Darangen

It's pretty close to the original. It's hard to hear a lot of what's going on because it's so muddy though. Use an EQ to roll off the lows (start around 100hz and move it around a bit until find a good spot that doesn't sacrifice the quality of the sound) from any instrument that isn't considered a bass instrument and that should clear up a lot of it. When you have a lot of guitars and strings/pads sometimes you'll have to scoop out some low mid frequencies as well, around 200-250hz. The playing and singing are done pretty well, kudos on that. Just practice those vocals so you can hit those notes easier I'd recommend trying to make this your own a bit more, add some new ideas so that people listening will hear something new. It's really long too, since it's so close to the original which is also long. I'm a fan of longer songs, but a lot of people aren't. Good stuff!

It's a pretty cool cover. Not sure if I'd call it a remix though as there aren't too many new ideas in here. It sounds cool and nostalgic though. * A lot of times the instruments sound fake. Not the samples, but the lack of humanization makes it sound like you took a midi file and plugged it through some virtual instruments, hit export and called it a day. Look into learning how to humanize the instruments so they sound like someone is playing them instead of a machine. It's most evident in the drums and strings, and sometimes in the guitar (I can't tell if it's real or not, but some sections lead me to believe it's another virtual instrument). * The drums are really quiet. Much too quiet for a metal mix. If you're just looking to have some fun and share some music, this is fine and I encourage you do to so. However, if you're looking for your stuff to appear on the front page you'll need to do a lot more interpretation of the source compared to what you have here. Good stuff though! Keep it up!

I use a lot of NI stuff, and I've found that calling them is by far the best way to actually get help.

You're improving. The drums are written a lot better, but they still sound weak in my opinion. Mainly a mixing issue and not a composition issue. Have you heard of parallel compression? A lot of rock genre's and even some electronic music uses parallel compression on the kick and snare drums, sometimes even the toms, to give them extra punch and make sure that they still stand out and sit right in the mix at the same time. You could try watching these videos and see if anything catches your ears: The idea is to send some of the drums (ideally your kick and snare) to an aux bus and compress the crap out of that bus. Usually something crazy like a 20:1 ration to really squish it. Then you mix it together with your normal drum bus until you get a nice punchy, full sound. What this allows you to do is keep the compressed sound of the drums while maintaining dynamics as well because you can actually control the volume of the super-compressed sound. Usually a good guideline is to turn the mix down really quiet, like where you can just start to hear it, and pay attention to what you can hear. What you should hear is the kick, the snare, and the lead melody. If that's not the case, you should probably go back and play with it a bit more. When I did this to your mix I heard the melody and the guitars and some crash cymbals. The kick and snare need some more presence and parallel compression could give you that extra push they need.

I just now saw this. I'll give it a go, seems fun.

If you're trying to express your creativity through music and a loop accurately reflects the music in your head, then go for it. You're not cheating yourself or anyone else out of anything at all. The only time using a loop is "cheating" is when you're specifically trying to make a loop on your own. If you bring a store bought/made cake to a party, is that cheating? Nope. If you're trying to learn to bake a cake and go buy a cake from a store instead, is that cheating? Yeah. So bottom line, if you're just wanting to make music then don't worry about it, they're tools that are available to you to make your ideas come to life. If you're trying to learn and create your own loops, then work at it and start making your own.

Kicks/Toms with the palm muting is a pretty standard staple, you could use snares or crash cymbals to accent the short chords. The other school of thought is to have the bass and kick work together to make them both sound bigger, it gives the kick a nice boom and the bass a nice attack. If you don't want to have throbbing double kicks constantly you could try that. As far as mixing vs composition, it's really both. It's more the composition right now, work on getting that first and worry about mixing later, but similar to what I said above, you want the bass and kick to work together. Pick one to cover the low end, and one to cover the punch. As for the guitars, it'll be tempting to want to turn them up in the mix but you really just want them to add a bit of color. Distorted guitars have a tendency to stomp all over everything in any mix, so just be sure to roll off the low end and let them support the drums and bass instead of try to lead. Get the bass and drums working first, then slowly bring up the guitars until you have the sound you want. It's not easy, so don't let it frustrate you if it doesn't sound amazing right away, once you get the hang of it it'll get easier.

