Palpable

I only played through it last year, and it's definitely worth it just for the music. (The only other time I played before that was like in '92 on a rented copy. Think I got as far as Fabul.) Great game, amazing soundtrack which is second only to VI for me in the FF series. The preview during the panel was all sorts of ass-kicking and most everything submitted to the panel so far has been great.

Thanks, man, it means a lot. It was great seeing you too. It's already feeling much better today so I plan to make a speedy recovery.

So did I! I can't describe how awesome it was meeting so many of you yesterday and Thursday, putting handles to faces, and seeing those I'd already met again. I had such a great time I was practically able to ignore the pain in my right leg which started that morning and steadily got worse over the day. I had to leave MAG early and miss the Smash Brothers because the pain got so bad. The drive home was horrible - I could barely change pedals without it causing me sharp pain. I ended up going to the hospital as soon as I got home and apparently I have tendonitis. Thankfully no surgery is required but I have it in a knee stabilizer right now and I have to stay off of it for 1-2 weeks. No driving and I gotta use crutches to get around. All things considered, I'm lucky given how much pressure I put on it yesterday. It was still an amazing day for me.

Hmm, different keys in the same mode always have different emotions and feels to me, even electronic stuff. I actually hate transposing stuff because when I hear a song in my head it's usually already in the key I want it to be in. (Actually, I'm pretty bad at transposing when I'm singing also.) I'm not sure if the different feels are something inherent to the keys though - it might just be a function of context. G major has a very warm, calming feel to it for me, even with energetic songs, and maybe that could be because growing up I heard a lot of songs in G major with that feeling in the playing or the lyrics? I'm really not sure, but I like the idea that different keys have different feels.

I think djp told me Saturday at 2 for the OCR panel, but don't quote me on it...

A note to anyone who wants to get their music judged faster: in your write-up, make comparisons to artists that I like. I'm on vacation right now, but I had to hear what a Justice version of Metal Gear sounded like. It sounds pretty good, actually. I like the beat and the lead synth, and overall the arrangement is a great concept. Good energy. It gets a little repetitive though, even for that genre. Justice and their ilk tend to make micro-changes like gating or stuttering so that they're not just looping the same patterns four times. Those kinds of details would help this out some, in sections like 0:22-0:51. I don't necessarily think it's empty like Larry does, but the production isn't that clean, and the master compression tends to make some sections sound softer because there's so much sound concentrated in one frequency range; it has to push everything down. Use more EQ to cut away parts you don't need. In a song so sparse, you should be able to hear everything very distinctly. Some of the backup synths aren't that interesting either, but that's not a huge deal to me. You're probably one more version away from getting my YES (though obviously take into account what other judges say too ). Add some more details, make the sound a little cleaner, and send it back. NO (resubmit)

I was gonna say something like this. I have a dedicated music computer that is souped up, and then my old piece of crap machine for browsing the net. It's nice not having any distractions when working on music. I guess if you play a lot of newer computer games a piece of crap machine might not cut it for you though.

Prereg'd, so I'm going! I won't be back in town until Thursday night and I'm working on Friday, so I'll try to find you all on Friday night. Yay!

As long as the statute of limitations on spoilers has passed, did anyone else think the Lost Sanctum was incredibly tedious? I lost track of how many times I went up and down that damn mountain. I actually started to use the FAQ towards the end because I was tired of going up thinking that was what I had to do next, only to find I missed a step. The Dimensional Vortex was very cool though and I even almost died on the first boss I fought there, which was refreshing for Chrono Trigger.

If you haven't seen the terms, you may not be using automation anyway. It's basically automating things like volumes or amounts to change over time. You can do this within a pattern, or as a clip, which would show up in the playlist. If you were using a pattern to do this, it might set your volumes to say 100% at the beginning of the song, whereas if you just exported a pattern later in the song, it would export with whatever volumes you had set at the time.

