Jorito

Yay! Finally gonna wrap up Crysta, let me bug some people for the 2 performances I still need and wrap it up

I was in talks with Odai to pick this up, but then got caught up in real life. Hope things get a bit more stable on my end soon...

Nailed the psytrance vibe for sure! Great stuff, love it. Teach me how

My pleasure! In fairness, it was quite an undertaking (7 months from initial WIP to final version) and made my computer cry, so it might be a while before I attempt something so huge again. I just hope it was worth it, and if not, well, at least I had fun while doing it.

I vaguely recall promising to look at maybe doing a track. I am unfamiliar with Star Fox, so you might need to hit me up with some suggestions Also, depending on time & artwork availability, I might be able to help out with the website; I’ve done it a few times before by now...

The legato trumpet and the 6 french horns from OE2 still frequently find their way in my tracks, so I get ya. If one already has a base orchestral library, then OE 2 might be more interesting. If you don’t have any decent orchestral stuff, I would still recommend OE1 simply because it covers all the basics.

Just pointing out that Rexy is is a she, not a he

Uhh... okay... I have another one, but can’t post that until the album is out. I do like the idea of a synthwave album, not sure what kind of theme would work with that, or if there are enough synthwavers around here to make it happen (I only know of me, Sir_Nuts and WillRock)

If you release on January 21st, you can release on Mitsuda's birthday ;)

You can check the first post of this topic for all the included tracks (the big green block of text)... iirc all songs are included.

To me Zircon, Sixto and WillRock, to name a few... I dig what they did (/do) and they inspired me to push myself and get my chops to a postable level in those early days. Even though I hardly interacted with them at the time (even though I did manage to bribe Sixto into a solo for reasons still unclear). Especially the composing streams by Zirc were great to get a glimpse of the chef in the kitchen, if you will. Also Eino Keskitalo for being open to collaborate with a newbie in the Shovel Knight team compo, where we did 2 lovely tracks and we still try and do some collabs every now and then. Sir_Nuts for being a fellow Italo/Synthwave enthusiast and the enjoyable chats and excellent mixing critiques and feedback. And, dare I say it, the entire judges panel? While I didn’t always agree with all feedback, each time a track was reviewed I got something useful out of it and learned my strengths and weaknesses and was able to improve, It probably helped that I didn’t see them as scary (as some people seem to do) but rather as helpful critical listeners. There are many many more, of course. Once I grew more confident and comfortable I collaborated with a lot of people from the community through the forums and Discord, and each collab was fun, interesting and a great experience. There’s too many to mention here, but know that you have my thanks for joining me on this ride and for being a cool person

Your PM box should have told you differently at September 3 :). Let me know if you didn’t get it though.

Hard to say what to improve without a WIP to listen to. Having just done a 13 minute, 7 track orchestral remix myself, all I can recommend is to place your songs in an order that help you (e.g. putting songs in the same time signature together, be smart about preventing massive tempo jumps, etc.) and take the time in the arrangement to ease the listener into the various sections. The latter can sometimes be achieved by dropping out elements of track 1 and slowly introducing elements of track 2 (e.g. hints of the melody) before fully transitioning into it, and sometimes you can go for a dramatic stop or fadeout and transition the listener into the new section with a drum fill or a transitionary element like a held string note or the like. Again, hard to recommend anything if I can't hear anything. Anyway, your best bet is to carefully listen at other tracks and get some ideas on how others do it. Something like Sam Dillard's stuff might help, or if you really wanna go pro something like Final Symphony (a suite of Final Fantasy music performed by the London Symphony Orchestra) might do the trick.

I think the word you’re looking for is proud

I’d rather have you prove that you’re right in stead of us proving you’re wrong. Put your money where your mouth is, and all.

Just pointing out that "all within one instance" isn't necessarily a criteria for "better". Some people (myself included) actually _like_ to have articulations on separate tracks rather than messing around with keyswitches, both because of the overview it provides and because it's easier to manage. I am aware that my writing here is as subjective as your comment, but whether or not you can/should do all from within a single instance doesn't make a sample library "better". At the end of the day, workflow is a personal preference and it ultimately is all about that choice + the quality of the samples (which only to an extend is objective but also subjective taste). Anyway, sample quality is only part of it, as other people said. Better libs do make things easier, but at the end of the day it's all about the composition, the orchestration and performances. All things (or at least the first 2) you can even do with "mediocre" samples. If you're looking into Embertone samples anyway, I can recommend the cheaper libs they have on offer. They sound great in their own right, so make sure you give Chapman Trumpet, Shire Whistle, Jubal Flute and Crystal Flute a listen at least. I think they are like $20-$30 and I use them regularly.

