djpretzel

Haven't heard it all yet but so far this is absolutely kick ass stuff!

That's on me for making the filename too long; should have cut it down; I'll circle with djp on it soon.

WOW what an impressive track. Great work!

This isn't usually my style, but damn, by 0:47+ I was really beginning to waver, and the buildup to 1:45 is just plain fun. MAJOR props to the remixer, who obviously did their research and took the established remix track of remix tracks and took it in a new direction. I thought it wouldn't work. I was wrong. So happy that I was!
Great job!!

Really digging the Casiopea feel of this one. This takes real talent.

OC ReMix Presents Speeding Towards Adventures: 25 Years of Sonic the Hedgehog!

June 22, 2017
Contact: press@ocremix.org

FAIRFAX, VA... On the final day of Sonic's 25th anniversary year (gotta go fast!), OverClocked ReMix today released its 62nd free community arrangement album, Speeding Towards Adventures: 25 Years of Sonic the Hedgehog. Featuring 23 tracks from 30 artists, Speeding Towards Adventures pays tribute to numerous titles from the Sonic the Hedgehog series, and is co-directed by Russian community member Stepan "Black_Doom" Sudilovsky & Dutch musician Jorrith "Jorito" Schaap. The album is available for free download at http://sonic25.ocremix.org.

Speeding Towards Adventures pulls together a deep group of musicians honoring the Sega sound team's music in a variety of styles, including rock, funk, electro swing, pop, orchestral, and more. Speeding Towards Adventures was made by fans, for fans, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Sega or Sonic Team; all original compositions are copyright their respective owners.

"The fast-paced addictive gameplay, vivid stages, and, of course, catchy music made my first experience of diving into Sonic universe one of the most memorable parts of my childhood," recounted album director Stepan Sudilovsky. "Then I started to learn more and more about Sonic the Hedgehog games, and they were all amazing to explore, but music remained the most enjoyable part of this entertainment." The scope of the album's game coverage starts from the original Sonic the Hedgehog and works up to 2010's Sonic Colors, tackling a full dozen Sonic games. Sudilovsky underscored the album's wide-ranging approach: "My vision for this project: cover as many games as possible, as well as to represent a variety of music genres to represent the variety of Sonic's journeys."

The album's artwork was designed by British artist Davy "Odai" Owen, who also designed the artwork for OC ReMix's 2015 Heart of a Gamer album memorializing the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata.

"I was happy to be able to contribute some of my 'get stuff done' skills, and helping guide the album and all the people who collaborated towards the final product was a blast," affirmed album co-director Jorrith Schaap. "Really proud of the final result and I'm sure you'll enjoy the album as much as I did!"

Speeding Towards Adventures also marks OC ReMix's fifth Sonic series album, following 2013's Temporal Duality (Sonic CD), 2011's The Sound of Speed (Sonic 1), 2006's Project Chaos (Sonic 3 & Knuckles), and 2005's Hedgehog Heaven (Sonic 2).

About OverClocked ReMix
 
Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form. Its primary focus is ocremix.org, a website featuring thousands of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans.
 
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Preview it: http://youtu.be/Yemuj9HbaBE Download it: http://sonic25.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Speeding_Towards_Adventures_-_25_Years_of_Sonic_the_Hedgehog.torrent Comments/Reviews: http://ocremix.org/community/topic/45902/  

It *somewhat* depends on the genre(s) you wanna tackle - jazz/blues/Latin considerably harder to do w/ sampled/sequenced elements and 0% real instruments, but definitely not impossible.
As @Jorito & @Meteo Xavier say, I don't think this should be a prime concern or any sort of barrier; plenty of great music to be made with ALL live, recorded instruments, plenty of great music to be made with 100% synthesized electronic instruments, and everything in between. All modern DAWs let you mix & match sequenced parts with recorded instruments, and often the best solution involves a mix of both - nothing like a real trumpet for a jazz solo of any complexity, but if it's part of a horn section playing soft backup chords, not as essential that it be a Real Live Human Player ™

I love it when people do ambient arrangements, and this is a good one. The usage of the source is lovely, it's beautiful and the whole track has this warmth, both aurally and emotionally. Also I appreciate the background given by the artist. Good stuff! More!

got two builds for OCR folks incoming, one of whom isn't listed in the thread. looking forward to getting the parts and playing with more tech =)

It seems to me that leveling the charge of bandwagon mourning is just as bandwagon as bandwagon mourning itself; when it comes to something like this, I think it's MUCH better to give people the benefit of the doubt... if you're wrong about someone else's grief or sense of loss, you're the douche of the decade, whereas if they're expressing disproportionate, uninformed, or insincere sadness, they're just being transiently emotional...
Unless you're psychic, maybe just either empathize or be quietly skeptical?

