WillRock

I came here for an argument. I thought that was the definition of an argument? An argument is a disagreement of of view points. You saying "I disagreed with his points" is pretty much you saying "I was arguing" Also, you can say you were debating if you like. They're considered one and the same, altho Debating is generally considered a bit more formal and less aggressive I suppose but even so, You could argue (lol) that you were arguing Ok time to stop with the tongue in cheek debatument: I prefer the Genesis/Mega Drive music. More funky. More groovy. Generally speaking. I can certainly appreciate the rock stylings of the Crush 40 stuff tho

That basically tells me its interchangeable and in the eye of the beholder, which is kinda what I gathered from talking about it with my friends. I guess i'd ask Crush 40 if I wanted an official answer, but if I wrote that piece of music, or wrote something with a drum beat of that speed, I would tell you its 260, not 130. That said, if people found it easier to follow using 130, I wouldn't complain. Its still the same song.

I don't want to derail this thread too much but why is it double time? When exactly does a piece of music go from being "normal tempo" to double time? Is there some element of accenting that i'm missing or is it just because it is considered too fast for the human hear to reasonably compute at that speed? I have no problems following it personally but if you take something from say thrash metal or power metal thats going completely off the wall (e.g. battery by metallica or anything by dragonforce lul), I would probably consider that double time just because trying to follow that with the standard snare on 2nd/4th beats like other songs is just bonkers, and often, those songs have half time (or normal time?) sections to balance out the utter crazy, making it easier to consider those things double time. In contrast, City Escape is always at the same frantic pace. However, looking it up, it looks like officially its 130 so yes, Suavedandy, I will concede this point, but I don't fully understand why hahaha. Again, don't want to derail the thread, but i'm curious - I asked quite a few of my music friends from OCR and about half thought it was 130, half thought it was 260, so...

City escape is about 260 bpm, I checked. Seriously, take the original file and put a metronome over it. Its much faster than the track you linked there so... I will agree that catchy doesn't inherently mean good. To take a song everyone seems to unanimously hate - Friday by Rebecca Black - that could be considered catchy I reckon. It certainly sticks in the brain and makes it rot. I'd like to point out something you said earlier: Seems to me you're pretty much stating pop punk, Crush 40 and well... a LOT of music is bad. Saying something is "down right horrible" usually means "bad" in my experience. As for you voicing your opinion, you seem to be going a bit beyond that - For example, I'm not sure what you mean by statistics. Who's statistics are you talking about? What is it based on? Subjective opinion? Who's opinion? Yours? Are you saying that you think most music is bad or have you read something and believe it? This is where I I question if it is your "opinion" because you seem to be talking about something beyond that. You're talking like you did some research and found out that in fact, these songs are objectively bad, and we're all wrong for liking it. Maybe i'm overthinking what you're saying but that is how you're coming across to me, reading your posts.

Ok lets examine these claims. How are the melodies boring? From my perspective, they're pretty catchy imo, they certainly stick in my head. The guitar work, if you analyse it is a lot more than just guitar chords like you suggested, there are lots of cool little melodies thrown in there. Its a lot more creative than a lot of backing guitar work imo, and the solos are pretty neat too. Not sure why you're comparing them to megadeth either, megadeth are thrash, and Dave Mustine is known for having some of the most crazy and intricrite lead and rhythm playing of all time, he's a complete monster, and don't get me started on their bassist Dave Ellefson, who does some completely insane stuff. Its like looking at a painting and going "its not as detailed as Leonardo Da Vinci's work, therefore, it must be worthless" So... tempo.... The majority of the sonic songs i've heard are around the 160-200 mark? Thats pretty fast honestly. What is your definition of slow exactly? For me, Hotel California is slow. Sweet Home Alabama is slow. Sonic heroes main theme and escape to the city are pretty damn speedy, and open your heart and live and learn are upbeat romps. I'd hardly call sonic music slow, in fact when I think of modern day sonic music, I automatically think of pretty fast, frantic pop rock so I STRONGLY disagree with you there. Also, you're talking about the quality of music when it is a completely subjective thing. Simple does not mean boring. It might mean boring to YOU but some people like that. Some people find megadeth too fast, too aggressive, with hard to follow arrangements and weird change ups that don't make a lot of sense to them. Some people find that really refreshing. Led Zeppelin are one of the greatest bands of all time - I consider their music boring sometimes. They can make some amazingly intricate and amazing compositions... then some of their songs have 1 bar long riffs that repeat endlessly, but sometimes thats the point - its about mood, its about feel, its not about musical complexity - thats why 4 on the floor beats are so popular in clubs, because it is easy to dance and groove to it. I think thats why Led Zeppelin are so special, they had something for everyone while keeping to a very cohesive and identifiable sound. I don't want to sound patronising but you need to stop thinking about music as good vs bad and try to understand why someone else might enjoy it. Just because you personally don't like something doesn't make it completely worthless, or "bad".

