Gario

Ah, so GT isn't attending this year, eh? Now I don't feel as bad not attending, lol. Be sure to be there next year, Taucer, when I try to get there, or else I'll be a very disappointed Gario.

Thank you for posting that. I'm not alone in my thumbmation love.

Probably because they were looking for a story that was told through game mechanics only. Emphasis on only. It doesn't matter that the story might have been just as effective without the cutscenes or whatever, the point is that the games you reference still use those are a way to push the story, at least in part, so they are naturally disqualified.

On the contrary, I think we did miss it. Oh well, better late than never - Happy (un)birthday, DS!

It's a neat track. As a fellow Reason user that used to suffer from the same sort of drum problems, let me make some suggestions. First, unless you have some really perfect spliced drum sounds, use Redrum. The fact that you can tinker with the attack, cutoff, pan, level, velocity effect, etc., for each track and run each individual track through a different mixer board means that you can beef out that bass drum to your heart's content without affecting anything else. Second, compression is your friend. All you can work with is the onboard compressor (no plugins for you - remember, we're using Reason, here ), so get familiar with him. Messing with the 'attack' knob, increasing the compression ratio and blasting the output will help your bass drum a lot. Overlapping instruments can help, so don't forget about that possibility, as well, for your drums. Have you messed around with the master combinator so you can master your track? Increase the gain on the limiter or something, because the whole track is just too quite, as is. I like the sound of the track. It's a little conservative for OCR, if that was what you were going for, but it's a neat track. I hope this helps, and Merry Christmas!

Wow, getting tight on the final cutoff date. I finally gave you a very-close-to-finished-but-need-a-little-feedback WIP for my MMX4 track for Christmas, and I can guarantee a finished track before New Year, for you. Sorry for keeping you in the dark with the track for about two months. Now with moar voice clips.

Well, Merry Christmas! In a couple hours! I haz a present for Bahamut in the form of music that I owe him anyway, but it's not Christmas for another two hours, for me, so he has to wait. So sorry, man.

Some of the tastiest synth work I've heard from you, Will. Also, this is easily the farthest from your normal style that you've ever gone that I've heard, so great job ending the year on such i diverse note. There's so much change in this song, so much delicious texture and overlapping of themes... people, listen to this 'losing' mix, 'cause it's a freakin' winner .

Hmm... well, looking at the history of OCR projects and how long they can take, time is not on your side. Many/most projects take at least a month or two just to organize the remixers, followed by roughly 1-2 years before the music comes together. Why this is probably has to do with the fact that writing remixes is something most of us do in our spare time, which is generally not that much per day, if you know what I mean. Of course, there are exceptions to these arbitrary time frames (Ah, the good ol' 'Hurry' project is coming to mind ), but you'll really need to hustle to get this off the ground. Making a thread here is a good start, but you need to set up project forums pretty quick and actively recruit remixers to give the project a push forward if you want to get it finished in time. Figuring out what style/styles should be accepted would be important, too, as Rozo suggested. It's not that I think it's a bad idea. You'll just need to hustle if you want your idea to come to fruition.

A quick comment - using the 'Advanced Edit' mode would've been a smoother idea than making a new thread of the same track. Just throwing that out there for ya. Now that I have some proper listening equipment, let's see what you got, here. The snares. You need some stronger samples in there - the double tap is the only thing that's coming out in the basic loops (the other snare is nearly lost completely), and even that is a little too weak to carry the track. Get some snares with a little more 'snare' to it (har har, marching band joke). The rest of the drums are also weak (that bass doesn't do much, and the hat work is almost inaudible), so I'd take a quick look into fixing those up. Excellent samples and sounds, otherwise. The soundscape fills out quite nicely, and the arrangement is very neat. I think you have a winner, here.

Yeah, but you know what? I can still smash my nephews at video games. Whaddaya say ta that, EH?!

I think he already subbed this month ago, bro. Needless to say I'm pretty amazed at this mix - I can hear a shitload of work in the processing of all the effects. It's unreal. That said, I don't really have an ear for this sort of mix, so it doesn't affect me too much, aesthetically. It is certainly great stuff, though. Perhaps I'm just the person you're referring to in the OP, and I need to get used to the sound . Anyhoo, I can see this track as a direct post. The FF7 track just has to be a direct post. I don't think you need to worry about anything at all.

Y'know how you can tell a video is really good stuff? When you have a split down the middle which public opinion, and people are willing to discuss the topic days after it's been presented. Missle command succeeded at exactly what Sephfire claimed at the beginning - it's a game where the intended narrative is told solely through the mechanics of the game, and nothing else. If anyone wants to argue against that, then feel free. I'm very curious what people would have to say against that point (other than simply disagreeing that there really is a narrative, since that's... well, boring). I do agree with the original point that the video was a touch on the over dramatic side (Most difficult moral dilemma in video game history? Really?), but that made it more fun to watch.

It's got some sexy lead guitar action, bro. I like the overall sound of this track, and I enjoy how it sticks to the source, as well. I'm not going to be the right guy to talk about any possible production issues, though - right now I'm only able to listen through some busted speakers that mess up the sound. Gimme 'til the beginning of this year and I can give it an appropriate critical listen, but from what I can hear you're really layin' on the sexiness upon my eardrums. If someone else who has better speakers could check for production issues, I'm sure that would be greatly appreciated by Black Mage Revolution, here. I'd highly recommend sending this through mod review, right now, rather than 'finished', since it seems ready for that stage. Nice work - shame you didn't post this in the old thread so people could compare and contrast.

