The Vagrance

1. Korg RADIAS (with quite a bit of help from my personal stash o' cash) 2. Gears of War 2 3. The Black Keys - Attack & Release (pretty BA album) 4. A hoodie I'm going to take back to get a more badass hoodie Not too shabby imo.

Merry Christmas from ca$hville TN

Oh man, I just remembered a huge one: The ending in Braid. Took me a while to figure out the puzzles but me and a friend tag-teamed the game in a 24-hour span and beat it and got to the ending.

Never acknowledge the elephant...

I don't think anyone here necessarily cares about the graphics, per se, but rather the artistic style of a game. For example, Jet Set Radio Future may not have as good as graphics as, say, GTA4, however I prefer the art style of the former over the latter. The style matters just as much as the gameplay as it is a part of the presentation of the game and leads to immersion.

Rock Band 2 with friends has always been an awesome time, so that is consistently up towards the top. GoW2 also has plenty of "top" moments for me. Iono, hard to say, especially considering I've been playing through a lot of games that didn't come out this year as well.

I was planning on doing a remix of this, and I actually have a project file in Ableton Live called "Mario 64 Docks RMX" and it wasn't until about 2 hours into working on the song I realized the MIDI file I dragged in wasn't Mario's Dock theme but rather the underwater music from Donkey Kong Country x_X. Enough story time though, I like Deadmau5 a lot so hopefully I'll enjoy this. 0:00-1:00 First this I notice is that something seems slightly off about the drums. Is there heavy processing or something because it seems almost as if they're delayed a tiny bit or something, or it could be the fact that I'm listening to this at 3AM, take your pick. Pretty same-y, but not a big deal, its an intro. You may want to hold off doing an open hat until everything kicks in though, but its your track so w/e. I will say that the synth that comes in needs to sound phatter/more lush, dry maybe a longer reverb or unison or something because it sounds like its in an apartment or something at the moment, as opposed to an ocean. 1:00-1:47 It'd be nice if it didn't go completely to silence before harp and everything came in. If you adjust your automation curve just a tiny bit it'll sound smoother. I like the little micro-samples of the voices, very minimal. I don't like the double time kick though, creates too much urgency for such a laidback track. You could try high-passing a loop in or something but I'm not sold on the double-time kick. Aside from that it sounds great 1:47-2:17 I'm not a giant fan of the lead synth, but personal preference blahblahblah and each time I listen to the track it doesn't bug me as much. Not much else to say 2:17-2:40 Weird key change in there but I like it. I feel you may have gone into this a bit soon though because the first drop had only been in for 30 seconds before another breakdown. 2:40-3:10 Similar to the earlier section, not a bad thing though as its a pretty nice interpretation of the source, shows original expression, and other judgey stuff that people say. 3:10-3:45 Outro, nice way to end the song. Not really much to say. 3:45-4:22 Fuckin' wicked man, sick guitar solo skills. You could submit this section alone and get accepted. And posted. And shows. And groupies. And herpes. Overall I like this a lot. The Deadmau5 influence is quite obvious and its a fresh way to remix a video game song, which is what I like hearing. I also appreciate the fact you're keeping in the kick intro, dancefloor bruvs need more respect. I do feel like it has some rough edges which you were probably concerned about yourself, so get those smoothed out. I also feel like this song needs more substance to it, the main section only takes up 26.7% of the entire song, it should be at least 33%, preferably more. Its not that there's too much intro and outro, its that there's not enough of the main section, not enough steak. There's a double serving of mashed potatoes and a loaf of bread but only one rib. So yeah, not trying to sound negs because I like this remix a lot and I hope to see it posted, but stuff has got to be fixed.

QFT all around. I don't get why everyone was getting so angry at Soulja Boy.

Call me stupid I'd be willing to say that a fighter such as Virtua Fighter 4 or 5 takes more skill than SFII (no offense to SFII, in fact I may play HDRemix after this post). Also, despite its macho-ness GoW2 is one of the most intelligent plays I've seen on the shooter genre, emphasizing teamwork and cover rather than "who can get the rocket launcher first." Good strategy and shooting skill are evenly matched in that game.

Alright, more critiques: 1. All of the parts are easier to distinguish from each other, but unfortunately it sounds almost like the entire thing is under a low pass filter. Maybe its one of the breaks you took out but the entire thing sounds kinda muddy. 2. I like the random embellishments you made to various aspects of the melody (dropping out the beat and so on), however the whole has kind of a repetitive feel to it. You may be progressing through the song a bit to quickly, feel free to explore different parts of the source longer than the source itself does. Really those are my main critiques, work on the muddiness and try varynig up the arrangement a bit more. Don't feel the need to be going full throttle the entire ride, add a bit more tension and release throughout the thing. Try extending the 0:10-0:38 section more and letting the breakdown right after last longer and get a bit softer.

