Xaleph
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Posts posted by Xaleph
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I really like the song and the mix. The only critique I'd have (which isn't much) is that there is a midrange where the frequencies are just a little low or there isn't a lot of instrumentation (maybe over-filtered bass and percussion to give room for synths?) It's just slightly noticeable but not huge. I think overall your dnb music is fabulous and I really hope you do more vgm remixes. We need more dnb imo and you have a really good knack for it.
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https://equipboard.com/xaleph if you want to know my gear
DAWs
- Reason Studio
- Ableton Live
- Audacity
- Garage Band
Notable VST/REs
- Objekt (Reason RE - paid)
- Serum
- Vital
- Kontakt (SAC, and others)
- Spitfire Labs
- Spitfire BBC
- Ugritone (Doom & something else?)
- Reason ( Kong / Radical Piano / Pangea / Klang / Mimic / Thor / Europa)
Notable Effects
- Guitar Rig Pro
- Kilohearts
- Reason (Audiomatic / Scream / RV7000 Mk II / Echo / Pulveriser / Sweeper / Synch EM / Alligator)
Notable Utilities
- Psyscope
- iZotope Ozone Advance / RX
- Musescore
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I was going to give this an official name (something better than "Tools we use"), but I wanted to start a post that lists some VSTs (free and paid) that I know a good number of us use for mixing. This is not intended to be a clone of a list of all possible VSTs, or like 2 people in our community use it so we put it here. It's intended to be a place to find out what others use in our space that we find particularly useful. Just replying with a simple name of a product isn't good enough for me to put it on the list (for the reason I stated above) - though you can always respond with plugins you personally found among the most useful (or just most used in each song). I want to avoid this being a junk drawer that has no real value. The value will come with a curated list of tools that we feel are worthy.
For a list of DAWs we use and to find performers of specific instruments, please visit https://ocremix.org/workshop or ask in our discord.
Sage Recommended
1. Instruments
1.1 Drums
Addictive Drums by xln audio ($159 || complete: $869) [drums]
ML Drums by ML Sound Lab (free) [drums]
Steven Slate Drums by steven slate drums (free || $119) [drums]
- EZDrummer ($179) [drums]
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Superior Drummer ($399) [drums]
1.2 Samplers
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Kontakt (player: free || regular: $299) [sampler] [instrument building tool]
- Heritage Percussion by Impact Soundworks (free) [sampler] [tribal percussion]
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Super Audio Cart by Impact Soundworks (gameboy: free || complete: $149) [sampler] [chiptune]
- Shreddage 3 by Impact Soundworks [sampler] [guitar]
- Impact Soundworks collection has a lot of instruments difficult to find, such as the Oud ($99)
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Spitfire Labs - free [sampler] [textures] [orchestral] [live instruments]
Notable Lab Instruments: Arctic Swells, Astral Forms, Frozen Strings, Strings, Strings 2, Amplified Cello Quartet
- BBC Symphony Orchestra (free) [sampler] [orchestral]
1.3 Synths
Odin (free and open source) [semi-modular synth]
Phase Plant by Kilohearts ($199) [semi-modular synth]
Pigment by Arturia ($199) [wavetable synth]
Serum by Xfer ($189) [wavetable synth]
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Omnipshere ($499) [hybrid synth] [wavetable synth]
- Trillian ($299) [sampler] [synth] [bass]
Spire by Reveal Sounds ($189) [synth]
Surge XT (free and open source) [hybrid synth]
VCV Rack (free || pro: $149) [modular synth]
Vital (free || pro $80 || subscribe $5/month) [wavetable synth]
Zebralette (free) [spectral synth]
2. Effects
Deelay by sixthsample (free)
Guitar Rig by Native Instruments (player: free || pro: $199)
Helix Native by Line 6 ($399) [guitar amp]
illformed Effects:
- dBlue Glitch (free but may require jbridge) [glitch] [stutter]
- Glitch 2 ($59.95) [glitch] [stutter]
iZotope:
- Stutter Edit ($199) [glitch] [stutter]
- Vinyl (free) [vinyl record]
Kilohearts Essentials by Kilohearts (free)
Slate Digital
- Fresh Air (free) [vintage exciter circuits and advanced dynamics processing]
TH-U by Overloud ($269)
Valhalla Effects:
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Super Massive (free) [reverb]
- Vintage ($50) [reverb]
- Delay ($50) [delay]
Xfer:
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OTT (free)
3. Utilities
FabFilter (Pro Q 3: $169)
iZotope Utilities:
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Ozone (elements: $49 || standard: $199 || advanced: $399)
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RX (elements: $49 || standard: $299 || advanced: $799)
SPAN by Voxengo (free) [eq analysis]
TBProAudio
- ISOL8 (free) [Mix monitoring tool]
- TDR NOVA (free || ge: €60) [equalizer]
- Kotelnikov (free || ge: €50) [wideband dynamics processor]
Notes
Native Instruments offers a starter pack with several of the recommended tools called Komplete Start (free)
Free(ish) DAWs (https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2015/11/11/free-daw-software/ - he updates this regularly):
- Reaper
- Cakewalk
- Sibelius
- GarageBand
- Audacity (audio)
Cheap Stuff / Sales
- Black Friday / Day after Christmas / Spring / Summer usually have sales
- Humble Bundle often has VSTs, sfx, and samples.
