Darangen

Yeah, that's an option. I usually have my rhythm guitars bus'd and cut a few db out at 2k hz on the bus, but I don't usually have a part where the rhythm guitars are the focus. I've found that usually electric guitars don't have many defining characteristics around 2k, and while they would definitely sound bad if you scooped everything out there, there isn't a noticeable difference between cutting 2-3 db out in that range, as long as your Q setting is appropriate. I'd set the Q around 4 or so - but you'll have to see how it sounds with the vocals there. If the vocals are struggling, adjust it accordingly. The key is finding what works for the song. What works for one song may not work for another, and while there are general guidelines for mixing and eq'ing, in the end you have to tweak it to fit the project you're on. I'll be trying to keep an eye on this, but if you upload a new version send me a pm and I'll make sure I don't miss it!

I actually have the bass on my amp cranked to about 6-7 of 10 for some of my sounds. The rule of thumb here is that there is no rule of thumb, each guitar is going to sound different in each amp you plug it into. If you had my exact guitar, but plugged it into your amp, it'd sound different - or if you had my exact amp but plugged your guitar into it, it'd sound different as well. The next thing you have to decide is what sound you're looking for. I usually prefer to get a nice full sound from the amp and record that purely. It's ok to have bass on the rhythm guitars, it helps fill out the sound and keeps the guitar from sounding super thin. Some people scoop out all the mids so it cuts more. If you're planning on adding vocals, cutting the mids a little bit usually helps give the vocals the room they need. My advice is leave the bass on the guitar while recording, don't kill it before it gets into your DAW because it's a pain in the rump to try and fix a sound after it's been recorded. Make your guitar sound sweet, rich and full coming out of your amp. Then record that exact sound into your song. Once you have that awesome sound in your project, add a high-pass eq and set it to roll off frequencies below about 120 hz. That'll make room for the bass. If you're adding vocals later, go ahead and knock out some frequencies around 2k hz, a 2-3 db reduction should be more than enough. If you're familiar with sweeping for resonant frequencies, do that. If not, learn how - then do it.

mv, your interpretations and soundscapes always make my ears smile.

I think the piano intro is a bit long. In my opinion, shorten the piano intro to less than 15 seconds so the piano solo in the middle can shine. With a grooving bass line, this could be pretty awesome. You need more melody in the non-piano parts though, it sounds like a back-up track as is.

I have more than just 2 guitars, but here are some pics of my two most recent additions: My Ibanez Artcore Semi-Hollow body: (also has my M-Audio Keystation 88 Pro in the back there) And here's a few pics of my baritone Ibanez SZ320: I'll post more of my guitars and other instruments when I have a digital camera again.

I've had as many as 6 identical takes for a super-thick sound. Depends on the sound you're looking for imo.

I actually do this a different way, but with the same results. It's a bit much, but basically I plug my guitar into a mixer line-in, straight from the guitar to the mixer, then the left out of the mixer is plugged into my multi-effects pedal and the right out is plugged into my amp. The I use my audio interface and go direct from the pedal as well as mic'ing the amp so I'm getting 2 takes at a time played exactly the same.

The structure's getting better, yes. I think the drum break down sounds a little weird but it could just be the drum sounds. Which program are you using to make this?

The piano is kinda loud (could be 3db quieter or so and still be at the front where it belongs), and at points expressionless. I'm not sure if you're punching in each note on the piano or if you're recording it live with a midi controller, but go in there and vary the velocities so it sounds a little more human, and if you're quantizing add some swing. I like where it's going though! The reverb is sounding nice too, sounds like just the right amount. Keep going with it, you're doing great!

This does sound cool. However, it's almost the exact same thing as the original - even down to the choice of instruments. - It's a direct cover with better sounding instruments than the PS version up until the last minute, where You're Not Alone kicks in with a little arrangement. - The transitions are cut n' paste sounding. - The guitar sounds expressionless, which is often the case with VST guitars. If you can't program some more life into them, find a real guitarist and ask them to do the parts for you.

It's definitely a challenge taking a small/short source tune and turning it into a 3+ minute arrangement. Some things you may want to try out: - You could create a progressing intro, holding the melody back for a bit while building up the energy. This works extremely well with techno. That way, when the melody does kick in the listener is getting something new, and it also feels more powerful and refreshing at the same time. - Non-melodic sections. These are sections in a song that don't use a melody. They're little breaks in the song where the listener gets to take a breather, so to speak, then you can hit the ground running again by bringing back the melody. Oddly, this changes things up enough to keep most peoples interest. - Similar to the above method, there's the breakdown. This is where you bring things down a bit and drop the energy level dramatically, then build back up again back to the original energy level. I'd suggest doing a search for bLiNd's stuff here on OCR and giving it a listen. It'd be a daunting task to try and match his abilities, but it'd definitely give you some idea of how you can take shorter source tune and turn it into a 5-6 minute arrangement.

And it sounds great! If there was an mp3 download it'd be on my itunes playlist.

John Petrucci doesn't. I'm just coming back from a 5 year absence, so I'm not 100% up to date on what the judges look for. But I know that 5 years ago, covers weren't really accepted.

I'm liking the newer version. I like the new percussive feeling at the very beginning, but it seems to stop pretty early on. I'd recommend keeping that going throughout the track, while mixing up the phrasing a bit to keep it fresh. It's a really cool idea, but it stops as soon as the bongo/conga comes in. The piano sounds pretty dry at parts, I'd put a touch of reverb there, but keep the dryness at 100% for clarity. Maybe 25-30% wet. Keep it building, you're progressing well!

