Julien Mulard

And I forgot to ask, but how come it took you one hour of rendering? What software are you using?

Hello VertigOcelot, and welcome to OCRemix, were a lot of people post their tracks, but so few actually take the time to review other's ^^ You forgot to include links to the sources in your post, which may explain why no mod actually reviewed your track. Regarding your arrangement, it's stylistically close to the original, but with less brutal, yet darker ambiance. I like the direction you took, but it has some issues on the production side, in my opinion: The main riff between 0:50 and 1:28 lack both stereo and bass. You have this really nice guitar tone, but it's right in the middle of the sound space, with no foundation. You could try double tracking this part, and add a bassline to it ? This problem is constant each time this section is played during the track, except at 2:32 where the bass finally comes in to fill that space. To double track, play the same riff twice, with slightly different effect chains on each take, and hard pan one to the left and the other to the right. It'll fill so much more space! Your drums sounds a little weak and robotic: Regarding weakness, you should probably use a bit of compression (ideally, if your drum plugin enables you to do it, process each individual mic separately, compress kick, snare and toms, but let the overhead alone). I am more on the heavier side when I arrange, but I managed to get some really nice results with OTT, a free plugin from Xfer records (OTT is for Over The Top, and it's a really accurate name, it can really mangle you sound, so be careful when using it, maybe?). If your DAW let's you do it, you could also add a little of side chaining on your guitar sound from your kick. The idea is to quickly drop the volume of the guitar (and maybe other elements) each time the kick hits, to let the transients of the kick take a LOT of energy. I don't know what DAW you use (1 hour to render makes me think maybe you are using something else than a DAW ?), but you should find relevant tutorials on Youtube regarding side chaining. Don't overdo it, just cut a few dB. Regarding roboticness, try changing each drum note velocity a bit, so you get a slightly different sound each time. Do that on repeating patterns. You could also displace each note a little off the grid to humanize it. It's tedious, I know, so don't burn yourself, do it on some parts first, where the drums is more important, like fills. Overall, you could try to play more with the stereo regarding the sound effects. The reverb/delay you are using is a nice stereo ping pong, but you could also drop your effect more on one side or the other. Try stuff I noticed a bass note sounding off at around 2:32 Okay, so I focused a lot on what seemed off to me, so let me state that again: the overall track is great, and I like what you did. But it has some problems that need addressing. For me, in order, correct that bass note, double track your guitar, add some more bass, and see where it gets you! The drums may need some love, but it's not that critical right Or, you know, start something new if you don't feel like it. It's okay to let tracks alone and start another one. I just hope that my feedback will be of some help to you You'll get better and quicker the more you produce, so keep going, whether on this track, or another! Have a great day! Hope to hear about you sometimes!

Okay, so I know I've been tagging this thread as "Ready for Review", and that it means I'm not supposed to touch it until a mod actually review it, but I looked into this kick stuff, and started tweaking things here and there. I changed some stuff in the incriminated section, and added some panning automation to make some "effects" more interesting. I also solved a clicking issue at the beginning of the track. Feels a bit better for me, and I promise I won't be touching it before an actual mod review. So... New version here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UMadeKYY3Tlojui8pBITyKLRZE1EJwuy/view?usp=sharing I'll update the top post as well. Happy listening!

Thanks for your review Souperion! Yeah, I went a bit in the experimental territory with this one. What you call "heavy synth hit thing" is just a tonal dance kick with distortion, played at different pitch to play the bassline. It's more of a breakcore thing, and I was clearly inspired by the remarkable work of Igorrr for this part (this song has a similar kind of breakdown starting at 1:26, and that song has nothing to do with what we're talking about, but is my favorite from this artist, so give a listen maybe?). Fun fact, I didn't use any kind of guitar for this track, neither real nor sampled, only synths with guitar amps. Anyway, I am glad you liked it! I'll wait a bit to see if anyone else have any feedback, and I'll see if I can do a better job at blending the instruments for this section. Have a great day!