Thats cool. I disagree with you on the rapping part though, because if anything this mix proves that not everyone can rap (because I mos def cannot). This was the best of like, 15 takes and I still dislike hearing it. I still practice (privately I must add) fairly often because I love rap music as a whole and making rap beats (I have 20 that I'm shopping around). Still though, everything you said is as valid as everything else and I respect your kahunas to speak your mind.

http://www.tindeck.com/audio/my/fzqv/Neuro I haven't had a proper attempt at DnB for a while so this is the latest culmination of my efforts. I'm a little bit scared that I distorted my subs a bit too much but aside from that I like it.

Harsh critiques, my favorite type. I listen to way too much DnB so hopefully I should be able to help you. This is also based off of the newest posting. Bassline: + You have the general sound, which is good because thats the hardest part. - It lacks power though, most DnB relies on the bassline/reese to move the subs in the 20Hz-100Hz range, whereas the kick occupies the 100-200Hz range where it kicks a lot more. Now, this isn't a rule set in stone of course, and your kick sounds like its in the right place but I'm not feeling enough from the bass Drums: + For the most part they sound engineered well - WAY too hectic. You need to clean up all of your samples and get everything sounding more unified. Its hard to tell whats going on first listen because the drums are all over the place. The break most clearly heard around the 0:50 region may be the cause of this. Engineering: - This is the main problem with the track is that it doesn't sound clean. Most good DnB only has a few set pieces, but they play off each other in a convincing manner. Part of this (most of it actually) has to do with the overall mixdown but it also bears a lot of pressure on the arrangement. The drums are stealing the spotlight from the melody. Also, don't leave out the possiblity of playing only one or two components (like the melody and bassline) while having the hats doing a simple 8th note rhythm or something. Change up the way you are presenting the melody, rather than just changing the melody. Interpretation: + Honestly, I don't see any major problems with this as it is now. Its slightly coverish but not really, and this is such an intense reworking of it that I doubt it'll factor in too much. Hell, I got past the judges panel and I just changed the time signature and added a rap, so this should be fine in this area. I really like this though, and I love seeing more DnB that's not Pendulum-based entirely.

I know that but he just disappeared and reappeared out of nowhere making kick ass music.

Not really enough stuff has been done to justify its own WIP thread but here's an early sketch of a Metroid Fusion remix I'm working on. I apologize in advance if you had adverse feeling towards dubstep. http://www.tindeck.com/audio/my/kric/Metroid-Fusion-RMX

The whole loudness war arguments have their place but some tracks are meant to be LOUD, and this is one of this. There's nothing deep about this, if you're looking for something kick ass and loud then you found the right place. Loudness =/= bad, in fact it works quite nicely when accounting for a lack of depth. That said, this mix is beyond kick ass, where the hell did AE come from?

Congratulations. Does this mean zircon will be remixing all of the wedding music?

Way too much laughing at themselves...

Definitely a different piano sample. The under melody was played with a slightly modified Kontakt 2 piano and the melody was played with a more lo-fi Kontakt 2 piano sample (with extra bitcrushing for good measure). And I'm glad to see most people are enjoying it for the most part. I figured the rap would be hit or miss with people but I'm happy to see everyone grooving to the rest of the track. I don't have any more trip-hop WIPs but I may consider doing another based off of the reaction to this one (probably with less rapping tho).

How close to being done are we?

ITT it is revealed that judges are human, anarchy breaks loose. I didn't see a problem at all with BGC's comments. The judges aren't supposed to be some perfect deity whose opinions are fact. All the judges do is judge which songs are OCR-worthy or not. They're no different from you or I, they've just been doing this slightly longer and better. If you get your feelings hurt about a VIDEO GAME REMIX, then you need to distance yourself from your work more, especially considering that you didn't even do half of the work with coming up with a melody. You can't expect respect from every listener because none of them have the emotional attachment that you do.

Honestly, sounds like a coincidence to me. The melody isn't anything extraordinary nor is the progression. Its also suspicious that this is only being brought up now that its being nominated for a grammy, rather than when the song was released as a single and near the top of the charts.

She's actually fairly intelligent (albiet, a diva) and the song has a legitimate message behind it, which is that our nation (and others, surely) have the idea that immigrants (such as her) bring harm and malice to society. The chorus is sarcastic in nature.

Man thats a sweet song...

All I'm saying is that you can't listen to DnB (or electro-house for that matter) the same way as any other genre. Its not pretentious and I'm not trying to say, "you just don't understand," although I guess that could be inferred. I'm just saying that you can't listen to DnB the same way as rock music, just as you can't listen to punk music the same way as classical. And Pendulum's production values are very nice, but the more of them I listen to the more I realize how little depth there is to their music compared to, say, Sub Focus (who could easily be labeled as a Pendulum clone). I mean, Sub Focus is also rather shallow but if listened to quite closely, it is possible to tell that he's left a tiny little bit of character in his sounds as opposed to squashing them to death. Still, both have less traditional production values than a lot of other quality DnB. I don't mind Pendulum leaving DnB, but the sound they've developed is just bad. They're a bad DnB group and a bad rock group in one. If they were doing music just like they're Pack of Wolves remix, I'd be all over it (that is still a heavy tune), but they're not.