SLyGeN

I think the beginning strings are a little too loud/present. Tweak the EQ so that there is more high end, and consider lowering the volume a little bit, at least for the beginning. About halfway through you have a really fake-soudning electric guitar come in. I really really like the concept, so I implore you to find a better sounding sample/amp simulator or perhaps a live musician for this. It does get repetative, but this is an easy track to work with.. it's very simple. Play with retrograde to get some mileage out of this piece. The ending needs a little work, too. Find a way to ease out of the piece, and then give us an authentic cadence (V-i^6 [first inversion] might sound cool for Lavender Town)

I wouldn't recommend that you request replies from only the best-of-the-best mixers; it comes across as rude and I think that's part of the reason you haven't gotten any replies thus far. Fortunately for you I have just the right amount of narcissism and disregard for rules to reply anyway. I even know a little bit about mixing! Your lead could be weak for a number of reasons, but obviously the end problem is it's just not loud enough. However, noise more often than not should come from lowering the volume of everything around it, rather than raising the volume of the single instrument that's too quiet. Every instrument should also occupy its own range, more or less, so that it has its own place in the aural spectrum. For guitars I like to give it some highs as well as the lows so that it has a little crunch. Your snare needs a little more noise and crunch, too... actually the whole drum set does. EQ each piece of the set individually, and put a compressor on the whole thing. WIDE threshold (-2dB or so) and HIGH ratio (1:8 at the very least). fun fact: the bass drum's high punchy end is around 3-5KHz. reef the lows, and put a little notch in right there, too. Reason 4 is a great place to start, and even a great place to work ideas. But with the guitars especially, you aren't going to get a professional sound. But you could easily do worse. Reason 4 is just a step below industry standard.

I meant the part at 0:13. The incessant repetition and the fact that rhythm is just two notes a major 2nd apart make it feel very punk. This goes on until about 0:42. That's nearly half a minute of just "E, D, repeat". If you want a power metal sound, add more variation based on enharmonic chord tones of the melody. Black metal does rely on relatively basic melody, and really doesn't have a whole hell of a lot of rhythmic variation either. I like it because almost all of it is Phrygian.

Well I just meant the slower ones, which sounded like 8th notes to me. The faster tremolos, I agree, are reminiscent of power metal and may as well stay (although some bands will add note variation on the last beat). I think OCR is cool with power metal. It's when you get into death and black metal that things are gonna get frowned upon. Which is too bad, because I live and breathe that shit.

It's beginning to sound like just a bad sample to use for a kick, assuming you're looking to make it sound like a real kick drum. Keep the EQ as it is, and try loading a better sample into there. the EQ may need minor tweaking after that. With your violins, the jump from G# to D makes the arpeggiation feel less smooth. If that's what you're going for, then great, although since it's being used to introduce the instrument to the piece, I'd consider making it more scalar and more evenly spaced. Once it's in there, it can jump around all it wants. In fact, I think it would be a nice effect if you had the strings play an embellished melody above the vocals and guitars.

Stay away from the punk-style, 8th notes triggering the same note over and over, if you ask me. If you must sustain a single tone that long, try varying the rhythm a little. A sixteeth note here, maybe some triplets there.. it's not hard. It also sounds good if your drums follow the rhythm guitar. Another way I might consider the issue is, I wouldn't just smack the snare drum at the same rate for two bars.. I'd add variation. Rhythm instrumentation isn't much different.

