quintin3265
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Posts posted by quintin3265
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So after a lengthy struggle with this piece I've finally managed to come up with something at least decent sounding. The instruments are finalized unless I will find something horrible when I listen to this yet another time with a clean ear. Though now comes the mastering part, and before I start ruining my mix, I'd like to hear some opinions on what would any/every you do if you had to make this specific mix louder, clearer and all that jazz.
Enough of my tootin', the mix is here: http://soundcloud.com/heavenwraith/upheaval-michaels-judgement
Yet again, thanks in advance for all the advice.
This remix is so vastly improved over the original version that it's almost not the same piece. The first thing that struck me in this latest version is that the guitars are very clear, with none of the distortion that was present in the first versions. The guitar solo at 5 minutes is incredible. The piano also separates very well into each ear in the stereo recording, which is something you rarely hear in remixes.
A few things you should not change:
- The guitar solo at 5 minutes; it sounds great
- The piano and its stereo mix
- The arrangement is good almost in its entirety
Some things I think could still be improved upon:
- The drums at 5 minutes, which I previously criticized, have improved, but there is still one drum that still doesn't have enough oomph to it. It doesn't do the guitar justice. It's the one with the syncopated rhythm, and while that drum appears to be present in the rest of the mix, it doesn't sound right at that point. I'm wondering what it would sound like if you simply removed that drum for the duration of the solo.
- The Dancing Mad part of the remix is too loud, and the dynamic range is too low. Look at the waveform for yourself. At times, it grates on the ears. Metal is supposed to be loud, but perhaps there is some way to slightly reduce the range to bring out the different instruments in the mix.
Great work! Feel free to take or ignore my advice however you see fit.
- The guitar solo at 5 minutes; it sounds great
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I think the main idea here is the fact that it is a lot easier to install SoundCloud and YouTube embed capabilities that it is to build a whole new system for allowing any and all embed of audio files.
I think both DIP and I read this as "embed for posted OCR mixes", which makes sense considering what this site is about.
Yeah, I think that at one point there were two different conversations going on: the idea that overclocked remix should design a box like that to be posted on other sites, and the separate idea that other sites should be able to be embedded in overclocked remix's forums. I was talking about the latter, while you were probably referring to the former.
While it's a good idea to allow Overclocked's remixes to be posted in its own forums, I'm not sure many people would have much use for such a feature. There are already official threads for those ReMixes asking people "what do you think?" An "outgoing" embed feature might be good for the same use as the "incoming" boxes I posted: to include remixes on external forums, which increases the traffic to both Overclocked and to the external site.
My original point, which I think djpretzel missed by posting his deleted post about promotion and competition, is that this is not a zero-sum game. If you design an outgoing embed box, or add the code I specified above to allow incoming embed boxes, people aren't going to think "I'll go here instead of there." Instead, they will think "now I know of two (or three or four) sites that each have different remixes and I can listen to more of the video game music I love," and traffic flows in all directions.
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We'll consider eventually adding something... for OC ReMixes, specifically. On OC ReMix.
And perhaps SoundCloud & Tindeck, too. And YouTube.
I'm all for adding every site. The more choices, the better. I do have a problem with the second part of that post, though.
I'm not going to repost that deleted line because you obviously thought better of it, but for those who did read it, I will comment to say that Wikipedia has a policy of "assume good faith" because they want to build as big a community as possible. Even if what you said was 100% true, which it is not, would that be a horrendous thing? None of the remixers whose songs I have reviewed has criticized me for listening to their works and providing my honest opinion to make their music better. And none of the people on this thread has said anything negative about this suggestion either.
Your words state: Overclocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form. If you think the suggested embed box is worse than Soundcloud's or YouTube's for improving video game music as an art form, then you should say why and I would have no problem moving on or making improvements. But that's not what you said.
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Thank you for the comments, I took them into account and baked a new revision of the remix. I replaced some of the samples, made the mix clearer and adjusted some output levels. I still need to rerecord that horrid solo at 4:47, rerecord some rhythm guitar samples (mainly in the coda) and... whatever issues will come up in the future. The link is in the OP and any kind of advice/comments are appreciated.
This remix has the potential to be a seminal work. The latest version is amazing, vastly improved compared to the previous take. Everything is crystal clear in this mix, and the guitar solo, contrary to what you might think, is not horrid.