Salutation everyone! Please, listen to the last version: V6, now with REAL GUITARS bits in it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/144o313TO7cJql9JJuTRYo57A90Qqlkku/view?usp=sharing Every time I start a new track, I think about the story it will tell. Concerning this one, it's kind of a crossover between The Matrix and the original story of the game: the hacker Link tries to hack into the JANUS system to find answers. The thing is, nothing goes according to plan... Regarding the arrangement, I was inspired by different sources, such as Master Boot Record, The Algorithm or to some extend Igorrr (all fantastic bands, but rather extreme), even though I shifted to something different along the way, and added some trance elements. Overall, I think it's a very fun track, but I lack confidence in my mixing/mastering skills, so I'd appreciate if you could focus more on this aspect. God, I hope you'll like it as much as I do Really, I'm open to all sorts of feedback. And of course, thank you for reading all this! Merry Christmas, happy new year, and have a fun listening tl;dr: fun electro/metal remix, I'm looking for feedback, and hope to be posted Old versions: version 1 version 2 version 3 version 4 version 5 version 5 more bass Source: Gameboy version / Switch version Post submission edit: I hid stuff in the specter of the track. I tried to hint at it (read the first letters of each paragraph of this post up to the tl;dr) but I guess it was too much work for anyone to notice ^^ So here is a link to a pdf detailling all the easter eggs I hid in the track : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1B4o86pP--KYy7mTOpKp7JxvTTCMjK1vY Also, thank you to everyone who listened the track and commented, be it on the discord or the forums, and most particularly to Timaeus who played a major role in the production of this remix. See you all soon, be it for another remix of mine, or just to rework this in case of rejection!

Bump for visibility

Hello everyone! I've been thinking of adding vocals on some of my tracks for some time now, and I'm looking for people who could help me write lyrics and/or sing. I have 2 tracks that could use some death/growly stuff (I'm thinking Arch Enemy style), a third that could some clean heavy metal singing (plus a new one I'm planning right now). Here is a little presentation of the tracks, and the ideas I have (nothing is set in stone, I'll gladly let you be as creative as you want) The Heavens Fear Me: a heavy mashup of some of my favorite tracks in Secret Of Mana (the track still need some work regarding mixing/mastering) Growl singing for at least the 2/3 of the song, then maybe clean singing for the last part? Lyrics about a man who rebel and fight the gods. The Heaviest Monster of the Vale: a metal remix of the Rotten Vale battle theme from Monster Hunter World Growl singing Regarding the lyrics, I was thinking about the classic "the hunter is the real monster", with a progressive reveal through ambiguous lyrics (like, for most of the song, you'd think it's about an actual monster) The Warriors of Sunlight: an original heavy metal track, and the first part of a potential concept album about Dark Souls covenents (this is a rough demo version, I laid down my melodic ideas for the verse and chorus at the begining with the weird synth thing, but you can obviously ignore it if you don't like it and/or want to go with your own stuff) Clean singing (think European Power Metal style, like Hammerfall or such) I was thinking about some rather "meme" lyrics, with a chorus going like "Praise the sun! Engage in Jolly cooperation" and verses about epic tales of the deeds of the glorious membe of the covenant. I am really open to any suggestions, so don't be alarmed by the above guidelines. I am a chill dude, so PM me if you are interested. You should be able to record yourself if you plan to sing though. Don't hesitate to pass the info around if you know someone who could be interested, and have a great day!

A really beautiful arrangement, nicely interpreted, I like it! The intro, outro and variation are really adding to the piece, it's really nice!

Hey SlashBib! I just listened to your track, it is really nice! You manage to keep the original kind of desperate feeling of the track with a twist, and I think it's great! I do have a few minor issues though,if you are open to feedbacks: The first one, i think, is inherent to the post rock genre to some extent. I sometime felt lost in a see of sounds and harmony, and was not really able to focus on any particular melody. I think maybe the issue here is that your rythm guitar is a tad to loud? Maybe you could try to tune it a bit down to leave some room to the other instruments? As I say, it might genre related, and I am not particularly into post rock, so I may lack references regarding the sound you aim for. My second point is about your piano sound. It feels a bit out of place, mostly when it enters at 1:10. I don't know how to explain it. It's like it's totally not blending with the rest. Maybe the sound is just a bit dry? Like it need some EQing or something. It also sometimes feels like it is played at high velocity but with a lowered volume, and maybe it would gain to be played louder but softer, if that makes any sense to you? But except those few points, I really liked it! Have a great day!

Hello everyone! New version here: Even though I was really proud of my track, I felt there was still room for improvements, mostly regarding the "chorus" of the track, which was rather repetitive. I added a few variations, and got closer to the source regarding this part, with a little more orchestral parts. I also worked a little bit on the lead guitar mixing by automating the levels, in order to flatten the loudness variation between parts where only one guitar was playing and the parts where both were. I also added a few bpm to the tempo to get a bit more into heavy territory (nothing too fancy, going from 120 to 126). I know OCR is more skewed towards old school OST (and so I am, I all honesty), but I hope you'll enjoy it, even if you are not familiar with the source!

A lot of great games have already been named. I was going to list a few of my favorite, but I quickly realized it would be too skewed towards the last games I played, and also not really original (Hollow Knight, The Witcher 3, etc... You don't need me to tell you these games are great ^^) But for me, the most influencial game of the decade is clearly Dark Souls. Is it the best? Probably not. But man, this game has redifine some of the industry standard, from the difficulty player were willing to tackle to the cryptic storytelling.

