Level 99
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I wanna know if anyone even listens to us anymore, or if everyone has jumped ship.
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I meant to respond to your IM, just wanted to say you nailed it minus the mastering on the version you previously sent me. If you mixed up that mastering then you're golden!
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Think it was Mirror 3. Could just be a bad individual d/l though - I just d/led from 2 and it worked just fine. (Sorry, should've checked the other mirrors before I declared it glitched.
) So it could've easily been an interrupted d/l that I didn't catch or something.Okay, yeah. Mirror 3 for all of them seems to be down or having issues, its being looked into.
Besides that, the main music page links have now all been fixed (obv besides mirror 3)
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The .zip folder glitched on me, as well. And when I went for the individual tracks, everything after Effrontery Escape links to a download of Effrontery Escape, lol.
Oh well. I'll content myself with the disc and a half of music before 2-05 that is working, and wait for the rest to be fixed. In the meantime, congratulations to everyone who worked so hard on this project to see it to its fruition!
The individual MP3 issue is entirely my fault, I'm emailing a site code fix to Dave this morning. SUPER sorry about the inconvenience.
What Mirror are you all downloading from that has a borked ZIP? I just downloaded from Mirror 1 and it worked just fine for me.
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OC ReMix Presents Wild Arms: ARMed and DANGerous Remix Album!
December 20, 2011
Contact: press@ocremix.org
FAIRFAX, VA... Today marks the 15th anniversary of Wild Arms, one of the first Japanese RPGs to feature a Western-style story and setting. To commemorate this landmark game, originally published on the PlayStation with music composed by Michiko Naruke, OverClocked ReMix has released its 31st arrangement album, Wild Arms: ARMed and DANGerous. Weighing in at 58 tracks, this is the largest collaborative project by the community to date. The album was directed by Jennifer "JaDE ARaN HaRuNo" Aguirre, joined by assistant directors Jordan "bLiNd" Aguirre, Wes "Emunator" McDonald, and Stevo "Level 99" Bortz.
ARMed and DANGerous is available for free download at http://armed.ocremix.org. It was made by fans, for fans, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Media.Vision or Sony; all original compositions are copyright their respective owners.
This extensive collection of music was created by 53 talented artists, both new and familiar, featuring performances from 23 musicians. The album hosts as vast variety of styles as it does artists, featuring genres as diverse as acoustic, electronica, trance, rock, reggae, jazz, orchestral, vocal, Western, experimental, chiptune, and more!
Director Jade Aguirre's connection to the album is among the most personal of any OC ReMix project: "Many years ago, I had a great circle of friends. As we got older, our lives started to change and many friendships ended in brokenness. Later, I discovered Wild Arms because of the music and found myself and these old friends in [the game]... like replaying my past over with a soundtrack. The Western theme reminded me of my father, because of his admiration for Westerns. He passed away after I discovered the game, so it brought me some closure," said Jade. "The project is about the music, the fans and everyone's dedicated hard work. Though the reason why I chose Wild Arms is because I wanted to dedicate this to my husband, Jordan. It is the very meaning of my love."
Her husband, assistant director Jordan "bLiNd" Aguirre, highlighted Jade's extensive research and perseverance in organizing ARMed and DANGerous. "I want to say as Jade's husband how proud I am of her and all the work she did to organize, inspire, and keep this project alive. Jade did a wonderful job of getting to know each artist's music before approaching them so she knew where to direct them and their talents. It was truly awesome to see how great things fell in place once everyone was on the same page. I am proud to be a part of this project, because of the sheer QUALITY I hear in the final result."
About OverClocked ReMix
Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form. Its primary focus is ocremix.org, a website featuring thousands of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans.
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Preview it:
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Download it: http://armed.ocremix.org
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Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Wild_Arms_-_ARMed_and_DANGerous.torrent
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Comments/Reviews: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=38123
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Preview it:
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Preview it:
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Download it: http://armed.ocremix.org/
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Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Wild_Arms_-_ARMed_and_DANGerous.torrent
On December 20, 1996, a role-playing game called Wild Arms released in Japan. 15 years later, I am proud to announce the official OC ReMix album of ARMed and DANGerous.I never had intentions of directing this project. It was just a fan request in the beginning. The thread was old and dead, and after several months later it was revived. Suddenly, the support was pouring in and I took on the responsibility. I wanted this project to be different than the others and make it memorable. I wanted each artist to represent the meaning of the game and my feelings of what it meant to me. Directed by someone who is not an OC ReMixer, I want to thank those who believed in me that I could do this.
