HeavenWraith

Ah, thank you for the review. Lowering the lower frequencies (especially of the rhythm guitar, which had a lot of them panned slightly to left, no idea how I missed that) made the whole mix brighter and easier on the ears. You made me aware of this possible problem - whether the mix is too original. I'm not too sure myself honestly, since I have little experience with the judges' panel and their standards. I'd love someone with more involvement tell me whether it qualifies, so I'll make the source breakdown. 1:04 - 1:38 ________ 0:30 - 1:22 from Dancing Mad (slightly modified melody in the beginning) 1:38 - 1:47 ________ 0:00 - 0:13 from Nisus 1:48 - 1:58 ________ fusion of 0:14 - 0:27 from Nisus and 1:22 - 1:32 from Dancing Mad 2:18 - 2:38 ________ 1:09 - 1:36 from Nisus 4:29 - 4:48 ________ 0:55 - 1:08 from Nisus 6:21 - 6:36 ________ 0:30 - 0:54 from Dancing Mad (slightly modified) The new version is here.

And so with my next remix I'm moving out of my comfort zone and taking a shot at putting up something that doesn't involve heavy dist guitars. I still feel really green in the techno area mainly because I don't listen much to it and thus have little experience. So any kind of comments are welcome! Remix

That's a really handy piece of advice. I will for sure, thanks.

I thank for everyone's cooperation and I present you what I think might be the very last revision of the remix, a release candidate, if you will. I've mastered it more like a metal track, making most of the channels heavily compressed (keeping the wavelength amplitude fluctuation very low), sorry for those who expected me to do otherwise. Without further ado, here is the track. If I find nothing wrong with it within a time of a week, I'll submit it. http://soundcloud.com/heavenwraith/upheaval-michaels-judgement

So after a lengthy struggle with this piece I've finally managed to come up with something at least decent sounding. The instruments are finalized unless I will find something horrible when I listen to this yet another time with a clean ear. Though now comes the mastering part, and before I start ruining my mix, I'd like to hear some opinions on what would any/every you do if you had to make this specific mix louder, clearer and all that jazz. Enough of my tootin', the mix is here: http://soundcloud.com/heavenwraith/upheaval-michaels-judgement Yet again, thanks in advance for all the advice.

Thank you for the comments, I took them into account and baked a new revision of the remix. I replaced some of the samples, made the mix clearer and adjusted some output levels. I still need to rerecord that horrid solo at 4:47, rerecord some rhythm guitar samples (mainly in the coda) and... whatever issues will come up in the future. The link is in the OP and any kind of advice/comments are appreciated.

I'm glad you feel that way about the remix. Noted the drum part, I will certainly enhance them the moment I get to the mastering phase. Regarding the choir samples, that's a nice kind of approach you're suggesting there. Even though it seems obvious, I literally didn't even think about replacing it with anything else because somehow I was 100% sure that only choir will do the trick in this mix, but now that I rethink things, I can think of at least 3 samples from my weaponry that would fit the role perfectly. Oh well, live and learn, I should constantly keep reminding myself to be open-minded.

So I'm approaching the finish line with this track and am seeking some tips/comments on certain parts of the mix and also everything in general, I guess. This is a symphonic metal (not entirely sure, I'm not any good at distinguishing between music sub-genres) remix of "Dancing Mad" from Final Fantasy VI (Uematsu Nobuo) and "Nisus" from The Last Remnant (Sekito Tsuyoshi), my 3rd OC-oriented remix in total. Soundcloud stream link.

This is my first remix, though I've recently applied all the new mastering knowledge I've acquired recently during my work on OCR mixes that are yet to be evaluated, so it doesn't sound totally bad. Even though this is a remix, it is quite similar to the original theme, but it does have a bit of new material. Though the prefix states that the mix is finalized, I'm posting here with hope to hear some constructive criticism and am willing to modify the mix. Here is the link to the mix. Feedback appreciated. http://soundcloud.com/heavenwraith/mystogans-theme

I see, I tried cutting off the mud in the tracks of my mixes and it worked really well. Even though the output gain is 0.0 dB, it sounds a lot louder that it used to. Thank you all for the replies, it helped a bunch.

First of all, good evening ladies and gentlemen of OCR, this is my first time posting in these forums. Pleased to meet all of you. So far I've been learning my mixing techniques all by myself by just trying stuff out in FL Studio and seeing if it works, however, now that I've decided to register here, might as well ask some crucial questions people, who will know the certain answer. The goal I seek is to make the volume of my tracks as high as possible, however, obviously, without clipping. The way I've been doing things until now was producing a mix with a limiter (I'm using FL Studio), which makes the wavelenght's maximum amplitude 0.0 dB. Afterwards I open my track with Audacity and amplify the whole thing approximately 2.0 dB. The sound then is just about right (I'm comparing the output volume with professional mixes), however in some cases the track start clipping in some places. Moreover, sometimes I can even amplify the track up to 3.0 dB and it won't clip, so I'm not sure as to what the general rule is. My question is - is there a hit-confirm way to make the output gain as high as possible, but without clipping. I've searched through the forums for a similar topic since I figured this is an important issue for any mixer, however either I've failed to select the right keywords or there's no information regarding the matter. Pardon me if I've made a duplicate thread. Thanks in advance.