XPRTNovice

This kind of creative and flexible budgeting will get you gigs AND create a good image for yourself as a businessman/woman and just not being a douche. The last couple projects I've done for $$, I've done for less than my "rate" (which I list as $300/min but also make clear it's flexible) but I retained the rights and plan on compiling an album. With music you have a lot more options other than buyout, which is great. That being said, if someone is like "dude I'm a student I can only pay you x" and then you find out they're an indie developer with a dozen properties, etc, then you call them on it (professionally). But, by and large, I find that most people are honest.

HAVE ALL THE HAPPIES! ALL of them.

I think this is some of the most important advice. I hit it in the voiceover world (not music, but still pretty elusive career-wise) but I did it by working 16 hours a day for about half a year as I built up one career and still kept my day job so that I wasn't going to bury my family if I didn't make it in VO. Now I've quit my day job, am supporting myself solely with voiceover work, and can begin to expand my music business as well.

Thanks! Dylan really added some spice to this track.

Argle save me!!

Dylan Wiest (Wiesty) and I collabed for this track like a year ago and I never mastered it. Now I mastered it and thought I'd throw it up here. Unfortunately the project files are trashed so I can't make any changes. Feel free to throw out critiques, but I can't actually make changes. Me: Live sax and arrangement Wiesty: Live keys and drums https://soundcloud.com/xprtnovice/how-many-heavens-are-there

Don't think I'm available for creating my own track here but please let me know if you want collab for live flute, clarinet, saxophones, trumpet, guitar, mandolin, or farting noises.

[ModReview] I'll give you your MR on this one, but I also like to encourage new folks to comment on other people's tracks. You've got 4 posts to your name total, so maybe some more interaction would have inspired some discussion before you had to use the ModReview card. - First, err, have you listened to smooth jazz? This is like hyper techno samba! Smooth jazz is like...Kenny G. - You are seriously missing some low end action to support what's going on in the beginning. I thought it was an intro, and was willing to let it go, but it continued for a long time into the mix. I hear it come in later in the tune, but by the time the beat drops, my tweeters are tired. - The drum stuff going on at the 1:30 drop is a little on the muddy side, and it almost sounds like you have all of those elements in mono right in the center. You have those great bongo things going - by 2:04 there's just too much going on and not enough mixing to taper it. I get some relief at 2:14, but between 1:30-2:14 it's messy. - The concept of the ending is really cool. Something really weird happens in my right ear at 3:19...like something just drops out. Take a listen to that. You did a nice job of making a relatively repetitive source sound fairly diverse. But you've got some work to do on the mixing end, in my opinion, particularly in that section in the middle. the 80s drums are cool, but they're muddy. I'm not sure you could find something comparable to reference, but try listening to some other stuff in this style and hear how it's all put together. Good luck! [/ModReview]

[ModReview] I'm a little disappointed that this spent a couple of weeks on the forums with no comments, and I'm sorry you didn't get a lot of community feedback before the mod review. Regardless, here goes: - The bass feels a touch dry/in my face at the beginning. Perhaps consider adding a TOUCH of verb to see if you can't get it to blend better with the plinky plinkies at the beginning; or maybe just turn it down. - That bass in your face problem continues for me at :55. Still seems to forward to me, and the melody takes a back seat. I'm not a back seat melody guy. - I was starting to get pretty tired of that bass riff by 2:00, even though you were adding in other elements. - By 3:23 on my first listen, when it finally gave me a break from the 8 measure thing, I was starting to feel like this was an exercise in looping. From an arrangement standpoint, 3 minutes of the same progression is a bit much, especially when there aren't VARIATIONS, there are only ADDITIONS. - The little ethereal break at 3:30 ish is nice, but by 4:00 we're back to the beginning. At least it makes me think we're back to the beginning. So I'm noticing immediately that my major beef with this piece is going to be the arrangement side. - The mixing, in general, with the exception of my comments about maybe the bass being a little too flat/dry, is actually quite good. Things are panned nicely and everything is in its right place, so to speak. I never feel like it gets overloaded or muddy. - Another similar woooooshhh break at 5:30 to the one at 3:30, though I have to say I like this one a lot. - Buuut then we're right back at the beginning at 6:00. And it kind of goes out the same way. - The repetition is made worse by the fade out at the end. With how much you leaned on the source, you could compose an ending completely from scratch and still be well within OCR's requirements for source. So, my final word on this is that the arrangement is far, far too repetitive. I won't rehash what I've said above, but you basically have 7 minutes of the same 8 measures with different layers. The good news is, you have 7 minutes of material. Cut this song in half and mix it up a bit, and the repetition problem will largely be solved, perhaps. I won't try to tell you what to do artistically, but you might consider writing some kind of chorus/bridge using another Halo source. The source itself is kind of repetitive, so I can see how you'd fall into that trap. Good luck! [/ModReview]