I think the 2 lines I quoted more or less sum it up. I think there's no objective point or hard barrier where it would be considered a new work, otherwise there wouldn't be these legal suits every once in a while. So I'd say it's pretty much subjective and on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes you get recognition for your work as original, sometimes you get a lawsuit. In either case you were very likely inspired by another piece (or pieces) of music and probably used elements of that and of other works you've listened to in your work. I guess technically that means most work is derivative on a certain level anyway... But to make this more confusing still... what about sampling stuff? I think earlier in this topic we saw a reference to Vanilla Ice for getting sued for using the Under Pressure bass line. But what about songs from The Prodigy that use samples from a lot of places for many different parts in the song (drums, bass lines, vocals, guitar riffs) or hip hop tracks that incorporated entire sections of a song? Does that count as new work, by just creatively re-using existing materials literally? Is it different from taking a source and recording it yourself on different instruments? I think that's a very tough decision, and I would suspect (didn't check) if you'd check legal procedures for a hint of where the border is, it would probably go either way.

Black and white and legally speaking, yes. Fortunately the world isn't just a black and white legal thing, and this attitude completely bypasses all the other (good!) arguments as to why people remix or not. From what I've read so far, people don't mind not having full ownership but still take pride and ownership of THEIR take on it, while still acknowledging, and honoring, the original creator's work. We can debate legal all day if you want, but it's probably gonna be a boring discussion and OCR probably also isn't the best place to do it, given that most people are aware of the grey area these remixes are in. Just my $0.02. Other than that, I like the discussion and insight shared so far, keep 'em coming!

Yes, legally and commercially you don’t own it. Creatively, I will assume you did pour a lot of heart and soul into it, as ad.mixx describes above. To me, that matters most. Also, like I said earlier, I am not a pro (ie. don’t earn money with it), it’s just a hobby and it doesn’t make to have money and I don’t have to sell it. I’ve found that the pro/commercial perspective changes the whole outlook on things severely. If it’s just a hobby, you can get away with just doing what you feel like (within legal limits of course), simply because enjoyment is the primary concern, rather than the financial/legal aspect where it’s more like a job and less about enjoyment and self fullfillment.

Yes. Maybe not more accurate (equally, I'd say), but definitely easier to do and easier on the CPU. Also, keep in mind we're working in a virtual space and probably also with virtual instruments, so aiming for accurate, realistic reverb seems ... well... pointless to me. I'd go for making it sound good over making it sound realistic any day. If you're looking at the effect of timbre and reverb, I'd say you're better off using proper gains (further back = less loud) and EQ (further back = less highs, less lows) than minutely tweaking your reverb insert to have a 0.1 change in early reflections or pre-delay. Sure, reverb would help in creating distance, but I'd go as far as to say that using the right volume levels and proper EQ-ing the instruments properly will help you more. I hardly ever add reverb to my bass or kick. IF I do, it's a subtle bit of my early reflections bus and maybe a bit of my plate bus. Also, I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, EQ your reverbs (which you can't do if you use it as an insert...) and simply cut off the low freqs there (I usually high pass at around 200hz). Anyway, since you seem to be dead set on sticking with multiple inserts for your reverbs and you seem to be happy with the results, I will leave it at this.

In the grand scheme it doesn’t solve world hunger or bring peace or anything like that. Specifically for myself, in the grand scheme of my life, it brings fun and enjoyment and it’s a creative escape from life’s challenges. So for me, remixing and music are worth it, since it gives me what I want to get out of it. It could have been originals too, but right now that’s something that just doesn’t interest me. Remixing modern soundtracks is definitely possible, but also much harder. They tend to be more ambient and cinematic and less melodic/catchy (and probably less nostalgic too I guess) and you have to work harder to give it your own spin. I’ve remixed some PS2 and PS3 game music, even from orchestral to orchestral, and it’s definitely possible to do it and still make it your own. Anyhoo, I guess my main answer to the question is still “I remix because I enjoy it and because I just feel like it”.

