Calum

It's not the most helpful thing in the world, but I'm expressing my great interest! Shortly I'll be able to commit to a ReMix! Great project idea.

I'm now working on a medley hoping to cover all the main raps from Parappa 1 & 2!

Do you mean orchestration VST or orchestra VST? The first one implies that you want a VST to write out your music for an orchestra, if such a thing existed I don't think it'd do too great a job! Or is it orchestral sounds? Because I am also looking for a relatively cheap option for that!

I would be interested, I've done a lot of mashup. See: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=30823 I also did a brief R&B thing sampling some Wind Waker: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=30539 Also 8 bit. Give me an idea of what the process would be and what you're expecting from this?

So being in the UK you gotta do it at 2am? oh, man...

This is a huge mashup playlist I made recently. It is mostly funky/soul/r&b backings with hip hop acapellas over the top. But there's some dance/pop as well! If anyone likes I can give a track listing. A compilation album called "Funky Divas" came well in handy! Although this is finished there are bits which I'm not happy with as it's not perfect in some places, unfortunately I don't have DJ software so I was importing songs into cubase cutting them and time stretching them to the infamous 117.9 bpm which annoyed me in the process of this song! ANYWAY, let me know what you think! Oh yeah! The ending purposefully leaves you in suspense as it goes into my next mashup song, which I have not finished!

I prefer the section version. I'm very tired and a little confused. The first one seemed to have less of a discernible melody. I guess since it was all in harmony on a sort of choir-type pad which wasn't particularly distinctive. It was better in the second version with the piano-type sound. Asteroid boogie version 2 please!

this sounds quite similar to the original with less heavy guitar sounds. So perhaps thing about mixing it up instrumentation-wise as well. The arrangement is also pretty similar. The original basically has 2 sections, perhaps think about adding a third or some kind of breakdown either with just drums or a new bass-line? The whole song kind of seems to be a big (MIDI) guitar solo, I was going to suggest a guitar solo or maybe a solo of another kind, but hmm... You should definitely think about adding some harmonies to the main melody, perhaps a third above or using the pentatonic scale, as this song does much! You could think about throwing round the melody to different instruments or changing up the dynamics/productions to give it a sense of direction. The ending seems to be just the second section and you've just stopped it after that ends. Maybe think about adding in an endind, like a guitar line on it's own and then a big HIT of a chord! or a new riff for a little bit! I don't know, those are just ideas. This is definitely a good start but I'd say arrangement-wise it's still a work in progress. Keep it up!

This sounds very bare to me. Perhaps you could think about putting some kind of organ/synth the play chords in the background and fill out the soundscape a bit. Also everything is quite extremely panned. It's not a bad thing but seeing as there are so few instruments, it kind of is. Also the extreme panning between the left and right hand of the piano in the intro make them seem like two different people are playing two different pianos thus making it seem quite unrealistic. I know you are not necessarily trying to recreate what a real performance might be with MIDI but seeing as it's a ballad you should make the piano at least sound realistic. You should elongate the last notes of the answering phrase in the left hand of the piano in the intro as they stop unnaturally soon. Either that or add more reverb. I don't know that clashing harmonies in the intro being a representation of Samus's clash with enemies on brinstar will be particularly convincing. Particularly as it is on a solo MIDI piano. You could think about adding more ambient sounds in addition to more instrumental lines etc. Perhaps think about having a genre change or tempo change as it plods along quite slowly and boringly. Keep it up! Hope that helps.

Mmm, yeah this is very atmospheric. The little voices are a great touch. I'm only fairly familiar with the source so I'm not 100% but it seemed like the first minute or so didn't relate much to the original source material, so perhaps think about incorporating more of that at the start. Unfortunately, I cannot give many tips on production etc, but to me it doesn't sound like you need them. I love when the melody does come in at 2:00. The drums fading out and the strings entering is beautiful! I completely love that. The kind of jazzy interpretation of the melody is a good unexpected touch. I completely agree that the climax section mentioned below should certainly be included, it's really powerful! This is a really great piece so far, all I can say is add in the middle section from the original and perhaps make the start more relevant to the source! Keep it up!

Yes, props to GeckoYamori! Very helpful! I'd say the main concept is the fact that each channel can only play one note at a time and you only had a limited number of channels. Thus the arpeggio was the best way to create a sense of harmony and in terms of melody-writing you had to be precise and certain! There's more often than not a clear melody part, a clear bass part and a clear counter-melody/harmony part + drum/noise part. Certainty certainly makes chiptune!