If you're using pads, you shouldn't have any compression on them. Ideally you don't want any compression on the overall piece, although some compression on percussion is recommended (do it right). Tweak your levels and velocities such that there is no clipping anywhere, and if you find that your instruments are overlapping too much, lower the Release on your ADSR settings. As far as parallelism, do it only if it's deliberate (i.e., don't do it to be lazy.) If you follow that rule, then there's nothing wrong with it; straying from parallelism is an archaic rule that should only be followed if you want a classical sound. I usually don't add the fifth above the pad because all of the western scales have one diminished chord for which a perfect fifth does not exist. As far as instrumentation, make sure you use the entire spectrum of sound.. highs, mids, and lows. You might even subdivide it further if you want more instruments. Also remember, pads are not leads (and the reverse is true, too.. some people make that mistake). I realize that the original kinda uses a pad-like sound as the lead, but notice that it's got just a bit of edge, is written in a higher-mid register, and has enough attack such that it can be used as a lead. There's even dissonance near the end of the original that also adds to the edginess in a way, with the rubbing. Also notice that little touch of color that gets added with the tinny little lead that comes in every so often. Once we can hear those instruments better, we can have a look at the composition. But until then, make sure you're adding your own touches of color here and there.. but more importantly this: Every time you copy and paste a short loop to play again consecutively, you should feel a piece of your heart get viciously torn off. Don't do it. Tweak shit, transpose it, throw some passing tones, whatever. Just don't repeat the same thing over and over; it's a cheap tactic to get mileage out of your piece. There's no reason to do that when there are plenty of other cheap tactics to use that only a very, very well-trained ear would be able to pick out the first time through. (I'm talking inversion, retrograde, etc.) Have fun. You've got a lot of work to do, but I look forward to hearing the next iteration. Make us happy.

Nice little pickup arpeggio with the violins. What notes did you use for it? Consider making it more scalar. Regarding the kick drums, I meant to post something yesterday. In class I learned that I gave you a little bogus information. The high portion of your kick drum sound is actually around 3-5khz, not what I said earlier (so in reality, a lot higher than I thought!) This is also why I recommend just playing and fiddling.. if you take a notch in your EQ and slowly drag it across the whole band, you'll hear the texture change, not just for a kick drum, but for any instrument. Today for my final, I did a lot of kick drum EQing. When you slide that notch in the right place, you recognize that familiar sound from the professionally mixed CDs in your personal library. What ended up sounding good was pretty much just a low shelf at about 100-200hz, and a notch at 4 khz with a somewhat widened Q. Raise/lower/mess with those to your liking. I also learned quite a bit about compression! Fuck yeah. I'll explain that some other day if you want, but the basic idea for this sort of application was to only use it with a VERY small threshold (i.e., set it loud) with a HIGH compression ratio. It's mostly just clip prevention, by making those peaks softer. Soft knee is good. Limiter is bad. Sharp attack. Relatively sharp release. If you've got a compressor and you're not sure why it's there, take it off. It's one of those things that can make the music a little better, but in the wrong hands is more likely to just make it a lot worse. Keep in mind, though, you probably will have to learn and implement good use of a compressor to get something on the site. As far as your lead instruments, either make them way louder or everything else way quieter. Take your pick. I'd also raise the highs on those strings to make them more present.

Thanks both of you for the comments, I'll archive the additional suggestions for when I work on this in the future. I agree with most of what has been brought up, especially the snare sound.. as the sequencer, I think I've gotten desensitized to some of the smaller details. I'll dig through Reason to see if I can find a better snare.

Reminds me of this I'm still not sure if I love or hate the score in TSRPR, but kudos to them for putting forth the effort. It sounds like they're modulating synths that were originally used as sound effects for a lot of their background music. Listen for the yoshi-spits-shell noise in the lead instrument. Also, nominating Sonic CD as having one of the least appropriate scores ever. I played it for the first time about 3 or so months ago, expecting music up to par with the others. Biggest letdown of 2010 for me so far.

Personally I'm not a big fan of sound effects in my music unless they're ambient. My idea isn't specifically to aurally paint a picture, but rather to keep the focus on your ears and whatever emotions the sounds can convey. I usually find that man-made sound effects sharply detract from the pleasant solitude of getting lost in the music. On another note, finals have begun and I also just got a job! This means a lot less free time, so this mix may have to be put on hold. I will, however, archive the most recent posts in a text document with the rest of my project files for reference just in case this thread gets so old that it drops off of the forum.

