Villainelle
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Posts posted by Villainelle
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Heh, this sounds like an old-school OCReMix. It's not bad, but not really as sophisticated as the kind of stuff that's getting posted these days.
The arrangement is fairly repetitive and simplistic. Sound quality is also on the muddy, flaccid side. Drum patterns are kinda blah. It's not a bad start, but IMO it needs a lot more energy and variation to take it a step beyond a generic EDM remix.
You should post your WIP before you submit to the site so we can help you refine it before you get into that long judging process.
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This is really close to the original, drums aside. The other posters gave you some good technical advice, but if you are trying to make something that would pass OCR standards, you're going to have to be much more imaginative with your interpretation. But hey, kudos for transcribing the song so closely just by ear, that's not easy!
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Wow, this is so weird and good.
Those vocals are really unnerving. Cool shizz.
To my taste, I'd prefer a slight chorus or delay on them to thicken them up; they sound a bit thin and sharp, cutting a little too harshly through the mix. I'd prefer more low end on them as well, however you'd like to go about it - chorus, double them and lower pitch, or whatever; there's a lot of room in the mix.Strongly agree w/Avaris's comment about the percussion sounding repetitive from around 2:00 onward, too.
Just nitpicking as well though. This is great stuff all around. Cheers Reuben, love your work.
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Not familiar with the original, but this is pretty cool. The drumwork is fantastic - are you using loops or did you program them? Overall production is good, clear and crisp. Some of the synth sounds and sequences are a little irritating after a while, though. More filter automation and variation in the patterns would help. It's hard to judge the overall impact of the song from just this snippet, but this sounds like a great start. I can't comment on the quality of the arrangement, though.
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Why not just write it yourself?
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It's definitely too repetitive imo, at least that pulsing synth on the 1 and 3 (which kinda reminds me of the "your car door is open" or "your seatbelt is unfastened" warning beep in most cars
). But overall it's not bad as a start. Like The Lone Ranger said, it needs some structure and direction. This is where a little bit of music theory knowledge will help!You could start by figuring out what key you're in, defining a chord progression, and writing some melodies that harmonize with it. Listen to your bassline and play melodies on top of it. You could have some pads or other sustained sounds follow the bassline to strengthen it and fill out the soundscape. Throw in some arpeggios or brief sequences of melody here and there that harmonize with the chords to fill out the landscape. Use your ears! The bass tends to be the backbone of the song in EDM. YMMV but I find it easier to define the bassline and basic chord progression before I start adding supplementing stuff; that way I know my foundation is solid.
Someone with real knowledge of theory could be more specific. I'm just offering my viewpoint as someone who only knows the basics and also writes EDM.
And hey, a lot of us also use FL, so feel free to post your FLP if you want some detailed help.
HTH.
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Pretty good. A little sparse and repetitive, but nice sound design and great chill mood. Compress that sucker a bit.
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Excellent.
The mix just screams. It's not hooky, but it's dripping with bloody emotion. Vocals sound a little strange to me, though...somewhat sibilant and canned. Maybe too heavy on the compression. That bass, though, is so friggin' phat you could reach out and squeeze it.
Awesome as always, Star. -
Pretty awesome that Miyamoto is holding strong at #2. The other four twats in the top five are hilarious, though. When has Bono been culturally relevant in the last...uh, 15 years? Colbert, meh...his cultural impact is meager compared to most of the others near the top of that list. And Rowling? Her influence has been...to make kids buy and read Harry Potter books. NOT to read more in general. Not to revitalize the flaccid carcass of fantasy. Just to milk the cashcow. That philandering hack even denies being a "fantasy" author. What a joke. And who the hell is the hockey player. I am disgruntled. Go Miyamoto-san! Crush charlatans!
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It's a hardware problem, like Suzu said. A software problem doesn't cause this kind of stuff. And anyway, if it was software, you should still be able to get into BIOS. Can you?
Your description of the fan's activity seems curious though. If you can get a signal to your monitor again, get into BIOS and check your temps. Or take off the case and watch the fans when you start up. What is your CPU? Do you have a fan on it or just a heatsink? Does that fan start up, does it act strangely? I've had so many stock CPU HSFs fail, and the issues are similar to this.
Of course, if the mobo is failing, it could cause the same wackiness all around. It really is hard to say. Let someone take a look at it.
If you have data on your HD that you want to save, take it out and back it up on another comp.
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This is one of the most liberal arrangements I've ever heard on this site. I didn't recognize the source in the first few minutes either, though it does seem like there are sketchy allusions to it. Agreed with CHz, trying to pick out the source isn't very fruitful; this mix seems better enjoyed as a mood/atmospheric piece. The last minute slapped a huge grin on my face.
