Gario

The staff doesn't make any money at all, it's volunteer work. We are not "far beyond" taking the staff's word for this, as you suggest - that's why this conversation is happening in the first place. If you are far beyond it, then so be it, but ultimately that isn't anyone's problem but yours. Honestly, this is a good conversation to have, so thank you for bringing it up, but if your only contribution past that point is to tell everyone on here that no one should trust anyone on here again without every staff member pulling out "proof" (which is virtually impossible, by the way, without delving into each of our personal lives) then... yeah. There is nothing you will get out of this conversation.

I'm staying out of the convo otherwise (I'm not nearly knowledgeable enough to participate in this meaningfully), but as far as this specific point goes I think DjP was trying to figure out how much it affects the user's overall experience - if people noticed it quickly, and submit complaints about it that would've been a clear sign it was not the right way to go. A few months into it and a discussion is started, though... that point is debatable, as far as how it affects the listener's overall experience. That portion had little to do with the money-making aspect of it, as far as I can discern.

Ooo, found this guy today. Apparently a part of the brony community (at least, a name like "MandoPony" certainly implies this), but damn can he put out an amazing Undertale vocal arrangement. Most of his things actually don't arrange themes from the game (though "The Need a Monster is still amazing, regardless), but this one does, at least.

Hmm, that might not be a bad idea, but that's assuming the artists both haven't done so already, and are willing to publish their work on Spotify. Unlike OCR, I don't believe OverClocked Records has any distribution rights to the music itself, save for placing it on sale as a digital download (Correct me if I'm wrong - I didn't find the legal nitty-gritty on the OC Records site off-hand). I think the artists are absolutely free to publish their OC Records music on Spotify, though, so if they do, awesome.

Damn, this is pretty slick. Just poppin' in to say it tickles my fancy in all the right ways.

Thanks for taking it well - it helps make the WIP boards a bit more organized. For the Bowser track, I'll give a little feedback on it, maybe it'll be helpful. Overall, I think it's pretty neat - them drum hits represent power, and the incorporation of the original Bowser's Castle theme from Mario 1 was clever. The synths are alright, though the instrument samples are a bit weak - they sound sampled, which generally is the opposite of what you want when you sample instruments. In order to get samples to sound more real, generally it's a good idea to work with the attack envelops in order to achieve the right "strike" of the notes, and play with the volume envelop in order to emulate the dynamic range that the instruments may use in a certain period of time. It's about as tough as it sounds, but I figure you need to know what you're up against when it comes to sampling instruments. As far as the arrangement goes, it has a nice bit of personal flair to it (incorporating the extra theme, as well as the drum choice), but it does follow the source pretty tightly. That's not an issue in it's own right, but that source has a terribly repetitive loop point, which your arrangement ends up suffering from, as well. It ends up getting pretty stale after the first repetition, making the listener wish there was more to the track. Be aware of little things like that - if something seems to get repetitive, change it up! The arrangement returns to some of the earlier material later, which sounds like a relief, but the repetitions are still there. I think the arrangement shows promise, though. For what's there I still enjoyed it, so kudos to that. The mixing doesn't sound nearly as problematic as in the Spider Dance arrangement, so nice work on that.

On the topic of AM2R, the music that's been remade is quite good. For the most part, it's a combination of Metroid 2 and Super Metroid tunes, remixed to fit the area appropriately. It's some good stuff, overall.

I kind of like the kick, but everything else is very quiet, in comparison. It's a matter of mixing balance - if everything else sounds nearly non-existent in comparison, you've got to cut it back a little bit. More importantly, though, there is a way to use this forum (which you can read here) that this thread generally misses the mark on. One track per thread, one thread per track is the rule (with the exception of posting an album) - more than one track and it becomes difficult for others to comment and discuss your music with you (which is the general sentiment I'm seeing in here, in fact). More than one thread per track... well, I'm sure you can see the issue with that. I hate to shut a thread down (I like the activity, actually), so pick a track and focus on that, and I'll remove the rest. If you want attention on a few other tracks, make a thread for them individually. Sorry I've got to be that guy, but it's a problem if I let things like this go and people get the wrong idea. Don't be too discouraged, though - it means more variety of more focused comments on what you do have, and you can always link you your TY page from your signature, for the sake of garnering attention there.

