Sir_NutS

Yeah... this is why I don't like winning sometimes, I kill PRC with my picks.

It's 3 copies of the original signal. Reason has this amazing utility machine to split audio signals that can create as many copies as you want which I'm a big fan of because it allows me to do quite a lot of stuff by starting simple. Most of my dubstep bass synths for example, are made by spliting an audio signal and manipulating it in different ways while also adding other layers of sounds. The idea behind it was basically take the simple pad which wasn't bad but lacked movement and character, and doing the movement in the stereo spreads signals using bandpass filters. This allows me to sweep the frequency of the L and R splits idependently and at different rates and amounts by using slightly different sets of lfos, which creates a really rich stereo sound. You can do this without splitting the signal like this but this creates the problem that it loses strenght and body, which is why I also kept the raw split intact and mostly in the center.

Also since Garpocalypse asked about it I'll go into a bit of detail about the production techniques I used for my mix. I believe everyone should give a little insight on what they do, I'm always learning stuff from others and I see these competitions as a way to getting better at this, while having fun. In fact joining competitions (since the now defunct IMC around 7 years ago) was what helped me get better. Anyways I don't know what he wants me to talk about specifically because there's a lot to the production so I'll just talk about some of the new stuff I tried with this mix and the stuff I think ended up sounding better. If you want me to talk about something specific let me know. So I'll start with one of the pads, which is the one that starts the song and is heard through the mix. When I heard the original I felt I could go in a melodic trance direction with this, in the vein of what Hybrid or Sasha were doing back in the late 90's ( , ) The main thing with this genre are the drums and the pads(ambience), so I had to work on getting those right first, which is kind of new for me because I start working on the drums and the bass first for most of my songs because the genres I do have a bigger focus on those.So if you listen to the examples, the pads have a lot of movement and are quite evolving and envelope the listener. So I got a basic soft pad working first, nothing too impressive just a polyphonic pad made out of sawtooth and pulse waves. Then to give the movement I tried something new: I split the signal into 3. The first one stayed raw and a bit centered. Then I ran the other two through 2 different bandpass filters, each bandpass filter frequency knob was being modulated by 2 similar sine lfos going at slightly different rates and moving at slightly different ranges. Then panned onne signal to the left and the other to the right. Not hard pan, but a good amount so they were quite spread out, add reeverb to the 3 signals and voila, a pad that feels wide yet full, has a nice movement to it, and yet feels solid because the raw signal is still coming through the center . Through the song there are some other pads that go in and out to suppor this one but that's the main one and basically the whole ambience of the mix. So I got that right, next are the drums. For these, I actually do a ton of layering with my drums and in fact I have empty layer presets for my projects so when I want to work with something I just have to write the drumline and load samples in the layers till I get a solid layer of drums that I like. For this genere I needed a solid but not dubstep-overbearing kick, a snappy but wide snare that could get ghost notes sounding good (very important for breakbeats)and some subtle hats, not very important for this genre. To give power to the snare and kick I used parallel compression. Some of you may be familiar with the term but I'll explain anyways, With parallel compression what you do is basicall you split your signal in two (or use send effect channels, it's the same). The first one stays raw, so it keeps the character and body of the original, and the other one you compress it heavily so it gets an extreme transient (starting peak, or snap) going. Then you feed that compressed signal to the original, gradually, until you feel the drum is snappy enough while reetaning the characteristics of the original sound After the basic drums were laid out, with breakbeats I usually load a couple of loops just to fill space. I bandpass them so I get just the frequencies I want to be filled in the drumline, and compress the hell out of them as I feel this makes them fill space even more, but I don't compress them to get snap like you would do with parallel compression, I compress them to make them sound squishy in this case and lose all the snap they had. They aren't noticeable that much in the final mix, you can't really hear them much mostly you hear the main kick, snare and hats I wrote in the base drumline, but the loops are in the back making sure it doesn't sound too dull. The acid bass was very important and I love my acid basses. I use them as much as I can if I have the oportunity. I always build them from scratch so they never sound exacly the same in my songs, and because I have a lot of fun doing it. Building one isn't too hard but is a bit long to explain, would be happy to if anyone is interested. The Whistle-y/flutey sound is actually a preset I grabbed and modified it. It was a pad preset initially but I made some modifications to make it sound a bit more like a lead sound. I can't really go into too much detail about how it was built because it's very specific to Reason (it uses maelstrom and a specific wavetable caled ghost-something) As for everything else well if you want to know about something in particular, just ask . As for the mixing and mastering, my golden rule is: use sub-busses, keep your global mixing volume below -9db (I'm usually around -6), and leave mastering for when the song is done. try to get your mix to sound good without mastering, so the mastering process is devoid of any eq or hard compression. My mastering process usually involves only slight compression, slight tube saturation, and limiting to 0db. It's very simple because I focus on getting the mixing right. Hope any of that was useful . EDIT: If you're a Reason user I'll be glad to share the song file.

