timaeus222

Okay, here's my take on Joe's review, if it'll help clarify. I have to say, I certainly agree with Joe on the notion that it could feel too upfront. I don't think it really is completely the case that it's too upfront BECAUSE it's too upfront, but because the textures are too sparse until 0:45. You have a bass, reverbed bells, and reverbed aux percussion (rimshot?) until 0:45, yes? Yeah, it's not enough. When you added the pads later on at 0:45, it filled in the soundscape and made it substantially fuller. Even something like WN faux wind or additional reverbed aux percussion such as clave or shaker could help fill in the hole by supplying that ambience and covering up the dryness of the bass (which just has no noticeable reverb... even though it's not actually conventially necessary).And the other reason why it felt too upfront is because it actually is. When more elements come in at 0:45, and even 1:15, the bass sounds a little too loud, but if it's really exposed, which it was at the beginning, then it just seems louder. I get that that's playing the source tune notes, but with bass, you can feel the notes without hearing the filter modulation. You don't need that much treble on it, necessarily, even when things pick up more at 1:58 with the addition of the acoustic-like snare and the little plucky arp, so you could probably subdue the bass's trebly frequencies later on to make it more of a felt presence than an audible presence (obviously you can still listen specifically to it and focus on it and hear it, but you know what I mean). And yes, I agree with Joe here as well that it takes too long to progress. Think of it this way: 30 seconds in, generally there should be substance to the arrangement that is enough to keep people listening, regardless of what it involves. It has to maintain interest, however it is that it's done, because 30 seconds is quite a while (it's a whole TV commercial, of course). I can personally stand a minute or two of build and development, but three is stretching the limits of one's patience. It just isn't changing up quickly enough. In a sense, it's almost proceeding like a logistics curve with regards to the dynamics and layering for 3.5 minutes. Remember that the average song is 3~4 minutes. If the same notes repeat with only a little variation texturally but not dynamically or melodically, for 3 minutes, that's just it, it gets too repetitive. If I were to imagine the dynamic curve of this remix, it pretty much goes like this:1 - logistics curve (0:00 - 3:27) 2 - exponential decay, tapering off at a low point (3:27 - 3:29) 3 - backwards logarithmic curve, down to the lowest point (3:29 - 3:58) 4 - logarithmic curve (3:58 - 4:58) 5 - high, sort of constant point, arguably the climax (4:58 - 5:27) 6 - exponential decay, tapering off at a somewhat lower point (5:27 - 5:28) 7 - backwards logarithmic curve, down to the lowest point (5:28 - 5:59) 8 - gaussian curve with a low maximum (5:59 - 6:55), maximum at 6:27 - 6:43 You can have the nicest textures ever, and it wouldn't change the arrangement that much because it's sound design, not note pitch or melodic contour. How you wrote the notes is how you wrote them, even if you add more and more layers and take some out, if the layers don't make it feel different overall melodically or harmonically. Also, this is a very conservative arrangement. Almost all of the instruments match the original exactly. So overall... (if you didn't fall asleep reading this) Write some more overt variations in the melodic contour. Either develop the arrangement more quickly or add more contrasting ideas. Cut out the unnecessary repeats (which honestly I would put 3:58 - 4:58 under, because you already had that snare roll going at 3:58), because you aren't really cheating your listeners out of something they hadn't already heard before. If you were to scroll through this 30 seconds forwards at a time, I think you could notice how similar it really sounds all throughout. Lastly, the sounds you chose are very, very close to the original. You have a bass playing the bass part, strings playing the strings part, and pads playing the pads part. That makes it much harder to differentiate from the original. You might be able to find something from this that gives you an idea of how to adapt the source tune in interesting and diverse ways.

Hm... yeah, a little too weird, even for me. I did like the more dubstep-oriented sections not because it was more familiar territory, but because it wasn't grating. I thought there was too much purposeful distortion and purposeful crackling in the other, more atmospheric parts to really get into it without it just hurting. Maybe if it was quieter and if there was some attenuation of the higher frequencies and some more reverb, it could have helped. EDIT: I now confirm it. It's tolerable at lower volumes. So really it just bothers me at full volume. I wonder if anyone on youtube bothered to turn it down rather than turn it off.

Yeah, the harmonies work better! It's still a touch strange in the interval jump at 1:58-ish on the louder lead, but harmonically I think it works.

