MojoHamster

\m/ (horns)

Many thanks for the suggestions. I quite like the hat sound in Level 99s latest WIP, some great sizzle on the open hat. Guess I'll submerge myself in all the audible demos I can find featuring those products. I got a Line 6 UX1 recently so I'm itching to get some good all rounding recordings going. Nice to have an interface with zero noise.

I'm looking for a decent Drum plugin with a balance of ease of use alongside customisation. The demos of EZDrummer I've seen look good since it seems to do a little auto humanizing of its own. Seems like you could punch in a basic rhythm and it wouldn't be stale and robotic. Obviously, I'm not swimming in cash so I'd ask the experts if there's anything cheaper or better. My dream world would be a good plugin that did both real kit and electronic kit sounds to a high quality (I'm basically looking to ditch the hours I spend tweaking bad samples, I like to make my own patterns so prefer not to use loops)

I really enjoyed TGO episodes when he first started. But it might seem like there's some form of journalism going on here, but assuredly there's no journalism going on here. There's a little serendipity in anything. But Sony managed to create the first viable and ubiquitous CD console, which is no small achievement. Sega at the time were an experienced console company who failed twice to bring in CD technology. While the Saturn is technically pretty competitive with the PS1, certain hardware issues raised the cost per unit which didn't help them alot. Anyway, I'm doing a short job here, we already discussed it to death on Screwattack. Suffice it to say, there's objective journalism, and then there's making a statement and cherry picking 'facts' that seem to support that statement.

Love it. The production sounds great when it's fleshed out towards the end too. I'd be kinda excited to hear someone put some vocals over this, not that it's necessary, just a personal indulgence.

This is a classic waiting to happen. A bit of tightening up on the drum/vocal production and it's on the gravy train. The performances are all pretty legit. *Prays this pops up on Youtube with a cool video by Christmas*

I quite enjoyed this piece. I subscribed to your Youtube page so hopefully I can hear the HQ recording. I felt there was just enough suspense in trying to guess what the next chord in the progression might be to keep it interesting. I do love the arpeggios from The Deceased Laugh too. Well, I enjoy the FFX soundtrack immensely. From my somewhat amateurish point of view I would say the most important thing to concentrate on when you come to record this is the dynamics and thus expression. Nothing felt too jagged or forced in that initial recording and it needs to stay that way. Ultimately the challenge when trying to show quality in a piece with a lengthy and more basically arranged section in the middle is to show that you have purpose.

Greetings, Must of been a very long time ago I posted my initial version of this remix. I have CFS/M.E so I tend to work pretty slow and will assume the initial thread I made is dead at this juncture. Since I work slowly, I'm possibly virtually sick of this remix by now, but, probably by virtue of dragging myself through the mud I may of learned a thing or two. http://soundcloud.com/mojohamster/mojohamster-peculiar-dayfall Thanks for any of your precious time spent aurally sampling my mediocrity that 'twas born from a hundred hours.

Here's an upload of what I'm working on. The download seems to be working, though not sure the stream is live yet. http://soundcloud.com/mojohamster/sakura-mankai

Wow some great responses in this thread, I'll look up some hosting and upload what I'm work. Thanks all, given me plenty of inspiration. (I'm recently new to 'making space in the frequency range).

I'm working on several remixes at the moment, and something I'm getting really frustrated with is mastering the bass. It's quite easy to please your ears with a Bass sound (melodic bass as opposed to drum) using headphones. However when I shift to speakers it tends to sound like a mess. I'm looking for a great sound that has a balance of driving low end with melodic definition that doesn't over-power the other instruments. I've got Chorus and Compression on it atm, but perhaps could use a few pointers especially in the direction of EQing or even perhaps the types of bass sound that are best to work with. Thanks to anyone for taking the time to look this over.

Yeah, this is pretty awesome. Nice to hear a different style of shredding on OCRemix that's for sure. I agree with the comment about the compression though. It almost seems like it's a tonal compression (possibly Multi-band) that ignores the low end and buries the palm-mutes somewhat. Usually you don't need compression on distorted guitars since they have a natural compression from the effect. But I mean, it's nitpicking at the end of the day, still a very solid remix.

