Gorgonian14

If you're telling me you don't think it is possible to like Nintendo's games more than most other companies' games, you amuse me.

Except that I don't want to play any of the xbox 360's games, including this one?

First chair trombone at all-state in high school my senior year and taking a decimated high school band program over as director and 5 years later making straight first division ratings at district concert contest for the first time in the school's entire history. I'm quite proud of both.

15 out of 18. Two I should've gotten, just brain-farted. No guesses. Those 15 I knew instantly.

I'm a band director in Oklahoma and one of the schools on our football schedule this year did a Super Mario Bros. halftime show. They had two sousaphone players and they were wearing Mario and Luigi outfits. It was a cute show. A 2A school in Oklahoma and they sounded better than UC Berkley in that video. My god.

Could you elaborate on this? As I said, I'm fairly new to this, so some suggestions on how to beef up, say, the first synth you hear would be very helpful. Yeah, I had trouble getting a decent sounding bass. I will be working on that. This is basically just a treatment of the main Zeal theme. The melody is changed up quite a bit and some of the harmonies are beefed up or tightened up. There really aren't any other influences than the main Zeal melody. Nothing accompanying it was included or influenced this. I hear what you mean. That's odd, I had never noticed it before and don't remember writing it like that. I will check it out. Thanks for the comments and suggestions!

Hi! I am not an electronica artist by any stretch, but I do like to try it out from time to time and like to learn. This is more of a learning process than it is an attempt to enter my arrangement into the canon of ocremix. That said, any and all comments and suggestions are appreciated. Here is one of the projects I am currently working on and have no idea what I can do to make this sound better. I hope you can at least follow the ideas I am presenting in it. Thanks for any time you can give me! http://pwatts14.googlepages.com/zeal.mp3

Some of the soundtracks I own and enjoy include: The Abyss (Alan Silvestri) Starship Troopers (Basil Poledouris Citizen Kane (Bernard Hermann) Vertigo (Bernard Hermann) Edward Scissorhands (Danny Elfman) Krull (James Horner) First Knight (Jerry Goldsmith) Rudy (Jerry Goldsmith) Dances With Wolves (John Barry) Close Encounters of the Third Kind (John Williams) I didn't include any of the obvious things that everyone knows like Star Wars, ET, etc. I don't think very many of those had been mentioned yet in the thread, either.

There's a good bit of that that is clearly more inspired by Sibelius, I believe.

A bit more writing done, march section started (original take on the theme, instead of just another variation of the melody, but main melody will come back strong soon). Still not done or even really close, just need some guidance on what's there so far. Comments requested. http://pwatts14.googlepages.com/secretofmana2.mp3

It will be a pretty slow and dark march. There is already a little of the march in between the two fanfare sections. It is a subtle march, but the bassoon and timpani are providing the march. This will be fleshed out in a later section, but will still not be a traditional march. My plans could change, also About the strings, yeah, I have hardly done anything with them except arrange the parts. Not much production on them. I plan on tweaking velocities and balances a lot on them, but it is the best free string soundfont I can find (cadenza strings). It can be made to sound pretty good, but I think it takes a lot of EQ-ing. I will work at it, but I don't think I am very good at that. Any suggestions are welcome.

I'm using all free samples and software (except for FL Studio, which is obviously not free). Inspired by my last effort having a good chance of getting through the panel and some of the comments from the panel regarding production and brass samples, I have decided my next effort will be extremely heavy in brass writing. This is my favorite theme from Secret of Mana (and one of my favorite game themes of all time) arranged as a Fanfare and March. The arrangement is pretty clearly not done, but comments on the direction of the arrangement are welcome and encouraged. The production is something that will be tweaked constantly to make it sound less muddy. I am using pretty heavy reverb on the back instruments right now and it is extremely muddy as a result. This will be a point of emphasis on this project for me, so don't think it will be ignored. Comments very much appreciated! http://pwatts14.googlepages.com/secretofmana2.mp3

hooray! thanks for the vote and the update.

New version, tried fixing all of the things in the above post. http://pwatts14.googlepages.com/visionofceles.mp3

On the list of things to do already. Also on the list. Your suggestion for a fix is a good idea to try. I hadn't thought of that idea. Hadn't noticed that one before. Good catch. I think just decreasing the volume of the flute will work, but I will play around with some different things. I don't hear what you hear on this one. Strings and trombones have background chords here. I guess that's what you are talking about. I can probably pull them back a bit in volume to see if it sounds a little better. It's high strings and high woodwinds. I'm not exactly sure what you are hearing here either, but I will pay closer attention. There are some tuning issues with the trumpet sample I'm using in the range that it is in in this area, so I'm wondering if you aren't hearing some of my imperfect attempts to correct that. Yep. Will try that trick here, as well. Have been struggling trying to soften those two notes for awhile now with no real idea how to do it. Yours is a good idea. Thank you, and not at all. This is exactly the kind of thing I wanted. I really appreciate it.

OK, so the judges mostly okayed my arrangement, but didn't care for some of my samples and production in general (the trumpet especially). I have been working on it for a week or so and would like some feedback on progress and things I can do better. Here is the current version, as of last night: http://pwatts14.googlepages.com/visionofceles.mp3 Here is the submitted version, rejected because of production quality (particularly the trumpet sample): http://pwatts14.googlepages.com/VisionofCelesbyGorgonian.mp3 The astute listener will also notice a few changes in the arrangement, of course, but not many (though one is fairly major). The bulk of the work is being done on samples and production (particularly EQ). I'm fairly clueless about this stuff, so ANY help or comment is appreciated. Thanks.

Load the stereo enhancer plugin on the master mixer track and turn the knob all the way down. This should make it mono. Let me know if this works how you want it to.