Rozovian

Around 1:03 you've got some clashes, again around 1:11 where you're trying to get a major and a minor melody to go together. Careful about stuff like that, takes a while to figure out how to do it. Arrangement overall is a bit aimless. There's parts here for a good, cohesive arrangement, but they're in disorder. Not gonna comment on the sources, I'll let ppl more familiar with them do that. Then there's the issue of reverb. In most cases, you wanna turn it down to nothing, gradually turn it up until you notice it, and then turn it down a notch from that, leaving it at a non-intrusive level where it still colors the mix. (if you got good ears for reverb and stuff, this trick isn't gonna work, and there are styles where a big, loud reverb is necessary and this trick is just stupid if applied there) Instrumentation isn't bad, but the quality of some of the sounds is. Either mask the badness, replace them, or use their badness somehow. You should also humanize the track, make it feel less like sequenced computer music and more like there's a person behind the notes. There's a thread about that in our Production forum, see what you can learn from there. Not bad, but needs to be better.

It's a midi. Can't complain about sound, then. I'm thinking adding more sources isn't the right approach. Seems to me like this was rejected for being too conservative (if I'm wrong, ignore me). If so, the problem isn't really gonna go away by adding more sources, it'll just turn into a different problem - "medley-itis". You gotta twist the source more. See what you can do with rhythms, a breakdown, solos (source-based)... stuff. As a genre adaptation it sounds ok to me, and it's a really cool choice of genre that fits the source well. however, it'll need some more work on personalizing the arrangement before it'll fit on ocr imo.

Somebody tell him the gameplay wasn't the problem.

It's cuz I know you're young and assume you don't have a day job / rich parents. The first one is a fairly safe assumption. Soundcard is the part of the computer (or an external interface) that sends and receives sound. That's where you'd hook up the mic, that's where you've hooked up your speakers, etc.. If it's not a good soundcard, you can get all kinds of noise, distortion, dc offset on your recordings. Some of that is problematic to get rid of. Surprised if a 13-yearold makes good music? Well, that depends on my standard of good, doesn't it? Haven't heard you yet. Also, for lulz, sampling vs sampling. (so yes, you will sample.)

"Damn close", lol Is there a cutoff date for the vol 1 release, if so when, and where should I have seen it?

In simple terms, yes. And it'll probably sound terrible. What kind of mic should you get? Not all mics are built for home studio recording, or even for the human voice. What level of quality is your soundcard? crackle hisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss crackle. Is there a lot of reverb in your room? ooooooommmmmmmm.... Are you expecting to use Audacity for everything relating to the voice or just for recording the raw audio? Are you gonna mix, if so, with what? Yes, you can just go out and buy the cheapest mic you can find and some adapter to get it plugged in. No, it's not gonna sound good.

I don't think you read that article right. To me it didn't seem like the author had a problem with Samus having emotion, the problem was to what extent those emotions controlled her and to what extent those emotions are spelled out, something completely alien to the Metroid series. At most, we've seen subtle hints of emotion during the appearance of bosses in the Prime games, or the scene at the end of M2 with the newly hatched metroid, or the last line of her pre-Ceres monologue in SM (and yes, a single line ending in an exclamation point is enough to show emotion, anything more would be superfluous). (Fusion doesn't count, it's later in the chronology) This inconsistency it at the heart of the ppl's reactions, not the emotions themselves, not the story, its execution, not the Waldo games or walk rooms any of that. (they're separate criticisms) If this was a character that's relatively normal (biologically and psychologically) and/or with games that depict him or her as expressing emotions, there wouldn't be half the outcry there is now. I read an article by someone who showed the Ridley scene to a shrink and a PTSD-coping soldier (iirc). The point of that article was that Samus' portrayal in that scene is a good example of PTSD (which they confirmed). Completely missing the point that many fans make, that she's been through far worse than have Ridley come after her, back from the dead. Again. She'd have had PTSD after her first vg outing, or after Ridley came back after her in the Primes. Meh. (also, I'm noticing using excessive parentheses is becoming a habit (at least in this thread))

Well, for realism, you can't do much with velocity if you're working with harpsichords. I would suggest playing each of the parts on a midi keyboard and tweaking them to get rid of mistakes and tidying up sloppy timings and stuff. You could also edit it manually, but you should still record a short bit of it to see how it looks like performed. See how far apart "simultaneous" notes really are, see how they differ in length (and preferably, try it on a real harpsichord to hear how it sounds if you don't already). See how that sounds, and compare that to how it sounds like when it's just raw sequenced notes. As brought up by dannthr, think of how it would be played for reals. Everything the rest of us said is technique. Figure out the psychology behind it, the different moods you can get from playing the same thing with long or short notes, fast or slow, increasing or decreasing in speed, etc... TL;DR? Midi keyboard and "damage control".