Very jazzy style to this, and it's something that I dig. Taking this source and building off of it as a base for some slick lead improvisation is pretty neat. It's quiet, but it's also calming and interesting throughout. I found the synths to be a bit simplistic, but all things considered you utilize them very well, for the most part. The lead works well as a relatively plain synth, and the background e-piano is smooth, if a little repetitive. While there's quite a bit of subtle variation of the backing textures, that e-piano could've made minute changes from time to time to make it a bit more interesting. The drumwork is very interesting in this - subdue'd, and it never gets brought to the front, like I expected it to be. Interestingly enough, considering the rest of the soundscape I thought it worked surprisingly well, so kudos to that. Since everything else is pretty soft, the synth that comes in at 1:15 (and elsewhere in the track) pierces rather painfully. The highs in that should be taken down a notch. At 3:46 the melody is off. The run that plays the original overworld theme a little bit uses a major 3rd, where it should've utilized a minor third in order to match the rest of the harmony under it. It clashes, and sounds rather awful, at that point. On the subject of that instrument, it has a tendancy to be far too loud in comparison to the rest of the mix, which just makes it sound out of place (especially at 4:23, where it shoots waaay above the levels of everything else). You'll need to mix that element down considerably, as it drags the end of this track down quite a bit. Overall, it's too quiet. I don't mean that stylistically we won't accept quiet, subtle tracks, but it's very easy to push more volume by just... raising the volume. There are no points in the mix where it peaks out (even at the aforementioned loud part mentioned above), so raising the volume provides no downside to this track. If you mix that other instrument down, in fact, you could easily push 3 or 4 dB out of this without risking production errors, so you should do so in order to better match the levels of other calmer, quieter songs on OCR. I think it's great, but I think there's a little bit of TLC that needs to go into this before I can give it my thumbs up. The wrong note at 3:46 really affects this track, and the overall loudness of that instrument that pervades the entire ending of this track takes this one down, for me. Be sure to also raise your levels, and give that background e-piano a little bit of variety. I think this is very close, but I'm going to have to pass on this, for now. NO

Welp, that's what Mod Evals are for, eh? Also, as much as I love R:TS (submit about five songs there, myself), they've been down for about two months now. I've got to get in touch with the head peeps there and see what's up, but it's not looking good lately. Anyhoo, I'll give you a forecast on it, and can let you know how I'll handle it if it gets to the panel. Perks of a mod eval judge. EVAL Well, it's a very solid recreation of the original - I think you nailed it, note for note. Regardless of the quality otherwise, one quirk of OCR is that they, as a rule, require reinterpretation of the source. There's nothing wrong with a good, solid remake of a song in itself, but OCR will likely reject this straight out due to how close it follows the source. I always like to remind people that this does not mean something is inherently bad because it conservatively follows the source; it's just one of the things that OCR requires of the songs it posts. Now, that being said, I'll give some other advice on production and such to help you out for future arrangements. As far as instruments go, I could see them working out okay, but they do get a little boring after some time. The same synths play throughout the track - I think even the source had more variety in instrumentation with the synths and brass. Be sure for your next production to experiment with changing the instrumentation up a little as the piece moves forward, as that can help stretch an arrangement without having the listener fatigue on listening to the instrumentation. I like the chords that you play in the background with that synth at 0:07 (as well as throughout the song) - I think that gives this a more ragtime feel than the source had. Be sure to take elements like that, though, and mix them in such a way that they don't dominate the track, though. It's difficult to hear the themes that are supposed to carry a track when the harmonies are that loud, in comparison. As a rule of thumb, bring your melodies and themes out in a mix so they're the cleanest and clearest, followed by interesting textures, finally with basic chords safely in the background. It's a basic organization, but it keeps the melodic hooks in the front, the interesting textures within listening reach and the harmonies set firmly in the background. Obviously there are plenty of exceptions, but it's a great starting point, as far as making a solidly mixed track. The drums are dry, but they're not bad. The dry-ness is in comparison to how wet your other instruments are; the synths all have a decent amount of reverb on them, while the drums sound like they're from another recording completely. When you have multiple things going on at once in an arrangement, be sure to make it sound like they're being played all in the same conditions, all at once. In this case, either the reverb of the synths should match the drums (not recommended), or the drums should have a little reverb to match the synths. Blending is key, so when instruments don't blend they sound out of place. I hear a synth bass in this, but it's a little bit weak in the bass department. Bass is one of the most important instruments in an arrangement, as it gives a song some grounding to play off of. The bass in this case is quiet, and is lacking in bass EQ. More bass EQ! More presence! YEAH! One final aspect to this is that the middle EQ range feels a little incomplete. The chords that play throughout the track normally would fill the role of filling that EQ space, but in this case the instrument sounds like it fills the upper range of the EQ, instead. This makes the arrangement sound a little bit hollow, so for any other arrangement you go for I do suggest taking a look at using instruments that fill the middle range of the EQ a bit more solidly. I'll be honest and say it's probably not getting to the panel, due to how conservative it is (again, nothing wrong with that, just something OCR won't accept), but if it were to get to the panel that's what advice I'd give on this track. I understand you probably won't work on this (it's six years old, after all - you've probably improved considerably since then), but I thought you'd appreciate a more full rundown on the track. I do hope you stick around and contribute more to the forums here, though - people like you are the lifeblood of the WIP boards, after all. EDIT: I'm aware this wasn't tagged for eval, but considering the intent of the final post in here I thought it would be appropriate, anyhow. Just the way I am, sometimes.

