Feedback? :D <Pony> <Remix>

[Ruka]

Hi, so I'm pretty new into this music-making and I would like to know what the pro's opinions are c:

http://soundcloud.com/djm3lody/mscoot-princess-luna-ruka

Thanks for your attention (:
~Ruka

[Dropped C]

It's pretty nice. Somehow it makes me think of Touhou

[itroitnyah]

that's good. A bit repetitive, and the one vocal sample you use, "Drop the beat" is pretty cliche. As well as the one "turn up the bass!" vocal sample you use. And the pony samples you use at 7.10 are hard to understand. A bit of vocal processing would help clear that up. But other than those things I listed above, you obviously have adequate knowledge in music theory and song structure.

Although, I want to know... Did you make those synths yourself? Or are they presets/something you got from somebodies tutorial on youtube, or whatnot.

[Ruka]

that's good. A bit repetitive, and the one vocal sample you use, "Drop the beat" is pretty cliche. As well as the one "turn up the bass!" vocal sample you use. And the pony samples you use at 7.10 are hard to understand. A bit of vocal processing would help clear that up. But other than those things I listed above, you obviously have adequate knowledge in music theory and song structure.

Although, I want to know... Did you make those synths yourself? Or are they presets/something you got from somebodies tutorial on youtube, or whatnot.

Thanks for the feedback!

The synth is made by MScootaloo. (she's really talented in making synthlines! She has alot more on her soundcloud.) So I got to use it in the remix :3

~Ruka

[Ruka]

It's pretty nice. Somehow it makes me think of Touhou

xD
Thanks!

~Ruka

[SpikeyMikey]

This is really nice. The melodies are very, yeah, touhou.
They also remind me of a lot of ethnic-acoustic japanese/chinese music.
The piano is really nice too.

[ph00tbag]

From a composition standpoint, I can't really find much fault with the track, aside from a general sense of rambling.

I think you've got a ways to go on production, which is to be expected. By and large you haven't really mixed the track to keep everything audible. The kick drum is uncompressed, and fairly low in the mix. The hats seems to have heavy reverb (which can cause muddy high frequencies and negatively impacts the audibility of your track), and don't seem to have any compression on them either. Meanwhile your sustained sounds are very loud and often crowd out your transients.

A good rule of thumb is that you usually don't have to mix sustained sounds (leads, pads, etc.) very loud in comparison to your transients (percussion, speech), since human ears will fill in the gaps where they don't get crowded out by transients. But when a transient is crowded out by a sustained sound, the ear will just ignore it. It seems counterintuitive, because it makes sense that the melody ought to be the loudest thing so people can hear it, but sometimes you have to trust the human ear to do most of the grunt work for you in making melodies audible.

Speaking of transients, this is why compression is important. Very often, the sole defining quality of a sound is its onset, and how that onset evolves into the sustained tone afterwards. Once the sustain develops, the ear just fills in the rest. This onset is transient, meaning it lasts a very short time. Compression allows you to emphasize this onset, and deemphasize the sustain. In this way, you can make the important part of a particularly floppy drum (its onset) stand out amongst a wash of pads and leads, without having the floppy bits crowd out the pads and leads. Alternately, you keep the floppy bits under the pads and leads without letting the pads and leads crowd out the onset.

You also want to make your reverbs very subtle. Reverb is a double edge sword. On the one hand, it is necessary to give your sounds position, but on the other hand it can make your mixes very muddy if overused. You have to apply it very judiciously.