JackR

I didn't even know there was an official page to like, and had settled for the info page long ago. Glad to show my support for the man who inspired me to keep at piano lessons all through high school, just so I could play his music.

Well fuck you too, EA. Let me guess, you'll also go ahead and just give us a worthless PS2 port with graphics the N64 could have pulled off? And stick in mono sound while you're at it? Why the hell do GH3 AND Rock Band both have to get the pine tree up the ass for the Wii versions?

If you're interested in another mirror for direct download of the tracks (non-torrent), I should be able to provide you with a good, fast server and hopefully a good bit of exposure. I believe I sent you a PM a while back too; let me know if you're interested.

I'm a St. Paul guy, not Minneapolis, but this is still damn close to home. I was at work at the time, and a coworker's wife drives over that bridge every day at 6pm. Thank God she had to stay late to finish a project. No one I know was in the area at the time, but it still leaves me feeling on edge. And the DOT here doesn't exactly have the best track record with bridge work...

Version 16 is rather mind blowing in my opinion. So is Stereo though. Impressive stuff.

My, isn't this place interesting. I've made it to the second puzzle, and I'm quite hooked and quite stumped. This will be fun...

I really hope that you plan to finish this mix, because I'm loving it. As an amateur pianist, I think that the direction you're going would make this mix REALLY fun to sit down and play. I'm afraid the only technical advice I can offer is that the peddling seems to get a little muddy at times. Of course, you said you were just playing around, so that's probably why. Please don't abandon this mix; I'm sure I'm not the only one who would love to see a piano Doomsday mix.

In my opinion, your remix seems to be coming from a few too many directions. You've got some smooth jazz sounds, some turntables, some synth use that could pass for techno influence if it were faster, etc. I think the mix would be improved as a whole if you found one particular style that you wanted to do the mix in and then stuck with that. You might even be able to come up with a creative way to start in one style and transition into another as a sort of coda to the piece. And, on a slightly related note, since you're working on MMX3, any chance you'd take a stab at Vile's Theme?

Ah, retail work. I work in a grocery store; Rainbow Foods if the name is familiar. We're owned by Roundy's and might be getting bought by SuperValue. I hate my job. I've been working as "Maintenance" for 8.5 months now. That means I spend most of the day standing in the same exact spot bagging groceries. I was supposed to be trained as a cashier 8 months ago. This of course begs the question, why am I still there. Simply put, the work sucks, but the pay is decent. My hours do keep getting cut to make up for it, but I get raises all the time. I started at $6.45 (min here is $6.15). After 200 hours, $0.10 raise. After 500, $0.20 raise again. 750; $0.30, etc etc. If I ever to get trained as a cashier (and really, it's not that hard to work a computer), that's another $0.90 raise. Plus, as long as the manager isn't looking, I can take tips. Some nights I get nothing, some nights I can make an extra $10 in just a four hour shift. While I don't at all enjoy working in retail, it is a job and it does pay well enough to get me by. If you don't like the idea of working front end, you're not going to want to work grocery at all. All our stock guys end up getting called to cashier every time we get a rush. They all absolutely despise having to cashier, but our boss refuses to move anyone else up to cashier.

I demand my hour of sleep back. The easiest way to solve this problem? When I become president (ha!), we shall have DST as follows: fall back and fall REALLY FAR back. In fall, we set the clocks back an hour, and in spring we set them back 23 hours, and we can all have a Saturday Part Deux to sleep in. All businesses shall be closed; no one will work and everyone will have the day off to be lazy, like a good, freedom-loving American should. In order to preserve the calendar structure, we'll simply make March have 30 days. And if your birthday is on Deux Day, it's like a Leap Day birthday or something, so you can feel all special about it. Everybody wins!

Flying Battery WIP? If it doesn't make it to the site, I'll drop you a line; I love that track.

I also liked the first Metal Sonic pose better, though this second one is still good. I admit, it was a little hard to figure out it was him in the first pose, but I still got it a second later. Anyway, top 5 for me: Hadyn - Heads Up for Tails DarkeSword - Sand Café (WIP) Gamebox - Ice Cap 4 Life (WIP) Sora Kitsune KO - New Beginnings (demo) Sir Nuts - The Unseen Wonders (demo) No particular order, I guess.

For me, it's between either flying Tails or balancing Tails. I really like the yawning Tails, to be honest, but I don't think that really fits with the project; "this music is so dull it makes me sleepy" etc. Also, I really like the chrome effect you put on Knuckles. Not so sure about the background though. How does it look as solid color, but with the chrome bevel?

Spire: Looks like I must've been having a cache issue or something this morning; the same links now lead to the non-gray-lighted versions. Sorry about that. I can still see a few gray pixels where there's a change in color though. It's not much, and probably won't even be noticeable when printed at the right size, but I'm a details sort of guy. Also, shame the Star Sphere won't be used for Disk 3. I thought that was pretty cool too.

I know my opinion on the covers isn't that important, since I wasn't involved in the project, but I do have to say... I'm loving the back cover. Absolutely loving it. The only thing that I don't like is the Chaos Emerald; there's something about those uneven edges (bottom left, especially) that my eye doesn't agree with. Aside from that, I've just noticed the gray line (which I go into detail on below) on the Disk 2 track box; left and bottom sides. I love all the little details though, especially the side tabs with one being red and the other blue. Brilliant. The front I'm not quite as impressed with. Sonic looks good, but Knuckles just seems off to me. You've got that gray shadow all around him; pick one light source and go with it. On Sonic, you've got the shadow just underneath, the light obviously coming from the top left. I think it would vastly improve Knuckles to do the same. Right now, he looks like a sort of raised, rounded bevel of some type; one that magically casts a shadow on all sides. Next is the color transition. First, the blue to black; it's really good until you get to the bottom, near Knuckles. It goes from a seamless trasition between the colors to blue, gray line, black. I know you're trying to go with a 3D effect, but this was not a 3D game; I think it would look better if it was all like the top half of Sonic; blue to black, straight transition. The slight darkening of the blue works nicely to still provide the 3D effect anyway. Sadly, this shadow on the top left is in direct contrast to the work on Sonic that I liked, with the LIGHT in the top left. I think that's the biggest change that needs to be made; pick one light source and go with it. Right now, Sonic is getting light from the top left, Knuckles casts a shadow all around, the whole logo gets light from the bottom right, and the sphere gets light from the bottom left. If all these light sources (or at the very least, the ones on the logo; it might look cool to leave the sphere's where it is and light the logo separate) were unified, I think it would improve a lot. Personally, I suggest lighting from the top left, because you've already done so with Sonic, and I think it turned out very well. The last few things I wanted to point out were that the whole logo is a victim of that gray line outline again, except for on the bottom right (where the light's coming from). I think if you just go pure black it would look cleaner. And finally, some of the shapes on Knuckles; the tip of the right dread has a vertical line, compared to a more natural point like the other two, and the top of his head forms a rather odd angle; perhaps round that off? I know, I'm being rather overcritical, especially for someone who didn't work on the project, but I'm just throwing my ideas/suggestions out there. Despite all my nitpicking, I really like the covers; a great idea, and something I could never hope to do myself.