Carrousel de Vie - Choices [classical dubstep metal chiptune
Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2014 8:22 am
The combination of styles you listed caught my eye for sure
As a whole, I love the different styles you've included! You have some awesome phrasing and melody going on and the parts do flow together nicely. Very cool stuff.
I think one of the most important things to look at though is making the snare cut through the song more. The kick has similar problems throughout the first half of it. There are so many ways to accomplish that; You could just change the mix levels between the instruments at the simplest, or you can try boosting the key frequencies on the kick and snare with an EQ or maybe applying an (extremely) short and delay or stereo effect (mostly on the snare) to get a more full sound on the drums. You can also use sidechain compression (ie NY compression etc) to duck other instruments out of the way of the drums as needed.
However you want to do it, many elements of the drumlines don't feel strong enough compared to the other instruments.
One note I will say is I'm not sure what elements draw off of dubstep-- I suppose there are some vaguely two-step beats in here, but they are not quite sparse. You could have a dubstep "movement" in there, perhaps adopting shuffling drums with sub-bass, or you could add a mid-bass drop after a build to sort of bust it in there, or you could adopt a more "dubstep"-inspired arrangement of the sections, treating the "non-digital" sections of the song as the "intro/verse" sort of part and treating the more electronic/chiptunes-inspired parts as the "drop". This has other benefits as well: I feel like you have to go through some half the song to really reach all the styles you are including. You might want to consider rearranging to allow introduction of these elements a bit earlier, and then another pass to flesh them out with the full flourishes.
I mean for instance, while I *enjoyed* the first parts musically, the heavy part around 3 minutes in was just VERY COOL. *That* part made me like the track on SC. Why not arrange that piece in earlier? Then you can deliver the blending while more effectively entertaining the genre fans!
Nonetheless, very cool stuff and thanks for sharing-- Look forward to hearing more of your stuff!
Section Notes
[1:24] This passage is very cool, I love the industrial/sampled feel of the background noises as the bassy synth plays.
[1:38] It sounds like there is a phaser/flanger like effect on the chiptunesy synth when it is introduced. My initial reaction was that this phaser/flanger thing was slightly too intense, but after listening to this part a few times I don't notice that anymore. Other than being slightly intense though, the chiptunesy part in this section is really awesome.
[1:55] Guitar solo! Again, the snare is not cutting through enough imho.
[2:06] Classical! This is beautiful sounding stuff here, not sure if you composed or sampled but in any case it works well with the music and is superb.
[2:52] What's this?? The intensity begins! Whoo!
[3:05] Oh there is it is! This part is definitely EPIC! The kick takes on new life, it sounds full and alive, but the snare is still too weak!
[3:18] The treble lead guitar comes in. This is awesome stuff!
3:39] The rock stuff here is epic and well-arranged. Cool stuff.