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Mega Man X: The Sigma Fortress Remix Gauntlet 2015


DarkeSword
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VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE!

 

Please REDOWNLOAD the ZIP file for Round 2 and REVOTE in the new voting thread. DusK's track was inadvertently left out of the release, despite him sending me his track well before the deadline.

 

The old thread is closed due to a remix being missing from the remix package. Votes in that thread will not be counted. If you voted in the old thread, please re-download the updated package of remixes and vote in the new thread.

 

My apologies to DusK and the rest of the Vintage Reploid Squad for this mix-up.

Yeah I was wondering about that this afternoon when I mentioned it to Dustin.  At least there weren't that many votes in the thread and most importantly it's still early so I hope everyone gets to listen to his submission.

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Lol poor Dusk.

 

Pretty good songs this week, I'll try to write some reviews later but I enjoyed most of them. WillRock's is my favourite. I was also very surprised by timaeus' track since the style is very unique and it was pulled off greatly IMO.

Thanks man! I felt inspired by a track from the Borderlands 2 soundtrack by BGC, and a song I sang in my freshman year in high school, Horizons (arr. by The King's Singers).

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If you're into UIlleann Pipes you should listen to Nightwish's most recent album 'Endless Forms Most Beautiful'. It's got pipes coming out of it's (metaphorical) ears!

 

I was somewhat familiar with what Uilleann pipes were for a long time but It wasn't until I played The Witcher a few years ago that I went overboard with them. Love that OST like crazy and can't wait to play the 3rd one that just came out.  

 

You know, despite my love of folk metal and symphonic metal I've never really been into Nightwish. It's a band with a lot of talent no question but they have yet to do anything that really jumps out to me. Maybe that album will be what converts me.  I'll have to check it out. 

 

I do dig hietala's beard tho :)

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If you could do 8pm for the listening party I could join in, I work on Pacific time, and 7 eastern is 4 Pacific, which cuts into work, for me.

 

I could postpone it, my schedule is very flexible :P

 

There are more USA people in this compo than EU ones anyway.

 

New listening party time! 8PM EDT (2AM CET), today, #ocrcompo IRC channel on esper.net! Download the songs before you join!

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Poor Dusk. Is this going to bring back the voting by a day or you are going straight ahead?

 

Also, another question... (sorry if its been answered, I couldn't find it)
 
Regarding the voting, if you vote and state your team but your team didn’t contribute a remix that round, do you get the 1st place bonus for your team?

 

 

Voting is still ending on Saturday.

 

If your team doesn't submit a remix for that round, they don't earn any points for the round. I guess you still get the bonus but it doesn't actually matter because your team cannot place in the overall rankings at all.

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Hey I was going to ask, does anyone (especially the rocker types like DusK, Tuberz, jnWake, etc) have any advice on how I could improve the mix on the track I entered (Winter Weather Advisory)? While trying to get it loud I noticed that the mix quality kind of started suffering a bit. I was trying to do a mars volta\reign of kindo type of thing with it.

Would really appreciate any advice you talented chaps could provide.

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Hey I was going to ask, does anyone (especially the rocker types like DusK, Tuberz, jnWake, etc) have any advice on how I could improve the mix on the track I entered (Winter Weather Advisory)? While trying to get it loud I noticed that the mix quality kind of started suffering a bit. I was trying to do a mars volta\reign of kindo type of thing with it.

Would really appreciate any advice you talented chaps could provide.

 

When I listened to it (and please don't take offense to this), I felt confused as to whether theoretically, if the performance were to be live, the instrumentalists were aware of each other or just playing independently as if no one else was in the room. To me, it felt like the drums were too busy, and not particularly playing a beat that was cohesive with the rest of the instruments.

 

If by "mix quality suffering" you mean it became overcompressed, then that tends to be due to the tolerance of your limiter. The free (FREE!) limiter I use, TLs-Pocket Limiter, is very tolerant, so I never (ever) have overcompression issues anymore (not since about 2012; what I watch out for instead these days is overcrowding, which is not a "pumping" feel, but just a cluttered feel). You may also want to take a look at FabFilter Pro-L, which I hear is a pretty fantastic (commercial) limiter.

 

Does that help?

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When I listened to it (and please don't take offense to this), I felt confused as to whether theoretically, if the performance were to be live, the instrumentalists were aware of each other or just playing independently as if no one else was in the room. To me, it felt like the drums were too busy, and not particularly playing a beat that was cohesive with the rest of the instruments.

 

If by "mix quality suffering" you mean it became overcompressed, then that tends to be due to the tolerance of your limiter. The free (FREE!) limiter I use, TLs-Pocket Limiter, is very tolerant, so I never (ever) have overcompression issues anymore (not since about 2012; what I watch out for instead these days is overcrowding, which is not a "pumping" feel, but just a cluttered feel). You may also want to take a look at FabFilter Pro-L, which I hear is a pretty fantastic (commercial) limiter.

 

Does that help?

