timaeus222

Andy has been my inspiration since... 2012 or something, and I started remixing in April 2011. Lemme put it this way: I was a scrub back then, taking remixing critiques from other people and not being able to apply them, and now, I'm giving critiques to other people and helping them. That's a huge jump. I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten to where I am now without his remix walkthroughs, livestreams, and his music in general. Not to mention his and Will Roget's (and occasional outsiders') incredibly well-crafted-and-recorded sample libraries. Keep up the fantastic work!

Hm... yeah, the opening is a touch long, but it doesn't bother me. Actually, I like the creative processing on the phone calls, radio static and all. The rest felt shorter than it actually was, which is always a good thing, because it makes you want to listen again. My only gripe is that the drums are weaksauce compared to the thick and gritty basses.

Hm... yeah, it's definitely better in terms of the balance. It's also hard to teach or learn how to get the melody rhythms "just right" so that a primary lead is evident, and right now I think they're really close, but I think it'll help if I hand you some more references in case you have other untapped ideas. This time, my own. There's not much substance in the sound design to these, so it's easier to focus on the notes. (It's not enough for a rejection by any means, but I figure it's something you have the potential to polish up ) https://app.box.com/s/6f2a2pmqhf3fwa3c9yxd - Complementary melodic rhythms (0:36 - 0:51, and it's a 1:19 loop). This one basically has partwriting that allows the leads to harmonize without being the exact same rhythms. https://app.box.com/s/6z684g948x1br7bxzg79 - Balancing the stereo space between leads and arps (0:29 - 0:47, and it's a 1:03 loop). This can give ideas on how you want to fill your stereo field to make up for sounds that are thin on their own. The arp is not playing a melody, but is occasionally harmonizing with the melody. https://app.box.com/s/mhuto5dpvgbi07gktbbc - Same as above, just different example (0:26 - 0:55, and it's a 1:02 loop). This makes use of one main melody and one seemingly not-present melody. The subtle melody is just embedded into the arp notes and is more choppy so that it's more inconspicuous, since it seems like more sustained melodies are generally what people focus on.

Hm, I still think 1:57 - 2:12 and 3:00 - 3:30 are too crowded. What I'm perceiving is that the lead is the one to the slight left at 1:57 and 3:00, but I'm getting distracted by the lead on the slight right and the C64 arp jumping in every now and then. So, I think you can automate the upper mids EQ of that arp down at those points, and maybe automate the volume down as well so that it's in the background, but still audible. A nice trick you can do is to automate down the dry mix on the reverb for the arp (assuming you have that knob on your reverb plugin; I mean, a lot of them do) to make it more distant when you need to shift the focus away for a while; that'll attenuate the treble a little as well. I think that maybe around 1 or 2 dB would be just enough with the dry mix. Also, the melody on the left and the right are each different rhythms at those time stamps, so if you try to listen to both at the same time, you may end up switching the listening focus between each lead. Because the timbres are so similar, it's hard to make that work with balance alone unless they either are more complementary rhythms (not necessarily matching exactly, just one lead allowing another to lead by taking the backseat and playing less busy notes, for example, could work great) to each other or somehow start out as countermelodies and converge at the end of the current section. It may help to hum the secondary melody out while the primary one is on playback. Here's an example from WillRock's stuff: (1:52 - 2:40)At this point the challenge is basically to balance (volume-wise and EQ-wise) the C64 arp and secondary lead parts even better than they are now so that someone would perceive the primary lead first, and the other sounds usually if they pay attention to them, and then write out particular rhythms in the secondary lead that allow it to complement the primary lead.

Hm... sounds like you sampled the original at the beginning, all the way until 0:39, except there's some slightly different stereo imaging. Either that or you just stuck to the original instrumentation for a while. Either way, it's really, really similar. I think the snare drum is still too inconspicuous. I can hear it above everything else, but it's too short-sounding; it's like there's some noise gating on it or something, or it's just a short sample. I'm thinking a sample with a longer sustain can sound more fitting. Ultimately it's fine as is, though. The only thing I'm kind of bothered by is the retriggered pad. It makes the pacing a little plodding because the phase continues to reset on each note. I guess I wasn't too amazed overall until 3:11, but probably just me. I liked all the other components between 0:39 and 3:11 regardless, and 3:11 and on sounded nice and full. Good atmospherics and pacing, despite the notes staying relatively static. Pacing is a hard thing to get ahold of, so that's a highlight that I think is subtle but a little underappreciated.

