liquid wind
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Posts posted by liquid wind
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The Wii's wifi was terrible but it's still kinda sad given that unlike the Wii U, the Wii never made me download 2 hours worth of shit to use online while disconnecting frequently.
Yeah, the Wii had better online than the Wii U, there, I said it.
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For all we know, modern composers may just be coincidentally born cursed with oodles of writer's block err day without inspiration to guide them, and earlier composers were just that good.
There are good modern game composers too but there is definitely something to the previous generations of composers just being really freaking amazing, you don't get Super Metroid or Pokemon RBY just by giving an average composer limited polyphony. Outliers don't appear with the same frequency throughout history, even if you could objectively say that game music is in a slump(you can't really), it would be waaaay premature to claim that game music has lost it's way based on a little under a decade maybe?
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I think I already have a bonus entry for this lying around somewhere
great theme choice, definitely a song that invites something closer to a cover more than going nuts arranging it, it's already so perfect the way it is -
I agree with the whole thing about modern instrumentation.
Paper Mario Sticker Star's soundtrack is really melodic and simplistic, like old game music. However, it is live jazz, with improv and well-written parts and such. I get discouraged from trying to remix it, because it's hard to flesh out already well-written music.
There are older games that give me that feel too, like I love FFT's soundtrack but probably wouldn't attempt to remix it any time soon, most of my favorite tracks from that are already pretty well fleshed out where more simplistic loops are easier and maybe more motivating to build off of. The density of the instrumentation and the structure of the music may be more of a factor than it being modern quality(at least for me it seems to be)
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I don't remix in general as much as I should D:
But old game soundtracks have a number of advantages in this realm, being old not only possesses nostalgic value but also means that we've had years and years to become familiar with the source material. Oldschool game soundtracks were also more melodically driven on average which is easier to remix without either sounding the same or making it nigh unrecognizable, not to say that all modern vgm is unsuitable of course. For those not skilled with transcription, the fact that there are so many MIDI files of old game music is also influential.
Plus it's cool to hear those lofi samples and square waves replaced by modern synths and sample libraries and live instrumentation, you don't get the same effect with more modern soundtracks. You can take the opposite approach as has been mentioned, but people are more predisposed to taking the things they grew up with and putting their own twist on it than something that is more recent. It ultimately may have little to do with the actual music or even nostalgia, maybe it just takes time to digest
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Before this thread, I felt all dirty and weird because I actually listen to more "modern" game soundtracks than retro stuff.
In the grand scheme of things listening to old game music is probably more unusual, the aliasing in old chiptunes, low sample rates, sample loop zones being very small, the intense resampling...old game music has an aesthetic that isn't appealing to a lot of people. Personally I think it works great for certain kinds of music and I have a lot of those kinds of samples in my own arsenal, but I know that that makes me weird, and if someone said that I felt that way because I grew up on game music it would probably be a fair argument
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Every time this discussion pops up it always amazes me though. People handpick the best game soundtracks from the 80s and 90s and fail to mention the ton of terrible crap that came from that era (and there is a lot of it). It really is no different now except there are about 5 times as many games coming out every year (so 5 times the garbage coming out and still a ton of good stuff).
True, but examples of modern games can also be cherry picked(Brandon picking individual tracks from games instead of recommending whole OSTs for instance). But it is true that given 20-30 years, you're going to stop playing the more mediocre games and you're left thinking of the best of each era. I probably played more forgettable SNES games than on any other console because I'd just rent random games a lot back then, but if you ask me about that console I'm immediately thinking LTTP, Super Metroid, DKC series, Final Fantasy III/VI, Chrono Trigger, SMW etc. It isn't really fair to the current era to compare it to something that you've had much more time to digest and subsequently ignore all the mediocrity
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Older games have less songs. Super Mario Bros 1 had like...5 songs? Castlevania has maybe 8-10. Super Nintendo saw slightly bigger soundtracks, and then we got into soundtracks like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasies, but even then you had boss battles, town music, world map music that you heard OVER and OVER again. Now I know what you might be thinking: But "Dancing Mad" only played once and you remember it note-for-note! Well of course you do. It's a great song and it BROKE the habit of hearing the same boss fight song over and over, so it made it stick out even more.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Part of having limited memory means you have to make choices about what is good enough to spend that memory on, now you have Nintendo making 5 variations of like every theme in Skyward Sword simply because they can. The lack of memory restrictions nowadays doesn't just influence composition, it's also a form of quality control that has been removed. I think this is actually more of the issue some people have, there's still tons of good game music being made, but it's rare to see something like DKC2 or Super Metroid where just about every track absolutely nails it
Super Metroid is also a good counter IMO to the notion that creepier or tense atmospheres should emphasize music less, at least for me anyway, that game draws me into zebes way better than the more minimalist soundscapes of somewhere like dark aether. Even just in Echoes you get the juxtaposition, torvus bog and sanctuary fortress are the two locations that most people come away the most impressed with, both places that also have some of the better music in the game(not being all purple also probably helps though...)
