zircon

Errr.. when the first melody riff comes in there's some ridiculous dissonance there. I can think of no musical excuse to do that. It just sounds bad. Otherwise, the arrangement is fairly conservative. I do commend you in your effort to change the sounds over the course of the song, as well as the percussion. You didn't just rely on a couple loops. However this is relatively far from our standard of quality. Most of the sounds are dull and not used particularly well, and there is no attention paid to balancing out frequencies (you want a mix of low, middle, and high - it's mostly low-middle right now). The dissonance in the melody that comes up a few times really sort of puts the nail in the coffin. The ReMixing and WIP forums on this site are an excellent place to go to get feedback. I suggest doing that first before submitting next time as I'm sure some people would have caught the wrong notes. NO

I'm hearing some sort of weird artifacts going on in the cymbals. It sounds like there was some sort of strange encoding or noise removal used, which creates that characteristic "glittering" effect. If it's an intentional effect, regardless of how it was created, please take it out. It's distracting. Larry hit the nail on the head otherwise. This is ultra-sparse with extremely weak production values other than the sax. The drums are very boring, and yes, I know that often times this kind of lounge-y jazz often has minimal drums. However there's practically no variation in them at all. At the very least a few rim hits or brushed rolls on the snare would be in order. The bass is indeed too resonant. It doesn't sound good, whether you try to hear it as a synth bass or a real one. I would suggest you just change that sound entirely. And as for the rest of the instruments.. well, wait, there are no other instruments. C'mon man. If you're going to use only three instruments total, with one of them taking prominence the entire time, at least make it interesting. There's nothing that caught my ear here in the arrangement. No significant changes to the tempo, rhythms, or chord structure. The ending is a copout. This needs a lot more effort in both production AND arrangement. NO

Is it just me, or are there some subtle popping/clicking noises here? Sounds like the kind of thing you might hear from a bad rendering or an improperly looped sample. For me that's really taking away from things, at least when I'm listening on headphones. Anyway this is very repetitive. The entire first half of the song barely changes in terms of instrumentation, and it just bounces back and forth between two chords using one or two riffs. Not very interesting at all. At the halfway point I don't know why you would make it even more sparse because there wasn't much material there to begin with. The smattering of panned effects was pretty cool though, prior to the 'heavy' section. Said section is a little unbalanced though, which is disappointing. The guitar is a bit too loud, there's no prominent lead sound, and having a crash on every beat sounds very amateur. Even those things aside the progression isn't any more interesting, and the rhythms are extraordinarily basic. You can definitely be WAY more creative here with changing things up. Some good ideas here, and a solid direction overall, but the reliance on repetition and some weaker production values bring this one down. Keep working at it. NO

I don't have a lot to add here. The arrangement is extraordinarily simplistic, and the entire first part w/ the prelude is very boring. There are only a handful of instruments and no interesting voicings at all. To make matters worse you even got one of the chords wrong in the progression (you had an Ab major instead of an Ab major 7, which does make a pretty big difference, especially considering you're doing a straight-up cover). There is no transition to speak of to the second part of the song, which itself is not rearranged and equally uninteresting in its texture. It is very important that you do more to vary the melody + harmony of the songs you are remixing. Don't be afraid to change the key or tempo, change rhythms, or even add your own original chords or melodies, provided they fit in. I strongly suggest listening to recently posted remixes with a much more discerning ear, as well as making use of our Works in Progress and ReMixing forums. This mix is not necessarily bad, especially for an early effort. It displays some basic proficiency, but you will need a lot more than that to pass our standards. Keep working at it - and don't forget to have fun. NO

Wow, this is pretty unexpected. I'm not sure if you guys realized this but The Cynic Project is actually pretty well-known in the world of trance. Very cool that he subbed something here as he's pretty successful elsewhere. Anyway I like the overall arrangement and the production on most of the sounds. But I do agree that I think you could definitely add some heavier beats - maybe layer some breaks on top, or even bring in a four on the floor later on? Feels like you could have some nice fat pads, maybe gated, as the song progresses to thicken it up too. I'm definitely liking this and it would definitely be a well-received mix if you just tweak it a little more and resubmit. I hope you do, and please submit more things in the future! NO

We're up to three entries so far (correct ones, I might add) - keep 'em coming! LAOS, it's really not too complex, so just don't overthink it and you'll get it, I'm sure.