It's really chill and lovely, and at the same time epic and sad. The arrangement and the production are on point. But damn, it's short! Around 1:35, you start building up with your drums, and then, it just deflate instantaneously, when I was hoping for the B section (major part) to begin all bright and shiny. I find this a bit anticlimactic. You maked this as ready for review, so maybe you'll be willing to add a few more ideas in your track (one can dream ^^)? But except that, it still a very solid composition, highly cinematic and emotional! Good job!

Hello djRyoji! I just listen to your track, and from a pure production perspective, I have nothing to say really, it's rather solid. The arangement is on point, with an expected but well executed choice of orchestration. The source is great and you are complimenting it perfectly. The track might be a bit quiet? But I don't quite have neither the ear nor the equipment for judging audio levels anyway, so take it with a grain of salt Regarding the quality of your track as a remix (and I am not sure wether it's your goal here or not, but hey, we are on ocremix here ^^), it is really short and overly conservative. I think you could learn a lot from trying to build whole tracks (I am talking at least 2-3 min long here) rather than "just" playing the source with realistic instruments. The source here is really short, it's a ~20s loop, so it is a really challenging thing to do, but you could try to change the rythm, compose variations based on the original harmonic progression, mix in another song to add material, hell, compose a brand new B section, add soli (it might not be the genre here, but you could also change it), etc... I think you are on the right track regarding production, so don't be afraid of creating new things, bend the source to your will, and you'll be quite the remixer! Have a great day!

Hello everyone! I've been working on this remix of the Rotten Vale theme for the past few days, and for once, it came together really quickly (~10-15 hours rather than the 60h++ I usually spend on tracks). I know I suck at mixing/mastering, but what do you think about it? https://soundcloud.com/julienmulard/the-heaviest-monster-of-the-vale-v1/s-0Jp7R The original version can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFBXcl6FW6M About the track: I wanted to remix a track from the Monster Hunter games for years, as it's one of my favourite video game series. And when I heard this track the first time hunting in the Rotten Vale in MHW, I knew I found a solid candidate for a remix of my own Regarding the source, this remix focus on the very first riff and on the "heroic/epic" melody (starting at around 1:35). I used a few other parts as well, but without really trying to keep the original structure of the piece, as I felt some of the part were not conveying the right energy. So this is a rather liberal reinterpretation of my favorite parts of the source rather than a "by the book" cover. I had a strong Arch Ennemy vibe from the "heroic" theme, so I went into that direction. The track in general has a strong melodic death/metalcore vibe. The thing I am the less confident about, from a composition point of view, is the weird clean guitar/cello part near the end of the track, wich is clearly a reference to the song Nemesis from Arch Ennemy. If you find it out of place, I am open to suggestions regarding how to make this part better Thank you for your feedback, and have a great day!

I'd love to participate! Any problem with the use of VSTs? I am not exactly a guitar player, and I'd rather use my keytar or my mouse to write some sweet parts (and if you need a keyboard solo, I can help too :D). Here is a sample of the kind of stuff I can provide.

Still alive and working on things! This track will be updated someday, but I have more critical things to do in the near future. First, thank you Gario, and thank you Rozovian for your feedbacks. I did work on things since Gario's eval, but there is one point that I feel will be more complicated: I only have the Kontakt factory lib regarding orchestral sounds. So no control over the swelling (attack is at the minimum). I will probably ask if someone care to record some horn tracks for me, as I noticed a few people who play the french horn on the board. For the choir, I did a few modifications on the mixing. There is nothing more I can do right now, as I can't afford a better orchestral lib at the moment. I'll post an update ASAP! EDIT: Change the prefix back to WIP, as it has been already reviewed twice

Okay. I think it's time to go through Evaluation, because I want it done, and I am really proud of where I am in term of mix and composition. Here we go!

Ok, so I left everything (almost) untouch regarding the master track compression, but I did change compression on the choir and the horn (which I almost hard limited, foolish me learning compression 6 month ago), so now the orchestral part should breath a lot more. I may have lost something like 0.2db in the fight, but I am not a fierce loudness warrior, so it's OK for me I think. @timaeus222 does this sound acceptable to you? Edit: Just noticed the file is 7min++ long, but the track stop at around 6:30. I'll fix it in the next version

Hey Timaeus! Thank you for offering to mix it yourself, I did think about asking for help on this end during the last few months. But when I see where I am right now regarding the quality of the mix, I feel I can try a bit harder and achieve something cool on my own (given some direction) So let me try one more time! I'll be back soon! And thank you for the quick answers!

