FLMC9: The Legend of Zelda!

[Bundeslang]

Don't worry, I'm sure Gollgagh will show up the results this week. It's a FLMC tradition, I remember rounds where it took three weeks before the results were posted.

[Gollgagh]

sorry guys, school is crazy this week

should get the thing up by tonight

[Gollgagh]

I completely forgot about this last night.

Whoops!

Gentlemen (and whatever ladies are reading this thread perchance), it looks like we have a winrar!!!!1

Overall points:

DDRKirby(ISQ): 17

El Pollo Diablo: 15

Bundeslang: 9

Horseboy: 7

Individual voets:

FLMC9: Votes by Bundeslang

1st place:

El Pollo Diablo - Long intro, but I like the samples you used. The part starting at 1:45 is excellent. I don't like the switch to the next part (main theme). The ending is long but good.

2nd place:

DDRKirby(ISQ) - Interesting start, nice bass and drums. I also like the lead you used, I don't like what's playing around 1:17. The song isn't variating much, the next minute is almost the same as the first. I don't like the noisy part before 3:00, but the next part is interesting. The ending is long and noisy.

3rd place:

Horseboy - Funny use of vocals, it's funny. But that's all.

Bonus Mix:

RocketSniper - Nice start, I like the song. Some parts are a bit long and not interesting (like around 2:50), but the sampling is good. I like the sample from around 3:33 very much, but it's going on too long.

Anyway, nice round

1st place:

DDRKirby(ISQ) - The Dark Side of Hyrule

Great song. It's on my PSP, so yeah.

[0:00-0:55]

Pretty sweet intro, love that bass. Nice sidechaining on it, as well. Percussion is really great, the layered kicks have a lot of power.

[0:55-1:50]

Niiiiiice. That whistle synth really leads into the supersaw well, great job on that. Speaking of the supersaw, it's awesome. fyi. I kiiinda wish that Navi's sample was chopped up to sound more like "L-l-l-l-l-listen!", but it's pretty cool as is. Buildup does a nice job of pumping up for the chorus section.

[1:50-2:31]

<3

[2:31-3:15]

Nice transition into the breakbeat portion. I love the chopped up drumloops. phat bass is phat.

[3:15-3:41]

I love this section. Maybe it's because I love the Dark Mountain theme, but whatever. The triplet-y feel here works really well with the theme. The 303 is fantastic, especially all of the crazy automation.

[3:41-Ending]

I am jealous of your ability to chop drums up. Just saying. The bitcrushing on the 303 was impressive, too. Great ending. Yeah.

2nd place:

Bundeslang - Temple of Stones

This is probably your best FLMC entry to date. There's really only one spot that irked me, but otherwise it was pretty decent, despite being preeetty repetitive. Can't say I'm familiar with the source, though, as I never had an N64/OoT. The fact that your instruments are all in a group called "Inverted_Stone_Tower_Temple" makes me a bit suspicious, but whatever.

[0:00-1:55]

Not bad, the intro works I guess. Everything sounds pretty quiet.

Nice use of the Dulcimer and Sitar. You should really learn to use 3xOsc though, you can make way better basses than that sampled one.

[1:55-3:07]

Nothing really new here. The change up at 2:48 helps freshen stuff up I guess, but it's still pretty repetitive.

[3:07-3:55]

That "PERCSYN" is way off. :\ Ending is kinda random, but I guess I'm not exactly one to talk.

3rd

HB - MeBeTown

lol

<3

I suck at critiquing. I should stick to just voting.

1. Place DDRKirby

Good unts, very energetic. Sounds at little muddy at times (1:22 onwards, for example. Seems to be intentional, but I still don’t like how it sounds). Awesome breakdowns. Nice right-left panning from 2:44 onwards. The climax is insane. LISTEN!

2. ElPolloDiablo

More pretty good unts. A little too long, and not enough variation. The breakdown is good, but most of the song is pretty much cookie-cutter trance.

3. Horseboy

ROFLWTF. Sounds as if it were made with Mario Paint. Still better than the really piercing and ear-murdering sound of Bundeslang's remix.

And that's it.

1 DDRKirby

Neat, nice beats, well done. I like the composition.

2 Pollo Diablo

Not too bad either, but it seems generic. Not much soul of its own, and thus, not very memorable.

