Bahamut

Don't forget, if you want to be with the OCR block and you reserved a room (has to be under your name), go ahead and put OCR in the form!

How grimy - such a tactic does not deserve to be rewarded.

I should also add that if you need me to pass along a question to their SS, I'm more than happy to do so.

Damn, I envy you - I want to do 20+ pullups pretty bad, and I'm only up to 12. Had to go from 220the a year ago with 0 pullups.

I would love to go, but unfortunately this weekend is my drill weekend

So I was wondering - how would everyone be up for a day of being dressed up? Perhaps the first night (Thursday) there & come in in style?

Blasphemy, Descartes was brilliant!

Feel free to post wish lists if you want to give some ideas for the giftees.

And the PMs are out! Have fun with the gift hunting! Do take pictures if you can!

Alright, I randomized the numbers and matched people up - PMs will be going out tomorrow morning! I found the most amusing thing is that somehow it tried to match Ashamee & Nekofrog with giving to Brushfire again - I had to veto that to give someone else a shot at Mr. Hubbard.

As strange as it sounds, that's a restriction on the creative liberty of an album director though!

But an album for the community doesn't have to stick to a singular formula - that would be uninteresting to me at least quite frankly. The variety of methods on how things are done keeps things fresh. For example, as much as I'd like it at times, I don't think I would like every album to be directed by me . Sure, you'd be assured of a certain quality barometer, but there will always be things that people will complain about in how I run things I'm sure. Who is to say someone else can't do it better, or even more artsy - I absolutely love how prophetik handled Threshold with Link's Awakening, and it probably would've taken me a while to decide to approach an album like that. It stands unique on OCR, and it had some heavy genre restrictions (which WillRock is bothered with to this day ). This notion of a "community album" sounds like a personal fantasy of how an album for the community should be done, and that's fine if that's how you want to approach things, but I disagree with restricting how they're done in that respect.

The problem with such an approach is that it can punish some hard endeavors by others, or cause some drama from an arbitrary vote deciding what gets placed on an album. It's harder to control the end product when you have a myriad of people involved with such an approach, and there's little guarantee that people would want to be involved with such an approach where they aren't guaranteed that the final release will be coherent or have a quality level they desire & want to associate their name with. There's a lot of people in the community that have a variety of views on this subject - I've heard a lot of calls for there to be more coherency with the albums via concepts or genres. I've seen some that want variety of genres, and others express indifference as well. The only thing I can say is that it's up to an album director to choose how he/she wants to approach an album. Same with regular mixes. If an artist gets inspiration or wants a challenge, they'll do things their way, and as a consumer you have to accept that. Whether you like things that way is a personal preference. I have a friend who's not so much a fan of OCR because he prefers covers. It's just the way it is.

One more bump - this is the last day for signing up!

A little short, but nice!

Didn't you point this out during Katsucon? That name is befitting then I guess.

Airborne is Army.

Bumping this up - two days left!

And here are my round 4 reviews! Brandon Strader feat. Rexy - Liquid Metal Whoa, this was unexpected. The vocals are mixed a little too far in front of everything else I feel. The song could use some more changing up in its pacing to make it something even more special. The ending sucks. halc feat. WillRock - Satch Man And here we have something that I expect more of when I hear something from halc. This starts out with a nice R&B flair, making use of those chiptunes to near perfection. I can't really complain about this track much, if at all. Sir NutS - Cold Dreams Is that intentional dissonance I hear there? This song sort of cruises along. For a cold dream, the song moves along at a steady pace. The song does a pretty good job at maintaining its atmosphere. Main Finger - I didn't have enough time to make this song The Song The title sort of says it all - the song is much too short . It's interesting how similar it is to Sir NutS's song, although this uses some different devices to achieve a similar effect. Lidawg - Passing of the Knight The guitar recording isn't as crisp as it could be - it sounds too muted. The guitar playing is a bit rough in areas too. For how the arrangement is framed, this song is too short. Xarnax42 - Electrostatic The song starts out on the thin side, and it continues being thin throughout. It needs more instrumentation to help fill out the frequency spectrum. The arrangement doesn't really hold my interest well - it needs to do more than rely on some of the gimmicky sounds. AMT - The Death of Mr. X Well this time AMT and Lidawg both decide to do something different from each other at least . This more mellow take is pretty solid, although I wish the arrangement does something that's more ear catching. Several areas of the song felt weird to me, like around 1:15. The bass sits strangely overall somehow - I think that has to do with the arrangement. The song manages to intrigue me for the second half though. Jason Covenant - Dayquil, Nyquil The song is on the loud side - it makes the mid-lows sound weird for my crappy laptop speakers when I leave it at the normal volume level. The song itself is pretty solid though, I like how the arrangement goes for the most part. Zerothemaster feat. Amphibious - I Dreamt of a Man With Two Heads Lot of people taking the dreamy/spacey approach in this round. The mixing is off here - that one effect is way louder than the rest of the song. The song seems to have some strange notes with the arrangement. This is notably better than the previous entry. I think it could be condensed some to stronger effect, although what's there isn't bad. That ambient synth/instrument needs to be out more in front though, it needs to be closer to the action to really bring out the dreamy quality it has. Definitely dig this. Benjamin Briggs - Copperhead Drumstep And here's the chip complement to halc - chth trying to outdo halc's previous effort? This has a more happy chip sound mixing in with the wubs...I don't feel it though, it doesn't seem to go well together IMO. SuperiorX feat. Phonetic Hero - Smooth Operator I don't really like the jazzy complement to the lead synth in the background - it doesn't mesh too well here. There's a synth that's not quite the lead that is put in the front of everything else - not too fond of how it is used in the song, at least around the 2:00 to 2:30 mark. Chernabogue - ZERO to ROBO What an...intriguing arrangement. The song seems too short as it is though. That lead synth sounds too far out in front to me. Thanks to all who've participated in this round! Now time to figure out my votes...

You should've gotten an email link - you're allowed to download 20 copies of each as far as I can tell.

How could I forget that - that game was a childhood favorite of mine, well ahead of its time. Amazing game with amazing music.

There's only a few days left, get in on the game!

This song is certainly peaceful. It elicits a nice calming mood from me when I least expected it. C418 does a great job with subtly bringing the background instruments in and out to enhance what would otherwise be a not so fancy piano performance. There is a slight bit of sloppiness in the piano playing, but otherwise everything works nicely. Even with that flaw the song works quite well and I love this piece despite not being familiar with the source.

Pretty sweet track by Jeff - my only real complaint is that I feel some of it could have been slimmed down a bit, but otherwise I like what is done with the song. It maintains a creepy atmosphere but then lays down some mellow beats and sets a smooth pace.

This mix is certainly on acid. There's a heavy dose of Smash Bros. samples here that I'm surprised that Dave didn't catch. I have a tough time figuring out how I feel about the mix - perhaps I'll post more on the future on it, it really is a tough cookie, although it does bring some amusement to my face and makes for a perfect random song to play.