timaeus222

A few basic tips:
Listen to songs that carry out the style you are looking for, and try to make sense of what the structure is. You can even put it into your DAW to try to tempo-match, and then break it down into how many bars until each section is over. Where's the intro? Where's the outtro? Bridge? How are the dynamics changing over the course of the track?
  Common transitions make use of cymbals and other transition sounds, or perhaps drum fills, but good transitions tend to connect both texture and contour (especially when writing orchestral, which has "only" organic instruments). Not just the density of the elements present, but also, the elements should feel like they're working together. Make yourself write a melodic transition sometime, and with time you'll hopefully develop that (voice-leading) as simply a core skill. You can do a simple melodic transition by writing a melody that sustains through into the next section, but later on, you could improve it by making all the little elements around the lead work together to lead up to that new section. For an example, I tend to share this, since it's what I consider my personal best arrangement. Maybe it'll help.
  Have your friends listen to what you have and give you advice... including us. That means post a WIP, not just "help me".

A few basic tips:
Listen to songs that carry out the style you are looking for, and try to make sense of what the structure is. You can even put it into your DAW to try to tempo-match, and then break it down into how many bars until each section is over. Where's the intro? Where's the outtro? Bridge? How are the dynamics changing over the course of the track?
  Common transitions make use of cymbals and other transition sounds, or perhaps drum fills, but good transitions tend to connect both texture and contour (especially when writing orchestral, which has "only" organic instruments). Not just the density of the elements present, but also, the elements should feel like they're working together. Make yourself write a melodic transition sometime, and with time you'll hopefully develop that (voice-leading) as simply a core skill. You can do a simple melodic transition by writing a melody that sustains through into the next section, but later on, you could improve it by making all the little elements around the lead work together to lead up to that new section. For an example, I tend to share this, since it's what I consider my personal best arrangement. Maybe it'll help.
  Have your friends listen to what you have and give you advice... including us. That means post a WIP, not just "help me".

Hard to say what to improve without a WIP to listen to. Having just done a 13 minute, 7 track orchestral remix myself, all I can recommend is to place your songs in an order that help you (e.g. putting songs in the same time signature together, be smart about preventing massive tempo jumps, etc.) and take the time in the arrangement to ease the listener into the various sections. The latter can sometimes be achieved by dropping out elements of track 1 and slowly introducing elements of track 2 (e.g. hints of the melody) before fully transitioning into it, and sometimes you can go for a dramatic stop or fadeout and transition the listener into the new section with a drum fill or a transitionary element like a held string note or the like. Again, hard to recommend anything if I can't hear anything.
Anyway, your best bet is to carefully listen at other tracks and get some ideas on how others do it. Something like Sam Dillard's stuff might help, or if you really wanna go pro something like Final Symphony (a suite of Final Fantasy music performed by the London Symphony Orchestra) might do the trick. 

Take elements of the things you are transitioning to and from and mix them together.
If you're transitioning from something that is slow and legato to something that is a little faster and more detached, start altering some of the things near the end of the slow section to be more detached, so that the style change doesn't seem to come out of nowhere.
Take themes from the later sections and introduce them as secondary themes in the current section.
Essentially, it's just a matter of introducing stuff in little bits before you get there so that it doesn't seem like you suddenly arrived out of nowhere.

The trailer has arrived!
 

With multimedia speakers like those you should be careful of resonant peaks at the lower end of the frequency rages, having a peak at 80-120hz is a typical problem with speakers like that and after a while can drive you insane, so test for that. Also run some tests to determine the mid-high response at the crossover points so you can compensate in your mixes.

I think room treatment as a whole is a bit overrated (even though it's necessary to some degree), what's most important is speaker placement in your immediate listening environment, so as long as you have the equilateral triangle you're halfway there. Buzz words like "flat" and "clear" are trivial because regardless of how flat a speaker is, the room will change the frequency response of what you're actually hearing, having some form of diffusion behind you, and some kind of absorption (like a heavy couch) can help you more than making sure your speakers are flat (which they wont be under the $2k per speaker range anyway, regardless of what the manufacturer tells you). Flat speakers need a precisely treated/designed room, otherwise you're defeating the purpose, that's why buying expensive speakers at home is not recommended.

OC ReMix presents Seiken Densetsu 3: Songs of Light and Darkness!

October 1, 2018
Contact: press@ocremix.org

FAIRFAX, VA... OverClocked ReMix today released its 67th free community arrangement album, Seiken Densetsu 3: Songs of Light and Darkness. Featuring 70 tracks from 56 artists as well as an interview with the game's legendary composer Hiroki Kikuta, Songs of Light and Darkness pays tribute to the celebrated Japan-exclusive 16-bit Square RPG Seiken Densetsu 3, and is directed by Finnish musician Rozovian along with assistant director Meteo Xavier. The album is available for free download at http://sd3.ocremix.org.