It does seem more "inspired by" than "remix of," though. -
Yeah, same as Avaris and Miszou here. Learning some really basic stuff like the circle of fifths, how to make simple chords and some typical chord progressions etc. was enough to get me going. There are programs and plugins out there that can assist you in learning too. One plug that I love as a chord reference is Tonespace.
VGMusic has tons of game MIDIs you can look at to see notation (though keep in mind, it's done by fans, so it's not always 100% accurate).
Like Avaris said, just get in there and get your hands dirty. When you get stuck, ask questions! I run into stuff I don't understand all the time, but a good friend of mine is in school for jazz performance/theory and answers my silly questions.
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I've been listening to this almost nonstop the past couple weeks. This is so, so good. Both versions of "Trip the Breaker" are easily my faves; such a kickass song.
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Wow, this is a difficult piece to analyze. I like a lot about it, and I think that's why its weaknesses are so disappointing to me, so please take this with a grain of salt.
That bass in the intro gives a pretty bad first impression. Things pick up quickly, but I don't really feel engaged by this track. The drum loops are excellent, but in many cases their tone and FX don't seem to gel with the synths; often there is too much reverb on the drums which distances them from the other instruments; the effects in general seem a little lopsided in their application. The ape noises are cute but don't seem to fit the vibe of the piece at all, and are painfully overused in some places. The sequences at 1:47 and 2:24 in particular are just unnecessary IMO and almost killed the mood for me.
Yet overall, I don't feel much emotional drive in this; it sounds like a bunch of cool sections stitched together with some less cool bits, with little variation in energy or sense of climax. The song is so uniformly loud and compressed to bursting punchiness that there's not really much room to breathe, to build to crescendo etc. I was also surprised that, while the drums are programmed very well (or are sliced loops?), there are almost no rolls or fills, a classic staple of creating climactic tension and release in electronic music; it sort of gives the impression that these are just loops being turned on and off. There is a definite lack of energy at the usual fill/roll spots at the end of every four, eight etc. bars. Apart from rhythm, the melodic and harmonic arrangement is solid and employs a great array of sounds and skillful filtering, although it also suffers from the inability to breathe, to rise and fall emotionally in the track.
This is a difficult piece to form a solid opinion on; I can see why the judging was split right down the middle. There are a lot of good elements in this and sections where things work wonderfully and the track recalls commercial bigbeat, but the weak spots are constantly marring the track as well. On the other hand, there's a huge palette of sounds in this, subtle effects and one-shots that keep things interesting; the production is at least big and full-sounding, despite its problems in that area. Ultimately, I like this and feel it's a keeper for its strengths, but also feel that there are a lot of flaws that hold it back. In judging terms, "borderline yes" seems appropriate.
Despite all that, I find myself listening to this on repeat, and really enjoying it as background music without focusing too hard on it. It leaves me looking forward to your future work, Siamey, as you'll certainly build on your strengths and overcome your weaknesses.
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What's causing the noise? If it's clipping, you really should fix it in the project file and re-render. Open the file in any audio editor; is there a flat line in the waveform at the point where you hear the crackling?
If not, then yeah, you can attenuate the noise by EQing. Go to the part of the track where you hear the crackle. Set up an EQ filter with a very narrow band, and either raise or lower it as far as you can go, then sweep it through the frequency spectrum until you hear it either emphasizing or deemphasizing your crackle (depending on whether you're cutting or boosting)--where the crackling sound reacts, you've found the frequencies you need to cut. Automate the EQ to just apply a cut to those frequencies during the crackling, and re-render. You may want to chain several EQ plugins together if the sound needs a lot of cutting to attenuate it to where it's not so noticeable. Try to keep your EQ band as narrow as possible to avoid affecting the rest of the sounds playing at that moment.
There are some plugins that attempt to do this automagically. Check kvraudio.com.
edit: BTW, are you sure the file isn't corrupt somehow? You didn't mention if it was a WAV, MP3, or what. If it's an MP3, try just re-encoding it from your source file first. If it's a WAV and it's *not* clipping, and you don't remember hearing that crackle while you were mixing, maybe the file is corrupt. It's best to re-render if you can rather than trying to find a band-aid for it.
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Cool stuff. Very interpretive! I like the new musical phrases you've written, they really flesh out that simple melody. This is going to be a good one when it's all polished up, methinks.
Production could be crisper and punchier, and there are some sections where the texture is a little bare and could stand to be thickened up (essentially all of the drop-outs). The beginning and ending are also pretty abrupt, but you probably know that.