There are some things you could do to get the remix up to the absolute top level. First, the guitar solo you mentioned isn't bad in that it was played poorly; instead, I think that the production of it is at issue. It sounds like you were playing guitar in a hallway far away from the mic. If you added post-production on that track, then it should be easy enough to fix by eliminating some reverb.
If you decide to replay it, then I think you need to find a place with fewer echoes. Even though that guitar solo is not in the "dancing mad" portion of the remix, listen to the Black Mages' version of Dancing Mad and pay attention to the guitar solo beginning at 10 or 11 minutes. The guitar is clear and rings out above everything else, rather than sounding like it is in a large hallway or auditorium.
The drums have received significant improvements. The volume on all the instruments seems right now, but at 5:05, you need different instrumentation on percussion. The melody is right, but the single drum is too weak. I think the mix would be better served if a sharper and slightly louder drumbeat were used there.
All in all, I look forward to listening to the next version. Please consider posting this remix to gameremixes.com for three reasons: first, because it is good; second, because I'd like to listen to the 24-bit source on my stereo system; and third, because we could track versions. It would have been easier to rate the improvements had the previous version been easily available.
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Here's the question though, would this be for OCR Songs only? I mean, sure, it's a ridiculously useful idea except for the fact that you would have to use some kind of redirect table considering that all OCR songs are uploaded with track name, not with OCR number. so, say the BB tag for OCR is [OCR-Remix], you couldn't enter [OCR-remix]02550[/ocr-remix] and pull up the 2550th remix due to how BB works.
Because BB is a simple HTML-port system for forums that allows single parameters, you couldn't really do this properly because, in your example, the embed runs off of an <iframe> with a link to a specific URL determined by the {option} tag within the BB code.
The OCR site would need a complete rework to make this happen. Every single song (all 2530+) would need it's own embed iframe set up, and then have it's own seperate URL for the BB code to call upon (such as the "http://gameremixes.com/song/embed/number/25" in your example, which has "http://gameremixes.com/remixes/25-v1-Demonstray-Militiae_Corneriae" embedded within it).
Now, the BB code could be reworked to include the URL page in it's entirety, or an HTML redirect system could be used instead. A URL database could be set up, where [ocr-remix]00352[/ocr-remix] looks up the example URL "http://redirect.ocremix.org/remix/00352" which would redirect straight to the OCR mirror for the specific remix (in this case, "http://ocrmirror.org/files/music/remixes/Secret_of_Mana_Smooth_Mana_OC_ReMix.mp3")
In short, it'd be more than a 30-sec fix due to how the OCR system is currently set up, unfortunately. However, if it were to be set up properly, it would make the whole system much easier in the future (instances such as adding a player directly on a posted remixes' page, making it easier to let people listen to the song without having to directly download it)
there's my $0.02, however illegible it may be
In response to your question, I wanted to clarify that the suggestion wasn't meant for posting overclocked remixes at all (the opposite of your idea), although embedding overclocked remixes can also be implemented by me as well should you decide to get the initial code working.
After reading your post, I'm wondering if we're talking about the same thing. Perhaps I should clarify and you can tell me whether we are or not. There are two reasons for suggesting this idea: first, I noticed that many WIPs never get any replies, which could be reduced if people can listen to them inline in the forums. Second, I'm having difficulty contacting our existing forum admins and people have asked me to set up a forum where they can talk about songs they've posted at game remixes and I don't want to fragment the community with yet more unnecessary forums. It's better to tell them to "go to overclocked's WIP forum."
I thought the boxes are most useful in the "work in progress," "competitions," and "albums" forums, where people are constantly posting links to many different sites. Most people (such as me) will never get good enough to get songs to even be looked at by the judges panel, and you can't "upload" songs to overclocked remixes on demand. If such contributors can put a GR box with a "play" button in the post, maybe twice as many listeners will decide "I'll just click on that" and later download the song than would have if they had had to go to a second website.
As another example, an album creator might have difficulty determining exactly which tracks are in his album and what state they are in at any given time, because he has to keep a manual list of links that he needs to go offsite to listen to and update his list every time a new version of a work-in-progress emerges. These boxes eliminate the versioning and tracking issues and make it easy for that album creator to kick people from his project for underperformance or laziness.
