pixelseph

I'm in! August is definitely doable

Hi noTuX! There's a real chill vibe going on here. Since your goal is to get this ready to sub to OCR, there are some adjustments I recommend: The percussion hits are not tuned to the piece. Especially when you have harmonic content that is shifting chords, the percussion not moving with the harmony gets sour in spots. The foundational ostinato pattern wears out its welcome after the first minute or so. Is there another element that can replace it for a passage and then come back? Or perhaps just dropping it out for a while to come back later? Feels underdeveloped currently. While there are sections we're progressing through in the listen, it's not clear to me where in the piece we're in and there's a sense of meandering through it. Part of that is because the ostinato repeating throughout, and part of it is there are not really any dynamic shifts other than adding more layers. Would love to give this another listen after you get some more cooking time in on this one. It's got a lot of potential!

Sorry to take so long to come back to this one! The detuning on the EP (or is it a marimba? sounds like a hammered instrument) at the beginning is a bit too heavy, and when the whistling comes in to double it, it gets sour. I recommend either not doubling with the whistle, or reducing the pitch shifting on the EP to match the whistles. The tremolo picking on the guitar isn't working for me - because of how tight the rhythm section is, it must be together with it or it sticks out uncomfortably. Tonally, the guitar is right where it needs to be; the (programmed) performance is not there yet. Overall, though, this is a great remix! Love the swap from bossa nova to waltz feel - wouldn't mind hearing the drums shift either to half-time or double-time for a section to give some difference in kind to add more spice.

Hi Seth! This sounds great! Not having anything come to mind as far as critique, so is there anything you're looking for specifically as far as feedback?

Hi Jupiter! This is a real jam. Love the way you've taken the descending melodic phrase from the original and implemented it across the instruments! The opening piano sample feels robotic currently; the velocities feel like they don't change, which makes the repeated note figure give a stilted sound. In the same way, the ride cymbal sounds like there aren't any round-robins on the sample triggers, making it sound like a machinegun instead of it being naturally played. Humanizing the velocities would go a long way here. I also feel like the lack of bass drum in favor of the timpani is hurting the piece. Their resonance works during the bridge but creates mud for the piece's first minute. It's a great take on the piece, however! Would love to hear more like it :D

Tonally, everything is working as it should. The clean guitar doing the chord strums feels like it’s not changing velocities or picking direction, which exposes the fakeness of the sample. I think you can get more mileage out of sliding the notes in your lead guitar as well, specifically on intervals that are greater than a whole step a part. The vibrato is great! Be careful of how long the reverb tails are on the leads, especially if you’re using both delay and reverb. The wash from the verb is definitely part of the vibe (I can’t hear a swishy-sloshy hi-hat in 6/8 without wanting some tasty reverb wash) but it can get out of hand pretty quickly. Good stuff, Mi! Can’t wait to hear what comes next

Hey Eino! This piece has a real vibe going. Glad I checked out the sources before diving in, because there’s a lot of attention being paid to the ostinato figure from Ghost Castle working over the top of everything else. I’m in earbuds at the moment, though everything feels balanced (width, frequencies, etc.) I do think the ending needs to be stronger, especially for how much the final minute is setting it up. If it were me, I’d do that final melodic figure again with just some chord/bass stabs on the downbeats. Happy to give this one another listen after you’ve tinkered with the ideas you mentioned above, though! You’ve got a really good track here, won’t be surprised to see this one hit the panel soon. 🤘

Hi VQ! Gonna reiterate what I can from the live review: Be very selective about what voice is the focus in each section, and pare back parts that aren't providing texture for your rhythm and harmony lines Consider swapping the bass ostinato from Shinobi 3 in the middle sections of the piece with another melodic phrase from your sources; I recommend the descending arpeggio siren thing from Rise of the Robots This is gonna be a groove machine when you're done. It always sucks to go back and start from scratch on mixes but it's worth it in the end!

Hi CW! This is killer! Easy to see it doing well in a compo setting - strong composition and solid vocal performance throughout. Key change would be pretty cool - possibly toward the end if you don't do the whole track and use it as an effect for momentum. The length feels longer than it is with some of the things we mentioned in the live weekly workshop review, but I'll recap some things to address that: Changing up the beat around 3:30ish (after the solo section going into the 3rd chorus) - dropping out the drums to just claps, or kick-kick-kick-clap. 1-2dB of additional volume to the lead vocal in the choruses - this will help make the sax samples less exposed. Please please please keep cooking on this one when you have time, it's gonna be a big bop when you're finished!!!!!

Hi Seth! I dig this piece! I wonder how much you're able to explore with the lead synths as far as duty cycling or velocity changes; the melody felt pretty much the same velocity-wise throughout both runs of the loop. How close are you looking to hew this toward the Genesis sound palette? Some of that FM slap bass would be welcome :D Definitely interested in how you develop this going forward!

Hi Que! The production on this great - I really enjoyed the cleanliness of the mix and how much clarity you were able to get between the samples, the kicks, and perc elements. I wanted to hear some more of the melodic material from the original besides the A section, as after the 2 minute mark it started to feel stale. I am curious about the pauses between your transitions being shortened from presumably an older version of the piece. Were you feeling like they were dragging? Looking forward to hearing more from you!

Hey Moebius! We cannot listen to the file currently as we'd have to request access... are you able to change the sharing settings to "Anyone with link can view?"

Are you sure you didn’t watch the video yet? You just covered basically all of the video in your summary! 😂

Hi everyone! Last night, I held a live webinar on YouTube about dialing in mix-ready guitar and bass tones for your remixes. You can find the VOD below: VSTi and VSTs from the Webinar, also in the video description: (not all were used in the webinar; all plugins listed below were curated for this webinar based on their quality and price - they're all free!) Guitar: Cute Emily SG Shreddage 3 Stratus Unreal Instruments Metal-GTX (requires Plogue Sforzando) Bass: Shreddage 3 Precision MODO Bass 2 Amp Sims: Ignite Amps SHB-1 (SHB-1 is a boutique tube amp sim for bass guitar; comes with it's own cab IR built in) Ignite Amps Emissary and NadIR (Emissary is their boutique tube amplifier sim, NadIR is a cabinet IR sim that can be used with ANY other amp sim) Guitar Rig 7 Shattered Glass Audio ACE IK Multimedia Amplitube 5 Pedal VSTs: TSE Audio 808 TSE Audio R47 Plugin Boutique Face Bender

No worries on the time to respond, I’ve got notifications on 😁 Depending on the VSTi you’re using, there may not be different samples on the velocity ranges - this tends to happen a lot on free instruments. There are ways to go about it that don’t involve getting another instrument, like automating the volume fader or trigger a low-pass filter to activate at certain velocity thresholds to “soften” hits - but these solutions are pretty involved and can get finicky very quickly. Randomizing velocities can get weird too - most DAWs have a set of tools for drawing in curves and things (usually a line, a sine wave, a parabola, and a standard pencil/paint brush). You can start with a line, for example, and then lightly push the values up and down for more humanizing; though if you’re still running into the issue of your instrument not having enough different velocity samples, you won’t necessarily hear the change