There are some people that can pump out songs in under 3 hours, like zircon. He's just crazy talented. It takes me anywhere from 40-80 hours to complete a song on average. Yeah, that's a pretty big gap. It depends on what is in the song, how many different parts are there, if I am writing as I'm recording, etc. If the songs been sitting in my head for a week and I'm just starting to get it ironed out, it is closer to 40 hours. If I just have an idea floating around in my head, it's closer to 80. 80 hours is a guestimate. But the longest it's taken me to complete a song once I've started it was a week. Take out sleeping, eating and working and it's probably around 72-80.

(You're supposed to provide a link to the source material as well.) It sounds great, so that's a plus. But it lacks arrangement and interpretation, which the judges here look for. This is pretty much a metal cover of the original, not an arrangement. I'd suggest breathing some original ideas into this, put some twists in here and there that make it new and different. Good playing though, you've obviously got some chops!

You don't need to worry too much about production when you're still developing the mix. Right now it seems to be at a very early stage. What you should be concentrating on right now is developing the structure of the song, worry about the eq, compression, etc later once you have a solid structure ironed out. It does lack bass. That's something you'll want to make sure to address. Try some pad's or some ambient sounds to fill out the sound field. Right now it's pretty repetitive, and for only being 1:36 that's saying quite a bit. Mix it up a bit, change the melody, interpret it differently. At the very least change up the instruments so it sounds new. The biggest thing I can point out to you is change. Change it up, keep it fresh, move things around during the song. If you can keep the listener interested, you'll have a good remix. Once you've accomplished being interesting, then worry about the production aspects.

Do yourself a favor and do a google search for some music production tips and tutorials, there are massive amounts of free information out there for those who are serious enough to look for it. That said, this mix has little to no variation. The source tune is awesome, but the interpretation (or lack thereof) just isn't working out. I could've stopped listening halfway through and still heard the entire song. Keep working on it, put new ideas into it, and don't rush to the finish line. Take pride in your work. It takes extremely talented people with years of experience longer than 24 hours to put something together, don't expect that you'll come in and just blow them all away from the get-go. Be patient. My advice would be to refine this, take it for a day and just listen to your changes. Make some more additions the next day, and take another day to just listen. Repeat this until you are 110% satisfied with what you're hearing. Adding instruments and notes is only one part of the process, you have to listen to it over, and over, and over again, tweaking it time after time to make sure you've got the best sounding mix you can produce.

I'm not overly experienced in mic setups for brass, I usually deal with strings. It seems like you basically have 4 room mic's going though, correct? It'll be tough to get a really good stereo image without mic'ing each individual instrument, and even tougher to single each instrument out to give it the tweaks it may need. This is dependent on what hardware you have available to you, but if at all possible it would increase the quality greatly. Best case scenario you'd have an audio interface that allows you to mic each instrument to its own channel/track. If you do have this available to you, use it. Spread the musicians out a bit and set each one up with a decent dynamic microphone pointing right at the sound holes of the instrument. Then have a few condenser microphones around the room for some natural ambiance sound. Worst case scenario, you have each musician perform their track separately. Basically setting them up in a room with headphones and recording them playing along with a scratch track. Either of these options will give you greater control over the dynamics of the overall sound your mix has. There are ways to use the 4 tracks you have now and mix those and make it work, however I have no experience or advice I can offer in that situation.

There's no quick and easy method to maximizing volume. The main tools that allow you to turn it up without peaking and clipping are compressors, limiters, and eq. Basically, if the track is clipping, a limiter will get rid of those clips and still maintain the integrity of the sound, for the most part. If your track is too quiet, you might consider compression. Compression brings up the quiet parts and puts a lid on the louder parts giving you a more consistent volume level. You don't want too much compression or you'll start hearing the instruments pumping instead of sounding natural. In this style that's even more important, pumping brass is just a huge no-no. EQ lets you single out good or bad frequencies and gives each instrument it's rightful place on the tonal spectrum. For this you probably won't have to boost many frequencies, but you may want to sweep for some dissonant frequencies on each instrument so it doesn't get muddy.

Mixing note - I could be wrong but sounds like your bass string is panned right. It'd probably be better off sitting in the middle so it has more presence. While this definitely sounds cool, I'd echo The Vagrance in saying that it quickly turns into a note for note copy of the original (MIDI Rip). There's still plenty of time to work in some new flavors, just be sure to keep that in mind - the judges are going to want your unique interpretation on the source material, not merely a change of instruments. Could use some high end percussion as well, a tambourine or shaker or something that'll give it that pristine sheeny sound. It's off to a good start! Just keep your imagination running !

The pad/sine wave is a bit loud and grates on the ears after a while. I'd recommend either -3db'ing it or making the reverb a bit wetter on it to help with that issue. At 2:30 where the melody comes in, it's a bit quiet compared to the other leading sounds going on. It takes a while for things to start happening, and regardless of a minimalist approach or not, you need to find a direction for this to go. The first 2 minutes utilize the same sounds, same feel, and practically the same notes. It isn't until around 2:30 until things noticeably switch up. I'm a fan of longer songs, and this is a fine foundation for the first 3 minutes or so, but it still needs some spice - something to make it pop and catch peoples attention.

I listened to the Hylian Suite first, then the Fanfare in the first post afterward. This has some serious potential! The players are extremely talented, and even with one mic and a less than stellar sound room the skill of the players shine through which means with a proper setup and sound engineer this could be nothing short of amazing. I do hope you pursue this to it's fullest potential! The arrangement is there, the ability is there, it just needs its proper treatment with the recording aspect.

I redid my remix From Within with baritone guitars instead of standard guitars. Hope you enjoy!

If anyone's interested, I re-recorded this with baritone guitars. You can find that version here: