avaris

Awesome for this song is a nice blend of the intro song from Akira and the Berserk Soundtrack...which are two of the best Anime OST's ever IMO. :33 for the woodblock sound, def gives off a similar vibe to the Akira intro song. Ethnic percussion kicks ass! The pacing and sound choices are excellent. Thank god the song wasn't squished with a maximizer, it would have killed the ambience. Def one of my favorite Anso tracks right up there with the BoF IV track.

What this dude said. Now go make some more music damnit!

I was expecting this song to blow up full blast right from the start but was pleasantly surprised by the ambient intro. The piano bits right before the synth had some nice audio debauchery. I really enjoyed this one for it's energy and dynamics. It never fell victim to the wall o' sound syndrome. This one is on the playlist!

Spot on. This mix was killer from the first WIP about a year ago. Gregg really has an awesome style that provides a lot of energy and emotion for his mixes. The low piano hits in the intro really set the mood for the song. Loved the leads throughout, they cut through the soundscape without being too overbearing. AWESOME STUFF!

Funky Butt Loving that graphic looks awesome!

Ah man the more I listen to this the more I love it. It has a very strong emotional character. I only wish the string parts were played live...that would have been killer. I still think the string samples used fit the emotional quality of the mix. Def worth the wait for hearing this one.

Friggin sweet yo! Congrats.

Van is one of the main characters from one of my favorite anime's of all time Escaflowne. The show and movie def have my favorite soundtracks of all time as well. Yoko Kanno and Hajime Mizoguchi are fuckin awesome.

Ah this was one of the first OCRemixes I ever heard. Really brought me back to the world of BoF and still does the same today. I think this mix is an excellent showing of how much potential VHD has as an arranger. It has all of his trademark excellent writing. Although his newer arrangements show some big improvements in areas this mix still does not dissapoint. I would have liked to see some more epic climactic sections to capitilize on the militaristic feel of the song.

Pre-Ordering mine as soon as I get home from work. Loving alot of the samples so far; Bipolar and Danse Macabre are stand outs so far with some bitchin synth leads. EDIT: Downtown sounds like good porno musikz.

A lil more movement in the background before the drums come in for the intro would be a nice touch. The instrument for the first melody sounds pretty cool and goes with the theme but sounds a lil too plain. Would work really well if there was a section immediately following that had a grittier more in face instrument for the melody layered in. The organ was an excellent choice when introduced. Overall the mix has a lot goin for it. While it is fairly atmospheric the wall of sound syndrome starts to take affect later on in the song. More filter sweeps and movement in the background would work wonders. It would be wicked for the DnB drums to be more syncopated with the rest of the song. For things to really click. Using sections where things feel a little "heightened" and climactic, even ever so slightly, would help smooth out the arrangement. I'm not saying to make some big orchestral breakout, but just some harsher tones and layering to help the give the soundscape a little more variation. This is really an awesome idea and I am digging it for the most part. BUT it needs to be kicked up a knotch. Some more ear candy that will let the listener wanna hit rewind. Or even some more surreal ambience stuff to help the listener melt away into the song. Glad seeing you back around these parts dude!

Damn lots of good points made. Overall the most consistent thing said is that #ocrwip is friggin sweet...fo realz. Frankly the best way to get feedback on a song is in realtime IMO. It's much easier to develop a meaningful discussion in real-time than to try and post back and forth on the forums. If anything the "Grand Rexy" award should be implemented. The "Pro-Reviewer" distinction would help people to distinguish bad/good feedback. But zircon's and fishy's points pretty much shot that down in a hurry. If someone is honest enough with their own music they should be able to tell when someone's general feedback is good or complete shite. There really is no clear cut easy way to improve the situation besides people taking it upon themselves to improve the situation. Frankly if there was a better way it would have been implemented already.

This is always a good topic to talk about. My 2 cents... The most important part regardless of skill level for both the remixer and reviewer is honesty. As a reviewer even if you don't know the technical terms at least try to explain the problems in simple terms. Chances are the remixer themselves might not know the technical terms either. As a remixer it's important IMO to be honest about your music. Recognize what's good and what is not. You should be your best critic, it will help you develop faster in the long run. For instance listen to your mix and then compare to either a similar professional song or a posted remix you like and see what the differences are. Those differences are what you need to improve on. As far as reviewing WIPs an RPG system would be cool. Or some type of WIP moderator. Or approved WIP Reviewer. Another system would be for people to "approve" or "dissaprove" of a review. Although that system can be abused very easily. There are plenty of people who are not "Overclocked Remixer"'s who are awesome at reviewing songs. Something to let people know that these dudes know what they are talking about would be helpful to many musicians looking for some good advice.

This track took me a couple listens to get into initially. But after a couple of listens it has stuck with me these past couple of months since the VotL release. While it lacks a kick ass melody there is so much detail and work put into establishing the atmosphere that you can listen to the track several times and still pick up new things. In terms of paying homage to the game itself this one friggin rocks. It puts me back into the world of FFVII and reminds me of the some of the dark and cold landscapes of the game. The highlight of this one was def the sound design. All of the dark industrial sounds compliment each other well to paint an awesome sonic picture. Always loved it when the choir and/or piano came in at the right moments to add a natural acoustic touch to the mix. Awesome work dudes.