Many years ago, I had a great circle of friends. We did everything together and depended on one another. As we got older, our lives started to change and many friendships ended in brokenness. I remained lost for a great amount of time hoping someday it would be the same again. Later I discovered Wild Arms because of the music and decided to buy it. I found myself and these old friends in Wild Arms. It was like replaying my past over with a soundtrack. The Western theme reminded me of my father, because of his admiration for Westerns. He passed away after I discovered the game, so it brought me some closure.
The project is about the music, the fans and everyone's dedicated hard work. Though the reason why I chose Wild Arms is because I wanted to dedicate this to my husband, Jordan Aguirre (bLiNd). It is the very meaning of my love. What I needed and wanted was always right in front of me, not what I had before him. In the middle of making this, I wanted to give up on the project because of what occurred in 2010, but Stevo Bortz (Level 99) did not let me give up. Wes McDonald (Emunator) also joined to ensure the release. I thank those two for being my co-directors, because it would have not released today. Also, special thanks to James Joyner (Jewbei), Aaron Wu (Global-Trance), and Wesley Cho (Bahamut). After MAGFest 9, I learned who my friends are and what my life deserves the most. I had been separated for a year and a half and just recently we had our reunion. I am truly blessed and grateful that for Christmas of 2011, I get to spend it with my husband and his family while celebrating the release of this album and our reconciliation, despite of our sacrifices and pain. I am still making an effort to leave the past behind me and accept the present and future. The music is the whole explanation of this strife.
I am grateful to those who succeeded in this specific sound. Wild ARMs is about love, emotion, tragedy, and adventure. Shine in all your glory.
- Jennifer Jade-Lee Aguirre (JaDE ARaN HaRuNo)
I want to say as Jade's husband how proud I am of her and all the work she did to organize, inspire, and keep this project alive and everyone working in spite of all the struggles she went through these past couple of years. She worked her butt off to get this done and deserves a lot of praise for what she did. I have seen many projects come and go on OCR, but this one is different than the rest for one reason - Jade INSPIRED people. She used something she adored and loved and was inspired by and somehow got all sorts of musicians to feel the same way, even if they never played the game before; myself included...This project really stretched me as a musician, an artist, and a person. I took in a lot of music in the beginning and throughout the process learned I was probably capable of being a judge at OCR, as I was giving lots of feedback to people about their tracks and it was actually helping them! It's not a job I would probably want to take on as it is very time consuming and takes away from what I love to do most (make music), but I can say it was a good experience and I found it a joy to work with the artists. There are SO many talented people in this community and sometimes I think they are overlooked because of minor things like not knowing production as well as a professional or not knowing music theory enough to be considered "good enough" and they really just need a push in right direction.
This project is a prime example of talent already acknowledged and overlooked talent that just needed some tender love and care and some motherly nurturing. Jade did a wonderful job of getting to know each artist's music before approaching them so she knew where to direct them and their talents. It was truly awesome to see how great things fell in place once everyone was on the same page. I am proud to be a part of this project as an artist and a co-director because of the sheer QUALITY I hear in the final result.
The remixes I produced also stretched me as an artist and I can say I am very proud of the work I did for it. I am especially proud of "Fireflight" because it is the matured sound of bLiNd. But most of all, the "Ring and a Promise" tracks are what this project is about for me - my wife. I made that track for our 1 year wedding anniversary, so this project represents the love I have for my wife and we will look back on it as a shining moment in our marriage. Everyone give Jade your thanks, love, and support for making something this grand come to life...
- Jordan Aguirre (bLiNd)
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Preview it:
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Hi, thought I'd pop in and ask...are there going to be physical copies of this album made, or is it strictly going to be a digital release? I just wanted to get that out there because I'd like to get my hands on one of the physical copies if there are going to be any seeing as how my iPod is likely going to be inoperable soon...if donations are necessary, I'll see if I can't scrounge up a little bit of money to put towards the release. Just lemme know...I'm still around...just not as much as I used to be
AFAIK none are planned on at the moment.
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It was your fault for stirring it up. You just killed the internet Stevo.
Also, I'm Republican and I sure as shit don't support SOPA. What gives?
Exactly, yeah, my family is just kinda....yeah.
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My dad apparently thinks this is a great idea. And he tells me as a creative person that this could protect me in the future...
>_<
Oh don't get me started. I went to dinner tonight with my family trying to talk to them about the importance of SOPA and Protect IP never making their way into our laws, and I ended up finding out that they all became Republicans behind my back and apparently I'm a horrible human being for disliking all the GOP candidates. As a result, I'm fairly certain they're all going to call in support of SOPA.
halp me internet my family are dumb
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I know I know, hush up, brah.
