Ivan Hakštok

If it's auto-monetized because of copyright claims, there's nothing you can do about it. Also, in that case, exactly 0% of the ad revenue is going to the channel owner.

I just went through 20 random remixes and only 3 had ads.

This probably has nothing to do with ocremix. Same thing happened on the Dwelling of Duels youtube channel, and the thing is simple - if youtube recognizes the vgm source, even for a small part, it automatically monetizes the video.

Woohooo, it's finally posted! Huge thanks to Sixto who did the amazing guitar solo. This is how I got him to do it: [17:16:50] <Hakstock> sixto [17:16:59] <sixto> sixto [17:17:10] <Hakstock> serious question now, I made my best song ever and I don't wanna ruin it with a crappy solo [17:17:34] <Hakstock> wanna do the solo? [17:17:41] <Hakstock> disclaimer: it's for DoD [17:19:30] <sixto> well ok I agree with most of the judges' remarks, but you have to know: this song probably went through 20+ revisions and started from scratch at least 3 times before it got to its current state, and I realized that with my current mixing and guitar playing skills and equipment, I can't make it better. But even with its few flaws, it sounds pretty good, I guess. Also, I encourage everyone to listen to the source track to this song (and the rest of the Gradius Gaiden soundtrack), it's one of the most awesomest pieces of vgm:

Yes. Looking at MIDI files, sheet music or guitar tabs is a great way to learn about arrangement, voicing, harmonies etc. (assuming they're properly transcribed) However, if you're going beyond that (sound design, production, recording), you'll need a lot more. Tutorials, videos, and lots of trial&error. Just copying a MIDI, replacing all instruments and calling it your own song is not the way to go.

Oh and how can I forget about the horrible opening song... I'd even go as far as to say Dragon Ball Super is worse than GT.

I really wanted it to be good. But it sucks.

I have a fair chunk of TTT2 done. Gonna try and finish it no later than next week.

There's been an oversight and a few votes weren't counted, it turned out to affect the final rankings. Here's the fixed list:

He was too busy with work, and he didn't feel like entering since he wasn't gonna attend Magfest anyway. I'll be posting some reviews later.

Resuuuuuuuuuults (if you haven't seen them already): #1 Robby V, finbeard, Snappleman, Tina, Maiko, Monte, Sagnewshreds - Ninja Warriors - Daddy Mulk as performed by T-Shizz - good -0.36 #2 Russian Attack (Affection State, Boroda-kun, Claude D., Commander_Doyle, creepue, GamBit, GearX2, Harmsing, Inrudiment, Jean Sugui, Shipluss, SJ Van Damme, streifig, TwoJan, Zubareus) - Ninja Gaiden 2: The Dark Sword of Chaos, Rush'n Attack, James Bond Jr., Jackal, Ninja Gaiden - Radio Dendy - good -0.42 #3 newip, BLOBER - Thunder Force 4 - Rynex - above average +0.4 #4 Sagnewshreds, Brian Westbrook, Mike Dreher, Tony Barhoum - Final Fantasy 6 - 6 Feet Beneath the Veldt - above average +0.32 #5 Harmsing, Sofia Taro - World of Warcraft - Forest Tavern - above average +0.29 #6 Ivan Hakštok, Wake, Sixto Sounds - Sonic 3D Blast - 3Fast5You - above average +0.2 #7 Brandon Strader, Cheryl Norfair - Xenoblade Chronicles - Beyond - above average +0.04 #8 Affection State, SJ Van Damme - Ninja Gaiden 3: The Ancient Ship of Doom - A Heart that Wants to Save the World - above average +0.02 #9 LONELYROLLINGSTARS (Ailsean, Mega Beardo, Chris Dlugosz, norg, finbeard) - Solstice - Merging Black Holstice - above average -0.19 #10 clansmaneddie, Josh Kay - Venture Kid, Retro City Rampage - Cityscape - above average -0.19 #11 Moiré Effect (BluuMonk, SuprMelO) - Chrono Trigger - Give Lavos a Chance - above average -0.32 #12 TwoJan, Creepue - Battletoads & Double Dragon [NES] - Game Bar - above average -0.34 #13 Shipluss, Claude D., Olga Gosteva - Bioshock Infinite - The Song in The Sky - above average -0.42 #14 Kyle Hoke, Epic Game Music, The Blast Processors - Final Fantasy 4 - Face Your Fear: Zeromus - above average -0.47 #15 Steel Samurai (Katamari, JawN, darmock, Parvenu, Jason Farrell) - Shovel Knight - Hit the Dirt - above average -0.48 #16 Czyszy, EmpireAnts98 - Burning Rangers - Angels With Burning Hearts - above average -0.49 #17 Electric Sex Toy (zykO, Greeny) - Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - The Biggest One (ft. drunk kylO ren) - average +0.41 #18 Marshall Art (streifig, jmr), Cory Johnson - Undertale - MGLV: The Easiest Enemy - average +0.21 #19 Chernabogue, Furilas, Sbeast, tibone - Kingdom Hearts 2 - The Xemnas Imperative - average +0.14 #20 Quaz, Bean - Starcraft - No Rush 20 - average +0.11 #21 Old Man Wizard (pingosimon, zangderak, Francis Roberts) - Savage - Savage Title - average -0.07 #22 Ailsean, Flik - Suikoden - A Large Gathering of Mice - average -0.13 #23 Trap Fanatic, HoshiHearts - Undertale - Detemmienation - average -0.44 ALTS Daemon9623 Mega Man X - Swing Chameleon Inrudiment, Harmsing Robocop 3 - Robocop 3 Title Sofia Taro, creepue Lineage 2 - Shepherd's Flute Harmsing, Albina Captain America and The Avengers [NES] - Cap Funny Symphony "Villains' Violins vs Avengers' Guitars" New theme to be announced when streifig gets back home.