I'm beginning to think the story itself wasn't necessarily terrible, just handled atrociously (both as Metroid game and as a game at all). Still feels like something a 12-yearold fanfic writer would produce tho.

Okay, dunno if I told you before, but Nutritious handed in a finished track a while ago. And now mak has joined the project. We're getting there, ppl. Getting closer...

Funny how he lampshades a strawman but still treats his audience as one. He's basically saying that anyone with an issue with this game's story must think that: 1. following orders from a man means you're submissive if you're a woman (rather than following stupid orders is a stupid thing, (power bomb deactivated I can understand, grapple beam deactivation is just dumb)) 2. if you're not a submissive woman, having emotions is a bad thing (rather than overcoming those emotions. also, those emotions can be implied and conveyed by other means that an overacted cutscene or whiny monologue, they don't need to be overstated. a visual medium is about "show, don't tell", not "show and tell") 3. Samus is a loner and can't have human interaction like ever (rather than preferring to be by herself. we've seen her deal just fine with other ppl (and creatures) in the prime games (well, 2 and 3), and now she suddenly lapses into monologues whenever a random creature appears or one of her new buddies said something) Apparently, he was overthinking his audience. Or underthinking. Strawmen are so much easier to prove dumb. btw, thread tl;dr, anybody else think the escape sequence after the helmet scene was Zero Mission copypasta?

New order of preference: mmx3 blizzard buffalo mmx6 commander yammark mmx launch octopus - old: (I don't have time for this. And yet... mmx6 commander yammark mmx3 blizzard buffalo mmx launch octopus In order of preference... and of wannabe-ness of the mavericks' names, and in reverse order of familiarity. Let's see how this tournament goes for me. )

When is it? How long do I have to decide my picks and figure out if I've got time for this?

You didn't see my update on the forums the other day?

Recently got Civ IV with its expansions, and been playing it with my brother. Probably gonna wait a while before getting V. Besides, until there's Mac support, there's no point in me getting it. Saw it on Escapist the other day, looks interesting. Cool with the hexagon tiles, gonna be interesting to see what else is different... some day.

_I'm_ a douche? What about the guy that turned the source into 20 minutes of strings drones?

I like the workflow idea you've got. Would be an interesting project to be a part of. Some day, when I'm involved in fewer projects...

Aside from so much that's already been said, there's the challenge and fun of screwing with the sources, turning a four-note thingy into several minutes of music. Then, some of the time, it's a visible way of saying "I played this game back when, and I liked it", or just "I like the music of this game".

No it wouldn't. Majora's Mask is a great example of an overarching melancholic and creepy mood, despite the many non-melancholic and/or non-creepy songs in it. Same could be done with an album, just tell the artists what the mood is and they'll bring their own perception of it (and their own style) into their respective sources (which has a mood to begin with), so you've got three different sources of mood, easily woven into an overarching one. Dunno the plan for the project, but a mood-based project would be cool. I was actually considering something like that as a solo project. Not sharing what that is tho. Also, DS, count me as interested in one of the later installments. Need to get a few other projects out of the way first.

Minor spoilers: Having just finished it, I found it was _a lot_ better once I went back to the bottleship and just ran around collecting missiles and stuff. The story felt like the kind of fanfiction a metroid/anime fanboy would piece togethere at age 12, not something a professional should have anything to do with. I wouldn't trust those guys to write a birthday card, much less a game. Annoying cutscenes, mediocre acting/animation (except the motion-capture stuff, but those felt completely unnecessary), annoying voice work from most characters (the best piece of acting in the whole game was hidden behind a monologue). Most of the time I spent playing it my brother was watching, and we were both annoyed by the cutscenes, the emo-ess of the monologues, characters' tendency to remove their masks or helmets all the time, the many times the game takes control of Samus and make her do stupid shit, and the frickin' idiotic WALKING! You know what I mean. It's tense the first time. It's a little less tense when it happens in every other elevator. The gameplay was fun, tho I avoided using missiles as much as I could because of the awkward standing Samus does when you wanna use missiles. The controls otherwise work great, tho the four-directional running should have been 8-directional. Nice to see the controls simplified to just the wiimote. Too much of a remix of Super and Fusion, not enough Metroid. There's exploring, but it's mostly locked doors and characters telling you what to do. Felt like Prime 3 did character interaction a lot better. It also had characters that were interesting. As for OM, in the words of Yahtzee (google's #1 hit for yahtzee, btw): "Guess the ultimate question is "Why should I even bother to try?" Every last NPC fills me with apathy, Am I expected to care when they die? So... meh. This is probably the best fangame in the metroid series ever, but I have a hard time treating this as a real metroid game. Well, just the story. Gameplaywise, it was great. Good action, decent environments, some sense of exploring, and enjoyable to come back to. Storywise, it's crap. Nope. (also, *spoonfeed, stupid keyboard) Now to make remix a real metroid game, maybe? One that has music that's not done by random keystrokes on omnisphere's weird atmospheric patches. Okay, enough ranting about this.

