timaeus222   Members

Yeah, pretty nice adaptation to some new instruments and an overall change in the feel of the track. Realy solid work, could easily stand alongside the original tracks.
YES

Didgeridoo
YES
oh the rest of the song? it's pretty good, albeit sticking to the original concepts quite a bit.  The more exotic instrumentation does add a bit of identity to it, though the original wasn't short on the exotic instruments department either.  Production is solid as expected, and the fusion of both songs works, helped in no small part from the sources being similar thematically.

Love the touch of glitchy dubs all around this funky track. Not sure intense is the right word, but certainly gives this quite the edge and has a more serious sound than other tracks that have higher energy or funk, but keeps all the fun intact. I always love hearing more Zero ReMixes, and this is a really smooth mix that I enjoyed more than the source itself. Well done!

Hey guys, it's been a long time, but here's an atmospheric Final Fantasy mashup of FF4's Prelude and FF6's Terra with dubstep and light glitch elements! This has been submitted to OCR on March 18, 2018. [EDIT: To show the timeline, this just got approved August 31, 2018 for a direct-post, so about 5 months in this case.]
This was inspired by Stephen Anderson (stephen-anderson on soundcloud); it primarily uses bell and pad textures from Spectrasonics' Omnisphere 2; a Chapman Stick from Trilian; 4Front's TruePianos; and various FM sounds from my Zebra2 soundbank "FM Variations". Glitching was via Illformed's Glitch 2, and some of the remaining stuff was from LA Scoring Strings, Rhapsody Orchestral Percussion, and Serum. The solo violin was Embertone's Friedlander, highly recommend it!

No worries. It's good that you are actually asking, and you seem to be getting it so far. I don't use Audacity that much, but I can give you my thoughts on the rest.
Visually, you would have to inspect the mixer dB meter to see that something went over 0 dB. Sometimes (if the DAW is programmed that way) it'll show red, which should indicate clipping. If you haven't heard it before, it sounds like a crackling, but it might be subtle if you don't exaggerate the volume level. I know I didn't perceive clipping in my first year learning music production without looking at a mixer.
  You can think of hertz (frequency) as the horizontal span of what we can hear, and dB (loudness) as the vertical span of what we can hear.

Hertz is a frequency unit (as opposed to, say, length units of meters, or mass units of kilograms). It just means that for every second that passes, one wave cycle passes by, so 5 Hz means that 5 cycles pass per second. It is also written Hz, or 1/sec.

Some producers might say that higher frequencies "brighten up" a sound, etc. Lower frequencies sound "boomy", "rumbly", sometimes "muddy", etc. Higher frequencies span the treble range (generally around 4000 - 20000 Hz, give or take) via high notes, and low frequencies span the bass range (generally around 20 - 1000 Hz, give or take) via low notes. Lastly, midrange (the rest) is where most sounds lie, like the human voice, lead instruments, guitar, etc. It's where you hear presence, and all listening devices hit some of this range.

On the other hand, dB is basically just loudness. Louder, or softer, at a fixed frequency.
    Yes, the net result is what you should pay attention to. As a general property of audio waves, their amplitudes (loudnesses) will add, and also cancel, at various points, and so, if every channel hits 0 dB, the net result will exceed 0 dB. Therefore, NOT all channels "need" to reach 0 dB by themselves.

Ah I see. In that case, I get what you're saying. Definitely want to never touch the internal volume. Mine's always at 100%, but that's because I have separate volume knobs for my headphones and speakers.
I have 0 consistency in what my (interface physical output) volume is set. The output knob to my monitors will move randomly at least 10 times a day just listening to random stuff (like other music, YT vids, etc.) But when I'm making music, and doing a final loudness check on my stuff wrt perceived loudness, I definitely pull up something professionally done and released on iTunes to reset it back to where I'm comfortable listening to mastered music. At this point, I can just visually see where that knob position should be that I hear "powerful and comfortable" for professionally done music.
It's around 30% on the knob dial for speakers, and 100% for the headphones (with the Sonarworks calibration giving -7.9 dB, and having the 250 ohm DT 880's, my interface really needs to try hard) And then I just take that sort of familiar volume comfort zone and then mix my desired perceived loudness there; this way, I know exactly how my music is going to contrast with other albums people might be streaming alongside me, because I picked that volume level while listening to other stuff. And I know that other stuff is at 0 dB, so I put mine to 0 dB too. If they're both 0 dB, and they both sound just as loud, then they are just as loud, absolutely, on all devices.
Timaeus hit the nail on the head. Before you mix anything you should set your listening volume while listening to a reference track, preferably something professionally done and commercially released.

@timaeus222 I think you're going in a perceived loudness direction which is a little more advanced than the kind of issue BloomingLate has. The issue here is simply that OP doesn't understand the dB scale, which is the "absolute loudness" measurement he's looking for.

BloomingLate, you can raise the master track of your song up to 0 dB FS, which is the digital limit for clipping. You should always mix to 0 dB because that's the standard for mastering. 0 dB is marked at the top of the loudness meter in your DAW software.
The dB number has absolutely no bearing on the perceived sound energy without a consideration of dynamic range (you can still have soft music where its loudest peak is 0 dB). If you don't like a high amount of sound energy, mix to 0 dB but avoid any master compression or limiting so that nothing goes over. In other words, avoiding 0 dB doesn't mean you're avoiding making the music sound too loud, you're just annoyingly making people raise their volume knobs relative to all the other music they listen to.
To explain your own example, trance music isn't loud because it's at 0 dB (the "red" part), it's loud because it's very compressed with little dynamic range, so the sound energy over time is packed and you feel it harder in your ears.

For a practical solution to your problem, you can also render your mix so it never hits 0 dB (to truly avoid the need any master compression and limiting) and then just Normalize it. This will make your music at least hit the same peak that other music does, and shouldn't require the listeners to vastly pump up the volume to hear. However, I would wager that without any compression whatsoever, people will still be raising their volumes. Most music is compressed in some form nowadays, and I can't remember the last album I saw with full dynamic range (besides classical music, which is impossible to listen to in environments like the car because of said dynamic range).

As for the volume levels of your devices (headphones, laptops, stereo), none of that stuff matters at all. If someone's listening device is quiet and they need to dial it to 70% to hear anything, that's their problem. If your music is mixed to the same standards as everyone else, then it will sound the same on their system as any other music they listen to, and that's what you shoot for. This is the 0 dB thing I was talking about before.

How loud it sounds is a matter of handling dynamic range using stuff like compression, and that's what Timaeus is talking about with referencing a track to match the perceived loudness. That stuff is its own rabbithole and takes a lot of learning and experience to understand how to do properly.

tl;dr If you mix it so that you go up to but never cross 0 dB, you will never blow out speakers/headphones and your signal won't distort. This is one of those things that should just be automatic for every piece of music you create.

Well, for one, at least start your mixing on headphones, and not your laptop speakers. They are certainly not designed for mixing, and you know they have no bass, and so they will not sound right anyway...
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There is no exactly correct loudness, but you can get close to what is too loud for you. I probably listen to music about 3 dB louder than other people, but it allows me to hear more detail, it still doesn't hurt my ears, and I still write music with consistent loudnesses. YMMV.
I have a loudness reference that I like to use. This song is about as loud as I would listen to before I don't want to turn it up any higher. Try it when your ears are cleared, on your system when using the headphones specifically, and turn the internal system volume up until you want to turn it down, and find that balance (if you are using "Audio Enhancements" or whatever it is on your OS, turn that off, it messes with you). Establish a consistent perceived loudness for your different listening scenarios for the same song, that ALSO uses the same internal system volume. That is, try to make the same song feel about as loud across the board... but keep the internal system volume the same to make it easier on yourself.
To further adjust volumes on speakers, turn the knob on the hardware, instead of changing the internal system volume. That way you are at least keeping one setting constant across your comparisons.

Just my two cents; I made a small guide a while back on mixing metal:
https://app.box.com/s/ibj5yh5toh2yfc56f4aa
You might also find these two tracks to be useful mixing references.

Hiiii, I did an arrangement of Zelda's Lullaby from the legend of Zelda. I'm thinking of submitting it. Any thoughts on this before I send it in? I'm not so sure about all the mixing, and there's also some minor timing issues that were difficult to solve. But generally I think it sounds cool. 
 
 
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpfYSyiyf2U&t=62s&frags=pl%2Cwn
 
 
 

So groovy. I don't think it's possible to dislike a track like this!

The arrangement breakdown checked out (THANK YOU, bro!), and that's all there is to it. Direct post quality, but just needed the sanity check. Nice work, Truong-Son! virt's originals were full of infectious energy that translated well from these themes to your own unique fusion of the two!
YES

For Dave to quote. "This is pretty sweet. And hot. Like a desert."
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Yeah, this is pretty solid stuff.  The breakdown was really helpful, so thanks for that.  Some of those source uses are subtle enough that I'm not sure I'd give them credit, but there's plenty to spare to hit 50%.
If I were to really nitpick, I'd say that the sidechaining is a little over the top, on the verge of being a little distracting, and that the horns from 1:43-1:59 sound fake and are somewhat buried. That's all I got, though.  Nice work, as usual.
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This is a great little arrangement. Production is tight as usual, and the eastern vocals fit perfectly with the otherwise electronic arrangement (similar to how Zircon uses them for his "Time to Oil Up" SFIV arrangement). The arrangement is well put together in terms of cohesiveness and source representation, as well.
... Yeah, it's an easy pass for me, why'd I even put it on here.
YES

I know I've suggested it before, but I really can't say enough about how helpful transcription is for me.  If I'm feeling like I don't have much creative juice in the tank, transcribing takes a lot of the stress of "being creative" out of the process, and I always learn something when I'm so closely analyzing someone else's music.  Just getting something out, even if it's a straight transcription, comes with the added bonus of feeling accomplished for finishing something, which I think is important for building confidence.  If you find yourself inspired in the middle of the process and feel like changing some stuff around, roll with it and have fun - it could even turn into a remix if you're really feeling it (but doesn't have to!).
I keep a notepad document on my desktop with suggestions for myself with games and specific tracks from those games that I like and feel I could learn something from.  My go-to right now is the Mega Man X: Corrupted soundtrack by Dominic Ninmark - a fanmade game with some super great SNES-inspired MMX tunes.  It's completely unrelated to what I'm working on outside of the transcription, but that separation further helps me find my motivation again.

I strongly recommend that you watch Alex Ball's new guide on using a virtual orchestra.
 
It's a bit long, clocking in at 50 minutes, but trust me: There isn't a more clear, comprehensive video on the internet regarding this subject.
As he discusses at one point, the orchestral flourishes that are difficult or impossible with multisamples are essential to composing music like this; reminiscent of the Romantic Era and "The Golden Age" of film scoring. He even recommends libraries specifically dedicated to this task.

You two offered WAY more knowledge then I anticipated. Thanks a bunch!
Jesus, you must have a good set of ears. I couldn't pick out all that as well as you did. Though I am not musically trained, so that probably plays a part in it. Thanks for the awesome break down of it!

Just my 2 cents here, but the "swell" you speak of in the strings is a minor 2nd trill (fast alternating notes a semitone apart), and in terms of notes, what I'm hearing is an ascending scale in a minor key (seems like E relative minor, meaning you start on E and end on E, but use notes in G major, having only F#).
Among the textures, what I perceive is a harp glissando on the left, a flute (or perhaps piccolo) playing the scale legato in the middle, and probably some violas playing legato on the right (ending on a perfect fifth below the flute)

That's called a "run". It is a fast scalar "run" as the name implies.
Many modern sample libraries contain either run simulators for strings and winds or pre-recorded runs. 
You can create your own run simulation by playing a fast scale with a mix of staccato notes and half-trill samples. Be sure the the timing is fairly messy as no one can play that precisely. Ultimately though, a pre-recorded run will sound most realistic.

Great for speedy nighttime highway driving, BTW!

This.
Even when I'm arranging a video game tune or a jazz standard or a whatever and the melody is already given from outside, I always first play the bass and the melody together to make sure they work. When I have two outer voices that convey the things that I want to say at that moment, it can be anything from atmospheric desert to adventurous battle theme, the inner voices fill in themselves. It can be done in many different ways, but when the outer voices run I know that I'll have a nice progression. That's the reason why things like counter motion works so well, and paralel fifths and octaves don't. This is of course also a stylistic thing, but in every genre of music you can have good and bad relations between the outer voices, it's just that the criteria is different. I think that when you're just thinking of chords, rhythm and melody as something separated by semantics, you'll never be able to write coherent music. It's all about the relationship to each-other and how it mixes and ends up as an organic whole that makes the music. 

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.

Melodies by themselves imply chord changes by the chord tones that are present in them. Polyphonic, contrapuntal textures still imply harmonic progressions without ever actually playing a "chord".
The two are not as separable as many may think.
But to say that starting with the melody is dumb, is to say that composers like Bach were also dumb.

WTF is a zyk0?