Gario

... 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.

We all win for participating! YAY!

http://kotaku.com/players-who-pirated-pokemon-sun-and-moon-say-nintendo-i-1789039343 AAaahhahahahahahahaaahaaha... *Breaths* HA. Don't feel the least bit sorry for them. I mean, wow, pirating Nintendo games before their release has consequences. Who would've thought?

This so much. In fact, this applies to any instrument you try to humanize - shape your phrasing with dynamics. One more piece of advice for Piano specifically is to emulate the damper pedal, which sustains notes until you release the pedal in real life. One way to do do this, max the sustain envelope on the sampler to simulate the pedal being "pressed", then hard set it to zero every time it's "not pressed". That in combination with shaping dynamics with phrasing is how I get the piano to sound the way it does at the end of my FF9 track"Terraforming Gaia", for example. It's a unique feature of the piano, so it's a good idea to look up how a damper pedal works to see why I suggested what I did. It helps a whole lot, though.

Oooh, I think it sounds really cool, as in a "This would be an amazing Playstation 2 / GC / XBox track" sort of way. Listening to the source it's obviously a cover (as you intended), but you have a very clean way of handling your samples that make the whole thing sound... clean. Well done. The samples sound sampled (as you mentioned), but overall it IS well sequenced, and generally handled in a way that it doesn't sound bothersome. The bass is nice and strong in there, and it's very animated. I like it, nice work. Also, damn Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon does have a pretty amazing soundtrack, who'd have thought.

EVAL Very interesting harmonic approach to the source - it sounds like you pretty much rework the harmonies to get a whole new mood to it, and that approach works quite well. I've got to say, there are a lot of instruments in this that are very wet. Pads, delay on the guitars, etc., and when too many are going at once it creates a very washed background. You lost a lot of the harmonies and synths when they all start blending together. On one synth in particular (the one that comes in at 0:05, ends up carrying the theme) it sounds like the release of the synth itself is exceeding 1-2 seconds, which is a recipe for creating lots of unintentional mud. The drums, by contrast, actually need a little more reverb to them, to help match the room ambience of the other instruments. Not too much, but just enough to make it sound like it's in the same room as the other instruments. The drums should also be mixed a little more to the front of the mix, too, as they're virtually drown by the other instruments, at the moment. The hard panning in the beginning is quite distracting. It's no dealbreaker due to how short the offending panning lasts, but it is a bit annoying. Consider centering that left panned synth a little more in the beginning. It doesn't need to go full center, but pulling it a little away from the left would help considerably. The instrument quality seems to be improving, from what I gather (there were prior comments to the guitar quality, for example), as it doesn't sound too terrible. There are a few ways that you could improve it further, though. Ironically, in light of my comments of much of the track being too wet, adding a little more reverb (not delay, but reverb) to the guitar part can hide the releases better. Not your fault, but the release of the sample sounds strangely inhuman - a hint of reverb can help hide that. Another interesting point is how you handle volume envelops - moments like 2:14 - 2:16 sound like you're simply playing with the volume knob rather than a natural result of the guitarist playing notes at different volumes. Swelling can work as a technique (Metallica did this for the opening of "Justice for All", for example), but you've got to study and understand how guitarists use such volume envelops in their own music before applying them as such. If you want to humanize the overdrive guitar, use different velocities for a few of the notes, and have the velocity affect the levels. That's the best way to humanize volume for that instrument. The more acoustic part, in contrast, is pretty darn top notch. It sounds natural, and it really takes the track to a different level. Great work on that. There's a lot of wetness that is occurring in the background of the music - enough so to where I'd send it back if it were on the panel. The arrangement is pretty sweet, though, so it'd be pretty solid on that front. Hopefully some of my advice on humanizing the guitar helps, too, as I'm sure this would still be called out for not having enough proper humanization on some of the instruments.

I'd be mighty sad if Liontamer denied one of the Follin brothers on an album called 'Dirge of the Follin'. I mean, c'mon Liontamer. Gotta love their absolute mastery over the NES hardware.