Level 99

Heh, guess it's a little obvious that they're probably one of my favorite ska bands, eh? The only one I can think of that I love more are The Skoidats. But anyways, yes yes YES! Streetlight-vibe for this all the way. If you can get that style of brass in there, you have no idea how awesome that would be. PrototypeRaptor, I'll leave the brass scoring in your hands. If you can talk to your bari-player as well, go for it. I'll send cyrilthewolf a PM today asking when he thinks he can get the vocals done by. And yes, Hitori, way to state the obvious joke at hand, lol.

Honestly, the time-frame for this is "whenever we can get to it". I have a ton of project mixes I'm working on currently, and this one is definitely one I want to finish but don't feel that it needs to be SUBBEDRIGHTNOWZOMG, so whatever time-frame works for people is fine. I'd rather have this done RIGHT as opposed to done FAST, as this is the first time I've worked with a possible full-brass section I for-sure don't want to waste the opportunity. So, Rama's down, Xenon's down for after the semester/when he gets his mic, still waiting to hear who wants to tackle writing the parts? Edit: and Hitori is definitely down, so that's wonderful. Whenever we sub this, we should talk about using a pseudoname to cover our group as opposed to possibly having, like, eight people credited on one mix. More on that later, though!

Haha okay, whoa, totally did not expect this kind of reception to the WIP. You know, there's really no such thing as "good sampled brass" for this kind of style, so what the hell! Let's get this super-mega-collab going! If y'all are gonna do some brass for it, I'll expect y'all to do writing for your instruments that would be much better than what I had planned. I'm pretty sure just one of you should write the parts for ALL of you, so things all sound good, but first let's start by listing who's doing what: Vocals: cyrilthewolf guitars, drums, main arrangement: Level 99 Sax players: cyrilthewolf and Xenon Odyssey Trumpet player: Ramaniscence Trombone players: PrototypeRaptor and HitoriJaNai Fratto hasn't posted here yet and Luke's not confident in his ability, so unless Fratto comes and really REALLY wants to get in on this or Luke has a change of heart, I'll leave it to PR and Hitori if he can figure it out. Looking at that list...holy crap, wow. Thanks guys! I always joked around about starting a ska band, but damn that is a tasty line-up even if it's for just one song. Rama, what I can do is transpose the song down half a step for you to play, and then take your part and pitch-stretch it up. I hope that would sound decent....hmm... So, which among you feels like writing all the brass parts for everyone? Also, I just talked to Avaris, and he's willing to take on the task of mastering everyone's live parts so that they sound as similarly-mixed as possible.

