Flexstyle

For me, I started out looping stuff in ACID, and while the songs certainly had some "cool" factor to them (and I was a decent looper so they sounded ok too), they certainly weren't very close to what I really wanted. I was more arranging stuff than anything else. Each song only took me a little while (1-3 hours), because all I was doing was pasting loops all over the place. No effects even. Then I discovered FL, and it kinda just "clicked" for me as far as the basic workflow went, but I was still clueless as to how to use most of the effects. I just found something that sounded good and then tried to find a neat preset. I went that direction for a while but I was starting to learn about VSTs and VSTi-s, and that broadened my sound choices. Next I started learning some basic synth programming and also how the various compressors, flangers, distortions, etc actually WORKED so I knew what it was I was doing when I was turning the knobs. I now consider myself a fairly decent producer, but at the same time I'm continually getting better at what I do. Also now I have more opportunities to branch out and explore new techniques, since I know what I'm doing. This is all in the span of about two years, but I have had some fairly extensive musical and technical training even before I started on the computer. Hence I've got more of an "ear for things" than many people might. If you're just getting started on (re)mixing, I'd recommend just trying out presets, see which ones you like, maybe see what happens when you turn a knob or a slider. That's a lot of how I learned too..."what does this button do?" Also a big part is look at other demo projects 'n stuff and see how other people did their thing. I learned a lot from the crew at Silexz-Studios.com forums since there's a ton of FL Zip files floating around there. Tutorials on various techniques, as well as just songs people have made available in the FL format. There's many places on the web where stuff like this is available. Mixing is not difficult once you know how. However, learning how to get it right can take a while or not, depending on how much of and "ear for things" you've got. I'd say stick at it, it's a heck of a lot of fun!

Thanks very much for all the suggestions! I'll hopefully have another beta ready next week, after this week's hectic schedule lets up.

Rayman 1 - Mister Sax

Greetings to all. I've recently put what I hope are the finishing touches on my first serious game remix--I chose one of my favorite games, the original Rayman, and took the theme of Betilla the Fairy (the one who gives him powers 'n stuff) for the subject of my mix. You can get the original song here, for a reference. Then, head over to this link to hear the remix. Most of what I was trying to do in this mix was keep the original "feel" of the song. Dreamy and beautiful, just what I really enjoy. I figured those qualities would translate well into trance, as well as the main melody. I really like how it turned out, personally. I hope you like it too, and I look forward to hearing some comments! Here's the million dollar question--is it worth officially submitting to OCR?

The mix is in progress--it'll probably be a little while before it's ready though.

Alrighty then! This song is just screaming "DRUM'N'BASS!" to me, so I think that's what I'm going to do. Think I'll see what I can come up with over the weekend, although it might take me a little longer to get it completed.

Got a MIDI file? I might take a stab at this if I can get the tune easily.

I use the excellent, free, and always-being-updated Paint.Net (www.getpaint.net). It's extremely n00b-friendly (otherwise I wouldn't be able to use it, heh) and it comes out with a new version number with an extra feature and a bugfix or two about once every two weeks. Plus, if you've already got the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 installed, the download is less than two megabytes! It takes less time to download than a Photoshop torrent. Plus it's LEGAL!

Sign me up if it's not too late!

I must say, I really love my Yamaha DTXtremeIIs kit. A tad pricey (at least it was when I got it, it's probably gone down now), but about as good a "feel" IMO as you can get aside from real drums. Plus they're NICE and responsive. And sturdy! I can bang on 'em as much as I want and as hard as I want and they haven't worn out yet with my three years of abuse.

Somehow, I think this song would go decently with the game you're describing. PM me or something if you'd like to use it!

ZoneAlarm Free version (www.zonelabs.com), coupled with Avast! Antivirus (www.avast.com) are what I use.

Honestly, I found it VERY hard to get into this song. There was nothing to grab me at the start, and the song overall was just kind of a "mush" of sounds. As Nutritious said, it was lacking a good structure. Also, the song had a distinct lack of "punch" or clarity. Not a lot of solid, driving low end (or even a soft'n'soothing low end), and there wasn't a lot of high-end sheen to the mix either. I think the synthetic guitars weren't that great either, you might either try a different instrument or get a better guitar sound. Sorry, I'm not trying to sound like a nitpicking jerk here. I'm just having a hard time finding something I can grab onto in this song.

Here's my first song: Link And here's one of my more recent songs, I'm quite proud of this one: Link I've been at the whole "make-music-on-the-computer" for a couple years now.

Well, I've decided I'm going to at least attempt to remix a couple Rayman songs. I've already started on a trance remix of Betilla the Fairy's theme, and I think it's going to be my "next big release" (as opposed to an original song or something lol).

Me being 16-almost-17 currently, video games are still as fun as ever. I'm a first-person-shooter addict, and I could spend (and have spent) all day playing them, then be ready to do it again the next day!

Ah, ok. That makes sense.

I hope this is the correct forum, as I couldn't post this in the Projects forum (I may not have enough posts or something). Would anybody out there be interested in helping to create a remix album for the original Rayman? I've got all the source material as MP3s, as the PC version of the game just had the music in plain old CD Audio format. Why Rayman? It was the first game I ever really played, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It turned me into the gaming freak I am today...*nostalgic sniff.* Replies along the lines of "You're way off base" or "Sure, I'd be interested in helping with a remix" or even "It'd be cool to see at least" would be nice.

I own a 8600GT, and I'm able to run at a fairly high resolution (1600x1050, widescreen) with great quality in all my games. Unreal Tournament 3 looks fantastic! Don't own the Orange Box as all I want from it is TF2 (thinking about getting it anyways though lol), so I don't know how well the game will run on my card, but I certainly haven't found my settings limit yet.

Sixto, what are your thoughts on the FreeAmp software from FrettedSynth? I'm not a guitar player at all, but I occasionally use the FreeAmp software (formerly FreeAmp2 and now FreeAmp3 is out) on a friend's guitar or something. I like how it sounds, but I'm not any judge on how it ought to sound.

Sounds to me like this problem is twofold--one, the adapter is blown (happened to me too recently). You'll need to pick up another one, I think. Second, as every good audio engineer knows--Creative cards are crap for mixing. My personal favorite cards are made by M-Audio, and I think for you the best one would be this or this. This is what I use, but as it seems you're not going to need the ten ins and outs it provides I don't think you need to spend the extra $$ for it.

I found out about this site from a couple different sources--first some computer magazine interview with Binster, and then somewhat more recently zircon posted the "Voices of the Lifestream" link at KVR. Once I really downloaded a lot of choons, I must say that I've been really inspired by some of the remixes. I'm an avid gamer, but I mostly play open-source and free games. None of them really have a soundtrack to speak of. Coming to OCR and hearing these remixes of the brilliant game composers' songs has REALLY broadened my musical understanding. Plus, there's a TON of genres made on here that I wouldn't ordinarily go searching for, yet I really love. Thanks OCR for the amazing diversity and the great inspiration!

Arizona, represent! =D

I must say, GIRby and Tay Kirby were my two favorites. Especially since I (oh the horror) participated in a Tay Zonday remix competition recently. *has nothing else to contribute*

I can now say that I've uploaded my first game remix ever. It's really not that good, I only spent a couple hours on it--but hey, I wanted to contribute SOMETHING to this community at least!