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This particular saga is ended; Brandon has requested removal of his mixes from OCR, and we have decided that it makes sense, given his continued reluctance to admit any wrongdoing and continued insistence that we are in some way at fault / corrupt / whatever. Put frankly, I don't trust him, I don't believe he learned anything from any of this, and I believe he'd just do it all over again in a heartbeat the next time something came up that he didn't like, didn't understand, misinterpreted, etc. As much of a fan as I am of the music he personally has released via OCR, which we have stood behind, and the albums he has coordinated... if I'm taking time away from my daughters to work on OCR, it has to be for the music, for the site, and for the community, not for the twisted ego & paranoia of a single artist intent on stirring up drama, baiting people, making unfounded accusations, etc. I am willing to endure quite a bit for the betterment of OCR, and I realize that not ALL of the tasks that I'm responsible for are going to be fun, or enjoyable, or without controversy, but I cannot be expected to indefinitely babysit the fragile ego/psyche of someone who continuously makes bad faith accusations without evidence and sees no fault in his own actions, not to mention a LONG history of claims of harassment by other community members, abusive behavior on the forums, etc. We will be mailing FF3 artists as well as collaborators who have worked with Brandon on posted mixes, as those will remain on the site unless a consensus decision to remove is reached by all parties. Existing published albums are unaffected by this process. It's sad, but my goodness... I can't be expected to have unlimited patience and tolerance, nor can our staff. Long time coming. Time to move on.

Something I tell my students is to remember to keep your fingers arched, and to practice pressing the strings with different parts of the finger. What a lot of new players tend to do is overcompensate and play with the very top of their finger right under their nail, because they don't want to hit the string above it. However, this ends up leaving the fleshy part of your finger laying all over the strings underneath. Moving your elbow to rotate your hand can help with some chords as well.

Servants of the Mountain is one of my favorite songs ever so I was thrilled to hear such a unique and beautiful take on it. You kept the original feeling while adding a new one of your own. I can't wait to hear what you make in the future.

Oh, you've got your first mixpost! Congrats, man, you deserved it! As for the track, I remember one of its early iterations (from one of SSMB albums), but it have always felt a bit unfinished, and what you've done here is just freakin' outstanding. The beat is really tight, and the funky guitar is just damn catchy. The only thing that seems a bit weird to my taste is the Collision Chaos cameo - its brief appearance is quite sudden, and it doesn't fit well, but it's not a big problem at all. Anyway, good job!

As someone who suffered multiple wrist injuries in my youth from having bad teachers to my own ignorance I implore you to not do anything that fatigues your hand quickly or feels awkward for long periods of time. If you feel any pain in any joint in your hand,stop and reevaluate what you are doing. Regarding the mechanics of the wrist, your fingers are capable of the greatest range of motion and mechanical advantage if your wrist is in a neutral position. A lot of bad habits form with players hyper extending or hyper flexing their wrist in order to play certain chords and this KILLS the tendons in the hand. If you flex your wrist while you play you tighten the tendons on the underside of the forearm and the finger movement brings them into repeated contact with bone and other tendons. It will take some time but eventually you'll have an overuse injury like this person will . Keep your wrist in a good neutral position and you'll find that 80% of those chords are much easier to play. For some chords you'll probably end up bending the wrist slightly but under no circumstances should it look like the picture above. Here is a picture of pretty good wrist positioning. One final note. Try to not allow the joints in your fingers to "bust" or bend inward. There should, for the most part, be a slight curve in the last 2 digits of your fretting fingers. If a joint bends inwards and has a concave look to it you are not stressing muscle anymore but ligaments. Muscle recovers far faster than ligaments do and with less pain so keep an eye on that. The most usual exceptions to this are barre chords and power chords that incorporate the octave. Good luck playing!

Update: I got a message from Brandon. He wants to take the FF3 project off OCR, for various reasons. The album isn't cancelled but Brandon wants to move its management and release outside OCR. You can get in touch with him here: brandonestr@gmail.com. (Please note I'm just reporting what he told/asked me to do, and that I may or may not support this decision, thank you.)

I thought this song was one of the second best songs in the game, The first one being the training song. No critiques from me, Awesome work on this! =D

@HoboKa Late response, but if I gave it anymore it'd be 1982 all over again. Weak sample or not, this is probably the only sax sample I'll ever use. Best 89MB on my entire SSD I swear

Very brooding and emotionally compelling. The melancholy guitar work reminds me of what Nekofrog would make if he placed a heavier emphasis on percussion in his tracks. Though I found it strange to start off with the drums at such a high intensity, the arrangement quickly settled in and just kept getting better from there. When the heavy guitars and a more dominant lead finally entered around 2:40, I was hooked, and you completely won me over at 3:45 with the low-tuned rhythm guitars. Seriously badass. The last few minutes of this track were incredibly gratifying and, on a personal level, this has to be one of my favorite metal arrangements that I've heard in a long time. YES