And part 3!: Crash + Restore: Not as good as “Of Sea and Fire” to me, but still very catchy. My only big complaint comes from being a guitarist: I really wish the acoustic guitar wasn’t synthetic and that it was an actual guitar. Other than that, this starts off very unassuming and then grows and never stops growing. Unique mixing of textures and hard-panning makes this mix stand out for me, and is very catchy once the grooves start to set their course. The latter half of the song is the strongest once the melody starts to switch up, a little after 2:30. Great “harmonic distortion” on the lead; Ziwtra truly is a jack of many trades. Dreamscape: This did not immediately stand out to me. I actually called Avaris up after my first listen through and said “I love Nutritious’s work, and it was satisfactory but just didn’t grab me.” Then, I had the craving to listen again. And again. And then it didn’t leave my head for a solid week. This has to be laced with some kind of audio-crack, cause I needed a fix every so often for a while. While not an epic mix by any sort, this is one you can listen to on loop by itself for hours. The sax is great above all else, and the choice of pads and synths throughout is spot-on. There’s so much layering going on it’s hard to dissect it, but Mr. Nutritious-and-Delicious made something totally addictive here. Wounded Soldier: the strings and brass were a bit harsh on my ears, but I found this mix to be satisfying from a dancey-standpoint. Not one of my more favorite tracks, but it’s still pretty good. Also a bit too short, now that I think about it. Please sir-or-ma’am, make it a little longer next time. It’s over before it gets really good! Smooth Criminals: Two words – bad ass. This is a bad ass mesh of late 80’s early 90’s pop and indie-electronic style. I can’t figure out the best way to describe it as a whole, but the chopping throughout the entire song is masterful and shows true attention to detail. Nothing feels sloppy whatsoever. Great title as well. Sleeper Dreamer: Now THIS is a nice long trance song. This got a lot of playtime on my trips to and from college park ever since I got my hands on the project files for Xenogears. Great chopped strings, subtle choice in leads, and overall just feels very well-arranged. It has that especially-good flow of staying the course without being entirely predictable. The swells were also mighty gorgeous during the breakdown. I bow to you, Siamey. I will personally request this song be played at some point this year to get the jamspace room bouncing. Omen (R3Mix): If Avaris hadn’t showed me the original WIP of what you had planned, I’d say this was masterful. As it stands, I really wish you finished that first WIP! This song, however, is still fantastic on its own. Haunting and, somehow, it retains both human and gear qualities. The instrument wails are great for setting the mood, and the piano is processed to a fantastic degree to get this mechanic feeling. Very well done, though I also feel it is a little short. I have no problem hitting the repeat button though. Akkadia Rising: Interesting groove here. Unique, to be sure. I like this version better than the solo sax because this just feels a good bit fuller and more rounded. Masterful sax playing though, and the production on this is great. Nice e-piano as well, every supporting bit does its job here. A must-listen for the originality here. Devil Flare: I don’t even know if this counts as a call and response between the lead and the strings-buzzsynth, but its definitely SOMETHING like that. This has a very raw and aggressive feeling to it, which is both a good and bad thing – great for feeling aggressive, bad if you want to calm down when driving. It makes me feel like something urgent is going on and I need to get up and do something. The orchestral instruments used here are GREAT, hands-down. Binary Chain: Another one of those mixes I just can’t describe in words. Listen. Listen now. The piano-lead sections alone make this mix a must-have on my playlist. For some reason, I’m reminded a good bit of Phil Collins, but only in a good way. October Rain: Having this back-to-back with Binary Chain causes overwhelm-of-awesome. My only complaint is the snare sounds too processed and doesn’t have enough punch. Great collaboration otherwise, and everything is proper. Another “Listen now” track. Of God and Man: Creepy way to start off, and didn’t take off early enough for me, but I guess that was not the intention of this mix. Makes feel genuinely unsettled, very very cool stuff nrich. Dogma: Interesting opening, can’t say I was the biggest fan due to the detuning, though I know that was definitely intentional. Once the drums kick in, I started to enjoy it, and this was another genuinely creepy and unsettling mix. Defective: This is a story told in music. Gorgeously done, folks. The center focus felt a little much during certain parts of the song, but that didn’t detract from the final result for me. And thus would end a great project for me…though there is one last song… Shit on Citan: *sigh* Oh CHIPP Damage…I really used to be into this kind of music, and whether this be joke or not, I just can’t say it fits anywhere on this disc. I just….ahh man, why?! This kinda leaves a sour taste in my mouth, no matter how funny certain parts are, it really makes the album seem a little tainted in retrospect. I’m not trying to offend here, but I just really did NOT dig this song. Frowny faces from me here. Sorry, dude. And thus ends my elongated reviews of the entire project. I’m going to go get some ice for my wrists now, that was a lot of typing.

I hate you, Blake. Hate hate HATE you. And your amazing musical ability at everything you friggin attempt.

I only got the chance to listen to the Costa del sol one, but from that, it sounds way too close to the source. Very coverish almost to the point of midi-ripping, but I'll not make that allegation. Your mix is pretty much a flat cover with the added waves and some different instruments. It also doesn't really go anywhere, it just loops twice and then fades out. I don't want to seem like I'm coming off as harsh, but get some more creativity in there. Switch some things up, add some new supporting instrumentation, have the song change and progress over time. I wish you luck and hope your next revision has some considerable changes!

I've been meaning to get around to this WIP and see what all the hub-bub has been about. Smooooooooooth.... You got some crazy talent there, my friend. This is already so highly enjoyable. Not being that versed in jazz, all I can tell you is I greatly approve of this. I can find the source very easily, and all your variations really gave this some wicked character. The piano playing is filled with subtle nuances and interpretations. Can't wait to hear the final version.

Lexicon Lambda worked just fine under Vista and Win7, both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. One irritating thing about Win7 is that, even under the "Performance" power config, it still has selective USB suspension (or something to that effect) enabled. So my Lambda would randomly power off and I'd not be able to power it back on without a disconnect-and-reconnect. Once that's disabled, everything's golden. If you've been having similar issues, I'd suggest checking that out. I'll get a report on how Win7 64-bit likes the PodXT drivers sometime this week, hopefully.

