No clue and I need Help.

[Fickett Towleny]

http://www.soundclick.com/corpheus

Click on Frag Fiesta (MagRail Revision). Towards the bottom of the Music page.

Well, Frag Fiesta got killed like I knew it would, but I'm a stubborn chap and I (upon my knees) am begging the OCR community to help me with this. I think it's a salvageable effort, but not even close to what my best could be.

The remix is of the Main Menu musicon Goldeneye Rogue Agent for Nintendo DS (so pull it out if you have em'!), a theme I think is good, but got the short end of the stick.

So lets start with the orginal.

Things I like

1.) The melody-Catchy tune if a bit repetitive.

Things that could use improvement:

1.) Rhythm-Repetitive and utterly bland in my opinion, though it does get kinda cool when the guitar/break/whatever the heck you call the middle part kicks in

2.) Guitar-I've played the X-Box version of RA, and the guitar in that version kicks the DS's sorry tail. The one they put on the DS is cheesy, and makes it seem more Bondish than Rogue Agentish.

NOW FOR MY OPINONS ON THE REMIX:

What I can fix:

1.) Guitars-They're somewhat better than the Original's, but tend to get grating, annoying, and repetitive. I need to (and I thought I'd never say this) take some guitar out.

2.) Rhythm-I never really liked Industrial, and I didn't give the rhythm on this track what it deserved. I lazed out in other words. Something a bit more break-beat may help with the clunky, repetitive feel of the song. It's cheesy, slow, clunky, repetitive, and packs about as much punch as my grandma's old hair dryer.

3.) Strings- They sound cheesy, backgroundish, distorted, and just plain bad. Need to either improve their quality or simply drop them all together.

4.) The Bass-I used to enjoy this sound, now it just grates on my nerves. Find a better bass, something more subliminal, adding complexity, not just more loud noise to the music.

5.) QUALITY-I've heard better quality vinyl recordings from 1922. Turn down the input, let others speakers do the work. Secondly, I've stopped trying to record everything in one audio track, so the quality should take leap.

6.) Where's That Melody?: To make it simple, even I get confused as to where the Orginal melody is. I need to bring it out, mess with it more.

7.) Intro: It's slow, clunky, and needs a bit more of a catch to it. Improving the quality may help this immensely, but let's face it, it could be far more interesting.

Things that Need to Go:

1.) The Tamborines: I liked v2 better where it was just the pounding bass and the upbeat. I'm taking out those cheesy tamborines I used to cover up what was a lack of effort on adding depth and complexity in the meldoy.

2.) Cheese Bass: Alright, I'm just going to take this voice out, entirely, and replace it with a FAR more kick-tail voice.

3.) Original Stuff: It's great and all to show creativity and ad original solos and such to a piece, but it's so prominent, it starts getting in the way of the piece as a whole.

4.) The Scratch: The scratch at the beginning is, to my knowledge, unnecessary and gratingly annoying. It needs to go.

Need to Add:

1.) The Melody at Break: I need to give more attention the melody where the guitar goes off on the different tangent.

So that's my analysis but please, for the love of god, give me a little more support and feedback than I got last time. If there's something buggering the piece and your ears (other than excessive earwax) let me know, if something seems off or unbalanced in the melody, LET ME KNOW.

[Fickett Towleny]

Does anyone even care to try?

[Fickett Towleny]

The second in what is probably going to be a long line of bumps. Please share your opinions and suggestions, I'm open to anything.

[227]

Does anyone even care to try?

People 'round these parts are afraid of having to read more than they have to. Your first post is subsequently quite fearsome.

If you know some things that are wrong with it already, why don't you fix those things before asking around?

[Theory of N]

People 'round these parts are afraid of having to read more than they have to. Your first post is subsequently quite fearsome.

If you know some things that are wrong with it already, why don't you fix those things before asking around?

Agreed. What's the point of posting for feedback if you have most (if not all) of it right there?

[Fickett Towleny]

To get others opinions. One head's better than two, and I'm not always right on the spot when I comes to changing stuff around. In other words, I put my opinion up, now I'm looking for others, because it's always good to have other input.

[Villainelle]

Hey! You're using imagery from DeadDreamer.com on your SC pages. That guy is one of my graphic design role models.

TBH, I haven't read through your entire self-analysis. It's a little overwhelming, and I prefer to use my own ears first. I know it's frustrating when people point out stuff you already know (or don't agree with), but you should give them a chance to listen with fresh ears - there's often stuff you get desensitized to after listening to your own work over and over.

Okay, on to the song...this isn't bad. It's on the muddy side. The two major problems to me seem to be: 1) most of the song has a jarring sort of jerkiness to it, with sudden crashes, gated sounds, etc. that don't flow very well and create a very grating, choppy sound overall; 2) it's not very cohesive, meaning again, that it doesn't flow from section to section very well, and I don't get a lasting impression from the song or from any particular section when it's over (or even as I'm listening to it).

To be more specific, I would go easier on those cymbal crashes, for starters. Work on smoothing out transitions. One point that stuck out to me was around 2:21, where this neat arp comes in and other sounds slowly build up; I liked that - but then suddenly it's back to the cymbal crashes. I think you could actually stand to be more repetitive with some musical phrases, build harmonies around them, give something to the listener to hold on to and follow through the song. Also - and this is somewhat a matter of taste - be aware that you have some really harsh, abrasive sounds and sequences in this that are difficult to listen to over sustained periods of time. The soft pads at the end and that arp sequence I mentioned were sort of relieving breaks from the abrasive sections. You may want to use more elements like that to introduce smoother, more flowing qualities.

I've never heard the source, actually, so the structural problems could be because of that. If there's no strong melody or chord progression, it's going to be hard to make a coherent remix and is going to require a lot of invention on your part.

Not going to comment on the production aspects, as I think it would be more fruitful to focus on the arrangement at this point. You have some cool ideas and sounds in here, but they're not working structurally - they just sound kind of randomly thrown together.

Anyway, good luck, keep practicing. Sometimes it's best to put a song aside if you've put so much work into it and it's not quite turning out how you'd hoped; you may not really be progressing with it anymore, or learning much from it, just kind of playing damage control with what you've already got, you know? Give your ears and brain a break from it, try something new, teach yourself new tricks and methods of working with something you're not as emotionally or intellectually invested in. You may realize there's nothing more you can do with the song, or maybe you'll have fresh insights into how to make it work. Just my 2c.

[Theory of N]

Just my 2c.

lol, moar liek 2$

[John Revoredo]

Prometh....Corpheus? WTF?

For me, this stuff it's ok. Distortion stuff i guess it's on purpose. The real flaws here: the hi hat on 2:00 sounds noisy and gets too repetitive . Try to lower he distortion at some parts (like in 4:00 , etc..) , because they're TOO distorted. and that's all.

AH!, And the kick in 4:20 it's too loud.

[Fickett Towleny]

Thanks Leah and Prometheus. I think you've nailed it though Leah, listening to the original, it's not a very strong melody, highly repetitive in and of itself, and therefore, It's going to be hard to pull off a remix. I definately do need to work on my 'volume control', my friend (MasterStarman/MstrStrmn/which ever one he's using here) noted that when he listened to it as well. I think that in general, Industrial's just not my thing, need to try something else.