First off, TWEWY! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Before I get into my own personal feelings about this, let me say that right now the arrangement is very easy to source identify, so you got that in the bag. The only thing that would hold this back is the mixing/mastering. I think its close to borderline, but on the side of passing. Mostly its the muddying in the mid-highs and the drum muffling. Vocals could be processed a little better, even with all the effects you have on them. They definitely either clash or bury the song at points, mostly during the chorus. Maybe just some spitshine to nail the frequencies of the vocals and a little bit of low/high boost on the master channel.
you know what, i'm just gonna PM you my personal thoughts. Great fucking job here though.
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Two words. Fucking. Phenomenal.
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Definitely needs beefier drums. It may or may not need some mastering additionally after the addition of said drums. Also the those samples do get a little overused throughout the song. Maybe consider recruiting a rapper to spit some rhymes over this, as that would make the track a lot less repetitive sounding.
Also I'm not entirely sure the source usage for this would pass the bar. I have to do a good amount of checking here to verify.
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You sub'd this so no longer mod review.
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Ice Cap deep with vocals to be released later this week, but here is the instrumental
Going by the instrumental version, this sounds very good but doesn't have enough source to pass the bar. I'm hearing a modified chord progression the whole time, which really doesn't count without a melody on top of it since its significantly modified from the original. When it does have the melody it ties in, so please post the vocal version if you think that has more melody in it!
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Oh no its not like that, I mean like, im not feeling the audience as a whole music wise (not including the judges). But thats half the time.
But I guess I can submit once in a while. :-I
The Mastering EQ is a little too sharp on the highs, possibly overexcited, and the midrange cut is too deep so this sounds more hollow. Also the MASSIVE reverbs don't sit well with that current EQ, but since you called this final, I can only hope you sub'd it or started working on another song!
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Yeah, I assumed it was clear enough, but no worries. I added a complete breakdown to the OP. Sorry for the trouble
latest Tindeck in OP is deleted. I hope you subbed this based on your breakdown!
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Wasn't expecting another reply to this so didn't see until now.
I'm using a laptop with an intel core i5 cpu M430 @ 2.27 Ghz of RAM.
I'd love to know how to get this sounding good enough with the samples I'm using because I'm sure its possible too but I've gone as far as I can with my attempt at humanising. I've tried PMing Emunator a few times hoping he could give me the specific help needed but haven't gotten a reply.
Haven't given up on this song at all by the way, its just that I can't take it any further without some help. Trust me, I've tried my best up until now but theres somethings I seemingly can't figure out by myself as much as I'd love too (I hate asking for help lol)
Okay, when I talk about humanizing, I'm talking about the specific methods with which to make a sample sound more realistic. This can be done using a combination of techniques.
First step in humanizing is adjustment of timing. Unlike tight electronica where everything is perfectly on beat, human instruments always have a slight delay bias either early or late, and it can range from minuscule (think tightly timed lead guitars by an expert) to significant. The farthest end of of this also effects the actual rhythm, also known as the swing timing, if its all consistent in a given direction. However, for what you're doing, you need not concern swing right now. For this its really about giving those orchestral instruments a slight nudge every now and then off the perfect time of the beat. Not enough to make it sound sloppy, but enough to allow for human error in the player. This is especially essential for something like a piano.
The next step is humanizing the dynamics. When using a mouse to input a MIDI instrument's sequencing, things can be very static with the velocity of each note. If you're using a MIDI keyboard or similar controller, then you'll likely get velocity based on how hard you press your finger down on the key. The trick here is to give a consistent curve to the velocity progression, as well was making sure you're accentuating things correctly (using high velocity at the right time) and lowering things to balance (lessening the velocity on low notes or downbeats). You definitely have some velocity changes going on here but some are very severe and sound awkward. This takes a long time to get right, basically you have to try things out to see what sounds natural in your track, as well as referencing other works and even possibly reading up on theory.
Taking that step even further has to do with humanizing attack, decay, and note trails. If you notice, many soundfonts and mediocre-quality sample packs have a very stiff feeling to what they're playing. Take your strings here, for example. They either sound heavily vibrato'd for the duration of a note (especially in the exposed cello), and later on they are completely without vibrato for entire notes. Furthermore, those vibratos were not on beat with the tempo of the song, making it sound very jerky in movement. I'm not an expert on how to achieve the best sound, but tinkering with the attack and decay of an instrument, and also doing dynamic velocities (i think that's what they're called) or the mod wheel to cross with another sample (mod wheel down is no-vibrato, mod wheel up is vibrato, can cross between at will) does help a lot.
