djpretzel

In late June I was in a car wreck. At 60mph I slammed into the flat side of a trailer front on. I'm alright, as is my wife, but I'm starting to wonder if I'm having PTSD from that. We were driving down to sign the paperwork for a house, which we then bought. We moved down on the first of July. 

In moving down, we were hoping to seek opportunities that hadn't previously existed to us - wife is a real estate appraiser and Midland, Tx has a shortage of those. That's also where I grew up, so moving home seemed like a good idea. There is also a shortage of private lesson teachers in many musical areas - I was told that my areas of expertise (French horn and music theory) would be in high demand. However, moving down here ran us into more issues than solutions. That is to say both my wife and I have experienced extensive radio silence from many parties. The banks and agencies that seemed so excited for her to move here have been slow to respond since moving here, if they respond at all. Similarly, although the band directors I have communicated with have all been very helpful, the administration that I have to report to to approve me to teach in the district is not responding at all. I have sent numerous emails, phone calls, and even went up to the administration building just to be met with confusion or not met at all.

We aren't in trouble yet. We had an okay savings set aside, but that will run out if we can't get more work soon. We are both feeling very defeated at the whole situation. Because of the pandemic, I'm understanding if responses are slow. However, I'm not understanding radio silence that lasts for several months. I understand if there are plenty of fires to put out and some emails slipping through the cracks, but I'm not understanding every email and phone call for 3 months slipping through the cracks.

I was trying to produce more music, but burnout killed that.

Hello OCR!
We have a very special remix contest happening this month over at dwellingofduels.net, involving crossover with OCRemix for the upcoming Final Fantasy III [NES] album! All entries for this month are encouraged to be submitted to OCR after the voting phase for consideration on this album, and will be fast-tracked through the OCR judging process!
Any song from the FF3 soundtrack is allowed (note: this is the Japanese release of FF3 on NES, NOT the game known as FF3 in America which was for SNES). There are a few songs that are more 'preferable' from the soundtrack and do not currently have representation on the album:
Crystal Cave Battle theme Crystal Room Opening Theme Return of the Warrior The Way to the Top Cute Little Tozas Sailing Enterprise Veggies of Geseal Castle of Hain The Requiem Swift Twist Good Ol' Fellows In the Covert Town Salonia Deep Under the Water The Invincible Forbidden Land The Dark Crystals  
What is Dwelling of Duels?
Dwelling of Duels is a monthly VGM cover competition. Competitors submit redone versions of game music and the entries are voted upon by the community. Entries must comply with the rules, briefly put as following:
The song must follow the current month's theme The song must be previously unreleased The song must not be shorter than 2 minutes The main instrument must be played live Check out our full rules page for more info on how to enter! Deadline for submissions is September 28 at 06:00 PM Eastern.

Just FYI everyone, the rendering errors were all on my end and had to do with issues with my Lynx card.  With the help of my computer-expert friend, I was able to solve that issue today, which is a huge weight off my shoulders as well as finally getting this track sounding the way it should!  It's a beautiful track and I enjoyed working on it!

With Golden Sun out of the way, it's Badass 4, Lufia 2, & FF3.... hoping we can get the last mile on this one, will be talking w/ @Gario

I hate to double-post myself, but there is some big news regarding album development.

This album trilogy has had a history of collaborating with the Dwelling of Duels, and so, September 2020 is the OC ReMix Crossover FF3 Month!  If you main a live instrument, go check it out - if you take part and you decide to send it to OCR's submissions queue, the evaluation will get fast-tracked.  Any track from the game can be chosen, though there are still some uncovered spots on the OST (including some not even listed in the OP) that would be nice to have some representation.

Talking of which - during this past month, @bluelighterhas made claims on not one, but two tracks!  He has finished his take on "Crystal Tower" (with added usage for Tower of Owen), and is wrapping up an arrangement of "Ancient's Village" at this current moment.  I am delighted to have a talented classical-inspired arranger jump in!

If you're a potentially interested arranger, you're more than welcome to send a PM to me here on the forums or in the OCR Discord if you'd like to make a claim yourself outside of the DoD event.  I wish all participants there the best of luck, and hype for some great tunes! x)

I would relish the chance to discuss Super 3D Noah's Ark in a writeup. Don't let this bias your decisions, though

This is my favorite version of Big Blue. I recently rediscovered a mixtape from 2007 that has this track on it, and hearing it again and tapping my fingers along to the rhythm brings me such joy. It's been so long since I've come to OCRemix, but I'm glad I found it again through this song. All the recent covers on youtube don't even come close to this arrangement. Timeless!

I had the swing cranked up to 75% , probs a bit much you're right, ive tried it lower it to 40% sounds more manageable, less stumbling in places.
  
