MindWanderer

The lead in 0:40 to 0:53. I don't know what instrument that is, but it's percussive of some sort.

Review time! Not Finished: Obviously not finished, but regardless, please watch those keys! Nitro and Zero aren't in the same one. I'm still training my ear for this stuff, but it sounds like they're just one semitone off from each other. There are some nice ideas for intermixing the two themes here, though. Sins of Our Fathers: I was hoping you'd repeat your round 3 style, now that I don't have to feel upstaged about it! Yeah, this screams MGS. Maybe a little bit too much so--not just the style but in some places the exact same transitions are used as in the main themes of MGS3. Sounds just a tad less polished than your last entry--a little more mechanical, a little weaker sound quality, one or two off-key chords, ending cuts out slightly abruptly. But these are minor nitpicks on an overall amazing piece. I do have one major concern: I can't pick out Concrete Man. The three Zero themes are plain, but I've listened to this piece about 10 times now, and Concrete Man several times to refresh my memory as to how it goes, and I can't find it. Breathless: Country music and nasal congestion is a bad combination. As you say, it's a little fuzzy and hard to pick out the lyrics. Compression would help, but enunciation could be better, too. Otherwise, it's a simple and elegant piece. Simple verse-chorus-bridge lyrical structure lends itself perfectly to this kind of compo. My Choice: Not much to say about this one. Strader does what Strader does, no surprises here. I think your voice is actually better suited for the more growly sort of thing you did last time. Certainly no complaints about production or source usage, but the arrangement is a little vanilla. Crystal Cipher: I absolutely love the justaposition of the high-reverb wood blocks and digi-tribal drums with the synth bass. Incredibly effective. You've come a long way since the simple synths in Serpent's Spiral, which I already loved for its arrangement, but your instrumental use is even more effective now. Anyway, this piece: Use of Stone Man is very light, or else overly interpreted. All I hear clearly is the opening. I do hear Metal Man very clearly, although briefly. Otherwise, I really love the arrangement, production, everything about it. This one is going into my long-term collection, no question. Dread Zero March: Well, no one knows better than I do that orchestral is a tricky and time-consuming style to accomplish as a newbie remixer. I'm also not sold on that Dive Man percussion thing. Better luck next time. Bubble Man Chip Chip Churray: What's a churray? A 15-minute mix is pretty ballsy; if it's not utterly stunning, or changes completely a couple of times (in which case it still shouldn't be one song), the listener is going to get pretty fatigued. I characterized this as meandering before the 4-minute mark. The dischordant notes and distracting panning don't help. Then in the end it just gets weird: 11:24 starts a section that sounds like a carnival, then at 11:48, a sitar? Too many ideas. Focus on one and make it kick ass. If you'd spent the time it took to arrange the 11 minutes you didn't need, you could have improved the production quality of the 4 you did, and it might have been pretty good. Dividing by Zero: Sour notes, abrupt transitions. A-B-A arrangement with no interaction between the sources. Vanilla synths, not much in the way of arrangement. A few inspired moments, mostly at the beginning and end, but otherwise there's not much here of interest. Transducer: Classic SuperiorX. Not a terribly exciting mix, despite some vertical layering. Does everything it's supposed to do--good production quality, good source integration, it just isn't much fun. BGUNF: Synth hammered dulcimer and synth strings. Interesting; they're just real enough to be identifiable, but fake enough so that they don't sound like they're supposed to be real. A fun take on Zero-X3. Then the solo bass trying to singlehandledly, clumsily, tack Skull Man on to the end. Oh well. You're Not My Real Dad: Nice, seamless transition between the two sources. Arrangement right in that sweet spot between copying the source directly and substantially rewriting it. Does everything it sets out to do. I'm getting a little fatigued with atmospheric pads in this compo, but that isn't the fault of any one person. Wily Wars... The Punishment Due: MMX and electric guitar, the classic combination, and Solar Man is thrashtastic icing on top. This is an unusual combination of sounds, though: You have a beautiful, crisp voice (despite illness and vocoding) that doesn't mesh with those dirty guitars very well. Could we get the lyrics? The X1/X3 mashup is a little messy, especially in the ending, it gets a bit chaotic there. Otherwise this is an epic arrangement.

