Rozovian

Not the best guitar sound, not a very tight performance (especially the bass), arrangement seems like an intro followed by a guitars cover of the source repeated a few times. I don't see this passing. I think an all-guitar track is a cool idea, and your outro is hilarious, but I think this track would get three quick NOs if it made it to the panel. Work on getting your recordings tighter and your arrangements more varied and/or with a some direction. Consider getting something more than Audacity to work with, it should help you get your stuff up to par.

Gonna be lazy and just edit my previous post. Piano now sounds unrealistically exposed, the short notes sound weird when paired with the longer ones. It's a technique, sure, but it sounds silly. Sustain the notes for added realism. The piano still sounds mechanical. A piano is a really dynamic instrument, but you seem to be playing in the upper 30 velocity levels all the time. I can still hear compression problems during the louder parts. EQ down unnecessary frequencies (like lows on instruments that don't need lows, sub-frequencies from pretty much everything except bass and kick), and use a limiter to cut the peaks. The compression and mechanical sequencing remain problems. It's quite empty a lot of the time, still. Perhaps some more right-hand writing would improve it (whether it's 5ths and octaves in the 0:49+ source melody or something more intricate sprinkled into other parts, idunno), or perhaps you need additional instruments or just use more of the strings and choir that you already have? Transitions feel like they work better now. The arrangement's biggest problems are the emptiness and perhaps a lack of direction, but I suck at all the direction stuff so don't take my word for it. A step in the right direction, still got stuff to do before it shines.

Not a terrible electric guitar sound, but it doesn't sound human AT ALL. I'm less concerned about the phasing on the bg pads as I am with the pad sound itself, it needs to be more animated, more changing on its own, see if you can give it more filter movement or something. Sound design is pretty raw compared to the ambient music I've heard. You should get FreeAlpha, it's free and comes with a slew of nice, ambient-y presets. Better yet, it has a great, built-in chorus effect that can blur the sound, pushing it into the background. btw, you should learn what to push into the background and how far, it'll make all your mixing better. Kind'a boring arrangement, to be frank. More change in chords and rhythm would make it more interesting while still being in line with your idea of doing a kind'a soft track. There's some notes that sound clashing, you should check to see that your harmonies and melodies work together and don't clash. You can avoid repetition by changing up the lead instrument at some appropriate place, too (but avoid the pitfall of thinking that changing an instrument is enough to make it interesting), changing the lead melody to something in keeping with the original but more in line with the harmony will let you stay conservative and close to source while still doing something different. Do whatever, I'm just suggesting stuff here. Kind'a overdone source, it's like the only KH source I remember seeing on the wip board (except Uub's mix back when) but there's not enough KH on ocr for that to matter. Do the mix, learn the source, keep making music, do the mix again, make it great.

Panning the kick is stupid. Really. Rhythm section could use some improved writing, less panning, more groove. The buildup, which isn't bad, is too long, and there's room for some screwing with the bassline melody such as moving it to a different chord from time to time. Wouldn't hurt to have some references to other parts oft he source in there too, the intro gets old fast. As for the main part, I don't see why you have to change the melody at all, there's nothing in the harmony of groove that needs it altered, so it sounds redundant as either done to try to meet ocr's creative standard or a failure to reproduce the melody accurately. Sounds design isn't terrible, but it could use a bit of work. I'm less bothered by the choice of lead as with the sudden stops of the filtered synth (0:25 and on) (short release on the filter envelope and a little longer on the volume envelope and you should have solved this), or the weird arpeggio thing at 0:48. I can tell it's the same as the lead, but as a little side melody it's too bassy and too upfront. So what's good? Until 0:48 it's got a pretty good build-up, and the subsequent breakdown and bringing in the main melody works all right. With a more intense part before the breakdown, and of course, more length, you should be able to put a pretty cool arrangement together. The core sound choices aren't bad, you'll just have to put each of them in the right places, volume/EQ-wise. Also, this isn't nearly as overdone as, certain *ahem* caps. I mean tracks.

I wanna bring up Monkey Island 3 as an example to study. It had some nice audio, and the music blends from room to room (or environment to environment). Even if all you do is roam around on Plunder Island, or even just wander about in Puerto Pollo, you should be able to hear the music change whenever you enter or exit a building. Because of its age, the changes are noticeable... which perhaps just makes it an even better example since it's easier to study. Then I'd have to mention Ocarina of Time and an old LucasArts game called Loom, where playing the right melodies are a gameplay mechanic, the right song changing stuff in the game. Day to night, gold to straw, sunny to rainy, white to an ugly shade of green, turn old, turn invisible, etc...

