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Well, I am blown away by the gift that I received. Wes really doesn't want me to finish my dissertation, haha. In all seriousness, this is very humbling and I don't know how best to express how thankful I am except to say thank you. This unboxing pic of me looking way more excited than I usually do (I intended just a very pleased smile, I confess) comes via a joke by Addie, who took the picture right after she said "Now look like I didn't schedule you a vasectomy for Christmas," causing me to laugh really hard and create an embarrassing picture of myself for everyone's enjoyment. As an aside, I have a large pile of digital goodies for my own person, but they haven't accepted my Steam friend request. If they don't respond by the end of the day I'm just going to spoil the surprise and PM them since I should not be sitting on gifts after receiving my own.

I just received my Secret Santa gift box today, and I'm a little blown away. - four-pack of Cheerwine - Mexican hot chocolate - Nickel Creek album on vinyl I'm not quite sure who my Secret Santa was (please, do tell!), but you freaking knocked it out of the park on this one. I love Cheerwine, but it's only available at expensive specialty shops around here. Hot chocolate is always a good idea, and this Nickel Creek album is incredible thus far. I'm actually a big fan of bluegrass, and this has got a lot of that great Appalachian flavor to it--super thanks! Pix because it did happen:

hey, this was me! =D i'm so happy you're into it. you did say you wanted my favorite album on lp and interesting soda or chocolate, so there you go =) for those who don't know: 1. cheerwine is a primarily SC/NC-based pop company that's actually one of the oldest (if not the oldest) family-owned fountain drink maker in the country. they make what's basically the best black-cherry pop in existence. it's also very reasonable as an add-on item from amazon, and (best of all!) should be available everywhere in the states in grocery stores by 2017 or so. i'm surprised you've tried it before, flex, i checked and didn't see you'd lived in the carolinas area. i only had it once or twice and absolutely loved it. 2. mexican hot chocolate is really good, and the stuff made the old-style artisanal way is the best...stone-ground chocolate that's a bit gritty in a pleasant way. fantastic for sitting around and listening to...excellent bluegrass on lp! speaking of which... 3. nickel creek (and, by extension, mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile) is one of my favorite musical groups, and 'why let the fire die?' is easily my favorite album of theirs. i was super nervous you'd be like "ew bluegrass" so i'm really happy you're into it! they play extremely progressive music, stuff that does a lot of mixing of styles including jazz, folk, and rock. it's pretty involved stuff, has some excellent lyrics, and is a real musical journey. i have been more influenced in my own music by this group than any other. i wasn't super excited to see that the lp changes the order of the tracks, but it's still a fantastic experience. if you like this, flex, check out Thile's new albums under Punch Brothers. their newest album, Phosphorescent Blues, is even more on the progressive side, about as much folk as kid a is rock. really, really experimental in an awesome way. the first track (familiarity) blew my mind with how imaginative it was.

I do, yeah. Was super reliable until the US release of Saga Frontier. :'-(

Whoah, your covers tend to be pretty good, but the EWI sounds amazing when in the context of a somber/mellow song. If you ever want to do a full remix, I think you should definitely try doing a song like this.

SoUnDoLe, I will comment on every site you post on YouTube is for praise, but here I want to be more aggressive! I've said it in the past, but I'll say it again! Let's hear that EWI in a remix. These have been great covers with my new favorite instrument, the EWI ( I even love saying it) but now is the time to Submit....please You've got the talent. You've got the networking. You've got ideas...I want to hear you with a more personalized use of that miracle machine! Now over to YouTube for my enthusing....

I listened to the entire Age of Empires II soundtrack last night, some really great tracks in there.

modreview/eval: Starts off very cool. I've good high hopes for this track. The lows are a bit too loud to be balanced. By comparison, the rest of the track is a little quiet, and trying to up the levels have left the track overcompressed. I can hear the compressor pushing down the other sound to make room for the low stuff. The right-hand electric piano writing is great. The left not so much. It's an interesting juxtaposition, jazzy epiano and brutal synths. I like the concept, and the variety of synth stuff in here (chip arp!). But the execution leans rather heavily on the synth side of things, making the epiano stand out as a little out of place. Emphasizing it in the mix might help. Emphasizing the juxtaposition might be good for the arrangement overall, too. Right now, the track rarely goes full-on jazz, but certainly goes full-on synthtastic. I can hear the source through most of the track. Source version, original writing on source chords, source version... It's not the most elaborate arrangement, but it doesn't have to be. Most other iterations of that melody are rather conservative, but I think my favorite take on the source is around 2:05, as it dares to take liberties with the melody without sounding forced. The intro did something like that too. Otherwise, you're straddling the line between verbatim and forced deviation. It's not easy to figure out what to do with a melody. As a piece of advice for future remixes, dare to mess with the chords and rhythms, since that'll lead you to have to adapt the melody as well. Timaeus talked about this, too. You generally want the melody to be recognizable, but at the same time do something new and interesting. That's a very difficult balance to strike. Some of your deviations from the melody do this well, others not quite as well. I think this is a pass, given some minor mixing changes to get the lows under control. You could also fiddle with the arrangement some, to emphasize the jazz elements of it. Could. Nice track.

Just got my gift! Zelda A Link to the Past comic book and a really cool RPG styled card game. I freaking love it, thanks Secret Santa http://imgur.com/a/kBo0c

Solid bunch of tunes for sure. The artwork is great!

