Metal Gear electro-dance mix; feedback craved!

[Tyrannosorceror]

Hey guys, this is my first post in something like 5-6 years...I posted a few things as Mark_Li way back when, but never had anything accepted. I've spent the last couple years getting a little more serious about music, and I whipped this little mix together in an attempt to make a fun, dance-able Metal Gear mix with an indie-electro inspiration (think Justice, Kavinsky, Digitalism, etc) because I'm fucking obsessed with that style of music.

It can be found on my music page at www.myspace.com/tyrannosorceror along with a few other tracks I've done in the past. Worth noting that this is my first completed track using Reason, as opposed to FLStudio.

How did I do?

*******Newest update!********

Re-EQed with less high end, better overall balance, and slightly different ending!

Click here to listen!

[Kadosho]

Something just made me click this thread. Just been trying to find new music, and voila.. I find a new beat. Gotta say, these demo tracks are splendid, just the right amount of creativity. I remember the tag Mark_Li (I've been a member of this forum for quite awhile) as a listener, never as a producer. But I enjoy music altogether

Can't wait to hear more of your stuff in the future. Keep up the great work (and who knows, you may even get featured beside many other fun, talented people) =D

[WillRock]

First of all, two things that annoy me -

1. which one is the metal gear solid theme? I am unfamiliar with that games music, and I'm not sure by the titles.

2. Myspace. Find a better host site for your music, myspace compresses the audio, and you have to sign up to be able to download. I use tindeck if you want a suggestion of a site to upload your music too.

That said, your music is awesome. I'm not sure how much you have changed the theme, or production, due to myspace's compression, but what i'm hearing is good, you seem to be using reason very professionally (I use it for my mixes as well - its a great tool )

Upload this to a different host and tell us the name of your track, you have something special here. I'll critique on your track then.

[Tyrannosorceror]

Thanks for the comments guys.

I would have thought it was obvious that the song is "Electro Gear." My bad for not specifying. The track that inspired it is untitled, from the ORIGINAL Metal Gear for MSX/NES. This is not a Metal Gear Solid remix.

As for the myspace thing, I did it as a convenience so I could share it with some other friends. I've been looking for another host in the meantime, so I'm more than willing to upload it somewhere else if anyone has suggestions. The compression is a bit rough, but not to the degree that it significantly changes the overall production value from a regular listener's standpoint, I think.

[SplinterOfChaos]

I'll give feedback (assuming I have any) after I can listen to it somewhere other than myspace.

http://www.willhostforfood.com/ has been good to me.

A lot of people use http://www.tindeck.com/

[Jenz Drake]

Wow dude, kick ass Metal Gear track. I grew up with Metal Gear (NES) and I know the source. There should really be more MG tracks in this site.

[PF the Kitsune]

This ish is off the hook.

[BorgMan]

I'm not familiar with the source (linky please?) but it I can imagine it as a Metal Gear tune. On the other hand, it also has something Castlevania'ish, which I really dig.

I'm not a judge, but right now it sounds like it would be ready for posting on the site. Submit it, they can give you the proper feedback you need to really make this song worht it (it already is,but still )

[EDIT] Can you put it on tindeck? I really want to save this to my HD!

[Tyrannosorceror]

Tindeck link!

Click here to listen!

[Jenz Drake]

thanks dude!

[BorgMan]

Much appreciated! How's that source coming along?

[Tyrannosorceror]

http://djpretzel.web.aplus.net/songs/original/Metal%20Gear%20(1987)(Kazuki%20Muraoka%20-%20Konami)(56%20Songs)%5BWith%20SFX%5D.nsf

Kazuki Muraoka is the composer, the song is Track 2.

[Rozovian]

Can't atm listen to source, so I'll leave that unaddressed. Means I can get this done faster.

A lot of this sounds like unnecessary repetition. Can't tell you what to cut, but I'd suggest you put this in a playlist with some fairly similar (post-2004) ocremixes and just see what sections about this track that you get bored with.

You should also put some more thought in the progression of it. Half way through it, I'm wondering if I'm still at the beginning or nearing the end... and kind'a hoping for the latter.

