MojoHamster

heh you're such a dick. I assure you my standards are 'fun-based' and not nostalgia based. I played the game again recently and the fun was still there. A good game lasts. The fact that I also enjoy more modern games as well (though made by different people) kinda blows that very shallow assumption out of the water. If you can't accept the matter of a difference in taste, then there's just no hope for you. There isn't a logical science that dictates what is better when it comes to art (I dare to use the word art when referring to games), it's purely subjective. You can hide behind a collective pro-noun to re-enforce your absurd argument all you wish. (PS I'm not about preface everything I say with 'In My Opinion' that part is the bit you get to assume.) (PPS Part of the reason OCR even exists is because people recognize that some brilliantly composed music was unfortunately released on very low quality sound systems. Appreciative of the quality and complexity of these arrangements, fans turned to modern technology to update and develop music they loved to try and give it the bigger audience it deserved. An orchestra doesn't make good music, a composer does. You lose. Thanks for playing. Winners Don't Use Drugs (except those made by American Pharmaceuticals that the government wants people to spend money on). Insert Coin(s).)

Why the need to sound so superior at all? Honestly I just haven't enjoyed any of the newer Tales battle systems as much as Tales of Phantasia. Same goes for the soundtrack. Should I be flamed because I feel this way? Am I not in the right clicke? Do I need to caress some egos to post on this forum, do let me know wont you? I think the fact that for the first Tales themed OCR Album half of it was dedicated to Tales of Phantasia tells you something about the quality of the music. Don't get me wrong I'm not a hater, I'm not trying to be in some cool retro 'Phantasia r00lz the rest suck' clicke. I'm not actually 12. Probably the single worst thing about the Tales of the Abyss battle system, aside the messy button spamming nature of it (It doesn't know if it's an action RPG or a Turn based one very well - and a good action RPG doesn't need load a battlefield for each fight), the worst thing is the load time especially post battle compared with the amount of time you spend fighting in many scenarios. It feels entirely grating when you want to grind a little exp out. A lot of people hate on FF12 but you got a whole level full of enemies with no loading till you changed zone. In this respect Tales of the Abyss being a late PS2 title is really lagging behind the competition. Ok they might not have the same budget but they will by now know how to get the right juice out of the console. Undoubtedly there is some ambition and individuality in the Tales battle system but I feel like they've lost focus and a lot of the playability of previous ones. For me fighting thru the battle arena level on Phantasia is something that just hasn't been touched in the Destiny games or anything else. (PS For anyone wondering why those scenes where the character faces come up aren't voice acted. it's simply because they were not 'vocally' translated. If you obtain the Undub version you can hear them vocalized in Japanese - by what is often a better quality of voice actor anyway. Again have to praise FF12, it was probably one of the first English to Japanese voice acting translations that actually didn't suck. I loved FFX but I wanted to shoot Tidus by the end. In the Undub version Tidus is played by the same voice actor who voice Kurosaki Ichigo in Bleach. Much better!)

I realise I'm chiming this quite late into the thread, but I just wanted to ask. What is it people think is so cool about the Tales of the Abyss battle system. I loved Tales of Phantasia on the SNES, that battle system really blew my mind and it felt really good to play. I was all excited about Tales of the Abyss since it has some of my favourite Japanese voice actors in it (yer, I got the undub). But the Battle system just seemed very quick and messy to me. Nothing satisfying about it. Tales has consistently disappointed me compared with the SNES version tbh. Music, Gameplay, Story (Altho the wittyness in Phantasia may or may not have something to do with Dejap's translation) Edit:- I'm just gonna add on to that. Rogue Galaxy, the premise of the game, the voice acting and animation is awesome. Again for me it suffers from a horrendous battle system. In tougher areas your companions will act stupidly and require a ton of healing. And half the time you hit 1 hp so fast you barely know that it's happened. The game promised so much for me since it resembled the combat style of Bleach Blade Battlers 1 & 2 (great PS2 games but you need to be able to play imports and use GameFAQs guides to read menus) but also being inside an RPG. RPG have to remember that, your battle system is the thing your players are likely to spend the largest amount of time using so it has to be the most important thing.

I wonder if anything comes under 'fair usage'..

You guys should hit those dudes up. Mostly because I want to guitar hero to Norg's 'Harden The Duck Up'.