The same goes with compos: contestants could track their songs and get feedback before submission, while organizers can track which songs are being submitted. If the song box is added and catches on, then I have the advantage of being able to make improvements and address complaints, which can't be done at YouTube.
As a side note, there is actually another way this could be done: with the <object> tag, so that you have something like
<object data="http://url/{param}" width="" height="" type="text/html"></object>. I don't think that changes anything in terms of implementation, but it might be interesting to know.
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I think that every year, the Penn State Homecoming Parade has at least two floats with someone dressed up as Mario. I have videos of it in my YouTube uploads, but it would take a long time to figure out where in the 10 hours of clips they actually appear.
About ten years ago, I used a theme from the Xbox game "Fable" in a gameshow I was hired to write software for. One of the contestants actually recognized the tune and was able to identify it during the show, which was impressive.
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Put simply, I think that your samples don't do your writing justice. But the musical ideas behind this are great-- what a fun arrangement!
I'm always hesitant to suggest that people run out and buy better samples, because it's almost always the case that they can just make better use of what they've already got... if you've got access to a friend or two who would be willing to record guitars or saxophone, that would help immensely. For piano samples, you could probably replace them with something better for free, or record them yourself. For the big band brass, the only practical way to do that is with samples, and I don't have a recommendation on a good library... maybe check in the sample/instrument requests topic in the Newbie forum.
If new samples or free live recordings from generous friends aren't an option for you, you could always alter the writing to fit the tools you have (don't feature/expose sounds you can't pull of convincingly, for example). Although, I have to say that I feel horrible about giving that advice... I mean, you shouldn't stunt your growth as a writer just because your samples can't keep up with you. But at all levels of music production, when you're aiming to put out a finished product, the budget often constrains the creative freedom of the composer-- even for the professionals.
One more suggestion: keep posting, stay involved, network, and you may find someone here could collaborate with you, record some saxophone, etc.
Great work so far, and excellent first post.
I agree with crypto_magnum that you could change up the song to get rid of the parts that show sample weakness. I actually gave the same advice to a different remixer a few days ago. But when you have a song like this one, where sample quality is the only thing holding it back, it seems like a shame to throw away that work.
One thing I wouldn't do is go out and throw down hundreds of dollars on expensive samples or mastering software. The gains you'll get are likely marginal, because sampling cannot yet approach the quality of live instruments.
One thing I found, with open-source software for example, is that the commercial products usually rank much higher in the Google search results than the free stuff, regardless of the quality of either. That's probably because the companies pay someone to do search engine optimization, while free developers just concentrate on their products. There have been times when I've been about to pay for something and then have some across something better that's free.
Before you give up on this mix or decide to change the composition, why not spend a few hours completely scouring the Internet to make sure there isn't anything better out there? Use several different search engines, use forums, and look down to the fourth or fifth page of results. At the worst, you may find advice from other remixers on how they got around the specific sampling issues you're having.
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When I started this song, my first thought was that it came from Lufia II, as the guitars were just like that. That's a compliment, because it's a good game.
I agree with just about every other poster that the drums need some work. Even if you made the trivial change of raising their volume, I think this mix would be improved significantly. While I didn't look at frequency curve, I have a feeling that it would be biased towards the high end of the spectrum.
Also, at times, it sounded grating, almost as if there was clipping. The waveform doesn't show clipping, but I wonder if increasing the dynamic range a little bit might improve upon things. It is a metal mix, but surely everything doesn't have to be at -3db. I don't know if I would listen to an album of songs like this, because they are just too loud.
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So I'm approaching the finish line with this track and am seeking some tips/comments on certain parts of the mix and also everything in general, I guess. This is a symphonic metal (not entirely sure, I'm not any good at distinguishing between music sub-genres) remix of "Dancing Mad" from Final Fantasy VI (Uematsu Nobuo) and "Nisus" from The Last Remnant (Sekito Tsuyoshi), my 3rd OC-oriented remix in total.
On to particular points I'm unsure with.
1:39
The essence of this part is accentuated choir octaves, however the choir sample I'm using is not exactly capable of that. So I was thinking some of you might now free samples/sample packs of "orchestral hit"-like mixed choir, that wouldn't sound out of place in this particular mix.
2:43
Though I've tried to refine the sound of the clean guitar to my satisfaction, I still cannot make it sound... clean and bright like in professional mixes. Maybe the preamp plugin is the problem, perhaps my guitar just isn't able to provide a sound of quality. I'd like those of you, who use clean guitar(s) in their mixes, share a bit of knowledge on how to make it sound better.
