DarkeSword   Administrators 🎮

The timing in this mix is all over the place. Sounds like some parts are played live on a sequencer, but without a metronome to help with the timing. Another problem is that this song doesn't really go anywhere; it starts off the same and ends up the same. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the sounds in this piece don't always mesh well, and the aforementioned timing issues and plodding tempo make this a pretty boring piece. Variation and better sounds will help this piece. NO

Pretty much sums it up. There's a lot of emptiness throughout the piece that's a result of your samples essentially being all staccato/marcato. It gets really old after a while. The section at the very end with the major key section was nice, but it was too little too late. It felt like a really watered down version of what we've heard from the Orchestral Game Concert/Super Smash Bros. arrangement of the theme. Much too basic. This piece needs more dynamics and contrasting sections to really make it work, as well as more attention paid to filling out your parts, like the middle voices. The piece as it is comes across as scant. NO

That's the long and short of it. Send me a PM when you've got some substantial progress done on a majority of WIPs.

What makes it 14/8, as opposed to 7/4, or 7/8?

Yeah. What's up with the warbling phaser on everything? It totally ruins everything. Mystic Caves bassline gets old really fast too. Too bad everything else is just as uninteresting. Try to come up with a more defined concept for your song, and don't abuse your phasing plugin. NO

Not feeling too hot about that string sample or the lead that starts off the Woodman melody, but the arrangement is supercool. Nice beats all around; constantly changing with some nice fills. Whee. Vig is right; 2:15 is hotness. The rest of the track follows suit. I guess isn't not supercool. It's about time we got an awesome Woodman mix. YEY

wtf yankee doodle lol Yeah, this is supertite. Nice percussive work, with some neat breaks here and there. This is totally feel good music. I love the use of triplets all over the place for pickups. Slick stuff. The overall package is nice; good sounds, fun groove. YES

Yeah, you can only submit one remix at a time. Gotta agree here TO. It's pretty much the original with some beats on top. The section in the middle is kind of pointless and doesn't do anything to develop the piece. NO

Awesome awesome awesome. Really nice dynamics all around. That part near the end where Chrono Trigger crescendos is excellent. I agree with TO; that last minute is astounding. i liek it YES

Terrible sounds you've picked here. This sounds like an old MIDI file with some signal processing on some of the channels. This arrangement is really boring too. It goes on for 7 minutes? Why? There certainly isn't enough material to make the whole thing interesting to listen to. This sounds like a downgraded version of the original piece. The style and mood is the same, but your sounds and production aren't as tight. There are some creative parts with the higher tempo sections, but they're just not enough. When the original version sounds better than the remix, then what's the point? You need better sounds and you need to try to stop emulating the original. NO

Not 6/4. 12/8.

Not exactly. What you're saying there doesn't take tempo or style into account. The 4/4 time in Blue Rondo a la Turk is played with a heavy swing. You could go as far to say that it's got a triplet feel. While the 9/8 time in the song is subdivided as 2-2-2-3, you can also generally use it as a compound meter: 9/8 in 3, or three beats of triplets, similar to 6/8 in 2. 3 8th notes in the 9/8 time are exactly equal to 1 quarter note in the 4/4 time; they adjust the tempo of the song to make both the same length of time. That's why the switching section at 5:33 does two measures of 4/4 and two measures of 9/8. 2 x 9/8 becomes 2 measures of 3/4. Here's the section: http://shariqansari.com/bluerondo-time.mp3

All I know is Take Five, which of course is in 5/4. Blue Rondo a la Turk is the other famous one; heavily syncopated 9/8 rhythm (2-2-2-3) that switches to 4/4 swing. What even better about it is that 2 measures of 9/8 happen to exactly equal 1 1/2 measures of the 4/4 swing. OMG!

Winamp. For batches of files with common tags, MP3BookHelper.

