Gario

Hey, I remember this! First thing's first, please add some sort of name to the files vs. 'v1, v2, v-it's-over-9000', etc. It's not a problem for most people, but I like to hold on to older files of WIPs and compare the progress, but these are replacing your other WIPs... Then again, it's a deterrent for creepy collectors like me, so maybe you'll want to stick to your naming convention... Oops, I'm an idiot, you've got the source on your first post... I read the second post and thought it was the first Onto the music... If I recall, one of the issues that you were having before was that the harmonies never changed from the original. It's the case in this version, as well. I'd recommend expanding the music by writing some new material for it harmonically. It sounds OK where it's at, but the harmonies are used for four and a half minutes, so I start to tire of the sound eventually. I'd post what I said before, but that would be too frickin' long for the regular reader . In short, I suggest some strategies to expand the harmonies used into something else... Try using some of that to compose new material for this (or make up stuff without referencing that PM; it may have been a little unclear what I was trying to say in that ). The sounds are cleaner on this version than your last one. The samples are a bit sub-par, though. I'd suggest finding better samples. I like the arrangement and the use of many different instruments. You seem to have a knack for writing interesting textures and symphonic colors. In short, very nice arrangement, but it doesn't overcome the lack of harmonic variety. If you fixed the harmonies and used some better samples this would be a very nice piece!

That was what DarkeSword was getting at; What sounds like new age for one group of people may sound like Orchestral music for another, so when people are giving a list of 'New Age' music, it really is a list of what they THINK is New Age on this site (which is subjective). At OC there is often a blur in the genres so it is difficult to distinguish what something truly is. For example... I don't know if I'd call this new age per say, although it is a quite badass track. You just gave an example of this discrepency yourself... Flare4War thinks 'Triforce Majeure' is New Age, whereas you do not. That is a subjective opinion, in this case, not a fact.

That's true, of course. Personally, I know I don't have to follow the staff (and neither does anyone else); I just personally agree with them on that particular subject entirely. Then he'll find New Age among other genre's that achieve the same thing (New age is one genre, smooth jazz is another, Trance can be another genre that's relaxing as long as it isn't bLiNd ). I'm not saying stop searching for a genre altogether (as it seems that I've implied, which I didn't mean to), I'm just saying let him do the footwork a little so he can form his own library, there. It's not a good thing when people form a list of what he should listen to - he'll be missing out on a lot of great music that isn't listed as he may not be searching.My post may have been slightly overzealous, but I stick to (most of) what I've said. Besides, it's not like I can stop the posts that are already here that have New Age and 'chill' tracks listed Edit: I just read your post, DarkeSword, and I agree with you in part, so I changed my first post accordingly. However, I do believe that doing some of the searching yourself is also highly beneficial (vs solely following other's suggestions)... I hope this sounds more like a proper topic of debate rather than flaming ( '~' )

A serious list, or a joke of a list... I'll do both! Seriously... -Finish my GRE -Buy a new computer that isn't complete crap -Get together a proper portfolio for others to listen to -Get into a respectable grad program like USC As a joke... -Finish my GRE (lol) -Buy a new computer that isn't complete crap (lol... it'll never happen) -Get together a proper portfolio for others to listen to (lol again...) -Get into a respectable grad program like USC (roflmao) See? I'm a minimalist comedian!

Hey, Blake mentioned a 'Battle' music that you want to have implemented. I'm fine with that, but will the battle music cut the zone music often? Right now, my music more or less builds to the real guts of the piece, but if the battle music will be interrupting it every minute or so I'll need to make some changes to the zone music accordingly.

Adding the chorus was a big improvement to that last part, needless to say! How many 'effects' were you planning on putting in there? Like you said before, the new sounds added into the piece currently are placeholders, but those seem to drown the original effect a little. I hope the permanent sounds are not as obtrusive to the piece as a whole... Thanks for the update! I'm sure there are gonna be a lot of happy people when they hear this one...