3:50
I feel like the slow part is overloaded with mid-range frequencies. I guess I just want someone to confirm it and motivate me to get off my lazy ass and fix it.
4:47
Just listing this because I want to make sure if I'm not the only one who thinks this solo is out of place.
While I'm listening to the track while writing up this post, a thought crossed my mind: the mix seems to be too muddy overall. Though I've come up with an ingenious plan to fix that - lower the reverb levels. Yet again, I guess I just need a confirmation from someone.
Extremely sorry for a lengthy post, the tl;dr people may as well just ignore the body and comment on the track. Any advice is appreciated!
I'm impressed by this remix. I don't know why nobody has commented on it yet.
I'm not familiar with "Nisus," but what immediately struck me was that you varied up the tune in Dancing Mad. That song has been done so many times that it's difficult to find a remix that doesn't sound similar to some other mix.
Unfortunately, production is always the killer around here, because it's usually not possible to pay an orchestra tens of thousands of dollars to play a remix. Nevertheless, I think that this mix could perhaps be improved by simply substituting some samples. For example, I don't think that the drums hit hard enough, or perhaps they aren't loud enough. You definitely get the metal feel from the guitars, but a metal band would have drums that are louder and sharper than these.
When I edit movies, one of the ideas I try to follow is to maximize your strengths. I don't have cameras that handle the dark well, so when I do weddings, I edit the videos to avoid dark scenes. I could have tried to fix up the lighting in post-production, but it would take a lot of time and would be difficult to get right.
Since a choir is difficult to find, try to minimize the use of the choir, or replace it with other instruments in some or all places. I wouldn't worry so much about trying to find better samples (which may not exist) and instead see what can be done with the stuff you have. One bad sample (or bad scene) can make a song (or video) seem amateur. People usually don't notice if you simply don't include something.
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This is an exceptional remix - in fact, it's the best remix of this song that I've heard. I agree with One Winged Angle's comment that there is some Jim Brickman in this music - I think he says that because you actually duplicated some of the notes from one of Brickman's songs. Unfortunately, I can't think which one off the top of my head, nor does it matter.
Have you ever considered taking this piano track and putting an orchestra or a hip-hop beat behind it? The piano is a masterpiece, but I still think that many solo piano songs could be improved if other instruments were added as harmony. If you have time, perhaps you should take an hour and just experiment with putting some canned beats or sampled violins or even something unusual like guitars behind it just to see if you could improve this mix further.
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I thought that some people here might be interested in an easy way to post remixes and track changes to them. I created a new feature that would allow anyone to embed a remix in this forum, should the admins choose to make a simple 30-second change.
You can see a sample of how it works at http://www.shoemakervillage.org/grdemo.html. When some BBcode is inserted, a song box like those displayed in the linked page appears. Clicking inside the boxes plays the songs, displays the user's profile picture, and provides a link to download the lossless or 24-bit version (if the user has uploaded one). Statistics, like song views, are tracked as usual.
These boxes are always updated to the latest version of the song, so if the user creates a new version, it automatically updates to the latest version. Older versions are still available by clicking on the "download" link, of course. I tested this in Firefox 16, Chrome 23, Internet Explorer 10, and the Android browser.
It does not require Flash, so it works on iPhones as well.
The code to add a song listening box would go something like: [gameremix-song]3223[/gameremix-song], where the parameter in the middle is the "song number," which is displayed on the user's profile page.
The manual on where in the control panel the custom code feature is is located here: https://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/bbcode_add.
All you have to do is type "gameremix-song" in the "Tag" field, and in the "replacement" field, put:
<iframe src="http://gameremixes.com/song/embed/number/{param}" width="445" height="155" seamless="seamless" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">
</iframe>Feel free to offer comments. If people use this feature, I can also make a [gameremix-album] or [gameremix-compo] tag. If no admins see this, I'll try posting in a different forum.
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If someone is able to do this, they deserve to be looked at as a master composer.
One trend I have noticed is that few people here are remixing current games. For example, my 6000-song music collection does not contain any Final Fantasy XIII-2 remixes. The game has been out for a year, so you can't say that it's too soon for people to have played it.
