WIP -- Time's Memories (Chrono Trigger/Cross)

[Tuned Logic]

This is a remix of "Memories of Green" from Chrono Trigger and "Scars of Time" from Chrono Cross. I'm fairly new with this, and this is my first public release, so criticism is welcome.

Btw, feel free to check out my other Chrono WIP on the site, but it's farther from finished (Counting the Minutes).

http://feinstein.mike.googlepages.com/

Yeah, I'm a Chrono nut.

Anyway, thanks for your time.

[avaris]

Newbie huh? I think the arrangement with what you have done with both themes sounds awesome. The chord proggressions have some power to em. In some places the melody like :59. It sounds good just a lil off. Varying some of the velocity levels on the piano lead to increase the emotive feel.

Some of the harmony goin in the back ground with different synths could use a touch of verb and stereo seperation to help them sit back in the mix more.

Some of those lo-fi sounds in the beggining are cool but are a lil grating on the ears IMO. Hit those up with some serious EQ to tone em down.

The basic drums are good but try to get in sync a lil more with the melody. The need a lil more variation in places. Also your using the same snare hit the whole time that really wears out the listener's ears and detracts from the beautiful melodies you got goin on. Maybe throw in some bongos or some other stuff.

Try to introduce another lead instrument some places during the first half.

In general make sure to check your levels what parts do you want in the foreground and what parts do you want in the background? When memories of green comes in full force that swelling tends to be a lil much since your doin it so much. It overpowers everything. Tone it down.

Dude I really like what you got goin on in this, it really reminds me of Fatty Acid. Go listen to his stuff for a good idea of how the percussion could sound. Def keep workin on this.

[Tuned Logic]

Wow, thanks a lot for the comments! So how exactly does one execute stereo seperation (EDIT: Never mind. Found it ? Also, what EQ effects unsharpen the lo-fi?

Thanks again.

Mike

Newbie huh? I think the arrangement with what you have done with both themes sounds awesome. The chord proggressions have some power to em. In some places the melody like :59. It sounds good just a lil off. Varying some of the velocity levels on the piano lead to increase the emotive feel.

Some of the harmony goin in the back ground with different synths could use a touch of verb and stereo seperation to help them sit back in the mix more.

Some of those lo-fi sounds in the beggining are cool but are a lil grating on the ears IMO. Hit those up with some serious EQ to tone em down.

The basic drums are good but try to get in sync a lil more with the melody. The need a lil more variation in places. Also your using the same snare hit the whole time that really wears out the listener's ears and detracts from the beautiful melodies you got goin on. Maybe throw in some bongos or some other stuff.

Try to introduce another lead instrument some places during the first half.

In general make sure to check your levels what parts do you want in the foreground and what parts do you want in the background? When memories of green comes in full force that swelling tends to be a lil much since your doin it so much. It overpowers everything. Tone it down.

Dude I really like what you got goin on in this, it really reminds me of Fatty Acid. Go listen to his stuff for a good idea of how the percussion could sound. Def keep workin on this.

[avaris]

No problemo. Just throw an EQ over the lo-fi stuff and start cutting out freq and just use your ears till they aren't piercing anymore. Try eliminating some from 1,000-5,000; that would be a good place to start.

[Tuned Logic]

Well, I've really been working in this in the last few days, and I made some major updates. Any opinions appreciated.

http://feinstein.mike.googlepages.com/TimesMemories.mp3

[avaris]

Yeah dude some definate improvements. This mix is starting to come together. You got some great composition. Here are some things I'm feeling from it.

Because you have piano going the entire time the song is just carrying the same sonic texture the entire time. While the composition is anything but redundant using the same basic sound over and over wears out the listener's interest. Try to find something to play some of the chords instead of the piano sometimes. You do introduce some new leads later on but the piano and snare are ever present. If you the piano in there a lot, then give it some sections where it expands dynamically. You know get it up to C7 range. Also try to really work on changing the velocity levels of the piano to match the changes in feeling of the composition.

Cut out some of the low frequencies all around to give the kick and bass it's own space. Watch out you don't overload 200hz to 400hz with sounds. The soundscape feels a lil muddy. You have lots of little sounds goin on all over the place, try to pan more of them hard left and right. This will create more space and also let those individual elements shine more.

Structure wise. Get some more climactic sections in here. It feels like your playing in the same range the entire time.

I really like the rythms. Try to vary them up a lil more when your melodies complete their thoughts and start up again.

Really nice update dude. I'm being really picky about a lot of stuff cause I really like alot of what you have here. Really try to work on mastering this, giving everything it's own sonic space. And also give the climactic sections more of a climactic feel. Def a wicked nice update, keep working on this one.

[Tuned Logic]

Thanks for the continued commentary. I probably won't have a chance to work on this again till next week (my spring break), so I'll hopefully have some time.

[DualFace]

You know what....I was into the song about maybe 1:30s worth and was JUST about to change it to something

else when I got distracted by some other WIPs n' stuff. GLAD I DIDN'T change it. It sounds like I either

got a crappy/bad bitrate transfer of this MP3 but WOW, I really fell in love with the whole mood I was put

in by this remix.

