Meteo Xavier

Why does everyone feel the need to recommend products outside the context of the question? I'm sure she asked between Garritan and EWQL for a reason. Inside the context of the question - EWQL, in terms of quality, blows GPO out of the water. The problem is the weird PLAY system that people keep having trouble with and Soundonline's reputation for customer service, once you inevitably have a problem with it, is spotty at best. I personally haven't found PLAY and their customer service to be the worst ***damn things on the planet like EVERY DAW enthusiast claims they are, but I have run into sizable problems with both, so there is truth there, and $795 for a Composer's Collection with problems is worth considering. I've never used Garritan, but I've heard people do respectable things with it. If you're good at orchestrating, it almost doesn't matter what you use as long as the skill backs it up.

I tried Fusion Feld on Usa (Daniel Lippert)'s suggestion and really like what I heard of it. I want to get it myself, it's only $90 or so. They're also AMBIENCE, a freeverb plugin, but it's REALLY wet and heavy if you only mostly stick to presets and such.

Not really, it's far too broad without explaining the best ways to be creative while composing in a DAW. Again, none of this philosophical advice is much good for the same reason. Offer some actual practices and things you do while composing that can be useful.

Or better yet, go download some MIDIs from Star Ocean 2, Valkyrie Profile, Tales of, and a bunch of Motoi Sakuraba from the late 90s - mid 00's and you can SEE them in their DAW and how they work, instead of just listening to them. Come on people, you can offer better actual help than "just listen to shit".

A MECHANICAL answer as opposed to a philosophical one - whenever I want to write a track with a lot of changes and variety in them, I just manually write each note of each track in a single part - starting with drums, bass, chords, chordal riffs, etc. etc, and on to melody. If I want to reuse a section over, just copy and paste, but I make it a point to specifically go over parts and examine them to look for ways to get creative and unexpected in that part, then I do it and see if it works. The trick is making sure you're starting with the foundation first and building on top of it. It can be like digging a tunnel with a spoon, but surprisingly successful at achieving awesome variety.

Why didn't the game come to completion?

I lent my cans to my brother for a little bit as my 8th weekend crunch meant I was going to have little if any serious time to work on it. Could be a close finish.

It's really better to variate, otherwise it becomes an achilles heel to your composition. Varying drums is extremely important to changing up songs and keep them sounding good. Repetition can only go so far. Go to vgmusic.com and study the old Motoi Sakuraba - Tales of, Valkyrie Profile, Star Ocean, Golden Sun. His PS1-PS2 era work is INSANE with varying drum patterns and the best source to learn from.

Prophet, you sadistic goober, why not you put my game requests in the WANT section? Fine, we'll try it your way. WANT :::PS1::: Dragon Warrior VII :::Wii::: Any Wii games that feel like games from the 90s. :::random stuff involving games::: Sega Saturn games Sega CD games Atari Jaguar games Super Famicom games Turbografx or TG-CD games Strategy Guides Willing to pay REASONABLE prices for any of them. Won't ask you to take a pittance, but if you think I'm going to pay $150 for Star Ocean 2 or something, you'll have to find your sucker somewhere else. >

You said it, Strade. Well, I was able to get PLAY and Z3ta working, it might just be the pianos I have to replace and redo which... still not looking forward to that, but could be worse. Also this morning I came up with a possibility for how to redo the Long Goodbye remix that could be relatively simple and work as a decent, subtle and dignified ending coda. So something resembling progress at least. Edit: Yeah, it looks like I just lost the pianos. Not going to be fun to fix, but better than starting over. Maybe a blessing in disguise as this track really could use some more work. I'll try to get on that as soon as I can. Edit 2: Hey, got one of my pianos back on it! Excellent, maybe this will be easier than I thought. I doubled the pianos for thickness and sound support.

Well this was expected, but oh my GOD how frustrating. Got all my old software loaded up finally and, guess what, half the instruments still won't load. Kontakt 5 gave me a bullshit error, can't find a .wav sample, z3ta 2? Really? It's right there! Fuck, I REALLY don't have time to redo this all over again. Fuck. I'll figure something out.

Additionally, please remember that neither Rozovian or I actually started this project, we just volunteered our way to the positions we're in now when everyone else left. This isn't OUR vision we're trying to create, it's the original vision we're trying to uphold. We both feel we have no artistic right or authority to do anything to that other than help make it happen (at least I believe that's what Rozovian told me at some point). We've already come this far, let's not compromise the whole original intent and artistic vision just to shave off some time.

