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the highs/mid highs are just too much. hihats etc. this sonic mix works better though than the other more metal one. less compressed etc. yeah, my $100 backup speakers just aren't as good as i previously thought. thanks for the encouraging comments though!! and thanks hemo for the headsup regarding brass and breath; i think about that stuff too little. not that it HAS to be realistic that way necessarily, but it's a good thing to consider. now i only gotta make this project file work over here....because while my speakers are much better now, the PC i got here is a netbook with 4 GB RAM. i might be able to barely make this work.

hi pixelseph! to spare you some work: listening to this on my good speakers (back home from vacation), i can see it's pretty jarring. i like this one for its creative choices, but the mix ain't there yet, and the arrangement is also gonna be some work. so don't worry, i don't need detailed feedback regarding mixing because i can hear it myself now. yeah but the potential is there. what an awesome source as well!

i'm back home, and this sounds good on my KRK's. i think the judges should like the mixery. idk. not my forte but sounds good to me. the arrangement seems alright, but somewhat meandering. maybe what i call "meandering" after first listen is exactly what you wanted to achieve here. the crescendo in dissonance 3:30 onwards seems pretty cool, and maybe a vague nod to the generally adventurous spirit of yuzo's SOR music! from your comments it seems you're a big fan of the OST and a lotta thought went into the mix...probly lotsa stuff i cannot appreciate after first listen. i love the SoR stuff but i don't know it extremely well, and i'm no elektro musik expört either. i would have to listen to this atleast 10 times and see if your arrangement grows on me. lotsa good electro musik is what you'd call "meandering", but it does have to grow on ya don't it. maybe i will over the next week! cheerz! and thanks for reminding me of SoR! i'm looking for stuff to remiks, and especially SoR II has some bangers i might tackle someday if i feel very confident!

For what it's worth, I think this is cool! I really like the bass starting around 1:45.

yeah, i think the vocals stuff is generally among the least problematic regarding A.I. use. just my 2 c. btw...i didn't even think of the obvious in my last post... a screenshot of the arrangement window of your sequencer is pretty decent proof that you atleast put some level of work into your remix. it doesn't say anything about where the MIDI data came from, of course. that could always be (partly) A.I. generated. but if a mix from a newcomer seems sus, asking for a screenshot of the project would be one means of clarification...atleast somewhat.

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Heyo, this one might be a more difficult mission for the almighty IT mage @DarkeSword... The problem is this: If I want to reuse an audio file I've already uploaded at OC Remix (and which is stored as an attachment under "Other Media" >>> "Insert existing attachment" at the lower right corner of the comment field when you are writing a comment) in a new comment, the audio file will be inserted in the comment, but you can't play it. It totally works with other uploaded attachments such as images and even movie files, but not with audio files. ... Maybe you can use some sort of IT Esuna magic to fix this issue. You can check out the specific problem in this thread at the audio file number 6 towards the end of my very last comment from May 05, 2024 (I've tagged you there): https://ocremix.org/community/topic/52614-cleaning-up-the-low-end-and-low-mid-sections-in-a-mix-with-single-track-eq-master-track-eq-eqed-aux-effect-sends-and-other-methods/

I have a particular use case for AI that I'm interested in getting others' opinions on. I'm working on revising and remastering a piece for resubmission. I perhaps too ambitiously decided to feature a choir singing Irish. In my original mix I tried very hard to finagle EW Hollywood Choirs' Wordbuilder system syllable by syllable based on online audio recordings of each individual word, but after hours of work I'm not very happy with the result. It's not a huge deal, since epic choirs are not usually expected to be understandable, but I worked hard on the lyrics and translation and I'd love to hear them more genuinely represented in the final version. Lately I've been eyeing AI voice transformers. It appears possible to record myself singing Irish, transform my voice into a handful of AI-generated voices, and layer those with Hollywood Choir's samples to create something that sounds like a choir actually singing in Irish. In this case nothing would be "generated by feeding a prompt into AI-software." The AI would instead be fed a recording of my voice and would duplicate the notes in a new, generated voice. My creative activity would not be too different from what I currently do with samples of choirs and instruments: every note and expression would be my creative choice, but the actual sound would not be created by me. I'm curious what others think about this. AI as a whole generally feels icky to me, not the least because AI companies are notoriously unscrupulous about using others' work for training their models, without compensation. On the other hand, some companies at least claim to be ethical in this regard; kits.ai for instance says that their models are trained using audio recorded by contracted and compensated session vocalists. This seems no different from how EastWest obtained the audio which they sampled for their choirs. My other option would be to record my wife and try to duplicate her voice with enough differentiation using a variety of filters and effects. My wife is doubtful about this working well, however! What do you all think? Acceptable use case? Not acceptable?

HEAVY! But tastefully so! This does an excellent job of punctuating the heavy guitars -- which sound great, but would get tiring -- with lighter sections. Dark and creepy throughout, exactly what the original was begging for. Well done!

eh, providing that AI will get good fast at writing at least very serviceable remixes...isn't it all based on good faith at this point, anyway? the essay or info bit would be more of an outlet for the artist to be honest and simultaneously highlight why they think this creative M.O. was interesting in their mind. i think if you allow the use of AI, it's good to at the very least encourage honest disclosure about the particular use. even if someone *hacks* the judges panel with an almost purely A.I. created remix (and maybe an equally A.I. created faux essay detailing the use of A.I.), they could still disclose it later on in the remix comments... "hhahaha gotcha!" then it's funny atleast. i think we oughta be focused on people who care about creativity period...setting up some punkbuster-like anti-cheat system seems futile. (of course, you could employ an A.I. to punkbust mixes that are likely created by A.I., but that would seem a very elon musk solution. can't beat em, join em :D)

