Commodore Remix

Normally I’d leave average remixes behind, take those lessons learned to other remixes.

But I put so much effort into the arrangement and I felt I let the original down, so I’m working on improving things as best I can.

I’m not done yet and I’m going to take my time taking breaks and doing other stuff.

Just wanted to get some feedback, the bass in a few places is still a bit flat, and I’m on the search for snares that work, so 909 type for now:

https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/gELhM623oZKNJTbDA


I read about ear fatigue today, I think that’s what happened with the first version. I discovered the problem, so many colliding hi hats on my drum machines creating this almost fm/bit crushed like wall of ambience in the upper mids, sounds horrible and I am only guessing here that ear fatigue let me unhear this.

I also eq’d lots of stuff, changed some leads, added some bass funk and cleaned up the drum track as well as compressing things to add punch. Although there probably is a bit too much on the last section.

Tim,

1. First of all, kudos to you for trying to improve your remix even further!!! I already liked the one that's in RKO

2. I am finding Soundcloud to be a less-than-ideal way of sharing WIP stuff. Soundcloud does some weird compression on uploaded tunes, so they never sound the same to me as they were in "raw" form on my hard drive. I'd suggest sharing via Google Drive or Dropbox or something similar instead, which do no post-processing on uploaded audio files.

3. Yes, ear fatigue is absolutely a thing. I mean, if you are "in the zone" as you are crafting your tune, do NOT leave the zone! Stay focused, finish the tune. But also - do not release it right afterwards. It pays to give it a rest for a day or two. Another trick is to listen to it via other means. If you were listening to it through monitors, listen through your headphones instead. Or listen to it on a crappy earbud. Or listen to it in your car. Each listening environment will give you different hints about your mix. (There are also plugins these days that can simulate different speakers and audio outputs, so you can do all this without leaving your DAW. But it still helps to give your ears a rest for a couple of hours.)

4. As for your newer version on Soundcloud: overall, it sounds a bit muffled to me, just like your version on RKO. Something in your mixing stages seems to flatten out the transients too much. It just doesn't seem to have enough "energy" in it. Hard to explain. (As I mentioned in my comment on R64, if you listen to Ocean's version of the same tune - that's full of energy. Maybe a bit too much, in fact: YouLean reports it at being -6.9 LUFS, which IMHO is too loud, especially if you plan to release such a remix on streaming sites, too, which tend to post-process uploaded stuff to have about the same LUFS level across the board).

5. The new drums are definitely punchier, but also sound drier to me. They also sound too mono to me - maybe some reverb would help, or use some plugin to widen their stereo spread.

6. 0:39 - I love this rising crescendo with the synth!

7. 0:55 - If I were you, I would actually experiment a little with the lead by making it into a chord instead. That may even make it sound more 80-ish, and would definitely add some more energy to it. But I would leave the "second lead" from 1:04 as-is, as a quieter counterpoint.

8. 1:22 - Same with the alternating leads here: I would experiment with making them into chords, or at least one of them.

9. 1:46 - I would suggest panning the toms, and especially the highest toms away from the lowest toms (left/right or right/left). In fact, I'd suggest that for the toms for the duration of the entire tune.

10. 2:50 - Another section that I absolutely love in your remix! I think this short bridge sounds the most 80s-like to me.

11. 3:42 - Frigging awesome arpeggiated runs!

12. 3:49-4:02 - Another "holy crap, this is awesome" bridge section.

13. 4:15 That "screaming" synth in the background sounds really amazing here, do not even think of removing it!

14. 4:38 - The choir pad sounds fantastic here, I would even try to push it a bit more forward in the mix if I were you. (Same in the repeat a bit later.)

15. 4:41 - This particular note of the bass here doesn't sound right to me - are you sure it's not a few notes lower in the original?

Okay, I don't think I'm done, yet, but I listened to your remix over and over for an hour now, so my ears need a rest, too.

I'm back.