They should do a Tales of Phantasia remake, while holding onto the Snes battle system. So the Tales staff can remember what it was to make a fun battle system where you didn't spend 75% of each encounter loading into it and loading out to the world map again. Then the OCR peeps can redo that soundtrack ~

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SBKOpFVggr8 vs http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4GYu02FrcAw

I approve of this message, I'm just used to forums that don't appreciate choice language

I think it's great that all the guys off OCR have got themselves a 'foot-in-the-door' on CGMusic composition. Can't be a bad thing to have on the CV/Resume. Also it really shows the strength crop of talent that has come out of this community that their work is good enough for professional games companies. I think there's so much to take out of doing something like this besides re-numeration, although I'm sure all are worthy of it. I haven't heard a lot of great original CG soundtracks of late so can only hope that a lot of the great composers out of this site, who understand the canon of CGMusic and the importance of the link between it and what's happening on screen, end up scoring actual games in the future. PS Sixto nailed the *expletive* out of Ken's Stage.

I just noticed recently, that Guile Stage music from Street Fighter 2 is severely ripped off from this cheesy song called 'Mighty Wings' from the Top Gun sound track. On the other side of things, sometimes when I'm listening to stuff it feels like VG music is very much in the subconscious minds of a lot of people who write music today. Like there's this song by The Stills called Snow In California where the post-chorus has an arpeggio from Chrono Trigger. Or this Swedish group I'm listening to called Dungen have some bass from the NES version of Double Dragon 2 in their song "Mina damer och fasaner" Ok that might not mean much to a lot of people, but throw the thread open a bit, what sort of crossovers have you guys heard? Parts of songs you swore you heard in some VG music or vice versa.

thanks for the comments, and I agree with everything that's been said. I just recently purchased a Line 6 Pod and it's taking a bit of time to work towards the sound I want. I crave that sort of tone that cuts the sound spectrum like knife. Not too grainy, not too bassy, but just on the cusp of busting a speaker without losing audible quality. There's 2 Rhythm guitar tracks at the moment. One is straight down the middle and the other is panned 100% right. The lead guitar I have on Left 25%. Regarding the snare and the other guy's comments, finding a good drum soundfont has been a difficulty for me for a while. Most I download I find the volume is a bit off or you get a couple good samples, a couple bad. I've tried mixing and matching but often I get to that point of ear saturation where you can't tell what's good or bad anymore. Seems like I will just have to keep trying and not give up on that score. Thanks again everyone, appreciate your time.

Technodrome Elevator Hi there I'm just posting this initial recording of a couple of sections of this composition I'm working on, mainly to get some production feedback more than anything. Not from a stylistic point of view, basically I want to know if it's on the track to sounding good enough to be accepted. Obviously it's going to need more development, variations, breaks and such. I'd just kinda like to know if I pour some heart and soul into it, it'll stand a chance of getting on the site. Usually, I just write music to please myself, but I have a seekrit ambition to one day have a remix on OCR that I'm fixin' to be fulfilling. Disclaimer: The lead guitar track sounds a little out of time because I'm having some Full Duplex syncing issues with Cool Edit Pro 2 atm (may be time for a change).

I'd hope so. With the least offense possible. You hear some of those, crystal clear production house/rave/techno remixes of songs that almost sound like someone hit the demo button on the keyboard that get on the site. The production isn't perfect on this, but it has some personality. Never let personality die! I agree with the guy who said it was a bit too long. Also where it ends on the main TMNT theme, that'd be cool to use as an extended part because it's a really good 'fade out' choice, to do some mad solos over and such...but ok...I'm writing my own song there.. But actually I think what got me really excited when the main theme came in, is that it's introduced really softly. I think that's maybe what might allow this remix to last 6 minutes and remain engaging. Some sparsity in the build up. There are build-ups and transitional elements, and some really well done like the 3.5-4 min area. The piece is very hard and constant on the drums all the way through, a few stops here and there, where you re-piece together the layers to give the ears a chance to breathe would really make this mix kick ass. But you know, that's one man's opinion, so don't take it 'too' seriously

I think it depends what you want to do with the drums, what effect you're after. Initially when I was listening to this track, I thought it sounded like something that might well be twinned with a more orchestral sort of percussion. Towards the end though, I realized that actually the tempo is constant throughout so perhaps the more dance based rhythm reflects that. If you were aiming for your drums to sounds like random bubbles of sound bleeding through a sort of, sonic abyss for a brief moment, before bleeding out, if you get me... Then it's likely you achieved what you set out to do. Your arrangement definitely seems to go through modes that focus on different instruments. Personally, I still have trouble getting percussion to do exactly what I want it to. My best advice would be to listen to some of your favourite songs, but in particular, that one bit of the song that really hooks you in. At which point, note what it is about the percussion that adds to that part and that feeling. You kinda basically, just have to rip people off...to a point. That's what all writers are doing. Derivation is key. To quote J Robbins, "Kill all the copyrights and loosen my tongue!". Also failing that, and being slightly pretentious, you can also paint with your percussion. Try to reflect the emotion the rest of the instruments are aiming for at that point in the music. Beyond that percussion is very effective in signaling transitional elements too. I apologize if that sounded like verbal diarrhea. Good luck! PS. Your Ride Cymbal sound was really nice once released from the phase effect.