Sidechaining is not that different in FL than in every other daw. You set your compressor in a mixer channel which recieves the signal to be compressed, and then send the trigger through an aux to that channel. It works like this in every other DAW really.

Hey guys! sorry I forgot to vote again, but here are my short reviews on each mix (in order of preference): 1-Garpocalypse: Pretty progressive rock sound. Some of the changes are a bit abrupt, but overall enjoyable. You did a lot arrangement-wise. Given how long the song is, it never feels old, nice work. 2-FreakyT: pretty close to dream trance but not quite. It needed a bit of a harder, catchier beat to get there. But as you said, it ended more being a chilout song. It was nicely done with good arrangement ideas. 3-Drumj8:In your case I felt it was a bit too far from the original. I liked the signature change it was handled fluidly, but this track needed more work to sound finished. 4-Esperado(bonus): nice work, I felt your song was going for a more dancy vibe than mine, but it's somewhat alike in the feeling of the song. I do feel that the bass is a bit too prominent in some spots though. Thanks for the comments guys. If anyone liked my song enough, I uploaded a more complete version to my soundcloud (It's longer, has some arrangement, mixing and mastering changes) which is much better in my opinion. So again if someone liked it enough, go grab the better version up there https://soundcloud.com/sir_nuts/clear-reflections This was, like the Supremacy compo, a very fun mix to work with. I'll be seeing you all next time!

The line-up for this project is absolutely top-notch (well, except for that Sir_NutS guy). When this album gets released, pants will drop, heads will explode, and world peace may be achieved at last.

Anyone asked for a remix? Well you got one.

Wilrock, my apologies, I had forgotten about this. I will get to work on my track, don't boot me yet!

My track is done and submitted. That's one more down! I'm very happy to be part of this project and I feel grateful for the invitation to contribute to this. I hope I did Area 1 justice, and I'm looking forward to this album's successful release. I've heard the other tracks and they're rock solid.

Hey there folks. http://soundcloud.com/sir_nuts/schala So last night I was talking to my friend Sadorf and he wanted to do one of those one hour compos we used to do back in the day. Looking for a song to remix, it dawned up on me that I had never tried to remix Schala before. So I did, and here's the result. I did half the mix last night and finished it all up tonight, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, it's pretty catchy. I'm posting it here but I don't really have plans of submitting it to the panel (but if you have any feedback, it's welcomed as always), it's an enjoyable mix in my opinion, but a bit on the simple side. It was done for fun and in a very short time! Anyways I hope someone around here enjoys it.

Mine should be done between today and tomorrow. Runs for around 4 mins, just need an outro at this point.

Things are moving along.

I love LPs. But only if: 1- The LPer is pretty awesome at the game and isn't save stating or cheating 0r 2-The LPer is fun, entertaining or informative. Makes for a very fun time.

https://soundcloud.com/sir_nuts

Hey, you have an Earthbound avatar. Just saying.

This is what I've hoped nintendo to do for around 10 years now. I will be joining soon.

I really don't see whats special about fl's piano roll. In fact, I'll go as far as say that there are many DAWs with better piano rolls. But back to the main point, there's not much you can do with a piano roll that can't be done in any other DAW that will be interesting. You can however manipulate FL's synths, effects and chains in new, interesting ways that you probably wouldn't be able to manage in other DAWs, since FL has some unique synths and effects that you won't find elsewhere. At the end of the day I will just vote for the song I liked the most in general, but doing interesting and new stuff that I haven't seen before or seeing stuff done in a different way is more valuable in the context of this particular competition.

ToN's laptop asploded (thank you murphy) aso he couldn't complete a song for last round. BP's up for this one. as for who do I vote, I do agree with flexstyle. FL stopped being my tool of choice a long time ago, but I joined this compo because I thought it'll be fun to grab that ol' 3xosc I did so many mixes with and give it a spin again. Since this compo is based around limitations I'm generally more impressed with techniques that manage to break the box of the vanilla FL sound.

Though vote! also: pianos.

Someone do this one please. Sample:

Donkey Konga anyone?

Just submitted my song, I don't think I'll be able to work more on it since I won't be home for a while I remixed Herzog Zwei's "Sleight of Hand"

Well, I'm almost done with my song. I did something Psychedelic Techfunk-ish, which I never tried before, but ended up being kinda cool.