I have a hunch that Room of Close Associates might fit in well with Treasury Room, so can Yami and I claim it at the same time?

Okay, a source breakdown since I used 3 sources: 0:00 - 0:16 = Treasure Src 1 (0:00 - 0:19.2) 0:16 - 0:17 = Treasure Src 2 (0:09.1 - 0:11.8] 0:17.4 - 0:21.3, 0:25.2 - 0:29 = Spectre Src 1 with some fills on second half of each iteration (0:09.6 - 0:14) 0:32.8 - 0:48.4 = Treasure Src 1 (0:33.6 - 0:36) 0:50.4 - 0:52.2, 0:54.3 - 0:56, 0:58.2 - 1:00, 1:02 - 1:03.6 = Spectre Src 1 (0:45.9 - 0:48.1) 1:03.6 - 1:19 = Spectre Src 1 with some modal variations (1:00.6 - 1:17.9) 1:27 - 1:34.8, 1:42.6 - 1:50.4 = Spectre Src 1 (0:09.6 - 0:14) 1:50.4 - 2:01.9, 2:05.8 - 2:17.4 = Treasure Src 2 slowed down; listen to the bells (0:11.8 - 0:21.4) Sidenote: turn on dat subwoofer

k, I'm basically done with the track right now. Ended up using both Treasure sources and one Spectre source. xD EDIT: I'll add a source breakdown later. I think I might have made a mistake in that I actually used only 3. I can't remember at the moment. I drew from some of the subtler portions of a source sometimes (EX: the MidEast arp in Spectre).

Hm, looking at this again, there's a lot of copy+paste. Try not to do that so much, because it doesn't really add new content to listen to. 0:11 - 0:34 is the same as 2:35 - 2:57. 0:34 - 0:45 is basically the same as 1:43 - 1:54, except with drums 0:45 - 0:57 is basically the same as 1:54 - 2:07 0:57 - 1:20 is the same as 2:07 - 2:35, except for that last bit of variation at 2:24 - 2:35. That kind of stuff should be done for the other sections too.

There are just a bunch of notes from that long-release sound that bleed together, and clutters up the harmonies from the other instruments. Imagine a piano with a million slatherings of reverb on it.

Some of the cymbals are somehow off. The one at 0:56 didn't line up with the first beat. Also, I actually didn't suggest a cymbal at 1:36; it didn't feel like that one was necessary; plus, it was too loud. The click at 1:48 is gone enough, though the one at 3:04 is still there. 2:15 ended up muddier than before, and there's a weird dissonance until 2:27 that muddles the harmonies. There's something with a long release that's doing that, and the notes are clashing with basically everything else. So, basically, some things got fixed, but some things were overlooked accidentally, and some other issues were introduced.

I still use Cool Edit Pro, too, for post-processing (no, really).

Wow, there was definitely a LOT of attention to detail put into making this, because it's just about perfect in the flow, mood, and instrumentation. Fantastic ReMix that really makes full use of not oft-used, typically highlight-moment instruments. The bass pizzicato was a neat touch.

Hehe, at 3:48, it sounds like ISW Juggernaut.

okfieni'lldosomethingmoar I felt like DusK's interpretation of the source tunes felt more straightforward and "archetypal". Good soundscape and mixing, but while it was still personalized pretty well, some harmonies felt off like Nabeel mentioned---simply out of key at 0:28 for example (I felt that way earlier too; he just articulated it in a clear way ). It did remind me of Castlevania; the church bell, the (fake-y) organ, but even the strings tone and harmonies contributed a little to that. Neblix, you had a complexity to your harmonies that clearly differentiated from the original, though it might be hard to appreciate. Sometimes it could seem like there were wrong notes (i.e. sort of like blue notes but still a playable pitch---passing tones that were outside the key), but they weren't, at least to my ears. The arrangement was really the deciding factor for me. Alex, I actually liked the underlying chords you had sometimes, but there was sort of a meandering, stream-of-consciousness feel to the arrangement, and it felt longer than the ideas could have been if they had been condensed down so they could be better expressed. There were some pretty excellent chord progressions, even if directly from the source, i.e. 0:59 - 1:08, 1:10 - 1:21, 1:29 - 1:36, 1:40 - 1:48, etc. Reminded me of PSO. I wish the chords could have been more clearly defined rather than partially implied---you can feel them but not hear them. Some sounds didn't really fit their notes, but it was really the lack of direction that led me to switch votes. Hakstok, the production was just cleaner. Some lead synth choices were not really fitting because they were a little thin and PWM-y, but at least all the notes were audible, so that's not a big deal. It's got an uplifting atmosphere to it, though the lead guitar was sticking out at 1:35. Maybe the low mids could have been automated down a little to accommodate for those lower notes. Overall, pretty solid.

