anosou

Just wait until you read THIS: Creed - Human Clay (single: Higher)

THIS. In a good way

I don't think the synths are as vanilla as Larry seems to think. However they aren't varied enough and whiel the filtering and reverb during the intro was acceptable imo the rest is rather static. Overall I enjoyed your ideas for a "sound", you just have to make it a bit less flat. Arrangement was going in the right directions, I liked many of the melodic lines. The pad backing was a bit too "big" and the track was lacking any serious bass frequencies. The 808-style drums were good though. I agree with larry regarding the lead choice for original Zelda theme. Some more "breaks" in the flowing soundscape or at least changes in the backing track would help this feel less repetitive. Overall this is a good start but needs some more careful work. I'd love to see a resub of this one! Keep it up! NO(resubmit)

I still lurrv the arrangement. The first half of the track sounds better re: instrument usage now. Some strings are still a bit dry and unnatural (for example the awkward attack of the hig strings at at 2:26->) but overall it's better. Like Larry I think it's strange how the dynamics are so unbalanced between the two parts, I'd like to see a raise post-transition too. The transition is still a bit strange to me. If it were two movements of a piece a longer pause would've worked better to emphasize that it's an entirely new part. If you want them to be more connected a sustained note from the strings or such would help connect them. It's not a major issue to me though. Overall it obviously sounds excellent. The arrangement is well-written and production is good. Still there are some small issues. The one I'm going conditional on is the same as Larry, the dynamic curve. A bit louder in the more energetic part and it's good to go! Nice work YES(conditional)

ROFL, THE EXTREMIX! That aside, this remix has got some major issues. The quality of the samples are overall so-so and the guitars are just horrible. I'd recommend you to collaborate with one of our many talanted guitarists because this will NOT work. There was a lot of mud and unwanted distortion, especially around the 5 minute mark like Larry pointed out. Most instruments sit in the same frequencies and thus clash pretty bad with eachother, clean it up man! The drums are very stiff to, the ride cymbal for example is just one sample and lacks variation. Just to name one thing The arrangement is not bad. Some clever writing (including the epic intro) and personalization. Some more overt connections to the source would be preferable to make it feel more connected but it's off to a good start! Overall the production is really holding this back. I urge you to check out #ocrwip on irc.enterthegame.net and our WIP forum. Good luck! NO

Definitely d) composer since that's what I do. Also interested in a) producer if we remove the marketing part... Creative director?

I lol'd Just for emphasis here, I thought the production COUPLED with the rather liberal take on the source made it a NO. That the production issues were concentrated to the actual melody line being muffle also didn't help. If we get one or two more solid YES's I'm willing to go conditional on just one or two of the production issues but until that happens this is a NO (resub).

I think I just died. That's how awesome he is

Needs moar OCR OST. SUPER HIGH QUALITY MUSIC! MvC2 would be cool. CvSanything too.

Spotify is solid but the issues is that it isn't avaliable in all countries. Also I don't think they support embedding flash based streaming players like last.fm did, only throught their app. Someone confirm this? Otherwise I don't know any good services :'(

You're welcome. It might not replace Winamp or iTunes yet but it's pretty damn close AND Open Source and multiplatform. Something Winamp is NOT.

Agree'd. The point is that I said it wasn't stealing per say as an edit just as an addition to the discussion. Nothing wrong with that imo. BGC questioned it and thus it became MORE of a discussion since he didn't agree with me. There shouldn't be one but there is one because apparently not everyone agree's on the definition. It's not a silly semantics game if the answer isn't very clear to everyone, which it obviously wasn't ;P Man, we really argue a lot Andy Truce?

Damnit, this source NEVER gets old. THANK YOU RUSSIAN FOLK MUSIC! Intro wasn't very enjoyable tbh. The effect you were trying to achieve with the lo-fi sound was probably achieved but it didn't sound good. The volume of that section was also an issue together with the fairly standard arrangement of it. When things kick off with the "real" part of the track it gets better. Nice playing and decent personalization. Would like more interpretive source usage all around though, there's a lot to do with a simple source like this! Drums were a bit flimsy and weak and overall things could sound less squished, a bit more airy and a tiny bit louder. The outro had the same issues as the intro. Good playing, take Larry's advice and check out DoD! That's a great place to grow as a musician, even if you don't want to submit to OCR. Good luck in the future! NO

Cool source.. I need to check out more shmup-music! The production is really bringing this down. It's very muddy and filled with bass. The bass basically takes up all the low/low-mid except for the compressed kickdrum. The guitar tone was decent but you could really hear the compression with the sustained chords, they sound really unstable every time the kick hits. The lead guitar was also a bit too far back in the mix. The drums were quite muffled too, especially the snare lacked punch. The arrangement was pretty close to the source. Chords and melody were almost identical both in how the arrangement was laid out and how they were handled. The solo and the part before that were good additions though so you have some stuff going for you. I felt some of the counter melodies clashed a bit but it was minor. The performance is a bit on the loose side, a tighter re-record would be very nice. Overall this shows some promise but needs more work before I can comfortably pass it. I've never heard anything by you in the past but it's good to see some forumites are capable remixers too! Keep at it man! NO(resubmit)

Sure but it kinda twists the truth somewhat. In my opinion theft is worse than copyright infringement since theft DIRECTLY AFFECTS the victim. I'm not saying it doesn't affect an artist when someone copies their song, I'm just saying it's very hard to 1) prove the direct connection, 2) compare to the loss of a physical object and 3) take people to court. Calling it 'stealing' is making it a bit too simple and it hurts the debate, especially since you need to be very exact when it comes to legal consequences AND technology since the legal system hasn't yet adapted to all the new technology (see lawsuits against VCRs and revolts against public libraries ;P).

