Nabeel Ansari

This may be my personal opinion but I don't think any links you posted are examples of a composer failing to remake his own music, so ???
 
Squeenix + Uematsu have proved more than competent in arranging FF music (FF7 in particular) with their constant efforts in the FF piano collections, the Black Mages, Earthbound Papas, and the Distant Worlds concerts.
 
It would be a breeze for them to redo the FF7 music, especially with live instruments given their experience and resources. Rarely on OCR do you see someone who just records a full orchestra for their stuff with ease.
 
There's good intentions behind sourcing it to the fans, but I don't think there's anyone better suited to it than professionals. We *do* have many professionals here, so yes, it's possible that OCR could pull it off with really tight quality control, but why do you think Squeenix would bother when they have their proven talent with decades of experience and better resources?
 
That being said, writing for the FF7 remake would be a dream come true for everyone, so dreaming is okay. ;P
 
There's also the issue of implementation. Video game composing isn't just about writing tracks and sending them to the game developers, so I'm sure the devs would appreciate having a music team to communicate with instead of an internet forum community.

If there's any broken boring Final Fantasy game they should fix, it's Final Fantasy 6.

This is a big misconception plaguing software consumers; there is never a circumstance where you own software. Whether you pay subscription or pay a one-time fee, you merely have a license to use that software which is controlled by the whim of the retailer or manufacturer (this is outlined in the terms of use we usually agree with and simultaneously ignore). You don't ever own software. You may own the DVD's for the software, and you may own the iLok device that you store your license on, but you never own the software. So, using this to try and compare subscriptions to one-time purchases is invalid.
 
There's only really one valid argument against subscription based services, and it's what Timaeus touched on.
 
Add up the prices of the libraries/bundles you want from EastWest, call that your threshold. Find a number n = threshold / ($50 x 12).
 
In other words, find the number of years n where you will start losing money. As a personal rule, you decide how high n has to be for it to be worth it. For me, an n beyond 4 years is plenty worth it.
 
Also consider that over time, the number of products they have in the catalog increases as they make new ones, adding to your threshold over time if you start using them (and thus increasing your n). Also consider that in subscription based model, you can avoid taking a huge bank account hit or having to wait on having the libraries in order to budget and save money. It's instant gratification for minimal upfront cost.

I'd like to urge the inclusion of compositional aspects, such as meandering chord movement, bad counterpoint (where counter melodies are present), bad voicing of parts, lack of agreement between parts, improper understanding of source material's harmonic structure (so when people hear poorly/gratingly harmonized source melody notes they can check this box).

There was never a song that made me want to remix. I got into music out of inspiration from my beloved brother Shariq "DarkeSword" Ansari. When I was little (we're talking like 10 years old), he wrote all kinds of music at home, using Fruity Loops. After I saw him do video game remixes, I basically wanted to copy him and do it too. He and OCR both taught me basic musical concepts (comp and production alike), and then I began college to study music and mathematics, and now I'm here.

Here's a pretty solid guide on music production basics, tools and techniques. http://downloads.izotope.com/guides/iZotope-Mixing-Guide-Principles-Tips-Techniques.pdf
 
This is stuff that you should learn before you delve deeper into learning your DAW. Knowing your tools doesn't help you if you don't know how to use them.

Here's a pretty solid guide on music production basics, tools and techniques. http://downloads.izotope.com/guides/iZotope-Mixing-Guide-Principles-Tips-Techniques.pdf
 
This is stuff that you should learn before you delve deeper into learning your DAW. Knowing your tools doesn't help you if you don't know how to use them.

Hey everyone! My name is Josh Barron and I am not sure if some of you have heard of me but I used to have Kingdom Hearts piano collection project a few years ago. I have come back into the industry with a labor of love that has been going on for quite some time. I have assembled a group of string musicians to perform arrangements from various game titles. I will be making an album and this album will be called The ETHEReal String Project.

Here is the tracklist:
 
1. Fang’s Theme for String Orchestra (from FINAL FANTASY XIII)

Two Nordic Folk Songs for Piano and String Quintet (from ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM)
2. Song I: Secunda
3. Song II: Ancient Stones
 
4. Trisection for String Orchestra (from FINAL FANTASY TACTICS)
5. Eruyt Village for Piano and String Quintet (from FINAL FANTASY XII)
6. I Was Lost Without You for Piano and String Quintet (from MASS EFFECT 3)
7. And Thus Fate Becomes Cruel for String Orchestra (from HEROES OF MANA)
8. Eternity ~ Memories of Light and Waves for Piano and String Orchestra (from FINAL FANTASY X-2)
9. Honor, Sacrifice, Glory: Variations on Themes from Halo 2 for String Orchestra (from HALO 2)
10. Still Alive for String Orchestra (from MIRROR’S EDGE)
11. Tactical Espionage Suite for String Orchestra (from METAL GEAR SOLID 2: SONS OF LIBERTY)
12. Forest of Awakening (Original Composition)
13. Sulyya Springs for Viola and Piano (FINAL FANTASY XIII)

The release date will be July 28th. I am posting this to generate awareness of this project in the hopes that many of you will enjoy this music I have worked so hard to create. Feel free to check out the samples and complete tracks that I have provided on my SoundCloud page which can be found here:

https://soundcloud.com/josh-barron/sets/etherealstringproject

Enjoy and please offer feedback as I always look to improve . Keep in mind the recordings aren't final versions so the sound may or may not be different in the final release.

