Just wanted to give some constructive (hopefully) criticism from my perspective on the posted tracks, because I think that any sort of feedback is useful for my music, and I'm glad to see this thread develop into that sort of thing. But unfortunately since I'm banned I'm gonna have to sum up everything into a megapost.
Before I say anything, I just wanna put a disclaimer, I'm no expert and I'm only giving my perspective. I could be completely wrong. But I think that ANY sort of feedback is useful, which is why I'm posting this...again, my perspective is heavily influenced by my own taste in music! Some of the stuff I say is as if I was making the track myself and what I would do instead because I think it could sound better, and I'd try it, and I'd see if it does or doesn't. Again, I could be dead wrong. Also, some of it may seem very positive, the reason for this is because I think that even things done right need feedback, so the musician knows what to keep doing. From the choice of a particular sound to the layout of a track, we as musician know how much time we spent deliberating on these seemingly small things. So it's not like I'm sucking up to anyone, I just think that proper feedback is all about what I like and dislike about a particular track. Anyways, with that disclaimer out of the way.
Mr Nash (Phantom remix): Good ever-changing interesting progressive structure, good wall of sound, enough of the original song to see that it's a remix. There was one thing I wanted to comment on that I noted when I first heard it, but listening to it again, I can't think of any suggestions, great track. Oh yeah (listened again), the crazy bassline from 0:10 to 0:25 doesn't really fit, though it does sound awesome. Maybe if you reduced its levels at that specific part, it would fit better. To me it sticks out a little too much. Y'know if you applied some sidechaining it would sound real jumpy with that crazy bassline (side chaining is now my solution to everything
j/k).
lil smoke (luigi world): I wouldn't get hung up on it sounding electronicy enough, I sorta regret my wording when I originally talked about this project. The thing is, pretty much all modern music is done on the computer, so I wanted to distinguish between bands/hiphop acts and producers/composers. Don't feel pressured into adding anything you don't feel comfortable with. That said, I think the blips and bloops you added really help the track. It's an integral part of the percussion. Even though I don't usually listen to this sort of music, I like the track. I can't really comment on how the track is laid out in terms of structure, because this sort of music isn't what I usually listen to, it's very different from what I'm used to so I can't give you valuable feedback on that, hopefully someone else can comment on it.
SDZeta (inside a mysterious icy cavern): You got a very dreamy song fit for an "ice world", I think the bass sticks out because it cuts off abruptly, rather than decaying slowly. Your percussion has reverb, same with the lead melodies. I think the bass instrument should decay to match the rest. I love the sound you used for the bass btw. Again as I said earlier, I could be dead wrong, it could be that if you add some release to the bass that it would bunch up and get muddy. Other than that, great job. The song structure, sounds used, and levels/eq sounded great to me.
Agent Ironside (QWEQWR and movie): At first I thought the kick had too strong of an attack (too much pop), but when I heard the bass come in, it fit into the mix perfectly, I like how everything in the track fits and it creates a unique wall of sound. Great track. The only thing I can think of, is just before 2:54 when the percussion hits again, maybe a build up whoosh or something just before it? To be honest that percussion kinda blindsided me when I was entranced by that section, but maybe that's just me. So I think a gentle buildup would kinda prepare people (if others feel the same) for that. In movie, you have a little bit of unwanted distortion with the bassdrum colliding with the bassline, from what I hear on my headphones. Compression would help, or even sidechain compression (there's a link to a tutorial in the OP) would do the trick, so that both can coexist at max volumes. Other than that, another great track!
X5z (NeoGAF project): Thanks for posting the earlier, I find it interesting the twists and turns a song takes. I thought that the song was missing a bit in the low-midrange. You have a deep bassdrum, and a lot of bright instruments, with little in the middle. It fills out more at a minute, but then gets "tinny" again. Then at 2:20 it gets more full. In your version 4, it does sound more fuller because the synth you used is more in the midrange. Maybe incorporate that synth in your newer version to flesh out the wall of sound more? Other than that, I liked the structure and it's catchy. I'm guessing your still working on it, as it's a bit short? I didn't want the song to end when it did.
