Kat

Yeah, the soundtrack is pretty awesome and I may do a few more things with it. Given the time it was released it has a lot of good stuff. In this case it just happened to follow a similar chord progression. I could probably turn this into something half decent. Might try a few things out when I've got more time.

https://soundcloud.com/katallen-12/zeliard-hotel-satono Let me first say that I have no idea what the hell I've done. Boredom + Midi Keyboard + Zeliard soundtrack, I suppose. This was literally the first thing that came to mind upon hearing Zeliard's "Satono Town" track.. I'm not sure if it's even worth pursuing(or if I'll get around to it). Then again, I do recall 'Super Mario's Sleigh Ride'. Not that this would ever compare to that masterpiece of a mix. I just felt like taking a break from more serious things. It's not a particularly fancy arrangement at this point. Source: Edit 7/30: After exploring the main melody a bit more I don't think I'd be able to pull off a full mix/blend of the two songs(I wasn't expecting to in the first place). I hope this has been entertaining nonetheless, but I think this will be shelved indefinitely.

Not a big fan of the drums myself. They do sound overcompressed and I can't say I like the sound of them that much as it is. What library are you using? Additionally, the leads at 1:40 and 2:37 have, in my humble opinion, far too much reverb compared to the rest of the mix. Given one of my recent mix attempts, it's funny I say that. As for the rest of the mix, I wasn't that big on the minute and a half of repetitive power chords before any sort of lead hit the mix. What if you brought that harmony at 1:56 in a bit earlier to spice up the introduction a bit? And given the energy you're trying to convey, what about a lighter crash cymbal 1/4 notes instead of high hat 1/8 notes, before leading up to a drum fill and transition into the main melody? Speaking again of the percussion, you should mess around with the velocity a bit - it's very repetitive right now. An accent here and there can work wonders, especially on the high hat.

If by listening you just mean for pleasure, I personally prefer a nice pair of Marley Positive Vibrations. They're a bit colored though - they have a little more bass(not near as much as most "celebrity" type headphones though) while maintaining a nice mid to upper range. Great for listening, and you can usually get them for around $50. However, I wouldn't recommend them for mixing or composing. For mixing/composing headphones, I prefer the AKG K 240 semi-open headphones. They're on the cheaper end at around $100 and overall pretty good, though I couldn't explain the technical details. Unfortunately I've heard the production quality has gone down quite a bit and they aren't too good anymore, though mine don't seem that bad. Still though, If your goal is to stay under $200 you can probably do better. I'm a bit limited on my opinions as I don't tend to buy the more expensive headphones.

You're right about it sounding hollow - it was originally going to be pretty bare-bones, but at the moment I've left plenty of room for other parts. Too much room, more likely. It comes across as a decent enough soundscape on standard headphones, but I've now noticed that on pretty much anything else(from higher end stereo headphones to PC speakers) it's lacking, so that will likely be the next thing I improve. I'll most likely incorporate a low brass ensemble to help out a bit. Right now there's a lead trumpet with a small trombone and trumpet ensemble that are a bit too quiet. I'm partial to keeping the first verse/chorus a bit light, though. The ending was intentionally bare, but there's really no reason to leave it that way. I'll be going over the violin and trumpet and adjusting the reverb to blend them in a bit better. The violin's volume was also a bit high, which only made that issue more noticeable. Regarding the phasing, the issue appears to be with the trumpet portion of the brass ensemble coming in behind the lead trumpet. I've toned it down a bit and the phasing seems to be gone now - that's something I should've caught earlier. Thanks for taking the time to give me some constructive feedback - A lot of this is stuff I'm still new to, and it really helps me out.

Updated the mix. I've made quite a few changes, including: *Panned the violin a bit closer to the center - it felt a little too distant. *Various timing adjustments - the whole mix feels a bit tighter now, but (hopefully) not stiff *Added a couple new counter melodies to help certain parts of the mix stand out a bit more. The trumpet seems a bit quiet to me, so I may turn it up a bit. The cymbals vary a bit, but usually seem too loud and/or stand out. I'll have to look into those as well. I believe I'll expand some of the brass elements a bit more to even the mix out a bit. The lower end(low bass specifically) is lacking and needs some attention too, I think. Thoughts or opinions?

Ah, well, I should be improving anymore - I've recently acquired a new orchestral library(along with some high quality solo instruments), and just got myself a proper pair of studio monitors. My entry was done entirely with old Sonatina samples and no such monitors, so I think I'll be a lot better off though. Grats, Iosphere. That was a pretty awesome mix you did.

Since HoboKa tallies/adjusts the votes to account for 2x voting power and such, I'd imagine you could just PM him your vote/the circumstances to get it taken care of. Don't quote me on that though. I get all of my info from Google.

Not sure if it's quite what you want, but have you checked out The Ultimate Megadrive/Genesis Soundfont? https://www.cinos.pw/?page_id=9 It's pretty nice sounding, although I haven't used it much myself. I don't work with that sort of sound much though. I'm sure there are better ones available.

https://soundcloud.com/tesonael/pg-en-route27 Just something I've been working on for a bit. It originally started as a light orchestration before turning into a violin and trumpet duet. It leans on the conservative side, with the goal of staying close and true to the source while developing a personality of it's own. To that end, I decided to keep it relatively short and to the point.

I'm pretty fond of it, actually. The vocals totally made the song. They turned it from "So bad" to "So bad it's good" in the best way possible.

