HEY MAN NICE
nice midi rip here. just kidding.
Just to show you I'm not here to just be an asshole, I thought I would leave a more "helpful" review. I probably should of not left my review yesterday because in fact the majority of your stuff is original content.
First off, a 6 in my scoring system is above average. Not solid, but above average.
You've definetly got some good content in here. Certainly, you've the concept of making a solid composition down. No complaints in this department. Some of the melodies were real nice, it reminds me of a friendly ice cave of sorts. Would work great in a flash game. I could go on praising you about the individual bits in the song, but I won't. Criticism is what you need to get better. (Not a useless review like the guy below me, no offense) I guess the drums could use more variation, they have no transitions or anything. Try using snare and tom fills and crashes just to break the repetition. But I'm not worrying about that.
What you need is better sounds. More clarity.
Regarding this track- good usage of synths, presets or not they fit the theme well and work nicely together.
Triented gives some splendid advice so I won't bother repeat what he has said.
The first glassy, thin plucked synth has too much echo. You can use the matrix to disable one of the FX, or just turn down the time knob down on of the delay controls. It's a professional designed preset, so the delay will sync properly, but it sounds messy, and distracting. I know you said you remastered, but there's some obvious clipping when the synth bass comes in. Watch it closely on the master channel, make sure it doesn't hit the red. Mess with the threshold levels and try to get it as loud as possible without it going into the red territory. You can also uses some multiband compression to see where it specifically clips, and apply compression from there. Fruity parametric EQ, lower the specific filters until you see the channel is no longer peaking. All else fails, slap on soft clipper on the master channel.
Some links that will help you tremendously in this blog post:
http://rig.newgrounds.com/news/post/5 1644
Also, the forums on newgrounds for audio are generally helpful. KVRaudio is great too for the more technical stuff.
If you're looking for more organic realistic sounds, you can try using soundfonts. A lot of that can be found by searching for an instrument that you are looking for. If you want a specific one, let me know and I can point you in a good direction.
You said you were going to decide to tweak the sytrus synths, and I applaud you for that. Sytrus is very complex, so you might want to try making your synths in 3xosc first. A simple program, yet powerful. Use the controls to design your synth and send it to a mixer channel and run it through some FX. Just a thought. So you get more used to what different waveforms sound like and you get a grasp on how to use basic fitlers, envelopes, and LFO modulation.
btw, just to make sure you got your terms correct, mastering is making the track "professional", making sure all the levels are correct and clear so they would sound great on all systems - headphones, home speakers, car speakers, PA systems, etc. Mixing just refers to adjusting the EQ levels, panning, busing, etc. just making it generally sound nice but not yet ready to be sold on a CD at a professional level.
I completey agree with triented- originality comes from the heart, it cannot be teached. I probably (definetly ;)) have more knowledge than you, but you're twice the composer I am. If you just got good with engineering aspects of music, such as synthesis and mixing, you would be great. Honestly, I'd rather listen to this smooth atmospheric music which focuses on deep melodical ideas over a cheezy DnB track by ParagonX9, because her music just doesn't do it for me, as popular as it may be.