djpretzel

Just chiming in with an update: Our current plan is that Chronopolis will be the first OC ReMix album released in 2019 (yay!) This is partly because we're trying to get Arcadia Legends out this month (yay, but also difficult!)

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

That's completely cool - no need to play devil's advocate, because I'm not prescribing my perspective for everyone else, just saying how I see things personally. Ultimately, since I'm less motivated my marketing/commercialization, I'm doing things for myself. To me, even if it's an arrangement, that makes it more personal than if I was trying to make something marketable. I think there's a balance to be struck on all these concerns, and it can even vary from piece to piece. Having a one-size-fits-all creative ideology just makes you inflexible. And yes, to me all art is a collaborative process, because even something shared with no one else and made exclusively for yourself is the product of a conversation your mind has had with your culture, your environment, etc. The collaborator need not be human, or even alive, but is always there to some extent. To me that's not just a "nice idea," it's a profound truth, and no amount of copyright hoo-hah or commercial consideration can change it, because it's beyond that, and it's what makes art great. Again, my perspective.

These reasons may seem true for you personally, but I disagree strongly with both as generalizations, and they certainly aren't true for me. They're also both kinda-sorta saying the same thing, re: ownership and that being the primary sticking point, creatively speaking. My more-than-two-cents: I think of my mixes as my own AND as collaborations with the original composer's ideas. I don't think it has to be one or the other. I actually tend to think of ALL artistic creation as a collaboration of sorts, even the most personal works, so it all lays on a spectrum... not a Boolean. So this is a false dichotomy, to me at least. I've heard hundreds of arrangements that brought original ideas to the table, relative to the source in question; a musical work's status as an arrangement carries SOME obligation to reuse ideas, motifs, etc., but within that framework artists can be quite creative, as we've seen over two decades, and outside of that framework, making something original, artists can still be quite derivative. So again, the premise seems weird to me, too much hinged on some notion of personal ownership being the end-all be-all & offering a stamp of great meaning & significance. My answer is that I still do it, primarily because there are still plenty of melodies out there that I want to hear a certain way, that I can bring something to, and make something of worth that I enjoy and that others might enjoy as well.

Am I the only one who thinks of this question primarily in terms of # of songs and not duration? I'm happier with a 12-song, 40-minute album where each song is unique than I am with an 8-song, 60-minute album, generally speaking... more about the number of ideas than their length

Everyone has a different take; for me, I think you just HAVE to come to the creative process with a goal of making something that makes YOU happy. There can be flaws, there can be things you'd do differently next time, you can digest & consider constructive criticism, but if there's an idea SOMEWHERE in there that, regardless of anything else, you think deserves to exist in the world, which you're proud of, you can draw strength from that. Applied to something like poetry: If I write a poem, and there's a single line, or even a phrase within a line, that I love, that I am proud of, that I want to exist within a context that facilitates it... I'm good. With music, arrangement in particular, if there's a single melodic or harmonic idea that's not obvious, that works, that feels like something personal that only I might have done "that way"... I'm good. Obviously, it's better if there are multiple ideas, and it's better if the context in which they exist is polished, strong, etc. overall, but even if it's the most professional-sounding piece of music in the world, if there ISN'T an idea/moment like that in there, I won't love it. So, to paraphrase: "Draw creative strength from your moments of light, no matter how dark their surroundings may sometimes seem"? Something like that!

Killer! I could see some minor mastering tweaks/permutations but they'd really just be variations - sounding fantastic as-is, please do submit when you're happy with it (I certainly would be)!

Should be fixed, thanks for reporting.

Ableton Live 10, Reason 10, Studio One 4, and now FL20... good times for DAWs. Happy to see OSX support and all the new features; not my main DAW and probably never will be, but still keepin' tabs.

Just chiming in quickly; I think the production bar could stand to be lowered a bit, especially on the more subjective mixing/mastering front for relatively complex/ambitious tracks like this. I get that there are certain common types of issues that are easy to cite - a smidge too much compression, crowding, etc. - but I feel like a mix of this particular arrangement/production balance should always make it through; pretty surprised this was as close a call as it was.

I can neither confirm nor deny that our recent website issues were the result of foreign interference Most credit goes to @José the Bronx Rican, secondary credit to Google Translate & my wife for some minor edits @Mazedude Just so you know, everything's okay!

A little conservative in instrumentation and overall style, but thoroughly embellished with additional ornamentation, fluid temp fluctuations, and of course a nice live trumpet solo that adds a lot. Certainly keeps the feel of the original intact, but also explores permutations & enhancements sufficiently. Nitpicking, I'd say there could be even more ebb & flow to the tempo & dynamics, because it's the type of composition that leans on that "swaying" aesthetic, but that's tough to sequence, and what's here is good. YES

Well-deserved - great album!

