Villainelle

This is great! Agreed with Avaris, good advice. Leads need to be brought up more. I also agree that there should be a climactic solo at some point, because while the arrangement is gorgeous, it does kind of meander around without much direction. And regarding production - besides the leads needing more definition/presence, I also think you should accentuate the groove between drums and bass to bring up the energy. It sounds like this is unfinished so that's not the actual ending, right? And I believe Soundclick strips off the ID3 tags whenever you upload since it re-encodes to different formats. So yeah, this is hot stuff. You've got a winner here, keep polishing it up. And peace to the Windy City, I miss it.

Not to discourage you further, but...there's a piano/strings version of this already by the late Avien (RIP ; on the Super Metroid: Relics of the Chozo site project. http://smproject.ocremix.org/ Just sayin'. Anyway, agreed with Blake's post above. This is mostly a direct transcription of the original until 2-odd minutes in...but there are some interesting ideas after that point. The waltzy section was pleasantly unexpected. I think you could elaborate a lot more on that. GL, keep at it.

This is lovely! Beautiful arrangement. However, there are some weird sounds--the flute from the beginning has distortion on sustained notes throughout the entire piece, and one of the high timpanis has an annoying ringing resonance, which is especially noticeable after 3:00 when it plays in quick succession. You mentioned that you still have to work on the production so those are probably already on your to-do list. Aside from that, I love this, especially the Kaepora Gaebora and Death Mountain sections. Nice nice. Anticipating finished version.

QFMFE. http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/2237.html (Latest update is actually v37-4: http://bicycle-for-slugs.org/oatmeal37-4.zip) This thing is amazing. Don't let the default skin deter you--someone did a collection of reskins (<- link!) that make it much more useable. I've been messing around with Oatmeal and am just stunned at the quality of it. The arpeggiator is excellent, the XY pad can be set to evolve autonomously, and the randomize patch feature makes surprisingly useable bases for sounds. Really digging it...I think I may put together a bank of presets while trying to learn its intricacies. Just wanted to share this with anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

Not to be an ass, but...why did you install Vista exactly?

Hey Avaris...your comment about using your media player to gauge frequencies--that's not the best way to judge that. There are two great free spectrum analyzers I know of you should try instead. Voxengo SPAN http://www.voxengo.com/product/SPAN/ (Voxengo has tons more excellent free plugs too.) or, Roger Nichols Digital Inspector http://www.rogernicholsdigital.com/inspector.htm Just a heads up. I love this source tune, it's fairly close to my heart...so I'll hold off till you've got it more developed before commenting.

Pure bliss.

edit: these are the two I subbed, in case anyone wants to use 'em http://leah.johnsandford.org/images/ocrlogo01.png http://leah.johnsandford.org/images/ocrlogo02.png

Ohhhh. Love that lead guitar. This is kick-A, sir. Okay, listening to WIP #5. Drums (esp. snare) still sound a bit muddy/cardboardy to me. That snare's tone just doesn't seem to fit the song...can you EQ it to have a little more snap and body? Or maybe just use something like Drumagog to replace it with a sample? *shrug* That's all I can remark on. Arrangement is fantastic and the mix seems pretty strong except for a few minor issues. Can't wait for the finished version.

H'okay, entry completed. My remixer name will be "Villainelle" but I'm keeping my forum nick in parentheses for clarity. Villainelle (Leah) - Mycology

Haha, great source. I've got something.

Cute demo, lots of familiar melodies. Good luck!

Just wanted to toss this in: largely because of recommendations on this site, I picked up a pair of KRK RP5s last week, and am really pleased with them. Listened to a bunch of other monitors in the same $300-400/pair price range at a Guitar Center and these sounded the flattest and clearest. Thanks for the recommendation, OCR. It really is a whole new world of sound through decent monitors. :S

Prince's "1999" > *

Little ambivalent there? This is cool. The beginning (can't really call it an intro ) could be a lot more effective if you didn't start out with everything playing and built it up by layers instead. And, I'm guessing you slapped a limiter/maximizer on the final mix and cranked it up? Lots of squashed dynamics. Might want to use that more sparingly, there are some nice melodies (piano) that get lost because of compression. I like where the song goes from 2:49 to 4:10, though the bitcrushy drums were a little grating and didn't quite gel with the rest for me. Overall, cool track. Could be very transporting if you smoothed it out a bit and went for the whole less-is-more thing. I think there's more "energetic chillout" in this than "hardcore," so maybe you should emphasize that? *shrug* And, just out of curiosity, what's the synth playing the lead at the very beginning? Nice panning on that, and I like the sound.

I came across this guy randomly on a music production forum, just wanted to listen to a brief clip of his stuff but ended up downloading everything I could and spending a few hours listening to it instead. I love when that happens. DZK - http://www.soundclick.com/pro/view/01/default.cfm?BandID=12347 White rapper from VA. Incredibly literate, slightly nerdy but not in a gay nerdcore way (sorry nerdcore fans), excellent flow and delivery. His cheesier subjects are hilarious (check out "High School Girls"), while there's some serious stuff that I just wasn't expecting to hear from a rapper at all (the disturbing "Vile Dialect" about religious zealotry, blurring the lines between good and evil, etc.). Other highlights for me were "We Murderaz," "Only a Minute Ago." I'm still going through all his work, only "Hey Ladies" disappointed me. This guy's talent is a bit scary. ETA: His Kurt Cobain impersonation is eerily dead-on.