Unfortunately I'm not hearing much of a difference. All the noise continues to drown out the softer instruments, and even the lead guitar during it's breif section, and the bass drum still seems to cause everything else to duck under it. Honestly I say ditch the compressors 'til someone comes in here who knows anything about them; I think the compressors are causing the problems. You can test my theory by bringing the volume of each individual track down by half (guitars by maybe a little more) and see if it cleans itself up a little. Also, are you equalizing that kick of yours? It sounds like you've reefed the 500hz-1khz range way up, when you kinda want just the opposite IMO. Around 2 - 5khz is where our hearing is most sensitive, and then it drops off from there. So those numbers I guessed at first are still frequencies that we hear pretty damn well. Those frequencies sound very present when they exist, so if they're turned way up, it'll be overpowering. I was probably unclear before when I asked you to let me hear that kick because now I really can hear it, and can hear it very well. So much so that there's no room for everything else. Plus you're not getting what you want out of it at that range either. We're looking for a good bass rumble, and a noticable, but not overpowering click of the beater making contact with the drum head. Also, of course, don't just do what I say. Whatever I tell you, please do consider it and check it out, but ultimately the idea is to make it so that you're satisfied with the way it sounds. And I know you aren't satisfied with the mixing in its current state; the mixing can be much better. Let the track play in the background, and start fussing with shit until your kick has that Dimmu sound you're looking for, and your other instruments start poking through the rhythm guitar. OH ALSO, one more thing. Everyone on this site is going to disagree with me here most likely, but this is coming not just from me, but from a professor who has been in the digital audio industry for many years: Don't fucking use headphones. If you are, ditch 'em and mix on a good set of speakers. Lower-range mixing errors tend to sneak by you on headphones; it's different when you and the room can actually feel the music rather than just listen to it. That, and the general public listen on speakers; not headphones.

I clearly remember when I felt the exact same way. I've only been studying digital music for the last two years. But, if you've got an opinion, preach it anyway. Part of being good at something is being able to translate layman-speak to technical speak.

You know, I'm still just not feeling the way everything is mixed together. As metalheads, we need to resist the urge to crank each individual track to like -0.4dB. Remember, the levels in your DAW are just there to adjust each instruments' volume in relation to the rest; you get volume from your sound system's amp. So go ahead and bring the guitars down a little bit so that the strings and voice can make it through the assaulting guitars, and keep tweaking the guitars' EQ so that they have their own space in the mix, and aren't hogging up the entire sound spectrum. Use your ears as a judge, but let me throw out some quick ideas for equalizing your shit. Bass guitar -cut the lows below 60hz -raise the lows between 60 - 300hz a bit. -add a little notch at 1-2khz to give those guitar strings a little edge Rhythm guitar -raise between 300hz and 4khz. -low-cut and hi-cut at the very ends Lead guitar -Raise between 600hz and 8khz, but no hi-cut -lower everything below 600hz -low cut the bottom Strings and Voice -raise the midranges and highs, drop the lows a bit -low cut at the bottom Tweak gain levels, too. Even just a little gain and distortion will give you an edgy, metal sound. Too much gets overpowering and noisy. And I understand you're going for a Dimmu sound. Personally I think they could mix their guitars a little better, but let us just work on getting this mix sounding professional before you start breaking the rules on purpose. Once it sounds clean, then I agree, kick the gain and distortion up just a bit to make us bleed a little. Feels good, man. I'll be back for the next version. Oh, and consider updating the first post with the new version so that one doesn't accidentally listen to the wrong one. I almost did that once; not sure if I mentioned it.

I personally am not a fan of humanized slop, however I'm really the minority there. But, one thing that may help is making the kick that falls on the downbeat ever so slightly louder than the rest. And when I say slight, I mean slight. Humanization is one of those things where you shouldn't notice it if it's there, although you may notice it if it's not there.

I have a good sound system and could percieve all of them, but if I were taking a hearing test some would be too subtle for me to notice, since I wouldn't be the one touching the buttons. 20khz is about when it feels more like a pressure than like a tone. I'm 20 years old, a metalhead, and some of you have seen my desk full of speakers. Suffice to say I love loud music. You can also generate tones with Audacity if you're curious. I might have an explanation as to why 17khz actually sounds higher than the rest: they're fucking mp3s. There are probably lower-sounding artifacts in these clips. Just go into Audacity and generate a 20khz tone. This also reminds me of that Teen Buzz thing.