Its running through Pro-L and an LA-3A emulator. I have a feeling the latter might be whats causing some of the problem.  The strange part is like, if you listen to most modern rock its smashed even harder than what I did. I reference mastered this one. Maybe I didnt roll enough of the bottom off? Hmm

 

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I've never used the LA-3A emulated compressor, but have you tried just raising the volume with that off, or adjusting the compression settings on Pro-L? If you click "Advanced" under the Gain slider at the left, you should see settings for Lookahead, Attack, Release, etc. If it's Pro-L causing it, it should gradually help if you slowly and finely decrease the Release time.

 

As for "rolling the bottom off", I actually do that too; on the Master track, I tend to high pass at about 30 Hz to eliminate most of the very low subs, since hardly ever do instruments go that far down.

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I've never used the LA-3A emulated compressor, but have you tried just raising the volume with that off, or adjusting the compression settings on Pro-L? If you click "Advanced" under the Gain slider at the left, you should see settings for Lookahead, Attack, Release, etc. If it's Pro-L causing it, it should gradually help if you slowly and finely decrease the Release time.

 

As for "rolling the bottom off", I actually do that too; on the Master track, I tend to high pass at about 30 Hz to eliminate most of the very low subs, since hardly ever do instruments go that far down.

I was using it to try and smooth the transients out before the limiter because if you just throw everything in the limiter you end up getting an incredible amount of disgusting distortion trying to reach the same level of loudness. I should check to see how much GR its actually doing though. I dunno this has been a problem that has plagued me for literally 3 years now and doing things the "proper way" and trying to be minimalistic on the master hasn't really given me the right sound, so right now I'm trying to use things perhaps too liberally trying to see if I can find that happy medium.

I really appreciate your feedback Timaeus, I'll look into my limiting settings more closely.

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I was using to it try and smooth the transients out before the limiter because if you just throw everything in the limiter you end up getting an incredible amount of disgusting distortion trying to reach the same level of loudness.

Yeah, exactly. Personally, I believe judging volumes accurately is pretty hard, but what I would have done there is gone back to check each of my instrument volumes and evening those out first before using Master track processing. YMMV, but the people I've come across tend to say that Master track processing shouldn't be a magic fixer-upper, but mainly a final polish, if that makes sense. ;)

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blahblah transients blahblah loudness blahblah. minimalist blahblah

 

You wanna make things loud? From my perspective, mastering is a big part of it, but you want to make your music sound as loud as possible in the mixing stage before hand. You can achieve that through compressors to reduce the dynamics without affecting the actual volume, creating a more consistant and louder mix. Then you can get a louder master. Also, sometimes I experiment with stereo imaging to widen the stereo field and keep boosting the volume. Widening the stereo field can bring out quieter instruments creating a bigger and louder sound. Its all about perception. Sorry if any of this is obvious or already been covered :P

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You wanna make things loud? From my perspective, mastering is a big part of it, but you want to make your music sound as loud as possible in the mixing stage before hand. You can achieve that through compressors to reduce the dynamics without affecting the actual volume, creating a more consistant and louder mix. Then you can get a louder master. Also, sometimes I experiment with stereo imaging to widen the stereo field and keep boosting the volume. Widening the stereo field can bring out quieter instruments creating a bigger and louder sound. Its all about perception. Sorry if any of this is obvious or already been covered :P

This is what has been working for me the past couple of years.  Getting a good mix is the most important thing.  Most of the time I just make music without any effects on the master track at all.  Focus on getting the right mix levels, on bussing your stuff correctly, on giving the instruments their own space via panning/eq, etc.  Nowadays my mastering process is very simple and keeps getting simpler the more I focus on getting a good mix beforehand. 

Try to shy away from presets.  Get used to starting from scratch on compressor settings.  It's hard at first, gets easier with time, and you'll get the best results that are appropriate for your track.

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This is what has been working for me the past couple of years.  Getting a good mix is the most important thing.  Most of the time I just make music without any effects on the master track at all.  Focus on getting the right mix levels, on bussing your stuff correctly, on giving the instruments their own space via panning/eq, etc.  Nowadays my mastering process is very simple and keeps getting simpler the more I focus on getting a good mix beforehand. 

Try to shy away from presets.  Get used to starting from scratch on compressor settings.  It's hard at first, gets easier with time, and you'll get the best results that are appropriate for your track.

 

For what it's worth, this is more or less what I do. It's just about selecting good instruments that fit together well, don't have similar sounds, don't occupy similar frequency ranges, and then leveling/panning them appropriately. All I really ever do in the 'mastering' stage is slapping a compressor on there to stop things from clipping. I literally don't know about half the stuff you guys talk about, and my stuff sounds good enough (to me at least), but what do I know :P

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I missed the listening party but this gem in the log got me:

<+Gario> Ground Scaravich? Isn't he the beetle that carries poo around?

If the stupidly weird harmonies in the song hadn't made me regret my choice enough!

 

EDIT: Also, regarding the criticisms I read in the log, I rushed a lot of the writing so my guitar lines are very simple haha. The guitar leads are MIDI recorded so I guess that's why they don't sound that sequenced. I may re-visit this with more time later to add more variations to the guitar and stuff.

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