<pony> <remix> <house> Louder to the Yay (Element6 Remix)

[Element6]

Thanks to DJ Mattnew and DJ Party Cannon for the original, as well as for the chance to remix it. I'm happy with how this turned out!

The remix is simple enough. It represents the first time I was able to use stems effectively, and I also did some sample splicing stuff and really tried to set the song in my direction in terms of the way I handle the house genre.

It's also my first released song of 2013. Happy New Year!

Feedback is appreciated, as always.

[Nine Volt]

OK, this certainly has potential, I'll give you that.

One thing I noticed right off the bat is that the drop lacks power. It's just kinda there, no real punch in the mix, sort of empty almost. Adding a stronger sub should probably fix that. If not, try adding some sidechained white noise or maybe a constant cymbal (of course light, but still there to fill the higher frequencies.

The drums feel... off, somehow. The kick is a tad weak, to fix that you should sidechain EVERYTHING (lightly) to the kick, even stuff you don't want to pump. Just play with the settings on your compressor until you get a barely noticeable sidechain. It can help your drums stand out better a lot. Further with the drums, I don't like the snare. It sounds short and weak, especially for house. You may have been better off going with a snappy clap/snare sound like the kind deadmau5 or Avicii use. Don't forget reverb on your drums, even the kick. Having light reverb, even on a kick, usually won't be noticeable but it helps your mix. Speaking of deadmau5, it might be in your best interests to purchase the Xfer pack, a very good sample pack for house (or really most genres). Not perfect, but it's got exactly the type of clap I'm talking about, among other nice samples.

The song itself felt like it kind of dragged on for longer than necessary. I realize it's only three minutes, but you could have easily taken out several sections of the drop and it would have been fine. Maybe a longer bridge was in order, if you want to maintain a three minute length.

Sidechain. Sidechain sidechain sidechain. This is house. All your main sounds should be sidechained fairly heavily during the drop. It sounds like very few are, which is kind of throwing me off as I expected drops of this style (ie not electro house) to be practically jumping up and down. Of course, this is somewhat of a personal preference though, not a requirement by any means.

One last thing; get rid of the 'Louder!!!' and 'yay' samples, along with their other associated lines. They are overdone to oblivion, just like 20% cooler is. Seriously, just drop them altogether, they're so cliche and almost annoying at this point.

So yes, there we go. Apologies if any of this comes off as overly critical, I really just want to help.

Happy new year

[Element6]

I definitely have to figure out sub-bass. It's something that I've been told to improve on a couple times, but I haven't gotten it right yet, it seems. Also, I've heard of using white noise for reasons other than the windy rise things I tend to do, but I haven't looked into it much beyond that. Now is as good a time as any, I suppose!

Further looking into the uses of side-chaining sounds like a great idea too. I know a little about it, but to be truthful, not much. It has helped my kicks out quite a bit already, but I'm sure there's so much more I can do with it as well.

I just realized I don't like the snare either. Bleh. I've heard plenty of positive things about that Xfer pack, so with my birthday coming up soon, I will be looking into it. That said, it's not completely about the sample either, I'll need to figure out how to properly add the right amount of reverb and such too.

As for the "yay" samples and stuff, believe me, I get it, haha. They were in the original song though, to an even higher degree in fact, and so I tried to use them without being too much of a distraction. I'm past the point of the first song I released which used "yay" samples in the most annoying way.

No need to apologize! I'm very grateful for the incredibly helpful feedback. It's harder to improve when I need to find out what I need to improve on first. It all goes into my notebook for further exploration later. Thanks so much!