Unless you're really turning the compressor up, I think the flat dynamics are an arrangement issue rather than a production issue. Dynamics isn't just volume, it's the perception of intensity. needs to feel like the intensity changes from time to time, it's part of how the track develops (which I tend to do subconsciously on my meandering tracks... with meandering results ).

I get that you're new and just using whatever you've got. But it doesn't sound good. Especially drums and guitar. Depending on the DAW and resources you've got, looking into soundfonts might be a good idea. They're free, many of them sound ok, and they're not a strain on computer power or memory (compared to the professional products out there). To me, what you've got now sounds like the computer's default midi sound. (oh and you need a soundfont player if you don't already have one) On the overall production side, the track is quiet, and the piano is barely audible without turning the whole thing up way too much. The drums are terribly dry compared to the more atmospheric stuff you're also using, so the overall sound isn't cohesive. Not to mention the dull frequency balance and stuff like that, but you're not at a point where you should care much about that. Performance-wise, it's stiff and dull. The whole thing sounds mechanical. I know, you're new to this, and it's not like humanization is the first thing on your mind while making music. Still, worth experimenting with velocities and timing, you might learn something. The arrangement is conservative, which for a cover doesn't matter. It's not nearly as emotive as the original, which isn't really a surprise. Again, something worth experimenting with - can you make it sound happier, can you make it sound more aggressive, can you make it sound more sad, can you make it sound calmer, can you make it sound alarming? No "this thing you did good, this thing I liked" comments, but some "this thing you should research and learn" comments for you. Go research, go learn, you'll improve. Listen and learn. Welcome to the wip board.

Something I find myself doing is to record with a midi keyboard and then fix the timings (manually, not quantizing) so I can keep the human qualities of the performance but still make it sound like it's played by someone who can actually play the keyboards. Then again, I try to stick to synths that don't need to emulate a real performance. There's, as Nutri already stated, tempo changes. With solo instrument pieces and pieces without percussion, the tempo wouldn't stay the same throughout.. Velocity and timing is never exact with a real performance, and a random humanization function doesn't take into account performers' tendency to emphasize some notes through timing or velocity (adding to rhythm). Swing/shuffle sounds more human when quantized because it's not evenly quantized. Looking out for repeated samples or stuff with a similar repetitive sound is also a good thing, you've got a lot of timing edits between the low notes and high notes when played near-simultaneously, but the timing difference seems to be the same for every instance, making it sound robotic. That timing discrepancy is otherwise a good idea, but doing it the same way makes it stand out too much. Just imagine hearing the exact same crash or the exact same strum noise over and over. Doesn't sound realistic. For some instruments, not the piano tho, the volume changes during the note. Various blown instruments, brass, reed, woodwinds, whatever; get their volume from how fast/much air is blown through them, so a real performance on those has less to do with velocity and more to do with expression (a midi control change (cc#11)) which controls the intensity of the note (if routed that way, which many virtual instruments are). Same with bowed strings and other sustained instruments, tho then it's not about air pressure but about their respective applicable force. If cc11 doesn't work for you, cc7 (volume) or cc1 (modulation) might work. I suggest trying expression first, since volume can interfere with mixer settings and doesn't utilize whatever other intensity-changing features of the instrument. Blah blah blah. Also, stop hiding your work in reverb. It doesn't make the performance more human. (just the sound... a little.) edit: Sbeast is right, some instrument, like strings, can benefit from some random detuning... just don't overdo it.

http://forums.thasauce.net/ and http://www.kngi.org/phpbb3/

I suggest you do what Hylian Lemon did with EoL and have the project thread in the remixes board. That could also get you some attention from ppl who don't frequent the recruit/collab forum. Either that or get a forum somewhere (or do both like HL did). KNGI is a good place as there are remixers there already, being or having been on other projects. Talk to Kyle about it. Then there's ThaSauce, has a forum, has remixers, and they've hosted project forums before, like sd3 back in the day. On a related note, Darke, if it's not there already, stuff like where to get forums and other project-related stuff, shouldn't that be in the project guidelines or a linked project resource post or something? (weird sentence, I know)