Released just after the game's 23rd anniversary and representing over 10 years of gradual development, Songs of Light and Darkness assembles a global lineup of musicians tackling Hiroki Kikuta's progressive SNES soundtrack in a variety of styles across 4 1/2 hours of interpretive arrangements. Songs of Light and Darkness was made by fans, for fans, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Square Enix; all images, characters, and original compositions are copyright their respective owners.

"The album project began more than a decade ago. And, hey, we got the whole tracklist done. The slow progress eventually gave us the whole soundtrack wonderfully remixed by OC ReMix regulars and strangers alike," recalled album director Rozovian. "It's an eclectic mix of things, with the expected orchestral and metal epics sharing space with instrumentation and styles including waltz, rap, Mellotron, reggae, harpsichord, J-rock, and plenty of world music elements from all over the place incorporated into a large number of the remixes."

The album's immersive character and environment artwork -- focused on the game's light and dark classes -- was designed by New Jersey artist Min "Keiiii" Kwon, author and illustrator of the Korean webtoon-inspired fantasy comic Heart of Keol.

"Though only released in Japan, the Western gamers who came across [Seiken Densetsu 3], either on cartridge or by other means, found it one of the most beautiful games on the SNES. The music plays a big part in that," Rozovian observed. "I'm very happy to have my name among the artists here, and I'm sure you can find something you like on this behemoth of an album."

Songs of Light and Darkness is OC ReMix's second album honoring composer Hiroki Kikuta, following 2017's Resonance of the Pure Land, which arranged the soundtrack of Seiken Densetsu 3's more widely released 1993 prequel Secret of Mana.
About OverClocked ReMix
 
Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form. Its primary focus is ocremix.org, a website featuring thousands of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans. OC ReMix operates under the umbrella and sponsorship of Game Music Initiative, Inc, a 501c3 non-profit charitable organization (EIN: 81-4140676).
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Preview it: http://youtu.be/cC4irIc-x6s Download it: http://sd3.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Seiken_Densetsu_3_-_Songs_of_Light_and_Darkness.torrent Comments/Reviews: http://ocremix.org/community/topic/47649/  
 

This project made me OC ReMixer!
Congratulation everyone! I love you all!!

It's mentioned in the Read me TXT, but there's no lossless version for only that track, so that MP3 covers the gap. We do that rather than have a "missing" file in the FLAC folder, which would get even more questions about it.

Hollywood Strings and Eduardo Tarilonte's Era libraries use CC11 to control dynamics.

Chris means @zircon & @djpretzel in this case. I think they've gone over it to some extent here on the forums, but I don't remember where. That said, even if you didn't use/reference the music of FF15, Catherine, just invoking it for use in an audio drama Kickstarter means you'd need their legal department's blessing, just like @MindWanderer mentioned. And you're most likely not going to get that. The reason djp & zircon's situation turned out differently is because djp knows several lawyers and was able to communicate on their level thanks to their help. If you don't have that, you could certainly just do the KS without permission, see it get shut down and HOPE they're willing to engage in a back and forth dialogue with you over at Squenix legal, but that's a very risky and mostly likely fruitless route. Would recommend not attempting that.

Oh yeah, I remember when I saw this as an SACPC demo. Perhaps your best chiptune work yet! Flows well, sounds good, enjoyable!

Cool arrangement. I like the ideas here so far.
If you need a resource for writing your own Shreddage lead, zircon did a pretty good job here. See the 12:51 mark.
 

yes, you did which is why the only thing i really tried to interject in my initial post was to step away from the technicality of a remix being unoriginal which is already infallible as you've pointed out... but rather focus on how an artist can inject a great deal of originality into the project making it very much "their own" without it being technically or legally their own. 
like a really creative cosplayer
https://technabob.com/blog/2016/02/04/super-mario-bros-x-fallout-cosplay/

there is still quite a bit of originality, artistry and vision here and as a result it is very much unique, i've never seen anything like that before... that's all i'm saying

"straight up revision" 
yeah you're still kind of missing the point. there is very rarely a truly unique creator and your definition of what that is seems irrevocably rooted in logic and there is no logic when it comes to art and how it is passed from one "creator" to another. i understand what you're saying... obviously if you're remixing Zelda's Lullaby, that's Zelda's Lullaby as composed by Koji Kondo, not Waleed Hawatky. that part is self-explanatory...