Dual core tech definitely isn't being put to full use by much DAW software that I'm familiar with. KVRaudio.com would be a good place to investigate further, though.

Steel guitar? Hmm. I have a nice classical guitar that's nylon I believe, but if you're looking for steel, consider checking out a bunch of the big (40-80mb) GM sf2s on hammersound.net . Fluid R3 and Cadenza are good places to start. I often find myself using samples from these kinds of collections because they are typically taken from good hardware workstations.

I don't know of any free samples of that type. However, I can direct you towards some commercial libraries in case you ever come into some money at some point: there's Vocal Forge (available at soundsonline.com) which is a collection of mainly hip-hop/R&B style vocals, as well as Vocal Planet (available at spectrasonics.net) which is a very eclectic collection of vocals from all around the world. Also of interest to you may be products in the magix Music Maker series, believe it or not. It is sometimes possible to just obtain the bundled sample CDs, all of which include various vocal hits/phrases. I used some of these myself from an older version of the program, which itself is less than $100. I've seen just the sample CDs on sale for less than $20.

Haha - I've never done that! Anyway, the offer is really up for anyone. I have 7/8 tier 2, 8/8 tier 1, various other awesome items (Rejuvinating Gem, Shroud of Pure Thought, Mantle of the Blackwing Cabal, Ebony Flame Gloves etc)..

OA, interested in buying my account? It's running into time/money too much for me. I have pretty awesome gear, very good standing, rank 11 in pvp, decent amount of money + consumables on hand.. 60 undead priest on gorefiend.

Seeing the massive drama that was caused by C.S. is precisely why I've chosen NOT to reveal much information. As I've said before, when it's completely done - the songs, the website, everything - I will announce a final release date and give a better idea of what you can be expecting. For now, I'm just going to elaborate a bit on what Spekkosaurus said. The third deadline of the project is coming up and finals are being completed. I have already received some finals and I'm VERY happy with them. There have been a few unfortunate dropouts from the project which were unavoidable (people who left the ReMixing community entirely or are on extremely long vacations and are not doing anything at all with OCR) so there have also been some people who entered a bit later and thus require additional time to complete their tracks. However, the first 5 months or so of the project were generally more relaxed. Since that time period passed I have been focusing more on the end result and I think everyone will enjoy the results. I'll keep you posted.

My guild (Trauma) is actively recruiting Priests. Gorefiend, Horde.

I would say that for a more chillout, atmospheric song, the opening pads are a bit sharp. Lots of high frequencies and resonance.. I would tone that down and go for something more subdued. You can still have motion of course. The drums to me seem too busy and perhaps too prominent, especially the kick. I would tone them down and maybe remove a few hits there. I think TO is right though that they need to be varied also. Arrangement-wise you've changed the chord structure under the main melody, which is normally OK, but I don't think the changes you made sound very good. I would rethink them or maybe even use the original ones. If you want to change it around, try tweaking the melody also so it sounds more fitting. The chords being played by the pads tend to be voiced in a simplistic manner too, so I think you should give more thought to that as well so they sound more brooding and 'chill' if you know what I mean. If you don't know what I mean, the ReMixing forum would be a good place to go. Structurally, aside from the middle section, this is relatively repetitive and has a weak ending. You gotta think about where you're going with it, even if that just means adding extra layers of percussion or melodic/accompanimental instruments. NO

Logic Pro is considerably more than $300. Think more like... $800.

I gotta disagree about FL. I do EVERYTHING with FL, all of my mixes are created in there from start to finish. It's not really limited at all.

