Chimpazilla

Happy Birthday, Jordan!

Hey, I like this! It seems like something that one would hear in an action movie. "City at Night" for sure. You should definitely expand it! I can envision some wicked cool lead work in between the piano parts, some really cool portamento synth lead. Bass can be louder. Kick sounds great but could be punchier. The piano sounds really good but I'd tone down that reverb just a bit... I get what you're going for but you don't want it to bleed. Also, you could add some stereo widening like at 0:29 when that growly thing begins, or even pan it gently back and forth. Don't be afraid to add fun little percussion loops and such, very wide spread, too. I'd love to hear some more drum variations as the song progresses. Maybe some kind of slower breakdown next? Nice start!

This is really nice to hear. Please, stick around, don't be gone for years at a time, as new mixes get posted every couple of days, and new albums quite frequently too!

Lady of the Lake Re-linking the track in case anyone wants to skip all this silliness and just play it! Thanks for the kind words, Chris!

Thanks for that! Also, not a man.

wooooooooooooo

Nice save. Cool track!

Yeah, I get that. So, you're comparing my lovely waltz to Muzak? (badly instrumented, mono covers of old 70's easy listening songs) Edit: nitpicky little improvements made.

Ok T, I'll look into those, thanks! G-M, "sex" ok, but "elevators?" Fo realz? I will just assume you like mah song. I will further assume you enjoy sex in elevators.

Lady of the Lake I finally got around to finishing this track. I'm thinking it's just about ready for submission, what do you guys think? My big remaining concern is the bass... is it a little light, a little heavy or is it ok? Superduper thanks to WillRock, Timaeus, and Jason Covenant for holding my hand through the final mix and master of this. Wow guys, I learned so much from you in this process. I appreciate it so much. Btw, does anyone know what happened to Eradicate??? He popped in here after several years of silence, gave me that awesome critique, then three days later, he disappeared again!

The game violence concerns me greatly. Sure, most people can probably handle it. I don't like human on human violence in the slightest, and these games would make me sad and upset... but for most, it's probably fine. Then there are those people who can't seem to separate fantasy from reality, and there seem to be more of those people around lately than ever. We are exposed to violence in all aspects of media, not just gaming, so people are becoming desensitized to it, making it much easier for unstable people to go out and do it in real life. I watched the trailer for GTA5. I was astounded by the beauty of the game, the realistic scenery and gameplay. But I was equally horrified at the realism of the characters who are ugly to the bone inside and out and gave me the creeps. Call me a polyanna, but why can't resources like this be put toward something beautiful and life-affirming instead of soul-crushing? I suppose the short answer is that it won't sell, it is about money. So this terrible trend toward uber-violence is about greed... with no one to say when it's too much. I think we are going to be seeing this kind of thing more, and more, and more, and even more. *sigh* edit: You know, it's really NOT fine. Even if playing these games makes us less nice to each other in general, it really isn't a good thing.

You CAN, of course! All you need to do is add to your list of instruments you play well, the following: violin, viola, cello, bass, tuba, french horns, trombones, and glockenspiel. Hope you've got the time, and plenty of extra room in the music cave.

Super groovy, *and* brought a tear to my eye. Magical!

Man, it's hard to get these orchestral mixes sounding real. The arrangement is dynamite, despite a bit of repetitiveness and/or loopiness, mainly in the first half. My biggest gripe would be with the strings. The pizz strings in the intro are very repetitive and the velocities are too similar and timing too perfect. And when you have backing strings, I hear no swells that would tell me there are humans playing them. I feel like the strings in general (including the pizz) are too loud. If you do some humanization, the volume generally should come down, with periodic upward swells. Basically same comments for the brass sections, needs humanization and volume control, especially when playing long chords. The instrumentation I like the best here is the clarinet and the violin solo at 1:57 (but boy is it fighting to be heard over the backing stuff). Bells/glock are nice but could also benefit from some velocity variations. Some notch eqing should also help to bring lead instruments to the front and give them breathing room. At 2:22 that loud backing layer just... stops! That gives a real sense of how badly some volume automation is needed. Beware of instrument layers stopping abruptly with no kind of fadeout or overlap, it just isn't real enough. I also hear this from 0:58 to 1:01 and again at 1:05 to 1:09, where your backing winds just stop too abruptly. They need a teeny bit of humanization, and a short fadeout. Oh my there's a loooong deep brass note from 1:25 to 1:33... man that guy's got some superhuman breath control... (automate the volume slowly down starting at least halfway through if not sooner) Great track! Just... put in the time to polish those strings/brass performances.

