WillRock

There is love for everything gameboy! EVERYTHING!

Want me to mark down both of those for you? or just one? I'm wondering whether to have a restriction on how many tracks you can claim at one time due to the one mix per series rule. That way, we won't have 5 series claims from one person and suddenly they are all dropped a year later. Rexy, I've marked down your claim

For the record, anything goes as long as its Game Boy/Game Boy Colour. We have got suggestions , many of which damned has failed to mention in his first post like Zelda, Kirby and Final Fantasy (because a gameboy album without tetris for example is LUDICROUS) but its completely open to whatever you guys want series wise... with the exception of whats already taken... Better get on that! Also, Feel Free to take robocop. I'm only focusing on one for now - batman. If Robocop hasn't been taken by the time thats done i'll claim it. Anybody who wants to join, contact me with a link to a remix you've done. I want to keep a certain amount of quality control here, but nothing too strict don't worry You guys should know whats been claimed and who is on the project imo, so here is the google doc - I'll be updating it as appropriate (damned, put this in the first post plz) https://docs.google.com/document/d/142_MYnfJsx0xCm7QNgN1v3c-5NNsljDsP3-C8W78lH0/edit?hl=en_GB

This was the rejected mix

Well, I was basically brought up on music - classical music that is, beethoven, mozart, all that stuff. I started doing piano lessons when I was about 7, and learnt music theory. In my core, I was a musician, but I also had a major interest in video games, something my parants tried to limit me from doing by only buying me a gameboy and limiting my time on it. Back to music, it was around high school that I first heard Bon Jovi - Living on a Prayer. Life changing moment for me, that signaled my change of interest from classical music and the 90's boy band mainstream faff I was subjected to. I started to look into all the classic rock bands similar to Bon Jovi - Guns N' Roses, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Van Halen etc. All this inspired me to pick up a guitar. Around this time I started to realise that I had compositional skill (I kept imagining in my head differences to the songs I was hearing, and hearing them as I wanted them to be) and got interested in composing. I got a computer and brought cubase SE, which was to help with my music classes at school and started composing rock tracks. It was basically midi quality but I didn't care. Move forward a few years to college, and I found Reason, through which I was subjected to much higher quality sounds to make my music with. I also learnt the basics of production at this point, putting effects on my instruments etc. I still made rock tracks with bad guitar samples tho I formed a college band called No Idea in which I played guitar, and recorded an album of music at college. Then, when I left, I went back to gaming more while waiting for Uni to start. One day, I was playing links awakening found myself wondering what tal tal heights music would sound like if it wasn't limited by the hardware. Thats when it hit me to do remixes. I'd been doing seqeunced rock tracks up to this point but thought that if people heard my music, they'd think it was naff, so I switched to synths for the time being. I made a remix of tal tal heights, and made a youtube account to upload it, which is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/WillRock07?feature=mhee. I found myself being subjected to requests and ended up fulfilling a few, all links awakening tracks, and my ever growing fanbase kept suggesting I submit to OCR. Not knowing what OCR was, I looked it up, and found myself listening to remixes from bLiNd, Zircon and Mcvaffe and immediately found myself feeling outclassed. Still, I submitted a track, it got rejected, and I tried to up my game by posting tracks on the WIP forums for feedback, and experimenting with aspects of reason I hadn't before. All this experimenting helped me to make Snowboardin Sonic. It got rejected, but I felt it was a huge step in the right direction, and redid tal tal heights, which ended up as my first OCRemix. I resubbed Snowboardin Sonic, and then things started to click for me. I later brought Pro Tools, and could finally add guitars into my music, and thus... all these experiences helped me become the musician I am today.

You have a pretty sweet arrangement here, but the production needs a bit of work getting over the bar imo. For example, alot of this sounds very dry and vanilla, try adding some more reverb to the piano to give it more character. Don't overdo it tho Those drums don't quite suit the style either, they are too punchy for the style you're going for, I'd opt for a more mellow sounding drum kit, what you've got is too punchy right now. There are a few weird sounds that don't seem to fit stylistically for me - such as that weird organ sound and the midish lead at 1:03. You have some pretty neat arrangement skills, and I'm enjoying the creativity shown here. As this stands tho, the production is holding this back from OCR's bar imo. Keep on working at it and you'll get there tho

One little thing changes behind the scenes and I come back to you guys all reciting bad poetry. OCR IS BREAKING.

Ok, so I just listened to the top ten, and honestly, I think that while Jill did very very well to get the most votes, I do think that the competition was exceptional and shouldn't have been underestimated. I do think that Laura Intravias (2) and Rudigers (5) were particularly enjoyable as well, out of those not mentioned so far. As for the winner, I think that its well deserved, she should have placed higher in the voting than 10, at least top 5 if not top 3 imo. While Jill is just as good and would have been a just a worthy choice imo, I don't blame the judges for picking madeline. That said, I do think that the fact that Jill got the "peoples vote" certainly tells you something. I'm not 100% sure exactly how well OCR Promoted her in this compo, but getting the top spot can't have been OCRs work alone right?