One tip I would say is whenever you have a cymbal clash put a "thud" with it, it just gives it more power and definition. I play drums and I wouldn't dream of just hitting a cymbal without backing it up with a kick drum, unless it was in a quiet section and I was playing the bells of the cymbal or if it's in an orchestral setting (which it is here) it is usually fine to play clash cymbals on their own but for more impact add a bass drum with it. The bit you mentioned though, where the melody goes up - there is a lack of low end in the mix so i think it'd be good to have your kick drum there as well and maybe another low end instrument as well! This attempt seems pretty good, but the sounds sound quite "rock kit" instead of orchestra percussion. It's mostly the open hi-hats that give it away. Unless you did want a rock kit. In which case you should have more of a beat, i.e Bass drum on 1, snare on 3, hi-hats on 1 2 3 4 etc. The splash cymbal also didn't seem appropriate to me in this. Although I guess this is kind of semi-metal/orchestral. Basically it seems like you're playing mostly drum kit (which the exception of the timps & bells) sounds but to orchestral notation! That's all I would pick up on. The snare was a little out of time at times, so I would try to fix that up, but it wasn't that bad! About timps, if you want to be really picky then you should really restrict them to about 4 notes per section as they can retune but 4 timps is the most you're really going to have at a time. I would use them mostly for effect & crescendo's & accents etc. although they certainly can play riffs/ostinatos which does seem suitable in this piece. Hope this helps!

I'd maybe start by putting them all in the same key (obviously leaving the original minor/majorness of them). Think about different sections of the different songs that may work well together - the end section of one song doesn't have to always be the transitional part, play around with the ordering. You could transition with a drum fill/drum break. You could intertwine the melody of one song with another. Perhaps see if any of the melodies fit on top of the same chord sequence (it may be different from any of the chord sequences in any of the songs you want to use). These are all things I'd consider if I was making a medley. Though I've never really made one before! Hope they are helpful suggestions.

I agree, get a teacher. I played around with a piano for about half a year before I started piano lessons (a while ago) so I was immediately comfortable with it but I didn't really advance in that time. I took piano lessons up until grade 6, then I went to university and stopped them. Since stopping them I think I have improved very slightly just by playing around for ages though if I was having lessons in that time I would have improved massively more. I think truly having something to practise and forcing your muscles to do a task rather than play around doing what they want is totally, totally, totally more beneficial for your playing. I'd be a little sceptical about books & DVDs. Perhaps get books if you are particularly enthused and not likely to look at them for a bit and then think "oh that's hard, i'll do something else", which is something I do! I had Hanon's exercises too, it took me a while to realise the effect, but it improved my playing alot. Good luck!

The way I did it, almost unintentionally was literally sitting on itunes shuffle with my piano and playing along to the songs, Working out the chords and/or melody. It was a bit of a hobby and I still do it, all the time. I guess if you want to know how to instantly recognise 'scales' (I don't know if you mean "scales" or "keys", depends what you mean really...) in any given song, then practising doing that is the way to go! If I can't immediately work it out, I would play a random note and run up or down chromatically until I found what felt like the root note - though it may take time to be able to recognise the root note quickly - then when I found the root note, I would assume it was in that key and take it from there. And by recognising what other people are doing you can use and reconfigure these things. That's the most helpful thing I'd say. Definitely as Naze was saying intervals are important in being able to recognise the shape of a melody etc. I often do it by thinking of a song I know well which had a certain interval and sing that to see if it is infact that interval. For example, every time I tune my violin I sing the E.T. theme because the first 2 notes are a 5th apart (as are violin strings). There are many good examples of these on something like "intervals" on wikipedia or it might be "relative pitch". But that's the way to go. And just practise practise practise all the time with anything you hear! As long as it's fun and you want to do it, you'll succeed!

You can tell you've put a lot of effort into this! And these songs are really great. Just some tips that you don't have to take: I'm not a huge fan of the timpani at the start. They sound a little too ominous for what I think of as a really sweet and innocent tune, the start. at 0:48 the tuned percussion (sounds like celeste or musicbox?) plays G then B in it's kind of returning phrase. I think it should be B then D or G then D. At around 1:10 you have strings playing a constant D which then moves to a G which kinda jars my ears, harmonically. So perhaps change or take that out. I like the transition into the next theme. There seems to be some timing issues. It sounds like you missed out a beat in some bars around the 1:55 or so. At 2:02 it seems like you want a kind of breakdown to the bare essentials, but you don't go far enough in just taking away some of the instruments. Perhaps you could think about altering the production here, for example EQing just the high end for just that section? Similarly there isn't much production/dynamic contrast, so you could try to add more to make it a little more exciting. 02:14 - the melody + accompaniment are out of sync with each other, so have a look at that. 03:00 the woodwind countermelody seems to be in the wrong key? Is this intentional? All the transitions flow relatively smoothly which is good. There certainly are a lot of gongs! That's not necessarily a bad thing. It does seem to be quite long and doesn't change in instrumentation/genre/production very much. Perhaps if you are certain you want to stick with just orchestral maybe think about concentrating on different families of instruments for different themes. I do like the synth ending, I don't know if that was a direct sample or you programmed it. If it's the latter perhaps you could think about using more synths throughout to make this piece a bit more varied. All of that said, this is quite a feat! I really commend you for orchestrating a huge medley of one of my favourite game soundtracks. Keep it up!