Listening back on your mix, it also sounds like you could do with a bit of mixing work. Utilizing buses effectively to achieve a fuller mix (separation of reverbs and EQs), and possibly doing some more layering of instruments especially in the midrange.
Anyways, hope you're still working on this slowly but surely!
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Ohhhh! Yeah, I see what you mean now. Thanks! It's pretty hard to go from using Reason to trying to sync up VST recordings.
How's this? I THINK the guitar is more on beat... I moved the strums forward a little, and the one part where the piano is doing part of the guitar's picking seems pretty on-time still.
Also lowered the volume on the ending notes (the high ones) so that should be easier on people.
The only thing still bothering me is the piano... despite being centered, it still sounds like it's mostly in the left-ear. Apart from manually splitting the midi track into two halves (or more) and panning each part appropriately, is there any way to have the right-hand notes come out the right side more?
Edity: Dah. I'm going to have to sell my desktop in a week or two, so after the next suggested change, I'm going to submit it. Then hopefully by the time it gets No'd (if), I'll have a better computer to continue with it.
I hope you submitted whatever the latest version was. I realize this is coming 4 months later but the file is deleted, despite me wanting to hear your updated version. hope you get another desktop soon for more musics!
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Despite the fact that Congress was supposed to be out of session until the end of January, the Judiciary Committee has just announced plans to come back to continue the markup this coming Wednesday. This is rather unusual and totally unnecessary. But it shows just how desperate Hollywood is to pass this bill as quickly as possible, before the momentum of opposition builds up even further.
And here I thought we had reprieve to go and actually try to convince more people to speak up about this, maybe even bring it up at MAGFest and get all the nerds telling other nerds to go tell other nerds about it.
Its nice that they updated the judiciary calendar with this news. Oh wait, they didn't. I still hope they stream it at least.
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I'm sensing high levels of sarcasm in sections of the above the paragraph
Not at all. It doesn't matter when someone is on board with knowing how scary this stuff is, just the matter that they are.
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I pointed out the risk to OCR back on page two, so yes, some of us are taking this that seriously.
And you've been an inspiration to us all, Coop. For years, you've inspired me with your sig-making prowess. And we're glad you realized this thing was dangerous moderately before some others
(yes I am being genuine here)Also somethingawful forums brought up this CIV content, which I find hilarious.
Edit: Also, remember folks, two things:
1) this is still just getting doctored up before it gets voted on on the House floor, it still would have a WAYS to go and lots of roadblocks before it would ever be put into place. So yes, there's concern, but it isn't like this will impact us all whenever they have to vote on it in the House next year.
2) Keep your eyes on PIPA, the Senate's version of SOPA which should be causing similar concern.
These points may have already been raised earlier in the thread.
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Funny thing, this mix. When I started the project, I knew José was a fan of the soundtracks, I just didn't know what he'd do if he'd pick up a track. At first I thought he might do some of his fantastical hip-hop somewhere on the album, but then he picked Gloom of the N.H.C. I honestly couldn't have asked for a better arrangement.
Being frank, this perfectly treads the line between being faithful to the source while also being completely original. There is so much attention to detail here that there's indeed something new to hear on every listen. Fantastic Clav, as Andrew pointed out. Just...gah, everything is so so so good. The NiGHTS motif is included in ways that logically fit, and the ending cameo of Ideya Palace is charming.
In short, this is a masterpiece. It is hard to imagine this being topped.
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Let me just comment about SOPA for a second. Under the word of the proposed amendment, OCR could potentially be shut down for a single infringement notice being filed by ANYONE against it. Let's say you take this mix, which has a small clip from the Pokémon Anime. Under SOPA, OCR could be denied existence by being filtered out of search engines and denied access from its hosting provider if a claim was filed against it for a potential copyright infringement. Note that here I'm taking it as a literal, since we liberally work under the mantra of intepretive music as not infringing on what it is interpreting. The search engines and service providers would deny service because it grants them immunity to being held accountable for the content which this website provides. Furthermore, any website linking to OCR would be censored due to the ripple effect of linking to a website that is supposedly violating copyright. Fair Use be damned, this is about people taking their own security interest over the legitimacy of claims since all lawyers would be quick to say "do whatever it takes to keep your ass out of the potential fire".
Tell me this isn't a scary thought.
December is OCR Reviews Month! SAVE OCR!
in General Discussion
Posted
Remember, I just gave the review-least-amount-reviewed method as an easy way of doing big contributions. However, people should be encouraged to review ANYTHING at all, even if its Dragon Song and Lover Reef. Any review is a good review as long as it says something about the music (and also helps us take down OA).