Haha thanks for the feedback, Hitori, Crulex and BP. I'm eagerly awaiting cyril's vocals as well. Xenon: Brad's not slated to do sax for this. I originally was gonna do this song solo until I realized my voice absolutely sucks, which is when I approached Starla for vox. She declined, and then I went to cyril and he not only offered the vocals but said he could probably do a sax-ditty in there as well. If he doesn't end up doing it, I'll surely come to you. Now if only I could find people who play other brass to totally fill out the instrumentation, I'd be set. And I'll be honest: I spent an hour last night right before going to bed completely redoing the brass and....then Sonar crashed while freezing a track. I hadn't saved, so now I have the Sonar AGAIN set to autosave every 2 changes. I'll try to go back and make the same changes whenever I can, because I did add brass all throughout just to cover until the vocals arrive, and there was huge brass at the end. I know, I'm teasing you now. That's awesome you're getting a mic for xmas too!

So glad I don't work at GameStop anymore. Maybe I'll push off editing for one more night just so I can have a taste of this. I'll be getting home around 5:30ish tonight, who's down?

none?.....really? And here I had my hopes up to add new stuff to my playlist even though I didn't have the time to contribute! *EAT*OWN*KEYBOARD* Oh well, good luck on the next one, everybody.

On the first quoted part, there was indeed a lot of sharing between OCR and VGMix2 back in the day. There was also a lot of one-siters who would stay on one site and wouldn't go to the other if their life depended on it. However, for the most-part, it fostered some healthy communities and competition, and this is coming from someone who started at VGMix2 and ended up coming over to OCR. It's very hard to replicate that kind of atmosphere now, though, due to more sites somewhat diluting the crowds shared and the community has been slowly moving forward in-general. On the second part, thasauce.net does a lot of cataloging of recent remixes from many sites, like R:TS, OCR, remix.kwed, and so on. That's a great way to stay on top of things music-wise. In-general, I'm really enjoying watching this discussion and seeing the different points people are making on where the situation stands now and where it can possibly be taken, particularly the transformation of the Workshop area. I have no clue how it could actually be pulled off to offer similar functionality, as there were a few things done over at VGMix2 that might directly conflict with the method of operations here, but I'm speaking out of my box now since I'm not a web-developer. Good luck to all trying to bring back that kind of functionality, I'll definitely be watching the progress with eager interest!

Okay, Brushfire. Seriously, get me a job where you work. Right now. I don't care if I'm going to be working nights, your boss just sounds too cool. I'll hopefully have some time to play tonight, but only as a reward to myself for finishing editing the goddamn OCAD podcast. Time-management only works when you have enough TIME! Edit: You know, this is probably the fastest Valve had this kind of turnaround and progress on any game, considering how long it takes them to do any of the HL games, or things like TF2. That's what had a lot of people in a tizzy over it: they were getting worried Valve would sacrifice quality for sake of "cashing in" on a hot new property by only pushing out a minor update and charging full-price. Glad to see this is far from the case. They fixed a lot of things naturally missing from the first, apparently, even though I loved the first. I know it was kinda off-relevance from your post, but it just made me think.