The songs are up! Duel page: http://dwellingofduels.net/duel.php?dir=16-01-Collaboration&month=Collaboration&img=16-01-Collaboration Youtube playlist: You can join the live listening party at MAG, tonight at 1AM, or the online listening party on 8bitx at the same time. Feel free to write some reviews and vote: http://dwellingofduels.net/voting/ (send the votes to dodsongs@gmail.com).

This is the big one.

I'm trying to line up something extraordinary for TTT2.

Ok, I wrote a quick post this morning because I needed to go to work, here's a longer post: A good remix of Force Your Way doesn't exist...yet. The Black Mages version is awful, and the Dissidia Duodecim version doesn't utilize the good points of the theme. There are a few decent ones on Youtube by random people. But none of them is creative enough. The theme has a few awesome elements that are under-utilized even in the actual theme, and that's one of the reasons I don't like Nobuo's compositions and why I rarely remix FF. But I'll make an exception this time because FF8 is the most fun FF game next to FF12 (and FFX-2 if you count spinoffs). What I had in mind will probably require a massive collab. I'll post the exact details once I'm done with a midi arrangement. Force Your Way is by far the best boss theme in the whole FF series (even though, like I said, Nobuo fucked it up), and it deserves treatment as such. Get ready.

Force Your Way is mine. I actually had a WIP for it since I started working on it ages ago, but it's not up to my current standards so I'll be doing it from scratch.

Here's a nice article about the general differences in digital EQs; https://vladgsound.wordpress.com/2015/01/12/a-classification-of-digital-equalizers-draft/ One thing I didn't like about DAW stock EQs I've tried, including Parametric EQ 2, is that none of them seem to have great-sounding lowpass/highpass filters (at least to my ears).

Neeeeews! If you're an artist looking for collab partners, here's what you can do: Fill out this form: http://goo.gl/forms/nh0kDLvkTe Check this spreadsheet and contact people: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DrCQbPLDQbevVFCEgERhuQSvez7CLVElAYnAyPqE060/pubhtml?gid=330291701&single=true It's empty for now, but hopefully it will be put to good use.

Hit up Sixto on twitter, I think he has a few DD remixes in the works.

The theme is awesome. And I hope we get some more OCR people. People who can't play an instrument could now collab with people who can. Btw, I talked with streifig a bit and we had the idea for some sort of "artist matchmaking" thing to help people find collab partners. So, if you have great arrangement ideas but need someone to record guitar, help you with orchestration or do the mixing, we might be able to help. I'll post more details once we figure out exactly how it's gonna be done.

Star Wars, Episode VII: The DoD Awakening #1 Claude D. - Star Wars - Boozin' in Mos Eisley - good +0.05 #2 Ivan Hakštok - Star Wars - Sidious - good -0.39 #3 Shipluss - Star Wars: Battlefront 2 - Life in Space - good -0.45 #4 streifig - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - Her Battle Meditation - above average +0.43 #5 Boroda-kun - Star Wars - Death Star Drakkar - above average +0.35 #6 Sagnewshreds - Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back - You Must Become a Shredi Master - above average +0.18 #7 Hat - Star Wars - The Band - above average -0.01 #8 Daniel Alm - Star Wars [JVC] - That Wookiee Boy Ain't Right - above average -0.48 #9 The Valley Kings - Star Wars [JVC] - Your Princess is in Another System - average +0.48 #10 pingosimon - Star Wars - Imperial March - average +0.27 Voters: 17 New Year is here and finally you can see the epic conclusion to this December saga. Congrats to Claude D(arth)., Ob-Ivan Hakštok and Imperial Starshipluss! And to everyone who entered, the force is strong with all of you. Thanks to everyone who listened and voted! Check out the updated songs: At the Month Page: http://dwellingofduels.net/duel.php?dir=15-12-StarWars&month=Star%20Wars&img=15-12-StarWars As a .zip pack: http://dwellingofduels.net/dodarchive/15-12-StarWars/15-12-StarWars.zip On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8gbAdBgHQUYzvzknEAPOtBzWlLQGPbVS Okay, enough with Star Wars puns, next month is... Collaboration Month! It's a free month with one condition: NO SOLO ENTRIES! You have to collaborate with someone. Or bring your band. No entry should feature a single person, because this is Collaboration Month, period. In the spirit of the theme, the banner was made by a group of Anonymous DoD Artists. The listening party is gonna be held live at MAGFest 2016! Get to Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Maryland on February 18-21 and join us at the celebration of all things VGM. Gonna be fun. The songs are due: February, 16th, 11:59 AM EST Send your entries to dodsongs@gmail.com

The biggest plothole is how the fuck did Luke's lightsaber get into that box? I really liked the movie. Finn was great, Kylo Ren was awesome and he has the potential to be a better villain than Darth Vader. Rey was overpowered but I knew it was going to happen ever since the flashback scene. And I kinda wanted Finn to be a Jedi. Han's death scene is an example of how to properly do a death scene. It's probably the best scene in any Star Wars movie. Couldn't care less about the fact that it repeats storyline elements from the original trilogy. Especially since it improved upon it.

I think I'll give this a shot. Maybe I can review all my favorite OCR songs. And exceed the number 500. :>

Other than reviews month, December is also Star Wars month! This duel is special, because music from the movies that was used in the games is also allowed. (DoD is a bit more lenient on the rules compared to OCR )

One of my favorites from last month's DoD. I'm glad this was the first ever entry from Tekken series. You should definitely submit this to OCR if you haven't already!