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RWS 1-F ReMixing With the Stars: Season 1 Finale: "Touched by a Star"

MindWanderer

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MindWanderer Proficient

MindWanderer

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Mixes are up! Next time, everyone please remember to double-check your file names and make sure your music is downloadable.

The zip file also includes a text file with everyone's pre-season compositions, their sources, and the links to their "comparison" pages on OCR (either the other mixes with the same source, or the remixer they imitated). That's all on the first post of this thread as well. Remember to use those criteria when voting!

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Magnetic Ether Newbie

Magnetic Ether

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Kuolema. You made my life.

That track is now one of my favourite OC ReMixes. Just tidy up those hats at the start and sub it to the panel.

It's so goddamn fun to listen to. <3

I'm on my fourth listen and still smiling.

Wow, thanks! That means a lot to me. I'm really glad you like it :-D.

I'd definitely like to submit it, but I think I'm going to try and record it live before I do; I didn't really have enough time to learn the parts properly for the competition, so everything had to be sequenced.

Once I've had some time to practice though I'm going to give it a shot.

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MindWanderer Proficient

MindWanderer

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Been very busy this week, and just had a chance to listen to all these, and their points of comparison, now. My reviews, to help organize my thoughts, are below. They're a bit more on the critical side than I try to be, so buckle up.

Cash and Change: Huge improvements in production: Even though it's still synth, the instruments are much less grating than in your old pieces. Good use of minimalism. It's a conservative arrangement, much less adventurous than your older mixes, but where it does break out of the mold it does a good job of it. It's hard to compare with the other uses of the Song of Healing on OCR, since neither of the two posted mixes use it as a primary source (I should have made that a requirement, in retrospect, but I didn't, so it's on me), but it certainly isn't anything like either of them.

Tuberz McGee: Mad guitar, but I'm surprised at the lack of lows compared to your pre-RMWtS pieces. I think I actually preferred your older work. Also, granted, Danimal favors the high end, as you do here, but he keeps his bass lower and makes good use of kick. He also rarely does straight guitar mixes, except when he's playing with Armcannon. This is one of my favorites of the round taken by itself, but not by the voting requirements.

Kuolema: Where I see the biggest improvement over your older work is that this does a much better job of keeping the listener entertained, mixing things up. It still does get a little monotonous in places, though. The equalization is also an improvement over your older pieces; this is much cleaner, with less instrumental overlap and less muddiness on the guitar. Harmony could stand a little improvement; it seems off where it takes center stage in 2:55-3:11. The piece does have something in common with "Distorted Star," in that they both mix electric guitar and "classic" acoustic instruments (Celtic in your case, orchestral in theirs), but the actual arrangements are quite different.

Esperado: As with Kuolema, I see your main area of improvement in that you're learning to mix things up. Trance is all very well and good, but even it has to break things up. This mix, much more than your earlier ones, keeps things lively and different throughout... once it gets past the one minute intro. Channeling zircon is a tough task, since he doesn't really have a consistent style. What he does do consistently is mix synth, "real" instruments, and a powerful percussion line. You have some piano here... and otherwise I'm just not seeing it. Note to self: The MP3 lists Castlevania, not Castlevania II, as the source, I have to fix that when I get a chance.

Final Kingdom: A+ for improvement! Good soundscape, good variety, clever arrangement. Vocals are hard to produce properly; you need to work on it a bit (could use a tiny bit of pitch correction in places), but you certainly have the voice to make it worthwhile to get this down. It does have a fair bit in common with "Fifty Rings to Ride" and a little bit with "Sahasralah's Homecoming," so not quite so many points from me on theme.

The Eluryahn: Your earlier piano work was pretty darn solid, so improving on that was a challenge, but I think you did it. Good use of the whole piano, enough arrangement to keep it interesting, though the actual pacing remains close to the source until close to the end--but this is something kLuTz does, as well. Submitting this in imitation of pianist kLuTz much have been an easy choice for you, but even beyond that, I can see the influence. Was "600 A.D. in Piano" a specific inspiration? Because the pattern of it is much like the one here. One thing kLuTz does well that you could work on is play around a lot with velocity and tiny changes in timing. Very hard to imitate for a human, and even more so digitally, but there's always something to shoot for. And, this is why I make you play your own instruments for these things; no fair riding on (or failing by) someone else's talents.

