Tetris/DKC2/Pokémon

[DJSoto13]

So I've been messing around with reverb a bit and I put together several songs (very conservative, but they're nice, IMO).

Playing Tetris For The Queen: a medley of Tetris songs played in an acoustic setting (it had a classical feel, IMO).

All Mine: the Donkey Kong Country 2 mine BGM (not the Portishead song)

No Pokemon, Only Guitars: a dual-guitar duel of the Trainer Battle (I should've put the Trainer Defeat music at the end, but... eh).

So I may or may not put original content into these songs, but for now, they're just something to play around with while I'm trying to learn how to make my songs feel more "lifelike".

Thoughts (on reverb, mastering, panning, all that stuff, not "oh, this isn't a remix, it's too original", or "it's too repetitive", please)?

[Spakku]

Uh, I wouldn't worry about people calling your work too original.

Each instrument you use only makes one kind of sound, and that just feels terribly unnatural. This is more glaring the fewer instruments there are, making the more complex DKC piece sound more convincing than the Tetris mix, and the Tetris more convincing than the Pokemon.

I'm more familiar with guitars, so I'll expand for that Pokemon example:

All you've got is a short and deliberate single-string pluck sound. This is reasonable when notes are slow to come, as it makes them stand out that much more, and for mediums speeds since it's still possible to play that way. But when the rapid fire notes start hitting, it suddenly sounds a lot less bare-bones and beginner-ish (sounding like a beginner guitarist, that is) and a lot more like a guitar-playing robot; it's like if a pianist lifted their finger for each note instead of just sliding down the keys when appropriate.

Listen to some people playing acoustic guitars and pay attention to when they pluck vs when they strum and how long they let notes reverberate. Even though you've only got one instrument, it still should make a variety of sounds.

[DJSoto13]

I was about to ask for you to elaborate on that, but I saw your signature.

But I get what you're saying, I need to change the note length and the attacks and the volumes of the notes and give it a human feel. How do you do that in Reason 4? How do you do slurred notes?

[Spakku]

My guess would be to get a handful of different guitar samples, as much of a pain in the ass that would be.

[Anti-Syne]

Can I make the suggestion that next time you make a thread only put one WIP in it, to critique one song can take a fair amount of time and text, so if you want people to critique all three it's more likely you'll only get a very brief review of each piece which won't really help much

So i too will just focus on the pokemon track as it's the source i know the best. Basically just echoing Spakku here but the main problem is how unhuman it sounds, it's not alway just a case of velocity changes, changes in attack and note length etc, in your case I would say the underlining problem is that some parts aren't humanly possible to play.

For example, the track has lots of glissandos, which if it were to be played by an actual guitarist would more than likely be played as a slide, rather than very rapidly strumming on each different fret.

But positive are I think you've got your reverb there or there abouts, certainly not drowned in it and gives it a natural sound.

So in summary:

Reverb = Good, but guitar arrangement needs to be rethought so it's more believable that it's being played by a human. I'd suggest you listen to Rodrigo y Gabriela as they're probably the closest sound to what you're aiming for.

[DJSoto13]

No, I know it's not really possible (unless you're on Malmsteen's level) to do those disgustingly fast, individually-picked chromatic runs. If I do actually remix this, I will go for that RodGab feel (I love them).

But all these 3 songs were were just projects to test out reverb/mastering. It seems I need better soundfonts. Can anyone suggest any good acoustic/electric samples, please?