I agree whole heartedly with DJPrez's opinion on this. Don't come onto the site looking for a particular genre - expand your horizons and try everything. Be pleasently surprised when something comes up that is from a genre you like. He doesn't want to encourage that kind of navigation, and neither do I. Edit: According to DarkeSword, I guess this kind of navigation IS encouraged... *foot entering Gario's mouth now* Look around the site, explore, experiment, and discover that there is more out there for you! Edit: I took out the first line, as that was unnecessary, on my part. I do believe, however, that doing some of the legwork yourself is beneficial, so I'm not backing out entirely

Just letting you know, he couldn't have known any of the theory that he was applying to his music. He knew about counterpoint and harmony, and he probably knew about Riemann's tonnetz, but what he did with his music far surpasses the theory of the time. If he wrote music that no theory of the time could explain, how could he have known the theory behind it? He knew what he was doing, sure, but it isn't theory that he knew. It was his methods of composition that he was following (which isn't theory - it's composition). Theory is written and talked about after the fact that the music was written, not before. The composers write what they believe sounds good to them; they don't care 'why'. Wagner knew that he liked the sound of his music (much like I'm sure you and I like the sound of our own music when we write it), but claiming that he knew of the theory that he was applying a hundred years before anything resembling a theory to describe his music... it isn't possible. Yes, it is the composer's job to evoke an 'intended emotion', but only for himself. As tonal music is what we grow up listening to, we get to share in the emotions of the composers of those times, and if a composer wants to evoke those same emotion today they will probably use similar techniques as the past because the listeners have become accustomed to those sounds. Listen to some world music sometime, though. They use completely different methods of writing music altogether, and thus it's impossible for us to listen to it and get the same emotion that the composer intended to evoke (and if the people listen to our music, they often find it disgusting to their ears). It's a romantic ideal to believe that Music has a universal effect on everyone regardless, but it isn't true. It's not the composer or the music that creates an emotion... It's the listener's interpretation of the music that evokes the emotion (whether the listener knows it or not). ... Leave it to us, SLyGeN, to take a forum where it wasn't intended to go...

Well, for what you wrote it for, it should do fine. The melody is drown in the arrangement. I'd recommend bringing out the melody whenever you can a bit more (probably by making the arrangement a touch lighter or simply make it louder in places). It's not that it sucks, for me, it's just that I can't hear it through everything else very well . Also, it sounds a little too dramatic for me in some areas (although I don't know what they want, personally). It's probably the horns in some spots . You got the 'serious down', but it seems a little too much so. It doesn't suck, to me; it could be that you as the composer can hear something that only you can hear, so here's me letting you know that the rest of us think it's fine . Looking at what they asked for, I commend you for writing this - it's a difficult style combination to write. Good job.

Sorry, SLyGeN, if what I'm saying sounds like a personal attack or something; I don't mean it like that. Where I'm coming from is that the purpose of analysis IS for the listener to gain an understanding of how to feel the music and why (or so I believe, personally), so if one interprets something one way it implies that is how they're hearing it. If you interpret the music one way but hear it another... well, that's bad theory practice, and it's done a whole lot in the field. Don't go there. I'm merely trying to show you other ways of thinking about the music - you've got one way down very well, great! Now here's another way to think about music (I wouldn't point you towards Cohn if I felt you didn't get the concept of keys and modes perfectly, so take this as a compliment, please!). No, I was directing you towards another theory of music because I thought you'd be interested, not because I think your stupid for thinking in keys. In this day and age a full undertanding of keys will get you hearing and understanding 90% of what's out there, and your probably able to comfortably listen to another 8% without understanding it (and the last 2% delves into some real wierd shit that most people won't listen to, anyway). I'm pointing to some of the theory from the 8% bracket. ...I'm sorry, but I lol'd at that. I've got a Bachelor of Science in Psychology (no joke)... I'd take the recommendation, but it's too late . The field I'd be terrible at is Human Relations, as I seem to come off as an ass more often than not...

It's cool, Wartorn city is good, too I just want something there, so if Rozo's is good for the ship I'll write something for the city. It's what I get for doing a late WIP .

