a good idea to work on that ending, because listening through it, there isn't that much of a timbral variety going on; what I hear is mainly saws and other abrasive sounds that have lots of high harmonics. (As a note, whenever I write mixes, the breakdown section and outtro are typically moments where I introduce more diverse sounds in and let them shine.) Regarding the ending, I might have started the outtro at 2:32, with no energetic drums, and perhaps made another iteration of the melody you showed in the breakdown at 1:44, maybe with a piano lead instead (something calm with some body, mainly). If you do that, I might also suggest adjusting the arp surrounding it to support the calm lead and be less energetic. By having the drums keep going at 2:32 so far, the track wants to keep going, but if you remove the drums at 2:32, then you can let it start to cool down. I don't think this is quite ready for submission yet, but it's mainly because (1) you're still working on an ending (which would be quite important), and (2) there could be more clarity between the lead and the accompaniment by toying with the delay and/or reverb on the lead and/or accompaniment. But keep at it! You're almost there.

I've usually known pu_freak for his piano arrangements, such as the one wayyy back in The Missingno Tracks. This is a calm + moving rendition that showcases the development in his longer pieces; the tempo changes worked pretty well, I thought, and despite how there are occasional spots where the flow seems to stop, I think it just feels more spontaneous/in-the-moment/live that way.

I think Callum put up a particularly solid vocal performance---with good clarity/enunciation, and the mixing by Jorito is overall fairly clean. I also like how the lyrics contain to-be-expected rickrolling references, but not in a forced way. I really dig the intentionally crunchy production, and I appreciate the dedication to fine-tuning this packed soundscape. Eino kinda has a thing for controlled chaos, it seems! Plus, who can deny the swagger in the half-time rhythm?