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Major titles may be declining in musical quality, but I don't think the same can be said for video game music as a whole. I mean, have you heard some of the stuff coming out of indie gaming these days?
Fair point, the distinction should be made. Bastion, Frozen Synapse, Dustforce, Neotokyo, and many more, some great stuff there. It's still worth calling attention to the major players in the industry missing the ball however-I don't totally agree with the contents of this article(I thought Journey's soundtrack was pretty good from what I heard of it, haven't played it yet)-but I do like for the issue to be discussed because I have had similar thoughts, the bigger developers could be doing better than what the current trend is
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There are still some bright spots, but in the big picture, yes game music is not as strong as it used to be. I think it's a gross oversimplification to say that it is because game composers try to be cinematic however, it also has to do with voice acting becoming more prominent, directors wanting the loopy nature of game music disguised, polyphony and sound limitations being removed...and probably many other factors that I haven't considered even. There's no rule that says cinematic music can't be interesting, I think most of us would agree that John Williams has made some pretty good film scores
I'd also disagree that it boils down to catchyness, while that is a product of more melodic emphasis, what I really feel like listening to a lot of modern game and Zimmer-clone film music is that it lacks feeling. A lot of it is very well produced and is aesthetically pleasing but it just doesn't evoke the same emotional response, as consistently at least
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Sytrus is great for this in FL because you can set up mod X to control the vibrato amount(and controlling the slides from the piano roll is way better than having a preset glide setting). You can put your triangle or whatever waveform in op 1, and have op 2 modulate it at 0x and a low hz setting like 4-8hz. Edit the volume = mod X amount and you can now trigger vibrato notes directly from the piano roll without mucking with automation. A little volume envelope on op 2 can also make it so the vibrato delays a bit...
I actually have a little template preset for this https://www.mediafire.com/?1y5p8g1qmc8raao
Harmor is also easy to set this up with, when I'm in FL I like to use those generators because it's easier to do things like this than with VSTs
You could also probably play with pitch = mod Y on op 2 to also control vibrato speed but I haven't done it yet
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I heard one sour note at 4:22, and the bell arp starting at 4:44 felt off, too.
Pretty much what I thought, those parts revert to the original tonality while the rest of the song is now in a different key at that point. Just wanted to know for future use
And personally, I think there's no such thing as being too ambitious
15 minute breakcore mix that barely has any resemblance to the source incoming
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There were also some dissonant notes near the end.Ooo, very nice arrangement from Liquidwind. Some of the notes are off, but other than that it's a pretty solid submission
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not as interesting as Liquidwinds track, but it IS more tonally correct
I attempted some key trickery there that was probably out of my league as a total theory noob. Correct me if any of this is wrong(again, Ima noob), but the original was in G dorian and later parts of my mix are in G minor...I think where I really fucked up was when I tried to use the original melody with different accompaniment, I thought it might be interesting but it doesn't sound very good. I'm curious what parts were especially bad for everyone else. The one part where I did think it worked was around 3:30 when the bells first change, I liked the tension this created for that particular moment but I didn't feel it as much when the strings and flutes come back in
May have been a little over ambitious given the compo theme to begin with
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fun groove, love the old school aesthetic in this one
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It might be the shittiest MIDI rip ever but I'll try to get something done for this, been slacking with the making music lately
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everyone just getting rich and famous off video game music, bunch of sellouts on this site!
