Meteo Xavier

I actually started by doing that last night, and while I got further than I expected and did make some decent SFX on my own, the core of my freelancing gig is "quality within reason above all else" and I know for a fact I won't be able to deliver quality platforming sound effects on my first eve try. I'm told now, even in the middle of writing this, that my employer does have sound effects he's happy with now, so I guess this thread is done? Maybe? Or we can continue recommendations for others with similar needs to find useful content for.

It's not chip-type sfx we're looking for. We found things for that already.

I'm working on a soundtrack for a retro platformer in the vein of the SNES era (like a cross between the old Disney platformers and Mega Man 7) and the topic came up for sound effects. I don't do sound effects, and while I tried my hand at it and actually got some half-decent results despite having no clue what I was doing, I know for a fact I won't be able to competently cover that part of the job, so I was wondering if anyone else here has any recommendations for platformer sound effects that might work well for a moderately cartoonish, fantasy-type platforming game. Edit: Not looking for 8bit, chip type sounds. This is a later era than that. Thank you!

I don't remember if I knew about Aeris's death beforehand or not, but I found the aftermath of it more emotionally engaging than the actual shock of her death. By then, I had been conditioned to such things from Tellah's death in FFIV, General Leo's death in FFVI, Shadow and Cid's possible deaths in FFVI, Kefka destroying the friggin' world in FFVI and Crono's death in Chrono Trigger. The only difference here was that they went deeper into what the characters think and feel right at the moment they lose someone in such a shocking way.

I knew I needed to do some light weight lifting to start with, I don't know, I just felt like this time I needed to do some pre-training to get ready for real training. I tried weight lifting when I was in this shape before and results were mixed at best. I figured this time I need to find cardio exercises that work on much of the body first to get back to a level where I can move further up so I didn't have that problem again.

I gotta say, that Iron Pack stuff does look extremely tantalizing, even for someone like me who is incredibly hard to sway for VST deals these days.

You ARE going to die. ... ... ... Just not tonight from doing that. I need to get back into sprinting too.

After years of an extremely stressful schedule of life problems and damn near cursed projects that I could not afford to turn down, I am finally at a comfortable point in my schedule of daily affairs where I can get back to rebuilding my body and physical energy, particularly as I have finally found a martial arts school nearby that teaches what I want to learn. I squee'd like a schoolgirl. As I had whole years of continuous stress and little opportunity for real exercise, I have gotten considerably out of shape. I'm not fat, but I lost a lot of my physical flexibility, agility, and my immune system (which was one of the few high strengths the good Lord done give me at birth) in the last several years, and I feel I need to get myself back into a decent shape before I even begin more serious and specific physical work going. So I was wondering if any of the fitness people who might know anything on martial arts can give me some ideas of how to begin a preliminary workout routine to just get my body in a generally decent position for starting work at the school or a gym. I don't have a gym membership yet and I'm going to get one, but I feel like I need a top-to-bottom restructuring back to a generally decent shape before I begin anything more specific than that. I don't want to begin weight training or martial art training in the state I'm in now. And yes, I did Google and Youtube and look up articles and such, but couldn't really find anything useful for this specification. I was hoping to find lists including things like running/jogging, basic stretches, jump rope, push-ups, squats, etc. that kinda shit, but I wasn't able to find anything and I know that stuff exists. Just thought I'd try here next. Thanks.

Usa's track is nearing completion. He sent me a new version today. I'd still like to add some things in there myself, but the song structure is complete as is much of the main meats, I'd just like to personally garnish it with some of my stuff (and Usa has agreed to let me do it). Almost done, guys, almost done!

This is... different for OCR...

Well, I HAD to rush my flawed first album out, as I put too much time and energy and money on it to start over. If I quit there, I would've quit music entirely as it just wasn't worth it at that point. What are Radio City Producers?

Not sure if you're directing those questions to me or in general, but I'll bounce on them. For me, most of the time I could care less about whether a song FITS where it's supposed to go, I care more about whether its GOOD or not. What good is consistency if listeners can easily skip the song on the format anyway? When you're fighting media-imposed ADD (lol, did I really just write that?), you're fighting for listener attention every second of the track. I also find that songs that seem overly epic or catchy in places where they aren't really supposed to be are some of the most memorable music experiences ever, BECAUSE they don't fit in, BECAUSE they stick out and jar and surprise listeners. That's why the pause music in NES Battletoads is so popular, for example. I listened to Identity Sequence a few times, but I only ended up purchasing one song from it (Arms Wide Open). One reason for that being that it was EXACTLY what I expected it would be, with no real surprises that I recall. Focused so much more on having the highest quality production on it as Zircon could manage than the composition of the songs. By contrast, Zircon's World Circuits is a continuing example I've tried to emulate for at least a couple projects I've done and it's one of my favorite albums of the last 5 years or so. The main reasons being that it focuses more on composition, each track has its own identity instead of trying to melt together, and for some infuriating reason, Zircon decided to only make the tracks no longer than 3 minutes! Irritates the living hell out of me, but it's very effective at keeping me listening to it, wanting more. Played me on a psychological level and I still buy it hook, line and sinker. Same reason "Without Regrets" is my favorite song from Antigravity and Zircon's catalogue in general. WHY WOULD YOU MAKE SUCH AN EXCELLENT COMPOSITION SO SHORT AND UNDEVELOPED UNLESS YOU WERE BAITING ME FOR MORE ANDY!? So I don't think it's a question of being consistent or making an overall experience for listeners, it's about finding BALANCE and putting something interesting between songs on an album to keep listeners wanting to explore it. An album with one song at 23 minutes long and one little 42 second min-yoo-ett will be more interesting for a listener than 8 songs about the same length. There are lots of tricks you can do to keep a listener going on a full album, and consistency and filler aren't really the best ones.