I strongly recommend the All Your Bass festival podcast, really interesting stuff that showed the different viewpoints and work processes of the different composers. Protodome and I were both there listening. Was a bit of a crazy line up they got in there. Really fucking badly marketed tho, there were only like 20 people watching the thing, including us.

Lol at Meteo turning this from "David Wise appreciation thread" to "lets hate on David Wise as a person thread".

Based on what you just told me, it sounds like you're being quite ambitious. Why are you making a 23 track album? Why are they over 1 minute each? Change the rules to fit your workflow. Unless you're doing it for someone else, then let it flow naturally. YES - make your plans but if it doesn't go to that plan thats ok. Plan on making a 10 minute epic? Its ended up 3 minutes long? Ok fine, NEXT TRACK. You say you have an album of 23 wips. Ok. You don't need to use half of them. You could finish off 5 of them and call it an EP? How long are said tracks? Well they could be 2 minutes each if you so desired. Take it where it is heading naturally. Trying to beat out a preconceived idea is not the way to go I find. Try just... letting an idea flow and don't worry about sticking to a brief so rigidly and just see what happens. You might find you finish more stuff and you enjoy yourself more to boot. Guidelines are great... but don't let them hold you back.

I've had an old version of this on my computer for the last like 8 years. It is nice it finally gets the attention it deserves, this has always been one of my favourites

Wondering what the bet is that the intro to this song inspired the intro to this remix...

Not a judge anymore but when I was a disgusting monster known as a jooj, if I felt if the track had potential, I'd add the resub tag. Its for those mixes that have potential to be mixposts but in their current form don't quite make the cut. Its not like Conditional where we're talking like 1 small update required, it might need a bit of fixing, but not enough where it would need a complete overhaul to be posted. The idea is that if you send a resub track to a judge, they will fast track it on the queue for you. However if something is really quite far from the standards and would require big updates to be postable we'd just slap it with a big phat nope.

Gotta admit, I was fucking excited for this. So episodes.... 4 episodes is a smart move imo, but I mean... was this ever going to flop? Castlevania has a good fanbase, do it justice and people would watch it. 4 Episodes wasn't enough for me to get completely invested. Story wise, it felt disjointed, what with Draculas backstory being the entire first episode. Seemed weird. The Church thing, honestly, I found it a bit boring, however, by the time the 4th episode hit, I felt things picked up, I liked how it managed to work in the introduction of alucard but it made me kinda sad that it ended just as it was getting interesting. Artwork was cool, i've heard about issues with animation being static at points but I didn't notice anything offputting personally. I loved the fire stuff in the first episode, looked really cool, and the fight scenes were really well done imo. The Gore was cool, but might have been slightly overdone for my tastes. Blood and guts galore, but it is based on fucking Castlevania so blood and guts is ok I guess. Voice acting was hit and miss. I could tell who the side characters were as soon as they opened their mouths because of the quality of their voice acting. The main cast was great tho, Richard Armitage as Trevor was awesome. Also, might seem a bit weird but I took minor issue with the swearing. I'm all for swearing, I'm a fucking swear machine myself, but here's the thing - Episode 1 seemed to have no swearing I noticed (probably had a bit but a healthy amount) - followed by 1 character at the end who was swearing so much it was like he had a goal to see how many times he could use the word "fuck" in a single sentence. Honestly, it was a tad off-putting. Lastly, the music. This for me, was the missing ingredient. Couldn't they have licensed music from the games? Ok, lets give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they can't. They didn't even try to keep to the feel or style of the games music. Instead of some almost neo-classical music we're treated to boring mood music with very little melodic content. Heck, the main theme was that typical "duh-duh-duh-duh" stuff popularised by Hans Zimmers work on The Dark Knight Trilogy. Highly disappointing there. Overall, it might seem i'm being very nitpicky and hyper critical but yeah, this did feel a bit... weak. It was ok, but it could have been better. Heck, for a video game adaption, we should probably just be happy with what we get at this point hahahaha. In any case, I'm hoping Season 2 will be better.

