Chimpazilla Judges ⚖️
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Posts posted by Chimpazilla
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I know it's taboo to open old wounds and such, but...
Seeing x person's recent meltdown (regarding the technomanga crap) reminds me too much of stupid things I did way back when (like when I accused vgmix hacking OCR =l). Like him, I tried to validate my inadequacy as an aspiring composer. So I lashed out every which way at the slightest amount of criticism in most inappropriate ways. Even if it was over the internet, it's still pretty shitty a thing to do, especially when ppl were trying to help me get better at making VG remixes...er "reinterpretations" if you prefer.
I just wish I was more mature before joining OCR. And to everyone that I may have offended or hurt, intentionally or inadvertently; OA, Darkesword, Liontamer. DJPretzel, list goes on - I am deeply sorry for my previous actions...and thank you all for allowing me to still contribute to this wonderful community, despite all the bs you had to endure 2-3 years ago.
It might have been more fitting if I could go to one of those live events to say it personally, but I guess this will have to suffice. (That and I have social anxiety =p)
I find this impressive. I haven't seen all of your posts but I can imagine how ugly they must have been. But to admit fault, apologize publicly, and (most importantly) achieve the personal growth that I see here, impresses me hugely. I hope many people will see this and realize that it's ok to relax a little bit and just be part of the group without having to shred everyone out of anger or a false sense of pride, and that you will be accepted back into the fold.
Also, kudos to djp, Larry and the mods here for reacting firmly, yet calmly and often with a great deal of humor, to attacks of this nature, and for not holding grudges once the person has calmed down and apologized. This helps everyone grow personally, too, whether they are part of the problem or just a spectator.
*dives back into current technomanga project in progress*
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Yup, pretty important. I try to have patterns go v1, v2, v1, v3, v1, v2, v4, v5 for one section, where v4 is similar to v1 somewhat. Variation is key in reducing repetition.
Yup and different styles of drum sounds at different parts during the song, as well as different writing. (i.e. hardstyle drums for a section, soft rock drums during the breakdown, etc.) T is quite good at that.
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Happy Birthday Rexy!
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Pretty simple by design, but I was going for something that was pretty chill, that you could relax to or read or yoga even? Lol well anyways, if you have time, have a listen - hope you enjoy.
This is really nice. I think a little melody variation would be a welcome change, but I really like the atmosphere and instrumentation. The hats and snare/clap are a tad bright for the feel of this song, but not a dealbreaker. The drone bass could be a little louder, I love that. You could even do more with that pad, make it evolve even more and spread the stereo separation out more, add some sparkles here and there for a truly spacey feel. Lovely!
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Nice work! Interesting take on a classic I enjoyed the beginning section but the whole song was pretty boss.
Thanks for that, friend!
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Imma grab the evolve bundle and balinese gamlan, but I'm on the fence about action strings. I already have EWQLSO Gold and Cinematic Strings 2 - anyone want to talk me off the fence either way?
The Evolve bundle is great, I had that already, but I also just got the Gamelan library, and I went ahead and got Action Strings this time too (was on the fence last time). They sound amazing out of the box and I think there must be 200 patterns in there, in every time signature imaginable. Now, to write something worthy of them...
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Damn you're old. Careful you don't break a hip.
Ok now just stop that, Argle. Some of us are older than that!
Happy, happy Pretzelday!
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Meteo, pictures will help, I'm really confused on your last round of questions... I'm still willing to do Teamviewer if you want.
T - wait, you didn't upgrade to FL11? This may present some problems...
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I'm working my way through these tracks... there's a lot of fun stuff in here, lots of talent. Great album!
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It sounds good to me so far. I agree with what T said.
