abg

This show was really epic! I like how Armin was joking that to top this one, for ep500 they'd have to party on the moon

Just want to say that I find this subject fascinating and I've been following this thread since post 1, as this is something I've thought about a lot myself. I'd share my own views but they're complicated and would require way too much text (a mistake I've made in these forums once already ). I would like to say though that basically what it all comes down to is context. In the real world, each social situation you find yourself in has its own context and you behave differently depending on that context. The internet has a different context too, which is actually very impersonal because you're not actually with anyone when you're communicating online. I think it's because of this impersonality that websites like twitter and facebook are able to thrive- it takes no effort at all to read a small blip of text or a status update to see what's happening in people's lives. These websites are used to share personal information in the most impersonal way imaginable... I mean, facebook just gives you a bigass list of what your friends have been doing, it just draws information from a database and puts it in front of you. I'm not trying to say genuine personal communication is impossible online, but it's not what these social networking sites are trying to crack it up to be. Text-chat and voice-chat programs are far more personal, but they will never be a substitute for real human interaction. Websites like Facebook are best used to supplement your social life, not to define it (obviously). Edit: On the subject of employers checking facebook, I have a few problems with this. For starters, there are certain questions that employers are not allowed to ask in an interview (for good reason) that they could investigate on your personal webpage. Questions like, for example, what are your religious beliefs? Employers are not supposed to hire based on this sort of personal information, but if this information is readily available online, what's to stop them from reading it and making decisions based on it? What if your facebook is private and "friends only"? Surely there's nothing wrong with this practice, but who's to say your employer won't assume this means you are "secretive" and therefore an undesirable employee? Obviously this is a bit of a stretch but who's to say this hasn't or never will happen? I don't have any answers, only questions...

You could try the , although my understanding is that this is a 3-ring fix, not a 2-ring. Still, it seems to be a (temporary) solution so look into it if you like. If it makes things worse though, well, don't shoot the messenger! Worst case scenario, it's time to pick up an Arcade, and the newer ones are purported to not overheat as much.Also just to clarify Microsoft covers the 3ROD for 3 years but everything else only gets the one year coverage.

I would've had no idea so thanks for posting this! I'll be tuned in till the bitter end

I didn't realize you were involved in game design? This preview looks pretty cool, make sure to keep us updated on it

Feel free to use any of my remixes that would make for enjoyable step files... I've got a few on here, and there's others at the link in my sig! Come to think of it, why would anyone say No to having their remixes in a rhythm game?

If you're using a vst with a Unison knob, give that a twist. Unison emulates additional oscillators and twisting the knob will allow you to detune them all in, well, unison. For the best results, apply a little bit of unison and a little bit of chorus or flanger (or even both if that's what you fancy).

Oh hell yes!

To respond to the original post, I'd have to say there are two different kinds of hardcore gamer. There are the hardcore gamers who absolutely have to own all the latest new release games in their genre of choice, and have been playing these kinds games for so long that they quickly excel at every new title. Like the hardcore FPS gamers, or the hardcore RPG players, who take their gaming accomplishments as a point of pride and tend to surround themselves primarly with other hardcore gamers. I'd have to say most of the online gaming communities out there are filled with this kind of hardcore gamer. Then there's the hardcore gamers who are more what I would call "gaming enthusiasts". They've been playing a variety of games since the Commodore 64 and are interested in playing the greatest games in each genre but aren't so adamant at pwning at every single one of them. These gamers are hardcore about games as a form of entertainment, rather than being hardcore about being an awesome gamer. I'd have to say I used to be the first kind of hardcore gamer, but lately I fit more into the latter category.

This, and the (so far japan-only) remake of Resident Evil for Wii are more than I could ever have hoped for. Wii's image is starting to do that much needed 180 (pretty slowly, at that).

Looks like someone forgot to pay their hosting bills I can buy it for you for now, before someone else gets it. Then when you're ready I can sell it back... for a "premium"

If you have Image-Line's "Ogun" (metallic synth vst) it can create similar sounds. The presets "Bellish 5", "Bellish 8", "Bellish 9" and "Bowl" sound a bit similar to the sounds you're describing. Just make sure to layer 'em with lots of reverb.

