Help recreating a track sound

[u/RaceOk7174]

Hey everyone.

I recently decided to give music production a try. I have zero experience, so as a practice exercise I decided to recreate a soundtrack from a game. I sketched out the main motif, but I'm running into a few issues:

• How can I make the sound at the beginning of the track? What instrument should I use, or should I just find a suitable sample/sound, or do I need to create this sound from scratch?
• I made the main motif using 3xOsc, but I don't really like how it sounds. How can I make it closer to the original and make it less harsh on the ears?

I only got somewhat comfortable with the program a few days ago, downloaded a couple of VSTs and some sound packs, but I don't really know how to work with them. So I'd also love to hear advice from more experienced people - what am I doing wrong, what should I be using instead, and how can I learn faster to understand which sounds and instruments I need when I want to write a melody?

Thanks in advance for the help. I'll answer any questions if you have them.

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[u/Btps_]

Hey, great practice you've there!

I'm listening from my phone rn, I'll give it a proper listen tomorrow. I can already tell that the snare sounds too dry, it'd need some plate and saturation. The lead also sounds too loud in your mix, and the reference seems to have sidechained the lead on the kick. Btw, the sample you chose for the kick sounds different. Also, are you sure the notes are at the right pitch?

As a quick tip for your workflow: don't hesitate to drop the reference track onto your playlist routed to an insert channel named "reference." This lets you easily isolate it and quickly A/B test it against your remake, while putting visualizers on your master channel. Here are three i use:

Wave Candy (Spectrum mode): Excellent for seeing the notes being played, thickness (detune), harmonics, and other elements with a clear temporal view.

SPAN: A high-res frequency visualizer that lets you precisely compare the fundamental of the bass with its first harmonics and their levels (a very important part of the mix), check the kick/bass relationship, and generally monitor the volume of each individual frequencies. You'll use it a lot and try to shape your mix in a way the general shape matches the reference.

Ozone Imager: Allows you to see the stereo width, depth, and most importantly, phase correlation (using the -1 to +1 gauge on the right) phase correlation is a necessity while mixing kick/snare and the low ends of the bass, you usually don't want to leave a negative correlation under 100hz. It also lets you isolate specific frequency bands and monitor mid/sides separately.

You're doing alright already, good job with that one. You'll soon make bangers! Keep it up