timaeus222

Feedback is most welcome, please- I'm new to the OC ReMix crowd so I'd love to start off strong with my first submission. Thanks!
 
I initially imagined going more orchestral since it's such a melodic, fluid piece. Alas, there have been other remixes of that nature, and my strongest suit is bass/groove/vibe. That seems to be untouched territory on this song, as far as I can find, so I embraced a new direction.
 
It's got an R&B/Electronic vibe that slowly build while scattering in the notable motifs from the original. I reharmonized the chord structure, and took my own liberties on the bass line, made my own samples, etc. This is one of my all time favorite games that I've played through countless times since I was a kid. Track is made with respect and affection. Cheers!
 
ReMix:

 
 
Source:
 
 
 
 

You'd have to take it up with old-school forumite JesusTheDarkLord.

Not sure if they have already been mentioned, but I have a couple of things. When I'm browsing through the forums on my phone, the site randomly switches between the mobile and full version.
Also, I don't see a way to skip to different pages in the mobile version (I may have overlooked it, idk...). I have to go through every page.
In the full version the page numbers are on the bottom, but in mobile you just have "next" and "previous."

Quota of positive votes per day... is that really necessary?? I just got on today and it says I'm at my quota, I couldn't even like ONE post... I must have done some liking after midnight is the only explanation  I can think of. 

I'd like to urge the inclusion of compositional aspects, such as meandering chord movement, bad counterpoint (where counter melodies are present), bad voicing of parts, lack of agreement between parts, improper understanding of source material's harmonic structure (so when people hear poorly/gratingly harmonized source melody notes they can check this box).

Jill and I are huge fans of Game of Thrones - her maybe even more than me! - and so we decided to do our own take of the main theme. Jill did a lot of the arrangement, writing and performing the lyrics in actual Dothraki, plus playing recorder & hand drum. I did most of the production and then Jeff Ball recorded violin & viola to make it even more awesome. Really proud of the end result.. but the music video is even cooler imo Check it out below!
 

Best metal vocals ever. Let's turn it into a brütal song.

Gentle reminder that if anyone needs any help on their mixing, feel free to collab; I'll be available!

Preview it: http://youtu.be/JMy-icaL6RQ Download it: http://rebellion.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Final_Fantasy_II_-_Rebellion.torrent A great album is the sum of its parts as much as any social movement or revolution is the culmination of efforts from brave individuals. The sheer amount of dedication that went into creating Rebellion will be difficult to properly appreciate; many of the involved artists worked on their music for months. Some of them worked on particular songs for over a year. At the end of this journey, it was the combined vision, talents, and dedication of each artist that created an album with its own personality. A smooth experience that seemingly has its own narrative, from one song to the next.
I'm eternally grateful to the artists that returned to work on Rebellion after the completion of the first album, Random Encounter. I am equally grateful to those who are making their first appearance, and those who have chosen to be on the final album covering Final Fantasy 3. Without your hard work and sacrifice, this album would not have been possible. To the fans - I hope that listening to this album fills you with as much joy as it has given me these past several years.
Thank you for the rebellion, and may our random encounter continue to bring us liberation.
- Brandon Strader
 

For me, 0:24 was a substantial jump in volume. Maybe a riser or reverse that covers a larger dynamic range could connect this part a little less jarringly. The volume in either part is fine, and I think it's just the connection that's the issue here.
I agree with Moseph on the brass being boomy at 1:22, but it's just slight on my side. Other than that, at least for me, although I agree with Moseph on the reverb, stereo field, and MIDI CC, I feel like it's not a very big deal. Still sounds quite good to me.
Try listening to this as an example of a very polished orchestral piece. Maybe it'll help.

I develop one skill at time, doing a bit of it every day to make it more natural, like muscle memory, but I only try when I feel the need to learn it. I don't really play the drums, but I can imagine someone playing drums and that's good enough for me. Similarly, I no longer play the guitar, but I still can imagine an expert guitarist and sequence a realistic electric guitar as if that person was playing it.

