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First try at a ReMix - Program Advanced (new v3 up)


Skyline Drop
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Hey, guys. I'm new to the OCR community, but I've been listening for years now, and thought I'd take a shot at my own submission. I've only been doing electronic music for about three months now, so I've still got a lot to learn, but I figured I'd just post this up here and see what kind of critique I could get from people.

Original Source Tune: Megaman Battle Network 4 - Battle Pressure

Didn't see even one submission accepted for the Megaman Battle Network series, so I decided to take a stab at one of my favorite songs from the games. Sadly, this song didn't leave me with much to work with melodically, so I kind of had to run with it.

My take on it: Program Advanced

http://tindeck.com/listen/xfwx

Again, I'm still pretty new to music production in general - mixing and mastering, especially - so all constructive critique would be appreciated. Despite having so little to work with, I think I'm off to a decent start, so whatever ideas you guys might have, don't hesitate to make a suggestion.

Thanks a bunch!

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As just a casual listener with extremely little background in the creation of music, I've got a couple things to say.

First, I am seriously stepping to this. Seriously. Good solid beat.

Next, and this is an issue I've seen in a lot of brand-new mixes, a lot of the instruments sound unintentionally fake. An actual remixer could probably point a finger at exactly what needs fixing, but that's just what hits me as I listen -- some of this doesn't sound like it was meant to be this fake-sounding.

The last thing is conveniently at the end of the track -- the classic Mega Man death sound effect doesn't seem to fit well at the end. Maybe you could use the Game Over jingle from EXE4 instead, or even EXE5.

Criticisms aside, I definitely want to see this polished up and added to OCR. Mega Man can't have enough musical treatment to suit my taste; by all means, finish this up so I can add yet another song to my 90-hour Mega Man playlist. Always room for more!

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Cause you asked so nicely, lemme give it a...

AAAARGH~! Too loud! Compared to most anything else, this is faaar too loud. Actually, loud isn't too bad as long as you can do it without losing quality... unfortunately, this song loses nearly all of it's quality to clipping, hot areas, etc. Turn it down until the cliping is gone and try raising the levels using compressors, mixing the volumes, hell, play with sidechaining, even. Just letting you know, we notice that the sound is clipping severely, which is hindering the music a lot, here.

Alright, the arrangement isn't too shabby, though. It wasn't too boring, structurally speaking, and the textures filled the soundscape fairly well (they'll fill even better when they don't clip, of course). Some of the sounds start to wear on my ears after a while, though (such as the constant malstrom instrument texture in the background you launched the song off with... it sounds like a lot of Reason instruments, if I'm not mistaken - is that your DAW?). Just be willing to change it up periodically and you'll be alright, there.

The death sound is far too abrupt in order to be a satisfying ending. Take it out and make an ending for it, instead.

Alright, keep it up, and hope this helps.

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1) You guessed right. I'm working in Reason, and mostly just tweaking presets rather than designing new patches. I'm not that great at sound design, sadly.

2) Is there a sort of compression tutorial you could recommend for me? I had a feeling that was the direction that most of the critique would be headed, but I only just learned what a compressor was about a month ago, and only what exactly they do about a week and a half ago XP

Thanks for the critique though. The ending is definitely something that I'm planning on revising. I'm also working on a softer section in the middle that will hopefully ease some of the tension.

The input is greatly appreciated :smile:

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Okay, so I made a few changes and have a newer version uploaded. Still not too confident about the mixing - I'm not entirely certain what exactly I'm listening for, and cheap headphones certainly don't help - but I switched some of the sounds around and made a short breakdown section that may or may not stay in the final mix. Tell me what you think.

http://www.tindeck.com/listen/nues

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Not a fan of a couple of the sounds... but i also suck at sound design.

The soundscape is missing like the MIDDLE for some reason. I dunno, some of the leads are really huge, other of the leads are really thin.

Other than that, the clipping is gone, and I kinda like it. The bass and kick kinda blend into each other. Cut some of the flab off the bass a lo cut at about 30 - 35 hz should do the trick and still have the bass sound good.

The left-right balance is occasionally off. Please center the leads a little more.

Other than that. I dunno, I like it.

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  • 4 weeks later...

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