I'm reading the write up and having helped give damonz feedback during the making of this raging fuckity, fluffity piece of earcandy, i'm sat here reading the write up and thinking "There's something wrong with these transitions?" Going on record and saying I strongly disagree, cause these transitions are in my eye, sick. In fact, 9:02 is such a fucking good transition that when I hear the Gourmet Race now, my brain goes "wait why isn't it transitioning to green greens?" - When a transition is so good I get confused when I don't hear it in the source tune, I say thats a job well fucking done personally. As for the rest of it, what can I say? Its a fucking magnum opus of sorts. Yeah its a medley wah wah wah but its executed so damn fucking well. And the last 3 minutes or so are simply put... worth the wait. I may be biased, since i'm a good friend and I saw this mix kinda come into fruition, but is something that definitely deserves to be applauded. Cute, cuddly yet supremely epic. This doesn't deserve the free download imo, its too good for that. Go buy the album instead!

DAYYYYM dudes, lots of responses. This is pretty cool, didn't expect it. Ok I got another one of mine. This is from Legend of Zelda, Oracle of Ages, and was annoying for a few reasons... The Level 8 boss This guy had multiple forms and each one had very specific ways to beat him that were not obvious. The one you're seeing in the picture is his "shield" form where he blocks all attacks in front of him - you have to use the seed shooter and use the walls to bounce the seed so it hits him in the back. That sort of thing. However, one of them was a form where he creates these HUGE arms and smashes them together. Now, I'm not completely stupid, I did think "what if you put your bombs between his arms and he smashes it and causes it to explode?" So I tried it, and it didn't work. I exhausted every single other option and gave up. Eventually, I ended up looking up a guide - and read that I was right all along, you do use bombs. However, I must have got the timing "slightly" wrong because even tho it did work, the timing has to be perfect. That was a particularly annoying for me, since I felt it I'd actually figured it out and the games collision detection fucked me over. Either that or my timing sucked. Either way, annoying.

Oh yeah. Sonic 2's boss is all about timing that jump where he's vulnerable. I'd say the annoying part is once you have the pattern down, even tho its not hard to avoid, its a long pattern before he exposes himself, and even then, you slightly misplace your jump and you're dead. I've done it a lot (Sonic 2 is by far my favourite sonic game) but yeah. Tough as nails.

Say you're playing a game. Its fun. You're loving it. Then BAM. You hit a wall. Some immovable section you just can't get passed, no matter what you do. We've all been there. I'm curious to know what peoples examples are, I'm not talking about difficult games you got fed up off over general stuff - i'm talking about 1 area in an otherwise smooth running game that made you give up, either due to difficulty, a puzzle you couldn't solve, or a blockade you didn't know how to get passed etc. Alright, i'll start. Sonic 3: The barrel of doom. Yeah, if you've played this game you know what i'm talking about, So as you guys can see, this is room with a door that shuts behind you. The barrel is in line with the floor. You can get it to move down and up by jumping on it. However, the room is boxed in, so the only way is down. However, timing the jumps right to get down there is completely impossible. Apparently it can be done, but yeah. Anyway, what you're suppose to do is press up and down (buttons that only make sonic look up or down and don't affect gameplay otherwise) to make it move on its own without jumping. However, you have to do it a bit before you see any movement from the barrel and sonic/tails sprites don't change when you press the buttons, which means you immediately think that doesn't do anything. I got stuck, gave up. Came back every now and then when I felt like some sonic, never figured it out tho. Bare in mind this was before the internet was commonplace, we didn't have access to the answers in those days. I looked it up one day... 10 years later? Got passed it, completed the game no problem. Stupid barrel. Alrighty then, anyone else got any good ones?.

Hit me up if you need something sharpish. Otherwise, not gunna claim anything. Consider me a backup