Heavyvocity has some good textural tools (instruments & effects)
Sample Packs:- 99 Sounds’ (free)
- 99 Sounds’ two 99 Drum sample packs (free)
To Add
To Review
SINE Player, Soundpaint, Musio
Orchestral Tools, 8Dio
NES VST -
This was the original above
Below is the remix
The original track has a lot of room to breathe, very specifically tuned drums to match the synth, and the synth has some mid/low EQ to really fill the space coupled with some noticeable reverb. What you've added, especially around 0:48/0:49 with the bass really grounds the song, making it feel a lot fuller. You'll need to make sure that the song feels full of energy and not just "busy" by adding a little more room for the melody to breathe. Additionally, I would tune the drums in the same keys that the original song is to get a similar effect/feel. Also - if you listen to my songs, I love panning drums - but make sure you're not over doing it. We want it to feel frantic and full of energy - we don't want it to just feel busy and cluttered. To do this, you can pick and choose what's panning, usually you'll want your drums to have relatively set panning locations maybe with the exception of closed hats (as you'll see often that there are 2 to 4 closed hats in this style music each with a preset pan to give the perception of movement, usually between 20L and 20R). I think having the synth pan is fine, especially if the percussion is grounded - again the goal is chaos while avoiding clutter. As a style recommendation, having a low end drum or rumble would really add a semblance of stability in the first 30 seconds to foreshadow your bass entering later. This way it kind of teases that it's more than just this tension you have built up in the beginning.
If you want to jump in the #workshop discord channel - feel free to @ me (@Xaleph) if you want to share screens to go over any of this, would love to see this song in a finished state!
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Yeah - just had time to listen to this all the way through. It's definitely a sampled mix, which is enjoyable but definitely violates our submission standards. You still have a great structure where you could add your own take (without any samples).
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I’m not sure it’s more than 50% like you said. I can still provide proper guidance if you’d like when I’m in my studio tomorrow.
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I'm really excited - we have some cool stuff planned ahead!
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I really enjoyed this piece and have gone back to listen several times now. I love the playfulness, the percussive fills, sfx choices, placement of the arp/melody, transitions, sound choices, pretty much nearly everything. I do wish it was a bit longer, but that's mainly because I just like the song =)
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This song when I first heard them working on it had me in tears. I'm so glad to see this on the front page. What an excellent composition and vocals!
- Thirdkoopa and pixelseph
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I love the intro, piano, percussion - it has a super chill vibe. The mastering is really well handled as well. Not sure how I missed this years ago as @OceansAndrew said - but it's quite good. I could totally mix this into a psytrance theme. The entire song is absolutely beautiful. Great work!
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I like the flow - has a great relaxed rhythm and some good plucked sounds to offset the panflute. The percussion work adds some nice depth to the piece with it's well placed movement and panning. Many of the sounds are dated but the arrangement carries well.
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Synths are super cheezy but the guitar and drums really carry this piece. The 1:30+ part really adds some great dynamics. I also liked the double guitars at 2:50ish.
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Anytime I see "bLiNd" I know I'll hear something amazing! I loved how he incorporated the source so well into the different parts of the trance genre. Great work - also check out the album that'll be coming out soon from him, can't wait to hear it!
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The synth quality in this song and arrangement is absolutely on point. The panning is great in the beginning and it's always a pleasure to listen to MkVaff's work. The intricate percussion is also fun to listen to - Thank you!
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I really enjoyed the piano work in this piece along with some of the panning. The EQ, mastering, and overall arrangement is on point - which is par for the course with MkVaff. Thank you and great work!
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I didn't forget about this project - I'm working through some other songs and will be pushing this a little more once I finish.
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Weather permitting - I'll be there each day.
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On 1/2/2024 at 4:16 PM, Mazedude said:
I don't see a thread already for this so I guess I start it... who is going to be at MAGFest 2024?
I'm going for the first time in several years; if there's an OCR group hangout or anything happening, feel free to text me at 315-744-2839. Looking forward to it!
I live like 30 minutes away. If you have an emergency or need some music equipment last minute, text me and I can help.
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I got tickets for my daughter and I - I'll be going, unsure about daughter's schedule.
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On 12/18/2023 at 5:17 AM, Sengin said:
I'm talking about inserts. Instead of sending your main signal through the reverb, split the signal (e.g. in Reason you'd use the spider audio merger/splitter, but in every DAW it's different) and send only one through to the reverb. But before it hits the reverb, send it through an EQ to e.g. roll off the lows. Then merge it (the EQ'd + reverb'd signal) with your main signal.
In Reason you have the side chain filtering as well in the mixer. I really don't use this as often as I should, I usually do a parallel track for reverb and EQ the reverb (and then sidechain the main onto the parallel track if necessary), or I just use a reverb vst that already has ducking and EQ already built in.
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23 hours ago, WorkNoFun said:
Yay! My favorite OC tradition.
Only just poked at it as I want to save this for later when I eat dinner, but I can already tell it's going to be great. Great job all!
My only tiny bit of criticism are the track name seem a little generic, OC always have fun with their naming, don't just call a song "source"!
BTW: Did you happen to have sources and composer breakdowns for the tracks that aren't obvious? OC used to be good a doing this, but the last several albums have been neglecting these fields... and I'm waaay to rusty myself, I can tell "Ice Paradise Zone - Act 2" is no doubt from a Sonic game, and there are a lot of traditional sings I see too, ie. "O Holy Night", "Greensleeves", etc., but also a lot are going over my head here, and I'm drawing blanks. (damn my old age!!!)
I had given alternative titles but erm…
Night of O Holiness
Misfit Isle
Little Boy of the Drum
something like that
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For Reason, kiloHearts was free for a while and it has a lot of excellent fx including filters.
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I'll be on Metroid
Sonic 2 - Hidden Palace (Industrial Remix?)
in Post Your Game ReMixes!
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I think the change in genres could work - but you'd need to add space for the transition. I have to agree with the other comments here though - would love to see more work from you, especially in that first genre (but I'm biased towards EDM haa haa).