I'm curious...did you sit down at a synth and try different stuff until you replicated it, or did you seriously just jot down those settings by ear?

All links to remixes are broken.

[MODREVIEW] - SFX at the beginning is really full of all the frequency spectrum in not my favorite way and heavily weighted to the right side in the panning, which makes it really disconcerting to listen to. And it doesn't go away until almost 1:00 in to the song. Definitely needs to fade out way sooner. - In general, the first 38 seconds could be compressed so that you get to the actual music quicker. - The drums sound very...flat to me. Like there's just not a lot of dimension to them. I can't really hear if you applied really heavy compression or the drum patch you used just doesn't have enough oomph. Try layering different samples to get a drum sound. - The vibe is cool; I like the washed away feeling that you get. But you have to be careful with how much you've got going on at once. At 1:50 it starts to get really saturated in the mids...and again, panned way too hard to the right. My ear was very tired after this section. - The "dive" at 2:29 is really interesting. A great idea, actually, and very cleverly done; but I think you can do it better. The "splash" noise needs to come back in the mix a bit, either by volume or adding a touch of reverb (but with an effect that wide in the EQ spectrum that could be dangerous). Right now it feels too abrupt, and I might even choose a different splash...something that resonates for a minute, and then leaves behind the feeling of being underwater, rather than BAM transition. - Again, the reintroduction of that SFX at 3:33 just doesn't work IMO...and it drops off way too suddenly. The piece itself could use a much smoother fadeout. You've got some really cool ideas in here, very unique take on the source that I really like. It just needs some cleaning, I think. Best of luck. [/MODREVIEW] __________________

[ModReview] - The beginning 3-4 guitar notes sound a bit out of tune. - The bass in general could use some EQ trimming at the extreme low end to make it fit with the rest of the mix a bit, but it's a taste thing, too. - You blended the flute thing and the steel drums very nicely to create a pretty nice texture during melody lines. - The flute gets a little shrill at 1:40 ish doing those turns on top; careful with that. I couldn't tell if you added a doubling instrument or not, but it got significantly more piercing to the ear. - Arrangement wise, I would say at 2:19 I kind of felt like I was just hearing the beginning again. By 2:42 I was getting really tired of hearing that introductory melodic line on the flute. If I were to make a suggestion, I would say cut the part from 2:20-2:42. You would prevent the feeling of being dragged back to the beginning and driving more energy toward the end. The ending is nice. Really I would say my major problem with this is the arrangement; it's a shorter piece and we hear that main line an awful lot. The mixing is pretty solid, and so is the instrumentation. I can't really give you a good gauge on whether the judges will hit on it or not, since arrangement is a little more subjective than you having a bunch of mud in the mix, etc. [/Modreview]

[MODREVIEW] It really isn't necessary for me to comment on this, as the best I can do is severely pick nits, but... - In general, I think the melody is a little buried. It might be a taste thing, but I like my melodies to be pronounced. I noticed it most after the drop at 1:25, but it was prevalent earlier as well and is a sort of reoccuring thing I heard. - Maaaybe a touch more bassline support? +1-2db maybe. - the drop at 2:55 is reeeuuhhl nice Other than that man, nice arrangement. I like the way it kind of feels like a bubble bursting at the end; had I been arranging it I might have dragged out that ending a little bit but it's good as is. I don't see the judges having any major problems with this at all [/MODREVIEW]

....but parkour...

