Michael_Lochlann

T-racks soft clipper does it fer me.

Hi...I think with a little work you could transform this into something exciting. Arrangement: Haven't heard the original song. I feel like it needs more contrast to be interesting. With the instrumentation and feel being the exact same all the way through it feels a little boring. There's not really any development to it. I think be a little more picky as to when the drums come in, and use them to bring excitement to it. Most orchestral tracks don't have drums playing the whole time. I feel like at few parts the performance of the instruments doesn't line up perfectly. Production: The violin samples are a little weak to me. String samples are hard to get sounding good, but perhaps shop around for some better ones. I like East West pretty good considering it was 300 bucks (pretty cheap for orchestra samples.) It sounds like there is perhaps a little too much reverb and it's swamping it out. I don't do too much classical mixing but on rock mixes it helps to hi-pass filter the reverb at around 300 hz to clean it up. Also try adding some predelay, or you know, just turn the aux bus/reverb mix fader down. I thought the piano samples were pretty good. It feels a little dull, maybe make some stuff brighter and try bringing out the bass in the bass drum a little bit more or turning it up.

This is a metal cover from an anime soundtrack, but i don't think that's so far off from the video game community. https://soundcloud.com/christophercollins-3/song-of-storm-and-fire-april i originally did this 2 years ago, and i just re-recorded everything with new guitars and remixed. i used the samplemagic MAGIC AB plugin extensively on this to compare to reference tracks, namely Periphery's Racecar and Soilwork's The Windswept Mercy. using that I was able to get both the tonality of the individual tracks, as well as the balance and volume of the overall mix, a lot closer to the commercial references than I've gotten previously, although it's still a ways off from being pro. I highly suggest that plugin for everyone here. Great tool.

it's a classical track, so it's not required to make it LOUD, however, if you use a soft clipper you may be able to snap off the loudest peaks without saturating.

http://www.samplemagic.com/details/184/magic-ab Love it... it's an in the box solution for referencing. ONe-click A/B between your mix, playing in your DAW, vs up to 9 reference tracks that you can loop at your leisure. there are faders for each ref track along with RMS meters so you can match up your reference to your mix much better than using media player and separate files. you can load a whole mp3 and loop the part you want to hear in the plugin, instead of chopping up your reference songs into different parts and then hunting for the files. i have used a monitor controller with an extra computer hooked into it, and i have used media player on the same computer, stopping the DAW, playing the media player, adjusting the volume, etc. this plugin is so much easier and exactly what i was looking for when i googled it. it's like 30 buckaroos. worth it to me. just wanted to share. ciao fooz

This is pretty cool Production wise and sound wise sounds like it would fit right in a remake of the games. I'm not typically a fan of electronic stuff but this sounds pretty good to me. I dig it bro. Good luck marketing the album and getting it on OCR.

The beginning starts ok. The part where the guitar comes in, doesn't sound like the guitar is synchronizing exactly the backing track. Sounds like you are rushing a bit, which is something a lot of people fight against, including me. Turn your DAW's metronome on, turn it up LOUD, and try to play to the click. Also, listen less to your guitar playing and more to the rest of the track as you record. Some parts sound more on than others, but it's pretty off all the way through, especially the rhythm guitar. The rhythm guitar needs to be a lot louder. They sound wimpy at that volume and there is a lot of space in the mix for them to fill up without killing the other instruments. I think leave everything at the volume it is, and turn the rhythm guitar up maybe 2-3 dbs, maybe more, and eq some crunch into them at 1K or presence at 3K. They sound flat. Listen to this for an example. I turned him down to account for the mastering difference in volume, and his rhythm guitars are so much more full and louder than yours. and I don't feel like his guitars are even that loud on this track what with the vocals being on top.work on those coupla things and we'll talk.

pretty fun tune. sounds like it could be in the game for sho. i wish your kick had more...kick to it. more BASS!!!

I like the sound of it except for the percussion. One thing you can do is buy a shaker for like 5 bucks at the music store and mic yourself playing it instead of using samples. If you are using samples though, using accents is important to make sure it doesn't sound like a machine playing it at exactly the same velocity or volume each time. a good way around this is to get you a MIDI keyboard (touch sensitive) and play the part, then it's guaranteed to be human. (Although it may sound bad depending on how good you are at the piano. Haha.)

bad link???

