Nathan Allen Pinard

What orchestral VIs are you using? Sounds like you need to keyswitch a few things as you are using legato samples for staccato notes.

Extremely good double tracking on the guitar. Thank god you recognize it. The violin/viola has a nice room sound to it. Bodhran, need I say more? The flute is sampled right? Pretty impressive VI if so. Overall it's a great recording, well mixed. Organic for sure.

You have too much compression/limiting going. You don't want more than 3db (max) reduction if possible on the whole mix. Sometimes I tend to just take 1db off, and limit the rest. Also style/arrangement wise it tends to stick with the original song, which makes it less a remix.

I didn't listen to the sources, but played this game for many...years? Did that happen back then? Anyway, the metal is great. Drum programming is good. In terms of orchestral though I need the horns need some space. By that I mean not so dry. Try adding a room reverb on the horn if you don't have any VST reverb that's substantial like convolution reverb. Then adding a bigger hall verb. That should make your horns more full. Don't be afraid to add too much in this case since you have metal going with it. The drums do get lost at times. A challenge with this style. You should really feel the toms in a mix like this. And I may sound like a broken record in the few threads I've responded to today, but...nooooo progressive fade out. It's an old method that just doesn't work that well today.

This was definitely a fun track. Had a lot of great guitar performance. I feel the drums could've been engineered a bit better to be a bit more punchy. Possibly through some EQ/Compression or just the actual volume seems low. They get a bit muddy in the mix as a result. The song tends to drag a bit after the full flavor of the piece is released, but that's fairly subjective.

First of all, very good sample quality. Good staccatos, woodwinds (VSL?), and oh yes that organ. Pipe organ wins at everything. As I listen this just gets better. Really good brass sounds, and then brings in the rock drums. Vibraphone wasn't expected, but a nice addition. Ah well there's one negative comment. The last part kinda weakened, and then faded out. Fade outs are....not so much a thing anymore. They only work if you fade into another song. And well..that'snot a thing anymore either

Love that DX7 style patch. Definitely a lot of variety to this piece as well.

God I love that pad at 3:13

This wasn't entirely musical at all. The distortion seemed to be literal distortion. I would've preferred fuzz or some kind of soft bitcrushing effect or at the very lest using an EQ to make the distortion more hollow. Overall the piece was kind of a mess, it kicked in with a beat but only for a moment, and the rest was basically sound design in my eyes.

Nice idea for this theme, which honestly has been done to death (I've had a few ideas of one myself) but this is pretty unique. Has more of a pop feel to it, to the point where you WANT it to have vocals. With that melody. As far as engineering, it's hard for me to gauge all of that as a first time poster here. Personally it's a bit compressed, however for what has been said above (brit-pop) that actually fits and it sounds great with the Rhodes and guitar. There are parts where you hear artifacts as a result though. At 2:45 it gets a bit harsh.

I hate to say it, but headphones are important nowadays to reference while mixing. Long ago they were considered to be an improper tool.

The thing you could do is remove every track but the melody. The melody is the one that maintains the song, so you pretty much are ok to copy that, though if it's an NES track you're gonna have to get creative. Would help you as a guide as you figure out new rhythms and chord progressions. Though if you read music, just export the MIDI to sheet music and read that way.

You can't copyright an idea. You can only copyright a work. So REAL plagiarism is rare. However, if you use another song as a basis or template, or say you were "inspired" or "influenced" by it, it's a risk. This is what lawyers hope for in the cases you hear today. Generally what I do is I think of the ideas in my head and trust them. I tend to not every really copy much at that rate.

If you use single VIs in a song, say..a patch from Omnisphere that's one note, there is a change someone else did too. That has gotten me matched once in a while. If you explain on the response and it goes away, it generally should be fine. Matches aren't strikes to your channel. I haven't been matched very often because I tend to include more than one sample, as that is actually required by the sample developers you buy from, so people can't sample their sounds from your work.

As somebody who worked in digital distribution for over 5 years, I can chime in. Any recording is copyrighted, unless you happen to re-mix Johnathan Coulton or Nine Inch Nails as some of their work is creative commons. There are a number of sites that provide creative commons music. If you use someone's voice recording, you have to get permission and no doubt pay a fee. Some of those famous lines generally come from film or TV sometimes, so you'll have a doozie even getting their attention. There however are public domain recordings you can use. Some government recordings for example all at the Library of Congress. Remixing songs follows this too, if you happen to actually re-mix and use original audio from the original song you'll need permission. If you happen to cover it instead, that is a licensing issue that can be solved with something like Song Trust. Which requires you to pay an amount based on sales, and streams as well. It actually isn't terribly expensive if you are a starting artist. Also if you happen to be copyright matched on Youtube that isn't necessarily an agreement that you are in the clear. It's a fail safe measure to maintain some kind of revenue from copyright infringement (or ..what Youtube determines copyright infringement to be) they could still pursue you if you ended up making enough for it to be worth the court fees. And frankly I feel that system was created for the blatant posts of direct music, and not re-mixes or covers. Also, copyright infringement is still a thing even if you don't make a cent off of it. Fair use doesn't apply to non-profit use. This is all especially important now, after the Gaye vs Thicke case, with more coming (such as Spirit vs Led Zeppelin). So my advice would be to either license properly OR just not bother with it. You could also record public domain writings yourself, as the sound recording rights don't apply. But then you lose the novelty and recognition that you were looking for.

Can you correct my name on the list to be "Nathan Allen Pinard". I don't go by Nathaniel.

Understood.

Nobody has taken 39? Really? If this is long term and still active, I can probably take that one. Oops, forgot about QA: https://nathanallenpinard.bandcamp.com/ or https://soundcloud.com/nathan-allen-pinard

Samples always do hold you back. That's why I went from the "write on the fly" mode to actually notating every single part before it touches my computer. I use StaffPad for that. You could benefit from a newer library due to the fact you are using notes that require different articulation samples. For instance your French Horn line. I recommend CineBrass for that since you can switch between legato and staccato with just the sustain pedal. Your string staccato sounds are just a matter of quality if you decided to purchase a new string lib. Or a staccato based one.

I use CineBrass for my brass, sometimes with Zircon's brass lib combined. I wasn't entirely please with the sound of the other libs though. I tend to mix and match. Hollywood Strings, CineBrass, and VSL Woodwinds/Percussion are my main go-to libs for orchestral.

I PM'd you. I'd like Evergreen Forest. It'll be ambient, but also orchestral with piano. Though what I have in my head never comes out exact. I need neural interfaces to be invented. To verify that would be this one:

I would like to claim Ancient Temple Dungeon, since the others on the main list are pretty tall orders (really want to do Jealous but afraid that is pretty ambitious for a first time OCRemix) I do have a question though. Ancient Temple Dungeon seems to lack a theme and structure. Can I add what I wish melody wise to that and change the structure to be more..predictable? Seems what I'd retain is the feel and the 3/4 timing plus the motif that continues through the whole piece.

I'm an un-posted remixer and frankly got around to checking out projects just now after knowing about this site for years. What do you require for an audition? Just make a track on the song I want and hope it gets picked? Also...where are the tracks that are unclaimed? EDIT: Also is there by chance a "guide to ocremixer noobs to do all the things" somewhere if I'm asking redundant questions?

This would be the first time I've posted here. I never did get around to finding out about projects BEFORE they happen. I actually thought these were just grabbed from already created music on the site. Nice to know there is a system, and I"ll be looking into this one!