zircon

I don't know why it took me so long to get around to this one. I love Makke's stuff in general, including the rejected "SID No More" Real solid production here overall. I admit I thought it was a bit repetitive at first, but things were definitely changing over the course of the mix. The vocoder line is great, and considering the simplicity of the original, I think the arrangement meets our standard without much trouble. I would have liked a break section somewhere where the beat dropped out entirely to show off the synths/vocoder, but it's no big deal. Good work! YES

Sounds like fun! I'll have to check with my family but I bet some of you guys could come to my house in Pleasantville after the meetup, if you're willing to buy a ticket to get there from Grand Central (it's like $7.45 one way).

There are some good ideas here on the sound design and arrangement end of things, but overall this sounds really unpolished. The synths are all pretty loud and they don't mesh well together. More importantly, everything is pretty dry - use more effects to "sweeten" the mix. Also, try using less aggressive sounds and more sustained patches (besides the choir). The changeups to the original progression are appreciated but I feel like more could be done there, as you basically simplified the source by a bit. Try to get your variations to fit more cohesively together. NO

Make sure the plugin has "Rendering Mode Notify" ON and "Use Fixed Size Buffers" OFF in the VST wrapper.

Yeah, I've heard especially after the patch that it's real solid. I just picked up GS3 Ensemble myself @ $50 to see if playback is really different with Tascam's samplers over Kontakt 2, with .gig files, so if that's good I'll probably grab GVI sometime.

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about!

2x2 is 4, 4x4 is 16, and 16x16 is 256! Which, divided by 4, is... Episode 064 of VGDJ! Which, coincedentally, has just been released and is now available at www.vgdj.net! Good times this week. For any lovers of electronic music listening, this ep will be of special interest - there's a special VGDJ-only promotion where you can get both my CDs for much less than anywhere else!

Yes, I have two albums out that I sell online in both physical and digital formats. It's been selling well. Yep. They should be available within 14 days.

Nothing wrong with being capitalist. I just think that if we, as musicians, invest lots of our own time into original material - plus money for gear - there's no reason we shouldn't ask for people to pay for it. You could always do something like... have a rotating list of free MP3 singles @ 128kbps on the main page, then periodically release a compilation CD of 15 songs or so and price it reasonably at say $9.99. You could then get the CDbaby hook up so you wouldn't have to worry about shipping, OR if you don't really want to go the physical route, send them one copy and sign up for their free digital distribution. That way you can get the label's music all over iTunes and tons of other online music shops. Free promo, and you get 81 cents to the dollar. Alternatively, set up a Paypal shop (also free) where people could pick up higher-encoded MP3s or even WAV/FLAC versions of the tracks with a small donation. There are lots of ways. As a CONSUMER sure I like free stuff. And really, if you just want to give away your hard work, I can understand that too. But it's not appealing to some people to invest a lot of time into something that they won't get anything for. This is sort of the case with me. I make ReMixes which are by nature free, and I have fun doing 'em. I don't expect a penny. For original stuff, on the other hand, I spend more time & money and I would prefer not to just give that away; or at a minimum, not ALL of it (I have given away free downloads before).

Electronic netlabel? Cool. Releasing the music for free? Eh... not as appealing to me. You guys should do compilation albums at least.

The list grows shorter by the day, though a few things are surprisingly open (like The Birth of God, and the main theme itself).

Even though the encoding is 192kbps, something about the sounds used sounds a little... lo-fi to me. Try using some loudness maximizes or spectral exciters (also known as harmonic exciters) to really bring out the highs without necessarily making things piercing. Alternatively, just turn up the volume on things or compress 'em more and put a limiter at the end. Hey, it might be a little cliche, but it's done for a reason - dance tracks call for lots of energy and that often comes in the form of more volume. Check out stickied topics in the ReMixing forum for more info on production/mixing/mastering for this kind of music. It can often make the difference between an "ok" dance track and a club-smasher, so to speak Alright, so more general mastering stuff aside, I AM digging the feel of this. The intro with the tremolo synth is pretty sweet and the beat is good stuff. Good job on not using all completely generic sounds, as many people are tempted to do. That said, some of the melodic synths are a little plain and I would try to spice them up with more effects and layering. I would also try to spruce up the beat more if you have a song of this length. Add more high end percussion or some bongos/congas, shakers, maybe some breakbeats here and there, more tom/snare fills, and variations every so often. Generally speaking though, the production is pretty close to our bar. I think the arrangement is better than DS and Larry made it out to be. Nonetheless, it's gotta be better. While you do some neat stuff with the chord progression and adding original material, a lot of that original material is on the bland side and you didn't do a whole lot with the actual melody and harmony parts. You can be a lot more adventurous when it comes to playing around with the source tune. As a genre adaptation this is solid; go for a few steps above that and you'll be in good shape. Resub please! NO