Timedog - Mod Power Abuse (LOL @ changed handle and title of track): Hey I think the melody of the watery sounding part was just right, personally I don't think it needs to get more complicated than that, from my perspective. I love how it starts (heck, I think it'd make an interesting start to the whole disc...though in reality that all depends on what other tracks we get and we want a good flow), can't wait to hear the finished product.
alistairw (OT Race Race): I'm listening to the revamped one, I like the changes to the claps...it is a teeny weeny bit loud, but they did need to come out stronger so it was a good thing to make them louder. That screech at 1:48 comes out of nowhere and is a bit too loud for it to be 'surprising' and turns out to be 'jarring'. One thing you can do is start that sample at a low volume and have it build up in volume relatively quickly. You can edit that sample in Audacity to do that...it'll make it less jarring but still surprising. When you have that clip playing...maybe you can take words like "destroyed" by themselves and have them echo (quieter) on beat to make it sound cooler, same with the clip used at 2:56. Some of the other sound clips are mixed in a little too loud IMO. But they do a good job of adding variety, so I think you should definitely keep them in. There's a part from 3min to 3:30 or so where it gets minimalistic, I think you need more variation in the percussion at that point, because everything else is gone and the focus is on the percussion. Anyways, those are things I would do, again, I really don't want to be sounding like an know it all expert because I'm not. It's just things that I would do differently. But I think I'm not the only one who thinks that part at 1:48 can scare people out of their chairs heheh.
Odrion: For this project, we would need original pieces specifically made for this. But if you would like to remake on of your older tracks, go for it! As far as proggys go, Modplug Tracker is a good free sample based sequencer. I use BUZZ, but you can't learn it in a week though, takes a lot of time. As far as samples go, there are some massive sample sites out there, I don't have any bookmarked, but search google and you can find some good ones. One of the best sites is called VIP Zone, just google it. I'm too lazy to do it for you.
Oh and I did listen to your songs, I thought that aciDREEM really needed some hihats in the percussion, because you need something bright for all the bass you got in there. I liked the structure of it, you got breaks in there when you need it, and then it goes back into it full force again. Anyways, like I said, I would have added some hats to the percussion, that could be just me and the way I like how my songs sound. Walk Around was great, good job.
alaria (CC1): Don't worry about it not being electronicy enough, as I said earlier I'm sorry for being poor in my description of what would be constituted as 'electronic' or not. The composition and structure is great. Very full sounding, great wall of sound...though it does seem to distort when lots of things are happening, to solve that you'll need some compression on the whole mixdown. As far as the singing goes, it seems that you applied some compression on that alone, am I right? IMO, the vocals need to be a bit brighter (boost in higher eq range) and maybe a bit more reverb applied to them (if it already has some). I'm not saying it should be super echoey or reverby, just a tiny bit of added delay+reverb does a lot for vocals. Other than that, excellent track.
About posting this in the game forum, that brings up a good point. Personally I'm thinking a sticky (but I think a post in there would be an excellent idea) in the gaming forum won't fly, but one in the OT forum would, and I think there's tons of people who check out the OT, so we should have no shortage of listeners. Getting the sticky is the (hard but) important part.
As far as mastering goes, I like the idea of a reference track to help us all out. And then we can send it to the engineers to simply work on the levels of all the tracks making sure they are around similar volume levels. As far as track order goes, I think it would be interesting to get a DJ on it. I would be down for this position, if no DJ takes the reigns. Anyways, reference track is a really good idea.
As far as what I'm working on, I decided to do a remix of my "NES race song" that I posted here long ago (long story short: I found some wav samples of NES's synth, and was inspired to make a song in literally 15 minutes). If you want to hear the original, head to:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=102360 and choose "NES race song".
Originally I wanted to incorporate captive's guitar playing abilities and Kinesis's rapping abilities, but I got real busy and with the deadline approaching I decided to forego that as it would take some time, which is a shame I think it could have been awesome. Anyways, I started something 3 weeks ago, then got busy again, and only recently revisited it as my midterms were done. Sorry this is livejournal stuff heheh, I'll get to the point:
I originally wanted to share the experience of making a song from my own perspective, to compare it with other people's method. So I saved different files for each major change I made to the song. Because I'm banned, I can't really share it in the manner I planned to months ago, so I'll just post a bit of what I have now...
It's a rough "outline" of my current song structure, nothing set in stone. The whole point is to make sure everything sits right in the "wall of sound".
http://www.punkistan.com/nrxic/GAFsongwav1.mp3
One of the harder things to do was get the guitars sitting right in the mix. I would like them to be a bit brighter but I don't want to enhance all the dirty distortion.
Also, I don't think I introduce the main melody properly, I also have to extend that portion a bit more. And I was playing with the filter knob, in the final song it should have more rhythm.
And the song is called Fight for Freeform
Well, coz it is freeform, kinda.
As always, thanks to Mr Nash keeping this alive, relevant and bumped