Happy 30th, Metroid series. As much as I enjoy this series, I'mma release a relatively unknown arrangement of Sandy Maridia that I did ages ago for some Metroid orchestration project unrelated to OCR. It was made in Sibelius, so be gentle to the instrument quality, lol. Enjoy the gift. Also, AM2R is absolutely balls-out amazing, and everyone who enjoys any of the 2D metroid games should give it a go. It lives up to the hype, and then some.

Yes, they do make a fuss - specifically, Square Enix got very upset when the OCR FF6 album kickstarter got underway to fund a physical release of the album (all money went into printing the album - no profit was to be made). Some negotiation happened and they eventually allowed it under certain conditions, but it was a very complex ordeal that took months to resolve. No one but Pretzel and Zircon (the album's head person) knows the full details of the negotiation, but to say the least it wasn't simple or easy.

I personally vouch for someone developing another streaming service that's dedicated to OCR music, so that we don't need to deal with the legal stuff involved in streaming. qwertymoto, come back, plz...

What's this? This thread's been up for a month, and no mention of Mutherpluckin' B? Let's fix this. http://www.mutherpluckin-b.com/ Pretty much classic rock gold, all around, with three albums out of his music to listen to. Some highlights include my personal favorite Silver Surfer / Megaman 3 remix... ... as well as a Napalm man / Ducktales Moon arrangement. It's all great, though - go check him out!

EVAL Very interesting, eerie arrangement. I think you can sell a lot of people on making something that's more atmospheric than melodic, especially with a track that's as naturally haunting as this one. I really enjoyed the direction that this took. That being said, there are a few things that hold it back from realizing it's full potential. First, a few nitty-gritty details: the synth that comes in at 0:40 is very piercing, to the point where it kind of hurts to hear. The highs in that instrument need to be decreased (which, for an instrument like that, equates to a straight volume decrease). The drums that come in at 1:31 are awesome, but they don't have a very strong presence. They should be mixed a bit more to the front of the mix. Overall (and especially toward the second half of the track) this track seems to deal with clutter. Moments like 2:26 - 2:38 and 3:00 are affected by individual instruments that just get too overpoweringly loud, which creates a muddy, unfocused moment in the track. Mixing too-loud elements down a bit would help clear the mud. I think there's an argument to be made about the unfocused nature of the track, but there are some harmonies that sound out of place. 2:55 - 3:00 doesn't seem to fit harmonically, and it's the only time that harmony comes in, making it stand out that much more. While you don't have to use the same harmonies that you do throughout, that particular combination didn't seem to mesh well. I like it, but I don't think it'll pass the panel quite yet. Make sure there isn't nearly as much clutter in the second half of the track, and take another look at the harmonization at 2:55 - 3:00. Hopefully this helps, as I do think this is a really cool idea.