3 Bundeslang

Booooring. Slow and minimalistic, but boring rhythm and sounds, and barely any variety. It could pass for background music in Age Of Empires, though.

To put it lightly, my internet decided to be intermittent again. In any case...

1st: DDRKirby

I don't get how this guy does it. He's insane.

2nd: El Pollo Diablo

Also very good.

3rd: Bundeslang

My ears weren't bleeding - Congratulations, you've done better than your previous entries. Still though, there's much to be compositionally and instrumentally desired.

Horseboy

Awesome, but in a way that unfortunately can't really be voted on. +5 cool points. Listen!

0th place (can't vote on own mix, presumably): DDRKirby(ISQ) - The Dark Side of Hyrule

this owns. no, seriously.

=====

1st place: El Pollo Diablo - Esoteric Crag

I feel like i've already written so much on this song already, so i'll keep it short.

-very beginning and very end of song are really really great, both work to great effect. I really like the slight sidechain in measures 11-13. Though I wish the pad wouldn't cut out =completely=.

-section BEFORE the breakdown is really really kickin. very nice.

-the supersaw is phat, but somehow not "lead-y" enough. a little too low, or the octave balance isn't right, or something. Then again I didn't like GLL's leads in his FLMC submissions either so maybeeee it's just me. dunno. I just don't dig it so much.

-the Amen section is pretty kickin, really nice to vary it up from the more "generic" stuff beforehand to something that's more headpounding and gritty.

-The lost woods theme starts out fine but then gets totally lost, wish there was some other way to stick that in. it's not horrible, but it just doesn't work too well for me.

-Extra credit for taking the time to do the notebook notes.

-Stickman dancing sequence was PERFECT. you had me, hook line and sinker, right when you said you were gonna bite off Prophecy i knew what was coming but oh man, i rofl'ed when his head flew off ahahahahaha and the race was GREAT.

-I didn't really appreciate the chorus the second time around, but that's probably because I wasn't too entirely fond of it the first time. The chorus i would say is the part where you lost me, everything else is totally kickin.

-make sure you really take advantage of panning whenever you can. your opportunities to pan things are probably gonna be limited because a lot of elements really "belong" in the center, so make sure you really jump on those opportunities.

=====

2nd place: Bundeslang - Temple of Stones

Take all the other comments ive given in the past and paste here. learn subtractive synthesis and use the 3xOsc because it's one of the most powerful tools in FL. some FX would help. I'm not familiar with the source tune so i dont really know, but maybe some more melodic content and a real bassline/chord CORE melodic base to work on. and not so repetitive please.

=====

3rd place: Horseboy - MebeTown

would have been 2nd if not for the fact that it wasn't executed nearly as well as it could have been. namely, going through 2 loops of the same stuff means i'm NOT lol'ing the 2nd time around. seriously, a minute of this is too long to hold the hilarity factor. Either make it short and sweet, or do something crazy with fx and glitching and other samples. uhmmm not much else to say, what do you expect? ^^;

=====

guest mix: Rocketsniper - Zeldagain

For some reason when I first played this in FL i was getting this realllly nasty HISS but it went away. weirdddd.

-nice layering on the intro, layering is soooo useful.

-i would recommend placing every channel on a mixer track, just for mixing purposes even if you're not going to use any FX on them.

-reeverb on the master channel is laazzyyyy but if you're gonna do that at least put it -before- your limiter, plz.

at this point i'm guessing you were a little lazy through making this so i'm gonna cut you some slack

-that square+sine+triangle phased synth really hits the spot, i know you've used it before, it sounds great!

-reallly diggin the vocoder work, that's awesomeness, and it was a really nice transition from there on.

-the slowdown section is greatttt, the pitch-shifted amen break went with it perfectly. felt like maybe you could have done a little bit more here though (dunno what).

-gating/stuttering effects are cool, but use sparingly

-overall mix feels a little on the "light" side, would have liked to see at least one section or two having a more full or heavy sound. Having a few elements at a time can work really well too, but i was craving a little more substance.

=====

that's alllll....

NOW PICK A THEME OR SOMETHING

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

coolio~

wut aboutz the Final Fantasy

as in Final Fantasy =I= muaahahahahaha

either that or secret of mana aka Seiken Densetsu 2

what say you?

[Bundeslang]

At least I didn't take last place.

Why are so many not familliar with the source. It was a PRC round, and General Slicer did an OC-Remix of it. Perhaps I mixed it so that it sounds different.