That was my point. Wagner was an example of the type of music I was describing, there. I was hoping you'd see that music exists where listening for a key will cut off most of what you can hear in the music. As that is some of my favorite kind of music, that's ended up being how I write and hear music The response to the Wagner song confirms that you believe that, deep down, the piece must be in some key, there, as it uses triads and the like. If you think in keys for much of later romantic music and all 20th century music it'll limit your thinking and you'll miss out on the bigger picture (which was quite a revelation to me, as I used to listen for a key in anything with triads). Wagner breaks out of the concepts of 'keys' and 'modes' as the piece never establishes any key at any one point. He uses an 'A' to begin with, but it is never established as a tonic using a true cadential function. The way he writes so much dissonance on the metric beat destroys the concept of 'consonance' and 'dissonance' altogether, as well, so the piece is truly one of the first 'non-tonal' pieces of music I can think of. Think about it - if you can't tell what is consonant or dissonant, then how can you tell what the scale or key really is? God help me, they have. Putting names to scales on a piece like that, however, is an exercise in futility. By the time the 'scale' is established it changes to an entirely different 'scale', so it doesn't help identify what is happening in the music in any way at all (Like you said, non-functional). There's always a new guy trying to tell the establishment that the piece must be tonal because it uses 'keys' and 'triads', but if one listens to it in that fashion they'll get lost in the constant amount of change involved. . If you want to know the proper theory behind how that particular piece works, read up on Parsimonious Voice Leading, or Neo-Riemannian theory (I think Richard Cohn wrote an article on that one in 1997); you'll see that it doesn't use the concept of 'keys', yet still works in the frame of triads and the like. It is a more proper explination of how that piece works. Hopefully this will clear up my other comment, abg; If you had 2 good apples among 2 rotten ones, you'd be able to find the good apples pretty easily. If there were 2 good apples among 500 rotten ones they'd be much more difficult to find. In both cases, there are 2 good apples (absolute amount), but the field that they are in is larger in one case over the other, so it seems like there are less in there than before (relative amount). Hope that clears it up . By the way, nice find, Lunarfall )

Ack, Rozo's got the spaceship? Blast, I thought I mentioned it... Oh well, I'm working on a WIP right now, and it works for the wartorn city, so I'll get 'dibs' on that now before anything else happens. WIP should be done sometime today; my comp has been acting up the last few days, but it's giving me an opening to do something right now . I'm good for writing area specific tracks

Wow, thanks for the info, Blake! I guess I'm now writing a track for a spaceship So, according to this, we're also making a network and a battle song for the area? That's fine by me...

If your going for that effect then use 8-bit samples! Here's an example of going for the 8-bit era style... http://remix.thasauce.net/song/RTS0152/ He actually uses a program that writes NES chiptune music (as you can tell by the NSF file), but you don't need to take it that far, if your just going for the effect (although you can, as there are programs that do this for free). Let me rephrase what I said about the Powerglove song before - It's not that the samples were bad, it's that the samples were wrong. Power to oldskool I can see what you meant by making the stuff repetitive for a reason, but does it have to be? Look at this song - it's in a pop style, yet when he 'repeats' anything, it isn't really a repeat - it has variations to some of the elements. The variations don't need to be that great, they just need to shake it up a little. http://www.box.net/shared/dlbz52kfvh (By the way, this is floating in the WIP forums right now, credit goes to AkumajoBelmont) I can understand the repeats for the sake of having someone sing over them, as making the adjustments like he did may step on the toes of the buyer a little (although I personally would do it for the sake of the music ). Oh, and I just heard the Knights of 2021 song, and I liked it. It was fun. it had similar problems as before, but I liked it, nonetheless

