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So, I've been debating as to whether I should make a post about what I have experienced and learned through the process of getting something posted, but I figured if even one person is helped, this perhaps maybe long winded post will be worth it. As always, constructive advice is appreciated and encouraged!:) First, spending money does not mean success. You don't need full Kontakt, Serum, Phase Plant, etc. I believe my finally accepted version only has one paid plugin, Hybrid 3 to be specific. 5 Dollars on sale. There is at least one fully fledged DAW you can have for free. Cake-walk, from Bandlab. In fact, if you have lower computing power, Cake-walk lets you freeze and unfreeze tracks with ease....that meaning, it renders a WAV file of your synth on that track, possibly saving CPU power. I wish FL Studio included that. It doesn't, as far as I have searched. Watch Tutorials. If a judge says something you don't quite understand, YouTube it. I would recommend specific channels, but not sure if allowed;) Don't get discouraged. I started playing at age 12, and got paying gigs with rehearsals and everything within a year. Imagine a young teenager's delight at receiving his first bottle of sparkling wine, Ha! Makes me laugh out loud as I type this:-D I remember getting a bass guitar as an adult for fun, and my wife couldn't believe I could play a few well known riffs within an hour just plunking around. Music production....FAR more difficult for me. A couple specifics below:) More delay with parameters adjusted, less reverb. EVERYTHING gets a high pass filter, adjusted for the instrument. Including reverb. Check tuts. Keytracking on various filter types. Helps a filter move with the instrument being filtered. Sidechaining is not only for bass drum and bass. Snare drums and crashes can eat a lot of headroom, too. You can even have leads cut frequencies from background pads. Check tuts:) Next, a few free plugin recommendations! Surge XT. Intimidating interface, but so many presets available. Vital. Free Serum...kind of.. there's much argument. However, I think this is is the most complex synth that's relatively easy to learn sound design on. Check tutorials. Tal Noisemaker. Relatively simple, but really easy to make interesting sounds easily. The "freeform" oscillator is just great on something this simple. Helm. This one is made by the same guy that made Vital, but the presets are nice if you remove the on board effects and add your own to the processing chain. In your face basses and screaming leads that cut through are easily had here. Also, everything is one one page, no menus or drop-downs. Kilohearts Essentials. This is a suite of about 30 free effect plugins.... they're great. Work well with simple interfaces, and include everything needed to at least get your feet wet. I especially appreciate the trance gate, noise gate, and dual delay. TDR Nova. Almost Fabfilter, for free. A dynamic compressor/EQ BBCSO Orchestra Discover. Low resource using free full orchestra. Just because a Kontakt library is free, doesn't mean it works with the free Kontakt Player. Just because a Kontakt library is paid, doesn't mean it works with the free Player. Make Sure You Check! Free Kontakt Player. Crazy what's available for free for this. Last......... Join the d.mn.d Discord server!!! You get quick great feedback! I hope some of this is helpful, and I hope others respond and add, or perhaps politely disagree with what I have said:) Respectfully and Semper Fi, Eric, aka, Audiomancer.

Put me down for the Caves of Narshe, from FF6. I have a perfect set of creepy sfx to go with the instrumentation I plan:)

My wife is pretty good with markers and pencils in creating artwork. If some ideas on what kind of imagery you might want are given, she can produce something for consideration:)

Thanks, and nice to meet you too:)

I would like to "throw my hat into the ring", so they say, on this idea:)

I submitted a revised version of this. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NyIcHOHeNYyCZuMBXx20SjwjOvI8Is3Q/view?usp=drivesdk I let violin take the lead on B section. The legato articulations sound realistic to me, but I have often been accused of sounding too accurate when I play flute live....like an android, lol. Literally, one time I was in a youth orchestra when young, and I was playing the solo from Carmen, Intermezzo, and the conductor told me to "let your hair grow, you don't sound natural. Sounds good though..ok, let's do this. I'm not going to conduct. You play, the orchestra follows you. Let it flow" Got a similar complaint when I was a musician in the Marine Corps, ha! Rambling over;)

Lol, I went back and forth on letting the other instruments take the lead, so to speak. Perhaps I was just excited to get that trumpet sample pack:)

Something I Put together, I like how it turned out:) Terra-ble JourneyMP3.mp3

A rough WIP, looking for feedback on instrumentation and whatnot. the beginning solo organ I live played. Remix attached, original below, Thanks:) The next section is going to be kind of a solo section in relative minor, with a big rock recap at the end. Original Three is a Crowd.mp3

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HlQTj8BuHj-oZ37ziJ2wGDCix3a4u5pT/view?usp=sharing Latest revision after most recent rejection. Hey, I got a couple yes votes this time, yay:) Anyways, the thing that stood out the most as far as critiques are concerned is that the tune sounded muffled, as though being "played from behind a pillow". Also, one of the judges said something about if he had the stems, he could have it above the bar in a half hour. With that in mind, I exported the project as three stems; drums, bass, and synths. One of the judges said something about the bass drum being too prominent, I dialed that back some. On the synth stem, I added a patcher patch that split the frequencies at about 800 hz, and added some "subtle" additional saturation, eq, Kilohearts dual delay, and side channel reverb to the above 800 hz portion of the signal. I should add, that in the mix, before exporting the stems, I brought many elements closer to center. I think I got the "pillow" problem solved here, after A-B'ing between this version and my last submission of this mix. Feedback welcome please!

It has been a while since I have taken a shot at this. The structure is quite similar, but it was redone from scratch with different instruments and effects. Thanks! Edit: File upload failed, Remix link below. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aTLfpAB-xX7DQdZgDlPKfx4XeK0QlMd9/view?usp=sharing ReMix Attached. Original

A few eq adjustments, as mentioned. I also sidechained the snare to everything, but to a lesser degree than the kick. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YoI1od1f3QLbFZgUpPzbP2Nzttdvc7Gx/view?usp=sharing

Revised version attached with different kick and bass. Thanks! Edit...the bass is a patcher patch, I used 3xOsc for the lower tones of the bass (square wave), and used Vital for the higher pitched portion. Vital is using a pulse width wavetable with a stereo lfo on it, as well as a phaser. Also, one of my sidechain routings wasn't set up right. The bass has a fair amount of gain reduction, and the pads and leads have a smaller amount of reduction applied now. Edit...I think the kick is too loud here. I have another version that I'll upload when I get the chance. TwistedSysterzNewKickNBassMP3.mp3

So I have altered the kick AND the bass. The kick was made in kick factory in Flex, so it was quite easy to alter the volume and filter envelope on that. The bass in my latest revision is a completely different instrument that I made in patcher involving two instances of 3xosc, one a sub bass basically, and the other is higher pitched with some effects on it, including a flanger.. it's a lot punchier and less muddy sounding than the one on the judges panel currently. When I get home, I'll render it out and post it here:)

It does...and after I submitted this, I happened to stumble upon an In The Mix video that informed me that arranging differently can make everything else easier. I have actually already re arranging the tune after I watched the video, just in case of. "NO" :) Also, I never understood how to use that spectrum tool now, I've seen it, but didn't understand what I was looking at. Thanks for the feedback, and I'll actually listen to your remaster when I get the chance! Regards, Eric, audiomancer