UPDATE: Due to the overwhelming response to this, it has been turned into a super-mega-ultra collab. Refer to the following: Tentative roster: Guitars, Drums, Arrangement, Lyrics – Level 99 Vocals - Luiza Alto Saxophone – Cyril the Wolf Tenor Saxophone – Xenon Odyssey Trumpet - Swann Trombone, Brass Arrangement – PrototypeRaptor Trombone – HitoriJaNai Bass – DeathBySpoon Mixing services – Avaris Information for those involved in this mix: Once PR gets all the parts written down, he will get them to me and they will be distributed. Then just get me your recordings via email or hosting service like mediafire, and I will take care of the placement and then send it off to Avaris for mixing. Bass should just get me the stuff whenever possible. Even though there is no specific due date, I'd love to have this done around Christmas-time. I know at least one of the brass players wont have their mic until that time, but if everyone else can get stuff in before then, that'd be awesome. To be able to have this ready by around MAGFest would be INSANE, but I'm not going to put too much pressure on it. Thank you, everyone. We are The OverClocked Plaid Muffins. ------------------------------------------------------------- cyrilthewolf is doing the vocals for this, a ska version of Gourmet Race. The vocals are missing but it's pretty obvious where they go, I wrote the lyrics to go along with the lead of the original tune. My WIP: http://www.mediafire.com/?gjt0kwutzxt Original song (so you can hear where the lead is): Lyrics: Ska Buffet (All you can eat) (Gourmet Race Type 2) ----------------- I am eating food, sweet and tasty dishes, dude It is loads of fun but all these calories are bad for you Chinese, sushi please, Spanish, Thai Food, it's all good! Shove it all in my mouth and I will give you cash Chips and salsa, peanut butter, tenderloin and rack of lamb Microwaving me some kettle corn and the tv dinners are being baked now Giant burgers and burritos, deli meats and lots of cheese Bar-be-ques and large potato salad, I'll eat everything! I'll clear out all the buffets in every city in no time Most grocery stores have posted "no pink marshmallow" entry signs But let's disregard these warnings and digest every last bit From frozen food and the bakery to snacks, sodas and chips So let's hit up all the drive-thrus and convenience stores near here My jaw ain't chewing something now, starvation is to be feared For without a constant stream of eats I'll likely to just die cause I'm Kirby, bitch, and I need food so GET ME FUCKING FRENCH FRIES! *ska break* Deep fried cookies, monster cherries , french-fried onions from the can Only veggies if they're soaked in oil and even then I'd rather eat raw cream cheese Deep dish pizza, shrimp tempura, crispy flat bread drenched in lard I don't care if I'm to big to transport, roll me to the foods I'll clear out all the buffets in every city in no time Most grocery stores have posted "no pink marshmallow" entry signs But let's disregard these warnings and digest every last bit From frozen food and the bakery to snacks, sodas and chips So let's hit up all the drive-thrus and convenience stores near here My jaw ain't chewing something now, starvation is to be feared Why hold back all you inner cravings, restraining for today When you could eat up the whole world, this ain't no fucking gourmet! ---------------------------------------- I've been sitting on this song about a month and it's getting close to done. Thoughts? Mind you: the brass will probably be changed before the final version.

Sorry, Waldo, we found you. Happy birthday to a cool dude in-general. Come back up here for another round at One World Cafe, ya? Enjoy your day, buddy!

I played. I killed. I lol'd. 'twas a blast!

We know you're one of our biggest fans, dude.

We always had issues doing UT99 at my old LAN parties, but eventually found a few fixes that got 99% of the games working: *The force native resolution fix posted by Fireslash *Updating the d3ddrv.dll file as I mentioned (and making sure your UT99 has direct3d as the selected render) *Going into your video card's control panel and forcing vertical sync on *If you're still having any issues running on multicore systems, try a utility like RunFirst. Things like this force an app to run on the first core of a multi-core system, thereby simulating to the game that only one processor exists. It's not perfect, but it has solved a few issues in my experience, especially when all else fails at fixing UT99. I have a couple of suggestions for these Old Skool Gaming days in-general: * Anyone want to get some kind of voice chat client going? Anyone have a ventrillo server? * Some shameless pitches for other old-skool games to play: Worms World Party, Doom 2, Duke Nukem 3d, Warcraft 2 (if possible), Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.

Just a little bump seeing as there's a little over 2 weeks before first WIPs are supposed to get in. Also, a small update for any people doing songs that haven't yet or aren't going to sign up on our private forums: I am planning on a lossless release along with MP3. So once you finish your song, please send me a WAV. You can also send an MP3 as well, for preview purposes, but for the final release, I will be encoding all the MP3s myself from the WAV files. I need the WAV to change song statuses to complete. I know for many of you, the final versions of the songs are probably ways away, but better to know what to expect now. Once December 1st hits, expect activity to ramp up for a little while. There are a few things within the project that ask for assistance from as many of the remixers as possible. All of that information will be available by December 1st on the private forums if it isn't already available now, or via PM. I've been busy the last couple of weeks but it should let up a little soon and give me some breathing room, especially once I teach Brushfire how to edit the OCAD podcasts himself

Guitar wankery, I still love calling it that. Sorry to hear about Fishy, but I'm sure there will still be plenty of rocking going on.

Turns out I had the wrong day for the call as well, lol. *sigh* NEXT TIME, GADGET- I mean NEXT TIME, COMPO!

Installing Unreal Anthology now. Prepping to have my noob ass handed to me. Edit: If anyone is having issues with D3D resolution or fps capping, try this file. Go to your UnrealTournament\System directory, rename your d3ddrv.dll to something like d3ddrv.dllbak and copy this file over. http://www.filefront.com/1405849/Unreal-Tournament-D3D-fix-v.1.9c/ I recommend using D3d over OpenGL as OGL is very very buggy still, apparently. Had a massive fps boost that was increasing the speed of the game, no matter what I tried to do to fix it.

Hope your next year is super awesome and that you never stop rocking.