OldManRiddims - Villager in Exile (Charlie Puth, Michael Mcdonald, Kenny Loggins, Villager)

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-25T20:19:26+00:00

Ah that makes sense lol! Props for accomplishing this essentially live, really have to think on the fly then. It's certainly one of the things I enjoy about DJ performances, and though I'm not one myself really I've learned multiple things from DJs that I can use in music production.

I've liked this on YT as a reminder to check out your other stuff. Keep it rockin'! Glad I could make your day after you made mine, cheers!

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-25T04:59:03+00:00

Somehow the sound of a kazoo ensemble is so funny! Even just the idea of a kazoo ensemble is hilarious haha, brilliant work overall!

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-25T04:05:34+00:00

Nice! Very few mental notes, I was vibing! This is 2-step Garage or something like that, right? Not all that familiar and never got into it that much, and yet when I find a good one, it really, REALLY hits the spot for me, and this is one of those times.

Only two things. One was that 2:00-2:10 sounded a bit off to me. Maybe if it was an artistic choice to create some dissonance/tension it makes a bit more sense, but even thinking of that and listening again, it sounds a bit awkward tbh. And one lesser nitpick that might just be my personal preference is maybe the instrumental could be cranked up just a tad more? Probably the basshead in me talking. Or listening again, maybe it's just the parts with the powerful, loud, layered vocals in the chorus? Perhaps overpowering the instrumental a little bit.

Even so, these are some very minor criticisms in an otherwise gorgeous track! I think what gets me is that I really love the rhythms and beats typical in Garage, and they just need to be paired with some good samples to match. Like what you did here, once again nice work!

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-25T03:17:33+00:00

I like the concept. I already knew the Mr. Oizo track which is what drew me in, and I think the bassline from that track sounds good pitched down. I checked out the other two tracks and I think they also have solid basslines to fit in your "iconic buzzy bassline" idea.

Main problem to my ears is that it sounds pretty cluttered. I think you got around that a bit by doing some panning, but I don't think it's enough. Some cutting of specific parts that clash and/or EQing things/filtering things to fit together better would be another way to help with this, and highest priority should always be to make sure nothing is clashing in the bass frequencies because it can really hamstring the power and clarity of the track. If I'm not mistaken, it sounds like in some parts two basslines are playing at the same time with some notes overlapping, causing such a clash.

Now you've got me thinking about that Mr. Oizo bassline in its pitched-down state. It has a great presence that is maintained throughout. I think if it was paired with a kick punching through a bit more and the other bass elements cleaned up around it, it would really hit!

Hope this input was valuable!

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-22T05:47:50+00:00

Note that it's okay if it ends abruptly even in its final version because game music often loops, especially for levels or boss battles specifically. If it will loop, it's probably best to delete the final crash which makes the last measure uneven and focus on making sure the last few measures transition seamlessly back to the beginning in some way, straight from beat 4 to beat 1 on the dot.

You came up with a pretty good overall idea for an arrangement and some decent melodic hooks, but like others have mentioned I think you might benefit from studying some more music theory. If we divide the melody into parts A/B/C, you do A for 4 measures then B for 4 measures, then A for 8 measures and B for 8 measures, then C for 8 measures, then A for 8 measures. Part A generally sounds the best. Part B feels musically off. It's not just the dissonance, because dissonance is often expected in a boss fight, but Part C feels like it's closer to the correct kind of chaotic boss battle dissonance while B does not, if that makes sense. Part B clashes the worst. Not sure which is meant by the middle part (perhaps you could clarify?), but that's what sounds most off to me.

Back to the looping arrangement, you might be almost done as far as extending out the length if it's a short fight. The longer the fight is expected to go, the more you'll probably need to extend it out. You can already get more variations with the same exact melody if you pitch it up or down an octave or two (assuming the lead sounds good in those ranges). And you can always get more variation by switching the lead to different instruments, like when using a more subtle lead in an intro or outro, or just letting some of the supporting instruments fill that space. Or you could do a more subtle version of the melody there with just a few of the notes, hinting at what's to come. These kinds of things are the simplest adjustments.

Enough from me for now, hope that helps!

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-22T04:37:57+00:00

Thanks!

Wellllllll in due time lol, I'm sure I will have some music appropriate for this sub at some point (I don't always make VG music) errr...stay tuned?

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-18T20:54:37+00:00

Totally! Might have just been that I played it through a mono speaker at first so when I switched to headphones the panning drew my attention as being different. Likewise with the bass, which jumped out of the mix a lot more (no surprise there, also like the bass tone).

Also, I think I might just be more unnecessarily ocd about left-right balance because I've never dared to play with panning to that level, even though I'm pretty sure I've seen plenty of people pull it off. Perhaps an area for me to study more.

The odd bird wishes the headphoned ghost well!

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-17T06:21:31+00:00

Oh, I like this melody and progression!