Wow, this is pretty haunting. That intro siren probably dragged on a bit too long, but damn, this is definitely horror-movie type stuff. For what it's worth, when the main piano + wind part came in, I was a little let down. The sound quality prior to that was very good, but the piano sounds somewhat mechanical and low quality. There have gotta be better soundfonts out there. Malcos is right about the reverb, too: even if the samples aren't the best, drowning them in reverb doesn't solve anything. Drop the reverb a LOT. It makes the low string parts very muddy, in particular. The string parts did sound pretty good though, reverb aside, at least compared to the piano. Ok so.. arrangement. It's really hard to work with such a short melody, if you could even call it that. It's more like a riff or motif. That considered, you did do a good job in expanding on it. However, I think you could have done better overall in terms of arrangement. You don't just have to keep repeating the melody and variations of the melody. You can add your own material. That's what really hurt this one for me. I was waiting to hear some sort of new melody, riff, or progression that never came. Strictly speaking, your interpretation of those five notes was very good, but you gotta do more in a ReMix than just that. There's a bigger musical picture (if that makes sense) that has to be considered. NO

Straightforward would be a good way to describe this. It's not bad, but it doesn't bring anything unique to the table as far as arrangement or sound choice goes, and I think there are lots of places where it could be improved. For one thing, the hats and snares you're using, especially for the main beat, are painfully generic. Surely you can think of a more interesting pattern than the most basic of basic 4/4 dance beats. Try adding additional closed hihat lines in double time, bongos/congas, shakers, claves, filtered breakbeats, that kind of thing. Intersperse different types of drums (or at least different patterns) with the main drum beat to keep the listener interested. The beat here goes on pretty much through the ENTIRE track, and really, I can't think of many drum lines that are so good that they need to be repeated verbatim throughout a full song. In regards to arrangement, I don't share Liontamer's concern about the chords. No wrong notes as far as I can hear. However, he's right that the take on the original is a very basic conversion to dance with a little bit of gating. Try changing the rhythm of the melody, arpeggiating it, changing the progression, adding your own melody of the original progression, changing the voicings of chords, that kind of thing. There's a lot you can do. Filling out the track would be a wise idea also. Try some more "digital" sounds for pads and harmony, as right now you have almost entirely basic subtractive synthesis going on. While that has it's own place in any good trance song, it's kind of boring when that's the ONLY thing you're using. Just like Liontamer said, hit the ReMixing forum for more info on that stuff. Lastly, the ending is just not good. Or rather, the lack of an ending. At the very least you could have faded out elements until you were just left with a melody or a beat and then put a big cymbal crash or reverse at the end. That would have been cliche but it would have gotten the job done. Anyway, take a closer look at this mix and maybe talk to some ReMixers who already have trance remixes posted on the site and ask them for more specific advice if you like their style. NO

Larry hit the nail on the head. Good concept, solid execution so far. I like the tonal choices. But it seems rather empty, and the arrangement is conservative. Don't be afraid to vary things up and add your own material, and don't hesitate to add more instruments to fill out the soundfield more. I like the feel of this so a resub would be cool. NO

Hmm.. intro kind of threw me off a little bit, it's not necessarily bad in concept, but the bell sound is kinda low quality and the end of the sound effects is a bit abrupt. What's up with that drum beat? It's so ridiculously plain and basic that it adds pretty much nothing. The variations on the basic groove pattern don't add a whole lot either, they just sound kind of goofy. I would either leave that out or completely rework it. Don't feel the need to just stick in a basic drum pattern just to have one. Production seemed to be a consistent problem.. the organ and choir were pretty good, but most of the other instruments were not too hot. The organ tended to be overbearing, though. The arrangement here isn't coverish, but it IS rather simplistic. It doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't do anything terribly interesting with the source tune. The dynamics and even the instrumentation are pretty similar to the original. We're really looking for interpretations of vgm here, not necessarily different versions or only slight alterations. There are points in the mix like around 3:34 that are needlessly sparse, empty, and pointless. The second drum pattern (with the deeper drum- a taiko?) is even more plodding and pointless than the first. Please work on that. I think most of my complaints stem from an inconsistency in the concept of the mix. Why is it at times arranged in a more dense, baroque style, but at other times incredibly sparse? What is the point of the drum loops? Where is the piece supposed to go? These are questions you need to think about and go back to rework things. It's not a bad start, but it's just not up to our standards yet. NO