PrototypeRaptor I remember when PrototypeRaptor hit the VGM remix scene on ocr. It was around 2010ish i started hearing the name, people were going on about his mixes and how they were the best produced things ever, and that he was some sort of EDM God etc. He now is known as somewhat a breakout talent who got known for his original music outside of ocr as well - props to that sir. So, looking at his first remix, I can tell he was still grasping his style when he got his first mixpost. Endless Skies is an enjoyable, if not slightly underwhelming first mix, since while the kick is strong, it’s set under quite a chill backing. Remove the slightly overwhelming kick and the intensity is all but gone, which makes this track feel a little disjointed perhaps? Still, its a first ocremix and still an enjoyable one! “Barrel Roll” a Kirby remix (jk its star fox herpderp) is more Trance like than his previous mix, and has an excellent buildup which builds and builds… and ends up being somewhat anticlimactic. The writing itself was fine, but I felt the dynamic constract between sections wasn’t quite enough. Even so, I still consider this an early mix where he was still grasping his craft. His next mix, a Phoenix Wright jam, shakes things up with some epic downtempo triphop, which is a REALLY nice change up from his last mixes. Great string work, and showed some versatility! Dark Matter comes next, and this is where I feel he really started to get GUD. This kirby remix hits HARD. The production is sublime, and the energy is frantic, carried by drums so in your face it’ll melt from the pressure. I’d say this is one of the most “evil” sounding mixes i’ve heard that manages to be CRAZY without getting too out there. Its a really nice balance between frantic and controlled that I love. From here, its pretty much home runs. C.H.E.E.T.A.H. sports a stupendously funky slap bass that takes centre stage away from the drums. At least until it drops. And that critique before where I said about that anticlimactic build? Well, here, there isn’t a build up as such, but the drop isn’t anticlimactic. The production and feel finally jell and its great to see how he improved. Specifically here, it serves to really push the dynamic contrast between sections effectively and make the track that much more enjoyable when it kicks in. Great stuff. Enter the Chemical Plant Zone mix. I think most people are in agreement - this is one of the all time classic ocremixes. It successfully takes the groove that made the original so good and gives it a modern flair. Devil’s Advocate is another highlight - and something completely different - an orchestral remix! (yay for more variety) and altho the production isn’t quite as polished as his EDM music, the arrangement and humanisation/sample quality is top notch. The mix is almost frightening and quirky all at once - I’d like to see PrototypeRaptor tackle some Banjo-Kazooie in this style. What follows is perhaps the most disgusting dirty remix ever - Zeldas underworld theme, turned into brutal dubstep. I personally am not one for dubstep this pure but if you like your music with a bit of dark grit to it, check it out. This is followed by The overclocked plaid muffins Kirby Ska Buffet - where he handled the brass arrangement. I have to say, the versatility on display here is slightly surprising - Usually when I hear an artist branch out, they still keep a common core aspect in play. PrototypeRaptor however, doesn’t seem to do that. He goes from Dubstep to orchestral to Ska in a heartbeat. Not to say he was the core arranger here - that goes to Stevo Bortz - but he did a sizeable amount of arranging if the write up is any indication. His next mix is a one-winged angel mix with his trademark dark EDM style - complete with vocoded vocals! IS THERE NOTHING THIS MAN CAN’T DO??? Also, I swear i’m hearing huge inspiration from “You Know My Name” by Chris Cornell in here. To rap up, every single remix PrototypeRaptor does has something unique about it. Be it funky bass, vocals, or a completely different style all together, tackling sources that are both challenging, and arranging them in a way not exactly expected - open your heart as DnB for example. This is all done with the highest professional polish, and yes, I can say, this mans rep is well deserved. Not to mention, i’ve just realised I’ll never be this good. I am going to go and cry in a corner now, as i’m sure so many of you have done when realising you can’t do music this well either. The envy is strong. Anyways - Happy new year folks! See you for the next review.