For me, it’s a yes, for a few reasons with quite some overlap in between: 1) It’s fun. I enjoy messing around with music, exploring different genres, experimenting with and learning new things and putting an existing piece of music in a new light. I see remixing as a good tool to develop my skills without putting a lot of pressure on myself. 2) It gives me a concrete goal. I am too lazy to think about a concept, a particular type of sound to think of as my own or to spend a lot of time on creating music nobody cares about. Making a remix is a manageable project with a clear goal that I can just pick up somewhere in between, finish and release it and move on to the next time I feel like it. All things I wouldn’t have when doing originals - and I’m too busy (probably lazy too) to change that. 3) It gives me an audience. There’s plenty of people in the VGM community who seem to enjoy what I do. Even though I myself am my main audience, it’s an extra incentive. Growing your own audience is hard and not something I am really interested in at this time to attempt. I have no ambition to be a professional musician, so to me, remixing is just a hobby, a good and easy excuse to mess around with music without all the pressure, competition, mental health issues that seem to come with being a pro.

If you use sends, you typically set the dry to 0 and the wet to 100% and use the send level to control the balance. I have the impression you’re looking at this from the perspective of a single instrument. When mixing, it’s important to look at the track and balance as a whole. And trust me, I’d rather have 3 reverb sends where I can control the send levels directly from the mixer, rather than having 60 insert effects where I’d have to open the vst or automation lane to control the balance. Make it easy for yourself, save some cpu and look at it from the perspective of mixing a complete track. $0.02.

Basically I just use the methodology explained in https://www.puremix.net/video/creating-space-with-reverbs.html (it's a paid thingie): 1 - One reverb with just early reflections. Typically I use this mostly for live recordings (that usually are close mic'ed) to give them a bit of distance from the mic. It can sometimes also be handy to phatten up a tone at times, but it's primarily in use for recordings. 2 - A plate reverb that's typically used to create distance. I use this one on most of the instruments, with varying send levels. 3 - A hall reverb for 'height'. Typically I only use this for lead instruments and sometimes for snares and claps. Not quite the same setup as I use, but more or less based on the same concepts and it's free, so this might be useful: It's a setup I've been working with for close to 2 years now, it works for me and essentially I have 3 preset channel strips for it now where I sometimes just change the reverb to a different preset. Otherwise I just call it a day and move on. As for getting messy with multiple reverbs, not really. If you apply things subtly and smartly (and very important, EQ the reverbs!), it'll sound fine (IMO). Here's just an example of a sparser track I did with this setup:

I use sends most of the time, for a few reasons. Apart from saving some CPU power, it also helps to glue the sound together (in the case of reverb and delay) when you send all your instruments to the same reverb sends. More importantly, using a send means you can process just the effect. A very common and incredibly useful thing is to EQ the reverb to get rid of some mud. I usually put an EQ after the reverb and cut out everything below 200Hz to prevent a messy sound, and sometimes I also high shelf it to prevent it from sounding thin. Optionally you could also choose to EQ the sound before it gets to the reverb, to remove some nasty frequencies. What I wouldn't do is to use a different AUX/bus for every single instrument, that's not very useful. Just stick to a limited set of sends and use those for all instruments, I'd say. Personally I use 3 reverb busses (one for early reflections, one with a plate reverb and one with a hall reverb) and 1 bus for delay, which I use for almost all of my tracks. For the few times I have an instrument that needs some dedicated processing (e.g. a fancy delay or a long shimmer reverb), I typically add those directly as an insert effect. I usually leave the pan of the sends at 0, but a nice trick is to put a widener (e.g. with the Ozone Imager) on just the reverb so only the reverb gets widened, which makes for a subtle but enjoyable effect. Last but not least, I don't bother switching off the effects in the VSTs/synths. I might tone down the effects a bit if it's too much, but I usually leave them as-is and apply my reverb busses to it. When working with orchestral samples, these tend to be all over the place. Some of them are very wet, some of them very dry, some of them in between. For a homogenous sound I usually end up applying some reverb on the master bus to put them all in the same space. That trick might work for your instruments too, but for synth sounds I usually don't bother and just stick to my regular busses.