If I do something with an instrument in a day, I usually end up aiming to recreate something I hear.

Here's a bunch off the top of my head. Surely you can find ONE of these useful:
 
Orchestral:
https://soundcloud.com/stephen-anderson/i-am-the-sentinel-credits - dramatic film score
https://soundcloud.com/stephen-anderson/dinosaur-dna - action score
https://soundcloud.com/stephen-anderson/unity - pretty much perfect bass
https://soundcloud.com/stephen-anderson/turn-my-crimson-into-white - african cinematic spiritual
 
General Electronic:
https://soundcloud.com/zircon-1/level-bounce - funky electro house/chiptune
https://soundcloud.com/zircon-1/rise-of-pharaoh-remix-of-lara-croft-and-the-temple-of-osiris - middle-eastern drum & bass
http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02367 - drum & bass with vocals
https://soundcloud.com/isworks/celestia-terrarium-naked-by - ambient/atmospheric
https://soundcloud.com/isworks/shreddage-2-nuclear-dubstep-by - Dubstep reference 1
http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02318 - Dubstep reference 2
 
Eastern:
http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02305 - General middle-eastern
https://soundcloud.com/ocremix/11-tibetan-tussle-timaeus222 - middle-eastern big beat / dubstep
http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02853 - far-eastern cinematic / dubstep
http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02094 - meditative far-eastern
 
Rock/Metal:
https://soundcloud.com/isworks/shreddage-2-subterrenea-by-ian - Djent metal
https://soundcloud.com/magnus-engdahl/wing-it - Common metal
http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02293 - In-your-face rock
http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02625 - Melt-your-face metal
 
Solo Piano:
http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02962 - Nocturne
http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03096 - General jazz
http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02954 - "Freeform" jazz

Actually, there's one more track I should mention:

Gentle Wind by Ailsean (from the Time and Space album) was the track that made me want to get good at electric guitar. To this day, when I am testing out a new guitar or pedal or amp or pretty much any sort of electric guitar-related gear, the very first thing I do to test it is play the chorus from this track.

This right here. Both DJP and Timaeus nailed it on the head with the fact that this has many musical cues that an anime show or a game with poppy soundtracks like Phoenix Wright has, which is great for an uplifting ReMix like this one. Generally, with the energy and positive vibes running through a mix like this, it's kinda hard to not to enjoy it. Nice work, man.

hahaha, the salt is real. what's wrong with watching a movie and not caring about the agendas that may or may not lie behind the movie? mad max was good. it was fun to watch. the action was entertaining, the show-don't-tell style was breathtakingly fun to experience, and the characters weren't cookie-cutter characters. i didn't go to see it because of the triumph of women over oppressive male entities or something, i went to see it because they had a flamethrower guitar and the movie's a freaking two-hour car chase combined with dune and borderlands, and that sounded awesome. did it have feminist underpinnings? maybe, a lot of the arguments both for and against are pretty solid. that said, who cares? i don't, and saying that i don't have a ball in that court doesn't make me sexist any more than not really caring about r&b makes me a racist. just pointing a finger and spouting hot-button words doesn't make you look educated and relevant. it makes you look ignorant and puerile.
 
the endless need to ascribe a crusade to everything is abhorrent.
 
edit: the fact that an action film with a script the size of a child's flipbook is raising this many questions about the intentions of the writer(s) is actually pretty cool. as i said, i don't really have a ball in this particular court, but the noise that's being raised (on both sides of the issue/question/whatever) is definitely interesting.

There was never a song that made me want to remix. I got into music out of inspiration from my beloved brother Shariq "DarkeSword" Ansari. When I was little (we're talking like 10 years old), he wrote all kinds of music at home, using Fruity Loops. After I saw him do video game remixes, I basically wanted to copy him and do it too. He and OCR both taught me basic musical concepts (comp and production alike), and then I began college to study music and mathematics, and now I'm here.

