Gario

Ack, this ended on Nov. 30th, not Dec. 2nd. Wanted to do something with it - the Super Bomber Man theme that plays throughout the baseline was something I wanted to play around with. I mean, technically I still CAN, but I'm lazy and don't have a drive without a compo to play too. Ah well, I can still vote.

Will bring significant news on New Years day. ... I'm partly posting this information in order to hold myself to that promise. In the meantime: Yes, this project has been going on for a long time, but it hasn't been forgotten or abandoned yet. No, the directors do not want to let it go quite yet, because they still love the music that's already in it, and the sources are rich in possibility. Yes, the directors have been busy with life events (especially Bahamut), but that part has been less of an excuse for at least myself lately. Yes, this project has been going on since before the announcement of the Lufia DS remake, and continues long after its release. And finally: Yes, this is still a project that is being worked on, even if it's been dormant for a long time. I don't want people to feel abandoned on this, and I don't want to have people give up hope on it, so I will lay out the plans for this project's future on January 1st, 2017. Keep an eye out, especially if you feel like you want to contribute to it in some form or another.

If Jorito and LBC wanted to direct this effort, I will vouch for both of them in terms of musical ability and quality control. I hope they get this ball rolling again.

Interesting bit of trivia: this one track forced OCR to change its standards on length and file size, adopting the current standard we know and love today due to its sheer overwhelming awesomeness. Such is the way things go sometimes, and I don't think a single person is worse off because of it. Except Pretzel's hosts, but whatever. ANYHOO, This is a great arrangement - takes its time and does so in such a way where it doesn't really lose you. The harmonies are rich, and honestly it never falls into the temptation of bringing everything in at once and blasting you, either. I like a good blastin' from time to time, but I appreciate the music that lets you just enjoy it in the background, too. I like it a lot. Do give it your time and attention, this track deserves it.

Great choice of source - the MMZ games all have great music, and yet it seems suspiciously under-represented in comparison to the more classic series. They must've been too difficult to get through for people to hear the great music that came from them, that's the only explanation. It's a good idea for an arrangement, but the execution sounds like all the different instruments are playing in different rooms. Some instruments (like the drums) are just too dry in comparison to the other instruments, and others sound very rich and wet (like that steel string guitar at the beginning). I hear some effort to humanizes your instruments, but that lead overdrive guitar sounds thin and sampled (even with the effects you added). I think making all the instruments have a similar level of reverb to one another would help alleviate your issues considerably. Nice work, though - that game needs more love than it gets normally.

Sounds a little like a classical guitar arrangement, with the accompaniment and lead playing all at once. The performance could've been cleaner, and the timing could've been better for the melody line, but it's definitely a cool idea you have going there. The tab for it is a nice bonus, I might add.

... It would've actually made the soundtrack sound like "The World Ends with You" at times, which isn't a bad thing at all, lol.

Kind of wish the lyrics were in the game - fits them so damn well.

Even if we have one Arceus, having two isn't a bad thing, is it? Edit: Doesn't work if you already got it earlier. Sadness.

Seiken Densetsu 3 is the best SNES game for the console that never came out to the states - it's a direct sequel to Secret of Mana (which was Seiken Densetsu 2, in Japan), and it far surpasses its predecessor. An album for the soundtrack is about finished, too, so you can hear the whole soundtrack arranged in the near future (hopefully!). Go look it up, the music is quite good. I also must add that I don't condone finding a translated patched ROM of that particular game and emulate it to experience it for yourself. Don't do it! *ahem* Anyway, if I had to single out instruments, the piano in the beginning is very dry and isn't mixed well in comparison to the rest (it sounds like it's being played in another room), the flutes at 1:04 come off as wooden and stiff (no pun intended, ha), brass stabs at 1:13 don't seem to blend with the rest of the track (mixed too close to the front at that point, or something)... I think it's the trombone that's sticking out, but it's hard to tell off the cuff, and they are dynamically stiff at that point, the guitar is pretty fake, as you mentioned. Overall, there's also an inconsistency to how wet or dry the samples are, which makes them sound like they're playing in different rooms rather than performing together. My initial comment doesn't make this clear enough, so apologies for the slight confusion. I do hear a lot of attention to the humanization details that are in there upon a second listening, though - the dry samples mixed with a few wetter ones (like the longer strings, for example) throws me off. Hope that makes it a little bit clearer.

