Of Men and Monsters [Pokémon / progressive dubstep]

[Synthony]

Okay, after waaaaaay too much procrastination, I finally went back and remastered "Of Men and Monsters" one more time. This time, I've overhauled the previously repetitive drumlines, tremendously improved the mixing and mastering, and added some stereo madness to the lead synth, among other little tweaks here and there.

An old mix of this tune was submitted to and rejected by the OverClocked ReMix judges' panel, who told me the arrangement was awesome but the audio quality... not so much. In the process of revamping this medley, I learned a TON about mixing and mastering which has proven valuable to my original productions as well, and now I think I'm about where I want to be in terms of production skill. Hopefully they'll agree. I'm gonna post this for a last round of feedback from the OCR forum community before submitting it to the judges' panel once again.

"Of Men and Monsters" is a brostep medley of five tracks from the Pokémon video game series, spanning every model of GameBoy and the best years of my childhood. Source material is as follows:

Pokémon Red/Green/Blue: "Team Rocket Hideout"; "

"

Pokémon Gold/Silver: "Rocket Hideout"; "Unown Tune"

Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire: "

"

Download from SoundCloud! http://soundcloud.com/synthony/of-men-and-monsters-pokemon

[Elder Kirby]

When that bass first comes in at 0:42, it sounds really muddy and awkward.

The bass in general is way too muddy (even for dubstep/brostep!).

Also, it sounds like you used the same bass throughout the song, and hearing that really obvious bitcrusher gets annoying quickly.

Try adding variation by alternating between another bass or two.

The drums sound really dry as well, add more reverb to them or something.

I love the sources you used for this though! And that Ghastly sample was a nice touch at 2:47

Even so, I feel like you stayed too true to the source. Try adding your own variations to the themes here and there. Right now your mix is very repetitive.

[Chimpazilla]

I like the music box-like intro!

Ah, Harmor's "decimated voice," I love that! It's really easily identifiable though... as EK said, maybe you could change that up here and there. I don't find it terribly muddy, make sure you HP below 30Hz or so and carve out room between about 200-400Hz, that should cover most of the mud. Yeah, the bitcrushing could tone down, or automate on/off for a very cool effect.

The drums are just a tad dry. The snare is most noticeable. Just turn up the reverb/delay a touch on that, and the hats too. The kick gets a little lost behind the bass, is it sidechained? Also where does it hit hardest, give the bass a tiny cut in that area.

The other instruments/synths sound good and I like the glitching, it isn't overdone. As for repetitiveness, I'd say if the judges had no problem with it, you're good to go on the arrangement.

I like it a lot! Best of luck with round 2 in the panel.

[Synthony]

I like the music box-like intro!

Ah, Harmor's "decimated voice," I love that! It's really easily identifiable though... as EK said, maybe you could change that up here and there. I don't find it terribly muddy, make sure you HP below 30Hz or so and carve out room between about 200-400Hz, that should cover most of the mud. Yeah, the bitcrushing could tone down, or automate on/off for a very cool effect.

The drums are just a tad dry. The snare is most noticeable. Just turn up the reverb/delay a touch on that, and the hats too. The kick gets a little lost behind the bass, is it sidechained? Also where does it hit hardest, give the bass a tiny cut in that area.

The other instruments/synths sound good and I like the glitching, it isn't overdone. As for repetitiveness, I'd say if the judges had no problem with it, you're good to go on the arrangement.

I like it a lot! Best of luck with round 2 in the panel.

I don't use Harmor :v The bass synths in this were made with 3xOsc and various basic effects plugins. All-in-one softsynths are just clunky and unnecessary to me. I build my sounds from the ground up. B3

I can't for the life of me figure out how to make a kick drum punch through the bass, short of using a peak controller to duck the volume of the sub bass, which turns out too obvious by the time the kicks make it through... Sidechaining doesn't seem to want to work in my favor, like, ever, and it irritates the hell out of me. As for the EQing tips... thank you for being so very specific xD Equalization flies right over my head, I usually just tinker around til something sounds good xD

As for the bitcrushing... I don't know how else to get the "ya" sound D: I can tinker all I want with multiple different bitcrushers but they all produce that annoying high-pitched drone and I want rid of that >.< I just can't figure out how...

