Jnrd Posted October 28, 2012 Share Posted October 28, 2012 Hi there. Long time lurker here. I had this crazy nostalgic moment last night and I ended up making a remix out of one of my favorite snes tracks ever. http://soundcloud.com/jnrd/bigbluewtf I would like to point out that I know very little about mastering, and I'm using a Fatal1ty gaming headset anyway so the quality is probably really bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timaeus222 Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 Hm. The arrangement ideas aren't all that bad. Of course, the quality isn't what you want it to be, but you knew that. The guitar and drum sequencing are pretty good. Actually, the drum samples are awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skolar Posted October 29, 2012 Share Posted October 29, 2012 Nice job! Big Blue always makes me smile, and your remix hits all the distinctive Big Blue spots that make this song sound like its awesome self. Your headset might not be the perfect tool for getting everything crisp and polished, but I think that you may have wound up giving your remix a really cool sound because of it. Some of the sounds seem to have a sort of white noise behind them, and I actually really like that. It's in keeping with the muffled opening; The whole track has a very retro feel to it. Like a newer, higher quality version of the song is being pushed through those old 1990 tv's speakers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phonetic Hero Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 Not saying anything new here, but I love the gritty, proggy drum patterns and the additional arrangement ideas. Nice stuff. I'd love to see you tackle this with some better arrangement chops and expand on it even more Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrett Williamson Posted October 30, 2012 Share Posted October 30, 2012 I'd love to hear more low end. Not sure I'm hearing enough of that. The sequencing and arrangement is killer though, dude. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jnrd Posted October 31, 2012 Author Share Posted October 31, 2012 Alright thanks for the comments, people. I'm happy you like the drums, since that's where I put most of the work in and tried to incorporate something of my own in the track. Anyway, I'm trying to study all these mixing/mastering guides and tips I've found in the innanetz so I could maybe perhaps make it sound even a little bit better. At the moment I'd really like to add some clarity to the drums. To me some of the fills are just a big messy blob of jumbled sounds and I cant discern some of the toms in there at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timaeus222 Posted October 31, 2012 Share Posted October 31, 2012 If you haven't already, try separating your drums into multiple instances so you can route them individually into a mixer. Then EQ them so that their frequencies don't overlap significantly with those of any others. I usually end up slightly boosting around 100 Hz for the Kick with a thin peaking curve, boosting a bit less than that for the Snare at about 200-300Hz with a relatively thin (wider than "thin") peaking curve, putting a really thin bandstop filter in between to fix up any excess boom from the toms, dipping the mids slightly with a wide peaking curve, and boosting the treble more than slightly with a high shelf curve for the tom's high-end hits and the hats/cymbals/rides. Of course, that's for one EQ module applied on an entire drumset, so you can definitely subdivide it and use each portion of the EQ as a reference for individual EQ's to apply for each mixer track. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jnrd Posted November 1, 2012 Author Share Posted November 1, 2012 If you haven't already, try separating your drums into multiple instances so you can route them individually into a mixer. Then EQ them so that their frequencies don't overlap significantly with those of any others.I usually end up slightly boosting around 100 Hz for the Kick with a thin peaking curve, boosting a bit less than that for the Snare at about 200-300Hz with a relatively thin (wider than "thin") peaking curve, putting a really thin bandstop filter in between to fix up any excess boom from the toms, dipping the mids slightly with a wide peaking curve, and boosting the treble more than slightly with a high shelf curve for the tom's high-end hits and the hats/cymbals/rides. Of course, that's for one EQ module applied on an entire drumset, so you can definitely subdivide it and use each portion of the EQ as a reference for individual EQ's to apply for each mixer track. Thanks! That helped a lot. Sounds better even in my inexperienced ear. Here's the updated version, I did some other stuff as well and it doesn't sound as loud now, but in my opinion it sounds a lot better. http://soundcloud.com/jnrd/bigbluewtf-v2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dafydd Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 The bassline is consistently playing the fifth or third above the original bassline, which ****s with my mind. I like the general soundscape and attitude of the mix. Where did you get those drum samples, anyway? They really do fit the mix perfectly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BardicKnowledge Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 The bassline is consistently playing the fifth or third above the original bassline, which ****s with my mind. I'm also hearing that -- it's causing some awkwardness in places actually. Specifically when the bass changes to the 5th of the chord (example: F in a Bb chord), you should consider changing the bass there. This is because when we hear Bb D F or D F Bb (chord root or 3rd in the bass), we process that correctly as a C chord. When we hear F Bb D, human ears used to listening to Western music (the vast majority of people reading this) tend to hear that chord not as the tonic chord of the key of Bb (the key your arrangement is in) but as the IV chord in the key of F. In short, chords with the 5th in the bass tend to draw us out of the current key unless they are used as part of a sequence of the same chord (like hearing Bb D F; D F Bb; F Bb D in sequence isn't an issue) or at the close of a phrase (where the standard progression is to hear F Bb D; F A C (Eb); Bb D F). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jnrd Posted November 1, 2012 Author Share Posted November 1, 2012 Well now we got in to the stuff I hopelessly suck at. I have literally no idea what the two comments before me said. Except about the drum samples. The toms are from some FL Studio's own drum pack and the rest are from Vengeange Electroshock vol. 1. But anyway, could you tell me the exact parts where the bass sounds odd? I just tried to replicate everything as best as I could. I don't consider myself a musician and I've never had any sort of musical education and my knowledge of chords, progressions, scales and everything like that is completely nonexistent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dafydd Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 If it doesn't sound odd to you, don't let our opinions kill your creativity. I'm assuming though, that since you got the melody down perfectly, you're basing this off a MIDI? You don't really need to understand what I or BardicKnowledge said (I went to music school for 9 years, and reading his post gives even me a headache, even though I understand it ) - just compare your bassline to the one in the original. They don't play the same notes, that's all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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