Tensei

Minor update, mostly in terms of mixing. Some multiband compression on the drums worked well enough, made the cymbals less prominent in the mid-range and more sizzly (which should pull away the attention from the fakiness a bit). Re-recorded Lead Guitars but not the guitar solo. Also, I know a lot of the instruments sound fake, but putting on more reverb is NOT an option. As I have it now, adding more reverb to pretty much anything would make the whole mix all that much more muddier. General suggestions on the mixing and mastering are still very welcome!

Hah, you won't understand the lyrics, but I think you can get a good feeling for the beat, I tried to find some songs with english vocals, but there's no real noteworthy ones :/ (this song was actually remarkably relevant, the first thing he says is "Everything's Urban, I miss the basic hiphop shit", he also supposedly made the ) (Ignore or skip the intro ) (FYI their name means " Today's youth" or "Contemporary Youth" )Also: This thread is now about hiphop

Yah, Outkast can get annoying if you've heard it too often, but nevertheless I really consider them to be pretty much the pinnacle of what's being played on commercial radio (not that that's saying much). It's too bad I really have next to zero knowledge of the non-mainstream stuff, I have heard some of it and it was very good. I think one of the groups was called Jedi Mind Tricks. =/ I do admit mainstream hiphop and rap in the US is pretty much stagnant. Now if you could understand Dutch hiphop that'd be a whole other story

From the oldies I suggest , Public Enemy, possibly if you don't mind the proto-gangsta-rap lyrics. From the newer hiphop groups I can only really think of Outkast. I don't listen to hiphop very often, but I have heard some amazing contemporary underground stuff on youtube, I'm sure someone around here has a decent knowledge of the underground hiphop scene and can suggest some artists. Also http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01424/If you didn't like anything of that, I give up, you're a lost cause indeed

Rap is NOT retarded, no matter whether you're talking about it as a genre or as a musical technique, there is a good side to it, you just haven't been exposed to it. That'd be like saying Rock is retarded because all they do is make whiney three-chord songs. Judging a whole musical genre based on the stuff you see on MTV is the only thing that's retarded here. Try actually listening to what is considered good rap/hiphop before you make generalizations like that. Edit: Also, Red Mage FTW!

Oh so he's ripped off Chrono Trigger because he uses something that sounds like the midi-strings from Chrono Trigger to play a totally different melody? I think the sample is from a completely unrelated song to boot :/

What part did he sample? The chord progression has a vaguely similar feeling to it, but in terms of instrumentation the string part is the only thing that sounds even remotely close to the Chrono Trigger song, and it most definitely plays a different melody, so it's not sampled. Do more research next time. Edit: To keep in line with the thread, there's and bad sampling. Just like lightning-fast shredded guitar solo's can be good or bad. This goes for pretty much every musical technique and it's application, IMO it's stupid and narrow-minded to say that sampling is an outright bad thing.

I don't get it, I only hear a pretty decent Jay-Z song, what has that to do with Chrono Trigger? :/

Hell yeah! Awesome work by both Zircon and the guys at the label

If I may add a suggestion (I know shit about breakbeats and DnB so bear with me and just say it if I'm suggesting stupid things ), I'd say that besides the loading up of different snare samples so you can put accents where you want them and have a less intrusive sample hit whenever you don't (convoluted sentence, I know), you should vary the amount of times the snare appears within the beat. I think that everything was pretty fine until you got back to the descending synth pattern from the intro; somehow that section seems to me like it was intended as a sort of 'breather' after the intensity of the previous section, however this idea was kind of brought down by the fact that the drums stayed as busy as before and didn't change at all. I think it would help to tone down the rapid firing drums a bit by removing some less essential parts of the beat to give it a less busy feeling, that way you can give the whole mix a feeling of dynamicism, and the intensive sections will feel twice as intensive because of the contrast with the mellower ones. Whew, sorry for my shitty grammar, but I'm really tired and it's starting to show on my foreign language skills, I hope I got the point across

Um doesn't this belong in Remixing? The way they're processed is more important than the samples themselves I think. The big booming kick pretty obviously is ran through some extreme Scream 4 setting (If it really is from Reason). I think you can get close to a lot of the effects by experimenting a bit with saturation, distortion and bit crushers etc.