I meant to say this earlier, but it didn't quite come out. I would rather have advice that's 80% great, and 20% questionable and may have to be relearned, than no advice at all. For any web developers out there, it's kind of like W3Schools: Sure, people make fun of it because it encourages some bad programming habits, but it's also an amazing site for actually teaching stuff. I have now officially learned practical stuff from this whole experience (you may hear what I hope is light parallel compression on my brass this week, and some hopefully subtle ducking on my bass), and I'm bookmarking Timaeus's post for future reference. If anyone has a problem with that, feel free to do the same thing he did, but better, and more power to you.Also, submitted my mix. It ended up coming out better than I thought. Certainly not the assault on the senses it was shaping up to be earlier.

I should think. REAPER lets you choose whether to process the sends before or after effects and fader/panning. Of course, sending before your VSTi is pretty dumb, but you can always add another bus in the middle.I'm afraid Zero didn't inspire me a whole lot, I was in college and broke by the time most of the Mega Man X games came out and was never much of a fan. I would have gladly traded it for a couple of Stardroids or Mega Man Killers. My mix is coming out OK, and it has its moments, but I'm not thrilled with it. Sorry for disappointing.

Thanks for providing some actual numbers! Nearly every guide or tip I've seen just says things like "strong," "weak," "fast attack," "slow release," etc. without saying what numbers those translate to. I finally have a baseline for at least what someone uses.Edit: You too, Ecto, thanks. But I'm curious: You both described using fancy sends to accomplish this. Don't your compressors have wet/dry knobs to achieve the same thing?

If you're going to disagree with someone, please try to phrase it as something like, "Those are some good points, but I'm going to have to disagree with you on point X. Here's how I see it," rather than, "You are giving bad advice, please stop it." On the other hand, if it's possible to disagree on something based on your perception and/or opinion, then yeah, it's subjective. And when it comes to music, I think there are very, very few things you could say that aren't "100%" subjective (and I'm not sure how it's possible for a statement to be partially subjective). No matter how amazing something might be, whether it's a technique or a piece of music, someone will hate it, and no matter how crappy something may be, there could be someone who likes it (as all the terrible free soundfonts out there demonstrate). I particularly found Timaeus's ideas about designing good synth sounds to be helpful. I've been looking for exactly that kind of tip for months. It'll be fun to try to apply those tips in REAPER, where you can automate pretty much anything.

It is better, and I can tell that you took Darke's advice about maintaining the four main lines. But it's pretty monotonous, with just the same three instruments throughout (one bass, one lead, one pad), except for two brief respites in the second half. The bass in particular just doesn't vary at all, and gets fatiguing. You have maybe a minute worth of content here, stretched out for four.The instrument selection also isn't great. None of them are bad, but they aren't sufficiently interesting to carry a whole mix. You need layers, multiple voices, chords, octaves, something. The brief Heat Man instruments are particularly poor-sounding. I found the volume LFO on the pad to be a bit much, too. I did like the climax arrangement (3:38+), although it drags a little, it has a lot of energy and mixes the two sources nicely. However, it took me several listens to even realize it was the climax because it's too similar to the rest of the mix. Changes in bass or percussion can help create separation between parts that are meant to be different. So can specific instrumental techniques such as risers and crashes. For EQ, I recommend the following resources to start with:For FL Studio: http://howtomakeelectronicmusic.com/introduction-to-eq For REAPER, Ableton, and any other VST-supporting DAW: http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2011/06/24/bpb-freeware-studio-best-free-spectrum-analyzer-vst-plugins/ (check out the SPAN video at the bottom)

Here: I kind of doubt you guessed exactly that.