Alright, glad we cleared things up, so onto the music Like I said earlier, I dislike 'blanket critiques' so I'll only look at a few songs here and give you my thought in more detail. Listening to Powerglove, now... First thing I notice is that it's far to quiet. It's clean but quiet. I don't know if that's the doing of the player or not, but as I hear it the music has no power at all. The drums are very bland; you need a lot of variety in there. The bouncy beat is nice, but it cannot hold up the music for four straight minutes. The samples used are quite terrible. By the sound of your other things, there, you do have better samples, you just aren't using them. Why not? Isn't VG music worth it ? The volumes of what you do have there are too similar and static. It is difficult to pull the melody out of the harmonies and bass. I like the textures that you use, though, so it's nice to be able to hear them... just give the melody & bass some more dynamic prominence. On the topic of dynamics, they don't change enough throughout the music, either. Harmonically speaking, it isn't bad nor wrong, but it gets a little stale towards the end. I'd vary some of the harmonic material every so often to keep the listeners on their toes. Melodically speaking it's fine (it goes well with the bouncy nature of the rest of the music), but again it gets old by the second time around. At 3:03 it sounds like the music is getting a good breath of fresh air. I like that part, it just needs to come in earlier . Now, I understand that this is supposed to be video game music to that can account for some of the problems (like the stale repetitive nature of many aspects); if that's true then I'd suggest you end the music with a fadeout at the beginning of an intended loop. That way, people will see that the repetitive nature is due to the construct of VG music and not the music itself. Now on the song 'Pump You Up' there is an issue on balance. As my brother would say, it sounds like 'the drummer did the mixing', as the drums really dominate over everything else. If you want us to get into it we need more bass! On a song like this the bass and drum are crucial... you've only got one part! Don't forget the other parts, either; the bass and drums are important, but the other parts need to be heard, too. The samples are better than the Powerglove song, for sure, but they still seem lacking. They're very dry for such a song. I'd suggest some more reverb on this. Again, as I said before for the other song, the harmonies, melodies, dynamics, etc. are quite static. It eventually tires me to listen to because very little changes throughout the song. In the beginning of the song the ideas you present are interesting and could go to interesting places, but you repeat a lot of material without variation. This will make the music boring. Now you see why I prefer single song posts, as writing for every song you wrote would take me days . However, I am noticing some trends in your music from listening to some of your others. -They are too quiet. -The soundscape isn't filled out very well, meaning your music doesn't have enough lows, mids or highs, thus making it sound 'empty' (For some genres that's not a problem, but this is for the music in general on the site). -There isn't enough use of dynamics. -The sample quality is somewhat low, and the use of tools like reverb, delay, etc. is minimal and therefore unable to make up for it. -The music is often too repetitive. By the way, if you look at any of my WIPs or contest posts (except for early ones - don't use those for reference ) you'll notice that the music is louder and the samples sound better. This isn't because I have better samples, it's simply because I use tools to mask the quality of the samples (such as reverb and delay) or I simply limit the use of the samples to cases where that particular quality is desired. I haven't downloaded/bought a single sample patch for anything as of yet (not suggesting you go that route, BTW), but I manage to make my music sound acceptable. Darkesword does an even better job making simple samples sound great than I do, by the way, so check out some of his posts to get a clear view of what I'm talking about. I'm giving some constructive criticism, here, so don't take this the wrong way. Take it from me, it's very difficult to compose music, especially from so many different genres like your doing there. On the brighter side of things, you've made some money on your music, so you've certainly got a better sense of business than I do... Hope this helps. BTW - just needed to point out that the 'Progressive Hip Hop' sounds a lot like Zangeif's theme from SF2 at some points... sorry, this is a VG remixing site, after all

Hey if I get IRC working for the next OHC I'll harass her for you to get the vocals done! I'm waiting for another update here, too!

lol, I know that. I know what and how a specific mode is used because I can listen in keys and modes if I need to (which is, obviously, a lot), it's just not how I listen to something the first time around. My own music personally gears towards neo-reimannian parsimony & 20th century counterpoint, so that is how I hear music at the moment, as well. I hear lines and the interaction of the voices; the harmonic layout is secondary.Point is, I listen to keys as a secondary byproduct of the music, not the primary concrete setting. Listen to Wagner's prelude to the opera 'Tristan und Isolde' and tell me what 'key' it's in, I dare you (If you say A minor or A major, trust me, you'll be dead wrong ). Perhaps this is an extention of your thoughts, abg, but do you think it's possible that it's not that fewer games are coming out that have excellent soundtracks, but that more games are coming out altogether (with not-so-good soundtracks) and it's the relative amount of good music coming out that's affected because of this, not the absolute amount? *Watches the dead horse continue to tapdance*

Ah, that's understandable. T'was a mere suggestion; looks like the idea may not be applicable in every case... (I may use some of the harmonies, though ) And thanks, Rozo; I'll see if I can get IRC working.

