The Legendary Zoltan

If I had a Chrono Trigger Arrangement to offer I'd let you use it, but I don't so I can't. I'm a big fan of your project. I can't wait until it's finished and I'm REALLY impressed that Square knows and doesn't seem to mind. KICK ASS! If I didn't live in Japan, I'd totally come see your reading!

Oh dude, it's not the fact that it's going from minor to major. Tensei san was just trying to say that G Major is crazy. I'll give you some examples of good keys that you can go to. Assuming that Tensei san is right about this being in Bb minor (It's the same thing as A# minor), then a few good major ones would be Bb major, Gb major, Db major, Ab major. These are keys that are "good" to move to from Bb minor according to music theory. However, I sometimes don't think about that when I make a song. Unfortunately, I don't think you know what changing the key of a song entails. If that's the case, then I can only give you one of those annoyingly vague, "professional-sounding" lines like, "Use your ears." But I hate that line, so I'll give you a little cheat sheet that you MIGHT find useful. Key Signatures: Bb minor = 5 flats Bb major = 2 flats Ab major = 4 flats Db major = 5 flats Gb major = 6 flats If you change the key signature to one of those and move the song so that the first note starts on the name of the key (for example, Db major starts on Db) then you will have changed keys. Successfully? I don't know. Hahaha. Do any of you guys know if I made any mistakes in those?

WHOA! What the heck is this? This looks cool! So this is like a bunch of signature-creating artists who take requests? Does that mean that I can request a signature be made for me, too?

Let me be the first to say that, while being able appreciate this as a professional piece of music, I think this song really boring. Hahaha. I noticed that the guy said that he used a TON of stuff for this mix, which I can hear when I listen to it. However, I've slowly come to prefer mixes that say something like, "I'm gonna use this and this to make a [genre name] remix." I'm sure everybody's gonna be like, "WHATEVER!" But the first thing that comes to mind, (Although, I'll say this one is way more interesting) is The Last Samurai Soundtrack. Since that movie was considered a fairly big deal, when I watched this movie, I payed some extra attention to the music and realized that this music would be SO boring to listen to on its own. That's kind of the feel I get from this remix. I guess I could have easily summed all that up by simply saying that I don't dig the whole "soundtrack feel." Then again, I'm sure this was the guy's goal, so kudos to that.

Hmmmm. The overall sound is pretty in my opinion. Then again, I'm a production n00b and others MIGHT disagree. The idea that you have here is good too, I think. I'm not so familiar with the theme near the end, but I do know the first 3 minutes pretty well. I think you need to change this up quite a bit because the way it stands now, this is VERY similar to the original. And the main part of that theme is repeated a lot of times. More than is needed, my friend. The only other thing that I feel needs work is the "texture." You've got a lot of instances of just a bass or a sustained piano chord on the bottom with the melody on top. I think you could do some good by making the bass part busier, adding some arpeggios to played by a different instrument, AND definitely more variation on the melody. I'll summarize my ideas: less repeats of the main melody that's used in that entire first half of the song, add much more variation to that melody, and make the texture a bit more interesting by making some instruments busier or adding things like arpeggios or and maybe the OCCASIONAL unorthodox drum beat or fill. Good luck man! You can do it!

The link always says, "System busy"

I don't think the singer sounds bad, personally. Also, I have no idea why Tensei san thinks that chord is so horrible. It makes enough sense to me. Tweek, those notes that you're hearing are basically all directly from Schala's theme man. I think it's just so hard to recognize because he's got them coming in at a very odd kind of tempo. Not just the whole thing slowed down, but the timing of notes has been totally rearranged. I personally, think it's a cool idea and I can totally hear the theme in there. The thing is, this isn't really supposed to be a melodic piece. The original was VERY melodic and Hoboka (Where DID you come up with that name?) has ripped that melody to shreds to make it ambient instead. I dig it. Fix the clipping though. Also that high pitch bass thingy sounds too loud and somewhat out of place. I don't know what advice to offer for that except maybe making it a bit quieter and maybe putting it down an octave.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bTeYzewzo1o Check out this music video of Every Little Thing. Can you please tell me what the name of that kind of synth is that's used for the solo at 0:12? I need a sound like that one for the R&B song that's in my head.

Well, all I can say is that Norway is filled with tons of viking-esque, Death Metal loving, lucky sons of biatches. Hahahaaaa!

"Ray The Flying Squirrel and Mighty the Armadillo?" You GOT to be kidding me! HAHAHA!

Waaaahahahaa! I don't like that source tune either. But hey, to each their own.

The last thing I want to buy is a big fancy studio, thanks.

I always thought it was something like a saw wave too, but I just figured that it was some kind of special preset that only comes on the keyboard that they bought.

Hahahaa! Yeah, that's what I'M talking about. I wanna hear what this crap is too.

