Jorito

This seems totally counterintuitive and -dare I say- wrong to me. Melody is the main attraction, the thing that gets people hooked. It's the vision of what the song (or in your analogy, house) should look like. All the rest is just there to support it. No use in building walls and foundations just to figure out you need to tear it down again because it doesn't work with the final vision (in your analogy, you built a too short foundation, the walls are all lopsided and the body of the house looks like a nightmare out of H.R. Giger's brain). Doesn't make any sense for buildings, doesn't make sense for music - ask any architect or composer worth their salt. Your argument that it's easier to move around a few notes in the melody rather than in all the chords and accompaniment sounds as if you feel melody is there support the chords and accompaniment rather than the other way around. That sounds very strange to me, but meh, it's your music, you can do what your want. Just don't present it as univeral truth.

(As I already told you) I rather like this. It nicely hits that sweet spot where the soundscape is in-between chiptune and the original lo-fi mod sounds. Lots of interesting details in the background going on to keep stuff moving forward, too. Wasn't really feeling the ending, but that might be just me.

I do both. When I started out, a few years ago, I just started uploading to both of them because Soundcloud was in a bit of flux at the time when it comes to who they are, who they target and how they earn revenue and so on. Youtube is more stable in that regard, but the ocean of YT vids is massive and it's harder to get noticed. Interestingly enough, on both platforms the amount of subscribers and views are pretty similar, so I haven't seen one grow significantly more or less than the other. I do prefer that I can edit my tracks on Soundcloud (e.g. replace the audio file), on Youtube I can't. I solved the visual part on YT by creating a template that I re-use, so it's just a matter of changing background artwork and colors mostly.

I think Will had some issues with you stating your opinions as objective facts, rather as subjective opinions. I'm not opposed to strong opinions myself, but I can see why some people would feel triggered to respond to your strongly worded opinions. C'est le ton qui fait la musique, and all that. (c'est le ton qui fait la musique: it is the tone that makes the music; it's not what you say but how you say it (i.e.: how things are said makes their meaning credible))

For a first track after such a long hiatus it sounds rather nice. It’s a bit too repetitive for my taste, though; I liked the break you had in the middle and would have loved to hear some more variations like that! Still, there’s always room for trying out new things in the next track

Please nudge me when this comes out of hibernation; would be a great excuse to finally finish that WIP I did.

Not sure if I'd call myself a pro, but I've done quite a few collabs, and as a matter of fact work is in progress to wrap up another collab, with me using Logic Pro and my collab partner using Pro Tools. As you said, you probably have to resign to sending audio back and forth, but that doesn't mean you have to commit to something right away. What we did for the aforementioned collab is up front get a rough sense of who would roughly do what. Essentially who would focus on arrangement, who would do mixing & production, who would take what parts (e.g. leads, drums, bass). It ended up with me doing the bulk of the arrangement work, after my collab partner started me off with a very bare bones MIDI piano part that I rearranged, restructured, expanded upon, etc. Typically I'd work on it for a bit and share a rough WIP render that we would discuss a bit about on what needed changing, and then I would work on it some more. After the arrangement was fleshed out enough, we both would soup up our parts (polishing up the midi, recorded performances, etc) and I sent over my finalised parts for my collab partner to mix. The big reason why this works well is that we had good communication throughout the process and up front were able to divide the work without getting in each others way. That's also what I suggested. Another approach I tried once is a bit Frankensteinian; I did a collab where I did have the DAW the other guy was using (Renoise), but I didn't feel like leaving Logic Pro and switch back to a tracker. So I simply loaded up his project in Renoise, rewired Renoise into Logic so I would have the audio of his parts in my own DAW, and simply wrote my own parts and did the full track mixing in Logic. A bit cumbersome, but it worked. Hope it helps!

At the end of the day, remember there's an immense reward and kick in actually finishing something. Doesn't matter if it's music or something else. Starting something new is easy, seeing it through to the end is a different thing. Stick with it, see it through. It's worth it, and it gets easier the more you do it. The reward of actually finishing a piece of music, and getting it out there is a very powerful motive. Meteo has it right, there's always this goal that you can chase and aim for. Doesn't matter if it's the first track you upload to your own channel, getting your first track posted here on OCR, doing something cool with an album. Having a goal is a big help, and one of my things I already have in mind before I start. I am not one for aimless noodling, I guess For me, I usually have a broad outline of what I think I want to do when creating a piece of music before I fire up the DAW. Part of that outline is a genre/style and some vague hints about instrumentation I might want to try. That outline also has a checkbox on it to add an intro and an ending. It keeps things focused, but it's also not set in stone so if inspiration strikes or something interesting happens along the way, I make changes. But I do keep the outline in mind I created (and write down in some cases) before I start. A good trick is also to have a deadline, either an external one or an internal one. Joining a compo here will help you do that, or an album project with a steep deadline (I happen to be collab'ing on a Chrono Cross remix that we started on Monday and will probably be finished somewhere in the next few days). Having said that, having multiple projects going on is not a bad thing. Apart from the aforementioned Chrono Cross track I have 2 other tracks in progress right now, and that's pretty common. That way, I can shift easily to one of the other tracks in case I get stuck in one, am waiting for recordings to come in or are just not inspired right now to keep working on the same track again. But it's crucial that you want to finish what you start, and the only way to do that is... well, to just do it. It's not always easy, but worth it, and it gets easier.