Sorry, dude; we still have no life here, let us squabble in peace . T'was the point I was getting at. Using something that is uplifting as the theme for that song and using such strange out of place timbres and use of space creates an odd contrast that doesn't bring the odd instrumentation to me, but drags down the originally cheery tune. Like BGC said, though, it's truly subjective, in this case, so neither one of us can come to a true conclusion. Actually, I personally don't think of music in 'keys' or the like, as it limits me in my writing, so I'm probably at a disadvantage here

Here's another thought for the sake of continuity - How does everyone feel about putting up a general theme to the game, that it - Just a few simple motifs that we all let run throughout our songs so the soundtrack sounds more like a whole. Just a thought, it would add consistency to the game's soundtrack. Just tossing that idea out. Thanks for letting me know about level 3, Fireslash, btw

Quick question about the list... Is it Garian or Gario that has level 3 claimed? Let me know either way (if he claimed it in the dark, there, I won't be upset )... The name's close, so I can't be sure.

Your new here, so I'm glad to meet you. The things that you've put up seem like demos of things that you want to sell to us; if that's true, then please tell us in your thread that your selling music. I personally have no need for it, so thanks for the offer... I don't know what to say about the 'looking for contacts' thing. If your looking for contacts you should try to get to know the people here. What your thread currently looks like at the moment is that your trying to sell us a product that we have in abundance here already. Try breaking in here by getting involved with the projects, contests, WIP forums, etc.; that'll allow people to get to know you & your music better, thus adding to your list of 'contacts'. As to how I personally like to be linked to music - I would rather listen to one at a time than listen to a whole bunch. It allows me to give helpful, specific commentary rather than a 'blanket critique' on everything... which doesn't do you any good. By the look of the pricetag on them, I'd say you aren't willing to allow any of us to download or stream using one of these sites, which is a shame... It's how OCR people prefer their links to the music, in general. I sound harsh, here, but I'm trying to help. If you want contacts, be willing to give some things to the community. In return we'll give our support. Cheers!

An unclaimed track (track 3)? Hey, if no one else is doing it, I'll do a WIP for ya He makes a good point about this, so unless you want a variety score you should probably address this Gimme a day or two to whip something up. It'll be electronic, as that seems fitting for the game right now, but if you come up with something different for the cohesive style I'll be flexible. Edit: Alright, Industrial it is .

Weird quote, but it's caught my interest. Thanks for that link; I've been looking for that for some time now ... SLyGeN, don't you think it's overgeneralizing things a tad if you say something in major is 'happy', in minor is 'sad'. dorian/'heroic', etc.? Due to how things are used historically, we tend to make these associations, but the key isn't the only thing that determines the mood. I like the Mario RPG battle song, so lets use it as an example. For sure, it doesn't sound dire, that I can agree with. Instead, the music sounds very uplifting and bouncy. The instrumentation, though, is very unique in how it's used. Instead of conventionally bright instruments, it uses convoluted instruments (like that... thing... playing the theme in the beginning). It then uses contrasts of the instrumentation to achieve tense moments. In fact, everything in that song conflicts with that major sound, so the listener doesn't feel 'good' when listening to the song, they feel engaged... or at least I do. Everyone's different . It's funny, I didn't used to like the battle theme for Mario RPG for your very reason (It's in Major! Yuck!!), but it's grown on me over the years. Listen to elements outside of the key and notice the contrasts and tensions created Oh, just a small extention to your post, ABG (playing the advocate to your advocate, here ) - Do you think that the NES - N64 era is the most popular to remix because the music was better, or is it that remixing a song where the developers had limitations is easier than remixing a song that the composer had full reign on the production? Really, it's easier to add to older music that only had four channels of blips to use as it gives the remixer room to add whatever s/he wants to add to the mix. If the song sounds complete it can be intimidating to start a remix as there is so much material to pick and chose from, leaving little room for personal interpretation... Just a thought.