The minimalist style might not be a good thing for the track, a lot of the time, I'm not hearing anything but the lofi bass and various drums. The hihat rhythms are pretty hard on the ears, making the track sound really overcompressed (since the hats don't play on some of the kicks). I'm kind'a suspecting some compression issues anyway, this sounds ARGHLOUD!, and that's a little too loud.

Stylistically, this is pretty interesting, and I'm hearing a lot of stuff in the percussion that I find enjoyable. Cutting back on repetition and giving this a more clear progression would improve the track overall, and the compression issues should probably also be dealt with. I suspect the Js would have a problem with the minimalistic non-percussion content, but production sounds pretty good so I have no idea how this would go if submitted (if other issues were dealt with).

I think it's certainly worth spending more work on, partly because it needs it imo, partly because it could be aweosme. Good luck with it.

[Tyrannosorceror]

Hey, thanks for the suggestions...I can see pretty much all of what you said being relevant, so definitely a good critique.

Particularly concerning the hi-hats...I applied a sort of dirty tape filter distortion to my entire drum track, and perhaps I overdid it...maybe just EQing it better and cutting the high end some would help soften it up a bit.

Structurally, I'm sort of grappling with what to do...I think an extended bridge using the second melody would be good towards the end. I'll do some more solo-y stuff with it too, I think.

I'll toy around with it some more :]

[bhutchis]

Just want to say that I'm absolutely loving this track. I can't offer any real concrete criticism because I'm not a remixer, but I think it's going great and I've been listening to it over and over again, just loving it!

Great job! Can't wait to see if/how it evolves!

[Tyrannosorceror]

Thanks!

I'll upload the newest, re-mixed, re-EQed version later tonight when I'm at home.

[BorgMan]

Did you already upload the new version?

[Tyrannosorceror]

This is with better EQ (waaay better IMO) and slightly different ending.

Click here to listen!

[PrototypeRaptor]

Alright, I'll admit it. This is cool.

That said, here's what I personally think needs some work:

1)the bass synth is amazing...I love it. But it's way too loud. Drowns out the drums almost in their entirely except for the annoying hihats

(you use a particular open hihat sample WAY too often - it has a very jarring "machine gun" effect (and not in the 80s way you were hoping XD)

2)more arrangement, change up the style a bit. Like, do a B section with a different bass/synth/drums. It's too static as is.

3)did I mention the bass synth is really loud?

however, this is really good for a start - it just needs that extra push to make it OC worthy. Keep at it!

[Rozovian]

Still haven't bothered to get the vgm player installed on this machine. No source comment, sorry.

Dunno if you added stuff or how much EQ work you've done, but this sounds fuller on speakers than I recall it sounding on headphones. 3:34 section feels emptier, so it seems to be the sustained bass notes that's filling the frequency range. You might want to use some additional sound to even it out.

Around 1:00 there's some redundant repetition. 2:20 again unnecessary repetition that easily bores the listener. 2:42 again. 4:12 a bit too. Track could end at 4:33 or something and not really lose anything.

Still a lot of repetition listeners can find annoying. Good improvement, tho.

[Tyrannosorceror]

I really do appreciate the critiques so far and I'm sure I'll continue tweaking it, buuut...

...at the risk of sounding like the people I can't stand (trying to defend their mix, arguing about critiques instead of graciously accepting and moving on, etc) I'm gonna ask something here.

The comments about repetition...are they being judged against other OC Remixes of unrelated genres? Or just in general...because listening to alot of the music (non-VG music) that inspired me to make this mix (Justice, in particular) I find even more repetition than I have in my mix.

I actually have a tendency, as a musician, to have TOO MANY different sections in a song, leading to a lack of defined structure/melody/recognizable hook. With this mix I actually sort of forced myself to put more sections that repeat, because when I listen to Justice and stuff, I'm like "Man, this song has the same section over and over quite a bit."

Now, I'm not disagreeing with the critiques; if it bores you, then I need to fix it, and its certainly a valid point. I'm just trying to understand if people are judging it as a dance song (which it is intended to be; I'm actually playing at an indie dance club tomorrow night with a bunch of my original stuff and this is one of the songs that people are really adamant about me playing) or as a song to just sort of pop in the CD player and listen to.

