Drakken
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Posts posted by Drakken
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UPDATE 2/1/12: New version for mod review, featuring Aster's quad-tracked rhythm guitars and various minor changes. Got it a bit louder this time, though still not as loud as other OCR mixes. I worry about it being too harsh with all the compression/limiting/soft clipping I'm using. I'm still learning how best to use those.
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Anyone else underwhelmed by the music? I was thrilled like everyone else when they announced they were finally going orchestral, but ended up being disappointed by the results. I found that most of the songs were simply unremarkable, with some of the area and dungeon themes even bordering on annoying. Additionally, the full orchestral tunes (particularly the ones with brass) had a cheap / cartoon orchestra feeling to them. One of my friends who watched me play for awhile said the same thing.
Contrast that with Mario going orchestral in Super Mario Galaxy, which I thought they did an absolutely fantastic job with. Most of SMG's songs had really great, memorable melodies. With Zelda it was just... unmemorable background music.
Of course not enjoying the game that much could have contributed to me not caring for some of the themes...
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Hmm.......
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Congrats on the early success! Bought the game and OST. Played through one round of the game to try it out, and it seemed pretty cool. Will delve into it deeper later. One thing's for sure - it's very smartly designed (not just the game mechanics, but the interface and the look of everything).
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Just a reminder (again
) to change my claimed game from Skate or Die: Bad 'N Rad to Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3. Wouldn't want someone else to start on a Wario Land remix only to find out it's already taken. -
UPDATE 1/18/12: New version!
Exciting news: ALL electric guitar and sax parts are now live recordings! That's courtesy of Aster and Xenon Odyssey, respectively. This song's come a long way from when it was just MIDI.
Other changes:
-lots of level adjustments (mostly to mix the guitar/sax recordings)
-put a high-pass filter on a bunch of instruments to get rid of unnecessary lows
-toned down the lows on the kick in the first half
-added a lo-fi/distortion effect to the strings transition
-added some movement to the choir in the 2nd half of the rock section
-now using EZ Drummer for cymbals and hi-hat; minor drum part changes
-now using T-Racks limiter & soft clipper on master track to increase volume (not using Mastering preset like last time)
Any and all feedback is appreciated!
Potential areas for improvement:
-Sax needs to blended into the mix. I've messed around with adding reverb but haven't been able to get it to sit naturally with everything else. Could use tips on how to do this.
-Spanish-sounding guitar in beginning should be replaced with real guitar.
-More movement, particularly in first half, per Monobrow's suggestion.
-Overall sound could be better. Still doesn't sound great compared to other songs. Don't know why. It's a shame, cause I feel like I have something special here. Just need to figure out how to make it shine.
EDIT: Updated the above link; the panning on the intro instrument was messed up on the first upload.
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Open the volume control mixer panel in windows (right click the little speaker at the bottom of the screen) and see if your main windows volumes are turned down. Windows 7 lets different applications run at different volume levels, so turning up/down the master volume fader wont help if the internal windows mixer has things set at different volumes.
I generally have my main Windows volume at around 50%, which makes for a nice and loud but comfortable listening volume when it comes to regular music in iTunes, and gives me some flexibility to turn it up or down for soft or loud sources.
My issue is that the volume level of Pro Tools, FL, and T-Racks is way higher than when I bounce my project to a .wav file and listen to it. This isn't just 'cause I have the sliders turned up really high or something - sticking a regular .wav in a blank Pro Tools project or in T-Racks and simply playing it back, it's much louder than playing that .wav in Audacity/iTunes/WMP/Winamp/etc. I want to get it so I can mix something in Pro Tools with the master fader at 0 and have it be at about my normal listening level. The other day I was messing around with some minor compression/limiting in one of my projects to try to raise the volume to compare a bit more with regular songs, and it was too loud to the point where it was hard on my ears.
EDIT: I've now lowered the overall sound card output volume and raised the Windows volume. This should enable me to mix at lower, more comfortable levels in Pro Tools while retaining a comfortably loud listening level when playing music in iTunes. Dunno if that's the best solution, but it'll work for now I guess.
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I remember listening to this back in June when it was on the WIP board. Loved it then, and love it now. Fantastic stuff!
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Any videos from the OCR or indie game composers panels yet?
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When using Pro Tools (my main DAW), the playback volume is always nice and loud. When I bounce a project to a .wav file and play it back (in any media player), the song is much quieter. Same goes for listening to .wav files in T-Racks standalone. With both of these programs, adjusting the main computer volume in the lower right of the screen has no effect. Same goes for FL Studio, actually. It's like these programs have their own monitoring volume, independent of my main volume control. I'm not sure why this is. I looked through the different sliders in my sound card's control panel, hoping there might be a slider there that allowed me to change the monitoring volume in PT/FL/T-Racks, but to no avail.