I've heard of this kind of device that you can get installed in your guitar that basically detects the frequency the strings are resonating at, and translates those frequencies to MIDI values so you can control synthesizers and romplers with a conventional, stringed guitar. The only guitarist I can think of off hand who uses this thing is Al Di Meola, he'll play his acoustic and also have a marimba patch loaded, for example, to add character to the sound. I don't know if this is what Daft Punk used exactly, but you could probably accomplish something similar this way. Hell, if anyone knows what this device is called, you should let me know.

Such an awesome song! Thinking about the guitar tone, it sounds pretty complex. I'm not an expert on gutiar effects chains but I think this is roughly whats happening: 1) Wah pedal 2) Overdrive (For brightness) 3) Small room reverb 4) All run through a phaser Oh, and of course as with all guitar solos, 5) Chops Someone else might have a better ear for it though.

This thread is lacking in zyko. Here's one to get you started: Seiken Densetsu 3 - At First Innocence (you should probably just go to his page and download em all)

I realize the only (good) reason you (staff) don't want to implement genre identifcation is because you want users to experience a variety of different kinds of music. Well.. (aside from the fact that this isnt what average people want) I just had an idea that could enable this in an especially powerful way. Playlists! It's a rough brainstormed idea but why not allow judges, remixers and users to post playlists of music? With the press of a button several songs could be queued up in some sort of browser-embedded player (or otherwise) that could explore many styles of remixes, without requiring the user to do any extra work. Surely there are people in this community who would appreciate how the unique quality of a playlist influences the listeners' mood and allows them to expose themselves to new kinds of music that would otherwise meet the fastforward key. Just a thought, I'll let everyone else take it from there..

I'm surprised to see links in this thread to djp floating the idea of genre tagging around. This is such a good thing! I'd like to extrapolate on why this is a good thing to encourage the people working here to implement it If genre-tagging is implemented it will make it easier for users to find remixes they want to hear, and therefore they will download more remixes. A new (pay attention to the word "new" here) user who downloads a remix they don't like is less likely to come back to this website. Each time they find content they don't want they are more likely to close the browser window. On the flipside, if OCR offered genre identification, a new user would be able to quickly locate a large selection of remixes that they will probably enjoy. Then, and here's the beauty of it, it's very plausible that the user will realize that there are remixes in dozens of other genres here too, and when they feel up to it, they will choose to explore those genres as well. Giving the user the ability to find exactly what they're looking for is the guiding principle of webdesign because it means that user will have a positive experience with the website and will likely come back to browse it again. Obviously I'm not talking about the hardcore, anything goes, super-avid video game music fans who listen to everything that gets uploaded here. They're going to keep doing that irregardless. I'm talking about making the website easier to use for newcomers, which (in light of the increased publicity/exposure OCR has gotten lately) must be coming here in bigger numbers than ever before. Something else that's worth considering- the way OCR is designed right now, when a remix is posted on the front page, that is when it is going to get the most exposure and therefore the most downloads. After it disappears off the front page, it vanishes into this "vault" of thousands of alphabetized remixes where basically you have to hope a user will stumble across it in their search for remixes from a specific game. If OCR were to implement genre tags, suddenly those thousands of back-logged remixes become obviously more accessible. Power to the users!

Both. (10char) edit: Didn't see the "choose only one". Doesn't change my answer though..

I'm really interested in the DSi too. Here's basically what it comes down to for me- if Nintendo decides to let us play our Virtual Console games on it, I'm gonna run down to the store and buy one. Until then, I can't justify replacing my perfectly fine DS lite. Something worth considering is that you've had your DS lite for two years now, and I'm assuming you mean that it's been working properly this whole time? If you decide to rush out and buy a DSi you're going to be investing in the first run of a new model of hardware... there could be some kinks in the design that might ultimately lead to a broken DS. Now, Nintendo's hardware has always been great for me, but that risk is still there.

You could check out Hearts of Space. This is an ambient music station that also has a record label. If you go into About - FAQ it'll tell you how to go about submitting material.

Yeah, I can definately agree with that. The old needle in the haystack bit, right? I think that's a fair way to describe the gems of modern video game music.