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Great ear as usual, T! Ok I'll explain that section better. The backing structure is what I described before, but what you mostly hear is the high and low strings and the organ. The high brass is only adding some bite to the high strings, and the low brass is only one voice, providing support for the lowest end. (initially I had the organ part written in low brass but it sounded muddy. Gary my orchestral friend suggested the swap-out for the organ) That French Horn is what I mentioned as "mid brass" (name of the patch), and I used that for the response countermelody to the flute. That's the brass that's easiest to hear. Also, you're hearing pizzicato strings and a bell playing the Popcorn melody, and the triangle hits and chime-y effects are indeed from Damage, and the drums that start up at 2:50 (before the snare pattern) are from Evolve (so much good stuff in that library!). I have a very soft kick playing there too, and the shakers. And T, I forgot to mention that wind, I used your Sirocco preset, it is awesome!
Oh and there is tons of stereo separation going on in this song, but not much in the orchestral section. I generally don't stereo separate the orchestral samples as they are already well positioned. The only widening I did on the orchestral section was to the very high bells, that Evolve drum loop, and Sirocco.
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Thanks T! The orchestral part took me the longest because of the detail required to make the instruments sound somewhat natural. That is something I've been trying to practice getting better at. That part is high and low strings, high and low brass (with mid brass playing the response part), and a church organ, and the lead is that layered flute I mentioned (Kontakt flute plus Zebra "singing flute" preset). I'm glad you liked that section.
My personal favorite parts of this mix are the section with the piano harmony, and the epic solo before the outro. And of course, the cheesy outro.
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Thanks Chris! Glad you liked it!
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I use Omnisphere quite a bit, and Kontakt for sample stuff. But I pretty much use Zebra for everything else. It's so versatile. How could anyone hate it?
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Fresh Popcorn - Chimpazilla remix
A friend of mine recently reminded me of this old tune, "
" written by Gershon Kingsley in 1969 and remixed disco-style in the 70's. Once I heard it again (after so many years), I couldn't get it out of my head for days... so I decided to remix it again, but couldn't decide on a genre, so I just tried them all. Enjoy! -
Track sounds quite nice. Maybe some additional drum elements could be brought in around 0:56 or so. Wow, that video is amazing, too. Love those pictures!
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Argle says the mixing is ok. I say there are issues. And even if it was "ok" it could certainly be better. I can hear this song in my head with the issues fixed and improvements made and it sounds amazing. I'm being tough on this one because I really do like the writing.
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Well I really do like your arrangement and writing, quite a lot. I listened to this four times in a row yesterday. And I didn't mean to be insulting, I realize some mixing decisions are personal taste (selection of chippy synths). But I must say this would probably get a "resub" vote on OCR just due to the mixing. Most of your instruments are fighting each other for space. Too many things are playing in the lower ranges, clashing with the bass. (personally, I HP every single thing in my mix, and I make sure NOTHING is playing in the same low frequencies as my bass, except my kick, and I eq those surgically so they don't clash, and I usually sidechain kick to bass also, to help with this issue). The bass itself is way too loud and needs eq and compression, as some of the bass notes were so loud that they nearly popped my speaker cones out. So, I suggest starting with balancing the instruments much better, first, then attacking each thing with eq so each instrument plays in its optimal range without doubling the frequencies of other things. You'll be amazed how much cleaner your mix is after you do this process, and you'll be able to get it louder overall too, as a result. Then, time to play with reverb to get some more feeling into the mix and also tell the listener how close or far away the instruments are. Also, please look into stereo separation, the mix will come alive with a few things placed wider in the stereo field. After all that, we can talk about special effects! Good luck! I'm looking forward to hearing this one again!
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Ok so I love the writing here, all the way through. Really nice arrangement, very detailed and emotive. However... there are issues. The intro string pad sounds noticeably fake in the articulations. It sounds just real enough to require some smoothing and realistic swells. The synths are almost entirely too loud, with no dynamic range at all, and they are very plain and vanilla, no expressiveness on anything (no vibrato or modulation of anything). Everything is dry as a bone. You'll need to start by balancing the instruments so not everything is the same volume. What things should be in front? What is supportive and should be pushed back with lower volume and more reverb? Then you'll need to do some eq work, to get each thing playing in its optimal range without overlapping the other instruments playing. For example, if the lead is strong at 2k Hz, make a dip in your pad and other instrumentation at 2k Hz to accommodate the lead. The bass is really muddy and lacking definition and whoa too loud. I'd recommend a high pass at at least 50Hz and then experiment with removing some frequencies around 250Hz to clear some mud. Your snare has way too many lows, as does your tom. You could do tons of improvement to this track also, using strategic stereo separation. So, still some work to do here, but what a lovely arrangement!