13/8 is pretty obscure to begin with. You'd be better off devoting this topic to helping people with irregular meters in general, and not just by providing a sample to listen to, but also explaining your approach to writing in an irregular meter. For example, thinking of a piece in terms of additive rhythms as opposed to divisive rhytms.

So, what exactly are you asking for help with?

The thing is, we DO know that it was the Rabbit Joint. The song was posted here first, and then it started floating around on Kazaa when people mislabelled it. That's why people THINK it's by System of a Down, but it really isn't. Hardcore SoaD fans have verified this for us. People have gone to SoaD fansites and done the research, etc etc. Drop the subject. Did you ever figure that that person was just an alt account made to piss people off? It's not an alt; in any case, this isn't the place to discuss that kind of thing.

The thing is, we DO know that it was the Rabbit Joint. The song was posted here first, and then it started floating around on Kazaa when people mislabelled it. That's why people THINK it's by System of a Down, but it really isn't. Hardcore SoaD fans have verified this for us. People have gone to SoaD fansites and done the research, etc etc. Drop the subject.

Hate to be glib, but Larry pretty much covered everything. This piece is mostly original whirly SFX with a bit of the game material in it. Needs more. NO

I think this arrangement has a lot of good ideas, but I disagree that the medly construction of this piece isn't bad in this case. I think it really detracts from the overall arrangement, mostly because no idea is present long enough to be fully appreciated. It sounds like I'm listening to a sampler CD for some 1990s sythesizer sample set. The piece suffers from bad samples (ugh, the brass) and sparse voicing. This piece really needs more mid voices to fill out the soundscape. Some tempo changes would help too; the constant 8th note barrage gets monotonous. NO

oooh what a hot beat man. Nice. Synths are really good too. Nice texture; nothing is out of place, and the balance is just right. The flute fits right in. Bassline is slick; present, but not overpowering. Zircon, that isn't 3/4 time; it's 6/8 in 2 (or 12/8 in 4, whatever floats your boat). Needless to say, flawless execution. These stylistic changeups are really nice. This is the kind of variation I like to hear. YES

Harmonic minor raises the leading tone, and melodic minor raises the 6th and 7th. [edit: gah, forgot to enable bbcode] Harmonic minor raises the 7th so that it becomes a leading tone. If you raise a leading tone, you get the octave.

Do whatever you want. If it sounds right, use it. Theory isn't a set of rules; it's a well of knowledge that allows you to understand how western music is constructed.

Quoting this for mix page's benefit. The rest of my post has nothing to do with this quote. Some people seem to be forgetting the point of this thread. Just post your review of the mix in question and be done with it. Stop posting about unrelated issues. I've moved a few posts to Abuse already. If you feel the need to discuss unrelated stuff, take it to PM.

Absolutey correct. There has been an historic double standard in review threads because artists understandably don't like like negative feedback without elaboration. The thing is, the listener doesn't have to be constructive. A review thread is for posting what you thought about a song. If I don't like a song, I can post "This is terrible. It sucks." That's actually acceptable, even if an artist doesn't like that. The artist can even say to me ,"Can you elaborate on that?" and if I choose to, I will. If I choose not to, I won't, and an artist can just disregard my thoughts. I've done that a few times myself with negative reviews. The real issue that we should always keep in mind is that we should never insult a person for their work. Negative feedback should always be directed towards the piece and performance, not the person. As artists, we need to be able to separate ourselves from our work when reading negative feedback. I realize that this a lot harder to do when you're a singer. A criticism of a performance feels like a criticism of one's person. But as artists, we can't let these things get to us and make us mad, or drive us away from the site and what we do here. Pixie, I realize it's a review thread for a mix that you took part in, but responding to criticism with profanity has no place here in the forum. Keep your cool, and think about what you're saying before you hit that submit button. Magi_Tekk: OCR is a dictatorship. It always has been, and it always will be. We won't control people's speech, but we will step in and moderate when necessary. This is all I'm going to say on the matter, which, in the context of this thread, should be dropped. Any other arguments should be taken to PM. Thanks.