Energetic metal is more than just making sure the guitars sound great, it's about making the guitars, drums, and bass all work together to have a united punch in the face feel. Right now your guitar riffs are fine, but the drums feel bland and boring and it's putting a damper on any energy you would be getting from the guitars. Most metal music has guitars and drums hitting at the same time to give it a super huge attack which creates the energy you seem to be looking for. Try coordinating your drums with your guitars and/or vice versa and see how much more energy you get.

This is what I got just running it through Guitar Rig and playing with it for about 5 minutes, which I think would fit a metal genre pretty well: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hqpxktxsnvoksn8/katamari-metaltest.mp3 Most people will always tell you to run to the store and buy new gear. While that sometimes is a decent option, it's almost never the only option. Make sure you know how to use your amp/amp sim before you go spend hundreds on a new guitar/amp hoping that will magically fix your problems. Play with all the settings just to see what they do, take notes on what sounds good to you and use them later.

I'm back And I have 7 years of ideas in my head too!

It's more about mixing your levels and eq in mono, then spreading everything out once it sounds good in mono. You rarely actually want a mono track. If you mix and eq in stereo, it's easy to miss conflicting frequencies because they're coming out of different speakers. It's also easy to find something is buried in the mix later on when you walk out of the room (like dannthr suggested) because you mixed your levels in stereo instead of mono. Things tend to disappear easily, and other tracks tend to pop out louder than expected. So mix your levels and do your eq while in mono before doing any panning. Once that sounds good, then pan things out a bit so that people listening in stereo also have a good mix.

Kanthos is legit, you can trust him completely. I got some EastWest stuff from him in the past and had no issues with anything.

You've got some real talent! This is a really nice arrangement, kudos I think the samples are holding it back a little, especially when it gets louder - you can really hear the harsher high end.

Your link is broken

I like the idea of the sound you're going for. However, it's really muddy (lower-mid frequencies are drowning everything out) and a bit repetitive. Some EQ love could fix a lot of those issues, but I'd work on changing things up more often to keep things fresh and interesting. The drums I feel should have more presence as well. With this genre, the kick and snare drum should really be driving the beat along with the bass. Some TLC would do wonders for you Keep at it!

First off you should always link the source tune(s) so people have a reference I know the tune though. It's really too short a clip to tell much arrangement-wise, but I think a ragtime feel would be interesting. I know harpsichords don't really have much dynamic capability, but the pianoish keyboard sound could use a little humanization (dynamic and timing variance). The best thing to do when starting out with your first remix is to just have a blast. Don't worry too much about making the perfect arrangement with the perfect production, just have fun with it and make something you love. Most, if not all of the people who've had things posted on OCR, started exactly where you are now. Just make something you enjoy, and if others enjoy it as well that's just an extra bonus.

I like it. I think the drums are too loud and majorly dominate the mix too much, I know the genre puts an emphasis on drums but this is overkill. The solo snare in the first half also exposes some bad frequencies in the eq spectrum that could've made the snare a lot more pleasing if they were tamed. It felt like the melody was in the background whenever the guitar was the lead instrument, seems a little backwards. I think this was caused by the volume of the drums overall, making the strings need to be louder to be heard and making the guitar suffer. Cool take though, sounds like you had fun!

Is the "Currently in the Judging Process" thread no longer being updated weekly? Or is everyone just super busy?

If you're going to go with blankets, http://www.vocalboothtogo.com/ has really good sound absorption blankets for a very fair price. Get a few of these and make a small booth out of them. You can get ceiling hooks from home depot and hang them from the ceiling (that way you can take them down when you're not using them or don't want them taking over your room) for better results as well.

Your stuff always amazes me I think the ambiance is a little overdone personally, but that may just be personal taste. Maybe have something more present cloning the melody so you can keep the ambiance and also have a little more clarity as well?

They also do a thing called Dueling mixes (http://www.duelingmixes.com/) where each month they release tracks for a song and let you mix them for peer review. I do it, it's pretty fun and there's usually a good variety of genres from month to month.

I've had this on my playlist for the better part of a year, and it usually ends up on repeat. Great job!

You should be able to save the settings so you only have to do this once, then just load the settings each time you start on a new song. It may be a pain setting up at first, but after you save and start reloading the settings it'll all be worth it.

If you feel your current DAW is limiting you, then upgrade your DAW. Just make sure it's not just something you're overlooking and is an actual limitation of the DAW. Speakers are nice, but they aren't going to remove your DAWs limitations.

I went to McDonalds today, and ate a McRib. They're back! (At least in Florida)