Arpeggiated in the same exact way? Using the same exact (highly distinctive chiptune) instruments as the original? C'mon Mustin. Personally, besides the bizarre mental image of Timbaland browsing scene.org, I found it really strange that they would sample something so incredibly distinct and easy to identify. Which leads me to think, while on the whole the song should be pulled and/or Tempest given credit and royalties--this is probably more an issue of miscommunication/ignorance than deliberate theft. Has Timbaland ever publically expressed interest in the demoscene? Not that I know of. Is it more likely that a friend of his or someone in his entourage sent him the chiptune and he used it unaware of its origin? I would think so. If we were talking about, e.g. an electronic artist with roots more closely situated to the demoscene, someone in the entourage would probably have caught the song or at least been intrigued and inclined to question where it came from, recognizing it as a chiptune and checking out the demoscene to see who made it. I think it's more likely that Timbaland and his entourage of hip-hop producers are just ignorant of the demoscene except for whoever brought in the sample. Never heard about the ringtone rip, but it's possible that could be similar. Timbaland is an incredibly successful producer--this guy has people buzzing around him constantly, undoubtedly bouncing ideas off him, giving him shit to listen to, etc. That's probably where this came from. He doesn't "need" to do something like this, and it's such a strange, easily identifiable choice of something to rip that it must be either ignorance or arrogance. And whatever you think of Timbaland, would the guy do something like this and jeopardize not only his but Nelly Furtado's career, just to be a dick? My 2c.

More examples: Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell series. Many suspense/stealth games use dynamic cues to great effect.

No real complaints, man. Nice solid pumping stuff. The panning of the hats near the beginning was a little distracting, though that's the same thing I was messing with in my WIP. We should both probably tone that down and not pan hard to either side. Other thing I noticed, checking out the waveform--lots of compression, as expected. But it sounds like a lot of the high freqs have been cut, esp. towards the end, which gives the whole track a bit of a canned sound. Just something to watch out for when you do the final mix. I would think, drop some mids and boost highs, soften the harshness of the compression and you're gtg. Really enjoying this, could listen to several more minutes of it with steady changes in harmony etc. to keep it moving. I dig most of the stuff you put up here. Keep it up.

Good coding doesn't necessarily make good sites, though. What I like most about VGMix is the self-sustaining, community-fueled approach. It really is of, by and for the people. Anyone can upload as long as they participate in listening to others' work; no middlemen, just popular vote to ensure QC. I like to err on the side of letting in too much crap rather than keeping out too many gems, and so does VGMix. As per my comment over there, though...really hope the various title/guild systems get toned down, or don't figure so prominently in site functionality. The cliquism on both of these sites is pretty tiring. I think priority should be MUSIC then COMMUNITY, not the other way around, but that's just me.

Edgy, memorable. Ziwtra really is quite gifted and it's a pleasure to listen to him evolve. I agree with previous comments about the vocal clips and scratching, mostly the scratching--it might have been more effective toned down a bit--but overall this is something fresh and idiosyncratic. Drum sequencing & processing is amazingly tight, as always in a Ziwtra mix. I'm impressed and would love to hear more experimentation/exploration like this from Ziwtra.

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That is dependent on context and subjectivity, like all art. What may sound "cheesy" to you may be uplifting, hilarious, boring, etc. to someone else. The emotional impact of a song is as complex as the human beings listening to it; you can't dictate what response it will evoke. Delivery and context also color the actual text, so what may look "cheesy" to you on paper may come off with a surprisingly different attitude when sung/accompanied by music. Generally I don't think a song with lyrics will get called "cheesy" in this community unless it is clearly and deliberately tongue-in-cheek. Otherwise I think most listeners here harbor respect for things outside their comfort zone, and will remain open and try to relate to a piece of music however they can. This is assuming you're nervous about your lyrics being called "cheesy." Have you read much poetry? If you're trying to write lyrics, you should. Pre-19th Century English-language poetry put a lot of emphasis on form and structure, which is the stuff people tend to be exposed to in high school. This kind of poetry usually has tight rhyming schemes and rigid syllable counts etc. In the 21st Century, a lot of these implicit guidelines of traditional poetry have been shattered. Poetry now is a messy, obnoxious, wild and free beast. Modern poets regularly ignore traditional forms and rhymes, even deliberately skew the actual form and placement of words/letters on the page itself (e.g., e.e. cummings), and so on. It sounds like you have a somewhat shallow view of what poetry is, and lyrics are essentially just poetry that has a second musical dimension. The answer is no, your lyrics don't have to rhyme. If you are doing a genre piece (e.g. rap) and aiming for contemporary authenticity, you should try to mimic the traditional elements of that type of music--in other words, a rap remix should probably have rhymes. Most styles of rock, on the other hand, are less lyrically stylized and will work with anything from the typical rhyming punk rock verse-chorus-verse, to the rambling disconnected lines of hard rock/metal. My advice is to write the music first. If lyrics come to you during composition, note them down, but don't get hung up on the lyrics and allow them to dictate the music. The exception to this as mentioned above is rap, where lyrics (usually) do come first. I'm a writer (music is the hobby I use to escape from it ) and would be happy to give you more advice once you've actually got something down. I suggest you don't worry too much about rules and forms, and just allow your muse to lead you. Write the music, let the words come to you, and post it for us to listen to. Lyrics especially need musical context for full appreciation, understanding, and criticism. -Leah

http://winlame.sourceforge.net/ Encode to MP3 or another universal format, not every media player supports WMA. And WMA is poor quality.