but otherwise, what you're suggesting is that then the entirety of "classical" music save a composer or two and the entirety of jazz save a writer or two would be utterly "unoriginal" and/or "revisionist" and that seems both exceedingly harsh and tone deaf to the fact that music is almost never played the same way twice unless it's recorded. i call bullshit on the "makes sense to value your own work more than revisionist ones" because i make this argument having written just as much original music as i have arrangements, currently releasing my 12th original album and frankly i don't see much difference between where my "original" work is derived from and where my arrangements are. in the end, the process feels just about the same... with the exception of one critical feature:
MELODY.
i feel like where we're having a fundamental disagreement is on the effect of melody because melody has the unique feature of being a specific combination of notes and meter that make it particular and thus why we recognize music and sing along with them in the first place and why when either of us goes and remixes a videogame song, it's immediately recognizable. were i to arrange a popular game tune and outright ditch the melody and offer up my own (as i just did for an unreleased Xenogears track), then most casual listeners wouldn't know either way. even some musicians wouldn't know unless they knew the context (ie on a game music album or site, etc). my new Xenogears song is practically an original tune... and in truth is a lot more a result of my originality than mitsuda-sama's and, like with the Adventure Island tune, your argument doesn't hold any water in regards to it. it would if, say, it was a note for note cover but that's not the only kind of game remixing out there so making your blanket statement is still not the play here...
take specific forms, even. any waltz in videogame history isn't going to be immediately accused of being derivative (although it most definitely is) and is given the benefit of the doubt that it is original. same with the blues. just because the original game source was a blues song doesn't mean that piece is any more original than one derivative further. you choose where to set the point of the revision based on the fact it is the immediate source... but a vast majority of game music is not original so when an artist takes it upon themselves to make it a point to arrange something in a completely new concept, calling it a "promotion for a commercial product" is offensively disingenuous
your assessment isn't wrong (it is quite logical albeit sterile) and of course neither is your reason for losing your appetite and i'm certainly not criticizing that you felt that way. i'm just offering the opposite perspective because i feel it's just as valid and also just as correct. saying you "won't hear an argument otherwise" in regards to the matter, however, makes you look a lot more wrong than you are.
now... if we were talking about this from a purely practical business perspective (in other words, content attribution and sales), then yes, you're right: you could never pass an arrangement utilizing the original source's melody as an original composition and if you did, you'd get sued so hard, you'll open up like an azalea
and that's like something that pretty much everybody in the scene, whether here or anywhere else, is already perfectly aware of.
an individual's reasoning for wanting to do something or not do something cannot be on trial so i apologize if somehow i came across that way. it was never the intent
at the same time, your initial post presented itself kind of trolly... seeing as how OCRemix is a site dedicated to the very thing you essentially shit on in two bullett'd points lol nobody is going to sit you down and force you to remix videogame music or blast you for wanting to write your own music. in fact, i'd be the first person to encourage it seeing as how i take my original work considerably more seriously.
the problem is you came out guns ablazing albeit passive aggressively talking shit about remixing as essentially "cos play" disregarding the artistry involved on the part of thousands upon thousands of very talented artists who have spent lots of time pouring their souls into this shit and then spend three pages defending that. not your preference but the unnecessary cutdown of the form on quite literally the first site to embrace and promote the shit lolllll
soooooo..... yeah, i see no need to do so further either.
 
(by the way, in case it isn't already clear, this is not at all personal and i aint at all mad at ya  this is all just music nerd talk)

eh

frankly, shoehorning "success" (as a function of any external metric) into why anyone does anything is part of why new artists are often so utterly confused when trying to find their own voice and why so many promising musicians end up boring cookie cutter clones. whether anyone listens to your remixes or thinks you're good at it or if it "propels" your "career" as a "musician" are ultimately very arbitrary points. furthermore, i'd wager that if the audience isn't appreciating that it's you making the music, then you're probably either doing something wrong or that was your intent all along. in other words, it isn't intrinsic that your arrangement won't be deliciously unique; it's either a choice or a failure.

as for other measures of "success"... it's great that it works out for some people to where music gets to be their actual livelihood... but more often than not, i've found that particular life to be difficult to attain and, once it is, quite stressful... unless of course you're stupidly talented at it (which i am not), in which case, it's blissful... but in the majority of cases, the sheer saturation of the field drowns out even the fairly talented ones and that life just isn't very easy... unless you really do love hustling and grinding gigs and contracts as much as you love creating. right on but no thanks. and look if it's really about doing what you love... well, i do what i love and, shit, i feel i'm pretty damn successful at it too lol seeing as how i very rarely do not achieve what i set out to do (stupid fucking uber-shitty CEO track that sucks pokeballs is an example of a time i didn't haha)... and from where i'm standing, that's the best measure of "success." 
furthermore... i think part of why there has been such a mixed reaction to the OP is because of the second point that was made. ie: "A remix can never really be your own. It's like fanart or cosplay: You're ultimately (where OCR is concerned) just giving free promotion to what is, at the end of the day, a consumer product."

