ebuch

Very nice! My only crit is that some of the string transitions toward the end sound a little awkward, but aside from that it's great mockup of a great track! Thanks for sharing!

SO happy to see another percussion ensemble arrangement! Mario music is what actually got me into playing mallet instruments with my friends back in high school, and I really appreciate that this was recorded live at David's actual undergraduate recital. However, there were quite a few mistakes and a number of interesting chord choices that I couldn't help but cringe at. I realize you only get one shot at an undergrad recital, but perhaps a recording of a rehearsal run-through or something might have produced better results. It was an enjoyable performance, especially for what it was, but if I were to record one of my own performances, I would be recording DOZENS of takes just to get the one that sounds just right. Maybe I'd even break up the piece and do a little light editing to string them together into a full track or something. Not a bad performance by any means, but there's definitely potential for a better recording of it.

Adding gain on tracks might help, but you're probably going to want to try adding some compressors. Keep your main output at 0.0dB and throw on a multiband compressor (or regular) and play around with it until you find something that sounds good. Too much compression and limiting will crush the hell out of your mix, so be conservative and use your ears. I mostly make orchestrations, so I'm not sure what it's like to mix for other genres. Always trust your ears.

SCOREcast Online is another great resource.. TONS of great articles and podcasts on composition, production, technology, and the film/game music industry. I have yet to read through most of the articles still, but the many I've read so far have helped me a lot! Required reading for all professional composers to be. You'll probably meet some really cool people. http://www.scorecastonline.com/

Nice work! Sounds like you found the right style! Just a little bit of feedback: I'd really try to use more of the string section.. you can achieve a LOT of really cool textures when you're using all five sections. The organ can get tiresome to listen to after a while, so changing that up or dropping it out for a bit might help improve that. Thanks for the listen!

I like the idea! It's definitely in the spirit of keeping a historic record of VGM so I think adding it on to VGMdb is a good option. I'd focus more on completing your thesis first though and then port/integrate your information over to VGMdb once you're not cutting yourself short on either side. I *really* like the idea of getting the Japanese involved.. I'd love to know more about what they're doing over there.

This is my favorite piano version of this song. Can't wait to listen again when I get home from work!

I'll be driving there from Fargo with a friend flying in from Phoenix and we'll be picking up a couple of people along the route. Not sure how many we're picking up, but we might be able to swing by and grab a person or two on our way if there's room. We'll be rooming with other people who we're meeting up with at the convention though, so if you DO ride with us, make sure you get your room situation figured out. Gonna be a good time.

Yep, exactly what that guy said.

I don't claim to be a professional in the copyright field, but I do have a few bits of knowledge and experience I've picked up in the last year or so. Allow me to address a couple of your points. There are a few widely-held copyright myths regarding licensing and remixes.. One is that "remixes given away for free don't need licensing," and similarly, "remixes given away for free don't need to disburse royalties to the copyright holder." The first one isn't true UNLESS it falls under Fair Use, which remember is a defense, not a right. Fair Use can't stop someone from suing you, and if that happens it's your responsibility to prove you weren't infringing on someone else's copyright. Statutory damages of several thousand dollars. Fair Use is decided on a case-by-case basis, so only a copyright judge is going to be able to decide whether or not something falls under Fair Use. As for the second myth, copyright law requires a specific number of cents to be paid to the copyright holder for each composition, rather than a percentage of the sale price. The only way around this is to make an agreement with the owner to either waive or lessen the statutory royalty amount. Does this mean that OCR (or insert other X artist here) could some day be held liable for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in due royalty fees? Well, no. But the artists who submit their works to OCR could be, as they are the sole owners of their material. (It's in the Content Policy). Is this likely to happen? With current legislation, no. It would (probably) not be worthwhile for game companies to hunt down artists and hand out lawsuits. However, if new legislation passes that changed things to make it actually worthwhile for large game companies to do so, there's not much really stopping them. We've won the SOPA war for now, thankfully. Of course, none of us think that what we're doing is actually wrong or worthy of being prosecuted. We assume that game companies don't mind our infringing actions, but only because they haven't sued anyone yet. Yeah, some companies are very open about the remixing community, (looking at you, Capcom), but should we really assume that all companies see releasing unlicensed remixes as acceptable behavior? Remember, when remixes are licensed and paying royalties, the copyright holder is making money. When unlicensed remixes are given away for free, the composer (or other copyright holder) loses out on that royalty money. Most people, (especially companies), don't like missing out on free revenue. In the case of the Kickstarter, (this is purely my speculation), it probably appeared to SE that OCR was using Kickstarter to "sell" the physical albums without proper licensing and paying royalties (though there may have been plans to do so). This of course reinforces the belief that game companies currently draw the line of morality at the point where money becomes involved. Obviously we won't find out until we see what happens next after their internal discussions, but if I had to make a guess I would say the outcome will be that OCR will make an agreement to pay royalties for all of the physical albums "sold," and possibly even a flat-rate one-time royalty fee to cover all of the free downloads on the site. It's anyone's guess. This is exactly right, though the worst case scenario could even include statutory damages. Again, I wouldn't put so much faith in the companies not taking an issue to infringing remixes given away for free. It's entirely possible that it's just not worth it to the companies until money becomes involved. Then it would likely make things more worthwhile, or at least easier to prove in court.Just things to think about. I do hope both parties are able to reach a satisfactory mutual agreement. Of course, it's entirely possible that SE is interested in partnering up with OCR and funding it themselves...

Great stuff! Glad to see OCR's first Zelda album!

This is good stuff.. thank you!