Hope to hear a remastered or just plain 'mastered' version of this if there isn't one already. Two thumbs up man.

[Tuned Logic]

You mean 192 kbps isn't high enough? I'll be sure to increase the bitrate when I pump out my next update.

You know what....I was into the song about maybe 1:30s worth and was JUST about to change it to something

else when I got distracted by some other WIPs n' stuff. GLAD I DIDN'T change it. It sounds like I either

got a crappy/bad bitrate transfer of this MP3 but WOW, I really fell in love with the whole mood I was put

in by this remix.

Hope to hear a remastered or just plain 'mastered' version of this if there isn't one already. Two thumbs up man.

[DJ Tetsusaiga]

This is an excellent remix of both those songs! You kept the feel of both, and combined them so well. It REALLY needs to be mastered though. Avaris has some very good points that i have to agree on. This has the heart, it just needs the rib cage to secure it. Must have clean version of this song, sooo good. please keep working on this!

[Tuned Logic]

I might sound stupid asking this, but what exactly do you mean by mastering? Sonic separation? I'd be glad to master my mix if I knew what was involved.

This is an excellent remix of both those songs! You kept the feel of both, and combined them so well. It REALLY needs to be mastered though. Avaris has some very good points that i have to agree on. This has the heart, it just needs the rib cage to secure it. Must have clean version of this song, sooo good. please keep working on this!

[DJ Tetsusaiga]

I might sound stupid asking this, but what exactly do you mean by mastering? Sonic separation? I'd be glad to master my mix if I knew what was involved.

Mastering to me means bringing out the most of the song. The bass is bassy, the kick's got kick, the strings have power/got the feel, synths are clean and phat. Well it really depends on the song, but yeah. YOUR song sounds rather dry, if i may use that as a metaphor. It needs to be dusted off and brought into the clean air. I suppose using metaphors doesn't really tell you HOW to do it, but i'm just giving your a visual representation of what you should be hearing. Imagery does infact go along with the song. You really need to be bring out the presence of all your sounds. Equalize each sound so it has its full potential for what your trying to represent to your listeners. I know i may be a little bit wishy washy in my advice, but i'm just trying to get you to hear what i mean, lots of the songs on this sight will have a good example for what i mean, i dont' really have the time to list some individual songs. anyways if you want to talk more on the matter you can go to my profile and write me a message or add my to msn/yahoo/aim or whatever i don't care. Hope i didn't get you more lost lol. egmcary@hotmail.com

[avaris]

If you want a really good read that is entertaining at the same time:

http://www.tweakheadz.com/mastering_your_audio.htm

Look at the left hand column towards the bottom and you'll find individual sections on EQ, Compression, Panning etc...

[Tuned Logic]

Okay, I have absolutely no idea if I'm heading in the right direction with this, but my sound card is acting weird lately (I get crackling IN the rendered mp3... how is that possible? Too many effects on?) It usually only happens while playing back in FL Studio. I take it this is a sound card issue (Audigy 2) and not memory.

So I played with the panning/EQ a bit. Improvement, or not? I probably need to buy a new sound card before going further... grrrrr. (BTW, should I go for the X-Fi Elite for the 0% CPU Load?)

http://feinstein.mike.googlepages.com/SOTMOG411.mp3

(A little static in this, but nothing compared to what I'm getting now)

[avaris]

Read up on RMS. If the average decibal value is above -6 for a period of time clipping will occur. I had this problem on a mix too. For me it was the compression levels that did it.

If your going to get a new sound card you might wanna check out an M-Audio or a EMU card. Zircon has a thread about soundcards in the remixing section.

This def sounds much cleaner though IMO. The volume on the kick seems a lil low. Try adding just a touch of compression to it.

First section the piano playing the melody and the guitar playing the melody are very different volume levels. At :48 the piano is playing such beautiful melody but it is too soft. Try having the piano a little louder. And then when the guitar comes in a little bit after that have it at a softer volume. That should prob really set the mood.

Overall in places have the guitar notes hit left then right then left (ping pong panning). It's always coming through the right hand side the entire time. A little variation will go a long way.

The piano kinda of just popped in at 3:51. Get some kinda crescendo leading into it. Volume wise it is a little loud after that. It's distracting the listener away from the melody. Varying up the velocity levels more on the piano there. Have the movements in the velocity correspond to the movement of the melody.

On the ending try to get the piano to move a little more it feels static. Also the snare is getting in the way of the piano at the ending section.

Def like the update. Keep on going with this one, it's really turning out good. Some ethnic percussion is one or two sections could go really well. It would also allow the snare to get more rest. So when you do use the snare it is fresher in the listener's ears.

[Tuned Logic]

Thanks for reminding me.... How the HECK do you do ping pong panning? I have always wanted to know. Also, my dB value for the whole song is pretty low, like -15dB. It wasn't bad before, now the crackling makes editing unbearable. And I have no idea how to use the Compressor. What exactly does it do? I did a few of the things you suggested in a later update, but that mix is too distorted... Thanks for the sound card advice, though? Do you think that's the problem?