It lives up to the hype, and I'm almost certain it'll be even better once it's fully mastered. I'm still excited to listen to it once it's posted on the site, so stay hype, peeps.

I will do this. But so much responsibilityyyyy... I will still do this, though.

Alright, I took another look at this (seeing that it hasn't gotten any attention since my initial request), so instead of gathering a consensus I'm instead going to give a vote, justify the reasoning and see if anyone agrees or disagrees. First and foremost, as far as production goes, this track is quite solid. I'n not 100% sold on the beginning and ending bookends of the track. I understand what he's going for (kind of like listening to the source on the radio, then having this version pop out on the listener), but... eh. It didn't sound well enough defined in any particular direction to really sell me on it. If you're going to sound like a radio, really make it sound like a radio (like Mustin did for 'Needles'), or if you're just going for a more lo-fi sound, don't muddy it with other anonymous sounds. It just didn't seem to go enough in any direction. It's a small point to hammer on, but I wanted to be clear on that. Now, as far as the arrangement goes, it's really something else - it takes the source and builds on it, really making it into something new. The form of the arrangement does divert itself away from the source in order to develop its own themes more, but on its own I don't think that's a problem, as long as there's enough source in the track to carry it. There's one thing that can present an issue, and that's the use of the source itself as a sample quite often in the track. It's not prominent for most of the time it's present, and often suppliments the track's own version of the source, but there are times where this is the only connection to the source, as well. I'm going to do two breakdowns of source usage for this: one that includes the sample, and one that does not include said sample. With sample: 0:05 - 0:31 (Sample) 0:31 - 0:48 (Sample) 0:48 - 1:17 1:17 - 1:19 (Sample) 1:19 - 2:23 2:23 - 2:52 (Sample) 2:55 - 3:58 (Sample) 4:03 - 4:34 (Sample) 4:34 - 5:06 5:06 - 5:38 (Sample) 327 / 347 seconds ~94.2% Needless to say, with the sample included there's more than enough source to cover this track. However, if we make the call to remove the sample, this is how it would stand. 0:48 - 1:17 1:19 - 1:51 1:51 - 2:23 2:23 - 2:54 4:34 - 5:06 187 / 347 seconds ~45% A hint under, but push come to shove I think many of the parts could be rewritten using whatever synths you already have available, if necessary. It's a very tough call, and I've been sitting on this for a while now thinking about it. On the first point it's still debatable. The second point is an easy pass if the first point is okay, and if not the track is designed to have the source included in many places, so it wouldn't be hard for the arranger to include it as he has elsewhere when the source isn't playing in the background. Personally, I think the sample alone doesn't break the track, and I still stand on the side of the fence where if it's utilized in a clever manner it should be alright, as long as it doesn't include any Square Enix material. For that reason I'm going to call it a pass. That being said, IF this does get rejected due to using the source as much as this track does, I will give the recommendation that the intro and outro be removed, as well, unless the arranger decides to recompose said parts (0:00 - 0:30 & 5:24 - 5:47). These two parts will not make much sense without the sample, so I'm throwing that out there. The rest of the song would work alright without the source, though a few parts would have less connection to the source than they do now (such as 2:55 - 3:58), so some special attention will need to be made in order to connect the source utilizing instruments that you are already using to play the source when it's not sampled. Regardless, if others agree with my vote then that's a moot point, but I want to make sure this gets resub'd if it's rejected, because this is a really, really cool arrangement, with some very clever part writing throughout. I love it, so nice work on that. YES