I suppose I could also mention that time spent at my computer isn't all I do: during my commute, and as often as I can manage at work, I'm listening to relevant music: either the sources, or one or more pieces I'm specifically trying to emulate the style of, or Pandora's best guess at the genre I'm going for (which works really well in some cases, like my waltz, and really badly in others, like my horror piece). If I hear a snippet I like, I may pause the music and run a few bars in my head of what my source might sound like if heavily inspired by what I heard. So that adds several more hours of quasi-productive time a week. And on top of that, I actually came into this particular compo armed with a half-dozen versions of Toad Man done in different styles, that I gathered instruments for in advance. For my last entry, that saved me a lot of time, but it's time I won't have to spend again next time I try an orchestral piece. This week, it saved me only an hour or two because I've used this genre before (albeit badly).

I only have 2-3 hours a night to spend on mixing, so about 18 hours altogether. But I also lose a lot.

I know exactly what you mean. I haven't been at this very long, but I already have quite a few mixes where I really like the general arrangement, but I don't yet have the chops to get them up to OCR standards. Once I finally get something passed, I want to go back over a bunch of my old stuff to see how I feel about it.Of course, this probably describes everyone still aiming for that ReMixer Profile badge.

I haven't played Metroid Prime much, but now that you mention it, I think you succeeded in doing a Metroid Prime/Phonetic Hero hybrid.On yet another listen, and listening carefully through Tengu Man a few times (Mega Man 8 is my weak point in MM music lore), what tripped me up is 1:55-2:26. I thought this was original content, riffs on the stuff you already had, but it's just an extension of the last, brief section of Tengu Man. Adding another 30 seconds of source to the count makes it way more than half, so my apologies there.

Having a hard time narrowing down my votes from my top 5, so to help myself I'm putting comments down in writing. Stone Cold Metal: Fun, energetic mix. Lots of variety in the arrangement without being inconsistent in style. Not a big fan of the opening lead synth. Soundscape is busy but not so much as to become cluttered. Lots of original content at the expense of straight use of the sources, but it's all obviously inspired by and in the same style as the sources. Tempestuous: Very traditional style, but why knock what works? Full of nice vertical layering and call-and-response use of the two sources. But while that aspect is done wonderfully, it really is the only highlight of the mix, which otherwise isn't terribly memorable. There isn't anything to complain about either, though. The Underwater Adventures of Shadedog: Absolutely nailed that underwater feeling. Sounds straight out of the Aquaria soundtrack. And it's not just the instrumentation but the little twists on the sources that are done in that exact style. However, this does heavily favor Shade Man; the Ballade sections, which are short, few, and far between, feel slightly shoehorned in and aren't "water-ified" as elegantly. A gorgeous mix overall; I think this could pass the OCR judges with very little work. Punked in the Jewels: Classic Gario, never a bad thing. That bass "evil laugh" is weird, though, and doesn't always sound like it belongs. A little over-interpreted, IMHO. A little too frantic for my tastes, although I appreciate that the franticness is deliberate, and it's well done for what it is. Does Anybody Really Even: Interesting how even when pH is trying for a very specific ambiance--and succeeding at it--it's still unequivocally the glitchy, wild pH we all know. I definitely do hear that you used DWR: Wily 1 instead of Heart of Enker in places, but there are also parts that go the other way. Overall the style and quality are great, and given that I'm not a big fan of glitchiness, this is one of my favorite pH mixes to date. My only real complaint, and it's a big one, is in the length: Not only is it less than 3 minutes long, but a lot of that is ambient build-up and interlude, and both Tengu Man and Heart of Enker are long and complex sources which deserve more. Out of curiosity, I timed it: The source usage adds up to barely half the whole mix. What there is is great, there just isn't enough of it.

What is it with your team and innuendo?

Hm, not what I was expecting, but I think I can work with this. Darke, how should we name our files this week? "___ Man vs. Zero" isn't terribly informative. (And I'll be using at least two different ones, maybe more--several of them are really short.)