I'd love to hear someone do 'Neon Night Riders'.

The Turtles in Time soundtrack in my opinion, is one of the greatest game soundtracks there has ever been. If you're looking for emotional poignancy, forget it. It's not even attempted though. What is done well however, is fun and intricate music. Intricacy and fun sounding music is probably not the easiest thing to achieve either. This remix does the original great justice and I would love to hear more remixes of what is an awesome soundtrack.

This is definately one of my favourites of what has been my favourite OCR compilation so far. JJT is my favourite OC composer too anyway. Once again it's refreshing to hear the acoustic guitar when it comes in sound like it could be someone sitting next to me playing it rather than super-human production creation. JJT's music is great in that it is both explorative and challenging while being engaging at the same time. Many complicated compositions often get too attached to being challenging to the point where they become endless dissonant hooks devoid of emotion. This is not the case here. Can't wait to hear what's next.

ever since my obsession with the Chrono trigger OST begun, I have been waiting for *this* remix..

Sublime. Thank you for making this! Please make many more!

The track is full of a total air of competence that I think dispels any myth the imperfect tuning is careless. I think even if it was I wouldn't care. This remix sets an example to any would-be remixer that no amount of production and tuning can save a poorly composed and unchallenging remix. The guitars remind me very much of 'The Microphones' (See : The Glow pt2). And whichever judge it was said the time irregularity sounded awkward towards the end. GOOD! Formula is the death of music.

I'd look a up a blues scale, that's a good place to start. e|-0-(3)-(5) b|-0-3--- g|-0-2-3- d|-0-2--- a|-0-1-2- e|-0-3--- All those notes there are in the E Blues scale, so if the song was in the key of E you could noodle around on them notes to make a solo. Also you can move this scale up several frets for different keys, for instance:- e|-5----- b|-5-8--- g|-5-7-8- d|-5-7--- a|-5-6-7- e|-5-8--- Also with the E blues scale you can move it up an octave for a high sounding solo e|-12- b|-12-15- g|-12-14-15- d|-12-14- a|-12-13-14- e|-12-15- And lastly here's a couple of common solo noodles to start you off. e|---------- b|-------12- g|-------12- d|-12h14---- a|---------- e|---------- h = hammer on e|------- b|-12---- g|-14b16- d|------- a|------- e|------- b = bend e|------------- b|-14b16-12---- g|-14b16-12---- d|----------14- a|------------- e|------------- e|-15p12------- b|-------15p12- g|------------- d|------------- a|------------- e|------------- p = pull offs Btw, to give your solos constancy, it can help to return to the root note at the start of a phrase. The root note corresponds to the key of the song. I.E if the song is in the key of E, you might want to come back to an E note when the song goes back to a E chord/E bass note.

I used to have very cheap way of gettin a pretty thick and ungrainy guitar sound a while back. I had a Guitar wire jacked Microphone wire. I ran it into an old 8 band EQ guitar pedal I had lying around (some cheesy piece of junk, then ran a wire straight out of the pedal and into my PC. Yeah it's not ideal. But if you have something like that lying around it's cool. And make sure you have a mic stand for recording amps because otherwise you get all kinds of bad noise. I'm still not convinced by emulation software. Guitar Rig 2 you really have to wrestle with. I've heard a lot of praise for the Line 6 Pod which is a hardware modellor, I don't know what people around here think.

Yes! More DD2 pls. Rock on!

I'm just posting to share a simple trick with the Fruityloops Slayer plugin I stumbled across the other day. There's actually a way to add some character to the POWER Rock setting, I imagine this works on some others too. What you want to do is clone the channel, then on the second version of the channel back the dampening dial off to around 30%. Then place what would be your palm muted chords on the dampened channel. (Palm muting is what gives distorted guitar that chug chug sound on a real guitar). Listen to this short sequence, the first part is without the Palm muting and the usual dull sound then listen to it as it develops. http://hometown.aol.co.uk/LordDavias/thefinalact2.mp3 (right click and save as)

Don't listen to the haters man. Some of us like to hear something a little different. Not every song should need to fit a 'Perfect Pop Outline' imo. Would love to know your influences, can hear some awesome styles in there. Edit: Forgot to mention, this is the best mix I've heard on OC so far. I'm not a fan of overproduction, I think the idea of what actually sounds real gets lost on some folks and what they think sounds real is some crystal clear abomination of the truth.