I'm in the process of moving. My roomate had surgery so basically I have to move everything. I'll also have to reload a bunch of old software to open up the project file. Expect my Wav sometime next week.

Thanks dudes and dudette! Enjoy the free time.

Congrats on your 2nd mix dude. OA always surprises me bc he is one of the few musicians I know that can write that kinda warm and fuzzy feeling stuff. The strings in this are def the highlight for me, excellent usage and execution.

Ah nice this is actually a really good idea even though it wasn't planned to be an album with tons of guest appearances. Can't wait to hear some sound previews.

What this dude said.

I think the mix has lots of good points but also has some areas to improve on. First and foremost is the panning and stereo field. There is good placement of sounds from front to back, but left to right things are very centered. The most appararent sounds on the far left and right are the low frequencies from the percussion. That tends to make the mix muddy and overpowers the low-mid frequencies where all of those sweet ambient freqs reside. From an arrangement standpoint you establish a really relaxing groove in the intro which is def cool, but then it dissapears due to the production on the drums once everything kicks in. The drums also feel a lil bit overcompressed. I like the big sound but it is a lil much. This is really apparent at 1:46. There is just strings, a huge buzzy lead, and tons of really LOUD percussion. That section kinda falls victim to the wall of sound syndrome. The bass synth is def cool. But lower the sustain on it. There is alot going on in the low end here so things need to be nice and clean. Some more swelling pads throughout with a large stereo image would go really nice. Def go check out the Deepflight Demo Refill from Pink Noise Studios. It's Roland D50 samples, there is some stuff in there that would go perfect with this mix. The steel drum in the intro could use some more drastic changes in the velocity to give a lil bit more of a humanized feel. Maybe some small ping-pong delay too. You could set the delay to a send and then run a band pass filter after it sweeping the filter cut-off. I think you got lots of good sounds here. The problem is finding a balance between the BIG harsh sounds and the small soft sounds. Some more cool lil production tricks would be pretty awesome as well. Some more harmonies playing off of the strings panned hard left and right would def spruce up things as well.

Awesome. The string work and chord progression are the highlights for me along with the intro.

Haha loved alot of the points made here. The subtle comparison of FFX to FFX-2 was priceless.

There are 4 tracks open? Japan, England, India, and Ending/Credits. My offer still stands if anyone wants to arrange a track I will do all of the instrumentation, beats, and mastering.

If you are wanting to focus on one versatile synth that def narrows the list down. Albino3 Zebra2 Absynth Blue Rapture Out of those 5 IMO Absynth is prob the hardest the wrap your head around, with Rapture coming in a close second. The big thing to remember that while all 5 are extremely versatile they all have a slightly different sound. They are all extremely flexible when it comes to their oscillators or available sound sources (you can load wav files in Rapture or Absynth). I own Albino3, Blue, and Absyth. I never use Absynth because it is a pain in the ass to program and I don't care for it's sound. My fav is Albino3 for many reasons. It's easy to program, sits well in a mix, and EXTREMELY versatile. You can have up to 16 oscillators in one patch. Adjustable unison on every OSC too. I really like Blue but it has a very buttery digital sound to it. It doesn't always go with every type of song. It also is a lil too fat. It sounds VERY big and doesn't always lend itself to really simple sounds that sit well in a mix. But if you want big fat digital sounds for dance music holy crap is it awesome. Both Blue and Albino3 come with almost 2000 factory presets made by Rob Papen. (one of the best preset designers EVER) Zebra2 is an incredible synth and one I really wished I liked. It is def the most versatile synth on the market. I have demoed it a bunch of times, but it just never clicked with me. It probably has the cleanest sound out of any synth. It def sit in almost any mix. It easily has the BEST collection of 3rd party patches. Frankly I would demo Albino3 and Zebra2 and see which one clicks. Two others I didn't mention are z3ta+ and Toxic Biohazard.

For a good value in terms of sounds/price/quality/functionality it is really hard to beat Wusikstation. Freeware: (there are def more good freeware out there!) RGC:Audio Triangle2 SuperwaveP8 Crystal Helix Some easy to use payware synths: (lower in price) ReFX Vanguard Linplug Alpha3 Tone2 Firebird+ ConcreteFX Kubik Image-Line Toxic Biohazard Cakewalk z3ta+ (PC only, prob will never be updated again) (harder to program) Anything by GForce (vintage synth emulations) Some more advanced payware: (expensive) Linplug Albino3 (made with Rob Papen) u-he Zebra2 Rob Papen Predator LinPlug CronoX3 LennarDigital Sylenth1 Vember Audio Surge (these can be a bit harder to program) Anything by Arturia (vintage synth emulations) Anything by Native Instuments Rob Papen Blue Image-Line Sytrus Image-Line Morphine Tone2 Gladiator (the UI is HUGE and if you don't have a big monitor you will run outta screen space) More importantly what type of sound are you looking for? Every synth has it's own unique character that lends well itself well to different artists.