Agreed; arguably that makes it a YES conditional; I do hope APZX revises the mix. More the pitch bends than the strings. The dynamic panning helps the strings, and it's a unique lead sound you don't hear much... by the same token, it kinda sits in uncanny valley for me, sounding more realistic than most classic string synths (Solina, etc.) but not as realistic as actual strings... something more committed to either a classic analog string synth or realistic strings would probably work better, and an entirely different approach to the lead might also be more effective. The pitch bends are not only overused, but weirdly implemented... they warble a bit, and the increment is subtle, and it almost sounds like someone trying to learn the theremin. The pitch bend down on final note of phrase has such a connection with Blade Runner for me, too... not 100% it survives this implementation without channeling that in a weird way. I had no major problems with harmony/dissonance except as relevant to the pitch bending. We'll see what @Liontamer thinks. I think is creative, fun, engaging, and would love to see it on the site, but I also agree with the apparent consensus of the panel that the pitch bending (first & foremost) and the lead string patch (secondary but non-trivial) being addressed & refined would let this shine. NO (but please resubmit with fixes!)

@Silverpool @Liontamer Thanks for bringing this to my attention; Larry had provided an updated torrent, but I hadn't yet gone live with it. It's up now, but the old one is still seeding as well until it dies out by attrition, since we get most of our seeders from the initial album release announcement(s).

Gets more interpretive as it goes, from an arrangement perspective, and I totally dig the soundscape - Drew kinda inverts things by putting more verb on the bass than many other elements, so it sits back in the mix as this dope, mellow lurker, while foreground textures seem closer. Chiptune & glitch elements are excellent; especially love how even individual notes within a line will mess with panning & jump around a bit, adding life to each passage. Mix does kinda just end, and in this case I wanted something a LITTLE bit more, even a surprise extra note or beat, but it's a nitpick - as others have said, this is classic halc, plays the arrangement relatively close but definitely breathes comfortable in its own skin, and packs in those classic 9-bit flavors we've been missing. YES

@Chimpazilla While Impact Soundworks have a pretty good tin whistle, too, this was Ilya Efimov: http://www.ilyaefimov.com/products/ethnic-winds/irish-tin-whistle.html

@HoboKa Can you try logging out & back in and seeing if that fixes the issue? I've seen it a couple times but it went away after an authentication cycle...

Yeah to echo what @Jorito said, there aren't too many variables: If you have 1/4 headphones, try plugging them directly into the 1/4 outs of the Korg/Yamaha, just as a sanity check. Assuming that test succeeds, there are only a few buttons on the Behringer that could be messing you up: Try the "to main mix" buttons like Jorrith said Make sure level knobs are up If the mixer has a software interface, post a screenshot, and/or a photo of your hookup If the mixer has a software interface, make sure the line inputs are enabled, NOT muted, that no other inputs are set to solo, and that they are assigned to main mix

Awesome progress, @Darkflamewolf. FYI, I put some time in and have a solid minute; will be fleshing it out next week!

All of Wave Alchemy's stuff is good, BigKick isn't that bad, Kick 2 is better, and I actually have D16's PunchBox, which I like.

@Ringworm128 You don't really need to; Super Audio Cart runs in Kontakt or Kontakt Player (free), which are VST plugins that run within FL Studio, so there's no need for Rewire, which is a bit messier.

@Rozovian So last year we filed a 990-N, because we're under the $50K limit and had only been a 501c3 for a grand total of one month & change, in 2016. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/annual-electronic-filing-requirement-for-small-exempt-organizations-form-990-n-e-postcard For our 2017 taxes, I'm planning on doing the full 990, which does spell things out more explicitly. We need to amend our bylaws, get those online, and check some other boxes, but information like you're requesting WILL be made publicly available in Q1 2018 when we go through this process.

@Patrick Burns is correct, for the record - we weren't planning on explicitly keeping track anymore, just enabling it for the whole channel. Stating consent here has the effect of voicing support for that plan, but that plan would enable everything, for all videos. Given that YouTube apparently can enable this at will, and given that tracking each & every artist preference could get.... elaborate.... especially with collaborations, the idea is that the content policy itself does and would cover this, across the board. It's an important distinction/clarification.

#1 was a legitimate misjudgment on our part - my part - as to the timing of going live to get basic metrics vs. a full roll-out, and how that would be perceived; I'd need to review the full thread again to remember if I apologized for that misjudgment, but if I didn't, I do. A good faith assumption was all it took to understand what happened, and we didn't get a good faith assumption from some folks, but ideally we wouldn't put ourselves in a position to NEED a good faith assumption #2 never made any sense to me, personally; whether we pay for YouTube or not is irrelevant. That's basically saying you should only run ads on the platforms that represent an expense to you, and only use revenue generated on any platform to pay for that platform, and nothing else? That's NEVER been true, because even a decade ago, when it was just banner ads, we used funds for promotional runs of physical albums as prizes at conventions.... so that's using web ads to pay for something not strictly related to web hosting. This conceptualization of funding & expenditure is very odd/rigid/limiting... #3 is worth talking more about, I think. We have no intention of ever enabling unskippable ads, so those are off the table. #4 tell me about it...