Yeah, really digging this, totally hits the spot for interpretation imo. Moar prz.
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Hey! You're using imagery from DeadDreamer.com on your SC pages. That guy is one of my graphic design role models.
TBH, I haven't read through your entire self-analysis. It's a little overwhelming, and I prefer to use my own ears first. I know it's frustrating when people point out stuff you already know (or don't agree with), but you should give them a chance to listen with fresh ears - there's often stuff you get desensitized to after listening to your own work over and over.
Okay, on to the song...this isn't bad. It's on the muddy side. The two major problems to me seem to be: 1) most of the song has a jarring sort of jerkiness to it, with sudden crashes, gated sounds, etc. that don't flow very well and create a very grating, choppy sound overall; 2) it's not very cohesive, meaning again, that it doesn't flow from section to section very well, and I don't get a lasting impression from the song or from any particular section when it's over (or even as I'm listening to it).
To be more specific, I would go easier on those cymbal crashes, for starters. Work on smoothing out transitions. One point that stuck out to me was around 2:21, where this neat arp comes in and other sounds slowly build up; I liked that - but then suddenly it's back to the cymbal crashes. I think you could actually stand to be more repetitive with some musical phrases, build harmonies around them, give something to the listener to hold on to and follow through the song. Also - and this is somewhat a matter of taste - be aware that you have some really harsh, abrasive sounds and sequences in this that are difficult to listen to over sustained periods of time. The soft pads at the end and that arp sequence I mentioned were sort of relieving breaks from the abrasive sections. You may want to use more elements like that to introduce smoother, more flowing qualities.
I've never heard the source, actually, so the structural problems could be because of that. If there's no strong melody or chord progression, it's going to be hard to make a coherent remix and is going to require a lot of invention on your part.
Not going to comment on the production aspects, as I think it would be more fruitful to focus on the arrangement at this point. You have some cool ideas and sounds in here, but they're not working structurally - they just sound kind of randomly thrown together.
Anyway, good luck, keep practicing. Sometimes it's best to put a song aside if you've put so much work into it and it's not quite turning out how you'd hoped; you may not really be progressing with it anymore, or learning much from it, just kind of playing damage control with what you've already got, you know? Give your ears and brain a break from it, try something new, teach yourself new tricks and methods of working with something you're not as emotionally or intellectually invested in. You may realize there's nothing more you can do with the song, or maybe you'll have fresh insights into how to make it work. Just my 2c.
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This is pretty cool. I like the sound design and the various drum patterns. (Appropriately enough, Red XIII is my random mascot right now in the top right of this page.
)There's no clear lead instrument, though, so there's no direction to the listener to focus on something, and the mix feels thin. It sounds like you have a nice background and concept for a mix here, but it needs some meat and potatoes. This theme is one of the most popular from the game too, so you really have to step up and be ambitious with that familiar melody. I also think the intro drags on too long before introducing supporting instrumentation; I'd suggest introducing either bass or drums just a bit earlier to keep it interesting.
It's hard to be more specific since it feels like there's a very important element missing from this (a lead), but I do like the overall feel, the intricate drums, subtle FX, etc. Keep at it.
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Not bad. Fun, dirty, raw, nice to turn up loud and chair-mosh to.
It does feel like there's a certain energy missing though. Seems like the guitar work is more technical than impassioned, and maybe the volume dynamics, transitions etc. aren't as dramatic as they could be. Still a very solid, enjoyable mix. Hope to hear more from this remixer. -
I did two album covers for OCR, check out this page: http://leah.johnsandford.org/graphics.html
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Aw, just saw this got rejected.
The judging thread has some good advice and it seems this just needs a bit of tweaking to pass. Upping the volume and energy of the drums would really invigorate this piece. I loved this when I heard the earlier WIPs and still think it's great - hope you tweak it and resub soon Wynd. -
What a sad day. Best wishes to everyone who's affected by this.
On a side note, Jack Thompson can eat a dick. If he and his sort actually wanted to change anything, they could try donating to campus/youth counseling services, for starters. But soundbites and suing are the American™ Way.
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NP, sorry I didn't get time to redo those clips!
I dig the song, really high energy, driving stuff. Sounds just like a boss fight, kinda reminds me of some music from the Lunar series. Those kick rolls are sick! Nice work.
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This is really well done, fantastic FX processing. It feels a little thin texturally, but still quite enjoyable as a moody, effects-driven piece. Cool stuff.
CASTLEVANIA ROCKS! Grim Reeper Stage
in Post Your Game ReMixes!
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Zshare always crashes Firefox on me...why. ; ;