I kinda love this piece. I'm glad despite differences of opinion, the judges panel functions to let something like this through. The samples don't bother me one iota frankly. Anyone who has tried and failed at remixing a lot (like most of us starting out) and are slightly poor for buying good samples, hit various brick walls. The thing is with this, the dynamics are treated so expertly I find it genuinely touching. I'm sure there's a lot of budding remixers who only in their wildest dreams could come up with such an awesome arrangement. If there's any cross over to the original midi nylon guitar, it works as a nostalgic call back to the original as much as anything. This remix for the most part hints at the source through tonics. It's only when the notes of the bridge from the original are picked you feel a strong link with the source. To sum up. If something like this ever gets rejected, it would be criminal. Also to be clear, this remix kicks the complete ass out of many, many remixes with 'better' samples. I wont say 'better production values', since, the production value here is HUGE. PS. Ziwtra, do you ever listen to My Blood Valentine? This reminds me somewhat of their style in places.

Hasn't been a Metal Man remix posted for several years so it's nice to see it getting some attention again. It's really underrated next to the ubiquitous tracks like Dr Wily's Stage. I'm glad the judges let the synth through as well, I think the most important thing is musical development.

Thanks for your comments Heh I actually thought Youtube might work easier but I guess some people prefer an offline copy. It's interesting you mentioning the drums, I have been trying some new humanising techniques like ghosting some of the snare hits. Some of the rolls are a bit flat. I think I obsessed with the drums a little too much and they ended up too high in the mix. Partly desperation to get a punchy sound as well. I really hug the source on what might be considered 'the chorus' (my music theory is a bit weak, I could blather on about Sonata, Exposition, Re-capitulation and such but..there are gaps..). I'm kinda obsessed with that part. I complete re-wrote bass for the verse at least (apart from following the tonics) and came up with a lead for it. I feel like, there's a brick wall with remixing and I definitely need to smash through it to make this decent.

EX1&2 are two of my favourite way under-remixed OSTs. So I'm attempting one myself. More than anything I'm concerned with some of my transitions (Chorus to Bridge). I've spent a lot of time on it recently so my ears are kinda saturated / brain fried so any ideas to take back to it next time would be gratefully received. Many thanks if you took the time to take a listen

It looks like people have been over-thinking this remix, looking at the post archive. I can certainly agree with statements like 'production isn't everything'. But this remix does exactly what it sets out to do and does it very well. It will live long as an MP3 on my hard-drive. Don't skip it just cos you scan read a few bad comments. That would be your loss.

The guitar sounds like it was recorded in one of Dexter's kill rooms. No mess left behind. The best bits about this remix is the harmonized guitar part some time after the 2 minute mark (makes me dream of FF7 NES). Also when you played with the Rhythm of the FF7 battle music (Was that syncopated?) that was awesome. Those two moments were the 'boner' moments for me, would like to have heard some call backs to those points. But way better than anything I can do, and a subjective opinion on my part.

"I wasn't always just Cut-man you know! I used to tend the gardens at the hospital, and grew beautiful flowers to inspire patients back to health. They used to come back after they got better to say thanks, and I'd get free oil. The people loved me, and I loved them. But then Dr Wily forced me to do bad, otherwise....*sniff*...otherwise he said he'd kill all my patients. Please Megaman, let me live, I'll do good from now on, I'll stand u..." Megaman says. "Sry guy, need cut to beet elecman lol. kthxbainao!" Good remix. It made think the above.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUEO9Mfmn4M Not OCR, but awesome all the same.

There's some stuff you can pull off with M&K you simply just can't with a controller. The whole thing is more fluid and immersive too, like 'you're pointing the gun'. A pro M&K FPSer can easily have access to 5 mouse buttons plus using wsad to move you've got Q and E in easy access, a lot of people use R for reload. X,C Space, tab, ctrl, shift are all easy to get to without ever looking down really. So there's no button shortage. It's a shame there aren't a lot of cross platform tourneys with their control styles listed. I get the feeling the old school counter strike junkies would rape console FPSers into the ground.

