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Sonic the Hedgehog 3 'IceCap Zone' (FEEDBACK)


WillRock
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Snare stands out in a bad way. Too dry.

Lead could use some octave doubling or otherwise more presence. Sounds fairly good on its own, but it's struggling to be heard otherwise. Guitar-ish synth sounds appropriately guitary and still having a significant chiptune feel. I'm impressed.

It is a little repetitive after 23 minutes, consider dropping out the drums and the old lead for variation.

That's my comments. Too lazy to look up source. Great wip man, huge improvements. Great work!

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Ok i have updated the remix

I have EQ the sound - put more emphesis on the high end

I have added an extra section to the second solo.

I changed the drum pattern in the third run-through of the melody section.

I have brought down the frequency of the main lead synth - it no longer gets lost in the mix.

The link is still the same - check my origanal post.

I have changed the snare sound.

Cheers for the feedback!

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Note to self: recheck any and all numbers before posting.

Yep, further improvements. Hihats sound a little trashy, try cutting out more of the lows and mids. Also, add _more_ highs or high mids on the master EQ. Raise the levels for the crashes, and drop the levels for that one loud lead in the end.

See if you can vary the melody. Some slight rhythmic variations, or changing up the melody when it loops so you have source verbatim once and then a different version on it. Of course, I still haven't checked out the source, so I couldn't tell the difference anyway. I think you do need some more interpretation in the lead melody from source. At least vary the looped versions a little.

Most, if not all your improvements since last version seem successful. I've got two key production issues: hihats and master EQ. Apply a multiband compressor to the master, see how some presets bring out different things in the track. As for the creative, you need some more variation in your melodies. Once verbatim, once different, and that should have solved it.

Yep, doing great.

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Sounds great. Hihats are still sounding like lofi trash can samples, and the crash seems to be just as trashy. Snare could use more punch. Drums could, overall, use more energy. Compression, compression, compression. Compress the master a little, all drums a little more. Once you do that, you'll probably have to raise the volume on everything.

Compression could really give the track the nececssary energy. I'm wondering a bit how much myspace compresses the file, because the quality's starting to bother me.

I'm hearing a lot of improvements, I'm liking the track, and I especially like what you did with the lead melody when it comes back after the midtrack break. Enough talk, take a backup and start compressing stuff.

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I have already compressed my track. the problem is myspace, it SERIOUSLY compresses music files on the website, and it only has MP3s uploadable, so i have to change the origanal file from aiff to mp3, which is bad enough, and then put it on myspace which horrorbly compresses the file even more.

Here is the MP3 file that isn't compressed on myspace. I think you will hear the difference, the piece has more punch.

http://www.tindeck.com/audio/my/blzq/Ice-Cap-Edit-2

I would also like to thank you for helping me with this track. I think its about there, but then again, I have alot to learn lol.

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Sounds a lot better when it's not through myspace. Whoa, there's a pad in there. :D

Hihats are now too loud, tho they could a little more high mids, so pull the EQ a bit closer to normal in the upper mid range. Myspace makes listening difficult. You should probably start hostings wips on tindeck instead.

Kick, on the other hand, isn't strong enough. Could use more aggressive compression. Snare needs processing, but I'm not sure what exactly. I think it's got a little too much highs, but I'm not sure. Crashes need to be louder. The crashes sound particularly crappy on myspace, apparently. I've only got a problem with the low volume on those now.

The lead is a little weak. It's clean and audible, but it could use some more phat. Try applying an overdrive on it. You could then drop the volume a bit. Then in the ending, you've got one with some distortion. That one's way too loud. The backing melodies need more volume when the lead's gone in the mid break.

It's getting to the point where I have to guess what would work best for you. I left Tensei-San a message, he knows this stuff a bit better than I do.

Good luck with further improving the track. As you can see, I don't think it's there yet, but you've improved significantly since the first wip of it.

As for submitting it to OCR, a lot of good tracks get rejected because they're too close to source and don't have enough interpretation, despite fully original sections and solos and backing and whatnot. You may have to rewrite parts of this to make it vary more, harmonically, and more interpretively. It's something I should have commented on way earlier. If I were you I'd get some source-related feedback before submitting this.

Anyway, I enjoy helping ppl with their tracks, so thanks for the opportunity. Once again, good luck with it.

