Darangen

I've always wanted to do an MMX mix.

I've always thought The Passing of the Blue Crown had this kind of potential. You could edit the intro to be shorter if needed and fade it in where you want it, but it has a cool balance of rockin' guitar and quiet piano leads.

I probably have about a dozen remixes I did that were never submitted because I know they stray too far from the source. Doesn't make them bad arrangements, just not necessarily fit for OCR.

www.duelingmixes.com has a monthly release of songs in various styles. There's a subscription, like $27 a month or something, but it's always some good practice.

Your name sounds familiar.

I completely missed season 1, but I'm going to try out season 2.

Sounds really good. The only thing you might run into is it being a bit conservative and not having enough interpretation. Adding the solo was a cool part, but at almost 6 minutes it borders on being a cover instead of an arrangement.

I like DBAD better, but DBAA works too. But I'm a robot.

I'm finally home from MAG after having flights cancelled and/or delayed. Major thanks to Stevo and Val for hosting a bunch of us for a few days, your kindness will not be forgotten. I didn't meet as many people as I wanted to while I was there, but the people I did meet were nothing short of awesome. OCR really does have a great community of people and there aren't many things that can rejuvenate me more than spending time with all of you. My highlights of the weekend were (in no particular order): - Randomly running into Stevo in an elevator after searching for the mysterious room 6082. - Reuniting with the Shumkats from M4. - Late night IRL PP&R discussions with Taucer, RelyAnce and DJP. - Bomberman. - Bomberman. - Bomberman. - Meeting new people that I've heard of but never met. - Nando's. - The panels. (They were cool, but without much that I didn't already know from previous years) There's probably more, and I'm not going to name drop everyone, but thanks to all who went and helped make M13 what it was.

Have fun. Seriously. Because it's probably not going to be that good, unless you have composition and recording experience already. Pick something you enjoy and do it in a style you enjoy. I've found that the tracks I just sit down and have fun with are usually the best sounding ones, and the ones I sit and try hard on usually end up sounding over-cooked.

Link(lol Link for a Zelda mix...): http://www.reverbnation.com/darangen/song/22160673-falling-back-instrumental-version Hey everyone, I recently bought an Eleven Rack and wanted to test it out, so I re-recorded my Remix "Falling Back" to see what it was capable of. I liked the result so I'm posting it here in case someone else may like it too. All guitars and bass were recorded through the Eleven Rack, no additional FX, EQ, or compression. This was just a test to see how the raw sound would come out in a mix.

As a guitarist, I usually just ask for the melodic idea and any reference material the person wants the solo to emulate. If you're looking for personal study, then do what everyone else here is saying.

That's a lot better, but the drums are still a notch too loud in my opinion. Maybe another 1.5-2db (maybe an extra .5db on the snare) or so and I think they'd sit just right. The rhythm guitars sound a lot better, crunchy and punchy. The lead guitars though sound like they're hiding behind everyone. Do you have a lot of reverb on them? Something is causing them to be very mellow and buried compared to everything else. There are a few possible timing issues too with the lead, around 1:45-1:47ish and 2:53-2:55ish from what I can hear, sounds like you're rushing a little bit there.

The arrangement is good. The production could use some work though. The kick is way too loud. I know it's important in this genre, but when the kick is going at it it's really all you can hear. The guitars could be be eq'd to take up some of the higher frequencies to give them more clarity as well. The leads are very faint and quiet, making it hard to hear at times. Try this: turn the volume down really low, just to the point where you're able to start hearing the song. At that point you should hear three things - the kick, snare and lead. If you don't hear those things, and hear them clearly, you need to fix that.

The piano at the end doesn't sound out of place compared to the rest of the song, I think it fits. I think adding a second melody in the 1:37 section would keep things interesting. Not a mimic of the original melody, but something that compliments it.

The panel is about a year behind on mixes, so yeah it could take a while. At the top of the judges decisions thread you can see the date they're caught up to. Cool mix, a bit straight-forward melodically, but it's pretty chill.

Children? The Adventures of Lolo for sure. The puzzle solving they'd learn is top notch.

I haven't been to magfest since M5. I should go. That said, I've preregistered.

I'm pretty sure no EQ is the worst EQ. Both direct and acoustic recordings always either have frequencies you don't want or lack frequencies you do. Not EQ'ing your track is like over stuffing a suitcase where it's about to burst at the seams and saying "Oh well, it fits."

Oh snap, OST for Dust is there! I've been looking for that for a while!

My eyes got tired reading so much, but what I gathered you're looking for a relatively cheap/free way to get high quality spoken voice recordings? Audacity is a great, free sound program that is very simple to use and would do almost anything you'd need to do to your voice tracks. As for quality, the mic does matter. The go-to mic for most podcasters seems to be the Blue Yeti (there's an XLR and USB option). I own one (USB) and can attest to the quality being high. They're built very well, come with their own stand, and are basically plug and play. They run around $90 for the USB version. As far as the how-to for getting the highest quality, sound treatment is nice but probably unnecessary unless you're doing voice acting. If your recordings sound airy then you'll want to look into treating your recording area a bit. A cheap/temporary treatment is using thick blankets, towels, pillows, anything that'll eat up the sound reflections in the room. something directly behind the mic is usually the most efficient option. This should give you an idea of what I mean. Other than that, just make sure you don't have fans or vents blowing air into the mic, or any other sounds being picked up, and you should be on your way to better quality voice recordings.

Much better

Humanization can mean the quantization, but that's not all of it. It's also velocities, timing (which could be quantizing), anything that gives the instrument expression or feeling. When everything is quantized and has little to no fluctuation in velocity it sounds like a machine is playing the part. So maybe dial it back on the quantizing, most DAWs have the option to set how picky the quantizing is so you can find a sweet spot that doesn't kill that human aspect, and depending on the virtual instruments you use there are different ways to pour emotion into them. Could be velocities, could be using a mod wheel, could be having several different tracks for one instrument that has different expressions on each track. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it in the end when you can play it back and not only hear the part, but feel it as well.

The transition doesn't really work in my opinion. It's not so much a transition as it is a "Hold this note for a few beats, then switch songs." When the piano first comes in everything starts to get really busy and it's hard to pay attention to any one thing at that point. I read an article a while back that said that you shouldn't have more than 5 different ideas running at the same time, and 5 is pushing it as it is. I think it can be done if it's done really well, but for the most part I'd agree that most of the time less is more. When everything quiets down a bit after that first section (before the new transition) it just feels much more cohesive and pleasing because it's easier to follow along. Maybe try and simplify that busy section a bit?

I always look forward to your stuff. I'm not sure I enjoy the composition of the solo trumpet. I know the sounds can be fixed and I'm sure they will be, but I just don't think a solo trumpet fits what's written. Maybe a trumpet/horn section? Looking forward to more!