Chimpazilla

Omg Avaris this track is so unbelievably cool... whatever you did here, it's workin'... I'll give more extensive feedback when I can, but dang, I love this... Tuberz yours is also excellent... you mean I have to vote between these two? Eeek... *is reminded of a similar situation that occurred earlier in this very compo...*

I didn't listen to the first version so I'm basing these thoughts on the resub. Ok so the source is almost a slowed-down Ragtime genre, and your remix is orchestral, nicely done! You've certainly covered the source material quite well here. Fantastic arrangement and terrific part writing! You've created a very nice full orchestral soundscape, very impressive! I have a couple of nitpicks... the bass drum that appears at 0:21 is much too loud and up-front. It would never be that close to the front or mic'ed like that in a real orchestra. I find all of the drumming a touch loud for orchestral. Snares should be barely audible. You've used the samples quite well I'd say, the harp work in particular is quite impressive and lovely. I only have one big humanization nitpick here: that piccolo trill beginning at 2:31 lasting until 2:46... gosh that piccolo player has huge lungs! Song has a couple of different endings that seem detached from each other style-wise, and with nothing bridging them, but they sound really good. Really nice track! YES

^this^ for sure, #1 resource for me. And rip things from Youtube. Also you can make things out of your own synths, and even record yourself or random life stuff and warp the heck out of it! All fun techniques.

Brandon, I love this compo idea, hate the timing. Maybe another one in June, hhhmmm?

Not a terrible idea here... lemme listen to that boss source here shortly, and I'll pop in with my final yay or nay as to what I'm doing this week. (spoiler: I'm super busy, haha!)

This is fantastic, Argle! Really creative use of the main melody, and using the little motifs as fills as well, and the addition of the main Zelda theme is dynamite. Lovely soft ending. Great dynamics, terrific arrangement! I do feel like your instruments (strings, brass, winds) all need to be humanized. Even lesser samples can work well if they are humanized properly. It is a time consuming (and let's face it, un-fun) process, but it really makes a production like this shine. Strings need to play in swells, you need to keep in mind how people play strings. Watch some videos of strings being played, and see how they swell louder and then recede between passages. Brass and winds play in swells as well, keeping in mind the limits and characteristics of human breath. The lead clarinet at 1:49 is a good example of non-human playing, those notes should really fade toward the ends as the person's breath gives out. Make some automation clips and play around with this. The above advice will only serve to make a great arrangement even better and I hope you will look into this for future mixes. Glad to give this tune a big fat YES

There are some very interesting ideas here in this trancey mix. I’m not really feeling the chip timbre at the beginning or in the outro, it is too loud and dry, and just doesn’t fit in well with the lush soundscape that follows it. Maybe with some automated modulation or reverb to blend it in when the pads begin, the chip blips wouldn’t feel so tacked on. The violin lead is lovely and well performed. It could be mixed to blend slightly better with the soundscape though, it is a bit up front. I like how you brought the strings back into the mix later on, it adds some great personality to the mix. The lead synth at 2:08 is a bit odd, it has a strange pitch envelope that I find distracting. That whole section is quite long and repetitive, 2:08 to 3:08 is an entire minute of repetition. The section starting at 3:08 is dynamite. It gives me chills. The plain saw lead there could use some modulation or automated vibrato or something, but even without it, I adore the writing all the way to 4:55. Some additional personality on that saw lead would really be amazing. The drums are on autopilot, and hey that's trance... but a few variations couldn't hurt. Kick is almost too loud but could use some better definition and more punch. The claps are very simple and dry and unvaried and center-panned which is unfortunate. The track is mastered quite loudly, coming close to distorting in some spots. You may want to dial back the gain on the limiter, just a drop. Great ideas here. A few mixing fixes, a bit more variation up until 3:08, and I think this one will be a winner. Fix it up please! NO (resubmit)

