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MojoHamster

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Posts posted by MojoHamster

  1. 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 :huh:. No doubt the blending of styles probably ups the mixing degree of difficulty considerably.

  2. On 14/08/2016 at 7:06 PM, nitrozsz said:

    1. Garrett Williamson, Yungtown - Main Theme of Apex 2016 - Super Smash Bros. "APEX"
    Source: "Character Select"
    Original Composer: Hirokazu Ando

    This track raises the bar for how competition events, let alone albums inspired by competition events should start. The introduction was flawless, and the rest of the track puts you in the mood where you oughta be for competition events.

    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.

  3. 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.

  4. I disagree to a certain extent, actually. Certain fundamental things, like drivers, cpu service code, and BIOS-style things should be made open for public knowledge and tinkering. Other things, such as their interface, should only have a moderately open policy. There is a line that needs to be drawn between openness and giving stuff away, it's just that right now some "hackers" are fighting for what they morally should have access to, while other "hackers" are trying to access stuff they do not. Things, like the private key, do not belong in the hands of the public. Having the ability to run a Linux kernel that has access to all 8 cores and the gpu is something that should.

    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.

  5. You're talking about the profit motive, right? That profit isn't a good driving force for innovation / creativity?

    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."

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. 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

  9. 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

  10. 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

  11. I'm actually kind of sad they didn't give the two arguments against piracy that I feel are the most pressing:

    1 ) Developers need to make more compelling software... and no, just because 2010 had ME2, a CoD, a Halo, and RDR, that does NOT mean that we're putting out quality titles. The ENTIRE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY, across all consoles + PCs (without iDevices) released 1224 games in 2010. Note: that includes multi-console releases (ME2 coming out on 360 and PC counts as 2 releases)... but even taking that into consideration, over 1200 games were released in 2010, and how many of them mattered? How many of them sold? How many of them were even GOOD?

    Hint: If you didn't know that many games were even released, then the answer is "very few".

    Instead of studios sinking money into all of this shovelware (I cringe to think about how many of those games were Wii trash titles), how about NOT MAKING ALL OF THAT CRAP. Make less games, and make them ALL BETTER. How about only releasing 500, or 300 games total between all consoles, and using all that saved money to make those 300-500 games all AAA titles? If all of those games were must-have games, you'd be selling more. Which brings me to...

    2 ) Make the games cheaper. No economist ever teaches this, but lower prices == more sales. If you raise prices, your profit per unit goes up, sure, but you sell less of them, so it doesn't matter anyway. That's how you cause inflation and kill economies. Lower prices means more people CAN buy your product, meaning you'll sell more and offset that lower cost. High costs will never break their ceiling of potential buyers, but low cost items can (and usually do) oversell estimations. You know, part of why I impulse buy gum and not video games is because an impulsive purchase of gum only sets me back 50 cents... and impulse buy of a video game sets me back 50$. I only impulse buy games 10$ or less, if even that. So, lower the cost of your games, and get more people to buy them.

    Honestly, most people wouldn't pirate games if they didn't feel persecuted in the first place. No one WANTS to steal. People steal because they feel like they're getting a raw deal and want to stick it to the man. Don't fuck over your customers, and you won't have rampant piracy.

    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.

  12. 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.

  13. 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, B) 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.

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