 
With the intro i wanted to give enought time for the evolving pad sound and guitar to build.
The comp section i was hoping for something a touch gentler, TBh i'm not that experienced writing melodic content, so i tried to be conservative, the string of notes is getting toned down a bit for sure hahaha.
Thanks for the critique. Yeah, once ive got it to an acceptable state ill submit it. In the meantime, ill make some changes, and repost.Cheers.
 

Hey, my favorite SF2 series theme! Interesting and creative take on it. The very beginning sounds like I'm listening to something on the Amiga. The buildup of the intro felt overly long into the melody at :53, but perhaps that's just a personal taste thing. Theme's verse came in at ;55; mixing felt muddy, but the track does have personality.
You could trim some time off of this by condensing or icing the original beat section from 1:18-1:45 and/or the comping-style section from 1:45-2:09. That little string of notes at 1:55-1:56 felt out of place, and I'd argue the comping-style stuff until 2:09 wasn't really melodious and didn't add much to the picture. That's not to say it's poor, it's just unfocused IMO and doesn't have enough substance to justify all of that time.

I liked the dynamic contrast of the chorus at 2:35; creative beat-writing behind it as well, and I liked the supporting writing gradually fading up along with more parts coming in to fill things out until the transition to the final section at 3:26. Enjoyed the chippy winddown section at 3:26.
There's a lot to like here. I thought the arrangement approach was unique and I like a lot of the sounds and production techniques. Good bassline; maybe others will think it's too heavy, but I thought it was fine. That said, it's definitely right in the vein of what we post, so I'd certainly consider submitting this to be posted onto OCR as a featured ReMix if you're interested. Hopefully you can get some more feedback, because I think there's a lot of potential here. Good stuff so far!

Just chiming in - no matter what Soule did, this game's soundtrack is a part of many folks' childhoods, and nothing changes that. However, deciding to participate in this project is one of those topics where, personally, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I've explained my personal reasoning, and how I conceive of art in the abstract, but I'm not offended if anyone finds it unpersuasive/disagrees. Key thing is that no one gets judged, either way, for their decision on this, or attempts to equate others' decisions to participate with a tacit endorsement of the behavior in question.

A lot of the music I listen to on this site is for games I've not played in a long time but they're still imprinted on my memory. So it was interesting to experience the FFIX album after having recently replayed the game thanks to COVID destroying the possibility of many other kinds of leisure activity. The thing that stood out in playing the game, compared to all other FF games, is the sheer variety on the soundtrack, and I think this album does such a great job of showcasing that.
Some of the tracks are kind of in the vein of the source material, just presented in a fancier way - the Zaghnol hunt music, for instance, you could put the track from this album right into the game and would notice little difference. Others are a lot more out there, and that's fun too. If I had sat down before I ever heard this album and written down thoughts on what I hoped for certain tracks, there's a 0% chance I would have said anything like what ended up for "Not Alone." The same is true for a lot of the tracks with vocals here, whether that's the lament-filled interpretation of the Dali theme, the intense performance behind "Not Alone," or the ethereal sounds of "Unforgettable Silhouette."
I had a new appreciation for IX after this recent replay and now that I've listened to this album again after that replay, I feel the same way about it, too. Another great effort from everyone involved.

In the interest of moving forward, and also because this album is kinda coming back from the dead (or at least purgatory/uncertainty), I'm suggesting the following title:
Final Fantasy III: Resurrection
...to kinda gel with with the FF1 & FF2 albums, so it's "Random Encounter, Rebellion, Resurrection" - a trio of R's.
If anyone feels strongly that this title is poo and/or has a better idea, please chime in!
Also, the album has been added to the project consent form - please sign ASAP!

In the interest of moving forward, and also because this album is kinda coming back from the dead (or at least purgatory/uncertainty), I'm suggesting the following title:
Final Fantasy III: Resurrection
...to kinda gel with with the FF1 & FF2 albums, so it's "Random Encounter, Rebellion, Resurrection" - a trio of R's.
If anyone feels strongly that this title is poo and/or has a better idea, please chime in!
Also, the album has been added to the project consent form - please sign ASAP!

In the interest of moving forward, and also because this album is kinda coming back from the dead (or at least purgatory/uncertainty), I'm suggesting the following title:
Final Fantasy III: Resurrection
...to kinda gel with with the FF1 & FF2 albums, so it's "Random Encounter, Rebellion, Resurrection" - a trio of R's.
If anyone feels strongly that this title is poo and/or has a better idea, please chime in!
Also, the album has been added to the project consent form - please sign ASAP!