Man, slipped through the cracks, then the response slipped through the cracks, then your next response almost slipped through as well... Damn, you've just got all the luck. Anyhoo, time to correct this, I suspect. EVAL I do like this source, and I'm happy that you tackled it. Metal is very appropriate for this one, too - it's just begging for something like that. Your playing seems pretty good, and the drums are clean and punch through the track quite well. The tone of the guitar, though, is generally very thin. It sounds like the middle and low end are lacking. When it's strictly a lead, the guitar tone is passable, but for anything else it doesn't have the frequency range to fill the soundscape at all, so everything ends up sounding hollow and incomplete. Your guitar tone needs more midrange, and possibly even a little more bass, as well. Speaking of the bass, it's very quiet in this mix, so it sounds like there's no bottom to the soundscape. That bass definitely needs to be more prominent, especially since it's often the primary connection to the source. The drums, as nice as they are, absolutely drown that bass out. You'll definitely need to make that bass more prominent in the mix. The arrangement sometimes loses me. The guitar sometimes sounds like it's not meshing well harmonically with the rest of the instruments (mostly the bass). I like the effect at 0:45 with the guitar, but at 0:55 - 1:04 for example those harmonies do not make much sense. You should re-evaluate what's being played there and see if other harmonies work better. Overall, the style has a lot going for it, and the performances are not bad, but there's quite a bit of work that needs to go into this one. Hopefully some of what I say helps, but as it is this wouldn't pass the panel. Woo, it only took... er, six months for an eval. Awesome.

Well, for your first question, if you find only a single spike in your track and you're trying to isolate it, you might find more often than not you're out of luck - sound physically stacks onto itself. If you try to "isolate" a peak, it's very likely that it's actually an accumulation of all of your instruments stacking at once, so no individual instrument may show a peak. While it's actually not an issue with this track, sometimes lots of peaks can happen because there's a frequency that has too many instruments sharing it at once (which is why it's a good idea to spread your instrument ranges and timbres out a bit, for clarity). There are some exceptions, but those tend to be very easy to spot by ear (e.g. violin suddenly stands out like a sore thumb, and is just louder than all the other instruments). On your point with hard and soft limiting, it's honestly a case-by-case scenario. The benefit of hard limiting is that you don't lose your volume at the points where the instruments peak, but if you over-rely on this the track just sounds like it's clipping all over the place. Soft clipping works a lot like compression (actually, it seems to work exactly like compression) - it squishes the peaks so that they retain the same shape, but you lose volume at those points as a result. Use it too much and the music can sound like it has inconsistent levels for everything in there, getting quieter and louder at seemingly random, creating a sort of 'pulsating' dynamic when the music gets too dense, which never sounds right. Can you use both? Sure! Perhaps for the first pass you'd want to bring one or two tiny, extreme peaks down to a normal level, so you soft limit it and amplify. Afterward you might just want to push through a tiny bit of volume through the more numerous (but also tiny) peaks spec'd throughout the track, so you do a little hard limiting (maybe 0.5 - 1 dB) and push the volume up accordingly. That's just an example, though - it takes experimenting with the sounds to see what gives you the best results. Glad I was able to open this up for you - it was fun just going all out, for once. I don't do it often.