Wow, what a great game. I love it.

Yeah, it's not far... no reason we can't go there after lunch.

It is highly unlikely they recorded in 22khz. Sequencers can export to a variety of sample rates and bit depths, from total crap to 32bit/96khz. Likewise, MP3 encoders can also encode to different rates. I would think that their recordings were all fine, but they just rendered and/or encoded it poorly.

Really good stuff. I think I once said to Larry that I thought lots of DoD mixers sounded very similar, but now that I've listened more closely, I can hear the stylistic and performance differences. house's style really works for me, especially in this piece, given my synth bias. Great arrangement and spot-on production, of course. YES

Well, the stuttering IS excessive, but I think that's valid musically and can work for this style. BT does an awful lot of stuttering just like this, perhaps to an even greater degree. I'm impressed with the sound design and effects usage overall. I don't have any major complaints there. However, the mixing/mastering is on the weak side. Some sections are overly quiet and not bright enough. The low end could use more filling out, and the total loudness level is probably not where it should be. At 1:28 things are sounding really centered, too - go for more stereo width using a stereo enhancing plugin or tweaked reverb/delay. Looking at the other end of things, the arrangement is wonderful. I really don't feel the need to say anything more there - it's very well done. This is a tough call, but I'm inclined to agree with bgc and Darkesword here. More meat in the form of stronger mixing/mastering and harmony parts. This shouldn't be a really difficult fix since the foundation of the piece is very solid. Refine & resub! NO

The game is fun as hell.

Yeah, I gotta be careful with my income of $0 per year. The whole ReMixing thing really pulls in the big bucks.

Very cool... lots of improvements since I last heard it. I would spruce up the percussion more by adding fills and variations from measure to measure. Snares, toms, rides, maybe some more breaks layered on top of what you have now, that kind of stuff. A little less repetition would be good. Try doing some solos over the progression, switch around the bassline, maybe do a key change, go to 3/4, I dunno - you rely on the main riff an awful lot. That will be a problem if/when this hits the panel.

Yeah yeah, you guys found me out... maybe there's a little more to it than that though, eh? You'll see what I mean. Episode 063 of VGDJ has been released! Pick it up at www.vgdj.net! A little on the short side (stupid college!) but still good! <3

Their sales are all identical and I'd say they run them more like 5 or 6 times a year. Never buy from them when they're not on sale. They always do something like 30% or so off on a certain line, 50% off on another line, and then a clearance/blowout section.

*thwaps Katsurugi*

It really gets bad when you hit the 300 mark. I have at least that many in my FLStudio 5 folder alone (I'm up to 6.4b now so every plugin I've got since 6 has been installed elsewhere). I'm a virtual packrat. There is, of course, another philosophy... which is that the more plugins you have, the easier it may be to get the sound you want. If you have a ridiculous amount of stuff, you might not have to spend hours tweaking a less-than-perfect sample or preset to fit your needs. You might just be able to get that sound out of the box.

GY is right. But there's something else you can do, also. Open up a VST you have, go to the upper left to the plug icon and then go to "Save Preset As". You can drag and drop the named preset from the browser to load the synth. So, you can create an organized folder of all your synths in this fashion. EG. VST Plugins - Synths -- Subtractive Synths --- Pro 53 --- MinimogueVA -- FM Synths --- FM8 --- Ganymed - Samplers -- Kontakt 2 - Effects -- Distortion -- Reverb -- Delay -- EQ Something like that.