Calum

HERE IT IS a series of unconnected parts forming an strange structureless whole. definitely still a work in progress - let me know what you think

bump. No comments of any kind?

your link doesn't work for me! Perhaps that's why. NEW LINK PLEASE

Chimpazilla, is your only intention to make piano solo tracks? I wonder why because you say you don't play piano. Or perhaps it is just to improve your piano sequencing... I don't wish to tell you your efforts are futile but you are really going about it the extremely hard way. Being pianistic and realistic is easy when you play piano, pianistic midi-input by hand is not. Another thing that gets in your way is the piano samples you have - they're a little synthetic and have quite a bit of reverb on them. Admittedly in the originals (space junk and midna's lament - great choice by the way) there's some unnatural reverb/delay on the piano BUT if you want to fool us into thinking this is a "REAL PIANO PERFORMANCE" i'd say find a better sample or take off the excessive delay/reverb. If you are merely doing this to better your piano writing in the context of larger pieces you want to write or remix then sure you've done well enough to move on and do that. It is possible to make a convincing midi piano track BUT by doing it by hand you're really being a little hard on yourself! In conclusion, the things you've done to try make the piano realistic comes off worse - like the tempo changes which are likely very linear and robotic - also velocities. HERE ARE YOUR OPTIONS: WORK LIKE A DOG AND BECOME THE MASTER OF PIANISTIC PLAYING WITHOUT A PIANO/KEYBOARD INPUT OR LEARN PIANO AND MAKE THINGS MUCH EASIER FOR YOURSELF OR STOP YOUR PIANISTIC ENDEAVOURS HERE AND START WORKING ON SOME GREAT REMIXES THAT DON'T RELY ON HYPER-REALISTIC PIANO PLAYING.

Thanks for all the detailed feedback! Yeah it was a delayed xylophone! You are right about the percussion - I considered putting some triangle or tambourine but castanet is a good idea too! Perhaps I can hide the ugliness and fill the silence around 0:45 with a little percussion! But yeah, it's a ridiculous undertaking but I've always found pokemon so inspiring and characteristic for composition! I actually started the project a few years ago when i'd written a few themes but now i've finally gotten around to producing them. If I complete it before I die i'll be happy and a little surprised! Thanks a bunch! Keep up all the great work and productivity i've seen from you recently! We should collab - i was thinking 4:39-5:03 from remnants of the day on my soundcloud. I don't know if that's feasible or not. I actually tried to make a beat out of it a while ago but gave up quickly. Let me know if you think that'd be a good idea? If not, i can write something specifically for a collab!

I have started a solo composition project of ridiculously epic proportions. The task is to write one piece of music for each of the original 150 (or 151) pokemon. So far, i have two... PIKACHU METAPOD They are all being hosted here - so feel free to drop by and see how my progress goes. Any feedback is more than welcome, Calum

I'm all over this. I don't really have anything to suggest. Just do more!

I really dig this - could you specify which bit was a sample from chop chop master onion? It's all really good, really creative use of samples and ultra-tight too!

Tips on my mixing/recording of my composition for a small ensemble: http://soundcloud.com/calumbowen/a-pleasant-walk-live All were recorded in the same room. We mic'd the piano with a pair of AKG C414s The Clarinet with Sennheiser 421 Cello with a pair of AKG C451 and an Electrovoice RE20 - we had a tough time with the cello as the pizzicato/arco sounds were vastly different. I think the pizz sounds great but the arco not so much. These mics were owned by the university studio so I can't tell you too much about them. Let me know what you think about the composition/production elements of this. Thank you, Calum

I went into the university studio and recorded a short version of an old tune for clarinet, piano and cello. It sounds quite Klezmer in this arrangement. Let me know what you think of the recording/composition/mixing. http://soundcloud.com/calumbowen/a-pleasant-walk-live Here's the original midi at a more leisurely pace.

Hi, I realise all tracks are claimed but seeing as 56 are complete, I imagine you'd be lucky to have every claimed member submit something in time. If anyone ever pulls out, how could I do a little claiming? Perhaps I can preliminarily attempt that now? Let me know what the deal is with this... Calum

Fishy, I've sent a new version.

As a first remix, this is very promising. I find that the drums and bass are pushed to the back of the mix by the very overpowering lead. Also i find that in the middle section where you emphasize the last quaver beat of the bar a few times - it sounds a little clunky and innapropriate. Also the elaborations you make on the melody seem a little arbitrary, give them a journey and some coherence and it'll sound great. This is good, but think about making it more dynamic - so far it's pretty much the same lead sound playing the melody, the same bass playing the bassline and the drums mostly playing the same thing throughout. Think about switching up the lead sound to something different in different sections and perhaps making a feature of different parts other than the lead - for example you could introduce a huuge bass riff! Or have a bit where the drums cut out for a little bit. Yeah, in terms of levels I felt it was just at one constant dynamic other than the intro + outro. Anyway, production, especially techno, is not my thing so I can't give hugely accurate critical feedback but hopefully what i've said should point you in the right direction. Calum

Love the concept but i feel like the melody kind of suffers at this tempo! The groove is great but the melody feels a little sluggish to me. Perhaps it's because i'm used to it being so fast... but perhaps not. Either way, I enjoyed this a lot. Around the middle with just bass + drums + one monophonic synth line i felt it was a little empty. The inclusion of the battle theme is a great but i think it would be perfect as an outro riff. keep working on it though.