Mmm, the balancing of the leads does help quite a bit. Glad to see you makin' progress. Just for shits and giggles, I'mma going to punch this thing up, and I'm going to go through every step it takes to get there. It's pretty much 100% on a whim, so lucky you! Long ass post for a single production tip ('cause it has pictures), so GET READY TO RUMBLE!! Alright, so first off here's a picture of your current mix - the waveform in all of it's glory. It's pretty cool, since it doesn't have any clipping, nor does it seem to have any compression or limiting artifacts (more on that in a bit). Look at all of that sound space, just sitting there unused! When there's silence for a solid majority of the track, it often means you need to work on making the track louder. With a little amplification, we can get a little bit of sound out of it, but not too much. That's because there are a few tiny peaks that cause clipping if you raise the volume too high. Clipping is almost always a bad thing, so we do want to avoid that as much as we can, but there's still so much space that we want to fill... Upon closer inspection, one can see that this particular point just touches the top - any louder and it'll cause the clipping. We don't want that! So, what to do? Why not tell the track that there's a limit to how high the maximum volume is, and force the peaks to hit that ceiling? Yeah, hard limit that sucker, using whatever limiter you have! (Audacity comes with a basic limiter in it's "Effects" drop down - that's all I utilized in this picture) Sweet, no more peaks! We can now amplify this considerably more without actually causing clipping, thus gaining the space that we've wanted all along. How does this look up close? Well, it depends on how you decided to limit it. There are generally two ways to limit a track - one can either give it a "soft" ceiling, which means the program does what it can to retain the original shape (which simply "softens" the sound at certain points), or one can give it a "hard" ceiling, which doesn't shape the track at all, instead "slicing" the sound file once it hits the ceiling. Both have their advantages, and both have their particular ways of introducing artifacts when you rely on them too much, but with practice it becomes easier to hear what an acceptable level of limiting is. This is a nice example of soft limiting - it retains the shape, softens the sound at those points so nothing goes above the ceiling This is a solid example of hard limiting - the peaks become flat once they hit the ceiling. The music doesn't soften, but the artifacts sound like clipping if they become too prominent. Once the peaks are out of the way, amplifying the sound to its limits gives you a greater deal of sound, filling the spaces almost entirely. The moments that peaked once before now don't have nearly the difference between parts as it once did. While this can create a homogeneous sound which lacks some of the clarity of an untouched track, often those few peaks contribute little to the track, and instead make the rest of the track quiet, by comparison. In this case, one can easily hear how much can be gained by utilizing limiting and amplification. That being said, even with soft limiting it's easy to go too far with it, ruining a once solid track. Take a good, hard look at what happens when you have too much of a good thing. There are no peaks, and everything ends up sounding like a homogenized mess. While following one's ears is always best, there's a good rule of thumb to follow as far as figuring out when you've gone too far. "When your waveform looks like a sausage, it's cook'd". When you limit, don't start a sausage party. Limit responsibly, take a few peaks down a notch and magic can really happen. Hope this helps! (All pictures are from Audacity, printscreen'd and saved using Bitmap)

Oh, Audacity is just a free DAW that I personally use for mastering - if you used a WAV or Mp3 I could spot your peaks and valleys in the waveform using it and see if limiting or compression would help with the loudness (without introducing clipping), or if there are particular areas that could be panned differently in a more accurate manner. It's just not compatible with the format you have, though.

To be fair, there is chiptune from Rushjet1 that was just posted on the site. I personally am hoping to find more being submit in the near future as a result - I've always been in favor of solid chiptune (hell, even pure NES two rec / triangle / PCM / noise chiptunes) to be posted on the site. It does need to be pretty solid in it's own right, though - I look forward to hearing it soon

I've got to catch up on it - I have a feeling my girlfriend will NOT let me skimp on the new episodes. The first season was fun, though, and I enjoyed what I saw of the second season (5-6 episodes), but I got distracted with other things before finishing that one up.

Mmm, Megalovania metaaaaaal, and it's absolutely solid metal, to boot. I'm quite surprised it didn't get any love the first time around, as it's pretty damn good... Might be Undertale burnout, as that soundtrack gets a lot of attention on here, lately. There are a few things that catch my ear on this, most prominent is that the volume levels on this are quite low, especially in comparison to other metal tracks that are produced on here. I'd normally import this into the Audacity (or similar) program and check on how you can raise levels without causing other issues in the production, but the WMA format limits what I can do with it to nearly nothing. Thus, all I can say on that front is that the levels need to be higher on it, and that you should probably either use WAV or Mp3 with VBR or 192 encoding rates in order to allow others to have an easier time opening the file. Some of the instruments are mixed in such a way that they don't quite punch through as they should. 0:42 uses a lead that gets lost behind the rhythm guitars, for example. The leads at 0:59 are another great example of this - they sound like background elements, not something that's carrying the leads. Overall, I like how rich and heavy the rhythm is, but sometimes the leads need the spotlight at the front of the mix, too - it gives the listener something to grab hold to. Overall though, I don't have much else to say on it, as the performances are pretty tight. It's a really fun cover of the source. Do pay attention to the format of the file you offer to the internets, and pay attention to your mixing and your upcoming music should be pretty solid. Hope it helps, and sorry the track didn't get much attention the first go around with it.