Leaderboard

Sure, start with sheet music. Some of us do. Some of us use our ears and guess. Some of us download a midi file. It doesn't matter what we start with. It only matters what we end up with. If you're just starting out, it doesn't matter anyway. It'll take you a while to get good at this stuff, so anything that helps you is a good thing. But once your skills are on the level where you can get a remix approved by the panel, you might find yourself limited by starting from something too similar from the original. This applies to sheet music, midi, and your own transcription of the original. Doesn't mean you can't do it, just that it's more difficult to make it your own arrangement. But it's a later concern. Just get started and have fun.

Listened to them all... MANY times each ^^ @Etzaen -- Love the intro and outro as well as that "Mega Man Zero" vibe the whole track has. Still, I think you should try and mess around with the Pitch and Mod Wheels to try and make your leads more colorful (especially during the bridge section). The last part also feels like it's screaming for a bombastic solo (I can clearly see the distortion guitar you introduced in the bridge re-appear here for that purpose). I don't know if you want to go electronic or acoustic with the drums, but I feel like your track could benefit from a bit/lots more variations depending on your choice. Other than that, it's pretty awesome and I'm glad Star Fox 2 is having the recognition it deserves -- can't wait to listen to the final version @Thirdkoopa -- With this one, I can clearly see myself in a bar in the 30s, enjoying a drink while the jazz band is jammin' in the background (I can almost tell what it smells like in there). It's a bit too repetitive for me to just sit down and focus on the listen, but it definitely serves its purpose as a ambient piece. I wish the drummer could add more variety in his performance (it's pretty boring there... especially for a jazzy stuff). I also think some instruments are played too loud a few time but it also adds to that "live performance" charm the piece has. Not being my favorite style of jazz, I can't really go deeper with my critique... but it clearly isn't bad at all. @Siolfor the Jackal -- Now, THAT'S what I'm talking about! Some good ol' metal to wake you up and remind you that everything isn't all nice and easy in a Star Fox game Aggressive rhythm guitars, a drummer who hates to be bored and synths for more sound variety -- a damn good recipe I'd personally add a Pad/Synth Strings for the intro to play chords and give more of an Epic Progressive Rock feel to it before altering them a bit at 0:14 to make sure it evolves along with the track. I'd probably be nice to re-introduce the Pad at the 1:50 part (or a portion of it) for coherence but maybe it'll be too much synths at the same time -- since we also have a Synth Lead here too. Then comes the bridge -- LOVE it! Yet another track I look forward to listen to when complete! In the end, I really like how -- with these three tracks -- we keep getting an idea of how much variety the album is gonna have. Keep up the great work, guys!

Welcome to the voting stage The mixing stage is over. This round has 4 songs. The following people compete against each other Esperado GCJ Hoboka PlanarianHugger (if you want a different color, let me know by replying or sending me a PM). I won’t use the pictures anymore since I have issues by getting them at this page). To vote, do the following: · Visit the stated ThaSauce Page and listen to all the entries. · Scroll to the form at the bottom of the screen or click PM. · Fill in the entries from first to third in the ThaSauce form or fill in your top 3. Participants only need to fill in the first box. · State a reasoning for it. · Participants are encouraged to vote and leave feedback. However, they may not vote for themselve, they get a free first place if they vote, so it's attractive. Non participants are encouraged to vote to decide the winner and leave comments. · Always look in this thread to find out who's the winner of the round after the voting stage instead of only looking at ThaSauce for the results. Especially since some people might vote by sending me a PM. You have until THIS Monday, April 10th 10:59 AM ThaSauce time (18:00 UTC, 19:00 GMT) to vote. If you vote by PM make sure that your top 3 (or top 2 for participants) is clear. I prefer something like this: (To) Bundeslang (if you follow the link you won’t have to add my name). (Subject) PRC ### Vote (Message): 1: (remixer A ) 2: (remixer B ) 3: (remixer C ) (reasoning) I will post the feedback given in the PM’s and the votes in this thread. The winner may choose the source tune for PRC342. PRC341 will start before saturday. Check the ThaSauce Page to vote or click here to send a PM.

Cool blending of these sources, but I agree with the gentlemen that this soundscape is just too busy. Too much competing writing going on together at several points, melodies and countermelodies all competing for center stage. The other issue is that the leads and backing elements are all playing in the same frequency range, so that further adds to the overcrowded and competitive nature of the soundscape. You will need to do some eq work to let leads shine and push backing elements back, and also don't be afraid to delete parts outright that don't add anything to the mix. NO (resubmit)

4 songs yet, so we don't need an extension this time. Voting start tonight (or this morning/afternoon depending on the timezone you are in) and will end monday. I'm planning to start PRC346 on Friday already. Hopefully I don't forget to create the OC Remix thread this time. I think it is possible to find out something about the next round already if you search well.