I absolutely love this source tune with it's 7/4 timing. The remix is really interesting and creepy, perfect for an overture to some epic tragic opera or a really exciting scene in a horror movie! The combination of time signatures layered over one another creates a massive amount of dissonance right away. I get what you're trying to do, and I actually love the concept, but I think you have to be careful with this and really make sure that the composition still makes sense, and for me the writing is a bit too chaotic. I am learning about orchestral mixing myself right now, and what I've learned is that the orchestra is meant to sound like a "homogenous wall of sound" with the instruments working together for the most part, while some instruments do interesting things here and there. Strings in particular are meant to really be cohesive most of the time. If you think about it, in an orchestra, no one is running up to a mic in the front to do a solo and then returning to their seat! It is already tricky to mix orchestral instruments properly, even from the same library, as the samples often come with tons of reverb baked in. In this case, I am hearing samples that have come from different libraries and some of them sound much more upfront than others, and that detracts from the overall cohesion of the piece. The writing has so much dissonance, which I believe is intentional, but I feel like a little more writing cohesion between the strings and brass would compliment the chaos just enough without the piece feeling so unstructured. The breakdown with the flute however, is absolutely lovely. I like the bongos and white noise sweeps actually, but they feel a little tacked on and up-front, and could be blended in a bit better with the soundscape and be more subtle, since they aren't really inherent in an actual orchestra. Overall, awesome and bold ideas here, the execution just needs a little improvement. I do hope to hear this one again though! NO (resubmit)

This is a tough call. There is so much to like about this track. I really like the mellow, pensive and moody atmosphere you've created here. The writing and arrangement are really very nice, mixing is solid and the source usage is good. Yeah the guitars are fake, but I think they are used well enough. I'm happy enough with the drums. The biggest issue for me is the piano and string samples. The piano playing sounds quite mechanical. This confuses me because I believe you actually played it, so it must be that your sample isn't velocity sensitive. I could make all kinds of suggestions but I think it comes down to getting a more realistic and velocity-sensitive piano sample. The piano sounds the most fake at the 6/8 section, where it is exposed and alone, and you've high-passed it for "old radio" effect there too, and I love this idea but unfortunately it makes the piano flaws even more noticeable. The strings are another issue. Often in this mix, the strings and piano are together, exposed as a pair. The strings sound very noticeably fake to me, not so much due to a bad sample, but because they haven't been humanized. The strings have a very slow attack which drags down the sections where they appear. Also, real strings play in "swells" and not straight volume all the way through. Humanizing strings properly is quite a job, if you want to do it right. If it's going to be this exposed, it has to be given more attention. This arrangement is unique because it is so mellow. There seem to be buildups that lead to more mellow sections rather than more exciting sections. I think this could work better if somehow some more excitement were introduced at some of the transition points, but this may just be my opinion. The 6/8 section could be transitioned better, it feels a little tacked on as-is, but it's ok. Regardless, the arrangement works and I like it. I think this track is close, but really needs those piano and string issues fixed. I hope you'll fix this up and resub it, it is lovely. NO (resubmit)

Hey Light Bracket, how's the remixing coming this week? I'm looking forward to hearing your stuff! 90% chance I won't be mixing this coming week... I've sorta become a little... *ahem*... BUSY haha! Also, it's just so darned close to Christmas and that means many different types of busy. Who knows, maybe I'll pull something off at the last minute, but just a heads up, I'm wishing the best of luck to Chernabogue and evktalo on this next round.

Um, that's adorable and all, Brandon, but some of us have been on the planet close to twice as long as you, and may be quite familiar with these words already.

House Jazz indeed! Nice solid kick right off the bat, sweet little panning sine arp, funky bass and a nice jazzy brass lead! But man, those backing key chords (Rhodes organ?) starting at 0:15 are soooooo loud, they are dominating the entire mix and really creating some mud. That timbre needs to be scaled back massively in volume, and needs eq treatment to fit into the mix. It also doesn’t help that the keys are nearly always hammering away on the exact same two chords. This arrangement starts out strong, but quickly becomes dealbreakingly repetitive. The same verse and chorus appear, verbatim, three times. You would definitely need to do something different for two of those three identical verse/chorus iterations, either in writing or instrumentation or both. Some additional percussion loops and/or altered drum patterns would also help with repetitiveness. This track is very groovy and has tons of potential. Tame that Rhodes organ in the lows and low-mids, do some writing/instrumentation variation, and I'd love to give this another listen. NO (resubmit)

Thanks everyone! I'm so glad to be onboard. We will all do our best to help in whatever way we can, and move the queue forward too! Oh, and here is Jooj-cat's brother, Gamer-cat.