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Tuberz McGee Newbie

Tuberz McGee

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He also rarely does straight guitar mixes, except when he's playing with Armcannon. This is one of my favorites of the round taken by itself, but not by the voting requirements.

First off. Thank you. It's the track I had the most fun with, but it was hard to mix. I had more guitars than usual and it made things muddy.

I had to remove dem bass frequencies where I could. :(

And second off... what? :/ Straight Guitar wankery is his thing yo.

I know he's done some extra things, but overall, he's a straight guitar man 90% of the time.

Would you be able to elaborate? :/

EDIT: In fact, in Armcannon... his Castlevania 3 Cover (Which originally was all guitar) was changed to add keyboard leads. :/

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Magnetic Ether Newbie

Magnetic Ether

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Kuolema: Where I see the biggest improvement over your older work is that this does a much better job of keeping the listener entertained, mixing things up. It still does get a little monotonous in places, though. The equalization is also an improvement over your older pieces; this is much cleaner, with less instrumental overlap and less muddiness on the guitar. Harmony could stand a little improvement; it seems off where it takes center stage in 2:55-3:11. The piece does have something in common with "Distorted Star," in that they both mix electric guitar and "classic" acoustic instruments (Celtic in your case, orchestral in theirs), but the actual arrangements are quite different.

Thanks for the feedback!

I've learnt a lot in the last ~6 months and I definitely feel like each track I've worked on in that time has been better than the last. I understand EQ, Compression, etc. far better than I did when I was working on my earlier stuff, so I'm glad that it's a noticeable improvement.

Also thanks for pointing out the harmony stuff. It's not really something I noticed while I was working on it because I guess I'm used to stuff that isn't completely harmonic or whatever, but I can definitely see where you're coming from.

By the way, thanks so much MindWanderer for running this competition and to everyone I worked with and went up against. I've learnt so much from everyone and have really enjoyed listening to all the tracks.

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MindWanderer Proficient

MindWanderer

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And second off... what? :/ Straight Guitar wankery is his thing yo.

I know he's done some extra things, but overall, he's a straight guitar man 90% of the time.

Would you be able to elaborate? :/

EDIT: In fact, in Armcannon... his Castlevania 3 Cover (Which originally was all guitar) was changed to add keyboard leads. :/

Sure. I'll take his OCR contributions one at a time.

  1. Fear My Lowering Coefficient of Friction: Features some brief synth instruments at 2:00, and extensively from 2:29 through the end of the piece at 4:30.
  2. Mega Manhood 3: It's hard to hear it, but from 2:14 to the end of the piece, the bass line is backed by synth effects. This one's very subtle, though.
  3. BTMNTBAMLOL: This one is straight rock band, but it's also a collab with two other rock band performers, including one other from Armcannon.
  4. Enter the Shredder: The opening and various sound effects throughout, obviously. Background elements from 1:11 to 1:22, and from 2:00 on, there's the SFX "metronome." And of course the "skips" at the end.

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Tuberz McGee Newbie

Tuberz McGee

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Sure. I'll take his OCR contributions one at a time.

  1. Fear My Lowering Coefficient of Friction: Features some brief synth instruments at 2:00, and extensively from 2:29 through the end of the piece at 4:30.
  2. Mega Manhood 3: It's hard to hear it, but from 2:14 to the end of the piece, the bass line is backed by synth effects. This one's very subtle, though.
  3. BTMNTBAMLOL: This one is straight rock band, but it's also a collab with two other rock band performers, including one other from Armcannon.
  4. Enter the Shredder: The opening and various sound effects throughout, obviously. Background elements from 1:11 to 1:22, and from 2:00 on, there's the SFX "metronome." And of course the "skips" at the end.

Holy hell, I never noticed the synths at the end of Mega Manhood. Wow.

I was even involved in that DoD round too. :/ And I voted. Man. I feel bad now. Hahaha

But yeah. Enter the Shredder is one of my favourite mixes of his. PERIOD.

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Esperado Newbie

Esperado

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its good to get some feedback! i was trying to emulate the style of one his originals, so thats where i kindof went wrong with it.

im with kuolema. this contest has really been helping me, even if its only been three months. Thanks to mindwanderer and whomever it was that convinced me to sign up. I legitimately didnt think i had the skill level to participate at first.

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