The hard part about using samples is that you might not yet know what the tendencies of a guitar player could be. So, even if you write a cool solo that seems realistic, it might not feel natural. So you may want to either study the stylistic choice of the soloist as well as the notes themselves, if you want to stick to doing it with samples. Here's an example for violin (I'm just reposting something I used in the past for this request, so that's why the sequenced one actually has reverb): My sequenced violin (reverbed) Live violin (dry) The live recording has a little more flair, it's tighter, and there are less portamentos towards the end.

And it helps if you have if you're not much of a learner by ear.

Seems like: - 0:50 can use a sweeping sound to add a little more motion to that part, signaling that more action is going to happen. - 0:56 had a reverse cymbal coming up to it, but no actual regular cymbal. It can be fine, but in this case, there's a substantial volume difference between the two sections, so it feels like you're climbing up the stairs, and then the stairs end and you fall down a foot to the destination. - 1:12 changes energy, and so it's a new section, but it's missing a sweep, cymbal, or anything with some motion to connect a higher energy section with a lower energy section. - 1:24 has a loudening clap that can kinda distract from the rest of the track, but no riser sound otherwise. 1:28 would then call for a cymbal or some other similar smooth-sounding long-decay hit. - 1:38 loses the drums, so another transition would help. Or at least, some sort of ambient hit at 1:40 (would imply a high passed sample is fine, but one that's not high passed would also still be fine). Personally I would just try a quiet splash cymbal (rather than crash). - 1:48 has an odd click. It seems to stop when the bass stops? Another weird click at 1:56, but that one's really, really quiet. 2:00 has another one of those, and it does seem to be from the bass. - 2:06 can have another reverse or riser sound, while the timing of the sound doesn't seem on-sync with the tempo of the remix. It sounds like something is gating, but then maybe half a gate occurs before the drums come in, so it feels like it's slightly faster than the actual tempo. It basically sounds like how it would normally, but plus a few ms of extra sound. - 2:24 can also use an ambient hit. - There are more clicks, at 2:50, 2:52, 2:54, 2:56, 2:57, 3:00, 3:02, 3:04, and 3:12.

He did the PF2D soundtrack, too, so there's much of his orchestral work.

It's pretty similar to how it was before. Some things changed a little, but it's kinda subtle. The hi hats sound fine now. Still needs clearer transitions.

Hm... I'm thinking I'm probably going to incorporate Red Thirst into my claim (i.e. two-source remix). But, I'd like the track to still be open for others to do in addition.

Quick reviews: Neblix vs. DusK My choice was due to the arrangement's transformation of the source tunes and liberal vs. conservative, and one entry was more apparent in these than the other. Hakstock vs. Alexanderandom This one was close for me. I almost voted for Alex, but I ended up thinking that Ivan's good production outweighed his arrangement simplicity, whereas Alex's good arrangement outweighed his textural sparseness.

Probably my favorite aspect of this is the switch to minor all throughout. Creative, yet viable for OCR. Had this track for a long time now, but never commented apart from on YouTube lol.

No prob. Actually, I don't recall any real moment where I was depressed specifically about music. Yeah, zircon has always been better than me, for example, but I'm good with that. Gives me a better idea of what I can't do yet, and that, for me, just makes me less often bored because there's more to do. And I'm similar to Jorito. I compose by feel. I can't bring myself to do much under the sheet music mentality. I kinda had to today to get a hook idea down, but that was about it since about two years ago.

lol Technically I've been at it for about 3, but after a little more than 2, I made 'Cloudhopping' with Kristina. So... I dunno. Depends on how much time you dedicate to this. Though I think I improved much more in this past year than I did in the second year I tried stuff with music. Important thing is to keep at it, often. Honestly though, modesty aside, I think you do know what you're doing, Argle.

Hakstok for me. It was closer than it might seem though.