timaeus222

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.

Okay, there are some better dynamics this time around, which is nice to hear. But is it just me, or did things get louder somehow? At 0:25, the pad is a little loud (~3dB), and the arp is too (~2dB). Isn't there stuff underneath it? If so, it's getting piled upon. At 0:50 - 1:02, the lead is too loud, by about 3 dB in the low-mids frequencies. Its volume in general feels better at 1:02, so that's why I referred to the EQ. When you drop things off at 1:26, the main vibe still stays the same---synth brass lead, arp, phaser stuff is all still there. Might want to keep polishing that section to differentiate it from the others. Maybe try adding in some new sounds and lowering the busy-ness of the arrangement as a whole in that section. The phaser gets really harsh and resonant at 1:49, and the piano is too robotically sequenced; needs more velocity variation and rhythmic error. It doesn't have to be realistic in this context, but it would help to be less unrealistic. Other than that and more mixing polish, this is a good improvement. Keep up the updates.

SID chips, for the Commodore. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOS_Technology_SID

This is so goofy. Excellent execution.

Nice progression here. I like how well the piano is humanized, and the cello made a good lead when it came in. If you pay attention to the cello's vibrato though, it's an indication of fakeness (constant frequency), but not really a big deal. I like the low cinematic percussion. Great bass here. The best part about this is the timing and dynamics, IMO.

Yeah, the kick is a little too loud, but other than that, some great atmospheric work here, and neat harmonies, too. Excellent reverb.

Ah yeah, I remember this! This was pretty strong of a candidate from the get-go, and I'm glad we could work to get it on the site in a solid form!

When I suggested the compression earlier, the idea was to even out the amplitude of the kick, so that you wouldn't have to scoop out some of the ~60Hz to compensate, and I suggested smexoscope so you could see when that occurs. If you do what you had just done, aside from the 60Hz scoop, and you still get that issue (without the compression applied), you could just lower the volume overall until it doesn't happen, and then apply the compression.

Ah, yeah, that makes sense. Many kick drums are strongest in that frequency range. Typically, the "fundamental" (first harmonic) frequency, also the loudest frequency range, is around 60~200Hz, and some people call that "thump". Since it's the loudest, it could explain why you get distortion when you have the kick at a certain volume near 0dB, then move the filter. Considering all filters (or at least voltage-controlled ones) have a Resonance option, I'm thinking when you raised the frequency, the resonance (a thin boost, focused/narrowed by a high Q) caused the amplitude to go above 0dB and clip. You happen to be doing this: http://www.audiomulch.com/images/blog/southpole-expedition-part-1-low-pass-filter-basics-resonant-low-pass-frequency-response.png

I listened again and added a few more critiques and clarification on some things.

Electronic, as in electronic-sounding, or electronically-processed? By electronic-sounding, I mean for electronic-centric music, and that may include Roland TR samples, for example, but by electronically-processed, I mean anything involving drum samples used in a DAW, even acoustic ones. Assuming you mean how to get started with writing electronic-sounding drums, http://goldbaby.co.nz/ has some great, well-polished drum samples for electro, hip-hop, and other electronic-centric genres that you can use right out of the box and/or layer to get meatier results. If you mean how to write acoustic drum rhythms, then you may want to watch videos of and getting an idea of their tendencies for variation and flow. I think helps on writing drum rhythms in general, whatever type of drums they are.

Are you saying that you want a kick that has a constant amplitude before a low pass filter and after it's been automated to high frequencies? If so, just automate like normal, keeping the max amplitude below the limiter threshold (between when the distortion/clipping doesn't happen and when it does) after the low pass filter has already been lifted. While the low pass is still at a low frequency, it should be quieter, yes. That's fine. You're missing frequencies above a certain cutoff, so it should naturally be quieter in the absence of any other processing. If you want the volume to be somewhat more constant, then just add compression with settings along these lines: Attack: ~20ms Release: 120~200ms or 0.120~0.200s (some compressors use s, others use ms) Ratio: ~2:1 Threshold: -8~-4dB Gain: 4~7.2dB (I just think in terms of +/- k*0.4dB; k = 1, 2, ...) And of course, check the final gain and use your best judgment. You may want to use something from my list of plugin recommendations (free or otherwise) for this compression (specifically smexoscope and endorphin).