The kick feels pretty muffled to me, and the snare isn't really coming through the hi hats. Other than that, this is sounding pretty rad!

fair point duud. it's not really dnb. straight up helljam

BMC_WarMachine opens the WiP season, and blends metal + orchestra for something that sounds epic!
 
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Frendly reminder that the next deadline is in ONE WEEK! And that the final one is in FIVE WEEKS!
 
Check the spreadsheet: http://tinyurl.com/VV3OCR
RED: Tuberz, Sixto, and Brandon (and Nick Cage) -- need to turn a WiP and/or finished track asap (@Tuberz: you claimed the track recently, so you can have a lil' extension).
ORANGE: Eino, Dj Mokram, and AngelCityOutlaw -- a substantial update is needed asap (contact me if you need help with arrangement/production)
GREEN: Rexy, BMC, Existence Zero, and aensland -- an update by the deadline should do it ; try to get me a finished track by mid-June if possible
PURPLE: Jorito, Sbeast, Timaeus, Slimy -- a finished track by next deadline or mid-June is needed ; it's time to finish your tracks, isn't it?
 
Everyone (including people who are done): I will contact you by next deadline to get your artist bio, track notes, and other stuff OCR and the website needs.

https://shnabubula.bandcamp.com/album/vgmcast-vol-1   Isolated Warrior - Ending  Jaga Jazzist - One Armed Bandit  Link's Awakening - Tall Tall Heights  Project Diva F - Negaposi Continues  Nier Geshtalt - Wretched Automatons  Super Mario RPG - Beware the Forest Mushrooms Bloody Roar 3 - Mystery Relics  E.V.O. - Birthplace of all Life  Gimmick! - World Map and Good Weather  FFXIII - Dust to Dust  Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky - Crystal Cave  Silver Surfer - Stage 2  FalseSTOP! - Mellow Caverns  Fantastic Star-Friend - ...I can come with you?!   
All of the songs here were performed live on stream atwww.hitbox.tv/shnabubula, you can watch the full performance here:www.youtube.com/watch?v=25ubGHRTrK0    These 14 Songs were all requested 2 days before on the regular weekly stream held every Friday from 12 PM to 8:30 PM EST (GMT -5). Part of the fun is learning all this material for the first time in front of a live audience watching me struggle and occasionally triumph, one tiny 5 second long portion of the "Bloody Roar 3" song took me more than a half hour to be able to play with any kind of consistency, but it all paid off in the end that Sunday. A good friend, Tadd Nuznov a.k.a. Rushjet1 (rushjet1.bandcamp.com) managed to save FLACs of each of the individual songs played and since I hadn't expected them to come out so well, I didn't properly prepare.    In the future, all Sunday streams will be recorded via direct audio to my computer, unfortunately, since that was not the case this time, the audio is not as good quality as I would have liked, but it's pretty good and definitely better here than on either the hitbox or youtube versions.    Anyway, I'm very happy with my playing on these recordings and I hope you all enjoy. Special Thanks to everybody who made it to either stream, can't wait to see you all again on Friday/Sunday coming up.  

The rubato sounds intentional to me, and the harmonies are definitely in the vein of DAT SMOOTH JAZZ~. I'm confident that this is an easy pass. The piano tone is quite good too.
 
Some of the harmonies did sound weird to me, but they sounded good once I heard this more than once. Yeah, I don't think you'd have anything to worry about. It sounded cohesive IMO, and it's only two source tunes and one cameo anyways, so there's not really much 'danger' in this sounding like a medley.
 
Knocked it out of the park... again!

Re: the art for future album projects, we'll make sure formatting preference are made clear before anyone gets started. That said, Game-Art-HQ's community really came through with good work, so we're looking forward to including all their great artwork in the album bundle, and hopefully working with GBK666 and G-A-HQ in the future.