Rozovian and I discussed dropping tracks at length and we just couldn't justify it. It frustrated me for a long time as well, but it reached a point where we got in some INSANELY awesome tracks VERY late in the production, so there was precedent that not completing the project just to get it complete had an objective bottom line benefit. Some of these tracks we got in are so good I'm ashamed that I campaigned for the same thing you are. No. See above please. Yeah, I went too far there with Stevo and I'll remove those comments here when I get a chance. I was just incensed that it looked like he was pulling rank to make some quick shots at our production cycle, which we could do nothing about. I'll edit that here soon. You have to remember we DID do all that consequence and cut-off date shit already. It didn't work out as well for us, so we abandoned it for a model that did. Well, I don't see anyone talking about it NOW other than here. We need to generate that shit in advance, but this isn't FFVI, so we don't have legions of people salivating for it. We need people here helping to generate some of that to start with and thats something that you could help us with. Oh cool, I didn't know about that. Again, see above. Not trying to be asinine there, just this topic keeps getting repeated.

For the same reason I can't sprout wings to avoid traffic and get to work quicker. This project took years to complete because that's how long it's taking to complete. Do you think we wanted it that way? No. We kept telling you guys to get your tracks in and contact us, and guess what, we had to wait. You guys wouldn't write us back, or we couldn't find you, or your computer blew up, or you were on a different project or something much more serious happened in real life. We exhausted the amount of available remixers from this site before we were 60% done. I had to go to Gamedev and round up a bunch of talent to get us further up (smartest decision I've made yet on this website). I also refused to remix further simply to get more tracks out of available status for fear of coming off vain and desperate. Our project deserves better than that. In the meantime, I've worked to get much better talent than myself on them, and working to get good PR and marketing ideas in place for when we get to the stage where we start spreading the word beforehand. We've not been lazy in getting this out, but you can't get blood from a turnip. (EDIT: Took this part out. Was thinking emotionally instead of logically). Rozovian and I and everyone on here was worked pretty damn hard, but we had a LOT of complications to get there, and our options are to either rush it out to satisfy impatience, or we justify your long wait and everyone's work by releasing it the way God intended. You want the project finished quicker? No problem, volunteer for the following: - Hype this project up. Anywhere and everywhere. Get some real energy and excitement going for it. - Help us with finding and securing more PR connections that will cover SD3 when the project comes out. Bonus points if you can get Kotaku (hell, I might even give you some $ for that if you pull it off). - Remixing any track currently in green. We take and publish doubles. - Offer mastering for the tracks. - Help us out with our video/trailer work. - Get Hiroki Kikuta to friggin' write me back already. - Help me redo that "Long Goodbye" remix I have that is in dire need of update, but I just can't get enough time and resources to do it right. - Probably a bunch of other shit I can't remember at this moment. You might be saying, "wait, ain't that YOUR job to do all that?", no, not really. We're just organizers. This isn't a "Rozovian and Meteo X" production, it's an Ocremix Community production. He who takes the credit also takes the responsibility, and each person who works on it has as much a responsibility to help get it done as much as anyone else. Don't want to do it? Fine, but don't hold your breath for it and tell us to get it done at the same time either (that's physically impossible too).

Hey Usa - haven't heard on this for a while. How close is it to coming out?

I've already been on this project for 4-5 years, whats another one? Seriously though, we don't have a final deadline in. We wanted one, but reality dictates otherwise and we didn't want to rush out a project that wasn't up to the highest qualities within our grasp just to call it complete. It's done when it's done. But take heart, it WILL be done sooner than later. Roz's and mine's schedules just got REALLY cluttered here in the last stages, and that's the only hang-up right now.

Damn, I came in thinking this was an announcement for a new game or something. Baited and Switched. >;S

I did get my orchestral software working again, so I'm almost there.

Sent mine in as well. Hope the awkward juxtaposition of music and video doesn't ding me some points...

The spectrum there is as broad as the Nile River, my friend. Can you specify a little more or break it up into narrower questions to get started with?

Alright, lets start freaking out and making references to George Orwell's 1984 and Terry Gilliam's Brazil. You know the drill, your parents taught it to you for years.

Sounds reasonable. Sorry for jumping the gun there. I've done this sort of thing so many times, it gets put on a proverbial "speed dial".

I did email him first. Then I got a PM from him saying the email didn't go through and just PM on here. Almost Seinfeldian in a way.

Sell those 5-6 CDs? I thought they took CDRs.

I don't really do video or much of any kind of chat other than text through the internet very well, so I'm limited there. However, Timaeus really hit the nail on some of these things and I think I found some good solutions for some of them. This is by far the most helpful topic I've posted on here. Thank you guys again, I really appreciate it!