You are good as hell for being able to play the whole song at once by yourself. I feel like some of the notes, especially the bass plucks, could be enunciated more clearly though. May just be the recording too. I suggest running it into your DAW through a linein with a good amp sim like revalver or get a decent mic (SM57) and mic your amp, doing multiple takes and editing the best ones together. That'll get you a listenable mix versus a live take. If you were playing this anywhere near me I would put money in your hat though. Also note since it is OCR they will probably want you to do more with the arrangement, since it's pretty much the exact as the original as far as I can tell. Which is all good to me.

Thank you Mr. T! 2nd mix https://soundcloud.com/christophercollins-3/wing-commander-2014-master-1 took the s1 imager off the master bus, fixed the wide kick. good idea adding transient shaper to snare, i sent to a bus to mix it in and it sounds better. i also turned it up a bit based on my reference listening earlier today. new mix has more balls as I added a lot of crunch and power to the rhythm guitars, turned down the bass guitar a little bit, balanced the overbearing bass in the kick drum and turned the snare up. mix reference this time was this song by soilwork mostly, and a couple of periphery tracks. i used the plugin Magic A/B which was super wonderful, better than having a monitor controller and separate computer for sure. and yet after another 2 hours of mixing constantly comparing, his track still kicks my track's ass. really gives you respect for how good the pros are.

people like to post on here but don't review anybody else's stuff... Arrangement: Yay djent! I like what you did with the double kick drum, and the whole track is very convincing song-wise. With pro-level mixing, this could be a real song on a djent album or a metal remix album. The arrangement is interesting and solid throughout, and full of balls! Production: It sounds pretty good, but I would like the drums to sound a lot brighter and in your face. In particular the cymbals. When mixing you really gotta A/B your song constantly with a pro mix that you want it to sound like to take it to the next level. Play some periphery, stop it, and listen to your mix and you will see that their cymbals are really in your face and bright. Yours are present, but wimpy. Also, try sending your cymbals & hats or overhead track to an aux send with a distortion of some kind. It will dirty them up. They sound way too clean & fake right now, as drum samples usually do out of the box. Try compressing the shit out of your snare and adding some 8-9khz to it. It'll get the snap you hear in Periphery and Tesseract records that really makes the snare pop out. I think the bass guitar needs to be a little louder. When you think of metal, you don't think bass guitar, but the reality is, (especially in Djent), that the Guitar supplies the balls while the Bass supplies that boomy low end that you mistakenly associate with the guitar. It's at a good level now so try turning the bass up maybe 1, 1.5 Dbs, or boost around 80 hz and see how that does ya. I like your guitar tone. And the playing is pretty clean. The lead guitar that plays in a couple parts could be a little brighter, or middlier. It just seems kinda boring frequency wise. It sounds good, but it doesn't sound amazing. Try boosting 3khz on it for some presence and in your face ness, or alternatively try boosting around 500 hz for some body and space. maybe a slightly noticeable delay would make it more interesting too.

https://soundcloud.com/christophercollins-3/wing-commander-no-need-for Been bustin everyone's balls today so bust me right back! This a straightforward rock mix of the Wing Commander title theme, a request from a friend. Mix name is "No Need For Heroes" Got a new guitar recently, and thanks to a forum person's help I've been practicing vibrato properly, so it sounds better. Once I practice guitar maybe 6 more months I'll feel good enough to start submitting stuff to OCR. Notes: Guitars: Done on a 7 string Ibanez tuned in standard with 7 string droptuned to A. Tyrant Tube Screamer plugin Poulin Lecto (rectifier) and Legion amp sims with Red Wirez cab sims. Drums: played on yamaha digital set and ran through Steven Slate Drums. Parallel Compression on drums bus, sent overheads to a bus with Tyrant Tube Screamer on it to liven it up and harmonics. added 60 cycles to kick to get it to thud and some 8hz i believe for the attack, happy with the snare, added a SSLchannel compressor with high setting for the snap, 9hz boost for snap, 150 hz boost for power and cut 2dbs at 200hz out of the rhythm guitars for added snare power. (cutting other instruments that are masking works better than a boost sometimes by the way! sounds cleaner.) mastering used Waves Center to put bass in middle, S1 imager to make the mix wide, lexicon verb at 10% mix to thicken up a bit, some pultec EQs and a linear phase EQ to boost low and high end and take out a bit of 300, ran through SSL bus compressor, pultec compressor, tracks clipper, tracks limiter, and finally to your ears. mix reference track was Epiphany by Tesseract. very useful esp in mixing the drums.