Re: the album not being out yet, sorry, but this isn't a speedrun, so folks are just going to have to wait. Everyone's doing this in their spare time for 0 compensation, juggling real life and other responsibilities. Sometimes that means the final 15% takes practically forever. Much like any album that takes years to release, when the album's out, it's out. We'll get there.

See you in July (MAYBE).

This is a pretty unique mix! I love music box sounds mixed with electronica elements.
The bass isn't balanced well, often bass patches have one note that is too loud and needs to be tamed with eq prior to any compression, and I hear that problem here. The bass needs to be tamed in its lowest regions too, and in the mud zone (200-300ish Hz). I'm hearing a lot of rumble in addition to the random too-loud notes, and not a lot of clean impact. There is some very good bass writing here, though, like 3:47-4:02.
You've got some things hard panned (like the synth at 0:30, and the section starting at 3:17), I'm not a fan of one-sided hard panning but that's my opinion. Some of the higher sounds in the mix are piercy and too up-front, and too dry, giving the mix a crispy and resonant effect that is a bit overpowering as well as feeling not quite cohesive sonically. Some of the more dancey synths sound somewhat generic but there are good effects used. Good sidechaining.
In the breakdown, the guitar sounds fake and the piano is very rigid. Loud bass notes are very evident here. That whole sections needs to be humanized better.
The bigger issue here is source use. Even with your provided breakdown (thank you!) I can't make it all out. You've obscured a lot of it with effects, which sounds cool but unfortunately makes it VERY hard to hear. If I give you credit for what you've laid out in your breakdown, even with a lot of lenience, I'm only getting to about 42% source use, and that is really stretching it. I just don't think it's enough source for OCR. If other J's find more source than I'm hearing, I'm open to revisiting my vote on the source aspect.
There are some very cool writing and effects ideas here and I hope you'll fix this up for us, give us some more recognizable source and fix the eq/balance issues, because this is really cool.
NO (resubmit)

Cool arrangement - to me the only issue is whether it's got dominant source usage. By your own breakdown (which, thank you for that), your song has about 3 minutes of wholly original material. That's definitely NOT having source melody in spades; in fact, it's skirting the line of too liberal. Beyond that, I heard too many places where the material was modified too much to count, where it's not recognizable as Littleroot Town anymore. 4:31 to 5:01 is a fine example. You're using an invented harmony of the melody line, making the notes bend, and changing some notes - after all those modifications, mixed with a bunch of original material, and new chords, it's extremely hard to see that as the same source. I have to do a lot of work to connect those dots.
 
I really like a lot of what's going on here, even the original stuff. You're a talented producer and arranger. I'd love to see this on our site, and I think it could happen if you'd be willing to make some edits to cut out some of the original material, so that the source melody is more dominant. That's on you to decide how willing you are to modify what sounds like a pretty cohesive piece.
 
 
NO

First off, I gotta give you props on your arrangement here - even for a 6 minute arrangement you still manage to pack in a TON of ideas and pretty much eschew any direct repetition, without feeling unfocused. Some highlights for me include the great synergy between the bass writing and the engaging beats, the square synth soloing, and the occasional introduction of that iconic Ruby/Sapphire trumpet sound Lots to love here.
The source usage is definitely an issue - I'm not having any trouble hearing how you adapted the Littleroot source when it is present, but the bigger problem is how many extended breaks you have throughout the song and how often the source usage that is present becomes marginalized in the mix by other non-source elements. It's a bold, ambitious attempt but by OCR standards, I think you fall short on source usage.
I won't spend too much time retreading the production issues Kristina brought up but they're spot-on critiques that need to be addressed before this track is ready to be posted, as well.
I find it hard to suggest a resubmission on this track because it sounds very complete as an arrangement as-is, but if you were able to polish the production and sample quality in a couple of troublesome places, and were willing to make the source usage more dominant in the arrangement, this could stand a good chance at passing. Regardless of whether you send this back, I appreciated the effort that went into this arrangement and hope you continue to send more stuff our way!
NO (resubmit)