I'm just gonna condense this down and analogize for people. Basically, Grosso gives less flexibility as to how much creativity you can incorporate into your music. It consists of premade phrases, like NI Action Strings iirc, so like Nabeel said, it's just piecing together a puzzle from a box, rather than creating your own puzzle pieces from little puzzle particles and piecing those together. Some people don't want to go that in depth with orchestration, and others want to really understand how certain parts work together instead of mashing together premade ideas. If you want to write personalized orchestral-involved music, you're going to need better control than premade phrases. If you just want to throw together quick little addendums or fluorishes to accent orchestral music without being able to change the phrases played, then fine.

I think the strong point here is how the melody, though applied in a straightforward way, is enhanced by the strong execution. There's a great sense of fullness and immersiveness to the soundscape, and the reharmonizations work really well. My main complaint is that the low-pitched vocoding is unclear. I wouldn't know what it said if there were no listed lyrics. Might sound a little washy in some audio systems, but other than that, the mixing seems fine overall.

Yeah, there's a resonance on the low mids in the bells, and it gets hard to hear the other elements in the mix. Still some nice atmospherics and interesting contrast when the Indian percussion came in. A crazy amount of compression on the acoustic kit later on though. Yikes. May come off as overcompressed to some people, but it feels intentional.

I think I know what I would want to do, if I find time to do it. Something Chimpazilla showed me at one point. I forget what it was, but it's bookmarked.

If you listen closely to the wikipedia sound example, there's a metallic layer to the sound, which may sound like a "flicking", but I don't hear that in this remix at 2:50. Also, I've mixed one of XPRTNovice's remixes recently, and he has some live didgeridoo in it. Could be either one, but yeah, it could be a Vietnamese jaw harp (or a really high passed didgeridoo; these appear to be really similar).

Okay, I'm on my regular headphones now, and here's what I'm hearing: The brass in the beginning is a little too in-your-face, and the backing brass is a touch too far in front (but less so) The drums lack punch. I can hear the kick but it sounds like it's for a different genre, and the claps are thin. I'm confused by the reverb at each brief pause. There's quite a lot there, but I don't hear a lot of muddiness in other spots. Is that automated or not? Maybe it's mudding up the bass, because I can only feel the bass, but not hear that it's that acoustic bass from earlier. The lead sax at 0:52 feels narrow, and the backing brass feels a touch too quiet. They could be brought up a bit, while the lead sax can have some more spatiousness on its reverb. Also, perhaps it can sound a little nasal, and can be a cut a little bit in the upper mids. In general, the drums are still a little plodding and pretty basic. They're the weakest part of this set of instruments. The arrangement might seem a little bit copy-pasted, but I think there is some variation in the live performances that it makes up for it juuuuust enough. Anyone wanna chime in on this point? Overall, the mixing on the lead brass is too upfront and narrow (needs more spatiousness and less nasal quality), the backing brass is just barely too far in front (but less so than the lead brass; literally, probably by about 1~2 dB in dry mix), and the drumwork (mainly the kick and snare/clap) can be beefier and more up to par with the live performances.

Okay, yeah, I confirm what I said now that I'm wearing my regular headphones. The piano is mixed pretty far forward, and the orchestra is wider than it is, conventionally. I'd suggest a max overall width of 30% left and right, and for the piano to be mixed further back. Try listening to for an orchestra panning reference.

Is it just me, or is the orchestra panned more widely than normal? The brass felt more wide than usual to me. The piano playing is a little rigid, but still feels realistic. Maybe it's just mixed pretty far forward. I'm not on my good headphones, but that's what I'm hearing. Other than that, this is pretty well done. Good dynamics and harmonies.

Noting a possible problem: Vampire Variations III's planned release date is also October 31, 2015.

I think the BPM is fine, but I think having some more evident hi hats would help a lot. Having swung eighth notes can really add nice groove that would actually go pretty far. I hear ride cymbals and some sort of thip/pseudo-cowbell, but aside from that, I'm not getting that swing that seems inherent, I would think, to this kind of jazz. The mixing feels weird. I'm not on my good headphones right now, but it feels like the drums are upfront and "glued", while the soundscape feels a bit empty otherwise. The kick drum also sounds like it came out of a dance sample pack, and the snare has quite a bit of reverb. I guess can be a decent reference track. It's somewhat like what you're doing, I suppose.

