*UPDATED* Frog's Theme

[dbrown1986]

There was a time; this was my second submission to OCR...

Naturally, it was declined. Poor samples, too loud, too mushy, not enough arrangement and was mainly all about the original song. I was fairly new to the scene; and hardly knew how to use my DAW. I have learned a lot from the community, and decided to give this piece a second go, 132GB of samples and VST's later.

Please have a listen (ESPECIALLY DarkSim, No Escape, SBeast & Cyril the Wolf, you guys submitted the best critiques on my last piece).

http://tindeck.com/listen/cujb

As always I did my best leveling the track so things don't smash together. After all the work I've done on this track it sounds quite good; but my ears may be missing something. Are those drums coming across too loud, maybe?

Effects Used:

Gross Beat (gating of the drums and gating the sidechain),

Fruity Filter (for filtering the low pass of the drums).

VST's Used:

NeXus 2 (majority of the synths and arps).

Absynth 5 (introduction arp, which also falls at the end of the song as well).

Kontakt 5 (Drums).

Thanks for having a listen!

[FactorySettings]

What the crap did you do to your drums, man? Half the time they simply aren't there, and when I can hear the bass drum at all it's cut off and annoyingly short. Fix that first and foremost. THis sounds like basically a trance remix of sorts, and you cannot have that without some big thumping bass drums.

THere are some good ideas here but you need to give them more impact. Honestly, I'm just going to focus on the drums for now because I think that would fix alot of it. Get a nice thick bass drum for the downbeats, and try sidechain compressing your other synth elements to it. You also need some cymbals to add more treble energy.

[ambient]

Is this some kind of super experimental remix? Or is this a joke remix? I am not trying to be a dick, just the vibe I get from it. It sounds like drums, harmony, licks and effects were muted. This is not yet a whole.

[dbrown1986]

It was meant to be a little dirty. I guess that was too dirty.

Here's the uncut *clean* version.

[Gario]

I can see why you cut the drums a bit short - they just bleed into each other, when they're there. For the style, you really need to bring them to the front much better, and they really need to sound crisp. If everything else is dirty that'd be fine (in fact, it'd probably sound pretty neat), but those drums need to come out big time.

The beginning sounds pretty neat with the highs/highmids + lows cut out, but the sound needs to fill out much quicker than it does. The listener gets tired of being in that range for such a long time (a.k.a. nearly the whole song).

I like the textures, and if you didn't have so many instruments with the highs/lows cut it'd fill out great. As it is, though, the soundscape just isn't filling up at all.

The structure is lacking, in terms of OCR standards - it just follows the original too much to be accepted, here. There must be some interpretive rearranging of the original song and structure if you want to get this on OCR.

EDIT: Sorry, that version of DJ Velly's track is an older version, so it isn't up to the par that he set for OCR. I forgot to mention that - hopefully Velly can forgive me

I don't think you could know this, but this sounds very similar to what DJ Velly was working on about a year ago (which, by the looks of it, will be a posted remix soon), so as a strangely unfortunate coincidence you have that working against you, as well. The J's at OCR will compare you against another remix of the same tune in a similar style and desire something that brings something else new to the table (I know, yours is 'Rave' and his is 'Dance', but they're still fairly similar, right now). Just keep in mind that there's something down the pikes that may poise a problem, if you want to be accepted. When you change around the structure keep this track in the back of your mind and try to do something different from it and you'll be good to go .

You have great ideas going here, and it sounds like your production skills are enough to get this whipped into shape, but it's like you personally sabotaged your own work with the filters you've got going over it. I like it, though, and will keep an eye on it.

[DarkSim]

Hey David, glad to see you posting another tune, even though I don't know the source for this one.

Glad to see you value my opinion, so I'll do my best to give constructive criticism!

It's a decent start, as with your previous effort, I enjoy the synth work and panning, they're well balanced, however you do seem to have trouble getting drums and bass to sound meaty in your tunes, which is a real problem given the genre you're going for! I honestly don't know how you manage to kill them so effectively... it's a mystery to me, but I suggest you try making a few beats on their own and get the drums sounding perfect, then start layering up the instruments on top of that. Personally, I like to have some sort of melody or bassline looped when I create something, then add drums to it while it's looping in a style I feel befits the track. Then you can start adding pads, arpeggios, effects, whatever you like onto that solid loop, making sure your drums aren't lost in the mix as you go.

Is there anything in your hardware setup that could be causing you to hear more bass and drums than everyone else, causing you to turn them down? Bass boost on your speakers or something? Just an idea.

As for general comments and suggestions for the genre, I'm going to direct you to a post in this thread where I mention some techniques I think are relevant to making this kind of music. I mainly learnt those things from tutorials on these forums though, so obviously check out those as well in the tutorials section. Do remember your builds and transitions, effects and sidechaining (none of which I can hear currently), and listen to bLiNd's tunes (among others) for great examples of how to keep this type of music fresh and interesting.

Sorry if I seem overly harsh, but I agree with Gario in that this does have potential and I think you definitely have the skills to make a nicely produced remix, it's just you have some issues with drums that need to be addressed!

[Scrap McNapps]

The drums are definitely a problem. ESPECIALLY the kick drum. There isn't enough low end being filled IMO. If you are using some type of filter on it you might need to check that out.

[dbrown1986]

You know what, all of the criticism is starting to make a difference.

Did some KICK ASS line ups for the drums. Updated the song at the original post as well as here. Tell me what you all think.

http://tindeck.com/listen/cujb

[Gario]

The drums have improved a lot, bro. Good job with that.

I still feel like the filters on the bass & texture synths bring the music down, though. Have you experimented with letting up on that and hearing how the music sounds on it's own? Soundscape-wise it's alright, except for a few moments (like roughly 2/3 into the music, for example) where there seems to be too many highs cluttering the sound. Be careful with those moments, and be sure to clean them up.

The ending is pretty abrupt - you need something to really end the piece, there. It sounds like you wanted to do more, but couldn't.

I like the general direction, and the sounds are relatively clean, but there is still some work to be done on this one. Best of luck with it.

[dbrown1986]

The synths don't have any filters that "I" placed on them, those were how the effects sounded stock, so I will go through NeXus and see if I can adjust the preset filters. I also think that the samples you mentioned do need some work, they sound brilliant on headphones; yes, but I have noticed on surround systems (in stereo) and on my roomies stereo that they bleed together, so it is something I plan to address.

As far as an epic ending; I will try and figure something out.

On another note; Square-Enix related. I've been working on a Remaster/Restoring of the FFVII OST. These are not supposed to be remixes, but if you could send me a PM with your thoughts, that would be awesome.

Prelude - http://tindeck.com/listen/jspv

Mako Reactor - http://tindeck.com/listen/gecp

[Gario]

If that's how the samples sound naturally, go slap the guy who made the samples so mid-heavy. Then consider actually running the samples through EQs and possibly vocoders and lower the mids while raising the highs somewhere in the middle of the song (the effect works great in the beginning). That might open up the sound a little bit (or it might not - you'll need to experiment with that, since it's the samples themselves that are strange).

As for posting other tracks in this thread, you'll both get more attention and less angry faces if you made new threads for new tracks.

[Orpheon]

First time listening to your rendition of this remix in a while - I have to say it was quite an enjoyable listen! Good on you for not letting this go.