Delighted to be a part of this, such an eclectic mix of sounds making a lovely tribute. Would have liked more time to work on the art, but that's always what I say. For such a quick turnaround the mini album has turned out really well. congrats to all the musicians involved, along with the project managers. It's awesome. I'm sure Big S would've loved this. EDIT: Thanks also for putting faith in me as an artist.

sorry jade

Clicked on this one out of curiosity... I really like what you have going here, This is like a sample platter of everything cool that could be done with this track. Vocals, well done effects, clear mixing. I have 3 things that I could point out 1)That acoustic bass seems a bit too loud, it's really pulling me out of the, very immersive atmosphere. 2) Those vocals seem like they could have some work done with them, little reverb, little longer? I don't know, so I'll leave it to your deft hands and sharp ears 3) Most importantly, it's short, too short. These are several great ideas that I have no time to enjoy, because they transition so quickly to a new idea. Great intro, great transition to the main body, nice transition to the vocals, nice choice of instruments and effects but all this happens in ~2 min. That's like being given Steak and lobster, but only 5 minutes to enjoy it. It's a short source, for sure, but you sound like you know what you're doing, so just do what you do, only more in-depth....I'm sure more technical feedback will make its way in to the comments, but that's all I have to offer. Great Job!

Biggest tip: Try not to not be an asshole. Your partner has his own legitimate ideas too. Give them room to voice an opinion if you choose to collab with them and listen to what they have to say. If you don't, you'll just end up alienating people. More generally, have a vision. Don't be like "I want to collab with you for no reason!" Assign roles. Maybe one of you is the arranger and another is an instrumentalist. Collabarations are usually two people together working their strengths to create something greater than the sum of its parts. In my case, If i'm not the arranger, I'm either laying down guitars or synths, cause thats where my strengths are Most importantly, COMMUNICATE. So many collabs end up getting fucked due to misunderstandings. If someone collabs with you, don't take it for granted and remove their contributions without at least telling them first because they will not want to collaborate with you again. Those are my two cents. If you communicate and have a good balance with sharing ideas, collabing can be a fantastic experience. However, you've gotta be a little careful sometimes. People are touchy, especially when it comes to their music. Just treat each other respectfully and their shouldn't be a problem.

This is a good base to build off of for sure. I think all the synth leads shouldn't be sidechained/pumping, though, and they could be less piercing in the upper treble. I like sidechaining as much as the next guy, but I just don't like it on leads. Also, the beginning up until 1:27 made me think that it wasn't intentional that it wasn't already full blast. For instance, 0:17 sounded like the drop already. Maybe make the beginning sound more intentional by using lighter drums until the drop (low pass them? Gate them? Both? Lighter drum samples in general?). In other words, I think you should put more work into the dynamics evoked by the drums to increase the dynamic range. When we get to the actual drop, some of the actual aggressive components don't seem cohesive with the bass. The bass at 1:34 - 1:35 is really narrow and almost sounds like it was recorded with a low-fidelity microphone. Same with the guitar at 1:36 - 1:37. I also think the sidechained detuned synth padding can be low-passed a bit to make it less harsh in the upper treble. The interpretation of the original is pretty evidently there, but maybe it's too liberal. For example, the chord at 1:40 and the one right after it sound the same, when the original Ice Cap resolved a tension by moving a note in the chord upwards (0:04 - 0:05). Little things like that can make Ice Cap more identifiable. While it's good to incorporate your own writing, try to balance it with the original so the original is still present enough. Overall, on production, try working more on the drums to create a more nuanced dynamic range, refining the elements accompanying the glitch hop basses to be similar in fidelity, reducing the harshness in the EQ of the sidechained pad, and experimenting with new synth lead sounds. On arrangement, try making it closer to the original in your improvisations.

I'll quote my album comments here. Additionally I want to say that I've been listening to this album for a long time now and I have to say that I love pretty much every single track. This is exactly what I had in mind when I came up with the concept of the album, but it's exactly the kind of album I could never pull off, even in a directorial role. Flex has such a great, deep understanding of EDM and tons of wonderful connections with artists from all around. I think we'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who could pull off an album with such consistency and originality throughout all of the tracks. Major props to all of the artists involved, especially the fresher faces we don't usually see at OC ReMix. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for bringing this idea to life.

I got my Secret Santa gift today, that was super quick! Thanks Tables, I love these plushies so much! They're a great addition to my plushie collection at work!

I promised my leet FF7 OST knowledge, so here it is: Green for definite Orange for uncertain Red for no idea (might be wrong, sorry if so Ryan) 0:00 to 0:35 mostly soundscaping far as I can tell 00:35 - 1:17 very loosely based on the first 4 notes of cid's theme 1:17-1:57 no idea 1:57-2:15 melody is start of cid's theme 2:15-2:32 is sort of sending a dream (0:22-0:42) in the way the melody rises, only picked up on by extrapolating the next melody backkwards 2:32-2:48 is sending a dream extrapolated (0:42-1:00) 2:48-3:26 is very loosely little bronco takes flight 3:26-3:39 hot damn it's cid's theme 3:39-4:12 no idea 4:12-4:42 mucking about very loosely with cid melody (1:08) 4:42-5:03 no idea 5:03-5:30 cid's theme melody, pretty clear (1:03ish) 5:30-5:55 very loosely based on the first 4 notes of cid's theme 5:55-6:19 I think is actually a cheeky reference to the intro of lifestream, the notes match up (0:22 on), if so this is very clever, it's even thematically correct as it's the first tease of the idea of going into space I make that: 3:00 of identifiable 1:11 of sort of but hard to tell 2:09 of not sure at all