Welcome back! Speaking of injuries, does anyone know the best way to deal with a bruised heel? Well, not the heel, but the part of the arch right against the heel. I made a bad landing on the edge of a stone column two weeks ago and it seems like it's not getting better at all. No visible bruising.

But...the girl in their advertisement in my GameInformer can make video game characters come out of her computer monitor...

So, I have a GI Bill that I need to use, because I can't transfer it to anyone else in my family. I don't foresee any degrees I'll need in the future for any of my careers, so I thought, hey, why not get that music education you've always wanted? I'm in the DC/VA area, so I know my in-residence school options are extremely limited. That leaves pretty much two options for online schools: Berklee or Full Sail. I want to focus on composition/production, which is fine because literally the only degree program available to me through those two online universities is Music Production. I have a certificate from Berklee for about 15 credits worth of classes already from another time in my life, so that seems like the easy option. I'm just wondering if anyone has any opinions/advice on what someone in my situation might do. Or, more specifically, if anyone has gotten a degree through Berklee's online program and what they thought about it. I'm definitely open to considering in-residence options if there are reputable ones in my area, but I haven't heard of any.

I'm usually sitting at 60, though I haven't taken it in a while.

Hi YB, Just to point out something from the mod review guidelines (which are stickied at the top of the forums should you want to review them) Please try to get member feedback before bringing in the big guns. Mods are sort of supposed to be the one layer below judges for feedback on your mix. Thanks and happy mixing! I've gone ahead and marked this "Work in Progress" for you, since that seems to be the level you are at with this one based on your comment.

Is there discounted group reg for this?

[MODREVIEW] - The opening is cool stylistically, but I might recommend going a liiiitle easier on the high Hz there. It was uncomfortable there. - the side chain compression that starts at 37 is way too much IMO; it's jarring and makes it tough to listen - It's better at 1:00, but you're sidechain compressing your melody line, which gives the pieces a very disjointed feeling. I don't recommend doing that, or at least dramatically reducing - The arrangement in general feels very empty, like there's something missing in the middle. I hear a melody line, I hear drums, and I hear bass, but I don't hear anything supporting the melody. This problem goes away a little bit at 2:00 when you have those supporting chords come in. - 2:20 wubbing is nice. I still think there's way, way, way too much SC compression going on. It ruins your melody line and makes it almost sound like there's something wrong with my speakers. Ultimately I think this arrangement could use some filling out. Maybe it's a stylistic thing, but the SC compression is a major barrier to me enjoying the song, and it pervades the entire track. You've got some nice grooves going on, but it smacks of repetition; I get the impression that everything is kind of on autopilot, which some other commenters have noticed as well. You have some room to cut the track down a bit at 3:45, but I might try something different rather than simply removing sections. Best of luck! [/MODREVIEW]

I didn't mean to make it sound like you were a bad person or anything, just, you know, make it easy for folks who are listening to and providing feedback for your work! Give them higher quality, no-brainwork-required links. You'll get more feedback, I think You've posted a lot of work lately - keep it up!

I'm not familiar with those brass patches, but there might be some ways you can tweak them inside Kontakt to get them to blend a bit better. Most brass sample packs are tough to work with though, and that might be sort of an allowance you get from the judges. It didn't ruin the mix by any stretch, just something I would look into improving if I could.

I see that now, thanks man. But still...lots of isolated source track links to choose from that make it easier for people you are asking to do you a favor. Plus the quality tends to be better.