Calum

Just finished my voting - it was quite exhausting, in the most complementary way. A lot lot lot lot lot lot lot of music, some fairly similar to others. But i discovered some great stuff in there - gave a few 5s and 4s, and the rest mostly 3s, a few 2s and maybe one or two 1s. Cannot wait to see the results - congrats to everyone for entering and good luck.

I have 8gb memory and I can handle about 20 separate EWQL tracks, perhaps a little more. But that's around where it can't handle it any more.

Sometimes music from The Sims appears in the recent series of The Apprentice (UK). It probably appears in a lot of places, Jablonsky is wonderful.

i think this survey is pretty rough on anyone who's not really involved. The fact that you have to vote on all the tracks and that zircon has said he would look for those that were 5 and the rest were 1 means that it's pretty off-putting for those who aren't involved. I agree it may be an issue that you could badger your friends to vote yours 5 and others randomly but i hope no one really does that. The rewards are great but it should be more of a learning experience, i believe. But yeah, i get what you mean - it's not really at all advertised other than in this thread... is the public ready for a 30 track vote for all of them kinda survey? Perhaps it's best to get less voters who give more thought?

Not quite sure I would put ff13 on par with MW3 music-wise. MW3 - the music is pretty much just to fuel your adrenaline so it's pretty unmemorable - it does its job (similar to what Dannthr was saying about serving the game) but i'm not a fan of MW3 music. But FF13 is full of great music which I found pretty memorable, maybe you didn't. True that lightening's theme was put in a lot of the other tracks as well as it was kinda the main theme in a way - it was in the battle theme (if memory serves). I don't think game companies are focusing less on music but perhaps more atmospheric/adrenaline-fueling music is possible now so it's less about lead, lead 2, chords, drums which is suited towards more melody-centric music and people can (and inspired by cinema) will produce a lot more atmospheric music. There's a big focus on game soundtracks now, i think... with like iOS games getting super popular and stuff selling on bandcamp and those who grew up with video games coming of age... perhaps i'm making big sweeping statements. I am a little sick of forgettable movie-music in games and would trade it any day for a NES-type melody-centric soundtrack. But i think there's a lot of games which get production and new possibilities right along with great memorial soundtracks.

yeaaahh, this is gorgeous! Nothing else to say.

I'd say, in terms of melody repetition - and not just repetition of the melody as a whole but having the melody have repetition within itself. E.g. having a rhythm which repeats throughout the whole melody. Or having one pitch which it keeps returning to. I often find that I instinctively put repetition like that within melodies as it's what sounds good to me but i think you'll find that if you construct a melody with repetition and either in-step movement or movement based around triads/arpeggios, you'll come up with a great one. Don't forget to leap up a 5th at the beginning of the melody or jump up an octave at the end - those are kinda classic formats which seem to work! But otherwise (still just talking about melody) analyse other songs closely. Something that was instantly catchy or you thought just worked (make sure it wasn't because you'd heard it 100 times - however you can tell that!) and see how the melody was constructed? Is it based around the triad? What kind of shape does it take? Do they keep returning to one note? How does the rhythm play a part in it?

I cannot download any of these tracks at the moment. I would suggest hyperlinks or embedded players although i'm not sure if these are possible within surveymonkey, it is a little taxing copying and pasting each link. Will have a real go through of these perhaps tomorrow when I get the time!

woah, going platinum! Anyway, i'd avoid gypsy - it has some flamenco guitar/accordion/very few latin percussion but none of those are outstanding and guitar was not really needed, for me.

pronunciation realisation: halc = ハルシー??? almost like "house" or "hal see"? I always imagined it as halc (ハルク）like hulk with an a. will definitely have a listen to this!

Zircon, the xarnax42 is Calum Bowen and Xarnax42 but i assume you got the song! thank you : )

submitted from 2 addresses to both aaversa@gmail + ff6@zironmusic! Hope you receive it!

found my vocalist, thank you everyone! : )

replied : )

@DusK It would be brilliant to hear from him! @Xarnax Received and replied : )

Hi, As there's about 2 days (given the extension) left I'm urgently looking for a vocalist for my ff6 bossa-nova/be-bop remix. I have temporary vox recorded, lyrics all written... all i need is a confident strong delivery - fairly large range - deep male preferred! PM me here with examples of your voice ASAP : ) Splitting possible prizes can be discussed also. Thank you!

this is great! I've got stiff competition ; -) Keep up the good work, it all sounds great to me!

Dancers seeking music and chiptune at that is a wonderful thing to read : ) good job on the initiative. I will not give you much spiel but just give you links to where you can find music and more information if you so seek it: There's a whole host of things there musically but my main focus (though of course i'm wide open to absolutely anything) is chip/electronic or orchestral pieces grounded in jazz harmonies & groovin' complex rhythms! http://soundcloud.com/calumbowen www.calumbowen.com P.S. do you ever dance to Astor Piazzolla? He's a bit of an idol of mine! p.p.s my rates are super reasonable, you can e-mail me at calum111@hotmail(dot)com to discuss that further. : )

I enjoyed the intro but at 1:21 i thought i was listening to Tik Tok/California Girls - it's just that rhythm... and those notes... in thirds. that is all : )

This is so chill. Love the source. The bass kind of dominates a bit. Perhaps an upright acoustic bass would fit this instrumentation a little better. Also the drums sound very synthetic - it's most telling on the rim clicks - it's sounds like a general midi drum kit and when the click plays on the offbeat of the last beat of the bar it's the same velocity as when it's playing on the strong beats - that stood out to me like a sore thumb. Otherwise, the flute sounds good - i would be tempted to put some delay on it. I'd love to see where this will go! I reckon this mix would really shine with a little live recording mixed in or going for a more electronic sound. At the moment it's kinda somewhere between - fairly low quality virtual instruments emulating real instruments with synth bass/some other synths. So I think in order to make the most of what you've got, either make it more liiive and call upon someone to help you out with that if you don't have the resources yourself or give it an electronic overhaul. : ) Those are my impressions.

I thought this was really cool. The production seemed good. I love the source. Some of your interpretations particularly the rhythm of the accompanying chords were great! I was kinda waiting for it to break out at some point. It seemed a little on one level and restrained. Perhaps into a solo with half-time drums. Either way, you say you only did it in an hour or so so i can't really complain but i'm looking forward to your next addition. I think the melody is a bit low in the mix. I can always hear it but it sounds so hidden. Maybe think about double tracking it an octave up?

Just a quick thing - i prefer soundcloud - plus when people comment on the tracks that'll make the director/whoever think "oo this person's good". Bandcamp is good too but because it's about whole albums it looks strange (just to me really) having that one really long track as an album. Plus maybe think about making a header/background/album artwork - at the moment it looks really plain and amateur. These little things count for a lot! I really need to give my website an overhaul. Also it'd be good to include descriptions - i kinda hate the idea of stock/genre music but you need to generalise your tracks like "Orchestral/Epic" "Comedy/Slapstick" "Tense/Horror" "Fun/8bit" something like that because if someone's come with a specific need genre wise (and they usually do) they'll want to go straight to that one instead of going through track a, b, c, d, e, f, g etc. I haven't got time to listen properly right now so i can't comment on the music itself. But good luck with this endeavour, i'm trying to do the same really... : )

seriously considering entering this!

big big thank you everyone! This is usually not my kind of style but i really got into it - horror music is fun and pretty open to any crazy noise you want to include, all in the name of being creepy!