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I love the mood you have going here, it's a very nice and soothing reinterpretation and the synth/synth guitar soloing reminds me of Protricities stuff in his heyday. Good stuff. ;)

Drums sound a bit lo-fi which tends to make the whole song sound cheap. Especially the kick could stand to be louder and have a fatter low end. When EQing I tend to give the kick substantial, narrowish boost around 50-60 Hz ( can be up to 10 dB if needed, just make sure it doesn't clip), cut everything between 300-1000 Hz from it (to accomodate the lower mids of other instruments, no more than about -5 dB), and give it another big, narrow boost between 3000-5000 Hz to bring out the click/attack (depends on the kick sound I'm going for).

Don't be afraid to compare it to commercial tracks to determine exactly how loud the kick should be in the balancing of the mix.

Snare is okayish considering it's a cheapo sample (at least it sounds like one :P) , I wouldn't touch it any further, IMO it sits pretty well right now.

Hi-hats are cheapo cheapo cheapo. But hell, what can you do :P. It might work if you used some sort of stereo seperation to widen the hi-hat a bit.

I might be wrong but I think the velocity editing on the hi-hats and snare could be way more pronounced. Especially the snare roll at 1:10 sounds like AK-47 rifle fire because of the sample retriggering. When you're doing velocity editing on fast repeating samples always keep an eye on where a real drummer would place the accents.

Say you have an 8th note hi-hat pattern (8 equally long hi-hat notes in one measure), I would place the strongest accent (about 90-100% of the velocity range) on the first and fifth note, the somewhat weaker accents (70%-80%) on the third and seventh note and the weakest ones (50-60%) on the rest (the second, fourth, sixth and eighth note).

Note that a snare drum in rock music is usually played REALLY loud so you can get away with putting it at or near maximum velocity during normal beats (sounds best that way IMO), just remember that during rolls you should, again, change the velocity accordingly so it doesn't start to machine gun.

IMO the lead synth that plays the main melody for most of the song should be a bit more interesting, it sounds kind of bland. LFO frequency cutoff modulation would add some movement to it and is pretty easy to set up. FM would work awesomely as well. In short, just experiment with it a bit, don't be afraid to add some effects like chorus and phaser to it.

Anyway, keep it up, I think this is close enough to have a decent shot at getting past the panel, so it just needs some polish to seal the deal. :)

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even if some things don't sound as professional or high quality

YET!

Multiband compressor on the master. play around with it a bit to sort'a get a feel for what it does to your track, then apply a preset that sounds ok and improve it. You've got pretty good levels, but the track still doesn't have the energy it could have. See how the multiband compressor can fix that for you. :) Doing great, man.

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I've only got one criticism right now, it's the panning. You've done that part of the track, and it sounds great, but it feels very centered center-heavy at times. Some of your backing tracks could head a little to either side. Your strings could also spread far to the sides, see if you can spread it (as opposed to panning just one way).

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I have sorted out the panning and spread out the dynamics of the track.

It sounds about finished in my ears and I am going to say it is finished.

However, if there are still problems you can hear, please tell me and i will sort it.

Thankyou for your help on this track everybody who has given me feedback ;)

http://www.tindeck.com/audio/my/rwhp/Ice-Cap-Compressed-Edit-2

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Okay, it's a bit quiet. Use a limiter or maximizer or something to raise the level a little without risking peaks. Kick could be a little louder, too, at least its mids and lows. Leads are uneven, sometimes too loud, sometimes just fine, perhaps even a little too low.

I'm a bit worried your solos are gonna push this on the short side of Larry's source stopwatch, but if not, there's just the abovementioned crits that I think could be a problem for you. Those, and the quality of your cymbal samples. I'm not a judge tho, so there's no guarantees.

Good luck when you submit.

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I'm gonna agree, I think it's a bit quiet, and (I think) especially the lows need to be made louder.

Jacked up my sound a bit and upped the bass and it sounded better to me.

but... I don't know the judges' prerogatives and opinions as well as Rozovian seems to, lol. Hell, I don't know much.

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  • 4 months later...

Hehe...

Remember this?

I subbed this one a while back and it was rejected.

Bah.

However, I did get 3 yeses, so I am heading in the right direction.

Well, I have updated it, have a listen, any crits would be welcome.

Worried about the drums, but I'll sort them.

I have added more variation - to drum parts, ice cap melody parts, arpeggios, blah blah blah.

I have also updated production. Removed the tons of reverb.

Here is the link - Click here to listen!

Snare sounds horrible, I know :D

I will sort that.

And the link to the decision - http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18231

Its a long read - I got tons of feedback :D

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yeah i read this one on the judges panel a few days ago and i must say this is really REALLY good its jus that i think they had a few problems with the reverb pn your drums and yeah use more of the ice cap melody well jus a lil bit more thats all cuz they want 50% game source and 50% original writing but im listening on crappy laptop speakers when i get home in the morning i shall give you more feedback.

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