Can't say much about surround, but you seem to be ignoring the fact that your headphones most certainly don't reproduce a surround sound. As for cars, dunno what surround sound support they've got. You can't mix in surround and expect to get the same results from just two speakers. Also, low frequencies are more difficult to hear the direction they're coming from, so don't pan those much. Losing the bass signal from one of your speakers means you'll have a softer bass. If you pan stuff without regard to how it'll be reproduced with just two speakers, you'll have a lot of problems getting the levels right. Can't say much else, but I think you're approaching this surround thing wrong.

I've played it, but I can't have played it that much as I have no memory of the pipe levels.

I'm thinking in percentage, so the size of the market isn't a factor. Lose 20% to the marketplace, gain that and possibly more from increased exposure and special sales.

Niiiice. Really like the soft part and build before 3 mins, and the rhythms in the pre 5:00 build-up. I'm also getting a bit of a NiGHTs vibe from this, the harmonies especially. There's some place where the bass drum and bass seem to lag behind, could also be the other instruments racing ahead. 6:13 is a pretty big stumble. Got any place where we can download your stuff, Icey?

Hm... The guitar-like synth is terrible, the synth rhythm that plays from the beginning isn't that good (when exposed; it blends in better later in the mix), and I'm not sure how fitting the drums are. That said, the rest of the sound is pretty good, I especially like one of the pads in the background. Arrangement isn't bad but feels ill-fitting, using it as an intro to a more fitting (and possibly more interpretive) main part (doesn't have to be the same source) should work all right. The repetition problem is obvious. Nice work tho.

Bump, needs have changed. The guide is almost done, now I'm thinking about releasing it. I just need to know I haven't made any big mistakes. Any experienced remixers/music ppl wanna give it a read, point out everything I'm lying about? Also, thoughts on how to release it are welcome. ocr's wiki, regular forum posts, and pdf are the formats I'm considering. Preferences/other ideas? I'm on AIM most of the time, hit me up there if you wanna help/talk/whatever.

This, isn't much of an issue. Steam's getting loads of ppl buying games because they're on sale, not to mention what having a marketplace like Steam does to the sale of those games on a more regular basis. Whatever loss of revenue from shared profit is probably quickly made up by increased sales.

KVRAudio doesn't require you to be online when you use the stuff you download, either. That's really the biggest problem with Steam, that and the online problems where either you or they have a connection problem and you can't play. And maybe the worry that if the service at some point ends up bankrupt all your purchases are gone. So the DRM function Steam has would be a bit dangerous to use. Without the DRM, I don't quite see why that many developers would be interested when KVR, audiomidi, and other sites already provide/sell their products. Having the service do all the installation is a good idea tho, it'd make stuff a lot easier. If it also did preset handling, you wouldn't have to worry about losing your custom patches either. That, imo, is one of the better parts of this idea. What to do about legally questionable free/custom samples is another matter, and might complicate things depending on much the users use those. Not a bad idea, you just gotta figure that stuff out.

They've got some swing, you should offset the 16th notes (the ones between 8th notes, make them a little later, a little more to the right). The hihat patterns in the song aren't difficult, but it takes some getting used to the groove.

Excessive piano reverb, and an unrealistic many piano notes seem to be full velocity. Hard to hear the piano for all the other stuff going on sometimes, but the piano sounds mechanical and at times possibly three-handed. There's also compression problems, bass is too loud. Strings should probably be a staccato sample instead of short legato notes. Technically, the compression and the mechanical sequencing are its biggest problems. The progression of the arrangement is nice, source sprinkled all throughout the arrangement. It's quite empty a lot of the time, tho. Such a piano-centric mix would benefit lots from more left-hand piano writing. Some abrupt transitions. Overall, I like it, it uses the over-remixed Red Brinstar source in a new and interesting way, plus there's the SM intro and stuff. The arrangement's biggest problems are the emptiness and the transitions. So... could be awesome, has some problems atm. Good luck with it.

Nice sound design in the intro. Midi-rip-y as it goes on, but with some nice original additions (yours or Meteor's?). Bass range is cluttered, you should learn to mix it cleaner (mostly eq stuff, takes a bit of practice to figure out how to get bass drum and bass to play nice together). Noticeable compression, probably as a result of trying to make it loud enough. Learn some other techniques to push the loudness of your tracks, and learn to tell when it's too much. Those are my thoughts on it. I remixed this for boss themes, and the source is a great source of inspiration for learning both time signatures and how to make a badass remix of it. You're learning. Keep doing that.