This music is beyond awesome. Can't wait for the whole album!

Ok, I just love that didgeridoo. Makes me want to do my own didge mix... but I digress. Such a fun mix! Lots of potential here. I'm smiling! I like the soundscape generally, it is nice and wide... although having the lead pushed so far back (and the didge so far forward) all the way through isn't the best mixing choice. I'd suggest after the intro, pushing the didge backwards with reverb and volume automation, and bringing the mallet lead forward. The minimal drumming seems to work well here, with the busy didgeridoo acting as a tonal percussive. The hand drumming sounds great. The writing is verbatim to the source for a good part of the track, and seems to recycle the same instrument patterns frequently. Some of the more interpretive parts are quite sparse, and seem to consist of the main writing but with a few notes removed. Some source-melody and bassline variations would really add interest to the track, as would some drum variations or fun syncopation changes. How about a different lead for one or two sections as well? I love the ideas in the sitar section, but wow is that section busy. I'd recommend dropping the didgeridoo completely out of this section (and do some other percussive thing there), and also taming the release on the sitar to avoid midrange mud caused by its long tail. Great start, and it is so fun and groovy. I hope you'll fix this up and resubmit it! NO (resubmit)

Gonna pretty much agree with the other judges here on most everything. Super fun mix, has some fun sounds in it (love that crunchy synth in the intro!) and a lot of potential, but after the intro, the arrangement really just repeats verbatim a few times and then ends quite abruptly. Some writing variation and at least one fun solo would spice this up a ton. The drums are on autopilot all the way through which is really unfortunate. The arrangement and writing just need some more development. Much of the writing is mechanical and very quantized and could stand to be a bit more groovy and interpretive. Also, yeah it does need some mixing love to have the instruments gel together a bit better, and the bass needs to be better defined. Please hit up our excellent workshop, you'll get top notch advice there! NO (resubmit)

This is a great arrangement. Plenty of source usage here, even the mixed time-sig stuff which I love. Great soloing and unique writing additions as well. The mix does sound a little bit dynamically flat, feels a little cluttered at times, and lacks a bit of low end. I feel like the lead guitar competes with the backing guitars just a bit, but it still sounds good. The kick and toms sound excellent, loud and punchy. I love those Japanese instruments and the Taiko drumming so much! I feel like there are missed opportunities here though. The flute, plucked instruments, and even the organ are competing for frequency space and could benefit from some creative eq, stereo-separation and/or reverb tricks to separate them. These instruments and drums could have so much more presence and sparkle if they had only been stereo-separated a little bit wider, or maybe panned left and right, or given some fun effects or something, to add some 3d surprises for the listener, adding nice contrast to the metal. Something to think about for next time. Overall, I'm loving this mix. Awesome ending. Great job guyzzz! YES

Update: my brilliant friend managed to fix it on his end. He had an unsuccessful uninstall, so he spent about three hours combing his machine for every NI entry... all the registries, document folders, app data folders, and some other very random places contained little incomplete or broken NI entries. Damn, their installation process is the WORST. BUT... he FIXED it and got his stuff successfully reinstalled AND updated! I'm giving him a couple of days break before he has to do MINE... tl;dr - lot of work to uninstall NI and do complete reinstall, just to update.