I'm not sure that rendered correctly; the second "bass" came out as a high-pitched squeal for me.It's funny you should mention this--I just learned the same thing a couple days ago, but I originally thought the wobble was caused by modulation in amplitude, not frequency, so I was even more clueless. I also don't understand what bitcrushing has to do with it at all--is it just to increase the "grittiness" of the sound? If you hadn't guessed, I'm a total noob when it comes to synths--I'm trying now to learn enough about them to implement them effectively later in this compo. On a related note: I've found lots of tutorials for raw beginners (e.g. "This is the difference between a sine and a saw wave, this is what ASDR is") and lots for advanced users that twiddle all the dials on the synth, like pulse width and routing, and assuming we know what they all do, but nothing that covers that middle ground. Anyone have any good resources?

For instance, sticking to one instrument for extended periods of time, even when an interplay between two or more instruments would be more natural (e.g. 0:46-0:47 of Tandocca Scale). You're not the only one who does this, but not many people do. Also the ending segment at 1:44 has what sounds to me like an arpeggiated lead with a delay that's out of sync with the beat, something else that I recall hearing in several of your mixes. Neither of these are necessarily bad things, but they're tricky to make sound good. On the whole you've gotten a lot better at separating your sounds, replicating melodies authentically, putting together good soundscapes, and getting a good rhythm going.

Just got my votes in, and it just keeps getting harder and harder. Lots of amazingly creative stuff, and lots of mixes I would have loved to rank, but I gotta pick just 3.... I want to give Zerothemaster a special shout-out, though. You have improved so amazingly much over the last year you've spent at this, and your persistence is really starting to pay off. If I'd heard Tandocca Scale even 6 months ago I wouldn't have believed you'd written it (though it does still have some signature Ztm quirks). Keep improving at this pace and you'll be one of the best around in another year!

Not that I'm up this week, unless Trism has to bail, but just to get this out of they way: Their Game Boy themes are somewhat different, Ballade's especially. Since Quint is OK, what about those?Edit: Bah, ninja'ed.

Hm, it's unfortunate that it came across that way. The structure is pretty common in movie soundtracks; I used "Aggressive Expansion" from The Dark Knight as my most direct influence, which shares the same rhythm of powerful opening and closing bracketing a soft, almost ambient middle.

Yeah, I could tell it was intentional, but it did sound like it was done in production rather than by the singer actually dropping his voice--which was indeed the case. It would sound fine if you re-recorded that one line actually singing more quietly.

Fair enough. I'm much less of an expert than you are! I can certainly the difference in production quality between my track and yours, though, and it's not all sample quality. I know that my sequencing was also mechanical, and that I screwed up the volume balance between the parts in my final attempt to improve compression, but both of those I could have fixed--or at least improved--given time. I would love to hear from you on what else I could have done to improve it, arrangement and production both.

The whole reason I do that is to keep it in a similar timeframe: One week to make a mix, then a second week to get and apply the advice of your mentor. At least, that's the way I'd approach it, because I feel like my arranging is OK but my production needs a ton of work. If you need arrangement advice, you'd probably work more closely with the mentor earlier on. Until now I haven't felt that way, because none of my competition has ever used a style similar to mine. But now ShrackAttack & co. have given me a good piece for the next time I want to A/B an epic orchestral score-type piece.What I really need to do is learn how to work with synths. Most successful entry-level remixers start there rather than with soundfonts, it seems, and there are more people I can compare to in that regard.

You think you feel that way? I think this is quite possibly the best piece I've ever done, and then the track right after mine in the playlist is done in almost the exact same style only about 1000 times better. I'm still pretty pleased with the arrangement, though.

It's anything downloaded from Napster, of course. Just voted. Really, really tough call. I was able to narrow it down to 7 with a fair amount of confidence, but then it really could have gone any way. There were a couple that were almost heartbreaking not to rank.