In the interest of moving forward, and also because this album is kinda coming back from the dead (or at least purgatory/uncertainty), I'm suggesting the following title:
Final Fantasy III: Resurrection
...to kinda gel with with the FF1 & FF2 albums, so it's "Random Encounter, Rebellion, Resurrection" - a trio of R's.
If anyone feels strongly that this title is poo and/or has a better idea, please chime in!
Also, the album has been added to the project consent form - please sign ASAP!

In the interest of moving forward, and also because this album is kinda coming back from the dead (or at least purgatory/uncertainty), I'm suggesting the following title:
Final Fantasy III: Resurrection
...to kinda gel with with the FF1 & FF2 albums, so it's "Random Encounter, Rebellion, Resurrection" - a trio of R's.
If anyone feels strongly that this title is poo and/or has a better idea, please chime in!
Also, the album has been added to the project consent form - please sign ASAP!

A year ago I built a custom desk.  I've wanted to do this for a really long time, almost a decade.  Back in the day I read Ikea hack websites where people did really cool stuff.  That has always been my idea until a year ago when I watched videos on people building custom desks out of better material than particleboard.  I got a solid wood countertop (ironically from Ikea lol), stained and finished it and bought a pricey motorized sit-stand frame to put it on.  Built some stands for my monitors and speakers, and recently I built a pullout tray for my MIDI keyboard which freed up a ton of space on the desktop.  Has undermounted smart LED strip because obviously you need that in a desk.   All in all it has exceeded my wildest expectations of what I could accomplish with a custom desk build. 
Old desk that I used for a decade.  Cheap and okay, and the dual tiers are nice, but problematic for holding large MIDI controller.

 
The beast:

Just chiming in - no matter what Soule did, this game's soundtrack is a part of many folks' childhoods, and nothing changes that. However, deciding to participate in this project is one of those topics where, personally, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I've explained my personal reasoning, and how I conceive of art in the abstract, but I'm not offended if anyone finds it unpersuasive/disagrees. Key thing is that no one gets judged, either way, for their decision on this, or attempts to equate others' decisions to participate with a tacit endorsement of the behavior in question.

Haven't done one of these in so long....

Just chiming in - no matter what Soule did, this game's soundtrack is a part of many folks' childhoods, and nothing changes that. However, deciding to participate in this project is one of those topics where, personally, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I've explained my personal reasoning, and how I conceive of art in the abstract, but I'm not offended if anyone finds it unpersuasive/disagrees. Key thing is that no one gets judged, either way, for their decision on this, or attempts to equate others' decisions to participate with a tacit endorsement of the behavior in question.

Just chiming in - no matter what Soule did, this game's soundtrack is a part of many folks' childhoods, and nothing changes that. However, deciding to participate in this project is one of those topics where, personally, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I've explained my personal reasoning, and how I conceive of art in the abstract, but I'm not offended if anyone finds it unpersuasive/disagrees. Key thing is that no one gets judged, either way, for their decision on this, or attempts to equate others' decisions to participate with a tacit endorsement of the behavior in question.

Just chiming in - no matter what Soule did, this game's soundtrack is a part of many folks' childhoods, and nothing changes that. However, deciding to participate in this project is one of those topics where, personally, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I've explained my personal reasoning, and how I conceive of art in the abstract, but I'm not offended if anyone finds it unpersuasive/disagrees. Key thing is that no one gets judged, either way, for their decision on this, or attempts to equate others' decisions to participate with a tacit endorsement of the behavior in question.

Just chiming in - no matter what Soule did, this game's soundtrack is a part of many folks' childhoods, and nothing changes that. However, deciding to participate in this project is one of those topics where, personally, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I've explained my personal reasoning, and how I conceive of art in the abstract, but I'm not offended if anyone finds it unpersuasive/disagrees. Key thing is that no one gets judged, either way, for their decision on this, or attempts to equate others' decisions to participate with a tacit endorsement of the behavior in question.

Just chiming in - no matter what Soule did, this game's soundtrack is a part of many folks' childhoods, and nothing changes that. However, deciding to participate in this project is one of those topics where, personally, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I've explained my personal reasoning, and how I conceive of art in the abstract, but I'm not offended if anyone finds it unpersuasive/disagrees. Key thing is that no one gets judged, either way, for their decision on this, or attempts to equate others' decisions to participate with a tacit endorsement of the behavior in question.

Just chiming in - no matter what Soule did, this game's soundtrack is a part of many folks' childhoods, and nothing changes that. However, deciding to participate in this project is one of those topics where, personally, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I've explained my personal reasoning, and how I conceive of art in the abstract, but I'm not offended if anyone finds it unpersuasive/disagrees. Key thing is that no one gets judged, either way, for their decision on this, or attempts to equate others' decisions to participate with a tacit endorsement of the behavior in question.