I'm pretty sure that it takes the frequency range of a sound file (usually recorded voice), and applies it to another channel as an effect. There should be some way to load up a .wav file into the vocoder or through the vocoder (I think you can find how to do that in the sonar help file), and after that apply it as an effect to the channel you want.

I didn't! I have only very recently borrowed it from someone, and it's pretty easy to learn for someone who plays guitar. I'll have a look at that song and see if I can play it

I thought I made the distinction clear enough when I ninja-edited 'mainstream' in before 'trance'. I would never go as far as to say any genre of music is shallow in its entirety, and I agree whole-heartedly with you that there is enough techno out there that's well worth listening to by itself, I really do my best to like every possible musical genre.

Maybe you should look up the word 'hypothetical' in the dictionary, or maybe it hasn't been mentioned enough, so it kind of got by you. Anyway, they won't shut down OCR.

Actually, you have to hear mainstream trance (and most club music) in the proper context to really 'get' it. Proper context meaning heavily inebriated in a packed club with dimmed lights and lots of special effects. The 'repetitiveness' quickly becomes one of the main merits then, in a club you really only need the beats to keep you going.

Well okay, you have a valid point, but it seems unlikely to happen indeed. I think fan-made non-commercial remixes are actually giving the games more exposure, rather then taking away revenue that would come from official arrangements, since those aren't even that common anyway. With people like Mr. Soule himself supporting this site I think the industry agrees with me on that (even though yes, I know, Jeremy Soule isn't exactly the same as company execs).

Looks like we're excluded from this purely hypothetical situation then.

If by 'sad' you mean 'funny in a sadistic way' then I agree whole-heartedly. Oh and I wasn't planning on using my remixes as a base for my originals, I mean, come on, I have more inspiration than that, it really was just purely hypothetical.

Ooh by the way, I couldn't find the live-performer thread in the project forums, but I got my hands on a (lefty) bass so I can lay down some wicked basslines now. The REALLY fast stuff I'll have to do with a pick, but I can achieve some decent speed with fingers and I can do some (simple) slapping as well. So anyone who needs a live bass knows where to find me, right?

Fair enough, links removed. I don't have a specific concept in mind for either of the options, but something may still come to mind in the future when the whole thing gets started up. I don't want to have a project that uses style or mood restrictions (such as Chrono Symphonic did) because as it is, it would probably be hard to attract good mixers, let alone if I'd only want mixers who are skilled in a certain genre. A vague concept idea I have for the Banjo-Kazooie project might be that the remixed tracks have to move through different instrumentations and styles, possibly changing key etc. to depict different moods like the original songs did, but I don't have any specifics worked out on that. Some of the tracks of the P:T OST tend to be 'too' ambient or copy one of the main motifs from other tracks, so in total I'm guessing you'd end up with 20-25 workable tracks which seems like a reasonable premise. The Banjo-Kazooie OST really has only 17 truly distinct tracks, so I guess that yes, it'd be covering the whole OST.