LOL SHOTS FIRED - dude, that is abysmally pessimistic. it's your truth, perhaps... but it's hardly anything beyond that. as i cheekily alluded to in my previous (shit)post, nearly every remix i've ever made pretty much cannot be confused with anyone or anything else and certainly neither its source nor its creator lolllll perhaps that's because my originality, even in a remix context, is entirely my own and is my truth; that the original notes of any given remix of mine were first conceived by someone else does not mean my vision was, nor my interpretation nor my performance of it... and thus neither was the resulting "remix." at risk of sounding like a dick, the alternative is a very limited way of looking at art seeing as how a vast majority of contemporary music is fundamentally derived (a very long conversation topic for another thread no doubt) making this whole notion of "originality" something that ought to be measured OFF the sheet and not on it.
ie. nakamura-sama may have composed "oil ocean" from sonic 2... but zyko wrote "the long war" and it's kinda hard to confuse the two
another example: "Strange Island Eggplant" off the Bad Dudes' "Jingle All the Way" EP takes a short 15 or so second ditty from Adventure Island 2 and turns it into a fully fleshed out song fitted with lyrics. how is that not my song? :shrug:
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tl;dr (because #zykorants)
any artform, derived or not, can absolutely be "yours" (since nothing in existence actually is) if you seek it to be and learning how to do that is the real trick

IMMA BOUT TO GET BBQ'D

Well, I still try to ReMix... not as much anymore, but not because I lost interest. I'm in grad school, 3rd year, so by that time I just have a lot on my plate. (Officially became a Ph.D. candidate starting May.)
I finished 1 recently, which I think I started in May, combining Chrono Cross and Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, and I still found a lot of enjoyment in the process of doing it. I don't have all my supplies with me in WSU, but it forces me to be more particular about harmonic and melodic cooperation instead of production and sound design, and instead I fix up the production on holiday breaks and such.
Either way, I still ReMix, it's still as fun as it used to be, and I do so BECAUSE it's fun, not because I feel any obligation to do so.

Congrats, man!

Well, I still try to ReMix... not as much anymore, but not because I lost interest. I'm in grad school, 3rd year, so by that time I just have a lot on my plate. (Officially became a Ph.D. candidate starting May.)
I finished 1 recently, which I think I started in May, combining Chrono Cross and Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, and I still found a lot of enjoyment in the process of doing it. I don't have all my supplies with me in WSU, but it forces me to be more particular about harmonic and melodic cooperation instead of production and sound design, and instead I fix up the production on holiday breaks and such.
Either way, I still ReMix, it's still as fun as it used to be, and I do so BECAUSE it's fun, not because I feel any obligation to do so.

DFW our project director is in the direct path of Hurricane Florence, although thankfully he does not live on the coast. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.. Rot and I are very worried for his safety and the preservation of his property.
DFW has put a gargantuan amount of hours into this along with the rest of us, and I've seen his incredible family on Skype during our chats and joking around. They are in dire need of protection at this time.
Please be safe DFW, and return with everything intact.. we're all thinking of you.

1) Classic games? - Check!
2) Classic sources? - Check!
3) timaeus222? - Check!
4) Brilliant arrangement? - Check!
5) Orchestral music with a touch of agressive electronica? - Check!
 
Wow, it looks like I don't think I can find anything to dislike here at all! Wonderful job as always, tim!

Yes. Maybe not more accurate (equally, I'd say), but definitely easier to do and easier on the CPU. Also, keep in mind we're working in a virtual space and probably also with virtual instruments, so aiming for accurate, realistic reverb seems ... well... pointless to me. I'd go for making it sound good over making it sound realistic any day.
If you're looking at the effect of timbre and reverb, I'd say you're better off using proper gains (further back = less loud) and EQ (further back = less highs, less lows) than minutely tweaking your reverb insert to have a 0.1 change in early reflections or pre-delay. Sure, reverb would help in creating distance, but I'd go as far as to say that using the right volume levels and proper EQ-ing the instruments properly will help you more.
I hardly ever add reverb to my bass or kick. IF I do, it's a subtle bit of my early reflections bus and maybe a bit of my plate bus. Also, I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, EQ your reverbs (which you can't do if you use it as an insert...) and simply cut off the low freqs there (I usually high pass at around 200hz).
Anyway, since you seem to be dead set on sticking with multiple inserts for your reverbs and you seem to be happy with the results, I will leave it at this.

Whaaaaat? How did I miss this? This is awesome!

Thank you, I really appreciate it! That was a tibetan bowl sound from Omnisphere. I think it was "Tibetan Bowls Shaking Doppler".

This is really beautiful, I love it! I especially appreciate the small effects such as what I assume is some kind of rolling ball effect applied in the beginning and the ending. And the seamless mix of several electronic genres, and the intricate sounddesign and the overall atmosphere and the harmonic progressions and instrumentation and everything is basically just great.