This feels empty. The textures are not filling out the soundscape until 1:31. Before then, it would certainly help to use something like a pad (or anything that acts only to fill in soundscapes) to fill in that emptiness. Also, there really isn't enough development in the first 1:10 and in similar places where the same groove (relative to its section) plods. It needs some sort of layering or melodic progression or something to break up the repetition, i.e. an arp line here and there, adding more percussive layers, etc. At 2:24 - 2:36, the snares feel too similar in velocity, and it feels distracting and plodding. It would help to make the velocities more sloped so that it creates a more pronounced volume envelope and doesn't draw attention away from the melodic portions of the arrangement. i.e. increase the velocity more slowly and gradually towards 2:36. It would be easy to do that in less than a minute---you would just do a right-click-drag in the piano roll and you can edit multiple velocities to a linear slope, and then tweak from there. There is no ending as far as I'm concerned. It just sounds cut-off, like a rendering of a particular selection in FL; i.e. it feels like a rendering mishap. Overall, with the source being this repetitive anyways, it basically asks for textural development in an arrangement of this sort, and the major issue is that there's not enough of that. This is a groove-oriented remix, but the groove is too repetitive at the moment. Changing up some rhythms here and there, adding variations to the textures, and layering textures progressively can really help this.

Nah, I was just presenting my take on it for some perspective, not really harping on your methods. You can mix at whatever point you want. The main reason why I said the ending felt like it didn't fit was not because of the sound design alone, though it might be that in part. Since the outtro was atmospheric and then, for me, hinted at a fade-out, I didn't expect that robo-vocal to act as the ending; I expected a fade-out. Also, in terms of honoring VGM, it isn't necessary to keep the original feel of the source tune. You can do that, but you can also stray away from the general feel of it. Some people have written remixes in a completely different genre, mood, and/or feel to the source tune and still gotten it well-received (i.e. one of WillRock's remixes; Wild Arms, I think).

The main issue is that you don't really know how the client is going to present their budget. Is it an honest budget, or a convenient budget (for them)? Neblix and I were saying that if you go with this claimed 'budget' your client proposes, it may just be an inexpensive deal for them, and not a deal that is a fair compromise for both of you. Yeah, a general budget range is a thing, but the real question is, how do you verify that your client is telling the truth if they are online clients (or if they are crafty even in person or on the phone)? There's always that bit of doubt, unless you start at a high, but not overly high, suggested charge, and then go down from there, maintaining control but leaving room for compromise so that the client doesn't leave you or try to underappreciate your talents.

Well... depends on how you define undercharging. For example, if you have an item that has an MSRP of $5, and the cheapest place sells it for $2. If you have a sale and charge it for $2.50, then you'd still be more expensive than that other place, but if you charge $0.05, then wouldn't you officially be undercharging relative to the cheapest price? That's what I'd call undercharging, at least---charging less than the current least, or less than a reasonable bare minimum. $20000 is still pretty high with respect to $48000. I mean, that's like $333/min vs. $500/min, which is on the high end of your scale. But anyways, that's a small point I guess.

I would actually start by suggesting a price first. Hopefully it's not just me, but I wouldn't want to pay more than I have to if I were to be the "customer". i.e. what if the person gives their audio budget as a low number, whether on purpose or out of necessity? They probably won't willingly haggle upwards, but reluctantly.

I would offer an hourly rate such that it comes out to about $120~300 a song (mixing/mastering), depending on how hard I perceive that it will be, but that's just me afaik. I'd compensate for whatever the person has on hand, but I'd try starting a little high and go down. Does that seem reasonable to anyone else? Easy mixing = less expensive, hard mixing = more expensive is the idea. http://theproaudiofiles.com/charging-hourly-rate-vs-per-song/ https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/470478-general-hourly-cost-mixing-pre-mastering-what-do-you-charge.html

http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=33682 Just saying, dude. Not that I'm a mod, but you've posted at least 30 tracks in the last three weeks, and each time maybe 5 within the same day. Please space out your tracks so that you're not flooding the forum and pushing the other artists' workshop remixes to the next page. Not to mention that basically all your forum posts have been centered around your posted remixes. Alternatively, you could have pretended that some amount of your tracks were part of a large compilation, and posted it as an "Album/Other" category. Anyways, I think you may get more responses if you actually give feedback to other people. Thanks.

I do that to get the context of my instrument/patch choices. Honestly, it doesn't take that much time off my workflow unless it's really hard (i.e. rigorous bass mixing, pedantic treble mixing, etc.), so I almost always do both at the same time. And yeah, I agree that textures are feeling sparse/basic (i.e. 1:08 - 1:37, is clearly sparse) and the dynamic flow is fairly straightforward/plain. However you want to do it, fill in the parts that feel sparse or empty. Here are the parts I think feel empty: 1:08 - 1:37 2:58 - 3:06 3:13 - 3:28 Those parts need either some pads, arps, thicker chords, or more evident development. The ending is also unusual. It just doesn't seem to fit to have a digitally processed vocal after an atmospheric outtro.