Sonic 3/Sonic Chaos remix (from SZRC)

[wildfire]

I want to submit this to panel while it's still fresh in my mind, so let me know what you think about the arrangement and/or production!

Endless Mind (Lost in Me).mp3

Lyrics are on the Soundcloud page. Thanks!

[Cash]

Yeah, this was one of my favorites for this round. I dig those vocals, nice work!

I do have some production crits though. I feel like the vocals could be brought forward more, your voice sometimes sounds buried. The drums could use some more variety, I'm hearing mostly the same pattern throughout the track. The hats are too loud for my tastes, they get very distracting for me after a while.

The arrangement sounds like a winner to me, though I'm not very familiar with either source.

[Jonathan!]

This is pretty cool, I like it. My thoughts:

- The opening / ending vocals seem to be a bit buried in the backing. I would have trouble understanding them out without reading them in the soundcloud description.

- I really like the little synth bits such as 0:49, they really add to it

- The echoey vocals that come after that are awesome too. Keep these exactly as they are.

- I sort of got bored / slightly annoyed of the main riff half way through. Perhaps you could add something else in to mix it up? I don't know if this is a genre thing and is supposed to be that way though?

- The voice layering at the end is great. The only problem is that they get very muddy and indistinct. I think that this is related to my first point

Other than this, I pretty much agree with everything that Cash has said above me. I am looking forward to hearing the polished mix.

[timaeus222]

The vocals sound a lil choppy, as if you sliced your vocals to line up the transients, and that sounds unnatural to me. There's quite a bit of midrange in the backing instruments that is cluttering the soundscape and obscuring the important frequencies of all the vocals, so it's hard to understand them without trying to compare to the lyrics.

Also, there's an unusual atmosphere to the reverb. The vocals sound distant and washy, especially in the backing vocals. The backing vocals sound almost like they were recorded in a tiled bathroom, with some additional chorus effects or something.

As a whole, it feels muddy. Even if you can hear certain desirable elements in a song, I know this may sound condescending, but you have to keep the support instruments in mind and mix them to the best of your ability to sound as clear you can manage, as well. I'm not particularly fond of the reverb tone on the vocals, but it's fine.

I'd just say we need more clarity in the vocals, some mud needs to be cleared up, and perhaps, the track can have some more progression throughout. The drums sound pretty simply written, even for trance, and some rhythmic variation would help. You could always change the hi hat rhythm, add an open hi hat, add snare rolls, change up the drum samples, etc.