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I know how you feel dude It might be a common perfectionist thing though, I always end up ragging on my own productions as time goes on. I always think it's good until I learn more then I just want to make something better. There's also some irony in that I go back and get jealous of some jams where I actually made something cool without trying, but I can't do it when I try really hard today.

Oh and also I'll take note of using another venue for music, yeah Youtube is not great for music. I actually have a soundcloud I just am not active on it at all.

How did you get so detailed with your mastering ear? And yeah it does come in pretty harshly, but I personally like mixing those styles together. Is it just that it come in so abruptly compared to the strings?

I probably could do that, yeah I don't know why I never used a pad in this song and I did get super duper lazy about the drums. Maybe the synthiness of the vocals could stand out more. Maybe the vocoder could actually be the pad? Dude don't worry too much about how I react to the criticisms, I usually like go back and read them and think "Yeah he was totally right" lol. The biggest jump in my skills is when someone just told me my music wasn't that good so I just went out and looked for all the knowledge I could find and ended up improving tenfold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDYBbY05bXM Hey guys this is a remix that I actually haven't submitted to the judges so I'm going to call this a work in progress. It's a remix of one of my favorite melodies to Link's Awakening, the town theme. Please give me your criticisms. I would like to start being able to release successful remixes lol. Well most people would lol. Thanks, Zachary

I don't know, I'm not hurt by it. The things you mentioned were all pretty intentional. Like the saxophone isn't sassy it's actually a saxophone playing very softly. The drums were emulating a more urban feel than a jazz feel, and I'd still be happy with robotic rather than synthy. I guess I just know I have NOT done those things before in many other songs, this is my least dynamic song so I mean all the things you said I'm really aware of. None of them are things I'd change because it was supposed to emulate that feel. If there's another way to emulate that feel I'd like to hear that.

Well the drums were meant to be mechanical, it's chopped drums. Choppyness is in the style so it won't sound real. And that was a saxophone not a trumpet, but maybe you're right maybe it sounds fake. I don't have any other access to a saxophone sound currently. And you're right the vocals intentionally have a lot of reverb, and are layered over a vocoder so yes it is actually somewhat autotuned to give a synthy feel. The idea was space and I did that through reverb, synths, and delays. But you do have a point about the drums, they aren't varied up much at all. That was one of the worst parts of this song looking back. But the sparsity of the remix was also intentional, besides the drums never changing.

Thanks man! I hope nothing constructive means you don't know what else you would add or change lol.

Hey guys I totally submitted this to the judges but I'm still waiting to hear back from them lol. This is actually a bit of a slower song so be patient, it was more about the feel and atmosphere not so much composition. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXWWbL2FSbA Please give me your opnions, I absolutely adore criticisms lol. Thanks, Zachary

Thanks! That helps too! That's an awesome story too lol, I know it just seems really weird to an audience when their groove is killed.

WOW KANTHOS! This was extremely helpful I can't thank you enough, this definitely has helped me understand exactly what goes into someone performing live. If I were to ask any questions, I would like to ask how you learned to play keyboards cause I'm not against them I just haven't really learned and I'd love to have that skill while making music electronically. I'd also ask a bit more about how you manage to keep all the songs sorted out into one project. That's a fantastic idea but I would love to see how that would look, cause it sounds daunting if you have a whole bunch (but personally it sounds exciting if you wanna get creative and try and mesh two songs together or something or do a nice transition.) Being a senior in High School I'm gonna say I probably won't immediately end up buying Novation Launchpad. I only have one pretty okay keyboard that does work, but probably doesn't have alot of the things that your keyboard has (and it is MIDI I use it infrequently to make playing around with composition easier). Also Ableton Live would be another bit of money and personally I would love to support FL Studios in their tries, plus I'm personally really comfortable with their style so I'm sure that their performance mode will do what I need it to (but if not I will definitely consider Ableton). Is there any methods of practice you could recommend, especially ones that don't involve all the hardware for now. Your words have been very helpful and thank you so much for helping me.