Read up on RMS. If the average decibal value is above -6 for a period of time clipping will occur. I had this problem on a mix too. For me it was the compression levels that did it.

If your going to get a new sound card you might wanna check out an M-Audio or a EMU card. Zircon has a thread about soundcards in the remixing section.

This def sounds much cleaner though IMO. The volume on the kick seems a lil low. Try adding just a touch of compression to it.

First section the piano playing the melody and the guitar playing the melody are very different volume levels. At :48 the piano is playing such beautiful melody but it is too soft. Try having the piano a little louder. And then when the guitar comes in a little bit after that have it at a softer volume. That should prob really set the mood.

Overall in places have the guitar notes hit left then right then left (ping pong panning). It's always coming through the right hand side the entire time. A little variation will go a long way.

The piano kinda of just popped in at 3:51. Get some kinda crescendo leading into it. Volume wise it is a little loud after that. It's distracting the listener away from the melody. Varying up the velocity levels more on the piano there. Have the movements in the velocity correspond to the movement of the melody.

On the ending try to get the piano to move a little more it feels static. Also the snare is getting in the way of the piano at the ending section.

Def like the update. Keep on going with this one, it's really turning out good. Some ethnic percussion is one or two sections could go really well. It would also allow the snare to get more rest. So when you do use the snare it is fresher in the listener's ears.

[avaris]

Zircon has a short lil tutorial on compression in the remixing section. It took me a good 6 months to feel comfortable using compression. It's tricky but something def worth learning how to use. In a nutshell compression squishes the sound, making it sound fuller. Compression is commonly used on the kick to give it more presence.

You use FL right? Simply go to the piano roll and select to edit the panning of each individual note. Have one go left the other go right back and forth. If you use Reason you can ping pong pan using CV connections on the master mixer.

As far as the cracking goes, what is the highest peak your song reaches? -2db is a good decibal level to set the peak at. My song cracked before when the RMS was above -6db for about 8-10 secs.

Ain't mastering fun.

[Tuned Logic]

I'm not sure what my peak is since I can't even play back my song (sound card goes berserk with crackling and setting the latency higher doesn't help). Pretty sure it's below -5dB. I didn't know you could edit individual notes for anything!! That's awesome.

Thanks for your continued support, avaris.

Also, how do you set the peak dB? Can you do it with a setting?

[avaris]

Well here is what I do in FL. I turn my speakers off then hit the play button. That way I can tell where the volumes are peaking without blowing out the speakers. Use the soft clipper in the FX channel. It's fairly simple. Post will set the level at which the db level won't exceed. Threshold sets the db level where the soft clipper starts kicking in.

Go to FL's help section and read up on all the lil shortcuts and things you can do in the piano roll. The piano roll in FL is friggin amazing.

[Tuned Logic]

I get what you're trying to say, but the song won't play back fully, even with the speakers off. If I stop the song every ten seconds and start it, it's playable, but still really poor. It's not a speaker issue, the CPU overloads because the sound card uses so much of it. I have an average 85% CPU usage when the song is not playing ( I have 1GB RAM and a Pentium4 2.6ghz HT). It's pretty bad. Although I probably put too many tracks/effects in, because the card isn't nearly as bad as on any other, smaller file. I have about 5 or 6 instances of 3 synths that take up a lot of CPU. In addition, when I try to clone my drum track to seperate the snare so I can turn the dang thing down, I get an error.

Let's just say I'm at a multi road block.

[avaris]

Ouch...

A good idea might be to make multiple project files. One for rythms, one for melodies and harmonies, and another for whatever.

This will allow to you actually still listen to your song as you adjust and tweak. In FL this is the best work around I have found once the dreaded CPU hit starts to kill your song.

So when you wanna rip the final version, just rip the 2-3 project files as .wav files then import them in another Master File. You can use the soft clipper there, and any other effects on the master.

Hopefully that logic might help.

[Tuned Logic]

That's a good idea. So how do you save each individual track as a .flp?

Ouch...

A good idea might be to make multiple project files. One for rythms, one for melodies and harmonies, and another for whatever.

This will allow to you actually still listen to your song as you adjust and tweak. In FL this is the best work around I have found once the dreaded CPU hit starts to kill your song.

So when you wanna rip the final version, just rip the 2-3 project files as .wav files then import them in another Master File. You can use the soft clipper there, and any other effects on the master.

Hopefully that logic might help.

[avaris]

Haha no it's much simpler. Just take your .flp file and delete everything but the rhythms and bass and any fx channels relating to them. Then save it as Time's Memories Rhythms. Then reopen the original .flp and do the same thing except with the melodies and harmonies.

Instead of deleting each channel just right click and replace the channel with a sampler. This will allow you to still keep your composition.

[Tuned Logic]

Oh, gotcha. That's a great way to do it. I'm backing up my original, though, just in case

Thanks a bunch.

[The Instrumental Light]

its pretty good, it keeps a steady pace and more of a normal music piece than a fast paced one. sound quality is great, but its a little bit boring. you might want to add something in there to make it more...unique or something like that, thats just me though. awesome job!, especially for a first time.