My theory is that people don't remix newer songs because game music has advanced so much over the years that an excessive cost would be involved in remixing them. Liberi Fatali would be nearly impossible to do well because one would need a full choir. If the choir wasn't in the remix, then people would see it as a "novice" work. Remixes have to improve upon the original in order to be successful, which is why there are no remixes of "Heart of Chaos" in Final Fantasy XIII-2, for example.
I was able to locate one remix of Liberi Fatali, though: http://gameremixes.com/remixes/2264-v1-jayjerkin-Liberi_Falti_or_somethin_like_that_lol. The author obviously made a good effort, and I don't like to criticize musicians for trying, but I think that this artist had little chance of success from the start. The source material was just too high a bar for someone without many musicians and a recording studio.
On a side note, this doesn't bode well for the video game remix community, as many current songs have already surpassed this "unattainable" level.
I think your idea would have to be modified to not focus on the "chorus" from Liberi Fatali, as you said, but instead use some other part of the song. The drums or violins might be a better choice, but I don't know if they would capture the essence of such a seminal work.
ok guys this is the concept:you probably all know Liberi Fatali..
Maybe you also know Death Note..well in Death Note Ost there is a track that really reminds to me of Liberi Fatali: Low of Solispism.
Anyway here you can listen at them:
Liberi Fatali http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnv5F-etIHc
Low of Solipsism http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExxFuR8kOgM
I think a sort of mix of these 2 songs could really be epic but it should be in the same style (orchestral) not dance,techno,rock or whatever please..
I think the base song should be the 2nd but whith chorus from Liberi Fatali..BUT you're the artist not me so.. if you like the idea let's see what you can do whith it!
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There's also the idea of "garbage in, garbage out." Almost all audio programs now support rendering lossless in 24-bit, so it may be more important to concentrate on getting people to submit the lossless high-quality renders rather than compressed MP3s. Rather than worrying about YouTube quality, it may be more pertinent to worry about source quality. Source quality improves both YouTube quality and file download quality.
A site such as Overclocked ReMix, which has 930 times more clicks than the second highest site in the Google search results, has the power to singlehandedly force the remix community to improve its mastering quality. It's unlikely that remixers would say "it's too difficult to change one option to render in FLAC, so I won't submit this remix."
quintin: that's one of the ways we tested, the other being uploading at varying video qualities and downloading the mp4 on the video manager page. The bitrates were the same for both tests. That is, for example, if playback is set at 360p, the audio is the same regardless of whether the video was uploaded at 360p, at 480p, or at any of the hd values.True, but at that point it'd be the listener's call whether to bother with hd. No harm in giving the option. Although yeah, it'd make for longer uploads.
This reminded me that ocr does embed youtubes on the mix pages. I have no idea how much those are used (although the youtube owners could check the stats on a few videos to get an idea), so I don't know how much of a concern that would be. Or maybe there's a way to restrict fidelity options for embeds.
I'd also forgotten that LT asked for wavs in addition to higher-qual mp3s. Probably way more trouble than it's worth to redo existing youtubes, though. You could, but what a headache.
In case I was unclear, I just meant going hd for future uploads.
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Making an "HD" track on YouTube affects video quality much more than audio quality. You can see this if you download the actual video behind the scenes, which you can do using several Firefox extensions or some desktop programs. Using ffmpeg to look at the properties of the audio reveals that they are all highly compressed. The problem is made worse if an MP3 file is used for upload, because YouTube doesn't use MP3 for its compression, adding additional compression artifacts to the audio.
I hate spammers, but I couldn't help from chiming in to suggest that you sign up for an account at gameremixes.com, where both the lossless and lossy versions of your music would be made available. djpretzel already has a separate system for "official" remixes, but for people just wanting to get feedback on their own songs before submission, adding video and recompressing files on YouTube seems like overkill.
Which is what I always do. In fact, I don't subscribe to ocr's youtube because it clutters my feed to no benefit, but the youtubes make for an easy way to share the mixes with other people. Which is the entire point of having music on youtube.Not sure why you're being antagonistic.
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Hey Doombeard,
In my opinion, the best game remix album created from short source material is called "Jingle All The Way," by the Bad Dudes.