Long live Quest 64. My nephews have a strange obsession with retro games. I mean, they turn down WII games... hell, they turn down N64 and PSX games in favor of SNES games and NES classics (they play the other systems, sure, but not as much as the older classics). I find it strange and yet heartwarming to see them replaying my youth willingly. Man, they're awesome. I'm sure they're the exception, though, and not the rule.

Preview, woot. Most of us actually don't know what the other's music sounds like, either, so quite frankly I'm sure a lot of us are awaiting that wonderful preview.

Ah, a fellow Reason 3.0 user, eh? Wait, Arcana is a 'former' Reason 3.0 user... Because of the lack of VSTi support it's certainly not something you can use forever. I will double Avaris, though, and say that Reason's mixer board is easily the most intuitive that I've seen. If Willrock is having trouble with it... well, to each his own, but personally it's done wonders, for me. I never did figure out how to get the program to make tunes for me at the click of a button, though. Then again, I never really wanted a program to do that for me, either - I'm a bit of a control freak, when it comes to note placement. I use Reason 3.0. I don't have the money to upgrade it, sadly, and if I did I'd probably get a program that had VST/VSTi support and start getting used to that, instead. Have you ever hit the 'TAB' button on the mixer board, Neblix? That's where all of the attachments are on the program, and it's very visual. Easy, peasy.

I think I was born with a controller in my hand. I've been pretty damn good at games since I was about... five (when I beat Megaman 3). As for VG music, well... again, MM3. The music was just too awesome to ignore. Lets face it, who among us hasn't at least bobbed their heads to the intro track from that game?

Oh my God, you use the exact same rain sound I used for my own Chicago remix! Are you stealin' mah ideas? Actually, mines a Gumshoe remix with Chicago, so I guess that doesn't count . ANYWAY, onto the actual remix... Very smooth. Nice rain (hence why I used it in my own remix, eh?). I like the harmonic clash between the chords you use and the chords implied in the arpeggio. Personally, I don't mind the bells you use - you just have a bit too much of it in there. If used relatively sparingly they evoke a very 70's sound (Moody Blues, anyone?). Use them to accent moments, not to set a constant texture, and they'll fit the music very well. I don't have a suggestion for the texture otherwise (perhaps piano, like others suggested?), so you'll need to experiment with that a little bit. Very nice start to a track. Right now, it sounds like it's building to the melody that's supposed to shine through. The guitar work and other texture work is perfect for just that, but right now it sounds like it needs some melodic charm added to it. Sax would work nicely, but it's not the only instrument that could work. A clean lead guitar would also be excellent, as well as a piano or even a viola. With a track like this anything is possible, but be aware that the lead instrument will set the tone for the rest of the track. The production is very clean. If you keep the rest of the track this pristine you'd have absolutely no problem in OCR's standards. This is an awesome remix, so far. Don't let it drop.

Right, I remember you posting in the WIP forums a while back saying you were the only one makin' music for the former group 'Theophany', so I was just checking to see if they got together again or not. Yeah, Jade, this isn't the same guy who posted remixes back in the day - he said so himself a while back. By the sound of what you provided for the Link's Awakening album, we certainly have something to look forward to . Oooo, this'll be an awesome album when it comes out, next year .

So is it the Theophany group of people or the individual that uses the forums here that submit the music?

Happy Birthday, OCR. Now go flood the internets with moar videogame music and albums, plz.

Interesting choice in meter - 3/4 for a 4/4 track. Neat. The orchestration, while not terrible, does seem a little bland. Strings are backing the brass. Orchestration, in order for it to really shine, needs some variety thrown in there. Don't be afraid of the strings taking over the theme, or for woodwinds to do some of the background work, etc. The samples are... well, not all that great. You can work around that problem considerably, though, if you change the attack value of the instruments so they don't always either fade in or strike suddenly, and if you vary the dynamics with the phrasing better. For some reason, I really like the cymbals, though . The short track loops quite well. Are you planning on extending this track, or is it going to be awesomely loopable? Yeah, overused source, overused style, blah blah. I'd rather judge the track on it's own merit, and so far it's pretty neat with the rhythmic shift from the original and pretty orchestra. The sounds you have could certainly use some work, but hey - a lot of people deal with this problem differently. Finding better samples (or buying them) is one solution. Adding 'human' variation is another solution. Taking what makes a sound less 'real' and fixing it (as I suggested) is yet another solution. Good luck with this track. It's fun, but it potentially could be a really neat track. Also, I gotta give a fellow WIP poster some track love, you know?

As soon as I'm back from Louisiana I'll be getting in on this.

If that's how the samples sound naturally, go slap the guy who made the samples so mid-heavy. Then consider actually running the samples through EQs and possibly vocoders and lower the mids while raising the highs somewhere in the middle of the song (the effect works great in the beginning). That might open up the sound a little bit (or it might not - you'll need to experiment with that, since it's the samples themselves that are strange). As for posting other tracks in this thread, you'll both get more attention and less angry faces if you made new threads for new tracks.