ella guro

A separate post, because I <3 PJ too much to put another artist in the same post. I'm big a fan of Joanna Newsom, especially her first album. Mostly her songwriting/harp playing, though her singing is certainly unique and not nearly as annoying as people make it out to be. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vodb-dJOqoU I like this band White Magic a lot, especially their vocalist. She reminds me of Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane, who I'm also a fan of. I like The Breeders a lot. Kim Deal has a very cute voice. There are like a billion female artists I need to get into. My music collection is way too male-dominated.

It's alllllllllllllllllll about PJ Harvey (I'm completely and utterly obsessed with her (she is a goddess)) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVKpA6QHZ74 I don't know of any performer who is as emotionally direct, challenging yet also accessible musically, or fucking sexy as she is. And I love how she tries a different approach with each album. The fact that she recorded one of the best albums of all time in "Rid of Me" at the age of 23 (with her backing band) is staggering. Certainly one of the best female artists there ever was.

agreed! I like how it is now, though I can see why some people would find them excessive.

I think I like this better than her recent CT remix, though that's good as well. I'm not really a fan of most of the kinds of styles LuIzA tends to cover in general, but her mixes always sound very frenzied and energetic, and always very thoughtfully and endlessly worked over. She's not someone to ever let an arrangement go on autopilot, which I admire a lot. And that also distinguishes her outside just being someone who covers things in a certain genre, because she does go the extra mile to make what she's doing work outside the genre. LuIzA, you are a badass, and I hope you keep doing music for a long time 'cause many mixers could learn a thing or two from you.

My roommate at college (a composition major) LOVED Mahler and gave me recommendations all the time. I'm like Doug in that I've never really gotten into him, but the ones he recommended to start with were 1, 4, and 5. Still have those on my computer, in fact. Also he was really taken by the Benjamin Zander versions of those symphonies, if that means anything.

Good stuff! I had serious reservations about something as melancholy and ethereal-sounding as Schala's theme being interpreted in this genre, but I think LuIzA pulled it off about as well as anyone could hope to.

happy belated birthday!

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/guides/2003/11/ps2-repair-guide.ars/ This article may or may not help you cause you have a slim, but it helped me when I was having disc read errors with ps1 games. Basically it just involves some dusting and adjusting the positioning of the laser, but it did the trick for me. So it could just be a matter of finding a way to do that on the slim.

That was awesome. Consider me a believer in this kind of technology.

Thanks for mentioning me! I'm probably gonna sit this one out, though. But I am really looking forward to hearing the project when it's done.

I didn't think the production was too bad here. The piano is very mechanical though - it sounds like there's almost nothing done with the velocities. You need to add more of a human touch there. The strings were too bad (though you certainly could use some more volume automation there), but the brass has a horribly slow attack and the sample isn't great either. Get another sample for that. Things really pick up in the second half. Nice guitar, though that synth is a little plain and could use a little modulation. It also bleeds over the guitar a bit. It's a pretty nice arrangement overall though, good work. I think the main thing is that piano, honestly. It could use a lot of work to make it sound much less robotic. There are a few other samples like that brass, and there's some mixing issues that could be tweaked. I agree also that it could use a stronger bass part for some more low end presence. But this is good work overall, nice job! Just work on fixing some of that stuff.

Nase fuckin' rules. And that's about all I have to say. Well, not really. I'm sure I'll have more to say later (in an edit or something). But that is the most important part. Download this NOW, and that is an order.

Agreed. Though probably most of the people on OCR are buying music that isn't pressed on vinyl.

It's funny, I didn't even know I wrote a review of this back then, let alone a negative one. I actually like this quite a bit now. It's not mazedude's best, but it is a nostalgia trip for me. And even when mazedude doesn't blow your mind, he does subtle things with layering and expanding the sound to make it an interesting piece of music to listen to. This is very tracker-ish and cartoony sounding, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It certainly seems intentional, not due to lack of effort.

This is really good! I could tell how much you care about the source straight from the beginning. The synth work is almost all great, and doesn't obstruct at all from the directness or emotion behind the mix. I could say the same about the whole thing - it doesn't feel like a collection of synths and effects, but a living, breathing piece of music. It's nice when I can really hear how much a person cares about what they're mixing, like I can here. Andrew has done something here that both does justice to it and stands on its own as a piece of music. This is the kind of mix that shows me that there's something special to remixing, and I should stick with it. Really great stuff, dude.

Sweet, thanks! I've never seen this and Follin is one of the best game composers there is.