First, before I get jumped by everyone, read this: Yes, I know this is definitely not the time, with all the remix projects going on. Therefore I will not be starting a remix project in the near future, I will wait until at least the Xenogears project is done. Second of all, I know I'm pretty much a nobody around here, with no posted remixes (yet), but I'm definitely confident in my skills, and I do know quite a few people here. Relax, (AFAIK) I will not be hogging up 'high-priority'-games (FF etc.) that someone else wanted to do. Oh, and to the jdgfgts, the link to the Site Project Guidelines is dead, so if I am doing something wrong just say so, and please don't lock this thread right away. With that out of the way, let's get to the purpose of this thread. Even though it might seem quite redundant at this early point, I really need to have some information on the viability of the project's subject OST. I have to choose between two games that I picked based on personal experiences, very low coverage on OCR but high popularity among gamers, and of course for having amazing soundtracks. My first choice would be none other than Planescape: Torment. If you're a PC gamer you should know this game, and pretty much have played it to death. IMO it trumphs EVERY other RPG in the story department, and it has an amazing ethnic/ambient soundtrack that's VERY different from other Black Isle RPG's (which are pretty much your run of the mill epic sounding orchestral music). The use of leitmotifs for every character and location is very obvious and should make it easy for remixers because of the defined melodies. My issues with this game are it's limited exposure among non-pc gamers, who seem to make up a substantial amount of the OCR demographic. In an ideal world I'd love to only have remixers who have actually played the game remix it, but realistically seen that's barely possible. A pre is that I know pretty much everything about this game, so I should be able to provide the mixers with a good amount of 'lore' for use as stylistical and lyrical material (explanations of characters etc.). I think I'll let the soundtrack speak for itself: is a great example of one of the character's leitmotifs.The whole OST has the cool amount of 34 tracks, which seems like a near-perfect amount for a standard-sized remixing project (Of course some of the more ambient tracks would have to be dropped). As a second option, I have picked the no-less amazing Banjo & Kazooie I'm confident more than enough mixers know and love this game and it's quirky and unique soundtrack. Even moreso than the previous option is there the use of leitmotifs for the different levels and characters. I was especially fond of the music changing stylistically but not melodically whenever you ventured to a new location within a level (For example in the desert level the fast-paced mid-eastern flavoured track would suddenly become bombastic and monumental as you scaled the Sphinx), and I'd love to see this element come back in some form in the project. On one hand, this stylistical flexibility might make it seem like a breeze to remix, but my biggest issue with this soundtrack is the prevalence of its melodies, no matter what you do to them. If you take one of the melodies, you speed it up/slow it down, transpose it to minor and add different instruments, you get the boss music. Pretty much whatever you do, it will always sound like Banjo-Kazooie. The instrumentation in the OST is varied enough, but somehow, at least to me, every song's melody/phrasing/harmony/progression seems to be in line with the other songs on the OST. I'd go as far as to say that the OST actually isn't varied enough to warrant a remix project, and this might very well be the case because of the minute amount of remixes from this game. Then again, I'm very ambiguous on this game, and it could turn out amazing as well. 17 tracks seems sparce, but this doesn't necessarily have to be that big of a remix project, I'd say it's more of a pro than a con, especially since all the tracks are such a 'world unto themself'. If necessary (given enough remixer interest, which is rarely the case) we could add the tracks of Banjo-Tooie too. Now what I'd like to know from everyone who has read my long explanation is; which one of these projects would you more likely join? I'm personally very biased towards Planescape:Torment, and I'd absolutely LOVE to see some amazing remixes come from that OST, but if there simply aren't enough mixers who have even heard of this game that plan will definitely fail. Therefore, Banjo-Kazooie seems more in line with the other remix projects, and is pretty sure to attract enough talented people to it's cause. So please post your opinions.

If you're going to re-upload, try www.tindeck.com, at least you don't have to wade through that whole waiting process to download it.

Hah, so I still haven't had a definitive answer on this. OCR is not a recording company or anything, so I don't think what you described could in fact happen, I just wasn't entirely sure to what degree your material belongs to OCR after you submit it, but the content policy does seem to have an answer on this. I think that means it is legal, but I still don't think I'd do it unless I was really desperate to have a song/tune/piece/track done in an extremely short time-span.

I was actually mostly referring to 'ripping off' one of your own remixes, i.e. most instruments in the commercial release would sound exactly the same as your remix, except they would all play (mostly) original melodies. I was unsure about this because I thought I had read somewhere that by submitting a remix you're basically giving OCR a certain degree of 'ownership' over your mix, but that might just have been a figment of my imagination I guess...