I actually tried that, but found it didn't have the sound I wanted. Sometimes I "break the rules" to help get a specific sound, In this case helping to get a sound similar to the original. In this case reverb.

Probably a bit mental of me to do this but after that Cliffs of Dover remix I did, I felt I was in the mood for it

Just so there isn't any confusion, when I listened to the track, the intro did hurt my ears, so it wasn't just a matter of abrupt starting imo. It was really painful for me up to the point the drums kicked in and I personally feel the piercing warrants fixing.

Emunator, Level 99 and I have all got together and listened to the source, this was the general consensus: Pretty cool arrangement. There was some pretty sweet synth sounds and writing as well, props there. The source seems to be prominent altho it seems slightly repetitive to the others I dunno The production tho, we all agree needs some tweaking. The intro is really loud and piercing, you need to work on your EQing so its less painful on the ears. There are balancing issues, particularly, there was a very strong automated panned arp which threw off the balance. Cool idea but the execution was a little off. The samples seemed over processed generally. The drums felt static and over compressed. To sum it all up, this needs some work in the production, mixing, and don't be afraid to throw in some more variation here and there!

Emunator, Level 99 and I have all taken a listen to your track. This is the general consensus: Pretty interesting take on the mix. The arrangement is pretty cool and the source checks out but there are various mixing issues. The Rhythm guitars are too quiet - they need to be louder or Pumped in the mids. The drums don't quite fit in the soundscape, The kick and the snare samples need some layering to make them more punchy, and there issues with timing on the guitar leads. The piano and marimba samples and sequencing aren't the best either but I feel the sequencing is more of an issue personally.

Any critique or thoughts are welcome

You have my vote. Good luck!

I'm on it

Personally, I think that tackling really good "CD quality" sources can be a good exercise in your arrangement skills because you can't really do an "updated version" of the source like you can with 8-bit or 16-bit music, thus inspiring more creativity

This. So very much this. I wonder how many people still associate vgm with just the 8-bit music of old and thus don't rate it as a "real" or serious form of music.

Just to clarify, part of my reason for making this thread is to see if anyone has the potential to change their minds. I have almost remixed FF for OCR several times but seem to have a mental block because of this subconscious lack of will to remix from that franchise. Its got nothing to do with lack of inspiration or lack of writers block etc so it can be broken I'm sure. I did manage to a joke chrono trigger remix with Protodome and halc and yet never managed to do a serious one before.

So when I got to OCR, I found myself not knowing about the majority of Square Games like Chrono Trigger - Save Final Fantasy - and I was left thinking "wtf is chrono trigger and why does it have more remixes than sonic, mario, and zelda games". I assume its because many of these games didn't have European release (i'm from the UK) So i've made an subconscious vow to not remix anything from final fantasy or chrono trigger (Chrono Trigger more so than anything) for OCR, because I feel they are represented fine as they are. Its not even something I found myself deciding, it was never in question you see. So my question to you guys is this: Are there any games you refuse to make remixes from, and if so, why?

Er... yeah volenteering me to do these things isn't cool assuming you are actually being serious brandon. Juan, I haven't said I'd do anything else mixing wise with this project and if I want to, you'll hear it from me first

Ok i'm posting... half a review for now, since i've only listened to the first half of the album right now - Its a pretty long one and needs more time for me to digest it all. So my first thoughts are as follows - I think that the album has plenty of variety considering its obvious vgm PS1 sound throughout so far. I'm catching influences from franchises like sonic, final fantasy and the tales series. It seems to me that this isn't the type of album that is suppose to flow from track to track particularly and thus, if there are any tracks people don't like, they can be deleted without ruining the experience. So far, i've listened to the first 8 tracks in depth, and its hard for me not to pick out my favorites due to the style differences from each and what appeals to me personally. One thing I will say about these tracks is that they all carry great moods and are very true to their influences - the instrumentation and feel has been nailed here imo. I've always found hooks to be of utmost importance in this style of music. Catchy tunes is important in this style of music and songs such as "Tempest Rush" and "Wealth of Knowledge" have very catchy melodies, and in the case of melodies not being particularly memorable, there is a backing riff that will keep you coming back to the music. I've found that "Five is Average" has the most going for it - a hummable melody, Great backing riff, very nostalgic feel and the use of SFX from mega man really gives this a different flavor and makes it stand out amongst the others. However, there are some tracks that I didn't quite get into, the biggest offender being "Caveat Emptor" with its three note riff eventually getting on the verge of annoying for me. If there is a flaw to this album, there are a few tracks that don't hold up to repeated listening, which is something that is crucial for this style of music imo. Thats not to put too much of a shadow on the album however - there are 18 tracks after all, and you can delete the ones you don't want due to the stylistic contrast of the album. Good stuff Meteo - I'll be posting more as I keep on listening