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The name is pretty silly, but I'll probably just ignore it as I do with most handheld Zeldas that aren't named Link's Awakening so it doesn't really matter to me
I'm mostly hoping the next console Zelda backs off the hand holding in a big way. No personal assistant butting in literally telling you the answer to puzzles that you haven't even made one attempt at yet, no suggestive camera zooms just to make sure you didn't miss the important thing because there's no way you could ever figure it out on your own, no reminding you constantly what different rupees and items are. Please assume that your players have functioning brains for once, Nintendo
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Well yeah, I was well aware that they were mostly already fit. I need to lose some fat anyways, so for the time being it's okay. But after I reach that goal, I can't afford a gym membership.
It's either healthy food, or a gym membership. :/.
My equipment consists of a set of bodylastic resistance bands 146lb max. (I plan to pick up the 30lb band to extend the weight.) A set of 20lb DBs, and soon a 20lb kettleball.
So what's a guy to do when he has no room for barbells or anything of the sort to build muscle with the said equipment?
Building muscle without heavier weights is hard, particularly for the lower body which can handle much larger loads. Upper body you can make some progress with bodyweight movements like pushups, handstands, dips, and pullups. Definitely consider getting a pullup bar, one of those door mounted ones is like $20.
I've never used bands so I'm not sure how effective those are or what to do with them
For losing weight I think kettlebells are amazing, dunno if this is true for most people but it seems like doing a ton of swings makes me lose fat a lot more quickly than any other kind of cardio I've done
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I think there's a place for games that you can get lost in for hundreds of hours but I also think they've become maybe too prominent, especially as I get older and have more and more other shit to keep on top of I miss games that were easy to get into and didn't require a time commitment. Like if I don't have a good 2 or 3 hours available I don't bother playing games like GTAV or Skyrim
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I like sytrus a lot myself but it's not a great value at $180, for another $20 you could get zebra 2 which is a much much deeper synth or you could go cheaper for other semi modular options like synthmaster(which is also probably deeper come to think of it, sytrus is kind of a relic)
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I think though what Avatar and other posters are expressing their aversion to is the type of pandering-to-an-immature-audience violence that has permeated games in a large way since the early 90s, as the industry slowly shifted from an 'everyone' targeting approach to the full-on console wars 'young boys' approach. The industry is still largely in that mode, though certain breakthrough games (Minecraft - still violent mind you!) show how successful alternatives can be. I mean, if you are not a young adolescent male, or have the tastes of one (not necessarily a negative), why would you be interested in a product specifically designed for that audience?
I think it's fair to say that there's definitely a bias towards male gamers, that much has pretty much already been established even outside of the violence issue, but I don't agree with violence being an adolescent taste. I think most men have a proclivity to violent media, it appeals to us instinctually because we've always been the hunters and combatants and such throughout our evolution.
The increase in violent games also seems to coincide with the age of gamers getting older, there are more gamers who aren't adolescents or children than there have ever been and we have more and more violent games. Just speaking anecdotally but I also know a lot of gamers in their mid twenties-thirties and most of them play games like GTA or CoD and so on.
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I love me some virtual violence myself(loving GTA5 atm), but I don't agree with how some gamers use that itself as a criteria for demeaning games that aren't violent(nintendo is kiddy etc). I like games that are violent and I like games that aren't graphically violent, I like good games
I'm not much of a pacifist myself though, I think that violence and being entertained by it is an intrinsic part of humanity. While it is genuinely disturbing to some, I think that it is reason and logic that keep people civilized more than anything on an emotional level.
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Sad news is $49.99 price tag confirmed for even the digital version of WW:HD.. *sigh* I'll pass :/
b...but it has bloom lighting now!
(in all seriousness I will be getting WWHD myself, might as well, I only play brawl on my U atm)
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If anything, having ... gameplay on youtube may have inspired people TO play/buy it.
Let's be honest here
It's kind of understandable why Nintendo doesn't want footage of Brawl online
South Park: The Stick of Truth
in General Discussion
Posted
Definitely looks interesting, may be a long time before I get around to playing it but it looks legit both as a South Park game and as an RPG