Hey guys, please forgive me if this thread has already been made I searched multiple times to make sure and I really wanted to see specifically what this community thinks about live performance. Now I have fruity loops Producer Edition and they're planning on making a live performance mode and I would like to get a Novation Launchpad in the future. That's it that's about the extent of my knowledge so far, but I would love to learn the nuances of performing live, both in a technical manner (setting up equipment, getting gigs) and a musical manner (improv remixing, set ups, etc.). Any info you have on anything related to performing electronic music live would be very helpful. Thanks

It's so refreshing to hear such a high quality song that's still in the workshop, it shows you want to improve even when you sound spectacular. Honestly this is an amazing mix and arrangement, just new enough to not be the same but different in an awesome way that made it feel like a new song. It's like a cool ambient/orchestra type deal. The only complaint I'd have is really everything percussive, really percussion is a very broad range of sounds but you should really try to take more advantage of it. Try to find some more samples of percussion (cymbals, timpanis, snares, bongos, whatever isn't played with wind or string). But really I think this is pretty close to submission quality, you could try right now anyways in my opinion.

I really like where you've been going with this! If you push it a bit further and polish it like your dress shoes before your wedding day I think this is OCRemix material. I like how you've been taking the trance part at the end, but I think you can add a bit more pad type synths maybe? I definitely know from hearing it that you could do one or two more cool chords as a nice variation after a few repeats. Sounds fantastic, keep making music man!

I actually had not noticed that much about the beat yet, thanks for pointing that out I definitely will be varying that up alot more. I am a fan of trying to keep mixing clear and precise not just a cluster, but even to me the high compression in many genres today (ex. Dubstep, dance, etc.) actually isn't ALWAYS bad and can sometimes be impressive. But it's true it shouldn't become the norm to cram the decibels together like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The name is actually a serious title I thought of while making it, since I'm graduating high school I've become very overwhelmed with life and I'm afraid of not becoming anything spectacular.

Thanks, I never really try to mix different styles, I just have a huge range of tastes in music so I blend whatever I think sounds awesome. And Italy?! That's pretty awesome!

Hey guys! I would really appreciate any sort of feedback you would like to give. The things I'm most worried about is the use of the saxaphone and if it sounds corny or not super duper, to me it sounds pretty good but I would still like to hear opinions. Also please PLEASE help me with any advice on composition, I think it's one thing I'm not super duper on. It's not mastered yet but still I'd like to hear any bits on my production too. http://soundcloud.com/zachnichols-1/what-am-i-doing-wip EDIT: Sorry about the levels being so low, I'm aware of it. I have gone with the method of not limiting the entire master, but just turning down the volume to around -8db. I think it'll make a big difference when mastering since I won't have compressed everything too much. For now just turn your volume up.

Yeah I understand, the key to getting better is to keep making music and searching out improvement like a bloodhound.

It's still baller! I wasn't able to catch every nuance that you have here, but I have to say from my own personal stand point you probably could push it a bit further. Some how. I always get anxious before a track is close to finished because that's usually the point when I do something crazy that tops it off like in my song SCB, the last part that had a giant pulsating pad actually came from experiment cause I didn't like just ending it with the chorus I had. So my bit of advice is just try and make sure YOU are totally satisfied with YOUR track before you call it finished.

I'm gonna listen to these when I get home from school, cause I am gonna assume it's even ballerurdedur than before.

The synths are really good, and you handle dubstep pretty well but I have to say you do have some problems. The main ones though have to be that your drums still aren't that great. In my opinion you really need to try and use some samples not just a kit (which I'm assuming you got from a soundfont or directwave thing), and layer MULTIPLE sounds on top of each other. A good example of this kind of beat is xKore - Hello. Just listen to his drums, they're crazy sounding and I think it's more cause he's layered multiple sounds to make his beat (not to sure how, but I think he's using maybe one bass drum sample and then two different snare samples to give it a bigger texture). This is just what I think would help your drum sounds. Also you do keep the melody and stuff pretty well, but the dubstep doesn't sound like it's actually trying to follow the real melody sometimes. Like the LFO bass isn't really trying to emulate anything from the original song. This is just my opinion and I hope it helps you

I definitely want to hear this but the link isn't working for me.

I really wish I could say more, I mean metal remixes are not my area of expertise. But to me it sounded pretty good, not like ultra professional but definitely potential. Keep working at it man!