Level 99

Episode 82 - Why Are You Friends With Poor People (Audience Chooses Winner) with SHAEL MOTHERFUCKING RILEY

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.

Two words. Fucking. Phenomenal.

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.

You sub'd this so no longer mod review.

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!

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!

latest Tindeck in OP is deleted. I hope you subbed this based on your breakdown!

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Say it with me: "Whitney is the funniest sitcom in human history, and anyone remixing it online should be arrested." Some other highlights from yesterday included numerous jabs from party to party in regards to who's been paid to back a particular side, a completely offensive amount of using the word "nerd" in a negative context, and a tweet by Iowa rep Steve King saying that one of the speakers was so boring (this was a speaker who was against SOPA and went on at length with many reasons why) that he stopped listening and started browsing the web DURING the hearing. Oh, and I just turned on the feed and they're getting started right now. They're doing opening statements.

Judiciary hearings are underway http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/mark_12152011.html Edit: just so everyone understands, its pretty nightmarish right now.

Nope, can't take it. The music is originally from the show, not the game. According to the rules, it as to be from the game first. Moving this to originals!

Yeah, that was pretty much my experience. The biggest challenge was trial-and-error which was the best Paradigm for beating a given enemy. Then pouring all your points into whatever Paradigm was good for that area. Then grinding when you hit the next area so that that Paradigm you needed now was just as good. I basically gave up six hours in once they made me control Hope, and ONLY Hope, after all he had done for the six hours prior was bitch and moan. You know, many people said it got really good once you got 20-25 hours in, but that's too much of a time investment for me to even consider the payoff enjoyable. Even playing WoW, when the first levels are kinda simple, the challenge is there from the get-go and ramps up pretty fast, and at least the story felt like you were an active part instead of just running from one corridor to another, autobattling the whole way. I can understand some people liked it. I just didn't. Its still a great benchmark game for visuals on the PS3 (considering the amount of cutscenes I had to sit through, that's one of the reasons I was able to make it six hours in). But getting back on track with the thread. CRAZY CHOCOBO. This is begging for a Scuba Divers cover, if ya know what I mean.

Definitely seeing improvement over your earlier stuff, man. Keep up the good work!

For brutal tracks like this, Japanese Anime fashion, increasingly-mundane battle systems and faux epic plots that have no personal investment in them whatsovever? Nah, they got the recipe down pat. The rest of the world just doesn't know what a good game is. Obviously.

Yeah, that's basically how it works. Its an index of which OC ReMixers are associated with a given album, not necessarily the entire album's roster. That's what VGMDB is for.

Fixed it for you, Mr.Front

OCAD once again has a new IP, thanks to verizon finally actually completely fixing my internet. Here it be: OverClocked After Dark: 108.15.57.152

Just to clarify, its by Emunator AND by Vilecat (she took care of the background image, which is also going to be used for the website). Credit where credit is due!