AMT

Welcome to OCR! If you wouldn't mind, I've got this song I've been working on, and I'd like you to give mastering it a shot. http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10871 Hit me up with a PM to tell me what I need to give you, I've been using REAPER to work on it, but I don't know if that matters or not. Thanks!

Thanks for the advice, I'll try layering some samples, I haven't done that yet. I figured I was just doing something wrong in trying to get it to sound how I wanted it to.

Awesome, thanks for the quick reply! It's a live electric guitar, sometimes I use distortion, sometimes not. To test I just quick recorded in REAPER, peaks at about -11db with no processing at all. Same with live bass. Drums are for more rock / real sounding songs, as opposed to electronic and that stuff. I'm just using samples / soundfonts (Ken Ardency Drums among others). Is that enough information? Thanks! EDIT: Listening back to what I've been working on, it's mainly the drums (Particularly kicks) and overdriven guitar I'm having trouble mastering. The kicks are either impossible to hear, clip, or have absolutely no bass to them, and the song always sounds too empty when I'm trying to use the overdriven guitar, like something is missing from it. I guess my real problem is I can't seem to get a "full" sound out of drums, a bass, and two guitar recordings. Any tips?

Alright, so it's come to my attention while trying to make a few songs that I am terrible at mastering anything. I can tell it sounds totally off, I just can't seem to fix it. So, I have a few questions to clarify some stuff, and any other suggestions people have would be awesome: -About how often should EQ be used? Right now I have some pretty heavy EQing on almost every track (+-6db). Should I leave EQ alone for the most part unless something sounds muddy or is drowning another instrument out? -Compression is a strange one to me too. Just to point me in the right direction, what are some common levels to set, say, recorded guitar at? Drums? If these are too general, would it be too much to ask for a before-after example with the levels you used? I heard the one in zircon's tutorial, but a few more would help a lot I think. If you can help with either of these, or just have some general advice, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!

I've listened to this song almost every time I come on this forum, and I still can't place my finger on what it is that it needs. A suggestion would be to tone down the lower frequencies on the Sound Stone melody instrument you've got in there, it gets a tad muddy, but I really don't know what else to suggest. Someone else who knows better than I could probably give you much better advice. Awesome job so far though, I'm really liking this.

Arrangement wise I'm really liking this so far. The thing that sticks out most to me that you could fix is giving the bass a bit more oomph; I could be wrong, but I think it'd sound a lot better with the low end boosted a bit. You could maybe go with a different sample for it too, but that's up to you. Other than that I'm not really sure what to suggest, the new part sounds pretty good. Looking forward to hearing more!

I can't wait to see Snake do this; it's going to look so ridiculously awesome.

http://myweb.cableone.net/rebelart/PoochypoochpoochRawk.mp3 Alright, updated it. Thanks a bunch for that section, it sounds awesome.

Win on the Rockin'. And yeah, I think it might have, at least partly. There are other elements from games in Smash aside from the characters / levels etc, like the character select screen music in SSB64 was from Kirby's Superstar, I think.

Or costume changes.

http://myweb.cableone.net/rebelart/Poochypoochpooch3.mp3 Alright, added a guitar section and took the above feedback into account. It sounds a lot better, thanks a ton. I still need some more advice mastering wise, and anything else that you think needs attention. Thanks!

Honestly, we're probably going to get Lucas instead of Ness, as he was supposed to replace him in Melee, but Mother 3 hadn't come out yet. Crap, I wish I could play Mother 3.... D:

For Yoshi's Up+B giving him a jump, I just pictured it like Ice Climbers when you have no partner, except a bit further, and in that same hand motion he throws an egg the same way he does now.

Alright, I'll give that a shot!

Updated it a bunch again! http://myweb.cableone.net/rebelart/Poochypoochpooch2.mp3 Please listen and give feedback, I don't know what else to do from here. Thanks!

This level looks pretty neat. I really like the general atmosphere it seems to have going on, and it's finally something more than a flat platform or two. I'll definitely be playing on this one.

When I first heard someone say this, I thought they were looking into it too much, but after looking myself, it actually looks like there's something there: Look in the clouds. In the upper right of the image, you can see Bowser's face in the clouds. That one is the most clear, but directly below and to the right of him looks just like Ridley. The dark spot above the Halbred looks like Master Hand, and you can almost see Ganondorf or Zant's face in there too, although I think that's pushing it. The Bowser and Ridley are the most apparent. Thoughts? EDIT: Here's a blown up image: http://myweb.cableone.net/rebelart/clouds.jpg

This is really nice so far. My only real complaint is that the drums get kind of repetitive after a while. If they got changed up a bit, this would sound even better. Nothing else sounded wrong with it other than that, I really hope you continue this!

100 bucks says that these things are the new polygon team.

The antagonist of the game is the FF.

This isn't bad at all, the Green Brinstar part in particular is made of win, but the Metroid 1 Brinstar theme sounds strange. I know you wanted to give it a different feel, but are the notes you're using still in the same key? Might be a stupid question, I can't quite tell, but it sounds like they might not be. I think if you actually transpose the song into a different key instead of doing it by ear, that'd sound great. If you already did, then ignore this part. The ending could use some work, and maybe a little more to flesh out the song in parts to keep it sounding empty, but this is a really really good start. I'm looking forward to hearing the finished version of this!

You won't have to reset your levels and all that if you're in FL, which I'm assuming you are. Just drag the soundfont over the old instrument you have, and it'll work (Assuming you have the soundfont plugin, that is). This is sounding a ton better than the first post, but you've still got a bit to go. Add more instruments doing some original stuff, play around and see what you come up with. You should drop the main melody out at some point and put a section that's original, as the same thing over and over will put someone to tears. To quote Sakurai, it’s enough to make a guy cry by the end. This could easily be almost half the length it is now, bring in the newish stuff you have near the end much earlier and cut off some of the song. Good luck with this, with some more work and better samples it could sound really good!

The intro sounds great, but after that you continue to use the same instruments. Change that around, bring in some different synths, etc. As far as I can hear, arrangement isn't bad so far, but you really need to change up the instruments, they don't go together well at all after the intro. Keep working, this has potential!

Awesome, thanks.

How do mixers sign up? I definitely would be interested in giving The Landing a shot, if that'd be ok. Do we need an audition track? Also, Fishy + Sixto Force Your Way would be pure win.