It does definitely vary from genre to genre, and also background to background.  For example, I have one remix posted on the site, and another in the evaluation queue.  Both use live instruments almost exclusively.  One is jazz, and the other is some other genre that I don't know how to classify.  Jazz doesn't really sound right with samples, especially with wind instruments, so it tends to work better with live instruments.  As for background, a lot of people on this site are hobbyists who learned music on their own.  Using samples or synths is what they know really well, although there is a large number of rock/metal who use live guitar.  Many people play guitar as a primary instrument.  I'm a classically trained french horn player who also does jazz extensively, so I prefer live instruments because that's what I'm more "fluent" in.
If you use what you have, and make it work, you'll fit in just fine!

Not quite cornered.  There's a strong jazz presence and some "orchestral lite" (~4-8 live instrumentalists and/or vocalists).  But for 100% live instruments, rock/metal is definitely the most popular supergenre.

I definitely concur that a minority of tracks include even one live instrument--most are 100% synths and/or samples.  But a substantial minority do include at least one live instrument, as well.  That number goes up if you include vocals.
I will add that we come down pretty hard on sequenced instruments when they lack humanization.  You can go through old judges' decisions to see for yourself: when an instrument is lead or exposed, it's much more likely to get rejected when it sounds obviously fake.  Being able to play lead violin and electric guitar yourself is a huge boon if you'd like to use those instruments--I think that as leads, those two instruments tend to trip up mixes the most when sampled.

It *somewhat* depends on the genre(s) you wanna tackle - jazz/blues/Latin considerably harder to do w/ sampled/sequenced elements and 0% real instruments, but definitely not impossible.
As @Jorito & @Meteo Xavier say, I don't think this should be a prime concern or any sort of barrier; plenty of great music to be made with ALL live, recorded instruments, plenty of great music to be made with 100% synthesized electronic instruments, and everything in between. All modern DAWs let you mix & match sequenced parts with recorded instruments, and often the best solution involves a mix of both - nothing like a real trumpet for a jazz solo of any complexity, but if it's part of a horn section playing soft backup chords, not as essential that it be a Real Live Human Player ™

It's tough to give exact numbers, but my feeling is that it's leaning more towards sampled than real instruments. The amount of tracks with purely real instruments is probably not that high, but there's a lot of tracks that have a mix of sampled instruments with real instruments (e.g. a rock track with real guitars and bass but sampled drums, an orchestral track with a live violin, an electronic track with vocals, you name it). Always a good way to make a track sound more lively and more human.
I second what Meteo is saying, just use what you have, play around with it, have fun with it and see what comes out. If it sounds good, it is good

HI all I'm a long time OC Remix fan and I've decided to take the plunge and try some creating. I had an electric piano about 30 years ago that was MIDI compatible but never used MIDI. I think MIDI was new then.
I've been reading Remixer profiles and the forums learning the lingo, etc. This led me to FL Studio. So let me ask, overall what percentage of the music here is 100% sampled? I don't know if sampled is the word. The other way to ask this is what percentage of music here uses outside instruments? And, of those, what part is digital (Keyboard) vs. say, electric guitar.
We play violin, Casio keyboard, and electric Jazz guitar in my house. I'm laying the groundwork for investing and potentially mixing these instruments.
When I listen to the music here I really can't tell which is digital vs non unless I'm listening to Audix (guitar) or music with voice.
Any input would help,
Thanks-

For Dave to quote. "This is pretty sweet. And hot. Like a desert."
YES

An impressive (if somewhat predictable) rock take of the original. Your guitar tone has a good level of brightness to it, the distortion levels have a nice level of bite while keeping things clear and audible. Performance is solid. As the arrangement plays out things start off fairly conservatively, although we do see a number of licks presenting themselves over time to maintain freshness. Parts transition mostly well, although some feel too sudden (such as the break at 1:17). The panning used on the lead to alternate parts added a nice feeling of movement.
Pace maintains fairly similar throughout most of the song, which for a duration of almost 3 minutes is a long time, especially at this tempo. One noticeable nitpick is the drums play the same pattern through almost the entire song - even the main fill that plays before transitions is very close, if not the same each time. In contrast to the real guitars they also felt somewhat robotic in their performance. This I felt detracted from the otherwise solid presentation here. Not enough in my opinion to hold this back, but more variation here really would've been nice. I also feel with the level of skill you display here, more risks could've been taken to depart from the source providing opportunity for more original material. Maybe next time.
YES

I like it. Feels like it could go in the game.

This is still one of my personal favorite OC ReMixes of all time.

I'm not a hip-hop/rap fan, however this track is pure awesome. The flow of the track is amazing and the vocals fit perfectly with the source. One of the best remixes on the site.

