Jorito

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.

For me, being self-taught, when you out it like this, the mentorship was definitely valuable, as I've been mucking about on my own for years figuring out fundamentals without getting feedback, and essentially also needing time to let things sink in and simmer for a while. A process that would have definitely been smoother with having access to said mentorship sooner. On the flip side, I was young, stubborn and put in all the hard work so that, for example, transcription just became something I had to do to reach my goal, when I sometimes see newer remixers here get into a slight panic if there's no midi available. Or figuring out how chords work by just messing with them (and feeling smug about it, not realising there was something like music theory that explains it in so much detail it's not funny anymore). But yeah, even though I did learn the fundamentals mostly by myself and wasted a lot of time and energy on it but gained an intimate understanding of these things, I can imagine mentorship would have definitely helped in many ways - both subtle and not so subtle. Anyway, I'd be interested how the more formally trained musicians like Nabeel or John feel about this mentorship, since they received more formal mentorship during their studies. Was community feedback/advice a good addition to what you already learned, was it contradictory, did it matter at all?

As with most other people in this topic, I’ve found the feedback to be most useful in the initial stages when I was still figuring things out. Always refreshing to have a (preferably more experienced) set of ears point out things you so obviously missed yourself, frankly because you didn’t know what to listen for just yet. So in the initial stages, forum feedback - as well as feedback on IRC/Discord and, later, from the judges panel helped and helps a lot. Also if you’re more experienced, I still really appreciate a fresh perspective on things, even though it’s easier to figure things out yourself. It’s also quite enjoyable to discuss (VGM) music with others, of course, even if only in banter. I’ve done a ton of collaborations, and working with my peers always brings out some interesting new things, thoughts or approaches, it’s always educational as well as enjoyable. Feedback is usually part of the deal, since you’re in it with others and with a mutual goal to make it the best it can be. The last thing that really helped me is the bar for posted remixes, in that it helped me push myself to reach that bar. Probably I otherwise might not have done, despite all my intrinsic motivation. One thing I will point out is that the forums have been less active than when I started. Forums just don’t really seem to be a big thing anymore these days, with discussions moved to platforms like Discord or Facebook. As a result, I’d say that the better question is whether or not community feedback is important rather than forum feedback. I also think that the feedback is only part of the nudge to help you grow, as are the aforementioned judges bar, the opportunity to interact and work with peers and in general being a fertile bed to hone your skills as a musician and as a human. So to me it’s the full package rather than just community feedback.

... from what I've heard so far, 'cute' is an apt description! I'm feeling relaxed, at home and a hero after listening to it

I do the bulk of my mixing on headphones, and I've learned that you've got to be careful when judging reverb when on headphones; it's easy to apply too much reverb and it becomes quickly noticeable if you listen back on speakers. As for collaborations, I seem to be the odd one (in that I do a _lot_ of collaborations) and it's usually me asking and actively recruiting people rather than the other way around. The workshop link in the menu can be a good resource to find people to collaborate with, as you can search by skill/instrument there. As to finding a guitarist, normally you can't throw a stone without hitting at least 3 guitar players, but on OCR they seem to be in hiding or running away from me, since I haven't been that successful in finding a willing guitarist here lately... Maybe they think I smell funny

I like the overall arrangement and the backing track. It could use some production TLC though, I think it's maybe drowned a bit too much in reverb (and hence sounds distant) and, for example, the open hihats in the second half are way too loud. Since it's a WIP, you might be aware of that though. Typically, for tracks like this I find you can get away with Shreddage for rhythm guitars quite well, for leads... not so much. If you can, try to collab with a guitarist that can perform and record the lead for you. I've found that collaborations can be a lot of fun, as well as an educational experience and in general make the music better. And since I've enjoyed what you did with the arrangement, it would be a shame not to try and finish it and make it the best it can be Good luck with the last stretch, and don't forget to have fun!

I think my epic 13+ minute long Delphinus arrangement is far along now that it could be blue rather than purple

It's not that I can't do a robust transcription, it's more a matter of having the time to do it. Which, sadly, will be unlikely for the coming weeks/months (yes, my own Arcadia track is one of the reasons for that :P)

People are lazy (I know I am) and instant gratification (in the form of being able to play a piece of music immediately without having to download it) can be a big help. John has valid points here. If there's an easy way to play the track right away, I might chip in with comments. If I have to work on it (downloading, connecting midi device and praying it'll sound somewhat decent), not so much. Also, keep in mind that there's a lot of people out there who just enjoy listening to music, rather than commenting or being musicians writing detailed critiques - that group is a lot smaller.

Since the album I did this track for is out, I can finally share this remix I did of Xenogears' Wings. Inspired by synthwave group The Midnight? Naah, not at all Had a lot of fun making this. With all the collaborations, arrangement shuffling and things being quite different from the source but also still recognisable, I’d say this was an interesting experiment. I think it turned out well and can be enjoyed as a standalone piece even if you’re not aware it has its roots in VGM. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WJr_eVmvfQ

How accurate and complete does it need to be? Doesn't sound too complex to do (especially if it's just chords + lead), but the devil can be in the details. (disclaimer: I normally only transcribe the lead parts and usually quite flexibly, so it might not be what you're looking for).

I reached out to them J's a few times, saying "this project is dead, please post it according to the regular schedule". Whether or not a project is actually dead is not always easy to determine though, so YMMV.

Makes total sense, as you can literally buy 4-5 of them for the price of a single a7x

Not quite, Neifion was talking about the HS7, the one with the 7" woofers (the HS8 has 8" woofers).