I just sneakily grabbed a PDF of dance music manual - i'll have to look through that at some point! Thanks for the tip!

Thanks for the feedback MSL, I'm listening to your tunes right now and i'll message you my feedback so as to not get too much off topic. But yes, us game composers must stick together - it's a tough world out there but i can't think of a better life than writing music. Talk to you in PM, Calum

Fishy, I've sent you a WIP - are you there?

Oh yeah both Shenmue and Okami are amazing games. For shenmue you'd have to find an old dreamcast but Okami is far more attainable - it was originally released on ps2 but there's a wii version as well which I have. Both of those soundtracks have a great mix between large orchestral and Japanese traditional music. They're simply gorgeous. With the Okami, you may have to sift through quite a lot of music to find the great tracks (the best ones are mostly by Rei Kondo). But look out for: Tsuzurao's Theme, The Sun Rises, The Journey Continues, Kaguya's Journey. In terms of Shenmue soundtrack, it's all good really - Nozomi & Ryo is an pretty awesome love theme, Christmas on Dobuita Street is seriously relaxing and gorgeous, Sedge Tree also is the main theme and is great! Yeah, by line-in i mean I plugged a lead from my electric guitar into my tiny mixing desk (you could plug it straight into your laptop/sound card interface) and then used mostly preset guitar settings on logic. But yes, they are live. Mmm, debussy is the man! In terms of theory books or resources, i don't really know what i can suggest. I think the main way i advanced was that I have an electric piano/keyboard in my room and whenever i have a song playing I just tried to play along. That way it sort of just absorbed into my brain and you can make things you way you want them to sound a lot quicker. But also more active study like finding a song you like and working out the chords, then trying to use those chords in your own song. Or studying the melodies and also combinations of instruments. I need to do this a lot more! But there's absolutely no shame in "stealing" other people's chords or the way they've put things together - thing is you do that anyway but it just takes longer because you don't know where you've stolen it from! But seriously, you've got some really good production techniques going on - i was listening to your glitchy katamari-type tune a minute ago and there's so much there that i wouldn't begin to know how to do. And that makes me excited and keeps me working because i know there's so much i don't know! I guess if you love listening to music then try to play the music you love and you'll learn new tricks and techniques. Thanks for all the comments so far you make me feel like a sensei but i am way a student - i have a lot to learn from you!

Ah thanks so much! Oh wow, well in advert 2 that was the piano setting on alchemy's planet earth pack (which was at one point pay what you like) which i tweaked a tiny bit. Other than that I do use EWQL pianos gold. HOWEVER, it's interesting that you noticed the (basically) free piano sample over the certainly more expensive ones. The guitars are all line-in. Ah well, I am a third year music student at sussex university - i'm basically constantly doing composition - in terms of classical influences - debussy/ravel, a lot of jazz, stravinsky, but i'm majorly wapanese and (as well as Koji Kondo + Nobuo Uematsu of course) I love the shenmue/okami soundtracks and find that i can't escape writing like them! It was a hard choice not to do music tech because i do feel lacking in production qualities which i'm constantly trying to improve. But I guess I've got a pretty sizeable composition background but it's nothing that couldn't come for free. The best practise has come from self-initiated study . Thank you for the critique, it's certainly fair! Mmm, yes, I would love to get things sounding really really amazing. I'm listening to your stuff on soundcloud now and it seems you definitely have the production chops i'm lacking! Keep it up man and thanks for the feedback.

Thanks man, I'm envious of your productivity, you're constantly releasing stuff and it looks like you've got a pretty good fanbase (based on the youtube stats!). But i'll message you some more stuff, don't want to make this off topic. If anyone else has any critiques or ways to make my website/music more desirable to potential clients or anything really, that'd be great!

Hi Everyone, As an aspiring VG composer, this is the perfect place to get feedback on my suitability for such a job. www.calumbowen.com Here's a link to my website which is effectively my online CV. Please let me know if you have advice/criticism of any aspects of this! THANKS A LOT Calum P.S. here is a direct link to the music: http://soundcloud.com/calum-bowen

Hey, great work. Does the latest one (A Beat) contain no samples? you're maintaining great quality and sweet sounds as usual. P.S. Could you suggest any MCs for a FFIX garage track? PM if so.

Hi, I'm really enjoying some of the Kanye inspired beats! To me tyler the creator's style seems to be made up of completely non-functional extended chords on sci-fi pads and un-quantized electric drums. At least those are the parts I like about his beats. So to me the Tyler one isn't that tyler, but perhaps it is! Perhaps it shouldn't be judged on it's likeness. Either way i'm enjoying your stuff, do some more! Do you know Rukunetsu, he makes some pretty sweet beats around here - great work with samples!

Not sure how much Kuugen checks OCRemix forums so I'll let you know that the position is certainly filled (by me). There was just one runaway, well in the music sector that i'd heard of and i'm not planning on making it two . These mysterious conditions do intrigue me though.

another great instrumental rukunetsu! I would be all over any mixtape you release SO PEOPLE GET COLLABIN PLEASE!