Skyline Drop
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Posts posted by Skyline Drop
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If the character is acting out of line with his god's wishes by being greedy and disrespectful to treasure, then his god should probably take action. Make his spells fizzle at critical moments if he gets out of hand with it and see if he connects the dots. If he wants to keep disregarding his god's mission for him, then his god shouldn't keep endowing him with his powers or fulfilling his prayers. That might actually be a fun angle to play, if your group is okay with multiclassing. Maybe he feels betrayed by his god and chooses a different path where he can better serve his own ambitions. That sounds awfully Rogue-ish to me, personally, but he could play whatever at that point.
If the character's god just lets him get away with that stuff, maybe his god isn't as chaotic good as you initially thought. Greed, wanton destruction, disrespect for sacred artifacts - none of that stuff says "good guy" to me. And that's okay. Let him be a bad guy, if it's not going to derail the story too badly. Although it probably brings to mind bigger questions of why the rest of the party is keeping him around, assuming they're more traditional "good guys." Some of my favorite sessions have involved deep-seeded party conflict finally boiling over, and while it's pretty bad for railroading a group along a previously planned story arc, it can still make for a fun session if played right. It could even factor into another element of a story you've already written. Maybe that character has been an agent of the Big Bad the entire time? Maybe some eldritch horror from another plane has touched and tainted his mind. I dunno. Talk to the player and see if you can find something to run with.
That brings to mind the most important thing to remember; D&D is fundamentally a game about conversations. You need to be able to talk with your players about the direction of the game, and try your best to accommodate their interests without compromising your own. But at the same time, as DM, you do have some fiat ability, here. If he's being a disruption to the flow of the game, or making the other players uncomfortable, you need to step in.
That aside, I think a few years back, there was a group here on OCR playing D&D for a bit. I don't know what happened with that. It could be fun to start it up again.
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So right of the bat, I'm enjoying the feel. It's still fairly dark and menacing, but it's got more of that "serial killer clown at a haunted amusement park" kind of menacing vibe to it, which is pretty fun. The arrangement is definitely solid, so I don't have much to discuss on that front. Solo writing on the steel pan and trombone are especially high points.
You're right about your initial concerns regarding mixing, though. It's a little too tough to make out the drum parts for my taste. In particular, the piano tends to overpower them even when it's playing a background role (for instance, early on in the first statement of the A-section theme, when the piano is just playing that reggae "bubble" chord pattern, it's a little too much in the forefront. Reggae is a very rhythmic genre, in my eyes, so drums and bass should probably play a more prominent role in the sound, even with the more jazz-styled arrangement you've gone with.
Additionally, if you can find somebody to play those horn parts live, I feel like the quality of this track will improve by an order of magnitude. The writing is so solid, but I just can't get past that "uncanny valley" feeling I get from the trombone.
Seriously, though, keep up the work on this one. It's super good.
- Nostalvania and Black_Doom
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I know a lot of people are probably turned off by the very genre of trap, but this is a seriously varied arrangement that definitely deserved to be posted. Tons of dynamics, and even with a bunch of silly trap cliches (like the aforementioned chants), I think FoxyPanda did a great job putting together a really inventive interpretation of a common theme. I enjoyed it a lot.
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Right off the bat, I'll say that I like the feel of the piece. I think the gratuitous use of pizzicato really gives the arrangement an interesting texture at the beginning. I think that's a great way to start the piece, but it does get a little old as the piece carries on. I think allowing the other players some time to play arco would help break up the monotony a bit.
On the subject of production, I think there's actually a little too much reverb on everything. In particular, it sounds like your lower strings are being played in a bathroom rather than a concert hall. Again this is exacerbated by the abundance of pizzicato; the low sustain of the strings themselves opens the listener's ears to hearing mostly the reverb tails rather than the sound itself. Dial back the dry/wet dial a bit and maybe EQ out some of the lows and you'll get a cleaner sound I think.
I like the arrangement a lot, though, aside from the aforementioned overuse of pizzicato. Watch the highest notes on the 1st violin, though; they're sticking out a lot when they play repeated notes. Bring them back in a bit, maybe.
Overall, this is really good work. The compositional aspect of it is coming along really well, I think. I love some of the modulations you put in. Really gives some more life to a rather harmonically-stagnant piece. Keep it up!
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Will there also be a version without the continuous playback edits? Sometimes I like to listen to my library on shuffle and that might come out kind of weird if the start of each track is also the end of the previous one.
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Hey, guys! Been a while since I posted anything here. Here's my take on a remix of the Lumania track theme from Extreme-G 2. If you haven't played any of those games, they're a lot of fun, if grossly imbalanced. I tried to do a heavier DnB take on the course theme, imagining how it might have been done if the game had come out just this year.