Again, I don't want to come off as unappreciative of the help...thats one of my biggest pet peeves, when people argue with critiques and say "Well I MEANT for the hi-hat to be extremely tinny and annoying" etc.

Thanks!

[Matney X]

I dig it. I really like the particularly sparse use of sound effects in the piece, in particular. You use them in a way that doesn't detract from the music as a whole.

My only complaint is there isn't much depth or foundation to the piece, and I think adding a bass track to it would help both problems.

[Rozovian]

From what I've found, repetition isn't just repetition, there's filters opening and closing, additional tracks fading in and out, and other differences in non-ocr electronica. Repetition is a staple of the genres, yeah, but that's not a reason to bore the listener. There's a lot fo repetition in ocremixes as well, but those come with subtle differences (or are used in a soundscape where they fit more). A highly repetitive ocr example is Fru's remix, but there's those subtle things changing all the time.

There's nothing wrong with having many different sections if they're tied together well or progress naturally from one to another. There's a bunch of ocremixes that start as something and end as something else, some can go through many different styles to get there. If it's well tied into the progression of the track and overall soundscape; if it works, it's all good. Your remix has a very distinct sound, and as I haven't run into any transition problems in your track, so it might be worth a try (take a backup first) to make it a progression through the sections (section a, b, c, d...) rather than a more typical song structure (intro, verse, prechorus, chorus, interlude, verse, prechorus chorus, bridge, whatever).

And no, you're not coming off as defending your mix to the point where it's ridiculou, it's a valid point you bring up: genre conventions. Still, this is ocremix. The idea of the wip boards, and the consensus of the wip board survey thing I held a while ago (the link's in my sig, take the survey if you want to) is that the feedback here should be aiming to get stuff to ocr-level. So yeah, we try to critique following the ocr standards.

Thats writing enough. Short version: Boring is bad, repetitive can be boring. Make changes through the repetition. Listen to this track. We try to get tracks ocr-worthy, so we judge along the ocr standards.

[PrototypeRaptor]

I really do appreciate the critiques so far and I'm sure I'll continue tweaking it, buuut...

...at the risk of sounding like the people I can't stand (trying to defend their mix, arguing about critiques instead of graciously accepting and moving on, etc) I'm gonna ask something here.

The comments about repetition...are they being judged against other OC Remixes of unrelated genres? Or just in general...because listening to alot of the music (non-VG music) that inspired me to make this mix (Justice, in particular) I find even more repetition than I have in my mix.

I actually have a tendency, as a musician, to have TOO MANY different sections in a song, leading to a lack of defined structure/melody/recognizable hook. With this mix I actually sort of forced myself to put more sections that repeat, because when I listen to Justice and stuff, I'm like "Man, this song has the same section over and over quite a bit."

Now, I'm not disagreeing with the critiques; if it bores you, then I need to fix it, and its certainly a valid point. I'm just trying to understand if people are judging it as a dance song (which it is intended to be; I'm actually playing at an indie dance club tomorrow night with a bunch of my original stuff and this is one of the songs that people are really adamant about me playing) or as a song to just sort of pop in the CD player and listen to.

Again, I don't want to come off as unappreciative of the help...thats one of my biggest pet peeves, when people argue with critiques and say "Well I MEANT for the hi-hat to be extremely tinny and annoying" etc.

Thanks!

I understand your frustration with the repetition...minimalism is definitely a valid form of music.

HOWEVER (gotta hate that word), the judges here at OCR have decided (perhaps unofficially) that "cookie-cutter" won't cut it. I suppose you'd be better off asking one of them, but simple genre adaptions almost NEVER make it to the front page.

I know some great trance tunes that you'd never see on here simply because of the genre - that's why VGMix and its ilk exists. (at least I think that's why)

Just a friendly heads up that the judges expect something better than most mainstream songs...good luck! XD

[Tyrannosorceror]

Newest update; changed up some melodies towards the end, better EQ all around, added a second bass track underneath the synth to fatten it up and bump up the low end a bit.

Click here to listen!