Haha, okay, so I was browsing vgmusic.com looking for a midi of a track I'm having a really hard time figuring out by ear (which wasn't anywhere to be found on there either, I guess I'm not the only one who can't get it ) and just for fun I thought I'd check out the forums while I was there. I stumbled across this thread that is a discussion in very many less words about what I've been talking about this whole time. Just thought it was an interesting coincidence! I know I'm not the only one who feels the way I do, but I didn't want to come right out and say it and then have the thread die, leaving me looking like a fool... which is probably still going to happen anyways but at least I won't be a lonely fool! Responding to Gario, I'm not quite sure what you're implying so all I can really say is "maybe".

In response to Gario's question, I'd have to say the reason (I think) this particular era of video game music is the most covered comes down to something I've touched on earlier in this thread... during this era, video game music was still coming into it's own, trying new things and experimenting with the medium. What this resulted in is a lot of unique soundtracks that had qualites that we had never heard before. When we (as gamers and remixers) heard these songs for the first time, we were being welcomed into a whole new world of music, and this left (at least on me) a profound impact- these soundtracks changed the way I percieved music. But naturally, and as I've been going on and on about, competitors saw the success of these games and wanted to get into the market. The easiest way for them to do this was to emulate games that had already achieved a good amount of success. What this meant is that they specifically set out to create games that had similar gameplay, art and (most importantly for our discussion) music to what had already been done. Now, the more and more we continue to hear these doppleganger soundtracks, naturally the impact they are going to have on us it going to lessen and lessen, until it gets to the point where it's the way it is now- every other game that came out in 2008 had a soundtrack that was pretty indistinguishable from other soundtracks from games in the same genre, and they are (at least for me) on the verge of totally forgettable. Have you noticed how the XBOX allows you to mute a game's in-game soundtrack so that you can listen to your personal music collection? Someone at Microsoft noticed that some gamers out there don't enjoy the game soundtracks and would rather listen to something else. Not saying this should be unneccessary, it's a nice feature to have, but it is something to think about. Now, when one of us remixers decides we want to sit down a write an arrangement of something from a video game, we are usually doing this to pay tribute to the music that connected with us the most. What sort of music do you think would have left that sort of impact on us? The music from a game that tried to be a chameleon and offer us an experience we've had time and time again? Or the music from a game that tried something new, pushed the boundaries a little bit and made us marvel at it's uniqueness when we played it? I think the answer should be pretty apparent. I'm not trying to say there weren't any games in 2008 that had memorable soundtracks. Mirror's Edge and Fallout 3 (clever use of liscensed music) come to mind. These games were exceptional, but their soundtracks were the exceptions to what I've described above. Something just occured to me- there is a whole new generation of young gamers out there who are experiencing video games and their music for the first time.The perspective I'm coming from is that of a gaming veteran who's been around since the birth of electronic games as a medium (can't help when I was born) and I, like most of the remixers and surely all of the judges here, have followed the evolution of this platform of entertainment with keen interest. But what about those young-uns who don't know what to think and are just playing games for the sake of having fun? If you were to ask a child, "what do you think of the music in this game?" I'm pretty sure that kid would say "it's pretty cool!" They haven't seen the things I've seen that have given me this jaded view on the current state of our game soundtracks. Just because I've described how the effects of commercialism have lead to most of our games having same-ish soundtracks, that doesn't invalidate the fact that there's some new gamer out there somewhere enjoying the music in Gears of War 2 and playing the game with wide-eyed wonder. On the flipside, just because there are virgin gamers out there eating up everything they come across, that doesn't invalidate the fact that I've noticed a trend in modern games that leaves me wanting something more. Like BGC keeps saying, it's all subjective. That doesn't mean it won't make for an interesting discussion though

Thank you! I guess this is really in a roundabout way what I was trying to get at. The topic creator asked a question, and I answered based on the way things are at present. Most of the remixes on this site (I'm quite comfortable generalizing here) are from the NES-N64 era... there's been plenty of good music since then but also looots of mediocre same-old. I guess it just makes it more exciting to keep your eye out for that next new game that decides to do something bold and different (and inevitably have an interesting new concept on video game music to go along with it).