Skyline Drop

I think I heard this one a *long* time ago in the workshop remixes. It's pretty cool to hear the fully fleshed out version, and I can definitely hear the marriage of Zircon's and WillRock's sounds here. It's pretty much all kinds of awesome.

I know the recording is pretty low-quality compared to OCR standards, but you need to remember that we're an entirely student-run organization. We have a pretty minimal budget that has barely grown since our inception 5 years ago, and the mere fact that we even got to perform in the school's major concert hall is pretty legendary in itself. Also, we're composed mostly of non-music majors, don't audition players, and rehearse once a week in a chapel, so I imagine our playing will be just a little bit sketchy

Classical players call it an "octatonic scale" since it's eight notes in total. Jazz players refer to it as a "diminished scale," which makes considerably more sense considering its harmonic function, which, as was said previously, typically involves diminished chords.

Hey. I played in this one, so I don't know whether my review for this can be unbiased I wish there were a better recording, but it was kind of an improvised thing, from what I could tell at the time...

Oh, man. Just hearing this one brings back some awesome memories. I'd like to see this redone, as well. I miss this game

I think I'd like to take a stab at Yuka's theme. I'll see what comes out. Should be fun

If that's the case, then I've clearly missed a bit since that, haven't I? I dunno. I'm still really reluctant to buy a PS3, so I probably won't get into this one.

I'm kind of bored of Ratchet & Clank, honestly. I haven't touched one since Deadlocked, though, so maybe I've missed something of a turnaround, or something.

Bluegrass, hm? Not really a commonly attempted genre here at OCR, for what I know, so that's already a plus This is really good, by the way. I like the guitar and violin work - surprisingly expressive, so that's definitely good. And the arrangement is pretty solid, too. If there were anything I'd fix, it would probably just be balance. Every thing sounds a little top heavy - the string bass could stand to be brought up a bit, as could the drums (except those crash cymbals; those definitely need to be brought down). The piano should probably be turned down a bit. I think it sounds really good, overall, though. This is definitely a brilliant start.

You can use pretty much any virtual analogue VSTi to get that kind of lead, really. It's not a particularly complex sound to create. You may as well just stick to free stuff like Synth1 running through maybe some overdrive and a delay, or something. I guess you could go after one of the Moog emulations, but I always found that sort of counterintuitive (and, often, overpriced). I thought the idea of software was to get past hardware limitations, but a lot of people really seem to like "that Moog sound".

... Okay, so this is true, too. Acid Pro is quite the eyesore to look at. So much, in fact, that I actually considered it an upgrade to transition to the black and grey, spreadsheet-like interface I have Renoise default to

Very disappointed that my local theatre is not showing this one for some reason. I'd like to see it, but not enough to drive off Lord knows how many miles to a different theatre. I already have a half-hour trek to the nearest one...

Acid Pro is actually very workable for making music so long as you get yourself out of the 3,000 or so included loops and into some actual instruments or sample sets from other companies. The only issue I can really see with Acid Pro is that some of the higher end VSTs don't really run with the best stability in the world, so you'd probably have to save/render down parts a lot. It's got some decent included plugins from Izotope (among the best in the effects business, from what I know), so if you get some good sounds to use with them, you'd likely be fine.

Just took a stab at this one a few days ago. It gets pretty tricky by the end. The "Thou shalt not walk left" rule always gets me

I've basically got to agree with everyone else's comments. The mixing and effect processing are really holding this back. Sounds like everything is washed in this flood of reverb, which makes it almost impossible to separate the different track elements. Everything gets muddied up as a result. Real pity, because I'm digging on the arrangement.

But I just registered my copy of Renoise...! XD

You wouldn't want to use an EQ to do that. It'd be much better to use a low-pass filter. Then you could just automate the cutoff to slowly rise.

Sounds like they're slowly opening (raising the cutoff freq.) a low-pass filter with high resonance set over the master track. Some sort of auto-pan or phaser thing might be on it, too. Possibly both. That's what it sounds like to me, anyway. Hard to tell exactly what's going on when I don't know what the unprocessed sound they use in the beginning is...

This is a steal and a half. I really ought to look into this more.

*is glad to not be moving back to College Park for a few weeks* Seriously. City lights suck.

I'm gonna disagree with the comments about the speed being too low. I actually like the more deliberate tempo taken here. With some actual instruments instead of these virtual replacements he's using, it could be even better. For instance, that guitar/harp thing at the beginning sounds pretty flat once the filter comes off of it. If I were you, I'd either get a real acoustic guitar and play it in, or just leave the filter on so it's not so obviously a guitar in the first place. Soundscape is a little dull when the sax comes in. I'd try and add some little flourishes into the back, like wind chimes, or something, just to break the monotony. The arrangement here is also too conservative. Something needs to happen here to vary things up, because it's pretty boring. Transition to the heavier section is much too abrupt. There's some solid dynamic contrast, but nothing to really stick the two parts together, so I was kind of thrown off by it. What I would do is play a power chord at really low volume, and fade it in to signify that the next section was coming. Or maybe play it backwards or something nifty like that. The heavier section is a lot more interesting, though. So most of the work needs to be done on the first part.

I would totally get on this if I had a halfway decent microphone to use. Right now, I'm on a cheap headset going straight into the minijack on my laptop. Sucks.

Is anyone else getting a serious Jazz Jackrabbit 2 vibe from this at parts?

I use a 360 controller, as well, but it's one designed by MadCatz, so the D-pad is a bit more manageable. My older brother much prefers a PS3 controller for that very reason, but it doesn't really bother me as much. Frankly, a lot of the time, I just use the left stick even on older games.

My girlfriend and I just watched that movie about a week and a half ago. I think it's a fairly good comparison to this piece. All it needs now is some accordion