Why get an orchestral percussion library when I can just record it all for you!              

I find the note entry inconvenience insignificant compared to the other MIDI editing features that S1 has. It's one tiny thing you have to get used to (only once) as a price to pay for all the really nice things FL can never do because of its pattern system (which is starting to show its age). Patterns just downright aggravate me, especially because I've been trained to use it for so many years and find myself struggling to write basic linear music because I'm so accustomed to writing one clip and then just painting it across the timeline for repeats, which stifled my ability to learn how to write music for... 8 or 9 years since I started learning what notes and beats were?
 
You can get the same repeat change-persist (change it once, changes everywhere) behavior in S1 as patterns but without the restrictions, and without it being forced onto you. Ghost notes are more important to me than any other MIDI Editing feature, so I deal with the pencil/erase tools (and like I said earlier, you have to cram a bunch of instruments into one pattern for ghost notes in FL).

I don't know, man, watching people struggle to use their own DAW is not a good indicator of how the DAW works best.
 
I find Studio One's MIDI editing superior to FL's in almost every way. MIDI automation and such is much easier, since it's natively supported and doesn't require you to constantly search for parameters and create new clips. The only way it isn't is that the piano roll still has separate tools for pencil and erase; however, you can rebind these however you want (especially with the Nostromo I gave you), and just like FL, you can hold control for select. While you can't get it to behave exactly like FL... I use both DAW interchangeably and don't have an issue adjusting. Getting used to the different mouse tools is the basic entry challenge to any DAW really; but for what it's worth, as a long time FL user, I got used to it pretty quickly.
 
The piano roll started working for me a lot more because ghost notes aren't bound to isolated patterns, they're bound to all tracks in the song. Furthermore, you can select on the side the tracks to view and edit in the piano roll. That means I can edit my violins while viewing my violas, cellos, and double bass. Or if I want, enable them all for simultaneous editing. Or turn everything off and view a part in isolation (which is the default if you go to edit a MIDI clip). Or turn on the whole orchestra for simultaneous editing, or view the whole orchestra as ghost notes while editing all the strings simultaneously, etc. It's just like composing using different note colors in FL, except it's all managed for you and everything is still stored in separate tracks.
 
This offers the power to bring the entire song into one piano roll while still leaving everything separately organized in tracks in the arrangement view, something I think FL should take notes on.
 
I mean, I can't promise you that you'll love it the minute you load it up, but if you give it some time, I think you'd appreciate how down to earth it is compared to other DAW's. (The same way FL is)
 
The mixer is also a standard DAW mixer, so FL still wins in that department. For electronic stuff, I'm not sure it would cut it for you and your fancy processing methods. I'd recommend Live, maybe, or Bitwig. Also, Studio One 32bit can only load 32bit plugins, and 64bit can only load 64bit plugins. That's probably a dealbreaker for you.

Haven't used FL in awhile.  Used FL for prob 3-4 years in the past.  Used S1 for over 2 1/2 years now.  There is no advantage Live or Bitwig have when it comes to features that make it easier to make repeat pattern music.  S1 has the features to work fast in repeat pattern music the features just come in different flavors.  Now if you are performing live that is a different story.

 

IMO S1's piano roll strengths:

 

1. Ghost notes and ability to edit/view any channels you want on the fly.  S1 does this better than anyone else.  

 

2. Custom Macros.  Haven't gotten into this yet.  But there is some pretty cool stuff.

 

3. Basic editing and selecting can be about 90% the same.  In the piano sroll elect the Pencil as your default tool.  Then hold Command on a Mac (option on Windows?) to switch to the pointer tool.  

 

4. Groove quantize.  Easily rip grooves from any source and apply them at will.

 

5. Lock piano roll to specific scale.  This is really nice when working in a specific scale.  You do not have to worry about entering in the wrong note and just get on with music making.

 

6. Duplicate Shared (shift D)  Duplicate clips that share the same information.  Open any of these clips and make your edits.  These edits will then automatically be made across all of the duplicate shared clips.  This is similar to FL's old block style patterns and an essential tool for repeat pattern music.

I don't understand how it's similar at all. The only similarity is that it starts on the upbeat of 4 instead of the downbeat of 1. The rest of the rhythm isn't even the same. Shocker, there is no musical dibs on starting a phrase an 8th note early.