This Christmas album consists entirely of "jingles" - or songs like the "game over" theme. Unfortunately, I just looked and the album online appears to have had its tracklist changed without comment from the tracks I originally downloaded. The new tracks, in my opinion, are not as amazing as the originals. Here are three of the original tracks that deserve special praise that I managed to find publicly posted:
"Strange Island Eggplant" - http://baddudes.bandcamp.com/track/zyko-strange-island-eggplant-adventure-island-ii
"Lucca" - http://baddudes.bandcamp.com/track/danimal-cannon-lucca-chrono-trigger
"You Gon' Get Whipped" - http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02073/
To appreciate what these guys did, you have to consider that the originals were often ten seconds long. Myself, I could not begin to approach anything of the sort.
Having a collection of 5000 songs on my computer, I believe that "Strange Island Eggplant" is perhaps the best video game remix of all time. As these three songs demonstrate, one way to approach short songs is to tell a story. A significant part of "Strange Island Eggplant" consists of a relatively simple drumbeat with the crazed narrator mumbling about his battle against the eggplant, but because the listener is engaged in the humorous "story," it is not necessary to create a fancy melody as would be required for a remix of "Dancing Mad," for example.
Short songs that succeed as remixes do so because they tell stories. You can tell a story with the notes, with effects, with vocals, or with a combination of all three. If you simply repeat the melody and add a few notes or different instruments, the song will get old quick. If, on the other hand, you create a narrative and then use the jingle as the background for that narrative, you'll have a hit on your hands.
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There might be similar versions made elsewhere, but this is still a very good remix. Being similar isn't bad as long as the original is good and there is no plagiarism .
I'm going to assume this song wasn't performed live, because if it was not, the sample quality and production is exceptional. Many first-time remixers post remixes that have decent melodies but could use improvement because the instruments are muddy and all sound the same. In this remix, the guitars sound real, and there is a great bassline. These guitars are hard-hitting; when I play them on my 9.1 stereo system, the subwoofer rattles. That "impact-factor" is missed by many remixers, especially those who do not listen to their music on good systems or even on speakers at all.
I think you should submit this one to the panel, as it is certainly on a level good enough to have a chance at selection. However, if what other commentators said is true, it may be possible your mix isn't different enough from the original for it to be selected. Regardless of what you do at OCR, please contribute this mix to Game Remixes as it is certainly is a top-tier work.
Good luck on your next mix!
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NIce job! I agree with spi.der.man that this song does have a SNES-like feel, which is a good thing. Also great is that there are several variations in the tune, and it never sounds like you are repeating anything. Many remixes suffer from a lack of material, where the artist repeats the same theme with different instruments to take up time. The song itself is also a good choice for remixing.
On the other hand, I think that the instrument used for the melody line should be changed, and that is especially apparent towards the end. If you're going entirely for a SNES feel, then it sounds too much like a keyboard synthesizer and should be replaced with something closer to chiptunes. If you are going for an orchestral feel, then replace it with a sample (or a better sample) or a stringed instrument like a violin.
All in all, it will be interesting to hear how this one turns out!
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I like this idea about the morning. Perhaps I should go a step further and say that you should wait until a Saturday morning.
Most people, during the week, are stressed out about work. I know that I worry often about my performance, and I always feel a pressure to keep writing code while I'm on the clock, even if I'm ahead of schedule. When I come home and add features to Game Remixes or even do something non-productive like go to the gym, I feel that same pressure, even though there isn't any boss behind my back.
When Saturday comes around, all that is forgotten, though. I can always think more clearly about any problem on a Saturday or a Sunday.
Even though your job is not on the line when remixing a song, I think that you can find yourself subconsciously influenced by the stress. Try listening to your song on a Wednesday and then compare it to a Sunday listen and I bet that you feel differently about it.
I agree with the 5 day timeframe, but I personally do it every morning. Since he didn't specify when in the day... I'll add that in the morning it appears to be best. Lots of people think better in the morning; at least, that's what I've found a lot of people saying on random google searches.Another thing is to close your eyes and only listen to a rendered audio file, not the project itself. Then see what stands out too much and write down notes on what to fix. Wait a day and see if you still want to fix that the next morning. If so, keep whatever you still want to fix and add anything new. You just do this four times, and then on the fifth morning, do your edits and take a fifth listen.
I don't actually do that, but that's just because I feel decently confident about my ears. xD
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I apologize. Didn't know that I could bother you so bad, ol' shoes. Adios. Dude, weed is some good shit. So is a woman. Hell no I can't quit.