I'd love to get in on this - I've already got some nice ideas for Route 27. Wouldn't mind doing that one. That being said, I'm not an established/known mixer at all(nor particularly good at anything outside of semi-conservative mixes). Gimme a few days(got the next 3 days off) to see if I can throw a sort of proof-of-concept WIP together? Of course, if a more qualified and known remixer wants it than I won't impede that. Or if said concept doesn't work out or you don't think it'll work.

I know this has been mentioned before, but I figure it's worth repeating. http://de-de.sennheiser.com/drummica DrumMic'a! is a FREE percussion library for Kontakt Player. It was released by Sennheiser to essentially show off their mics. While the website is in German, it's a fairly straight-forward registration and download process. Once you receive a serial, you can register it to your Native Instruments account and use it with the free Kontakt Player. To sweeten the deal, registering DrumMic'a to your NI account qualifies you for the Kontakt 5 Crossgrade, allowing you to get it for $249 instead of $399. While I(and many others, no doubt) already own plenty of qualifying instruments, I'm sure someone can get some use out of this.

Indubitably. It was a pretty awesome source. Gotta say that game had some well done music.

Not a lot to say about it personally, but I did really enjoy it. The guitar was wonderful and the vocals were powerful. Overall it's a great rendition of the song. I will say though that it feels like it needs a proper solo part way through the song, something to break away from the melody out follow through most of it. That's just a personal opinion though - it sounds great as it is.

That's a nice one, thanks - I'll keep that in mind when I go for another set of samples. I think one of my next purchases will be the full version of Kontakt though, as a ton of good sounds require it(particularly a lot of sounds that are both good and cheap).

It's in the lower range for sure, but should be in a comfortable playing octave. I'm not much of a violin expert either, but I know a violin has quite a diverse range depending on what position you're in. I do need to look into some of the more complex scripting and sampling elements though, as I want a few portions to have a more mellow tone. It's got quite a few different violin samples to work with. That particular one is espressivo, but there's also a warm variant and quite a few different articulations to work with on top of a lot of automation and performance settings. I think I'll be able to get some good results once I figure out how to properly use all of them. I'm still getting used to all the keyswitches and inner workings. Peter Siedlaczek really did some wonders with this stuff.

Having recently acquired a couple new libraries(Complete Orchestra Collection and EWQL, which has yet to arrive) I apparently decided to spend the entirety of my day off work testing COC out. I wanted to start with something simple and this is the end result - something of a cover of Adele's "Someone Like You". There's still a lot I can(and should) do to it as well as a lot of ideas I never looked into. As it was mostly practice piece I wanted to keep it simple. My main focus was on the solo violin, which I think I'm in love with. I'd heard these were some of the leading samples on release, and it certainly shows. Of course I still need a lot of practice but this was a good start, although I consider it to be pretty poor quality at the moment. Hopefully I'll get some time to touch it up to something halfway decent. https://soundcloud.com/katallen-12/someone-like-you-orchestral

Well, I know where my next paycheck is going.

That's good to hear about iLok. Definitely reassuring. While they aren't orchestral woodwinds, I enjoyed the sound in the demos and felt they'd be a nice addition all the same. I'm taking a quick look at Complete Orchestral Collection as well, though. It's more of a direct upgrade to what I'm working with now and seems like a decent start.

EWQL caught my attention and seems nice. The problem is that it requires iLok(adding an extra $40 to the cost). That alone wouldn't be a deal-breaker given the quality vs price, except it's not available for purchase through their website anymore. They only offer it on UK Amazon, which won't ship it to the US. I've found similar ones on US Amazon, but they're at a higher price and I can't verify if they'd actually work. I've also heard more than a few stories about bad iLok customer support and things not working as they should because of it, so I'm wary to try it out. I'll take a look at some of those other ones as well, though. Like I said, I'm not hoping to match that quality at this point. Any opinions on the Andrew Findon Kitbag? Or any of the smaller session instruments packs for that matter. http://www.spitfireaudio.com/andrew-findon-kit-bag-2 It's got some really woodwinds at an affordable price, and another consideration I had was -building- an orchestra from various samples over time as that would be a bit better for my financial situation. In particular, the BML Horn Section and Kitbag 2 stood out to me, as horns and woodwinds are one of my more preferred orchestral elements.

I've been using the Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra(SSO) for a long time. It's nice enough, and probably one of the better free orchestral libraries. It's also a rather old SFZ. and has several issues. It has no velocity layers and very few articulations. A few samples have round-robin(adding a bit of realism), but that's about it. I figured I'm long due for an upgrade anyways. I don't have any particular price range in mind, but I'd stress that I'm not looking for the absolute best. I'm looking for something relatively cheap and more on the "entry level" side of things. For reference, here's one of my bigger influences of late, one of the things that pushed me more towards orchestration: It's a really long video so I'd jump around a bit, but that's sort of the sound I'm looking to emulate. Obviously I can't expect to match the realism with something entry level, but I'm just looking for a start at this point. Any suggestions?

Been playing Moray Towers. It's ok, but seems to favor certain weapons too much IMO. Chargers are pretty much 100% safe because of the very linear path. Similarly, rollers can roll over anyone in their way because there isn't much room to maneuver. Overall not that fun of a map. Great for Splatzone. Turf war not so much.

I just gave the Arachno soundfont a go and it's pretty spot on. Like hoshihearts suggested, the Fantasia (New Age) setting sounds pretty close to that one. It's #88.