I like this whole god damn thing man! Especially that part starting at 0:51! I live for stuff like that. I SORT of agree with OA. I think a goal would do this piece a bit of good. On the other hand, I like ALL the parts, so I think just a rearrangement of them with and added "grand build-up" sort of thing would be good. If it were me, I'd like to leave it as is up to 1:40 and then insert something kind of grand and build-uppy. Then the part at 1:40 would be a nice continuation point and it goes back down to a quiet section after that so it would be kinda like a sine wave of sections. I think breaking up the parts like that would make this song easier to understand. I think adding in something totally new to the section at 2:58 would be neat. Like a very noticeable drum beat or something. And then it could drop back out again at 3:39. Then morph the part from 3:39 into the build-uppy thing from before, only this time it's twice as long and twice as build-uppy! Oh HELL yeah! Anyway, that's just what I would do. You can do whatever you want, man. I don't care. Hahaha. I really like this piece you've got, though.

I tried all of your links and none of them worked.

I don't know what you're talking about man. I've also improvised over chords and I've NEVER used a lick in my entire life. In fact, I don't even know what a lick is. What the heck is that thing? Dude, don't give up, please. If you've got the technique AND can improvise, then I think you can definitely do this! I think the simplest way for you to at least get some kind of song written would be for you to just write a chord progression first and then try a bunch of improvisations and just keep the stuff that you like. That method may not get you the kind of song you want though. Another thing that I basically do every time now is, after choosing the topic I want to write a song about (it doesn't matter if it's instrumental or not), I just imagine that it's a movie and imagine the music as the BGM for that movie. And then try to figure out what's in my head on my guitar. I hope one of these two methods helps out. Let me know how it goes. Just DON'T GIVE UP!

OK. Now for a real reply. Suzumebachi, please PM me your email address for the midi. Legion, if you ask for it, then you shall receive, but can't your sequencer be used to manipulate two midi tracks separately? You know, I would just have to cut the bass out of the mix and paste it into a new project and then save them both as midis. Are you not able to do that? I'll go ahead and send them to you, anyway cause I like you. Hahaha. Tensei, it's not that I feel like I have to have the perfect master copy of Amon Amarth, but I don't feel like this song needs string parts in it. The guitars are harmonizing like ALL the time in this song. I don't want to take any attention away from those guitars. And besides, I know that Sixto was just experimenting to see how stuff sounded because he's cool and stuff, but if I WERE gonna put string parts in it, I'd definitely want them to be something more complicated than sustained chords.

Don't have time to do a serious post right now, so I'll just say, "Suzumebachi, PM me your email address and I'll send it to you." ^________________________^

HAHAHAHAAAAA! This is nuts dude! Sixto, you are one crazy mofo. Hahaha! I don't know if the strings look is exactly what I'm going for, although they do add an interesting change in atmosphere. I should have told you all from the beginning the band that I'm sort of trying to emulate. That band is Amon Amarth. The song God's of War Arise is a perfect example of the sound that I like. Here's a video. http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q0XcZAuTZNM (Lord of the Rings movie spoilers) It's even got that two guitar tremolo picking harmony thing in it like I did in this remix. It doesn't have any harmonized solos in it though. Another one you can check out is Valhall Awaits Me. One thing I KINDA care about with your original drum sounds Sixto, is that I kinda miss the "having 6 crash cymbals" thing. Legion, I like what I hear in your version of simple changes so far. I don't know what you did besides add reverb to the vocals, but it sounds nice. Thank you.

Yeah, how do you contact the random winner? All I did was answer the six questions and then I was at a "survey monkey" screen. I hope I can still win the album.

Rising Force, it kind of blows me away that the only guitarist you REALLY seem to dig on is Yngwie. If you like classical style shredding and good song writing check this out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFYhZ8vMpRU This is Rhapsody of Fire. The guitarist/composer is called Luca Turilli. He doesn't ALWAYS use the same scales, he writes fully orchestrated freaking HUGE complex songs, and I swear the dude, just DOESN'T seem to make mistakes. He plays every insane sweep and tremolo picked solo note for note in his songs, just like the CD with 100% accuracy. Blows my mind. Anyway, what do you think of that? He shreds a lot and it fits into the solo perfectly. I wish I had a video of his 3 or 4 minute insane solo from the last song on their fifth album. I think you would LOVE that.

I just sent you the drum and bass midi by email. Let me know if you didn't receive it. Dude, did you speed this up... like, a LOT? HAhahahAHA! It's funny dude! My voice is way higher and everything. LOL!

It's my pleasure dude. Often times remixes get posted in this WIP thread and they don't get ANY useful feedback. After a specific comment I heard from the judges, I decided that I had better start listening and commenting as much as I can on more WIPs. HOPEFULLY someone will post another comment soon.

DUDE! It's so nuts how these two mixes are SOOOOO different sounding. I GUESS it's ok if I make minimal comments on the works in progress. Maybe just the one thing that stands out to me the most. Fray. I dig the flange. I think maybe you might of used it too much. You applied it to the entire track right? I think it sounds pretty good on the low death voices but not so much the higher ones. I think it sounds PERFECT on the spoken word sections, though! Sixto. I think your drum sounds definitely sound better than mine, although I think it's ALL extremely trebly. I know it's a work in progress though. Especially all those cymbals. They ring out ALL over the place. hahaha. Both of you. Heavier bass drum. Thanks guys. I'm totally stoked about these samples. I can't wait to hear the final versions and also hear something from the other 3 guys.