Liontamer

Nah, no problem. I know you're talking about that chime part as being used in the background of the sub. I took "chucked in the background" as a implication that, by being in the background, you felt the usage was just too marginalized or otherwise not the focus, and thus the arrangement ties didn't feel strong enough. And you're certainly allowed to feel that way; I'd just disagree.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24126242//wid/11915829 I laffed!!!

We're going to be doing more mailouts in the future on interviews convention appearences, etc. Use your forum account to turn off admin emails if you don't want them. Otherwise, shaddaps. Also, we now have Happy birfday EXTRAVAGANZA, led off by Suzu B-day 2007. So make a new thread, it's fine. I'll just merge 'em into the big thread as they get old.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=sd3 - "Female Turbulence" (sd3-2-05.spc) I'm actually going to go against the grain on this. Sebastian mentioned was the usage of the drums derived from the source tune drums. Isolate voice #5 of the SPC to check them out, though they're audible in the tune as-is. That's subtle but valid source usage from :00-:20 that's in direct homage to the original. I love going stopwatch just to annoy Vigilante. Source usage (needs 201 seconds to pass): :00-:20, 2:13-2:14 - drum pattern usage (SPC Voice #5) :48-1:08, 1:20-1:28, 2:50-3:36, 4:21-4:32, 5:51-6:11, 6:23-6:31 - main melody variation 1:52-1:56, 2:29-2:31.5, 2:40-2:44.5, 4:00-4:21, 4:32-4:59, 5:09-5:40 (quietly), 5:40-5:43, 5:46-5:48 - chimes from countermelody (SPC Voice #1) 2:03-2:12, 2:15-2:26 - two very liberal variations on :41-:52 of source 5:10-5:31 - variations on 2:05 from the original - couldn't make anything out on that level, did not count Aside from those areas where it's essentially inaudible (e.g. 1:36-2:03), when it was in play, the chime pattern was overtly audible and still very valid source usage to me. So I disagreed with it being "chucked in the background most of the time." IMO, that biases an arrangement toward arranging the source melody at the expense of using or interpreting other portions of the source material. For me, I can't hinge my view of acceptable source usage on whether the portions of the source being used are the melody or not. Otherwise an artist would get little-to-no credit for creatively using other parts besides the most obvious one. Just to clarify how I reach my source usage timestamping, all I care about is that at one point during the mix, 1 element from the source is overtly and audibly being used, no matter how much other non-related writing is going on at the same time. For example, those drums in the intro based off the source tune were used and audible in there from :00-:20, so that's 20 seconds worth of usage. Same line of reasoning applies to most of the background chime countermelody usage. It's a pretty lenient system. With that said, even if you disregarded 2:03-2:12 & 2:15-2:26 as too liberal, my timestamps still add up to more than 201 seconds, so this passes the arrangement bar in my book. The devil's in the details, and I like these details! Palp and CHz, y'all should take another look and see if my breakdown and reasoning seems kosher. If not, no big deal, but I think it's worth the look. As for the overall composition and quality, it's Sebastian, and he's an ass-kicker. I loved the energy throughout, and he's always bringing his A-game. Arrangement-wise I'd prefer something more reigned in and less unorthodox, but to me usage is usage is usage. As a track, the composition is brilliant. Keep 'em coming, and good luck with the rest of the vote! YES

Remember when I mega-bullshitted you a few years ago about hating "Cursed Bloodline" and hating metal, then you thought I was serious posted it on The Shizz, and a bunch of people there hated me and OCR! GOOD TIMES! Happy birthday, EdgeCrunker \m/!

Sub something, you Swedish bastard! Make sure it's solidly over the bar so that we don't take 19 months to decide whether to post it or not and change our minds 19 times. Or just post some more to R:K:O. Do somethingz! Happy birthday, Dan!

All that needs to be said is "I love you, Tim."

Unrelated, but posting this in case some of you art types are reading about this Square Enix/DeviantArt contest, ending in about a week. Sorry I didn't notice this sooner: http://news.deviantart.com/article/45697/

Hahahaha!

Those demos featured some pretty cool work. Some of the production could have been more polished, but that's nothing some additional post work couldn't have taken care of on many levels. Good stuff, Key Jay.

CPac is one of the top names in the scene. The guy rocks, he prog rocks, he piano'z, he jazzes it with your friends. He does it all. Ubisoft's lucky to have him. Let's get him on there scoring some AAA titles! Happy Birthday to Christian, representing the maple leafs.

You rock, Liz!