[Chimpazilla]

Oh gosh, I've accused you unjustly, sorry! But yeah, that is exactly what that preset sounds like. I love it... it just sounds very distinctive! I don't understand how bitcrushing gives the ya sound? Sorry I haven't used bitcrushing at all, and have never created a ya sound myself!

What are you using to sidechain? Don't use peak controller... what a bitch that is. Use Fruity Limiter. Here is a wonderful tutorial on that.

As for using eq, it is crucial to let each instrument have it's space. If the kick is strong at 70Hz, give it a wide q 1db boost there, and give the bass a narrow-ish 2db cut there. Do the same for the bass. Is it strongest at 100Hz? Boost it 0.5-1db there (wide q) and cut the kick by 1-2db (slightly narrower q) there. Same goes for the other instruments when they are playing together. Make sure nothing but kick and bass are playing in the low regions by rolling off everything else below 200-250Hz, then look to see where each instrument has it's strongest presence, and *gently* cut (small and wide) room out of the other instruments in those places. You shouldn't need to cut leads too much (except rolling off low end), unless there is something annoying about it. Cut your background stuff (gently) to accomodate leads.

Hope that helps.

[tesselode]

The whole thing sounds a little underwater to me. Brighten up the drums, that should help a lot.

[Rockos]

The mix is pretty good so far.

The bass crushed is a little bit loud as it takes a big part of the room. Ohterwise, The snare could use more high pitch. Try layering. Especially high pitch snare, cutting the low ends. The stereo add is awesome.

At some place it's sparse a little bit.

Overall, I would correct the snare sound. It need to take a higher place in the soundscape. I would try to lower the effects on the bass or the volume itself a little little bit. Play with these to get the most out of this song.

I think too the kick could be layered to get a higher pitch too. Backup and play with it to see what you can come to.

Hope to see this polished and front page mix

[Rozovian]

I'm gonna take your word on the judges' thoughts on the arrangement and focus on the production, just to expedite things.

The bass is strong with this one... but that's about it. It's surprisingly pleasant in this mix. Somehow, it doesn't feel like that's the intention. This feels like it should be louder. Side-chain more? Subtle multiband compressor on top of everything? A touch of tube distortion/overdrive or things that need a little more brightness and presence?

The bitcrushed tone gets old. You need to do more with it, change it up.

Some _careful_ loudening, some more variation in tone for that bitcrushed thing... I'm not sure exactly what this genre entails, so it's hard to eval. Cool track tho.

[timaeus222]

In the beginning, it's a very simplistic arrangement---up until 0:42. Try changing it up a bit. Add some miscellaneous effects with good stereo width.

The bass in general is extremely loud; it's overpowering the lead. The kick sounds fine, but the EQ is probably clashing with the sub bass. Like chimpazilla said, try high passing the sub bass to above 30 or 40 Hz. Everything down there is too inaudible to really contribute to the song anyways.

The wobble bass has a lot of high frequency, probably from that bitcrusher effect---which I've never actually tried. However, it's not working, and it's clashing with the hi-hats (or rides, whichever samples you're using). Try low passing that out at about 12kHz.

Overall, the mix itself sounds very low-passed, and the crashes don't seem to match the rest of the kit. The kit itself is very dry. Try adding some room reverb to the snare. Maybe even find a higher-pitched snare. It's maybe 3 half steps too low.

The lead could sound more in front. Yes, you're doing a dubsteppish song, and yes, the dubstep bass should be in front, but not too overpowering. If you dropped the dubstep bass to about 85% its original volume and raised the lead to maybe 105% of its original volume, that might help to fix things.

Good luck.

Note: I'm not a mod.