1) Yep, pretty much. Larry (Liontamer, OCR Staff) explains it in the thread you linked at 3) too. 2) The missing tracks are not lost or badly numbered, they were removed, for various reasons. You can find which tracks and why here: https://ocremix.org/info/ReMix_Changelog 3) Reading that, it's the other way around: any tracks from the torrent that are also on an album will have the OCR album name (e.g. "Resonance of the Pure Land" tagged within them. In my experience, the album usually gets released first, and tracks get posted on OCR afterwards, so the other way around doesn't make much sense to me.

Something to keep in mind is that album songs will only appear here on OCReMix if the artist submits them to the panel. Not every artist does that, and some tracks that are submitted might not pass the panel and hence not end up on the site.

I have the JBL LSR’s and had the Yamaha HS5 before. While the Yamaha had better built quality (it’s hefty), they are also very top heavy and lack bass. I didn’t care for the sound much, not to listen to, not to mix on. The JBL’s sound a lot nicer to my ears, also great for normal listening, and for me they seem to translate pretty well. I did plug the sound holes on the back because they are close to the wall and would sound boomey otherwise. From a bang for the buck perspective I would recommend to check them out to. Caveat: I do like 95% of my mixing on headphones.

As the 'organ donor' (heh, couldn't resist) to this track, I very much appreciate the feedback, many thanks!

Looking at the string part, it seems you are using the violins more as a pad type instrument rather than in an orchestral setting (I would have expected the parts to be spread out more across octaves for orchestral strings, if you're talking basses, celli, violas and violins 1 & 2). Also, looking at the specific notes you used, it seems that the violins are more of a background part here rather than something that needs to be on the foreground. There's probably no harm in just changing the strings to another octave (lower, probably), from what I can see. Maybe ACO has additional insights too.

For question 1: make sure to bring down the level of ALL your tracks. You can always bring them up later with mastering/a limiter if needed, but especially for the kind of sound you're going for, you probably don't want to squash the life out of it with heavy compression. For me, it's not uncommon to have my individual tracks set to somewhere between -4 and -15db, depending on the type of sound, and Bitwig will out of the box set the default level of a track to -10db whenever you create a new track (very convenient, a pity not all DAWs do this). Digital clipping is something you will want to avoid, because things will start sounding bad. With regards to question 2, that's something you can either fix in your orchestration (what instruments play what parts in what range) or try to patch up with mixing. I'd try to fix it in your orchestration first by either playing the violins an octave higher or lower, or playing the piano in a higher or lower octave, and see how that goes. In real life instruments, this will also affect the tone (timbre) of the instruments, which may or may not fit your track. Hard to tell without hearing it If you are really dead set on keeping them in the same octave, then you can try to patch things up in your mix. Panning the strings and piano so they are not in each others' way can be a big help, and applying an EQ to them to cut away the parts of the sound you don't need and make the instruments more distinctive and separate is also something to consider. And check the volumes of course; if the piano is so loud that it drowns out the violins that you deem important, then the piano is probably too loud and simply needs a volume reduction. Lastly, if you can't really hear some of the background parts and if you mute them you don't notice anything different, it might be a good idea to cut them. It's not something I'm good at (yet) but it can be a big help in getting clarity in your mix.

Sure, I can do some critical listening.

I have these headphones and I run them directly connected to my soundcard (NI Komplete Audio 6), no headphone amp. While it doesn't go that loud (but still at a comfortably loud enough level), it works great for my music creation things. Not going too loud might actually be a benefit, because you won't damage your ears that way. $0.02. So, no, I don't think you'd need an amp, it's usable without one. You could always get a headphone amp later though, if you so wish.

Just wanted to add that having a good sound library is something that not only greatly helps inspire you, it also makes your life easier, because you have to work less hard to make it sound good. Consider it like an investment and use it to learn and hone your skills, rather than boring and depressing yourself with things that don’t inspire you. I probably have too much stuff in mine, but I accumulated it over the years. I remember buying Komplete years ago and thinking it was a lot of money. Turns out I did and do use it a lot, still, and I definitely got my money’s worth out of it. And I don’t even use all of it. So yeah, mine is a bit of a contrast with Rozo’s post above, I probably have too much stuff, I didn’t learn a lot of it in-depth, I mostly stick to presets, but it’s very comforting to know that I have a varied and good quality sound palette that inspires me and is able to get the job done. As for point 4: do what you love and figure out the related stuff as you go along. For me, I like arranging the most, but as my skills grew, I also sort-of out of necessity had to pick up related skills like EQ-ing, mixing, mastering, etc. Just because I want to make every track better than the previous one, and you learn something from every track you do. The more you learn, the more you learn about things you don’t know yet, too. It can be overwhelming at times, but on the other hand: try to just dive into something and look back after a few months. Chances are you will be like ‘wow, did I learn all of that?’ and can be proud of what you learned rather than being paralyzed about stuff you didn’t learn yet.

In my experience, working with other people does indeed involve waiting, and sometimes that can get a bit frustrating. But there’s another side to it to, or at least for me: being able to work with other people does make it more enjoyable, social and educational. Depending on your individual needs and desires that may or may not be something that interests everybody, but I’ve learned bits and bobs from everybody I worked with, and that is totally worth it for me. But YMMV of course; just wanted to mention another side of it.

Fair point; the opening post was clear about that, but the tone of his follow-up felt was stated less subjective to me. Guess that’s what triggered me.