Submission (Sorry I couldn't get on my computer to upload it to ThaSauce): https://www.dropbox.com/s/jvza7l0xmtnaxmh/Zora's Domain Remix WIP.mp3?dl=0 It's in no way finished, but it's all I can do for a really busy week. Hope you all at least enjoy it!

i think at this rate i'm going to have a finished product in the summer we're going faster than i expected

Back in the voting thread, I made the exact same comment on the layered sections being too crowded, although I cited a different standout example (2:18-2:47). It's still true. I'll also repeat my comment that the arrangement is busy in a serial manner as well as a parallel one: sometimes it's so eager to move on that it doesn't fully flesh out what it's doing, such as when 0:24-0:36 and 2:12-2:23 aren't repeated. So... yeah. In some ways this is too much of a good thing. Either do a lot of aggressive EQ work, or swap some layering for some call-and-return, or just simplify in general. I wouldn't hold it back on the other issue--it's more my preference than anything else--but if you're going to spend more time on this anyway, you can at least take a look. NO (resubmit)

Oi, this is the track that beat mine out in the competition! CURSES!! 'Course, I kind of didn't put out a finished track and all, so I suppose it was to be expected, but still... Rawr. *Ahem* (puts on judging hat) The arrangement definitely covers both sources well, and honestly does a good job developing the sources into a pretty interesting arrangement, and often layers the two to great effect. The variety of synthwork and guitar playing helps make for an interesting, varied arrangement. I'm not sold on the production of this track, though. While I appreciate the layering, there's a lot of moments that sound extremely crowded due to this. 0:18, for example, is particularly problematic, for example, but there are many more moments like it throughout (such as 0:30 & 1:09). Things get very busy on each line, and ultimately it's difficult to hear any one thing when everything is trying to grab your attention at once. The mixing could use work, but I also feel a little hack-and-slashing to instruments for some of the more extreme moments of crowding would be beneficial. I know you did this in a week (which is definitely great for a week of work!), but you have all the time in the world to tweak it up for submission purposes, so I suggest cleaning up that mixing so that the instruments don't crowd nearly as much, even going as far as to cut unnecessary layering for the sake of providing breathing room for the arrangement. NO

eval: The piano is quite mechanical. Humanize it. The drums are boring. Create a better groove, eg by varying hihat velocities and adding some percussion loop to the background. There are many solutions to this problem. Some better than others. Don't think you need a hundred percussion elements and a messy drum pattern to make it work. Just give it a little more life. The whole thing sounds quite loud. Find some posted remixes with a similar enough sound or style that you can compare levels to. It seems that at the skill level you're at right now, you've got the tools and know how to use them, you just don't know _why_ and _when_ to use them. Find some good reference tracks from ocr's recent years, and start comparing. How loud should the bass be? How bright should it be? How about the hihat, the kick, the rest of the drums and percussion? How about lead, secondary melodies, pads? Is the bass too indistinct when the rest of the insturmentation plays, does it need the reverb gone at those points? Is something too prominent and needs some eq cuts and reverb to be pushed back? What stands out in the wrong way? Basically, learn to listen. Source is there, sufficiently interpreted, and I think the arrangement, albeit messy, is okay. There's some weird (or absent) transitions that could be improved. The abrupt changes _sometimes_ work here. Ones I think must be improved: 0:31, 1:15, 2:00, 2:34, 3:10-ish, 3:22, 3:28, 4:13. I might have missed one, so consider all of them, whether they work for listeners or not. Sometimes, the problem is that the transitions lack signalling, sometimes that their timing seems off by a measure or two, sometimes that the change in sound or rhythm is too great, sometimes just that the next part just begins without any change to the drums (a crash is often enough), sometimes there's just a jump in levels because of the overcompression. Find the problem, diagnose the problem, solve the problem. The writing at 3:20 seems too messed up, though. You might want to go with conventional writing and glitch up the sound instead. There's a loud and annoying glitchy sound towards the end, like a mouse squeek. When it becomes a regularly occurring thing like that, it's more annoying than interestingly glitched. I think you're ending on the wrong note. It feels like the notes were just cut off arbitrarily. Ending with just the bass is fine, but I'd end on a different note, possibly at a different point in the loop too. If you really want to end on that note, write the preceding notes differently so it makes more sense. Your questions: Excessive sidechaining - Not hearing any sidechained compression, but the whole thing is too loud. Overcompression - Yes. Cluttered sound - Not terribly so (except around 3:00, which is a mess), but you should probably separate the instruments with EQ,. Consider which ones are foreground and which ones background, and process them accordingly. Make subtle (or not so subtle) EQ cuts in the background instruments so the foreground instruments have more room to play. Not ready for ocr yet. Seems like you've got all the right pieces for it, in sound design and arrangement, you just gotta shift them around a little. As for mixing, the best advice I can give is to listen and compare.

Oh, yeah. A friend who moved to another state made me very jealous by playing Portal 2 with his daughter. But my daughter just turned 2 years old, and all our current friends' kids are no older than 4, so it's gonna be a while. Believe me, I'm constantly evaluating them to see when they might be able to handle even something as simple as a LEGO game. I have a long list of co-op games I want to try with my daughter when she's old enough, and hope she'll be interested.

I know what you're feeling. My best gaming buddy from elementary school onward gave up the hobby two months after he got married just over a year ago. It was an awkward day when he gave me his giant Crate o' Games and said "I'm done." It's sad but I don't think it's possible to have gaming friends after college outside of OCR and other VG/VGM communities of course. For a lot of people, life and survival becomes their game once they fall from their parents nest. Some of the best friends i've made in my thirties didn't ever want to play games when we got together, and that goes for former gamers too. There is definitely a "this person just wastes time" stigma to people finding out that you like to spend your free time gaming. Honestly, I don't understand why it's more socially favorable to read a book, watch a movie or engage in some other non-productive non-gaming activity. This is why i'm glad to be a part of this community because for the most part we are all very like minded toward the hobby/art. ..on the plus side I did turn that Crate o' Games into a few hundred bucks on Amazon.