Thank you for your feedback Timaeus! It was exactly what I was looking for! So I've been checking all your points. Please note: I am using Shreddage 2X for the guitars and Shreddage picked bass for the bass. The drums are EZDrummer Metal Machine. So nothing recorded here. True, low passed at 7kHz, so I tried opening it. As the lead don't have a lot of energy beyond that point, it sound more open without hurting anything. Wich is nice I did put different high pass on all the lower end sounds (guitar, bass, kick, etc...) to kill the unneeded energy. All those sounds happen to have very little energy in the very low band (20-50). I tried moving the filters towards 20Hz rather than 50, but can't seem to hear or see a huge difference. Ah, the hawk! I couldn't get it to work as I wanted, but let it be anyway, hopping for this kind of comment. I killed the frequencies around 4.8kHz, and it sounds way better! Still not exactly happy about the result, but I will tweak my delay/reverb and try things to get it work nicely, or discard it, as it's more a joke thing than a really important part. So I did that, and tried to calm my drums a bit regarding dynamics to avoid clipping, plus adjusting my limiter on the master track to get a nice saussage I think I manage to get to that kind of audio level without to much audio damage. You'll tell me, as I can't really tell if a track is slightly over compressed or not (I don't have the hear training on that end yet). So yeah, limiter on the master track. But I think the ceil was badly set, so I adjusted it. Regarding orchestral dynamics, I'll try working on it. I did use comp on every instrument to bring them in front, but kind of killed the dynamic in the process. It's all Kontakt factory samples BTW, so I don't have lots of control over the sound. But I'll experiment with volume automation to give the orchestral part more life and see where it leads! So here it is! Oh, and BTW , I think Soundcloud uses internal comp on uploaded tracks, so i may provide a DL link if anyone wants to analyze it in a DAW.

Hello everyone! I am back with a new version! On the menu: A whole new mixing, with a lot more power (and maybe too much bass?) A cliché ending 6:30 of pure heavy metal trope stuff (well technically, it 4:35 heavy metal, 2:00 heavy ballad, but hey, a story must have a conclusion!) A hawk ('cause metal you know ? (still not totally convinced by it, but I found it funny ^^)) I am waiting for your feedbacks, mostly on the mixing/levelling, and the low end of the spectrum, as I can't tell if there is too much bass or not (and I have neither the ears nor the monitors to test it properly). I will happily hear what you think about the ending too! Or on anything really! Thank you for your time and have a nice day! Note: I know the song is very long, but I won't cut anything or change the composition in any major way. I can't. I want it done. I don't want to work on this piece anymore :'( ^^

Hi everyone! Just posting here because The Nikanoru extorted a WIP from me, and I thought it would be fair to share it with everyone Enjoy the systematic slaughter of everything moving under the sea on Aquas! https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0QpOgRYCqN3VmxCa3hqLXlheFE If you fancy the second part of the mix, I suggest you check one of my favorite artist of all time (a fellow frech guy) going by the name of The Algorithm. I really wanted to imitate his style for a long time, and this ReMix seemed to me like a good occasion to try a lot of new things. EDIT: The guitar solo at the begining is a placeholder, I am well aware that it contained a lot of mistakes

Hi! If by strings you meant the stab synth (which sound more like brass than strings IMHO), I think you have a good start by using a saw (not detuned) with an almost open filter, and maybe a really short enveloppe on the cutoff of a lowpass filter (fast attack, from everything cut to almost nothing cut). For the bells, try a square in high pitch with a "percussive" volume enveloppe (i.e. instant attack, long decay and release, no sustain). Add delay and/or reverb and play with the filters to adjust your sound (keep in mind you want a brillant sound so try not to touch the highs). You may or may not want to add a saw or a triangle in the mix to add some spectral information (but mixed lower). You seem to struggle with sound design, which is a difficult and critical part of music creation (making the perfect sound from scratch, or just copying an existing sound). If you want to learn more about synth sound design, may I suggest you try Syntorial? The software itself is rather costly (around $130), but the free demo (including a lot of lessons) may give you some basic understanding of the key parts of a classic substractive synth (oscillators, filters, enveloppes, etc..). I found this software to be really interesting. I did not buy it though, so I don't know exactly how much you can learn if you do spend some money for it. I hope I could be of some help! And sorry for the bad english, it's not my mother tongue. Edit: Typo

Could you please change my user name from "JulienMulard" to "French Kut-Ku"? Merci, KWAAAK! (no roleplaying, I know ^^)

Hi guys! Nice work! I find the mixing quite solid and the arrangement is nicely written. The only thing that stroked me was your piano sound at the very beginning, which lacked of nuances IMO. I strongly agree with The Nikanoru regarding the 'creativity' side of things. But now, you know you can handle a track on the mastering end, so I really encourage you to try things because it will be fun! Let solos, breaks, harmonizations, re-arrangements,... flows from now on! Hope to hear things from you soon!