Ok this is very awesome, and VERY 666.  Some synths don't sound as clear or interesting as I would like i.e. the 0:51 arpeggio, and some elements aren't eq'd very well, as the vocals at 1:43 which are very piercing .  The low synth at 3:41 and the arpeggio is clashing with everything else in that section.  Although it may sound like I feel there's a lot of bad stuff in the mix, it's not really the case as the production is good for the most part, but there are indeed some issues.  
Like Deia, I also checked the sources and I'm pretty sure source usage is ok here.

The arrangement and adaptation to the genre is where this remix shines, as this could be playing in a 90's rave club without much problem.  Weston kept the energy levels high throughout but without falling in the traps of repetition or tiring the listener.  There's tons of natural variations and surprises throughout the track, as it keeps evolving, introducing new, high-energy stuff along the way
Fun and high-energy, but not without flaws.  I really wish the issues in my first paragraph weren't present, but I'm willing to pass this as is, on the grounds that it's totally awesome.

BTW, there's some sampling from the game, I don't think it's a problem but if Larry could check it out that'd be great.  Some stuff like the synth-orch hits SOUND like they're sampled but I don't really think they are.
YES

Damn, now THIS is an intense track, and it just never stops. I checked the sources, and it does seem they're all there (arpeggio from PAST throughout, orchestra hits from BAD FUTURE, other background elements referring to PRESENT). It would take too long for a detailed breakdown, and I don't think this arrangement needs that - the source is very strong in this one, and the arrangement is very clever.

The production is quite crisp, for most of the track. There are a few moments where everything comes in at once where the arrangement gets cluttered, making it a little difficult to parse every element out (such as at 3:41 - 5:52, for example). There aren't enough moments like that to take this below the bar, though. As far as the dissonance, any that I heard was handled properly throughout the track. Either it was inherent in the source and not clashing with other elements (such as at 2:22), or was used as a passing tone (like the backing lowered 2nd at 3:41). I thought they were fine.

Cluttered mixing at some moments aside, this one was pretty damn amazing.
YES

Sorry for holding this up. Like I explained to Weston directly, typically, it would take maybe a few months to go through the judges panel, depending on when judges got to it vs. everything else, and then some time to wait before posting, but stuff with unique issues can get held up. It's part of the issues of doing this in downtime and not as a job, you tend to make time as needed, and anything that's not super easy to deal with can get put into a corner, which I'm guilty of here and in a lot of other cases. Thanks a lot to EAR for his extreme patience and understanding.
Thanks also to djp for chatting with me about the potential for the extensive sampled lyrics being a Standards violation on incorporating non-VGM music. Basically, he's been OK with vocal sampling of this nature, because it's raps and spoken word stuff that isn't pulling in any sort of non-VGM melodies or composition to be arranged. That many of the lines were from sample packs rather than mainstream music releases was noted thanks to Weston's info, but djp ultimately wasn't concerned about the source of the lyrical sampling, if you check his comments above.
Just restating my POV on the potential direct audio sampling of the source tunes, I wasn't hearing that here at all and it wasn't a concern.
The other Js say the source tune was "all over this," but no one bothered to break it down, so I think they conflated a lot of the house/rave style of the writing with the parts arranging/referencing the various "Metallic Madness" segments.
The music part of the track was 4:27-long, so I needed to identify the source tunes being used for at least 133.5 seconds of the arrangement.
:20.5-:22.25 (Past - 1:01-1:03), :38.5-1:43.5 (mostly Past, some Present), 2:22.25-2:47 (Bad Future), 2:47-3:01.25 (Present), 3:27-3:54.25 (Bad Future), 4:19-4:25 (Past - 1:01-1:03) = 139 seconds or 52.05% overt source usage
There were a lot of things that had a soundalike feel to "Metallic Madness" but sounded more stylistically influenced by 2 Unlimited's "Twilight Zone" (e.g. that similar sampled shout at :23) or even the Mortal Kombat movie theme, The Immortals' "Techno Syndrome," due to the numerous orch stabs, like 1:56's little jingle. There were also plenty of extended sections with no direct connection to Sonic CD that I could ID, so I came up just barely over half as far as the source usage being dominant in the arrangement, which made it closer to me than the other judges believed, provided I'm not overlooking something major. I'm sure Weston can clarify after the fact.
Anyway, Gario and Sir_NutS had fair production points about crowding and piercing highs that I agreed with, but on the whole, this was produced reasonably well and felt very authentic as a long-lost 90s club hit, and I didn't hear any dealbreaking issues for the production. All of the SFX & sampled lyric usage added up to a lot, but sounded reasonable in the big picture, as far as not feeling invasive and integrating well into the track. Good to go!
YES

Haha, I remember listening to this track in the workshop a couple of months ago! Very fun track with a very strong groove  The combination of the guitar and somewhat retro-ish eletronica is pretty neat. Another instant eargasm! Great debut man, hope you'll submit more!