MojoHamster

Great performances, great composition. Kinda wish the judges had pulled this one back a for some fine tuning of the stereo balancing (not just talking about the hard panning, it's a bit wide and center in places and there's some acoustic inconsistency) It's a hard criticism to give, especially as total amateur with conductive hearing loss . No doubt the blending of styles probably ups the mixing degree of difficulty considerably.

You're not wrong. Such a great Hype track. Harmonies, Synth solos, Hip-hop, RnB, it's all there. They really save the best for last with the outro too. I recommend everyone at least give this track a listen.

Cool, it even has his rendition of Baby Be Mine. Stone Warrior is still one of my favourite all time remixes. My thoughts go out to Shnabs - not that I know him or anything. From one turtle to another. Probably

C64 is the enemy! I was a Sinclair Spectrum owning child! 10 PRINT "SPECTRUM RULEZ" 20 GOTO 10

I'd love to do a mix of Prelude of Light + Windfall island from TWW. I'd love it even more if someone good did that remix. Seeds planted.

Smells like Metallica VS Napster

So like, the arrangement is really good. The live instrumentation is well played. Transitions are good, no part sticks out like a sore thumb from one to the next. I hope there's always a place for a good arrangement/performance. After all, The 6th track on Nevermind was recorded on a 2nd hand acoustic guitar held in tune by duct tape. It's a shame about the furore since I've seen a couple great decisions that have picked out some amazing 'lo-fi' remixes. http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01991/ is another fine example.

Ok I've been back, made quite a few significant changes, so if anyone has anything to add before I submit, any feedback is gratefully accepted.

It's curious to consider a private key in the comparative context of 'someone's Brownie recipe'. If you were able to figure out the recipe by tasting it and discerning the ingredients, are you stealing it as though you took the page out of that person's recipe book. When does figuring out how someone does something become an 'immoral act of theft'. It's a fascinating philosophical question. PS I agree with a lot of what JackKieser says in this thread.

Well, if I was to give credit where it was due, I would at least have to concede that it drives marketing innovation and creativity. Similarly, statistical analysis has to evolve to account for the benefits of creative marketing. But in relation to the quality of video game production, absolutely. Indefinitely, perhaps not. Given that the 'profit motive' is rather demonstrably a component of Capitalism (admittedly, somewhat a vague word at best) then, I meant Capitalism, but I am assuredly educated by your use of term 'profit motive'. I'm really the internet equivalent of a drunken tramp shouting at a wall, but the example of Capitalism as a driving force for creativity is something I've been exposed to on numerous occasions. Finally, I boldly exclaim whilst paraphrasing Jon Stewart - "I disagree with Capitalism but I'm pretty sure I'm not Stalin."

When marketing is more lucrative than development in directing sales, the craft dies. If ever there was an argument against the foolish assumption that competition drives creativity, here it is, naked in the wind. Yes Capitalism, welcome to shrinkage. I'm glad someone with an audience is finally holding a microscope up to EA.

Hmm, I think you're right Roz. I'm tinkering a bit more, trying to get a little more source into the melody and a little more variance out of the lead. I'm switching to keys over guitar since I think keys are easier to humanize. I'd love to play myself but, I can't practice like I used to and it wont sound tight. Anyway, I'll post the last mix when I'm done tinkering. I spent some time humanising everything I could (being careful not to 'over-humanise'). It's quite subtle but just noticeable I think. I'm buoyed on because my mixes usually tend to stagnate at this point, but maybe I've learned a couple new things this time around.

Updated one last time, I feel like I've addressed some of the useful comments, it should sound much less compressed. The drums should now have a little more stereo quality. Also each instrument should have its place in the mix without too much overlap. I'm curious if anyone thinks it's worth submitting to the judging process or I should just bank the progress and look forward to my next project. Many thanks

Updated 11/02/11 (02/11/11 US date) with revamped version.

I really like it. The dynamics are really effective I think, it flows without ever feeling jarred. Which is surprisingly difficult, especially when rotating instruments, in my experience.

Thanks Rev, I appreciate the time you took to to consider my work. I tend to agree with your comments on production. In many ways the production ends up the way it has because I'm mostly trying to bury the terrible sound library I have to work with. The lead brass is buried almost out of shame I think. Although I also had problems with it since depending on the octave, it seems to get much louder. The compression in some places is just a lazy device I'm using while trying to address my issues with composition. I found a pretty cool free VST kit but the crash cymbals only really splash at max velocity so I just lazily compressed it to reign in the variance in volumes. First thing I'm gonna work on next is work on is the breakdown like you mentioned. I say the word lazy in there btw, but it's not quite as simple as that, I have a pretty bad case of M.E/CFS so it's more of a case of conserving energy since music composition is actually one of the more taxing things on the brain I find. Edit: Alt Breakdown version added

After the last remix I subbed getting turned down for not deviating enough from the original (Ref: ) I've been anxious to work on not making the same mistake with my next 'big remixing project'.This is something I've been working on for the past week to that end so far, and I invite brutal honesty upon my work for growth purposes, if nothing else. Certainly I'm focusing on the composition as opposed to the production in this instance. Thanks for any time spent deliberating Original Version : Remix : http://soundcloud.com/mojohamster/dune-sea *updated 02/03/2011

I've often wondered about game over-pricing (which in my opinion is far worse in the USA than it is in the UK where I live). "Rich people seem to be good at making decisions to keep them rich" is a sentence I can't get out of my head. Another potential benefit of lower prices would be a form of advertising - a more ubiquitous product is a form of free advertising. Either they are just pig-ignorant, or it is more efficient to lobby governments to help them control supply and demand and those day 1 full price sales are worth the trouble. Edit : PS @ The Damned, you're fighting assumption with assumption. Instead of patronising caps, you could either speculate or provide facts which prove your point and legitimise your arrogance.

^ This sentence hasn't ended.

I can see why C-jeff got the opening track. I have a real stink-eye for the 'chiptunes' genre as something of a synth setting *at times*. But this stuff is engaging and 'worth my time' (such an important commodity).

It's an interesting discussion that I've found to have gone full circle in certains section of the internet. For instance, it's difficult to point out that the voice acting *is* actually better in a particular series in the original Japanese without someone just calling you a hater or a weeabo. I do try to point out that, it's not just the quality of the acting that can ruin a dub. It's as much down to lifeless translations, a lack of input from the original director, or bad overdubbing/audio mixing that makes the voices sound completely out of place (eg no acoustics in a big room, lack of muffling due to weather conditions). An example of a voice that is *Acted* better for me is the Japanese Byakuya from Bleach. The Japanese VA just sounds brilliant, his depiction of a man from a noble family is spot on. When he talks it almost sounds as if he's disgusted he even has to explain things to other people. The dubs I've heard of films like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away are superb though.

I just played through the demo of shank which is super cool. But I'm *really* cheap atm and dunno if I want to a) buy a game which is about 3 hours for an average playthrough, spend too much money before the end of the week. It's interesting how much the Black Friday sensation has begun spilling over into the UK market.

This isn't really helpful but.. I love the remix. I also love SMB2 music.

Happy Birthday Shnabubula! (I don't know him, but love his work).

I really wanted this game to be good. Seems to have a dark MegaTen style vibe, and the protagonist isn't 12 in an RPG for once. I've always been on the edge of buying it.