Chimpazilla

Thanks, friend!

Thanks for that review, Rozo! You will always get a detailed source breakdown from team Timazilla. Thanks for the comments, glad you liked it overall. Embrace the voice clip. Many of us like them quite a lot. Why not? It gives the track a great flavor of the game being remixed. Embrace it I say!!!

T don't forget Gario! He gives an excellent mod review as well. I think they try to take the mod reviews in order of request date. I'm sure one of these fine gentlemen will get with us shortly!

Sorry Plas, that I dragged you kicking and screaming, against your will, into the warm, fuzzy pool of like-minded friends that is OCR. (no I'm NOT sorry, I'm NOT!) But, you could have at *least* made a useful and helpful post. Thanks for that Plas, and welcome to OCR, finally!

Joe, I've asked my friend (Plasuma!!! who just signed up on OCR after a year of my bugging him to) to chime in here. He owns every plugin ever made by EWQL and tons of other orchestral stuff too, and uses Cubase. Hopefully he'll jump in here shortly. I personally have Kontakt with Albion and Session Strings Pro and love both. For fun drums, I do have Damage which is super duper fun but Argle is right, wait for the sale. I also have the Evolve packs but haven't even delved into them yet. I also have Omnisphere, and like Argle, I use it in every single track. There are so many great sounds in Omnisphere, they are amazing right out of the box. (many of them are reverb-drenched but you can always turn that off) Omnisphere has so many capabilities to explore, so many ways to process the sounds. My friend (Plasuma!!!) calls it "song in a box" and for good reason.

Saturday morning bumpity bump! Timaeus and I wanted to tackle Plants vs. Zombies for two reasons. First, it's a really great soundtrack to a totally addictive game! Second, NO ONE has done it yet! This amazes me! Laura Shigihara has one mix posted on this site, and in the writeup thread, djp mentions how excited he will be to hear the first remix from Plants vs. Zombies. We are hoping this will be that first posted mix from the game! Chernabogue, thanks for the kind words! Anyone else (mod or not) have any thoughts? And once again I must say how much I enjoy collaborating with Timaeus! More mixes are already in the works!

Really nice mix here! Oh wow do I hear some familiar timbres in here, haha! T is a great collab partner, isn't he!

I love low bass too! Well I guess since you're mainly using it for sub bass it is ok. Maybe someone else can give another opinion!

Well I only listened on my headphones... I'll give it a better listen on my monitors later, I have some workmen here today and they are making quite a racket... so I'll reserve judgment on the bass level until later! It's possible the new bass just need to be a little tighter. edit: listening on monitors - the bass is still inaudible, maybe not due to volume but as I said it isn't tight. I can't discern what melody it is playing, not without straining my ears. It is there, nice and low but indistinct. The previous bass timbre was almost better in this regard. You could try emphasizing the fundamental frequency with eq, and cutting out extreme lows and also some mud from 200-400ish Hz. Or, try layering this bass with another that has some pluck sounds that will make it more audible. If that makes sense! Another snare idea... why not start the snare transition earlier than 2:20? Just a few groovy hits before.

Whoa, where'd da bass go??? I like the new bass writing but it is so quiet I can barely hear it! Bring it up, but be careful to cut the low frequencies below 35-40Hz out. I like the added grooviness! I like that synth solo at the end! (sounds a lot like, nah... haha!) I think you could begin the solo at 2:21 though, start out tame and get groovier after 2:33. 2:21 - 2:33 is a lost opportunity otherwise. The snare is still a touch loud and is also dry. Some extra snare variation would be good. With varied velocities. (not the same hit each time) Also, I'm hearing some moments of overcompression/clipping, like the harp in the intro, and even the bell lead that starts at 0:20. Make sure those aren't getting limited too hard. Make sure the overall track isn't getting limited too hard, it does sound hot in several places. If so, you'll have to go back and rebalance some things. It's improving! Nice work.

Good job Wes! I do love this mix! It has a great feel, very appropriate for DK, and man... DAT BASS... just enough without being over the top, fits in just right... love it!