16. 3:49-3:55, and 3:55-4:01 - I always thought it would be interesting to apply a slow-moving hi-pass filter in these two section that would start at a low cut-off frequency and move up, thinning out the bass line as it goes on up until the end of each section (then re-start at a low cut off as the next section starts). In fact, the original SID alludes to this, too (or at least, that's what I hear in my head).

17. Listening to your released remix on RKO, I actually like those little hi-hats all over the place! Yeah, I guess you probably overdone them at places, but I think in this new version on Soundcloud you removed too many of them.

Phiew, okay, that's about all the "Task III" I can handle tonight. These are just my personal opinions, so take them or leave them, I won't get upset either way.

PS: Can you tell I that this SID tune is a huge favorite of mine?

Wow, thanks LaLa! I wasn't expecting such a comprehensive breakdown of the various sections, hah, yes I get the impression you're a big fan of this tune. Its a shame Frank Endler didn't write anything else, I don't know much about him and its funny how on CSDB he's simply known as the guy that did the TASK III soundtrack.

I always _try_ to listen on different speakers and the car, it still surprises me how simple things, like vibrato, can poke out more aggressively on some setups, but with my original upload, I did not. So this is a good reminder for me to take time and yes, I did put this out maybe a day after I had completed the arrangement.

I alternate between a set of headphones, which are bass heavy with quite flat mids to a pair of soundsticks which are super bright. In the case of this mix, I get stuck alternating between eq'ing things up, then back down again. Think I'm going to invest in a pair of mixing headphones. My concern is always have I gone too far, am I going to strip people's ears off! I have noticed going from 48khz to a lossy stream (and whatever "magic" soundcloud applies) dulls the mix somewhat.

I totally agree about the drums (part of the reason I reached out for feedback), I stripped them right back so I could concentrate on everything else, also the 909ish snares are a bit of a lazy choice at present.. when I started this mix last month, it started taking on this kind of industrial vibe before I veered across to the 80's so I'll do some experimenting.

My favourite part of this mix are the sections either side of 4 mins, I'm so pleased they come across well, there's always this nagging doubt that sometimes I've gone too far in a weird direction, it was going more aciiiid at one point! I was intending to add interest/tweak the bass across this section, so you mentioning that is invaluable feedback

When I added the choir it was like this aha moment, realising it was going all Carpenter Brut. I've tried amping up the choir, distorting it etc.. just got to get the mix right. How he get his mixes so dense is beyond my understanding.

Once again, thanks for taking the time to help me out, you must have listened to this quite a few times to give that amount of feedback, you're a star!

Tim, I sent you an email in private regarding your remix. Just wanted to let you know in case it ends up in your spam folder or something.

Wanted to check today but; This track was not found. Maybe it has been removed;

I deleted it from Soundcloud and forgot I had a link to it on here, oops.

I just got a notification that new enhanced mix is up on RKO, but I appear to have broken remix 64's friendly URLs for the voting / details page.

It occurred to me, just before I uploaded the track, that using plus signs may not end well.

I've sent a message to Jan, see what he can do.

Oh, I just realised the problem is with the link to remix64, don't think Jan looks after this site does he, is that lman?

Anyway, looks like the URL to the remix 64 site has all the non alphanumeric characters removed and spaces replaced with dashes. Sensible way to make a URL until some fool uses plus signs, so TASK III ++ becomes task-iii

I contacted LMan about this issue, too - I haven't seem him respond, yet, he's probably busy at Revision or something.

While I am involved in a few C64 remix related things outside RKO and the C64 Take-away, admin'ing Remix64 isn't one of them. Let's see what LMan can do about it.

Thanks for e-mailing me directly as I don't visit this forum daily. I do get new posts in my RSS reader - but then, I don't always check that one daily either. )

It looks like it has been fixed.

Nope. This page:

https://www.remix64.com/box.php?id=635100

Is pointing to the correct version. But the "Open detailed page" link still brings me to the prev version (published on March 9. 2021).

Now it's fixed. All hail LMan.

Yay! Just got an email from him, thanks everyone!

Poor Tim - looks like the link is pointing to the wrong version again...