If you've got mixer automation in other patterns, that would also account for the difference. You can use the browser to quickly see which patterns are sending what automation. I tend to label those patterns just for automation very clearly (because it's easy to get confused otherwise), or more often, use automation clips.

The nice thing about Little Big Planet is that it's a pick-up-and-play kind of game as well as open-ended. Very easy to understand, and I've seen it hook people not that into video games. I think it'd be a great gift. Things to watch out for: it's a little on the cutesy side (and I noticed your brother has more serious games), and it does take someone willing to spend a lot of time if you want to get into the deeper parts of the game.

I really like this idea, I wish one of us judges had suggested it, since he went back and redid that part anyway. Oh well. Still an excellent piece.

Nice! Congrats to the both of you!

Yeah, the stuff listed in that thread is only the stuff on our panel. Submissions as old as October '08 may still be sitting in the inbox waiting to be evaluated by Liontamer. It may be a while before you see your song in the thread if you just submitted it. Haha, just noticed that one myself earlier today. Pretty old, huh? Pretty sure in that case we're waiting for an update from the remixer. DJP tries to give the oldest stuff priority, but other factors play into when something gets posted.

Up to date now.

It's a free ride when you've already paid, and good advice that you just didn't take. I didn't have to look this up either.

Awesome! Hope you and family are all doing well.

A little thin texturally, but some very good ideas here. The bridge is a great dropout, and the combination of instruments works. Interesting panning, and some cool lead processing towards the very end. Above the cut for a 2000 mix.

Haha, I'm liking this despite myself. Very dry, very repetitive, but there's still a compelling quality there. Put a good rapper over top of it, and you've got something. The ending was unexpected but was a cool addition; would have been cooler with real guitars and drums though. I could see a rock/rap group like Linkin Park making this into something massive.

Hahaha, this escaped two lockdowns? OA is dead-on, it's practically a MIDI rip down to it ending exactly after the second repetition. Barely a WIP.

I've only heard po's more recent stuff, so it's kind of cool to be able to compare this blast from the past to songs posted only a month ago. He's obviously come a long way. This is a little too simple but it does have a hypnotic repetitiveness to it that distills the essence of the source. Would have been awesome to hear some vocals or a lead over that.

Ook, pretty typical of its era. It sounds very similar to the original with some added drums and lots of samples (which didn't do much for me). I did like some of the new synth textures in this, and some of the change-ups weren't bad.

I'm going to have Funky Drummer in my head all day now. Word association, you know. Really liked the intro. Very good way to set your mood, parts are nice and clear. 0:30 is when it went downhill for me. The drums were a little buried, and the synth overlaps with the piano in the octave you've got it in. At 0:50 the synth comes up an octave, which is an improvement, but things still feel crowded. I actually think you could stand to make the song less complicated, not a criticism I often give. (Sometimes some of the backing parts felt a little unmelodious too, so if you agree, maybe those are parts you can remove or simplify.) I also thought the synth needed to be more upfront since it's your lead. There are a lot of parts all playing around the same volume, leaving me nothing to focus on. EQ will certainly help, but you may also need to decide what should be focused on, and make the other parts less prominent. Let them be felt rather than heard? The arrangement is really pretty good despite my criticisms. The source is handled elegantly, and I think the combination of sounds you used is nice. There's just got a few problems holding you back. Sorry to make this another NO, Brad, but I did YES your last song! Cast your blame on Larry and the like. NO (resubmit)

I typically really like Chris' stuff, but this one I'm not as big a fan of. Almost all of that comes down to the very bland source though. I think it's hard to make it sound that compelling. What he's added to it is pretty much the best I could hope for while not being too liberal: a melange of harsh noises and percussion, off-kilter chords, and a great melodious piano line that briefly lifts it out of the murk. Very NIN, and a great sound. It's the kind of thing that would suit a redone version of Doom 2 perfectly. Production is pretty awesome. I love the delay and distortion effects on some of the instruments, especially the parts opening the song. There's a lot of detail in there. Can't help but feel that I would like it a lot more if I liked the source more, but this seems like a pass anyway. YES