Let me just take a moment to implore you not to remove the blastbeat drums you have now. Metal is my forte, and they need to stay. One thing about the snare, though. Whenever you just have it constantly hitting 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 2, 3, 4, consider adding an eigth note here or there to vary it. I'm still not satisfied with the kick drum.. I'm not sure why it sounds the way it does.. it almost sounds like the attack is up a bit, and that all of the mids/highs have been totally cut. Let me show you an example of two of the kinds of machine-gun drums I like. Although, I'm sure I don't even need to give you any examples. If you're making this, you know how well-mixed metal sounds. But here they are anyway: Youtube sucks, so there's barely any bass in those kicks, but even though they're "bass" drums, they have plenty of trebs when the beater makes contact. ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE SPECTRUM, if you can't get that to work, allow me to show you an example of a band who pulls off just the opposite very well. Almost no highs on the attack to speak of: They also cut the highs on the rest of the drumset, so keep that in mind if you end up going that route. Hell, honestly I'd say the best solution is to find a kick sound you like online (or shit, I'll give you one that comes with Reason), and load it into a sampler. Also, the guitars kinda mud together a little bit. Consider perhaps turning the gain or distortion level down, and tweak the EQ so that your rhythm guitar covers the mids while the lead guitar gets the highs.

If you write that bit out on a score, I'll tell you what's happening and why it may sound dissonant. Just put it on here as a jpeg.

Theory shit only comes into play when you're adding to the composition. If you never stray from the original song, then you don't have to worry about it because the author already did that part for you. But when remixers untrained in theory add their own material is when their remixes fucking fall apart.

The dark aura is all in the key you're using. The original track begins in C minor or C phrygian (it's ambiguous, but I would pick phrygian over minor because minor is more of a lamenting sound, while phrygian is evil/dark.) It does some other shit after that, but I'll let you decide what that shit is. What that first bit means, though, is stick, for the most part, to these notes: Your C Phrygian scale. For minor, simply disregard the flat D, and use a natural one, as well as following the principles of harmonic and melodic minor voice leading. Or just use Phrygian. That shit's easier. Keep in mind that other phrygian/minor scales will still sound dark, too, regardless of their tonic. Straying from/altering your scale is both dangerous and encouraged. It can add nice touches of variety and color, or it can totally fuck up your mood. Also stay away from C (or anything else) Major. That'll brighten your work faster than a photo negative left out in the sun, and it'll ruin it all the same. There's your theory lesson for the day.

Awesome; this has become extremely helpful, and I even saw a few ideas in your post that had come to me as well, like adding more reverb to the piano and also adding some lows/mids to it. I actually cut the mids and lows out early on because I wanted the piano to cut through, but now that the piece has become much more solidified, I agree that it wasn't a good idea. Stereo spread on the piano would also be great, I think. I'll go fatten that sucker right up. And as always, I plan to go through your post with a fine-toothed comb as I'm editing. Expect a better overall mix and texture in the next version. Also, that electronic synth wasn't supposed to be a guitar, although it does have distortion. Synth modeling is where most of my shortcomings are. Basically all I want is an edgy electronic sound. And, if it evokes images of a poorly synthesized guitar, that's a bad thing; it's something I should tweak. I think I know where the rhythm is getting to you as well. At 4:52, burned tower comes in. The lower instrument (original, and in mine) is quite syncopated, and thus purposely does not line up with the strong beats (or even any of them necessarily). It's something done on purpose in the original, and I decided to keep it that way (even though it's an easy adjustment) for the sake of variety. Constant four-on-the-floor gets old quick. .. and.. hm, with that in mind, perhaps I shouldn't dive right into the four-on-the-floor style at the very beginning. That might alleviate/cover up some of the piano's shortcomings. .. something I'll mess with. Anyway, thanks again.