DJP already said why this isn't necessary, but let's just suppose for a second that the site wasn't undergoing a change and that workshop integration is not going to be a thing... here are some problems with OCReJects:
 
1. Resubs. What if a person gets rejected but wants to resub their mix? What if they put it on OCReJects but decide to fix it and make it better? Should they be able to remove it from OCReJects or are they locked into being a ReJected? What if I don't WANT to make my remix publicly known as rejected? Is it automatic or manual submission?
 
2. The concept of dedicating a place for rejected people irks me. I don't know why anyone would want to associate with that label and why people would publicly post their music under a title of "ReJected".
 
3. Breeding ground for flaming. You're dedicating an entire site's mission (ocrejects) to promoting whatever is contrary to the standards of ocremix. That automatically means that everyone who listens to and has favorite music on ocrejects is aware that ocremix is a place that denies their favorite music and facilitates even more ocremix-hate ("arbitrary standards!" "they only like techno!" "they only like metal!" "they only accept professionally engineered music!") than there already is. It's as if you're taking all of the ocremix-haters scattered about the internet and giving them a focused place and banner to rally behind.
 
I know you mean well, but try to be more sensitive when proposing how a new site/community functions and what it stands for. I certainly recommend not calling it "OCReJects", but since OCReMix is undergoing changes, it won't be necessary to give it any more thought.

They pay for that right by getting a license.

It doesn't matter if it's a main melody or a sub-section of your song. It doesn't matter if it's the focus or if it's in the background. In your song, the melody is clearly presented in a foreground element (the tremolo chip lead thing). We're not talking about an improvisational jazz solo where you accidentally played a few notes from the FF battle theme; you are quoting (not referencing) the FF battle theme in the foreground lead instrument for about 22 whole seconds starting at 1:58. There's no room for error here, it's clear that it's the FF battle theme, so it's copyright infringement. Keep in mind I'm not saying this to be a dick, but I'm giving you a hard time specifically because you need to imagine how you'd explain this in a legal situation were you to get sued. If you understand that mindset, you can avoid doing this kind of thing in the future. It's only because this is for a commercial purpose that it matters so much; if this was just some freeware game, it's still technically infringement, but it's not "wrong" per se, so long as you don't get caught and told to cease and desist. Free fan games use copyrighted game music all the time.

There was never a song that made me want to remix. I got into music out of inspiration from my beloved brother Shariq "DarkeSword" Ansari. When I was little (we're talking like 10 years old), he wrote all kinds of music at home, using Fruity Loops. After I saw him do video game remixes, I basically wanted to copy him and do it too. He and OCR both taught me basic musical concepts (comp and production alike), and then I began college to study music and mathematics, and now I'm here.

They should make a Star Fox ride like the Star Wars Star Tours ride from Disney!
 
Star Tours is probably the best ride I've ever been on in my life. I think I would go on it three times in a row when I was little.
 
Invading Venom tagging along the Star Fox team, getting sucked into a Star Wolf battle, doing Barrel Rolls? That would be the best.

They should make a Star Fox ride like the Star Wars Star Tours ride from Disney!
 
Star Tours is probably the best ride I've ever been on in my life. I think I would go on it three times in a row when I was little.
 
Invading Venom tagging along the Star Fox team, getting sucked into a Star Wolf battle, doing Barrel Rolls? That would be the best.

Mario Galaxy 1&2 are some of the best Mario soundtracks of all time. :/
 
In any case, there are WIP's on the Kickstarter page, and Grant + Dave Wise are the composers, so no one can do the "original vibe" better than them.

Answer 1:
Post some examples of music you've made with your current string samples. Evaluation can help people tell you if your problems are easily solvable by clever programming or if the samples are the problem themselves.
 
Answer 2:
Good samples will get you there faster than wasting time on awful ones.
 
Action Strings is mediocre; it's just a bunch of pre-made "action" phrases. Repeated staccato rhythms and the like.
 
Session Strings Pro is a super dry sound, and the recordings aren't great; I don't even think it has legato scripting. It's kind of love or hate; Session Strings gives you the "pop" string sound really easy but you can't really do actually intimate string stuff with it. It's good in band ensembles, but it absolutely does not function as a string orchestra; it's too thin.
 
Kontakt Strings are... pretty mediocre as well. They sound thin, and don't offer much dynamic or variation. You can drop them as chordal backgrounds, that's about it.
 
What kind of string writing do you want to do? That can better help answer the question as to what string library would be better for you.
 
This is a running list of the pretty good string libraries around right now:
-Spitfire Sable
-Spitfire Mural
-Audiobro LA Scoring Strings
-Berlin Strings
-CineSamples CineStrings CORE
-Various Libraries from Vienna Symphonic
-Cinematic Strings 2 (this is what I have, and it's wonderful)

Because Kickstarter WIP's are anything to go on 

Playlist, 'Animals As Leaders "The Joy of Motion"': https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH22-xSMERQpG4M9HshhXUJ9OKMNlwU8T
 
This is very good. Imagine the harmonic tendencies of jazz fusion with the instrumentation and aggresiveness of metal, with the complex rhythmic behavior shared by each.