Leaderboard

Zircon's fanbase started when he made ocremixes and pretty healthily transferred it into a fanbase for his original electronic music. I'm really not sure why there's so much emphasis on reasoning it out with logic. Just look at actual real life examples to see what happens or not.

Velocity and timing go a long way towards making an authentic sounding performance so don't overlook that. The best sample libraries take the attack of each instrument into account whereas the cheaper libraries often have 0ms of attack across all of their samples. i.e. you hit a note and get the result immediately without any startup. Take your bass pizzicato's for example. They are RIGHT ON THE BEAT which does not work well with an emotive piece of music like this. A bassist has to anticipate the moment that the string has to be released in order to come in at the right time which means he has to take the physics of his own instrument into account as well as playing off of the emotion present at the moment in the music in order to sound appropriate. There's anticipation and some hesitation there with every pluck and your sequencing needs to reflect this. If you think you can put static midi into a better sample library and have it come out the way you want you are going to be sorely disappointed. It's more along the lines of the better the sample library the more time you will need to spend detailing each instrument which WILL take hours and hours to get as authentic as possible. I would stay far away from symphobia if you want any sort of flexibility. IMO it's overpriced for what it is and you would be far better off with the older East West QL Symphonic Orchestra which you can pick up on the (relatively)cheap these days if you time it right. http://www.soundsonline.com/symphonic-orchestra

i've never crafted a videogame arrangement that wasn't also an "original" sure, fans of my videogame work don't typically enjoy my other original material... but fans of that stuff don't typically enjoy my videogame work, neither. also, i like music?

DFW our project director is in the direct path of Hurricane Florence, although thankfully he does not live on the coast. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.. Rot and I are very worried for his safety and the preservation of his property. DFW has put a gargantuan amount of hours into this along with the rest of us, and I've seen his incredible family on Skype during our chats and joking around. They are in dire need of protection at this time. Please be safe DFW, and return with everything intact.. we're all thinking of you.

I don't remix anymore because I draw cats. I'm sure I have a room in hell waiting for me. In all seriousness, I agree more or less with the OP regarding remixes. I haven't made one since 2004 (wow has it been that long?). However, I did end up getting my degree in music and met a lot of great people in the community because of it. I actually found a place to live in Boston because of Vig (Jesse) when I went to school which certainly changed my life forever. YAY OCR!

Creativity starts with an idea in your head, then you work it out and manefest it in reality. It’s fun to think of how different compositions will sound in different styles. It’s no less creative than coming up with melodies and rhythms. Just a different expression of creativity. If you make a door and then carve a unique design on the door no one would think that wasn’t creative and unique to you. But you didn’t come up with the idea of a “door” on your own, you just remixed it.

These reasons may seem true for you personally, but I disagree strongly with both as generalizations, and they certainly aren't true for me. They're also both kinda-sorta saying the same thing, re: ownership and that being the primary sticking point, creatively speaking. My more-than-two-cents: I think of my mixes as my own AND as collaborations with the original composer's ideas. I don't think it has to be one or the other. I actually tend to think of ALL artistic creation as a collaboration of sorts, even the most personal works, so it all lays on a spectrum... not a Boolean. So this is a false dichotomy, to me at least. I've heard hundreds of arrangements that brought original ideas to the table, relative to the source in question; a musical work's status as an arrangement carries SOME obligation to reuse ideas, motifs, etc., but within that framework artists can be quite creative, as we've seen over two decades, and outside of that framework, making something original, artists can still be quite derivative. So again, the premise seems weird to me, too much hinged on some notion of personal ownership being the end-all be-all & offering a stamp of great meaning & significance. My answer is that I still do it, primarily because there are still plenty of melodies out there that I want to hear a certain way, that I can bring something to, and make something of worth that I enjoy and that others might enjoy as well.

just an update - we got some feedback and did mastering and/or cleanup on a bunch of tracks. i'm hoping to hear back soon with the final word after these cleanups.