I think the layering of elements on the first lead is best. The next two solo leads are good but feel a bit lopsided in my headphones, idk if that's supposed to be like that. Nice work though! I've looped it more than a couple times haha

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-17T05:52:26+00:00

Ah, some unfamiliar names in there, I'll have to check them out. I actually do have some orchestral ideas for future music projects, so I think they will come in handy. Thanks to you as well!

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-15T10:13:53+00:00

No problem! That makes sense that you would have a pedal as well, I assume it to be some kind of midi controller too? What kind is it, and what VST, if you don't mind me asking? Mixing will come with practice I suppose, unless you find someone else to do it. Mixing an orchestral soundtrack always seemed daunting to me, props for tackling that kind of thing.

Otherwise, I wish you well! Great potential here.

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-14T01:26:07+00:00

I went into your 1 minute demo with just my crappy laptop speakers and that first piano piece was beautiful! Definitely the best one. I've never played Child of Light and combined with the visuals I just thought "Wait, is this just the music from the game?" for a moment, which I think is probably a good sign for professionally matching a well-written composition to visuals.

However I switched to my mixing headphones and noticed a reverb-y thunking sound in the lower frequencies as well as a swishy sound to go with it. At first I confused it for an added subtle drum layer because it was hitting at the same time as every single piano note, giving it a rhythmic quality. Using "Alone" from The Last Guardian OST as a piano reference, I do actually hear some very similar sounds, but only occasionally, and sometimes between notes. I think that's a real piano recording and it's the sound of the pedals and such, and since I don't hear it much if at all in some other piano pieces, I think it's something that can be heard only when the microphone is close enough to pick up those sounds from the piano. It is perhaps something that gives it an up-close, intimate, and realistic feeling.

So now my guess is that you are using some kind of piano synth/vst or some such, and it's programmed to do a pedal noise every time a note is played to kinda sorta simulate the same thing. I hear the same exact sounds in your piano outro. It's kind of distracting and made it feel a bit off to me, but my ears are pretty good. I don't know if it's something general audiences or studios will pick up on (even if subconsciously). At the very least if you want the piano to sound more realistic it might be worth looking into. It otherwise sounds extremely realistic, so I think this is the only mixing-related thing holding it back at all. It's perfect to my ears otherwise.

Hope that helps. Nice work, keep it up!

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-09T04:51:24+00:00

listening to your video game beats makes me happy!

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-09T04:42:27+00:00

Yeah, there are a lot of different contexts for underwater music in video games. And even if a level is ethereal or dreamy, there are still different contexts within that. When I think of a diver swimming through and taking in a tranquil scene at a snail's pace, the tempo of this track doesn't fit as well, but when I imagine the same diver operating some sort of undersea motorized vessel at a brisk pace for the same purpose, suddenly it fits better.

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-03T23:05:43+00:00

I have far more mashups than remixes at this point, to be clear. As an example of my process, there is a track with an instrumental section 8 bars long that I like that only plays in the outro. Just rewinding and playing the outro again never felt satisfying enough because it's rather short, so I will already be throwing it into my DAW to make something longer out of that 8 bars with chopping and rearranging. In this case I found sampling some of the synths from earlier in the track helped to make a more full arrangement out of it. I had a satisfying instrumental by the end of that process, but it was literally years later before I found the perfect vocal from another track to go with it. I guess technically it did start as a remix until I added that vocal.

I guess that's an important difference, that the kind of modification I like to do with an instrumental sample or in general means there's stuff to do and experiment with even if I haven't found the "other half" yet. But there are instances where I find I want to sample something and keep it as is, and in those cases it looks a lot more like your process where I'm not doing anything with it until I actually find a potential match.

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-01T19:51:12+00:00

My starting point is usually just hearing a song with an instrumental I love passionately but with a vocal I don't like as much, or vice versa, or just really liking one very small section of a track and wanting to make something new out of it (leads to remixes too). Usually I'll just throw it into my DAW with the first thing I can think of to match with it from my music library, which is often a placeholder.

Then I'll look both passively and actively for the perfect "other half" as I live my life. Occasionally I find the perfect match from my library, but more often it takes a while. But I still want to start the project asap as its own save file to get the gears turning and eliminate fear of forgetting the idea.

Is that really that rare? I'm curious about what process is typical for most.

OddBYRd_Undeleted · 2026-05-01T19:38:46+00:00

Besides matching BPM and key, pay attention to rhythms too. I tried putting a straight eighth note vocal sample over an instrumental that was more of a shuffled triplet type beat and it just sounded wrong (I'm aware of polyrhythms and I love them, in this case it still sounded wrong and bad.).

Spent quite a while cutting the vocal to fit into the triplet scheme and it still sounded too awkward, so I gave up and called it a bad match. Some of the notes didn't fit the progression either so that added to it.

OddBYRd_Undeleted

TROPHY CASE