guitar rig ain't bad, but again, distortion guitar is probably the #1 hardest instrument to emulate. I used to run a MIDI track through amp sims too when I first started, but there's not a hell of a lot you can do with them to make them sound good. you really need either a real guitarist (plenty of them at OCR for you to ask), or find a sample library designed to recreate the sound of a guitar. Just like violin, having a sample patch with only one sound will not get you a realistic result because the instrument is just too complex. again, you're better off using a saw wave or something that has the harmonics and edge of a distorted guitar. you can even try running it through a light distortion like a Tube Screamer sim to get it a little nastier. but right now, it just doesn't sound good, and it's messing up what might otherwise be a pretty good track.

hey, this is pretty good. Arrangement: Very convincing. It doesn't sound like the distant worlds orchestrations, it sounds...better! If played by a real orchestra, I could hear it on the FF8 orchestral CD and not tell the difference. Great transitions to the different parts. Lots of things going on in this track to keep it interesting, and there are no parts that seem out of place. The tone is very tongue-in-cheek drama, chick tied to railroad tracks. Production: I wonder if you can make this louder in mastering without compressing overmuch. The previous track I was listening to was much louder. The samples and the handling of them was very good. It's very hard to use fake instruments to emulate real ones, but you did a stellar job. I think the fact that you played this had a lot to do with livening it up. I can tell from how bombastic it is and how the accents are all in the right places. Mix-wise everything is clear, the reverb is full without being overdone. It could perhaps be a little brighter.

Arrangement: The arrangement is pretty good, it develops and has a lot of interest in it. The ending leaves something be desired, the cymbal crash at the end doesn't have enough finality to it and seems half done. Production: Fake guitar has got to go. It sounds like it's being ran through Sonar's built in Amp sim, the tone is very harsh and not convincing. If you can't play guitar and don't have any convincing distortion guitar libraries (I hear people mentioning Shreddage a lot) I suggest replacing this with a saw wave or something similar. It's maddeningly hard to get a good guitar tone with an actual guitar, so using a midi guitar and running it through a second-rate amp sim or VST is not going to cut it. I'm not in love with the Violin sample either, an investment in East West symphonic orchestra for about 300 bucks will do you better. Or perhaps synth strings instead. The great thing about synth instruments is they're not trying to emulate anything, so they never sound fake. For instance, the beginning of the track sounds good because it's all synthesizers. The rest of it sounds ok, the drums are mixed well and the balance is good. But the fake violin and guitar are killing this track for me.

and here's a link to explain that for you better. http://www.pianochord.com/D-major-7th

C# is in the key of D. C# is the major 7th interval of D. If you have the two notes separated by at least an octave, and there are no other notes clashing with it, it will sound okay. If the C# is above the D it will imply a D major seventh chord (D F# A C#) in root position (with D as the lowest note). If the C# is BELOW the D, it will imply a D major seventh chord in 3rd inversion, meaning the C# is the lowest note. If you play the C# and the D that are right next to each other on the piano together, by themselves it will sound nasty because that is an interval of a minor second and really clashes without some other notes in there to support the harmony. You don't have to be an expert on music theory to write music. But I think it's essential if you want to arrange other people's music, especially by ear. I don't know how I'd be able to transcribe anybody's stuff without knowing at least the different scales and keys. Luckily, learning that won't take you too long. Also you're right about Schala not being in there, I was confusing the Undersea Palace melody for that one. I guess I've been lax in listening to my Chrono Trigger OST lately.

Interesting...I think with some work this would be pretty good. Arrangement: The performance of the piano in the beginning was a little clunky. Maybe have someone step in and record that for you, since it's so important to the track. I'm a fan of double kick, and it works pretty well--surprisingly well--on this track. But if you constantly do it, it loses its meaning, so consider changing up parts of it. The drum part right after the grand pause needs some work. I like when the snare comes in, but before that, it sounds wimpy and doesn't drive the beat. For this track, the drums really feel like they are in the spotlight, so you need to make sure they are flawless all the way through. You need an ending on this, the sudden stop doesn't work. Production: I didn't like how the piano sounded at the very beginning with the distortion. I think a moving hi pass filter would do you better for the "nasty to good mix fade-in", even though that's a little overdone. If you stick with the distortion, find a way to get it to sound less harsh. Maybe have a clean copy of the piano, and send it to an aux send with a distortion on it, and have a moving hi pass filter on the distortion. I also think it sounds too dry, so if you can add a little reverb or delay on it, that would help--especially given that the original is delayed. The lead guitar tone was very harsh on the ears. There's one frequency that's sticking out, I want to say around the 4Khz area, maybe higher. I think if you remove that, your tone will be pretty good. You may benefit from some subtle reverb or delay on that track as well, it sounds very dry and doesn't mesh with the rest of the track. The rhythm guitar tone sounds okay to me. The drums sound pretty good mix-wise. You can hear all the elements. They may be turned up a little bit too much, experiment with bringing the entire drum set down a dB or two and see if your guitar meshes with it a bit more. Your hi hat and cymbals sound a little nasty. See if you can get rid of some of that harshness in the 1K-8K range.