Original source track: Lumania
My remix: Lumania remix
Let me know what you guys think! There's still probably a good 3 minutes I'd like to explore with this track.
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16 hours ago, jnWake said:
There was (is?) a Paper Mario project that's unofficial (I believe?) but I'm not sure what its status is.
I think the Paper Mario project is still in the works, I suppose. I put my track in for it a while back but haven't heard about its progress in a few months. I know there was some kind of issue with getting it approved as an official OCR project, but I don't know the details.
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If you prefer the more linear gameplay, then you should probably consider Conquest. There are a handful of side-scenarios you can do exactly once each, but they're totally optional. The game is definitely beatable by just running through it one mission after another, but it is hard.
That said, my brother (who is playing through Birthright atm) has had no struggle just going through the story without grinding the sidequests, either, so perhaps they've rebalanced that aspect a bit better this time. Both games feel a lot more tactically-oriented than Awakening did, so I'd say feel free to grab whichever.
I never played Sacred Stones so I can't say how much you actually needed to grind with that one.
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I've been playing through Conquest the last few days on my copy of the Special Edition (my brother managed to grab one just before they sold out, I guess). It's really no joke. I'm playing on Hard mode (at that same brother's suggestion) and I don't think I've finished a single scenario on my first try without somebody dying. I'm not even ashamed to admit that I've been hardcore save-scumming the entire time.
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New Pokemon! Yay!
Here's hoping that this time around they actually make some substantial changes to the game formula rather than just shoving a bunch more forgettable Poke designs down our throats and yet another ridiculous sidegame that nobody really bothers with (Pokemon Dream World, anybody?)
... Who am I kidding? It's still Game Freak. I shouldn't expect anything major at this point. And I'm probably still gonna buy it out of sheer fanboyism
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I had a lot of fun trying it out during that test session a few days ago, but man, did it take a long time to get connected. I'll probably pick it up on release, too, but hopefully the servers will be better equipped to handle the hype influx.
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Your handling of the riffs from that Bela Fleck tune was super cool. That one's pretty rhythmically intense, I know.
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There's a soundfont collection called Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra that I've seen get raving reviews. I didn't have much luck getting it running before, but when it did work, I was pretty impressed with the sound quality. Totally free of charge, and surprisingly good given the fact that it was built by one guy. Maybe give that a shot?
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I can't really hear the cello that well behind all that reverb, actually. I don't know how it sounded before you update, but right now, I think you've got a bit too much reverb on everything. It's an interesting effect, but I think the playing is a bit too rhythmic for that kind of sound. Everything sort of blends together, and it makes it hard to tell where one note ends and the next one starts. The low end of that wet reverb sound also just kind of washes over the entire cello line. I had to listen twice just to make sure I heard the cello at all. So maybe just dial that back a bit on everything. You can leave the reverb time a little high if you want that spacious sound, but just bring down the wet/dry balance a bit so you can hear the natural envelope of each note a bit better.
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There's nothing similar between "Sugar" and "Beat It".
Okay, no, they're really not very similar at all, but I'm not sure I can say I don't hear what Hemophiliac was talking about in his post. The rhythms of "show me good loving, make it alright/" and "show 'em your funk is strong as your fight" are the exact same, though the melody isn't quite identical between the two (the line in "Beat It" only bounces back and forth between the 3rd and 4th scale degrees while the line from "Sugar" goes through the 5th scale degree as well). I don't think the two songs have that much else in common, but I don't see how you can say you don't see a reasonable comparison between those two lines.
Heck, just try it yourself and sing the "Beat It" line over "Sugar" and vice versa. It's a little weird to compare them directly since the lines sound totally different in different harmonic contexts, but if you just sing one over the other, it's not that far-fetched.
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The reharmonizations on the B section are really cool. I loved the classic fusion vibe in the first 1:50 of the arrangement. Was not expecting it to get as heavy as it did afterward, but I think I liked that, too, once I was able to catch up. All the transitions are really sick, in fact. I'm a big fan of how the title screen theme was incorporated as a sort of coda.
Side note, very impressed with the video work on this one, too. It's a fun little narrative. Nice change of pace from the usual 4-guys-in-a-studio look.
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Themes arranged:
My arrangement: Full Synchro (WIP v1)
This is actually a new take on an arrangement I first tried back in 2010 when I first started this whole music production thing. I got a pretty decisive "NO" from the judges back then, but I've learned a lot more in the years since, and I really liked these tunes, so I figured I'd take a second stab at this, even though the project file from that first try is long gone now. I couldn't find the original WIP thread, either, so I figured I'd make a new one. Maybe it got lost in a board purge or something, I'm not sure.