That background video is cool as fuck

Well, you know I like principles. I'd just personally have a hard time writing that specific principle up, in a universal manner, without it essentially being distilled into Luddism. History is full of examples of technology making some jobs obsolete, or much easier, and I kinda think we're on the first of many waves of AI basically doing that; while I hope that we can get governance and social safety nets in place ahead of time, my observation is that most regulations are reactive, not proactive, in this regard. Perhaps you can rephrase what you think the generalized principle actually is, in a way that wouldn't essentially prevent any new technology from ever disrupting any job market? I believe it's difficult? Sure, I think requesting a brief statement on the use of AI, if it was employed - even if that statement is written by AI, so long as it is accurate - is a decent way of trying to capture the influence of the tech on any given track, in an honor-system mode. Ala Valve. I'm not convinced that usage in a large training dataset, where aesthetics/characteristics are gleaned and end up in a kind of weird soup that almost reminds me of human brains at times, is directly equivalent to usage as a "mere asset". People use OC ReMixes in far LESS transformative fashion, where I suppose you could call it a "mere asset", when they employ them in non-profit works, streams, let's play videos, etc., don't they? The goal of promoting VGM has some siblings - one related goal is music education, and I think we've always hoped that folks would learn from arrangements, study them, be inspired by them, etc. I guess the key word there is "folks" - it's definitely not the same with AI, because of the scale & speed. I don't want to sound defeatist, here, but I also want to repeat that there is enough music that is completely in the public domain that a pretty capable model could be built from JUST that corpus, so it becomes unclear what is being achieved, precisely... I think this is a great, essential conversation to be having, and this announcement does actually seem like the relevant place for it...

Added to that: be careful that the arrangement still has to be considered a cover, and if you’re very liberal with your arrangement, that may become a problem. Not that I’ve seen that myself, but I already vet the ones that I think are too liberal and simply don’t try to post them. Another big one: original lyrics are a no-go. If the source track has lyrics, you can use those, but anything with your own lyrics won’t fly. To be safe, also for stuff like choirs and so on, stick with the regular oohs and aahs (even though you might possibly get away with the single phrase here and there).

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

THIS IS SO FUCKING COOL! Really creative. Bold choice to leave everything so sparse, but it works spectacularly, and really gives the tablas room to breathe throughout the mix. Definitely going on the favorites list.

I think, in principle, it's not so much the training data that's the ethical problem but how the network can be used to replace the people who made the training data. In our case, musicians. Remixers. Composers. Much like how using images on the internet to create a tool to help blind people see is imo fine, but a tool to make photographers and illustrators largely obsolete isn't. I don't think it's in line with ocr's goal of promoting vgm as an art form to let people use remixes as mere assets for other works, including future vgm, so I think it'd be good to communicate this, even if it's unenforceable. A principle. I like how valve wants disclosure of how AI is used in the development and functionality of games on steam.

Also, FWIW, you are right in some regard on the length alone that it was too much of a slow-roll and overambitious to a fault. ...I don't know. It was a darling I wasn't willing to kill, considering some background circumstances / context behind this remix from the album itself that hits pretty close to home. ...It was a vision indeed, but not without its flaws. I'll just do better next time.

Hey there. That's a fair take, and I understand if and when people have a strong reaction to a beloved song or OST of theirs, and SeeDs/FFVIII is no exception. I'm...a bit upset by this, honestly, but you respectively are entitled to your opinion and feelings, and I'm sure you won't be the first or last in this regard. My music--as is obvious even on the Judges' Panel--is seemingly very...divisive...be it because of how I went about producing and mixing it or the composition itself. At the time, I was pretty chuffed and proud of this remix...given when it happened, the work it took, and the final result...but I'd be remiss to say that this amongst other things kind of hits me in a way where currently I have to disassociate my emotions from my logic brain...and all I can say is this: Thank you for your honesty in the end, and all I can do is apologize that this version of the Extreme doesn't resonate with you. Quite a few of my remixes, even if or when they make it past the bar, has that issue. Perhaps it's "growing pains", as people call it. This track was a first for many things for me: 100+ track mixing, in-depth vocal mixing that isn't just ad libs here or there or chopped loops, rapping to my own musical shit, etc. By no means is any of this an excuse to have what may in fact be a...less-than-stellar remix, and people will say I'm being harsh on myself in behind your retuned review, but I digress. It is what it is. ...I'm unsure if I'll ever come back to this and do a re-cut / deep-cut and change it drastically as I get better at this game, but again, I'm very sorry to you and anybody else who just couldn't or didn't vibe with this. I chose this track and the other sources I sewed into it because they, too, deeply resonated with me, as both a casual listener and as an artist. FF8 in particular is the dark horse / black sheep and underrated game of the series, and I chose SeeDs as my first jumping off point because at the time I felt brave enough to do so and I like the game and OST, despite its flaws, and equally my own flaws and trepidation to dare try. I...don't know. Be that as it may, I'm glad I did, I'm sad it didn't work for you, and I'll...just have to try harder and better next time. I, and I'm sure the rest of us here, appreciate your hard work in reviewing our tracks and being real with yourself in this instance to just tell it like it is to me. I'd rather have a genuine reaction than a falsehood to my work. People doubting it and me are inevitable and I'll just...try again to pick up the pieces and continue onward. I'm not letting another creative writing or art pursuit flop happen again. . . This is about as genuine and positive I can be in this moment in response to ya. . . :) And it's not a reflection on you, but on myself in how poorly I look at my OWN work and person. Introspection is a bitch. Thanks again. I'll take all of your points and do what I can with them on future projects or further revisions to past ones. Take care of yourself and speak soon. o/

I've been listening to this for many years (nearly 20 maybe at this point) and I still love it!