Halc, I appreciate the crits, and it's been bugging me for the past eight hours since I read the post at school because I sincerely want to implement these fixes and get something on this site. I'm really not trying to sound defensive, but I almost have to ask if we are even talking about the same piece, here. Furthermore, some of the things you've recommended appear to outright contradict what you're going for. To top it off, a few of the issues you mentioned are actually things that I had done on purpose. So suffice to say I'm disappointed to hear that it's an unsatisfactory piece, but I'm still fucking determined, so let's make sure I'm clear on what you're looking for. Ready? Noted. Personally I like the quality of the rain effect and thunderstorm, so I didn't think it was too long at all. If it's a personal opinion, I'll leave it. If you're objectively recommending, as a "judge" that it should be shortened, then I'll shorten it. My point was to start slow, set an ambience, and then explode with sound.. but do you recommend anything else for an intro build-up? Again, this is for ambiance. The reverb is all there for a reason, unless you simply recommend that I take off the pre-delay? I think that would detract, again, from the opening atmosphere. The picture I'm painting is a dark city street at 3:00AM, as you are nearing the entrance of Sprout Tower. The reverb needs to stay, or the entire ambiance falls apart. The piano is supposed to sound distant. However, again, if you simply suggest that I reduce the pre-delay only, then perhaps it'll work. Anyway, please advise/agree/disagree. What doesn't make sense is wanting a sharper attack, and then asking for less exposure. Do you want me to cut the pre-delay and make the introductory piano even quieter? When you said soundscape, I thought you meant the introduction at first. Are you talking about the mellowed out/retrograde Olivine Lighthouse portion? If so, I agree. I'll rework the compositional structure so that the upper three voices are substantially higher than the bass. This appears to be outright contradictive, and I must be misunderstanding something. By one-on-the-floor, I can only assume you mean four-on-the-floor? The entire piece has a four-on-the-floor marching feel to it on purpose. But first you say the phrasing is too disjointed, and then you say the piano's phrasing is too mechanical. Make up your damn mind, dude! Like I said, I must be misunderstanding because you are correct @ the mechanically played piano. Everything is quantized down to the frame, which is on purpose because it's intended to be an electronic-sounding piece, but with orchestral instruments as well. So anyway, are you wanting a more humanized piano performance, then? And, I'm still confused about it being disjointed. Yes, there are passing tones, but every beat is strong. So again, please advise. This one really got me, and I'm really going to need some elaboration on this one. Each of these tracks (for the most part) are written in the Phrygian mode, and for the most part stay very true to the mode. Furthermore, I even disregarded most of the original harmony; the upper voice typically follows the original tune while the other three are harmonized with typical good voice-leading practices (for the most part, i.e. I don't give a fuck about parallel fifths when writing Phrygian). I sincerely hope you're not hearing Phrygian as "awkwardness," because it's a perfectly sensible mode to write with. The composition element is where I personally feel like I shine with this piece, so please don't take my confusion offensively; tell me where you feel it's awkward, and we'll have a look at the sequencer so that any mistakes I could have made can be pointed out. Furthermore, I still feel like my mixing could be done better. Your input on what I can do to use the audible bandwidth to the fullest degree would be very helpful. And I feel that it's important that I point out, once again, I don't want to come across as being stubborn and defensive. Make no mistake, I think that sort of narrow-mindedness is very foolish. I'm simply a little confounded, and want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly before I dive back in and begin tweaking shit.

If it's a pretty complex piece, then yeah it's an unfortunate coincidence. Sometimes I'll end up writing something that comes to me, only to realize I was subconsciously thinking of some other piece. But from there, I might tweak it enough such that it could pass as being "inspired by" said piece. The thing is, simple rock melodies are based on patterns that are older than the fucking hills, so if one comes up with a simple riff that isn't particularly groundbreaking, it's likely that someone else has done it before. It'd be interesting to write a simplistic I - vi - ii - V - I progression and see what different people are reminded of. Someone who likes sociology should do an experiment like that.

Okay, all that shit is fixed. I keep putting off tweaking the synthesizers because that's going to be the most grueling part, but there's not much else for me to tweak at this point. There's a new WIP up now. Unless there's a huge influx of suggestions and listeners, this might be the last one, or perhaps second-to-last, since this WIP hasn't gotten a whole lot of attention. Thanks for your help, Evory. edit: The amount of work one gets done when there's nothing else to do. The last "WIP" is now up there, unless someone points out something that needs fixing.

oh jesus. I had a whole thing written up for you, and when I went to click submit I accidentally hit a navigation button on my mouse, and now it's gone. FUCK ME SIDEWAYS. The basic idea was this: -metal kicks ass -compression on the kick drum is ruining the mix, take it off or fix it -more edge on the kick so I can hear those blast beats -use a better choir and better strings, or replace them with something you have that sounds more authentic, or perhaps even consider using a synthesizer instead without trying to reproduce orchestral instruments -make sure your choir isn't adding a fifth above or some shit that might cause it to sound out of tune -this track is gonna kick some ass once it's done.