If you can get your hands on one, try out a real electric guitar and amp. Friend's place, church, school, music store, whatever. Study the sound. What makes it different from what you get out of the GB presets? Amp sim= amplifier simulation, a plugin that simulates a guitar amp. As you're using GB, you've already got one of those, so make sure to tweak it until it sounds more like the real thing (and if you don't like it, get AuraPlug's free guitar effects, CamelCrusher, and maybe mda's Combo). Make sure to write the guitar so it sounds more like a real guitarist playing. I had some success with using a wah effect, the aforementioned camelcrusher, and an amp sim to produce a half-decent lead., and as recently as yesterday toyed with a piano source for a rhythm guitar. The thing is, most things can sound a bit like a guitar when it's run thru an amp sim, so experiment. If a different instruments gets you the sound you want (and you should learn to know what you want, or at least to know if what you get is good enough or not), use it. All that said, there's still no viable way to convincingly fake a real guitar. Especially not for free. That I know of, anyway. It was a guess (hence the "probably") based on the writing. When I actually compare them (which makes this more of a wip thread, which belongs on the wip board) I hear you've done a nice job making your own thing out of it. Still, the writing sounds rather empty at times, and the sound has the problems I mentioned before. halc is not Vampire Hunter Dan, they've got very different sounds, but they're consistent and their songs have a cohesive sound. Also, they both make cool music. I'm not saying you must bring down the song's quality (especially as just mixing it right will make it a lot better), but you should think about sound design some more. And listen to stuff by other artists, see how their sounds compare. For instance, listen to AeroZ, Willrock, The Wingless, Beckett007, BGC, bLiNd, Sixto... They've all got a sound, a style that you can study. Hit me up on AIM.

Or a ninja looking over his shoulder,which has a shoulderpadarmorthingy. In other words, bump. Been a while since this thread saw any Larry action. I know it's totally the most important thing on the site, but it's one of the things ppl like to do. Besides, it's fun to have some fresh options to change to, especially when you wanna request or promote a Halo, Monkey Island, FFX, Machinarium, FF1, Wild Arms or SCHALA remix or project or the game itself or something. It's something the less musically inclined can contribute to ocr with. (wait, I've made almost a hundred avatars...) *the somewhat graphically inclined Maybe we should have an avatar judge panel group thing!

First of all, the guitar. There's free amp sims out there, use them. You'll get better results than what you've got here with just a single clean guitar sample and an amp sim. Better yet if you've got a multi-sampled, expressive clean guitar sound. There's no way of getting a realistic sounding fake electric guitar out of the box, because there's so much involved in creating the sound - good performance->decent guitar->effects box (optional) ->amp -> mic -> daw. But start by using an amp simulation, two sampled notes combined won't sound the same as two notes run thru an amp, even if it's a sim. Then you should use the mod wheel and pitch bend for some cool solo-y effects, stuff like that. Study music with guitar, learn how it sounds, and why. Then for some writing stuff. It's a rather empty arrangement (probably quite close to source, I won't check) which worked all right on the snes and its limited hardware but you don't have that limitation so you can't blame your writing on that. Write it rich and good. As someone brought up in the common mistakes thread, you can't write just anything and expect the eq to fix everything later. Soundwise, you should try to have more sounds of the same quality (a consistently "bad" set of sounds are more cohesive than a mix of good and bad, unless you know what you're doing). The smooth filtered pad is nice, the drums and guitar (especially the guitar) aren't. Mixing them right helps a lot, too; there's both volume and eq fixes you should do here. Hit me up on aim if you want further advice, I have some reading material for you.

So... lots of styles, and an ear for guitar tones, you say... (shameless plug here) interesting. Welcome all.

That's pretty cool. It's the kind of stuff I enjoy thinking about, but don't have the guitar skills to actually make any modding worth it. Then again, then I'd only have to play stuff right and tight once...

Who here has a poor attitude? In defense of those who have had hard drive crashes or file corruptions or otherwise lost their project file(s) when their works have been almost complete and no high-quality render had been made, I say: screw you and your inflated sense of entitlement. They're part of the community, they're part of the projects, they're us. OCR is walking a line between quality and community, and for all the complaints that we're so elitist and exclusivist, you're saying we should be more so? And nobody says you have to listen the whole album anyway. Hey maybe we shouldn't release FLACs at all? Hey, I'm a project lead, that's actually within my power. 96kbps, here we come! On that note, maybe ALL OF OCREMIX SHOULD BE IN THE LOWEST COMMON BITRATE! (and the mp3 comparison is a really dumb example, as a lossy format can't magically recreate the lost information whereas converting _to_ mp3 from a higher quality format is just fine)

Any half-decent torrent client would let you choose what files and folders to dl, just deselect the FLAC versions and you'll save some bandwidth. You may also have to turn down the upload rate (but everyone else should seed the albums, for great justice). Not much else you can do, torrent-wise. Beyond that, Megaupload and album zips.

Might wanna edit the last item so it doesn't look, to the lazy reader, like there's both a buy link and a free torrent link to... whatever this is. "Preorder/buy the games", maybe? Also: Yay!