There are many things that you can make light of - but there are certain topics, like homosexuality, that are out of bounds. I remember a reddit "joke" where someone asked a guy living in Aurora what the gun ranges were like there. Surely people who make jokes have many other topics to choose from.
Also, repeating things that "someone else said first" sounds like a schoolyard game. Or maybe presidential politics. Both are low levels of discourse.
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Some fans are trying to make their own Nintendo Power magazine, called. And they only need $20000 of you money to do it.
The part that personally makes me shy away from the whole thing is that it will be "made by fans, for fans", which tells me it will be even more bias than Nintendo Power was. Nintendo Power, after all, was a publicity paper, designed to market Nintendo games. Now you'll have the fanbase trying to do the same thing... and we all know how fandom can foul things up...
Also the promise of exclusive reviews, previews and interviews seems unlikely, as the reason why Nintendo Power got those exclusives was because Nintendo themselves arranged it. I don't see how an unknown number of people with unknown connections (if any at all) will somehow even approach the same number of exclusive anything that Nintendo could push on its own.
But hey, whatever floats your boat...
I don't think getting exclusive interviews will be as difficult as you think, because Nintendo has a reason to give those interviews. If the new publication is as biased as you propose it will be, then they will likely have a great relationship with Nintendo.
The main reason they wouldn't get exclusives is because they would be competing against Nintendo Power. But with the previous magazine folding, it seems to me that Nintendo would want as much publicity as they can get, regardless of what source it comes from.
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I think you should always take a break between thinking it's finished and submitting.
When to stop? Well, if you're aiming to get posted on OCR, you should work on the track until you think it will pass the panel. No point submitting before that! Workshop mod reviews are what I use to gauge that (apart from my own ears). After that, if you feel the track has obvious spots to improvement that you want to do, you should do them. Of course, there comes a point where you should let go of the track.
If you're just tweaking things without improving them, that sounds not very productive.
But really finishing the mixes seem to take a lot of tweaking, at least for me.. I love the saying "when you're 90% done, you still have 90% left to do". It's hard work. I hope it gets faster when I get better.--Eino
I think you should follow what I call the "five day rule." It comes from my observation that no matter how strongly I feel about something, there will be a greater perspective in five days.
For example, romantic rejections and breakups can seem insurmountable immediately after they occur. But five days later, you find yourself wondering what the big deal was. If you make a bad business decision, chances are that five days later it won't seem that bad, or that you'll be able to figure out how to fix it. If you embarrass yourself by choking during a big speech, you'll probably laugh about it in five days.
My advice, for what it's worth, is to get the remix to a point where you think it's good, and then do nothing to it for five days. Don't open the editing program, and don't listen to it. On the fifth day, listen to the piece again and see what you think. Chances are, your opinion will be that it's still fine and you are finished. If not, then you still have the opportunity to make corrections.
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Hi. I'd like to personally reply to a few things here. Good post.
I disagree, I think MP3s are the most important. It is the main format more than wma, which I haven't really heard of people using anymore but I'm sure there's a lot of folks who do. But it's definitely not the MAIN thing.
That may be the case, maybe for ProTools, I use Cubase 6 and the options I've seen are for 32-bit or 16-bit. I'm not sure but I think it records in 16-bit, I suppose I should have been paying better attention to that but it didn't seem all that important to me simply because a WAV has to be 16-bit to burn on a CD-r. I'm sure there are ways to record in those other bitrates, probably even 24-bit, but in regards to burning to CD or even just listening, you would not hear the difference between a 16-bit WAV or a 24-bit WAV with your ears. I doubt you'd hear difference between a 24-bit MP3 and a 16-bit MP3 at 192kbps.
Maybe it'd be more apt to suggest raising the max bitrate on OCR to 320kbps instead of VBR1 but even that does not seem necessary as the VBR1 really gets up there in quality -- I've seen my own VBR1s average as high as 271kbps, it depends on the song. I don't think you hear much difference between 192kbps and 320kbps, maybe in some specific or extreme examples.
I disagree that we don't need more FF mixes, and I think A FF5 compo to help with further chapters would be a brilliant idea and would love to participate in that. It's never been a matter of "what OCR needs" or even what the community needs as far as any game is concerned, OCR has always accepted remixes from any game or series that is applicable and it's all up to the artists to choose what they want to cover. If that's a whole lot of FF mixes, then they choose it for a reason. The series has some really amazing music. Especially the first three.