Sir this is teeeight. One of my favorite vgmixes I have heard! Arrangement: Taking this song and putting it on acoustic guitar is a very interesting idea. You have taken that idea and used it to its full potential. Everything is properly subdued and has its own place in the arrangement; I especially like how the acoustic plays off against the piano. The shakers really make it. At only a minute long it's pretty short, but I'm not sure I want it extended; I had it on repeat and it repeats perfectly, which was interesting. Perhaps you can make a medley of it to extend the song. I feel like the Sealed Door would make a great second half of this, continued in this style. The ambient wind noise and reed instrument are a nice touch. Production: All the instruments were played flawlessly and the mixing on each of them was bright and clear; everything glues together well and everything is at the right volume.

sounds better, closer to a finished thing. now i feel the snare is a little puny though. i think it needs more power in the low end, like, boost around 200 thereabouts. I think it's a pretty good volume where it is, if you add a little oomph there. the guitar doesn't annoy me this time around but it sounds the same tone wise, so maybe you took care of the offending frequencies. the kick drum sounds good to me now!

fun song i think that the kick should be boosted a little lower frequency wise, it feels too boomy and unfocused. maybe add a bit of treble to it to brighten it up, and try boosting around 50-60 and maybe cut a little low mid out. i envision it sounding more like this: nice and tight and present and thick as hell but with no woofiness. i also think your snare is way too loud to the point which i think influences what the previous guy said where it's overpowering your mix. tonally wise i would also prefer a snappy acoustic sample instead of noise too, or blend one in with the one you have. here is a balls to the wall metal song where snare is important but it still sits in the mix and doesn't overcome everything else. also your reverb on the snare is making things worse coz the snare is even longer...and the verb is a little muddy. maybe some snap around 8k will help you there too. edit also maybe rethink the gain/eq on your guitar coz as it sounds a little harsh to me.

by 60 cycles i mean 60 hz. sorry, too many youtube mixing videos. 60 hz seems to be the good spot for adding thud to your kick drum. 4k-8k is a good range to boost the attack so i can tell it's a kick drum. haha. i have been mixing for years now and getting stuff to really glue together is tough, so just keep working on it. compression is the hardest thing to get right because it's not as linear as most stuff is. "Want more bass? Eq more bass." but if you want to compress something, you will mess it up unless you know exactly what you are doing. a good trick to getting punchiness would be to set the attack time to 0, ratio to like 20 or something stupid high, threshold to where it's compressing a lot. then slowly turn up the attack time until your attack of the instrument you like comes through, and just that. then set the ratio back to something more normal like 3-6 and the threshold to whatever fits, and you will have the attack sound you want being emphasized by the compressor... the ny parallel compression gives you more of an in your face sound, but without the right attack setting on it, it still won't give you punchiness I think, as the punchiness comes from the difference between the uncompressed attack and the compressed rest of the signal.

hey, i follow your soundcloud lead guitar sounds great. great tone, great playing. sounds like too much is going on in the right channel, and not enough in the left, can you check that. maybe because the left lead is not loud and the right lead is very loud. the arrangement is ok, it does sound a lot like the original, which is fine with me but may get it overlooked as a ocremix the drums sound a little fake. great thing to do, send your drum bus or overheads to an aux send, throw a really nasty distortion on it, then hi pass it and mix it in to taste. adds a lot of harmonics and rawness to it that makes sampled drums really come alive. yeah your right guitar is too loud, making the rest of the track, notably the drums, not feel loud enough. also makes the rhythm guitar sound a little wimpy in comparison. maybe turn right lead guitar down 2-3 decibels, see how it sounds. but cool sound, wish my guitar sounded like that.