Hey guyzzz, a friend and I were trying to collab when we discovered we had different versions of Kontakt. We both tried to update, and both our updates failed. We both got the message that the previous version could not be uninstalled. I still have my old version, but my friend went ahead and tried to manually uninstall and reinstall, but that failed too as Kontakt still seems to be installed somewhere. He even edited his registries (and he's generally really good with this stuff). He is completely dead in the water now, and furious. We have both purchased the Komplete 9 upgrade (haven't received them yet), but I'm thinking we will both end up having to reformat our computers and reinstall everything. Apparently NI has terrible support, people are waiting weeks just to get an email with a link to their knowledge base. Dammit Native Instruments. Have any of you had this problem? How did you deal with it?

Seems like a great time to say how happy I am to have discovered this site, and how it has become such a huge part of my life. I'm grateful to everyone here so much and in so many ways. Happy Birthday OCR!

DAYUM someone's a fast remixer...

Well that's kinda why I called it "Edward Zorn Gets a Haircut!" Haha! Thanks, and glad you like it!

Brandon: Dammit man. This piano tone is gorgeous. You can really play. The track is more medley than remix. If you had spent more than ten minutes at 11:30pm you would have really made something nice. Whai, oh whai Big B? I voted for you anyway, haha nyah nyah. You are so damned talented. Eino: Whoa, cool sounds here! Nice groove! Leads are cool, but a bit buried under the backing synth and also under the snare and hat which are way too loud. Bass could be louder and punchier. Kick too. The drums are on autopilot nearly all the way through. The backing synth is super crunchy which takes a lot of attention, burying the lead, and even kick and bass. I'd recommend taming the high end on the backing synth, and also stereo-spreading it super wide. Some lead variation would also be good. And a proper ending. That said, it is a well put together piece, well integrated, nice use of the source tunes. I'm particularly impressed when I hear both themes at once, layered, as I do here. Good job. Chernabogue: Cool, jazzy piece! Lots of style variation. I love the intro/outro jazz-club ambiance (although it is a little loud/dry), you could have even added more throughout the song. The clarinet sounds quite fake (could stand to be humanized a bit) but it is used well (and yeah, I ain't one to talk about fake sounds during this round, haha!) The piano sounds a touch mechanical sometimes, but is used really well. Bass is subtle and really nice, drums too. Good use of both sources, it's pretty cohesive even while shifting through ideas, and it remains interesting throughout. This is a terrific composition. Seems you and I had somewhat similar ideas this time, with piano, bass, light drumming and a lead (you: clarinet, me: voices). Great minds think alike! Avaris: Glad you liked my barbershop ditty! It was so much fun to make.

I've only used it once so far, but yeah, it is super fun and so easy to use. I know it's one I will use tons. Next sale, Action Strikes. Oh, and Evolve is really very good. Phonetic Hero agrees with me. And of the two Mutations, #2 is the better one.

Well Ok, my mix is subbed. It is titled "Edward Zorn Gets a Haircut." Listen to it with the following warnings in mind: 1. This mix is seriously catchy. Be prepared to have it stuck in your head for quite awhile after you hear it. Hopefully this is a good thing, but consider yourself warned. 2. Yes, the voices are fake. The mix came into being because I started messing around with Omnisphere's "jazz voices" samples. (what better time than a compo to try things you've never done, right?) I'm sure they were never intended to be used as leads, but wow, that harmony! So yes, I am aware that the vocal samples are fake-sounding. Anyone who feels the need to point out to me that they are fake-sounding will receive a tomato to the face. 3. Anyone who says this mix is not seriously groovy despite the fakeness of the samples will likewise receive a tomato directly to the face. Don't say you weren't warned. 4. It's short, I know, I know. Shortest thing I've ever written. But do you really need more of it? There is ONE real vocal sample in this mix. The final "yeah" was recorded by our own XPRTNovice. Thanks Joe! tl;dr - so fake, many harmony, much yeah Source usage: Intro (0:00 to 0:07) is Zorn & Thorn Main verse (0:20 to 0:47) is Edward Chorus (0:47 to 1:14) is Edward. The trumpets in this section are playing the Zorn & Thorn theme, but in reverse order from the source. Transition verse (1:14 to 1:26) is Zorn & Thorn Final verse (1:28 to end) is Edward And now you must wait until midnight to hear it...