To be exact, the number of FF6 remixes, not counting overclocked remixes, is 127, enough for about 10 projects
I think an FF5 compo would be great. Don't get me wrong on that. But when a compo is dedicated to FF5, there is what economists call an "opportunity cost," or the time and money lost doing something when something else could be done instead. If remixers can produce 30 FF5 remixes in a month, then one presumes they could also produce 30 Tales series remixes in that month, and the Tales series has some good music that has not been remixed.
Changing topics to the 24-bit discussion, I can definitely hear a difference in 24-bit music. This discussion actually came up at the VGMdb forums recently, and one of the points was that many people listen to remixes using poor-quality equipment: computers with integrated motherboard audio, cell phones, earbud headphones, and the like. You need better equipment, first of all. I listen on a 9.1 receiver and stream the audio using foobar2000 for the receiver to decode, so that the computer is out of the loop.
But second, I think that many people don't realize that Windows defaults to 16-bit audio, and few people know how to change it. You need to right-click on the volume control icon in the taskbar, display the audio devices, click properties for the device you're using, and set the bit depth and sampling frequency higher. People who didn't make this change will never hear any difference because the output is always 16-bit by default.
If you want to experiment with lossless and 24-bit video game remixes yourself, click on the banner in my signature and search for "djthesdotcom." Most of his music is 24-bit lossless. The MP3 versions of the songs are auto-converted from the exact same 24-bit files, so it's a fair comparison. You can be the judge of whether the bit depth is noticeable or not. I personally notice a slight difference. It's not like the difference you hear in Santana's "Shaman" DVD audio, but I attribute that to lack of knowledge in the video game community of 24-bit mastering, which will improve over time.
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Nah. Though FF5 parts 3-5 could use a compo or four to get the final stuff complete.
I am indeed collecting those, but there's no plans for a formal FLAC release yet. One project at a time, but it's something I'm privately maintaining for now. Once the new torrents come out, and ReMixers see these updates have in fact happened, I think artists who haven't responded to my callout for lossless versions before will then also come out of the woodwork.
Personally, I think that 24-bit versions of remixes are more important than lossless versions. Properly compressed WMA 24/96 can be as little as 12-13MB per song, which is far less than a 16/44.1 FLAC.
Most professional music is mixed at 24-bit, and most production programs provide the ability to render in 24-bit as well. Even if the original samples aren't 24-bit, there should still be some improvement when they are mixed together.
FYI, I've been compiling statistics about remixes recently, as people were talking about final fantasy 5 - but I'm not sure we need more FF remixes. About 9% of all remixes I've identified from the remix community are of final fantasy 6 - alone. That's 1 in 11 remixes of any video game that's ever been published.
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Well now... I got my two 3TB drives and went to set up a hardware-based RAID 1 on them, only to find out that, apparently, only disks up to 2TB in size are supported; the remaining amount ceases to be seen once the drive is configured for RAID. It might just be that my motherboard is several years old, and thus the hardware RAID controller is outdated, but that doesn't change the fact that my plans just got torpedoed. Now, I might be able to use a software RAID within Windows 7 instead, as that will allow for the full 3TB size, but I'm wondering if that'll compromise in any way the ability to recover data from one drive if the other fails or is removed for some reason... Plus, now I'm not sure if I'll be able to install a fresh copy of Windows on a RAID of my two 1TB drives and actually have it work as intended. I can still hardware RAID the two 1TB drives; will that one work as a system drive as I originally thought?
FYI, RAID 1 is simply a copy from one disk to another. All you're doing is having the operating system make the same changes to the second disk when changes are made to the first.
RAID 5 and 6 have advantages, but don't use RAID 1. If you have an extra disk already, then just download a copy of "Karen's replicator," a free program. Buy an external case on eBay for $10 and connect it for 5 min/night (or 5 min/week), and run Karen's replicator, then unplug the drive.
Simple backup is almost always better than RAID 1 because RAID 1 replicates deletions and viruses. The odds of human error causing data loss are higher than those of a single disk failing.
Looking for suggestions to improve site
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I'm always looking for suggestions to make my site better, and I was wondering if anyone here was willing to offer some ideas for improvement....
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