Sonic 3 Ice Cap Zone Remix

[Zerothemaster]

http://soundcloud.com/zerothemaster/it-may-be-cold-but-well-dance

Eh. I like this, and it's one of my better ones, but I don't know if it has the "stuff" to be OCR quality. Thoughts?

[Obtuse]

We all want to be posted on OCR. However, don't forget the real reason you're here, to make good music. It takes time to develop good skills. Your music right now is rough, but you have enough creativity to keep going and eventually reach a high level of musicianship to get on OCR. My music is still rough but I am confident that I will get better as I seem to progress every year.

On to the mix. The biggest problem for me is that everything kind of steps on each other. Think of a mix like a building. On the foundation you have a bass. These are the lowest frequencies.

On the next level you have your drums, keys, synths (all of these may be in the bass range too).

On the third level you have cymbals and different harmonics that poke their head out and may make the mix muddy or stand out the way you want them too.

Apply an EQ to each track you have with the idea of where these sit together.

Another good trick to use to keep things from stepping on each other is panning. Take this track and pan things to the left or right until you don't feel like. Throw the big pad to the left for example. Throw any melodies to the right.

It kind of feels like every sound here has the same volume. play with your volume on each track.

I dig the dub step towards the end. One thing I'm not a fan of is how it is all in both ears. try panning it and EQing a bit of the top end off.

One thing I am trying right now is putting a low pass filter on everything at around 10 kHz(same as using an eq and using a corner frequency of 10 kHz). It seems to stop unnecessary harmonics from floating all over the place. I then adjust the filters if it sounds like i'm cutting off any high end sounds (Cymbals, a gorgeous synth, vocals).

[SnappleMan]

Sonic 3 Ice Cap Zone Remix

lol for real?

[Gario]

Yarp, for realz. Can't hold a good source down.

Experimental is right - definitely not like much that I've heard before. Obtuse said the things about muddiness that I wanted to say, so may as well not repeat that here.

The swelling on the bass saw is distracting, when it's used as consistently as it is. A swell for the first note of a phrase then no swell (by adjusting the attack value) would be ideal - get your effect without distracting the listener.

Aside from that, though, there's the arrangement. If you're shooting for OCR, there is a delicate balance to be made between conservative and liberal, which this track takes it a bit too far on the liberal side. That bass texture may be from the source, but if that's all that holds it to Ice Cap until the end I don't think that would be accepted on here.

I like the samples, but that's because I'm a sucker for them. Most people would probably say rely on them less. Personally, I say use them, but be sure to have some rhyme and reason to them. I think I heard what you were going for ('You're too Slow' - Tempo Change, Robotnik - Dubstep), and I commend you for it; that's clever. Using those sounds at other points where nothing happens, though (as well as using sounds that don't lead to anything) makes the effects less pronounced.

The dubstep losses it's flavor when the LFO raises to a point where the wubs move too fast for too long. If you got wubs, play with them a bit more.

It's great to experiment - often that's where you can learn the most about music. I hope you can learn a lot from this track.