Ah - I like that answer. You'll have to forgive me, I've been picky about music and songs since birth, and I've almost always hated filler in between the good ones.

I just meant if you're only going to want 4 or 5 songs out of an album, why not just buy those and call it good? Purely fueled by aspie curiosity.

??? To each their own, but I'm not quite following the logic. Wouldn't someone work just as hard if not harder on a song that was intended to be a single than one that was intended to compliment other songs there? That's the point of a single - to stand out. You could probably just buy the 4 or 5 singles for $4 or $5 and save yourself some money.

I was mostly referring to the artist side of business, there are many sustainable business models in music, but trying to sell yourself as an artist ain't one of them mostly. Things like selling sample/synth sets, teaching music, playing for a theatre or performing for a company of some kind, live sound tech, theatre tech, mixing/mastering - all that shit brings in better money than artistry ever could for most people.

Labels, even the small and free ones, are surprisingly hard to get onto, and their effectiveness is random at best. We used to get people on the forums here who used to ask "Hey, I just made an album, should I get on an indie label or a major one?" like you just walk into Sony Music Entertainment, sit down next to Rihanna, sign a couple things, and walk out with a contract. Worth a shot, but don't put all your eggs in a basket for labels. Even the best ones won't do all the work for an artist, they'll be expected to shoulder some of the burden.

Truthfully, it's pretty dumb to try to make music your living these days, it's not much different than trying to make winning the lottery your day job. Even those who are mega successful today have a slim-to-nil chance of keeping it going for years to come, as we've all seen what eventually happens to most artists throughout history. Anyone still listening to Matchbox 20? Artists need to just fucking make peace with the fact that, sooner or later, they're going to have to compromise their "dreams" and get a real job, probably one they don't care for, but just because you work a 40 hour grind in an office every week doesn't mean you can't do music as a part time job, and that will free up a lot of things (except time) that will allow better chances for music albums to sell. How ironic that the biggest thing full-time artists don't want to do is the one thing that genuinely helps their chances of making some money musically.

I was working on a large "alternate" guide for OCR on how to market your music yourself, got 42 pages into it, then Winter got bad and when I wanted to start it up again, a lot of what I wrote already became obsolete, so I'm not sure exactly what I want to do with it now. All the same, I'm not sure why I need to enlighten you right here the many things beyond Facebook and OCR, a lot of it is very common sense oriented and can be found through proper research. People write "How to market your music" guides online all the time. It just requires actually making work out of doing it.

You have to take into account that most artists, despite their intelligence and talent with art, have next to no grasp on what to DO with their albums once they complete them. They just think they'll put it up on CDbaby and Bandcamp or try to get a record label to do all the marketing work for them and just let what happens happen. I didn't want to believe that was true, but when I was hitting up people, published OCR artists mind you, on the SD3 project for marketing ideas and things to do, they were literally dumbstruck with thinking there was simply nothing you could do beyond Facebook and OCR itself. It was like watching a deer in headlights repeating over and over "What, you mean... there's something BESIDES Facebook and OCR?" It was disturbing, truth be told.

My first album was a trial by fire. It pushed my computer and self to breaking points, and in fact my computer broke during post-production, meaning Zircon had to save the whole production through mastering alone (still not sure how he did that). It got so bad I had an out of body experience that I also can't explain. Response to the album, for all that effort was... mixed. Sold about $200 worth and few people were willing to review it. 8 months of effort for next to nothing. ...at first. What I found out later was my first album, instead of being a milestone itself, it was more of a gateway, as I got some later gigs out of it and I was able to get one song on rotation for a local arts and crafts channel for 7 months. The production of the album also essentially taught me how to complete a music project, as I'd had very little experience in actually finishing music before then. So even if albums aren't worth it in terms of sales and never become so successful that anytime you talk about them in topics like these, it's always thinly veiled bragging trying to pass itself off as "experience", they can be worth it elsewhere. Just don't do what I did and try to RUSH one out for the sake of getting it complete. Spend time to do it well and do it RIGHT, and other good albums will soon follow.

I got an updated demo from Usa on the last track yesterday. He's having trouble with it (naturally, something about this one track is just really difficult to arrange nicely) but work continues and I'll probably add some stuff to it later as well. Just letting you all know we ain't sleeping on the project.

I was going to get either the Streets of Rage or Golden Axe set to compliment my need for beat-em-ups (it's one of the few games I get to 2 player with my wife on) along with Guardian Heroes. My main function for using the Xbox is just to get classic or classic style games on it I couldn't get elsewhere (like Sega Saturn Treasure stuff), I don't plan to have loads and loads of stuff on it. I just want like 10 games on it so I have a solid enough reason to play it annually without having too much to get through. I also want to get 'em now before they get delisted like the ones I really wanted on there. I also found out that Piers Solar is going to be on there soon. I DEFINITELY want to get that.

Forgive my rather ignorant question, but why would you need to mix for TV/Consoles for streaming music anyway? If you go to get your soundtrack mastered, isn't the whole point to get it to sound generally good across media anyway? Especially since not all TVs and sound systems are equally balanced and do what they want to do all the same?