Nothing short of genius. If I made Mario games I'd want to find a level in which to use this music for the next release. It sounds so alive and the instruments sound breath-taking.

I loved the Gambit system! My only gripe was that I couldn't design even more intricate gambits and was restricted to what the game gave me. Although I played Everquest for about 4 years which has some of the most intricate PvE dynamics going. But one man's chocolate is another man's....well... I'm glad you enjoyed the battle system, personally I don't factor in the encounter system when talking about it (especially as the encounter system was top notch as I mentioned). I think just after you've played thru CT, FF7, FF8, Chrono Cross, FF9 if you did and FF10 you may possibly start to see the limitations of the traditional turn based combat system. FF10 really did a good job of it, although Chrono Trigger still stands out for its multi-techs. Crono has a few techs that really exploit certain battlefield positions too which is something other games lack. (a well timed 'slash' is a montage of pwntage) I got spoilt by intricate 54 player online raiding and such probably. If by chance you don't like MMOs then logically, you will dislike FF12. I find there's several tedious elements in it like chests with a 0.01% chance of giving you the rare item you want. Hours of loading slowish loading zones on a PS2 repeatedly just to get some crappy spear is beyond the pale. (yes I got the Spear by avoiding the chests on my 2nd play and didn't bother waiting for that chest the first time either - cue Masamune + Genji Gloves) I expect that from an MMO cos I'm paying a monthly sub and they have to make you re-use content.

My thoughts on why CT was and is an awesome game:- Combination - No part of the game was lacking. Gameplay - check, storyline - check, music - check, some of the best artwork seen on the snes - check. The non-linear storyline and the replay value of NewGame+ were pretty unseen at the time too. I mean, a game where you can beat it with the main character dead or not. To kill Magus or not...(I killed him the first time, I was a vengeful Frog! *ducks) I certainly think the Music and Story of Chrono Trigger will remain quite timeless. If you look throughout history, good books and good music tend to stand the test of time better than some other things. Without a doubt the Battle system of Chrono Trigger will age badly when considered out of context. Game mechanics are constantly evolving for the 'Aging RPG Consumer'. As developers introduce us to ever more intricate and interesting combat systems those of the past become rudimentary. When Final Fantasy 13 arrives I imagine it will look back at Chrono Trigger as Chrono Trigger would of looked at text based adventures. You know the ones. "You're in a dark room." Your options are , [bACKWARDS] and [DENNIS]. (poor Thy Dungeonman rip-off by me). So I do hope if they ever do a big scale remake of CT they completely rework the battle system. One thing I find did stand the test of time in CT is the way you come across battles. It was refreshing that they did away with those annoying random encounter screens. An important part of any RPG is immersion and I always found the screen suddenly flashing and your party being teleported to a different screen counter to that. I actually played CT I think...1999 or 2000. It was definitely after I had played Final Fantasy 8 (I will probably be forever hated for being one of those rare people who favoured 8 over 7 - there's usually someone with a superiority complex around here waiting to pounce). Despite my immense enjoyment of FF8, it really did not dampen what was to become a love affair with CT. To be honest I think that it's a compliment that you say even now that CT is a really good game even by today's standards. A lot of retrogaming, I pick up for a couple games and dump it as the aged rubbish that it is. I wasted a lot of money in Double Dragon as a kid but...one time thru to machine gun willy has done the job as an adult. Also Super Double Dragon 4 for the Snes has waay cooler moves (like 28 per character!) Ultimately what everyone is saying is, Chrono Trigger is in the Canon of Gaming Literature. It should always be judged in its context. All games that follow it will draw from it. It has undoubtedly inspired this and future generations of RPGs to come.

When SquareEnix finally runs out of Handheld Consoles to re-release Chrono Trigger on and we're onto 17th Generation console graphics and they finally decide to do a full remake of Chrono Trigger. This should be the battle theme.