Dire Dire Docks Green Hill Zone Gourmet Race Kens Theme

Prince uf Darkness Prince uf Darkness has been absolutely killing in Dwelling of Duels for the last few years, having 14 first place wins in his 31 entries, 8 of which were Alternate entries! In other words, if he enters he’s pretty much guaranteed to do better than you through sheer awesome, and statistically, he has the highest number of wins on the site. So… his music is impressive right? Well, lets see what we have on ocr. I admit, his first 2 tracks took me aback a bit - Not to say they were bad - I was familiar with PuD already, and basically was expecting jazz/metal fusion. However, his first two tracks are a little rough around the edges production wise - his first track “The Hot Pink of Blues” is a very chilled out jazz rock piece. A somewhat understated track, altho it features a really nice virtuosic keys solo from Shnabubula, who is a completely nuts guy in his own right. His second track was “Hell March to the Apocalypse”, which is a highly ambitious heavy metal/orchestral fusion. Both of these tracks are great in their own right and come highly recommended, but the production on these two tracks are slightly lower than his later offerings. This changes with “Sonic Gargles with Garden Marbles” - the funk influence gets more pronounced and the production is tightened up some. This was the first track I heard from PuD and while I found it impressive, it didn’t really put him on my radar yet. At this point, the evolution becomes apparent, as his style gets a little more focused and his production tighter in general - I appreciate the complexity and fusion of his styles through his ocr tracks, and as he keeps getting mixposts, it just keeps getting better and better. However, the first time I really see his style come together is “I Need Scissors! 61!” from Metal Gear Solid 2 - this is, imo, where the highly virtuosic style of jazz/prog metal fusion really comes into play and he starts to really stand out. Crazy solos, rhythms and arrangement quirks aplenty that could give Dream Theater a run for their money. However, I expect in terms of source familiarity, most people will immediately flock to “Prancing Dad” which is, you guessed it, a remix of Dancing Mad, and one Winged Angel. It is 11 minutes and it is, imo, THE Dancing Mad remix to go to. Its as good as the Black Mages version. I believe to be one of ocremixes greatest tracks ever, both in terms of its atheistic and its execution. Staggering stuff. Then he tackled Tim Follin’s Solstice theme… which imo, is bold because Tim Follin is a genius of composition, and while PuD is good, I guess I just have a block where Tim Follin is concerned that you can’t really remix his music and outdo it. My reasoning here is that he is a composer that really pushed the hardware - he used it to its LIMITS. I consider Tim Follin to be a pioneer of chiptune and when remixing you can lose some of those creative ideas that comes from the limitations - which can be distracting. I'm not bashing PuD for remixing it, I'm just pointing out the challenges of remixing such a style of composition. This is coming from a BIG Tim Follin fan however, and this still has some crazy soloing and some nice little breaks in the middle thats both creative and surprisingly welcome. I have to say, tip of the hat for giving a go - he’s the one composer I am too intTIMidated to try and remix. In-tim-idated? no…? Never mind. Moving on, PuDs last two tracks really emphasise the fusion aspects of his style best, with TMNT and Street Fighter remixes. These two also come very very highly recommended. What I will say here is that eventually an artist hits their stride and perfects their craft, which is what these last 2 tracks are. They are tracks made by a person at the top of their game, who knows exactly what they're doing. That said, what makes PuDs stuff interesting - the evolution is there. His tracks start off with a bit more variety but slightly more standard genre-wise, (quite interesting in their own ways however!) and eventually fuses these genres into a whole, recognisable trademark style. Even so, ALL his tracks come recommended - the creativity, complexity, and polish of these tracks are far far beyond what ocr usually tend to offer imo, and he stands out by a mile. My main critique is that his music might be a tad too progressive for some - the tracks at points sacrifice memorable melodies for guitar and synth wankage… but when you’re this good at it, i’ll forgive it, and you should always stick to your strengths. Another minor nitpick is that his endings are sometimes a bit abrupt, but when you’re nitpicking and not pointing out major flaws, you know you’ve got a good product. For Progressive Metal in general, PuD is pretty much king, the Jazz/Funk (and sometimes classical) influences just add a little bit of textural flavour to the proceedings that serves to colour his music and give it that extra creative spark. I strongly recommend “Prancing Dad” and "Casiopizza vs. TMNT-Square", but you can’t really go wrong with any of this. Its highly polished and VERY constant in terms of quality. Some might say Prancing Dad is the highlight but the original source is a masterpiece in its own right. As far as taking what he has to work with - he always knocks it out the park. Dream Theater Fans eat your heart out!

Yeah, I know, this has been done before, but now i'm doing it so THERE. I've been wanting to listen to an artists full collective works on ocr for a while to document their growth, also so I can analyse their style and hopefully use that info to improve my own I'm going to be picking artists from random but depending on the length of their collective works, it might take me longer than others to finish my full review. In many cases I may split my reviews into multiple parts. Any feedback anyone has on how I decide to approach this is welcome, I am open to any suggestions to make things a little easier in terms of reading. Without further ado, LETS DO THE THING! Remixer list 1: Prince uf Darkness - Review 2: PrototypeRaptor - Review Upcoming - Avien

Boom! This hits hard. Bass might be a tad too much but w/e, all the kids love bass. I find it amusing that "Timesig: 4/4" is a tag.

What a wonderful night to listen to some Castlevania Jazz. Moar.

Legends say that Joe Satriani actually submits music to overclocked remix under the alias Sixto Sounds. No such allegations have been proven.

I am probably going to get hate for posting this, but this mix irritates me. The reason is, I should enjoy this. The arrangement is fabulous, and the performances, attention to detail, humanisation, and ideas presented here are top notch. However, there is one thing that I can't get over. The mix is just too loud. Everything sounds squashed, and I can't bring myself to enjoy it because it is so taxing on my ears I'm glad people in the comments above me can see past it. For me personally, if I want a track this loud, i'll just turn it up on my computer.