I recommend the new Marowak, myself. He's done me wonders as a mixed attack based fighter, and his new typing (Fire/Ghost) helps in quite a few fights, especially if you didn't get the grass-type starter (... which I did - double ghost FTW, I guess :P). It's also fun to try out the new Alolan variations whenever we can, eh? You find him in the same area as the Magby, so it's not hard to find, though he starts as the normal ground type evolution prior to Marowak (it evolves into the Alolan variation at Lv. 28).

Mmm, I think it had all the flavors of a Seiken Densetsu 3 OST track, both in a good and not-as-good way. The atmosphere and instrumentation just screams that soundtrack, as does the overall style. Unfortunately, the sample quality is almost a cleaner, upgraded version of that OST's samples, it sounds like. It's not bad, though, and I enjoyed it nonetheless. I do feel more humanization of some of your instrumentation would help quite a bit, but for what's here it sounds pretty neat. Nice work.

Moving further into the story, I actually appreciate the reasoning and purpose behind all of their antics. It... actually makes them pretty sympathetic. I was pleasantly surprised. They're still goofy as fuck, though, and I enjoy every bit of that, lol.

I loved good ol' Lysandre and his ethnic cleansing plot (the ethnicity in question being everyone except himself and rich people who paid into being in his group).

Damn, is it one of my favorite VG arrangers comin' back on the WIP boards, and I missed him? Ack! As usual, your style just oozing throughout this track. The performances are stylisticly slick, and the overall production evokes that 70's sound in that way you know how. The arrangement is a little bit hectic, losing me a little at the end of the middle section, but it's still easy enough to follow. As for the video, gotta love the American flag wearin' Swede dancin' with the guitar. Just can't beat it, really. Interestingly enough, after all the years of making amazing music, I know that you submit "Sky Diver Inside Her" some time back, and Larry rejected it due to "sampled drums". Visually seeing you perform the drums makes me think you should DEFINITELY submit something again, since you do make great stuff. Regardless, great stuff, and I hope more people check out some more Muthapluckin' B music because of this.

"Tuning" is a pretty standard thing with samplers, so I would imagine it would be an option. If anything, "pitch bend" will work for detuning in a pinch, if there's no way to raise or lower the tuning by +/- 50 cents.

Yeah, the way that TMs work nowadays is that they're reusable items (a nice change made in the 4th or 5th generation). Over the generations they've made the games less prone to permanently losing items and such, so there is a LOT less to worry about. The EV training aspect is still a permanent change, but in all honesty you shouldn't worry about that in your first run, anyway - those pokemon you get on a first run WILL NOT have ideal IV stats, so it's pointless to give them competition level EV training anyway. They will get you through the game no matter how they develop, so there's no real reason to worry too much about it. When you get through the game once you can start worrying about all of the more advanced aspects of the game and start breeding pokemon to actually be competitive. As far as move tutors go, those are different for every game. Not much you can do about that, unless you're willing to get prior generations and breed pokemon there, which... well, I don't recommend that to someone who's just starting out on the games again.

Honestly, I would suggest enjoying the game at your own pace for the first run. I was in your shoes for X&Y (that was my first Pokemon game outside of Red), and I feel that was the best way to go. Just let the game and its mechanics develop at the pace it presents itself and learn the basics as you go. Once you beat it once, that's when you should go out and ask questions, figure out the complex mechanics, try to go full Eugenicist on the pokemon, etc.. It'll also give you a solid idea of what questions you'll be interested in asking, in the first place. It's really not the kind of game where you can permanently lose opportunities to make your pokemon stronger, due to the breeding system, save for the availability of mythic legendaries that Nintendo periodically offers. I think The Damned's thread here will help you not miss any of those, though, so just keep an eye here for any news on that front.