This take is mostly identical in structure to my initial attempt, but I may make some more drastic changes depending on feedback. Also, I know the piano bit in the middle and the synth solo afterward are kind of wack. I couldn't really settle into a good melodic line for either despite two days of work and decided I should just jot something down and move on with the track. Both will likely be very different, and, hopefully, much better, after the next revision.
Let me know what you think.
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I've been mostly inspired by T-Square (and jazz fusion in general) lately. But there's tons of artists who serve as an inspiration in one way or another.
I love T-Square. I stumbled across them on accident a few years back trying to find out who played the sax solo in the Cowboy Bebop theme song. Such a great band. I've wanted to make a remix in that style for a while, but my sax chops are way too weak for that right now.
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I watched Dragonball Z: Battle of Gods awhile back and thought it was pretty solid. It had a much better balance of bantering/posturing with actual action, and managed to retain a bit more of the lighthearted feel of the original Dragonball series (Emperor Pilaf and his goons even make a brief appearance). As I understand it, that movie is going to be considered canon alongside Resurrection of F (which I have yet to see), and the new series should pick up from after those two. Hopefully they keep in line with that feel with the new series, and maybe give a little bit more screentime to the rest of the cast rather than leaving it as the "Goku and the Super Saiyans (but mostly Goku)" show.
Like, I get that he's the main character, and also clearly more powerful than everyone else, but I always felt the show was more fun when it had more of an ensemble cast feel.
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Hearing Yuga hum his own theme song as he imprisons the priestess in a painting during the opening was pretty cool. There was something about that moment that made it perfectly apparent that the composer knew he had made a real earworm with his theme.
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I have used Mixcraft 6 a bit in the past. I don't really do much with it now but I liked it enough at the time. It was much more convenient for recordings than Renoise is, but I always felt the interface was a bit too clunky. It was really tough on my eyes for long sessions with the high-contrast colors and such, too. The inbuilt instruments are actually very good, all things considered. I just felt like it took way too long to sequence things in manually, to the point where I just played things in live even though I'm a pretty awful player these days. It shipped with a lot of effects, too, but most of them sounded pretty weird to my ears. I wasn't a big fan of the included reverbs in particular.
All in all, I think it's very usable. It just needs some workflow improvements and maybe a slightly updated effects suite - though I'm sure they've done both in Mixcraft 7.
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Yeah, that's exactly my main issue. In Melee, L is for roll and shield. One hand for the defensive options. And then my right hand handles offensive, including grab on Z. So with it swapped in the demo... GAH. So many botched moves.
HOLY COW. That's what's been throwing me off all this time. I was wondering why everything felt just a bit hairy every time I played.
That said, I'm pretty hyped for this game to come out. I need to remember to set aside some money now so I actually have money for it when it's released. I'm a bit miffed by the character selection in the demo, though. I really wanted to try and play Kirby a bit and see if he sucked less than before.
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Gurren Lagann and Rurouni Kenshin are definitely two of my favorites - especially the former. It took me a while to get convinced to watch it, but I was glad I did in the end. I was not expecting the show to go nearly as far as it did.
I could never really get into Bleach, though. It struck me as a bit amateurish in terms of the plot, to be honest. Like, it seemed like everything was written to make fun of shounen battle series, but it took itself way too seriously along the way (unlike Gurren Lagann, which was clearly over the top on purpose).
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I think bare minimum would be a trumpet and either a tenor or alto sax (preferably a tenor because they're both in Bb, so you'd really only need to write one horn part if you wanted). A brassier, more aggressive section might have two trumpets, a tenor, and a trombone. That would be a bit brassy sounding, though; you could sub out a trumpet for another saxophone without losing much volume but giving a more balanced sound. I think that's what Chicago used back in the day.
Dungeons and Dragons
in General Discussion
Posted
That map looks pretty sweet! The layout actually does a good job of conjuring memories of early Zelda temples, as well. I like it.
My group had an interesting adventure last session, and the party got pretty badly separated, with both of our spellcasters ending up in prison, and all of their possessions - including our spellcasting foci - taken away and hidden. While the party paladin went on a crazy adventure to fight and break the sorcerer out of prison, killing several guards along the way (and accidentally earning our sorcerer the moniker of "The Pyromancer of Mordheim"), I, playing a druid, pointed out the DM that Wild Shape was technically not a spell, and therefore didn't require a casting focus, any material, verbal, or somatic spell components, or any equipment at all of that matter. Thus, the night my character was thrown into a human-sized cell wearing human-sized shackles, he simply turned into a rat and scurried away. While the paladin and sorcerer's mini-quest had taken hours of real time and multiple combats, and put them on the equivalent of a terror watchlist in the city, my escape took all of a minute to resolve and my character's anonymity was maintained.