Here's your answer:

I still need to redo the mixing of my track. I also need some impulse to do that.

If you cut the right frequencies, it definitely will not make the sound dull, but it will make it more clear and also more bright and audible (depending on circumstances of course). Cutting at the right place is usually a better solution than boosting; typically in the 200-500Hz area. Give it a shot

I had a VRM Box but it didn't really work for me; I found the sound to be a bit muffled and unpleasant to work with. That big monitor you linked is the total opposite and it's very likely going to be a huge waste of money. The most important parts in balancing and mixing are your ears and your taste. Tools such as good monitors or a treated room will help make things easier, but at the end of the day it's those things at the side of your head that do all the work. My advice: get neither. In stead get intimately familiar with your monitors or headphones. Learn how they sound with other music than your own, listen very critically to them and try to replicate that in your own music. Learning how to listen and learning how to mix properly by doing it a lot is the way to go, IMO, there are no shortcuts apart from doing it more. FWIW, the stuff above pretty much describes my journey for the last few years. Listening back to my music from 3 years ago, I can now finally hear the mistakes I made and the things I missed. I expect it will be the same in 3 years and will continue to keep working on it and doing it again and again and learn and improve from it. Welcome to the magical world of music

Haha, that's an interesting coincidence. We definitely need P5 here, just a matter of time until I get my paws on it. Also, if you end up producing something, make sure to be the last to submit, otherwise it won't be a real last surprise either

My 2 tracks for this album are also already in the queue, hope to see them on the site somewhere later this year! hope more people also submit theirs. For newer remixers: being on an OCR album doesn't automatically imply your track will get posted to the OCR front page; for that you'd still have to submit and pass your track by the J's. I noticed that this wasn't fully clear to everyone when I was directing the Secret of Mana album.

I was just working on said wav, so expect it in your inbox later today

Afaik you can only connect an audio interface to a single computer. As for recommendations, it all depends on what you need and your budget. There’s a lot of options out there, also in the budget friendly area. I have a Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 that I’ve been rocking for years and am very happy with it, fwiw and $0.02.

Hm, I see Bundeslang copy/pasted my PM to him, which was in Dutch (it's rare that I get to use my native language here on OCR, so if I get the chance, I'll use it :)). Here's the translation, if you're curious: Good luck, y'all, and have fun with the source. Persona has some great music

Benefits of an audio interface? In general lower latency (the delay between playing something and hearing it, roughly), better quality when you want to connect instruments to record from (guitar, microphone, keyboard, what have you) and the convenience of, for example, a separate headphone out with volume control. There’s more of course, but for this topic these would be the highlights I think. Do you need one? Well, you can use whatever audio thing is in your computer, but it will be slower, have lesser audio quality, more prone to interference if it’s an onboard thing and just not as convenient. Let’s just say I am glad I got myself a decent audio interface early in the process

Having said that, I also have a pair of Sony MDR 7506. They are very different from the DT880s: The Sony is closed backed, whereas the DT880 is semi open. This makes the Sony great for recording (because no sound leaks out), but when mixing the DT880 gives a much better representation of the stereo field and it makes appropriate panning and how it translates to speakers a lot easier. Both have a more pronounced top end, but the DT880 is better at the low end. That makes mixing your bass easier on the DT880 and it also makes the Sony sound more toppy. There is still bass enough to work with, but you have to work harder at it. In all fairness you could probably mix on both of them, once you've spent enough time with them and know their characteristics. But the DT880 make it a lot easier and are -to my ears- overall more pleasant to listen to. For any headphones, pick something that you like the sound of, that fits your budget and spend the time to get very familiar with how they sound, I'd say.

I have the 250ohm version of the DT880s and use it without a headphone amp, just plugged it in to my audio interface. It doesn’t go as loud (which is a good thing IMO, wrt ear damage) but it has been working great for me for years in this setup. Would it sound even better with a headphone amp? Probably. Can you use it without one? Definitely.

You're welcome! That's what PRC is about, right? To learn and grow, and feedback has helped me a lot so it's good to return it

Whoop whoop! This free round was a great excuse to (nearly) finish a track I have had on my mind for a loooooong while and to join the compo after a long hiatus. In other news, I submitted my source for the next round, of one of the greatest soundtracks from last year (IMO). Hope you guys have fun with it

^ That has to be the most awesome comment I’ve seen here in quite a while! Kudos for sharing!

Voted!

You did try messing with the 'to phones' and 'to main mix' buttons? Apart from broken cables, I wouldn't know what it could be. It should be as easy as plugging in the cable (from keyboard out to mixer in), setting the volume level on the mixer to somewhere in the middle and you should get sound.