I found quite a few additional ties. 1:28 -> bears some resemblance to a small motif in the source but not enough to count in my opinion. 1:49 - 2:23 contains arranged material from 0:37 - 0:40 (and similar all the repetitions of this) in the source. 2:23 - 2:45 is 0:27 from the source. 106 seconds of source usage if we count all that together with Vinnie's breakdowns. 1:40 - 2:23 is borderline though. Still that's not over 50% (50% being 111). Since the connections are quite vague I don't think the arrangement cuts it even though I enjoy your playing and obviously the I-like-Meshuggah-stuff. The production wasn't perfect either. The drums felt quite weak and flimsy and took away a bit of the "heavy" from the track. Bass and guitar was pretty well balanced though. There's some clipping on the toms at for example 0:47~48 and 1:27 that is quite ugly. Sadly I can't pass this as is. It's mainly the arrangement lacking focus and recognizable source. The execution is quite good but the production (drums especially) could definitely be improved. Good ideas man, I enjoyed it, but it needs some more work! NO

Man, you will eventually have to eat those words. Trance-debate is a hot potato The arrangement is very minimal. I can appreciate the approach (I had a similar for my DKC3 remix 'Claustrophobia') but on the other hand I can't help to think you could've put a LOT more Green Hill Zone in here. Larry said he was OK with the arrangement but I don't see it as interpretive enough because the lack of variation in both what PART of the source you're using and HOW you're using said part. I think this borderlines to the source not being recognizable enough during most of the track because it's used as a background element. So, I will have to disagree with Larry on this point and request some more overt Green Hill Zone. The general groove in this is good and it's pretty well-produced. The use of filtered white noise (I think that's it anyway) is good and gives a nice rhythmic effect. The bass line is solid but feels a bit grating after 6+ minutes. The beat suffers from the same thing, it's just a bit TOO repetitive. I enjoy trance, minimal and many other genres that builds on repetetive patterns but for an arrangement site like OCR this borderlines on what's not acceptable in my opinion. If you could use more sections of the source, mainly the melody or other recognizable features, and sprinkle them around the arrangement this would be a much easier pass for me. It just needs to be subtle hints! In this genre it's about the sounds themselves so don't bury yourself in the arrangement but find a fantastic sound and then just use a small snippet of source to get this over the bar arrangement-wise. That's an approach that works for me when I'm working in this kind of genre and don't want to lose focus by putting too much effort on source usage. Short version: a bit more Green Hill Zone and overall variation and you've got a solid track. NO(resubmit)

Now you made me listen to the Mega Man 9 soundtrack! Good stuff. I have to pretty much agree with my fellow judges here. Some of the transitions (I actually said 'what the fuck' at 5:00) could definitely have been handled better. We're looking for interpretive arrangements of sources and not a couple of almost-covers (however good they might be) put together. That aside, you're a great guitarist and the production is pretty damn good imo. The drums were a bit weak but not to the extent that it hurts the track, in other words I thought Larry was a bit harsh on the snare The track was also well adapted to the different instruments (even though there were very few actual changes in the melodies). I enjoyed 5:21 quite a bit, throw more ideas like that out there! Overall this is not what we're looking for even though it's good. This would certainly have been a hit over at VGMix, The Shizz or in a DoD competition but as I said, we're looking for more interpretive arrangements. Medley-itis and lack of originality brings this down, sorry. If you feel you're interested in making a more interpretive arrangement down the line, send it our way since you're obviously very skilled and I'd love to hear what you can come up with. NO

Interesting to note is that according to rumors sony's new PSP will ditch the UMD format and be 100% digital distribution. I wrote a bit about this here: http://anosou.blogspot.com/2009/03/umd-is-dead-long-live-psp.html Will be interesting to see how people react. I'm still pro-physical media since I like owning stuff and touching them.

I tend to agree with you and buy most of my games (that are stilla valiable new) new on eBay by smaller companies that buy these directly from the publisher. That way GameStop gets a foot up their ass for their horribly high prices and I still support the developer

But it's wrong copyright infringement is right. That was my point and still is. btw, I'm not trying to say pirating is a good thing I'm just pointing some stuff out and following the discussion.

More to contribute? Enlighten me! (and PM me the project forum URL)

Because you don't take someones property, you copy it. That's very straightforward in my opinion. I don't think you can define a digital copy of copyrighted material as property in the traditional sense. btw, <3 u

Songbird 1.1.1 was released during the night. A lot of improvements for stability has been made together with new features like Watch Folders, high quality MP3 music-store and various other stuff. Full release-notes can be found here: http://wiki.songbirdnest.com/Release_Notes/1.1.1 Go download it, discuss and don't forget to swing by this thread right here to support the addition of video game music formats to songbird.

No. Theft is defined by a physical (or digital if that is even possible) object being taken and thus removed from it's original owner. Since these are COPIES (and some-times sub-par copies in the case of .mp3s and .avis) it will always and forever be copyright infringement. Just like fake NIKE-shoes before them.