It's just that a lot of people do that... they come on here and try to hit the community over the head and it always fails. You can't really sell your mixes here, it's like selling ice cubes to eskimos. Also, don't come in here expecting only praise (I'm not saying you did that). We are a community trying to improve our individual music skills, and we're here to help each other out too. Jump in, share your wips, put on your thick-skin suit and prepare for helpful critiques! Welcome aboard.

Deep, groovy basslines. Sweet sine-ish portamento leads. I could live on that, alone.

They're totally proprietary and their songs come in mp4 format, playable only on iTunes and not shareable. (but, you can convert to mp3 with FreeStudio or other programs) (oh wait, my husband just said you can now convert to mp3 right within iTunes)

Oh my graves, Timaeus, watery even talking about? You're just a total loonboon. *coughcoughPlantscough* Oh wait, I remember now, yeah let's make MOARmist tracks like that one! *coughchokesputterZombiescough*

I absolutely live for deep thumping, groovy, grungy, evolving/modulated and/or dubwub basslines... paired with lots of gated stuff and gobs of intricate percussion and dreamy pads and maybe some glitching and the icing on the cake is a sweet sine/saw portamento lead with tons of delay and reverb and some automated vibrato. Whoa. I just had an out of body experience...

I'll bet the majority of us regulars here are saying that, today. I know I am.

Yes, that explains it perfectly. Great job guys. *note to self: Join. The. Compos.*

The bass sounds really good. Do NOT remove the twang, it is great, and without any upper end, basslines can be hard to hear. I think what you've got here is quite good. The new kick sounds much better! Drums are better balanced overall. The claps are a touch dry but ok. Hats at the end are better. It wouldn't hurt to throw in some extra percussion here and there. Lead at 1:28 is still a bit loud. Starting at 0:31 to 0:59, there is some overly-reverby backing stuff going on that doesn't seem to fit with the rest, melodically. Same thing from 1:48 to 1:58. Either it is written wrong, or whatever instrument you're using has too long a release, or both. Getting there!

Yup, THAT'S what Timaeus meant to say, it just took ME to write it out.

Jordan, do you have a new Soundcloud user name? *confused* Whoa, this sounds like a different track altogether! It does sound much more cohesive this way, I prefer it. I dig this arrangement! The instrumentation sounds much different. Some leads are a bit too loud. Yeah, that snare is still too loud and unfitting, and sounds overcompressed now too. The crash is too loud. I disagree with Timaeus here about the kick, it sounds very powerful and compressed which can work well in other types of tracks (and genres like DnB), but I'm not convinced that it is working here, at least not in all sections. I'd like a softer, less compressed kick all the way up to about 1:19, at that point the heavy kick can work... then back to softer at 1:28 and all the way to the end. (also at 1:28 that lead is too loud) Hats at the end are still way too loud. Turn them down, and HP them quite a bit... start around 9k Hz and see how it sounds but you only need a little bit of "tst" to sound good here. The bass sounds... really good. Overall Jordan, this is a humongous improvement. Balance the leads a bit better, and get the drum timbres under control, and you're on the right track I think! After all that we can start to discuss the finer points of clarifying all the sounds in the mix, eq-notching so things have their own space.