Haha Joe, your baby starts out awesome, she is related to you!!!

I like this, what a creative idea. There are some really unique inspired ideas here. There will absolutely need to be more drum variation, the same kick/snare/shaker combo gets old. At a minimum, it needs some soft crashes at the transition points! I think there may be crashes in here, but wow are they quiet. Change up the shaker pattern at least by 1:33, better yet, make it a different instrument altogether, and some different patterns, to accent the different moods of each section. I'm not sold on that bass. I know it is meant to be funky, but it just sounds a bit flabby and out of place to me... personal opinion. Also, bass writing could be varied here and there, it's very static. My main gripe about the song is the leads. When they play, they are buried. At 1:33, there is a piano playing. I don't think it is meant to lead there, but what if it did? Push the fairy melody back a bit, bring that piano forward and do something more original with it. Right now it is just a jumble of countermelodies with no focus. Go through the song slowly and carefully, considering what is the main focus at each point that the listener should be paying attention to, then bring that out. That break at 1:57 is my favorite part! The staccato strings and new chords are gorgeous. But there is that *same* shaker, yawn! Even changing that to a soft hi hat would give variation. Or what about just a few triangle hits? Just something different. And at 2:09, there is an opportunity to introduce some new kind of lead over the established instrumentation, something soulful and louder than the background! Again at 2:22, just background and no lead. You could do a mini-lead melody here, getting us ready for the lead solo that follows at 2:33. I like the snare break that leads up to 2:33 a lot, the song needs more of this kind of thing! Harp could use just a drop more reverb. Just a drop! I hope you keep going, I really like the ideas you've got here!

I'm hugely impressed 'n stuff by this. It sounds great. 'n stuff.

Ha, yeah ya got me, I didn't realize they were for sale here! I like the Etsy design much better. That girls' shirt is still a little boxy, how about something more this shape? Just a little lower scoop, fitted and cute!

Gosh, not sure, I only see the one on your etsy page? edit: I mean two, the regular one and the customized one. I like the regular one just fine.

Well, that *is* smoov, isn't it. I'd say it's downright luscious. What did you use for the high brass? Maybe for that next section you could change up the chord progression, just slightly? Really nice, I like it.

I just love the OCR logo shirts... if you offered a slightly more feminine cut shirt, I'd buy like 15 of them. *hint, hint*

Wow ecto, you sure do an awesome job given the FL limitations, I am just as impressed with this one as with "Slut." Awesome soundscape! I would have liked a little more lead writing throughout, although that solo at the end utterly rocks. Nice work!

Utterly lovely. Just brought tears to my eyes. Congratulations Aivi and Chris!

I love OCR too. Happy V day everyone! Hallmark be damned.

Jordan, definitely the bulk of bass processing should occur during mixing. You will most likely eq the bass to cut out extreme lows (below 30Hz) fairly aggressively, then probably you'll want to cut out some mud anywhere from 200-400Hz (use your ears, don't cut too aggressively). Depending on the patch or sample, you may want to boost (slightly) anywhere from 2000-3000Hz to bring out the click or pluck or attack. As for mastering, you may want to use a mastering compressor, gently, to melt the highest peaks (typically bass and kick and/or snare) into a cohesive range, then finish it up with a limiter to catch the wild peaks from going over 0db (just make sure the track isn't crushed or overcompressed after you limit, then something is definitely too loud, go back and rebalance the instruments).

Happiest of birthdays, dear friend. I hope you had a great weekend, although I see you spent quite a bit of time judging! (wow, you guys slammed through TEN mixes yesterday...) Enjoy your day. Please be careful though, (don't drive), should you decide to exercise your newly legal right to drink! {{{big hugs}}}

Enjoy your day today!

This is the most important thing you said. Bravo! And we are all learning this, every day. Working within a forum is an excellent way to work on your people skills, too. No one here is mad at you. In fact, this spurred quite the cohesive conversation I think. It's all good. So make some new stuff, post here, and we'll all work through it together.