Holy shit, Threnody is an awesome song - I've always just loved how haunting the whole thing sounds. Do check out Penderecki's choral music, too, as it's just... chilling and amazing, especially how he uses microtonal choral techniques throughout. He's a great composer, and I highly recommend listening to more of his work. That all being said, the technique that's being used at 1:58 is pretty tricky to emulate, because the string players are plucking above the "nut" (the part where the strings rest at the top of the neck... I had to look that name up). The strings don't have a controlled tone at that point, so it sounds relatively random and percussive. I haven't seen a sampler yet that deals with more modernist uses of instruments like that, though I certainly could be wrong (I don't use a large variety of samplers myself). If I had to try to emulate it, I would try to get a very dry pizzicato sample, and play relatively high notes that are randomly detuned. Set four pizzicato notes up like that and play only those four notes; there are only four strings, and you CAN'T reasonably change the notes being played in real life (as you can't finger on the bridge to produce different notes past that point on the neck). Be sure the samples have a quick decay, as the notes are unable to reverberate due to their short length (physically). If you're up to it, you can get similar sounds by plucking a tightly pulled rubber band. If you have a decent recording setup you could create a serviceable sample that way, too. Hope that helps.

Skinny-dipping in the nude, isn't that a bit, er, redundant? Just sayin', is all. I'm not sure if I'm pulling much of the Demon Seed source out of this track, but the composition is pretty neat regardless. The lyrics are pretty funny, and the mix overall works pretty well. The drums are pretty repetitive, but in some ways it kind of comes with the territory of the genre. You could've used a little more variety in the drum set regardless. I like it, though; I'm glad you dropped some Albuquerque beats on us over here. Fellow New Mexicans gotta represent, and all that jazz (got my music education from UNM, and all - go lobos). EDIT: Is this the remix you intended on posting? THAT one is easy to pull the Castlevania 3 source from. I may do a little thread breaking and merging, if that's the case.

Haha, this literally sounds like the traditional meaning of a "remix" - the sounds from the source are separated into it's component parts, and the tracks are... well, 're-mixed' to bring other elements out differently than the original. It does exactly what you say it does, Aquadango - brings the piano part out and gives more space to the synths. It's funny that OCR has the word 'ReMix' in its title, but it actually technically means 'rearrange' and/or 'recompose', in terms of the site's normal usage. But I think you did exactly what you set out to do, so nice work on that. Also, welcome to OverClocked ReMix - do check out what we have to offer, and do hang around and see what you can learn on here. The more people listening and sharing things on site, the merrier.

Running people off the road is always a well reasoned, justified response to painting a mustache on you. Nice work.

This TVTropes list might also help, as long as your friend can resist the normal time wasting TVTropes trap involved in opening the site...

This mix is cray-zay. It's much like a Gwar concert - you DEFINITELY should hear it at least once, but it takes a person of particular taste to listen TWICE. It's well produced and absolutely fascinating, but definitely an acquired taste when it comes to the style. Great arrangement, but I would say it's not for everyone. Give it a shot, though - it might catch your ear in just the right way.

I've got a few, might have a few more when I think about em' a bit. Warcraft III: Frozen Throne (Extra Human track from that expansion) Mario Paint (One of the opening sequences has a tribal chant in it) Dragonseed (Some of the tracks have choral backings to them, like this one) Any particular style you looking for (Western, Gregorian, etc.), or does more ethnic styles count as well (Eastern chant, indian chant, etc.)? Also, does it need to be performed in a 'choir', or do solo works count? It's not quite clear from the OP - there are quite a few other options not represented here that I could include if some of those restrictions are clarified.