I'd rather do a CD if we could work something out down the line with Capcom. It's physical/tangible, something you can show to people, the contributors could have copies, plus we could give it away as prizes, and sales could help fund the site since we're hurting for $.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff5 - "Ahead on Our Way" (ff5-1-01.spc) & "Four Valiant Hearts" (ff5-1-03.spc) From my comments back when I judged this for SquareSound's Nobuo Uematsu tribute competition: I'm still looking forward to when Justin's production matches his arrangement game, because the disparity is still there, and consistently prevents his material from connecting with me all the way. The production could be stronger; as Palpable said, right now the sax lead doesn't quite site right in the track. The other instruments could also sound a bit more upfront. At the end of the day though, this gets the nod. The arrangement was definitely handled nicely, and this deserved its high placing in SquareSound's Uematsu compo in a pretty packed field of entries. YES

Fair enough. I'll give it the nod. YES

http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozusf.rar - 44 "Temple of Time" & 57 "Windmill Hut" The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Game Rip) - 02 "Intro" Palpable pretty much covered all of the details and criticisms that stuck out. The sample quality and articulations on the strings hurt the piece. The brass usage was brief and contained to the intro, but some of that also hurt pretty badly in terms of realism. The timing of some of the accordion notes during the "Windmill Hut" portion was slightly off-time on a few occasions. The textures and overall writing were pretty simplistic and straightforward. I also wasn't a fan of the style of "Windmill Hut" being aped so closely at 2:45 and felt your take didn't do enough to stand apart from the original as a creative interpretation, which didn't help at all when keeping our arrangement standards in mind. A decent piece, but lacks a lot of polish. The writing itself deserves something more sophisticated and complex; right now things are too basic as the others have pointed out. Keep working on developing your skills however you can, Michele. For all its flaws, the piece still sounded musical and the potential is clearly there for improvement! NO

Rayman (Game Rip) - 10 "Betilla the Fairy" Based on Palpable's breakdown (0:30-0:58, 1:41-1:55 & 2:12-3:50), that's about 140 out of 296 seconds of the track or about 47.3% of the track. Get it above 50% overt source tune usage and we'll be good. If there's something we're missing, please let me know. Overall though, I wasn't quite feeling the production for the first :45 seconds. The mixing actually feels pretty dry, mostly on account of the layered claps having no body to 'em, and thus not filling out the space well. Definitely agreed with Palp's comments on the EQ being skewed to the highs, leaving things sounding a bit too hot as well as not well separated once things picked up. The actual source interpretation is OK, but I agreed with Palpable that aside from some pretty standard building techniques for the genre (that were pulled off well, so no hate), the interpretation didn't really tread any new ground after 2:12. Though unrelated to the source, 3:51's material was good, clicked well with the preceding writing and made for a solid finish. Maybe I'll be alone in this, but I felt like only a few source tune ideas were used here and not sufficiently developed due to too much retreading. Aside from the production suggestions, I'd actually like to hear the source tune taken given additional treatment and further interpretation. What in place already has some good interpretation, and the overall dynamics were good. But the actual melodic interpretation could use more substance on to really get this mix on solid ground. Cool stuff so far, Mike, definitely keep working on it. NO (resubmit)

Happy Birthday to my Orthodox brethren norg, who be rockin' it! IC XC NIKA:!:

1. EarthBound (SNES) 2. Mother (NES) 3. Solstice (NES) 4. GoldenEye 007 (N64) 5. World Heroes 2 (Neo Geo) GoldenEye will apparently never happen, but then again, none of the other games have much chance. But I've put 'em out there!

You don't say.

Donald Haviland of the Facebook group Videogame Music Doesn't Get Enough Credit just sent a message on this, so in case it hasn't been mentioned here yet... Also, please note the full list of available and pending VC games are listed on Wikipedia, with each column sortable, so you haven't got any excuse not seeing a game that's already listed. Mail vcpoll@futureus.com with your top 5 picks.

I've got 90 in the inbox with your name on it.

Tyrian (PC Rip) - 30 "Tyrian, The Song" It's certainly cool that you got permission from Alex Brandon to go forward with this; he's definitely a stand-up guy and supporter of the fan arrangement community, always glad the word on video game music is being spread. But other than that, I don't have much to add. No offense, Wesley, but for all the background given on this track, there's nothing in the end result to justify being long-winded. The track is way too quiet. The sample are decent, but all of the attacks and articulations lacked any realism. The textures were flimsy. The arrangement was by-the-numbers and underdeveloped for an orchestral adaptation, compared to what we're looking for based on the submissions standards. Better luck next crime. NO

If you're paranoid though, don't donate. I'll still NO your mixes if you donate a billion dollars though.

I have pimpdeds. [sic] I have voteds. [sic]