That might be a good call for BadAss to try to get it out before this one does. I guess it depends on how things go. Maybe there could even be some sort of concurrent release of both? Just a thought. Well, anyway I wanted to say that I'm 100% looking forward to this project. I just wanted to make sure that people's opinions I've heard are known publicly instead of in private so people feel they've had their say and there's not an us vs. them complex carrying on under the surface. We don't need any lingering bad feelings. The only important thing is the music, after all!

That's not a bad idea! If I had a recorder, I'd do that. Makes it sound like you're a character in some disney cartoon, haha. I'm still floundering musically, but hopefully I get back on the right track soon. I think I just need to worry about making the kind of music I like to make and not worry about making it epic or OCR-worthy or whatever.

I think the argument is not as much about overlapping themes, but that this project will receive a lot more attention than the BadAss project because of the people on it, and steal a lot of thunder away from it. I also don't know if you can argue that these projects are completely different, half of this project is the same thing as the other project. I'm really glad that this is getting so many good people on it, and I don't object at all to hearing more quality mixes. It just feels like there could have been some effort made to combine the two projects, maybe have the bad dudes do the heroes and have the people on the BadAss project do the villains. Or at least acknowledge the other project's existence in some way. I'm not saying this is how any of you feel at all, but the implication to some people is it's a snub from higher profile people to another part of the community. It's important to think about how to do things tactfully so that it doesn't come across this way. Anyway, don't get me wrong, I don't like unnecessary drama more than anyone else. And I'm looking forward to this project. I think it's just important that the people who object have their say before they're completely dismissed.

Only 1 reply makes me . If no one else replies, I'll just keep updating the thread every day or so with more interviews and some quotes. Alexander Brandon interviews Hip Tanaka (this one is older): http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2947/shooting_from_the_hip_an_.php I like this part a lot:

Great episode! LuIzA was great, and Deven is endlessly entertaining.

hey, so whenever I feel uninspired artistically or slightly down on game music, I read a bunch of interviews with different game composers. They tend to make me feel a lot more excited about game music and also it's great to put a face on a lot of these people who I had sometimes thought of in the past as faceless Japanese guys. Here's a few of my favorites Massive Nobuo Uematsu interview (must read for FF fans): http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3166165 Hiroki Kikuta and Yoko Shimomura: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24920 PixelJunk Eden's composer Baiyon interviews Hip Tanaka: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/26447/Interview_PixelJunk_Edens_Baiyon_Vs_Metroids_Hip_Tanaka.php Yasunori Mitsuda interview: http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3162780 It's easy to ignore that these guys are artists who often have a lot of things to say about games and game music. Which is why it's so interesting and inspiring to read a lot of these interviews. Check 'em out, and feel free to add any thoughts here or post more!

This is a great idea. A tracking competition with a sample set provided would be cool too. If only to get people to try out a different way of making music! And most trackers are free, so anyone could participate. I've seen that kind of stuff a lot in the past, but it's always fun and less people seem to use trackers these days.

I didn't think that people who won't do them would be involved in the first place. My impression is this idea was always strictly a volunteer thing, encouraging people who want to put the time into it to do it. If people don't want to do it, then it's up to them. If people aren't good doing video tutorials, maybe someone should make a video tutorial about how to do a good video tutorial Honestly I think anything that gets people talking about their music and creative choices would be helpful. It doesn't seem like there's enough of that kind of dialogue in the community. I think there's no real reason for more not to try doing a tutorial or providing their source materials if feasible, or both.

Technical stuff is much easier to ask and get a straight answer on. It's often hard to ask a specific question about how to arrange, and I don't think a lot of people know how to ask those questions and phrase it in the way they want to. Looking at another person's arrangement might not give you an easy 1-to-1 answer of how to do something specific, but it might inspire you and give you arrangement ideas for the future. There are people like Nase who have complicated arrangements that I'd really like to see the files for so I know how he pulled it off. So it can still be useful. In Reason, you can make your files self-contained, and that will make soundfonts and other samples be included in the project file. But it doesn't do that with refills. So unless you have that specific refill, you won't be able to load up the sample. In the past I've provided my source files because I use free samples, and the refills that I did use that didn't come with Reason could be found for free online. I obviously agree that people shouldn't include something they paid for. I'm all for tutorial videos. I think that's a great idea. But there is only so much you can cover in a video. When possible it's nice to be able to see things firsthand and be able to mess around with them. Maybe in some cases a mixer could provide some source files and a video. It all depends on how easily they can make their stuff available, of course. In general, I think we all agree. Having people share their knowledge is always a good thing and should be encouraged.