Unfortunately I don't have a lot more to add. The guitar performance is sloppy all over, the synths + drums are uninteresting, and the arrangement is far too short to be interpretive or expansive on the original. You gotta step it up a few notches. NO

Even before downloading it, I will say that's it's definitely a challenge to take a tune that is already orchestral to begin with (and fairly well-done at that) and then make an orchestral ReMix out of it. Not to say that there's a special standard for that kind of thing, but it's typically just more difficult to make the ReMix really stand apart. Now, having listened to the ReMix, I gotta say that basically using the same melodic instrumentation (woodwind + harp) is not the best idea when you're going for a unique interpretation. Compositionally, the stuff you did with the melody was cool, but I would really encourage you to perhaps give another thought to the orchestration and instrumentation of the theme. I'm also not really feeling that reversed stuff. It sticks out when the rest of the mix isn't electronic or experimental at all, and I don't think it adds much. I agree with TO/Larry that some of the transitions are weak, and the dynamic + textural changes are often somewhat sudden. In terms of production, comparatively, I think this is almost a bit of a step down from the original. Really, getting samples to sound at least partially realistic is a tall order and not a lot of people get it right. However, it does not sound to me like you're using strictly free stuff here, so I would say that you could do a lot better. We have received and posted submissions from ReMixers who used nothing but free, rather low-quality orchestral samples and they sounded more realistic and expressive than the ones you used here. This is probably a little frustrating for you to hear, but it's important to acknowledge that "MIDI orchestration" (as it's called) is an art in and of itself and requires a different approach than simply putting the notes down in your sequencer of choice. To be clear, we're not really looking for ultra-realistic sounds. Nor are we looking for extraordinarily complex arrangements. Some of the best orchestral mixes we've ever gotten were from high school students with little to no background in theory or proper orchestration techniques. What I would try to do to improve this mix, if you're willing to resubmit it, is to try to look at the big picture. Is it going somewhere interesting? Are the different sections significantly different? Does it flow naturally in a way that is pleasing to the listener? Sure, you do a lot with the notes that you were given in the source tune, but I think the overall musicality is lacking. I encourage you to take another look at this, perhaps from a different angle, and resubmit it after reworking it a bit. NO

Ouch! That guitar tone is kind of grating there. I'm normally not one to be picky about that sort of thing, but some of the mid-high frequencies really stick out and make it somewhat unpleasant to listen to. I wasn't really feeling the drums either. The main pattern was energetic, but the fills could have been better and I think it could have used more variation overall. The samples themselves were also not so good, and sounded cheap in comparison to the other parts. If you hit the ReMixing forum you'll surely find information about where to find beefier drums for this style of music. Also, I thought some of the performance of the guitar was a bit sloppy (the rising thirds, specifically). Liontamer kind of covered my problem with the arrangement. This IS interpretive.. you didn't just cover the theme, but at the same time, you left out a lot of the source tune and the mix just isn't long enough to really do anything cool. There's not even really an ending, and the texture/dynamics of the song are identical pretty much all the way through. Take a listen to some of the guitar-based rock remixes posted over the last year or so and you'll get a good idea of the standard for that style. Mixes by CarboHydroM, BrainCells, and SnappleMan would be a good place to start. NO

Hmm.. yeah, it would be cool to see this developed a little more and fleshed out. There are some interesting melodic and rhythmic things in here, and I liked the way the instruments worked together. The drums were on the weak side, sure, but I think given more time to polish and tweak this they could be improved. I encourage you to go back to this and try to add more to it; maybe another minute or so. It seems like you have a good idea of what making a unique interpretation is, so if you just try to add MORE I'm confident that you'd come up with something good. Give it a shot. NO

Yeah - we just sent an email to Les (the guy who manages our voice mailbox) to empty it, but we're not sure how long it will take.