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Limbo. Short game (five hours), but excellent.
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This Yoshi remix.
From that point on I considered myself actually good at composing. February-ish 2013.
Me too, T. Me too.
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Total awesomeness PT. You really are a chiptune god!!! Loving this.
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Hey guys, great mix! First, you adapted it to 4/4 from the 3/4 source, and I love that. And you definitely captured the feel from the original in ambiance and sfx. I'm not familiar with this original so I'm trying to get up to speed. Like Aaron, I'm struggling a bit to pick out the source, but I know you Timaeus and I'm sure your breakdown is correct! Hopefully the judges won't struggle too hard to hear the source usage.
Chris, those guitars sound amazing. The only problem production-wise that I'm having is that occasionally, the leads are a bit buried. From 0:45 all the way until 1:13, that lead is really soft. The lead that begins right after, at 1:14, is a better volume. Lead at 1:49 sounds great. At 2:36, that lead is very soft and hard to focus on. I have the feeling that isn't supposed to be a real lead there, but a background arp, but from 2:36 to 2:51 it seems like it should be a lead (at least, my ears want that!). At 2:52 the lead seems really buried as there's much more stuff going on there. At 3:10, the pianoish thing is a perfect volume imo (so don't change that), but seems odd following the softer lead. So I'd say bring those softer leads out somehow, and the production is perfect. Really, I'm nitpicking here.
Drums are up to your usual standard of awesomeness, T. Nice job guys. Wishing you luck when you sub!
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I guess I mean the "tracks" in the playlist. When I used to scroll through the tracks, the track I was on in the playlist would be highlighted with a lighter colored bar across the name and sequencer. Basically, if you go to the Pattern number box at the top next to the Tempo box, grab it and scroll up and down in the playlist, you'll see a light colored bar go up and down too. Without this, I feel like I get more confused which track I'm actually on.
Well I can see how that would be tremendously useful when using the old fashioned white pattern blocks, where you can't tell them apart by looking at them and where they must be in their own track lanes. Using the playlist in a freeform way, you wouldn't need that kind of feature. You *could* of course put your patterns on separate track lanes, and you could name them accordingly if you wanted to, and you can color the track lanes to make it even easier to see. Or some people put all drums on one lane, all bass on another, leads on yet another, and so forth, and label the track lanes as such ("bass," or "leads," or "drums"). But I would guess that a lot of people, myself included, make use of the freeform nature of the playlist to put midi, sound clips, and automations anywhere they happen to fit. This is one of the best features of FL if you ask me, and why I will stick with FL instead of giving Cubase a try. I can see how this will take you some getting used to, though... so maybe you could start by just labeling the track lanes, and coloring them, so you can clearly recognize what you've got there, whether it's a repeating pattern or just all bass or all drums or something like that.
As for copying patterns, that is a great feature. To clone a pattern in the playlist, just click on it and either click somewhere else to paste it there, or use the paintbrush and just paint it across as many times as you like. The patterns will be identical. To alter a pattern, make it unique. Rename it something meaningful to you. Then, change it all you like. You can then paint that one across, too, if you want more of them. Quite convenient, actually.
If you ever want to see any of this in realtime and ask questions, I'd be glad to do a Teamviewer session with you.
mixing in mono
in Music Composition & Production
Posted
It maybe simply be better to check your mix in mono, every now and then, just to make sure you have no phase cancellation (see if you can still hear all your instrumentation when it is in mono). I've never heard of "mixing in mono," is this a thing?