This is really frustrating, as when mixing I want to hear exactly how it's gonna sound when bounced. In order to get the levels louder when bounced, I end up having to mix super loud, and that's no good for my ears or for the final product.
For reference, my sound card is an Audiophile 2496 and I have a pair of KRK Rokit 6s hooked up to it with RCA cables. No mixer or anything.
EDIT: Running Windows 7 SP1 in case that matters.
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Congrats, guys! Well deserved.
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Wow, looks pretty cool. Eagerly awaiting a beta invite.
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Any vids of the panel yet? Really anxious to see that.
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Anyone who likes prog rock needs to buy this.
Truly excellent stuff. LOVED the syncopation and jazz/funk influences in parts of Part 4 I believe it was. Only listened through everything once; need to listen more.
Out of curiosity, how much time would you say it took you to complete this album? I always wondered how people put together long prog rock songs/albums... do you just add on to the song as you go; do you have a clear idea of different places you want to get to and kind of fill things in to get from here to there; or something else entirely?
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Now looking for just a guitar player to do all the electric guitar parts (and maybe even the Spanish-sounding acoustic stuff at the beginning if possible). Here's the latest WIP:
And here, again, is the WIP thread.
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Bought for NightSky HD; looks interesting. Bit.Trip Runner looks good too.
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Congrats on the release! Looking forward to trying this out once I get the discount code.
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Thanks a lot for all the feedback! I will work on it this week and attempt to implement some of the changes that were suggested.
Could you please post what you're listening to this on? Might help give me a better idea of what it sounds like on different equipment.
RE the kick drum - I had boosted the lows a lot, because though it sounded fine on my Rokit 6s, the "thump" wasn't there on other (cheaper) speakers I tried it on. I want this to be felt more than heard. It seems I overdid it.
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Funny, my friend just introduced me to these guys this past week. They have a lot of great videos - clearly very creative people.
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Out of curiosity, can I ask what your church is like? Is it a really big church, or maybe a younger congregation? I can't help but think that a chiptune prog rock album of hymns would be a very, very niche thing. This is not to be negative - as a Christian and churchgoer myself, I'm genuinely curious.
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Finally revisited this:
I've spent quite a bit of time on it the past few days. Aside from a bunch of minor changes (mostly levels), I added a sax solo to the end as well as some interplay between the sax and guitars. The song's now 5:11 instead of 4:51. I also changed the very end to a triplet feel.
One thing you'll notice is the rhythm guitar and first two lead guitar parts are now real. They're currently rough takes and will end up being replaced by the guy I'm collaborating with, but it's definitely an upgrade from the fake guitars. The other guitar parts are fake and will hopefully be replaced by real guitar in the future.
The sax is still fake. I'm collab'ing with someone here and will hopefully have real sax the next time I update this.
What I could really use now are mixing tips. The track seems to sound decent on my Rokit 6s and headphones, but very "eh" on cheap consumer speakers. Even on the high-end stuff I know it could be better. The rock section in particular seems lacking compared to other rock remixes I've listened to. This is the first time I've ever tried to mix real guitars in one of my songs, and I'm a newb when it comes to production to begin with. Any guitar tips, EQing suggestions, and comments in general are greatly appreciated!
In case this helps at all - right now I have T-Racks on the master track with a Mastering 1 preset on it. After bouncing it from Pro Tools, I loaded it up in Audacity and used its compressor based on the peaks to try to increase the volume a bit (seems to only make a minor difference). This may very well be a really bad idea, but like I said, I don't know a whole lot about mixing and mastering yet (despite buying and reading through some books awhile back).
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Wow, this whole soundtrack is fantastic. Most of these songs are ripe for remixing; New Lofstrom in particular is begging for a ragtime piano version (heck, Cloud City too). If I had the piano skills I'd totally make that happen.
Also bought the game; at 99 cents even a passable golf game with this music would be worth it.
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I remember this from the WIP forums back in January. Top-notch stuff, between this and Nullification you've done some amazing work dirtying up these super-well-known themes and making them your own.
Great, great start to the album.
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Just posting to say my game in the first post should be updated to Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 instead of Skate or Die (as per my earlier post). Wouldn't want someone else to look at the list and then start a Wario Land remix when there's already one being worked on.
OCR02384 - Zelda II "Heroes Fall"
in ReMix Reviews & Comments
Posted
Nice to see you back! Absolutely love this. Zelda II does indeed have some great, really memorable tunes. I like the fact that you didn't go overboard on changing them up but stayed pretty true to the original melodies. Nice job blending the three guitar tones together; they complement each other very well.