Pick a nice tune and we'll go for FLMC #10.

[RocketSniper]

What did you mean by a more full sound? I'm interested in this because I've been trying to figure out what exactly it could mean... and how all of my projects seem to be lacking it.

[El Pollo Diablo]

-Stickman dancing sequence was PERFECT. you had me, hook line and sinker, right when you said you were gonna bite off Prophecy i knew what was coming but oh man, i rofl'ed when his head flew off ahahahahaha and the race was GREAT.

=D

coolio~

wut aboutz the Final Fantasy

as in Final Fantasy =I= muaahahahahaha

either that or secret of mana aka Seiken Densetsu 2

what say you?

Either one sounds good to me.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

What did you mean by a more full sound? I'm interested in this because I've been trying to figure out what exactly it could mean... and how all of my projects seem to be lacking it.

Basically, most of your arrangements tend to be a little more minimalistic, in terms of you having less instruments (in number) and in general each instrument is less "filling"--compare your lead to my supersaw lead for an example of this.

I LIKE the more "sparse" sound. It works very well. But I'm just saying there's room there if you wanted to do something different.

also, download Dragor's tutorials on fullness, as this kind of exemplifies what i mean.

http://www.djcooler.com/dragor/tutorials.htm

They're more geared toward trance, but they're a good read/listen no matter what, and help explain what I'm talking about.

more coming later if you want me to talk about this more.

[RocketSniper]

I'd love to, improving my music is a good thing, and I'm unfortunately not going for minimalistic. I use a small number of instruments so that everything sticks together better, otherwise it tends to seem more like I'm just kinda... I dunno, drawing random notes.

The more info the better, if you've got more resources like this, I'd love to see them

[RocketSniper]

Side note, just got out of FL and my projects already sound a little better. This is crap. So much crap.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

Side note, just got out of FL and my projects already sound a little better. This is crap. So much crap.

eh? explain. wat u using now?

also, if i haven't driven this point home yet ^^; the small number of instruments DOES help everything stick together. I'd much much rather have a few, very good fitting instruments, than way too many that clutter a mix.

BUT it can -sometimes- be useful, to add some more layers into the mix, IF that's what it needs.

This is all very case dependent and it's possible that you don't need this at all. HOWEVER, you're probably right in thinking that it might be useful in some way to explore it a little.

Again, dragor's examples provide probably the best illustration of this. Not only does he do it with his own projects, but he points out examples of real professional trance tracks where you can hear the concept of "fullness" as he describes it.

some things to keep in mind:

-delays and reverb--they have their places! for example, an arpeggiated synth might not need delay since it's playing so many notes. However, a "chorder" or single-note "pluck" type synth might benefit greatly from a delay.

-layering! layering sounds can be very, very useful (not just for giant supersaws either ^^. Ex. adding more oomph to a bass synth, or adding a more pronounced initial pluck sound to a long sustained synth. Experimenting can be good, but in general it's better to have a reason for layering ^^;

-basses--"fullness" in basses is a bit of a different concept but is also very important. I use boobass all the time for this.

-Volume levels--elements that you add =solely= for "fullness" shouldn't be that loud. Should be juuust loud enough that if you're really listening FOR it, you should hear it, but shouldn't stick out in the mix enough that you would hear it with everything else playing.

-different kinds of melodies--dragor has something to say about this too--for example the difference between "gated" synths and "sustained" synths...

Of course, I can blather on all day about this stuff, but in the end it's REALLY just up to listening to things, trying new things, seeing what other people do, and in the end just deciding what sounds best/what you like.

Cheers,

[Horseboy]

Hey yeah, let's do Final Fantasy 1, I kinda got an idea...

[RocketSniper]

I'd been working on a project before, the sole purpose of which was to try to improve my techniques a little bit... so I did a 5/4 sorta trancey thing with a lead and a bass. After tweaking it a little and adding some random instruments, it sounds more polished. I'll upload it after a little more tweaking, along with the version before-hand... probably in the FLMC10 thread when it goes up.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

tiem fo da new thread?

FF1 ftw~

[Gollgagh]

Okay, I was just waiting for confirmation for FF1 to be the source.

[RocketSniper]

So... *whistles*

[Gollgagh]

relax, relax, I'm writing it up now

[Gollgagh]

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I need a soundpack from you, DDR.

new thread is here: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=15825