love this! A personal opinion - the melody doesn't come in quickly enough, although I didn't get tired of it, I just expected it to come in quicker. And when it does come in because the first phrase is panned far left it doesn't have as much impact as I wanted it to. Perhaps if you add a synth line that plays this melody centred on top of the guitars it might add impact to the gerudo valley melody. The synths are really strong when they return at the end though, especially in harmony. And the guitars sound great. Though perhaps they're a little quiet when playing the melody. This may be due to the fact that they are panned. A possibly solution could be to pan them less extremely, though this is just personal opinion. Good luck with the mix!

Yeah I did that, I don't really know why. It wouldn't be in the final mix. I guess I'm more into the composition side than the production.

Mmm, I'd love to do some parappa ReMixes, in fact I think I will. I'm thinking of doing some gitaroo man/vib ribbon as well, i've already covered a few songs from those games but I think a good proper remix is due. I guess it's kinda hard to remix something that is so fleshed out as are the "actual songs" in those games. I don't think a track from parappa that wasn't a rap would get much attention, so I guess it's all or nothing!

oh cool! I have not got particularly good headphones on, oh they're SO clean (Not clean as in clean/distorted, just really tight sort of... hard to explain), I thought they were midi! Is it plugged in to your computer or are you putting a mic up to an amp? Perhaps add a bit of reverb to make it sound a bit more real? Mmm, I'll have a little listen to the link in your sig!

I'm not familiar with the original so I may be wrong but in the middle section about 1:00 or so in (I can be sure as tindeck doesn't have a scrolling timer) the backing guitar chords are a little out of time and seem to be in some way incorrect. The midi voices+bass+guitar chords seem to clash for some reason so I'd perhaps look at that, I think it may be to do with the bass. Unless this was intended? I enjoy this though, very exciting and epic. Great lead guitar sound but the rhythm guitar in the section I mentioned before & onwards doesn't match in quality, maybe this should be re-recorded or mixed differently? I think that guitar may be slightly out of tune, or maybe sounds like it because of the chorus you have put on it? I may be wrong though. I agree with what everyone else says though the mix is very unclear as everything is right in my face! But the arrangement seems great, keep it up!

I'm certainly a fan of the panning, this is a cool arrangement. I don't know how far along you are as this is just a short clip but great choice of song! Maybe think about changing up the original source as it seems like, other than instrumental and stylistic changes, the actual source material is relatively unchanged. Though it's such a short clip I've not got an idea. You've certainly made it different enough for at least this clip. Keep it up!

I like it! It certainly is long! The bass sound is quite annoying though I found. I expected the rockin' to come in a lot earlier but it didn't, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. The solo sounded super sweet, but it's a shame about some of the other sounds like the MIDI bass and the rhythm guitar? If that solo was live, was it live? Well if the solo was live you could do the rhythm guitar live as well, it would just sound a whole lot better! Yeah this is certainly a song with a lot in it and it goes places! But it does sound very MIDI. I love the return at the end with the "rockingness" fading out over the e.piano/strings etc. but the guitars fade unnaturally quickly, i'd leave them going on for a bit longer. And it was a nice return to the ROCKIN but it didn't have as much impact as I wanted. It seems like you ended it twice! I would maybe suggest condensing this down a little, even though it certainly is epic it just may cause people to get a little lost. Oh gee, I'm a fan though! Keep it up. And you don't have to make any of these changes, most of them are really little things and mostly personal.

I'm not a huge fan of this genre but I'm liking this song, particularly the break at 1:10ish, it sounds sort of Jet Set Radio-ish. You could think about using more vocal sample breaks like that or something along those lines? Maybe you could introduce a string line or a synth kind of melody over the top of the riff as a way of elongating the track. You could also consider having a side-chain'ed section or side-chaining the whole thing to give a more intense dancey feel. If you don't know what I mean by that I'd happily explain as I only recently found out what it was. Perhaps you could also have a guitar solo? I don't know if you'd want to do that with a sequencer, probably not? That's all I can think of. Keep it up! Calum

Sounds well mixed to me though i've not got particularly good headphones on! Everything's clear and seems in balance, I might turn the snare drum down in the main sections where it is loudest a little but that's if I'm pushed for an answer, it's probably a personal preference. I'm enjoying the song too. What software are you using?