Phonetic Hero

What the hell man, this is too good

MY MAN!! This is SO sick dude, such a great remix. You killed it on the arrangement, and your collaborators really took it to the next level. Love this track man!

I love this track, especially the Metroid Prime noise sfx in the opening - you guys nailed the vibe. Re-inspired to work on my MP patch bank for Serum. Excellent stuff.

Obviously I'm no good at timely responses either haha. Thanks for the info! I probably won't be buying the hardware, though If I can find a way to emulate it I'd love to have the patches to use for myself. The closest I've gotten is making patches myself that are in the Metroid Prime ballpark, mostly with Serum - might have to make it a pack for download at some point!

I for one definitely agree with this analysis - 8-Bit Music Theory is a Legend with a capital L. I've been watching his videos to pick up new concepts and gather my inspiration before tough work sessions for a while now, extremely useful resource

The most succinct way I've ever heard it put is that music theory is DEscriptive, not PREscriptive, and it's stuck with me ever since (thanks Adam Neely!)

Cool stuff man! I have a bit of experience with Prime-inspired music myself, always great to see like-minded musicians I think that bass in the beginning of the first track could use some refinement, it strikes me as too dry and over-the-top for a MP track. I also like plain sine waves without the layering for most of my MP leads, but that's more a matter of personal preference. I think things sound a lot more cohesive at the 1:15 mark - aside from maybe some more percussive texturing, this part works great for me! I think the second track works better for me overall, you've used the patches that were used in the MP OSTs really effectively. I'm not sure I'd make the track as long as it is without much structural change, but if you like it, keep it! If you don't mind my asking, how did you get access to the original synth patches used in the games? Did you buy the old hardware or are you emulating things somehow? Nice work, keep it up!

Wes I fucking love your music, don't be so hard on yourself

Hell yes

Love the source choice Personally I've never been a big fan of the "double build" approach to a track's introduction, the first build always ends up feeling superfluous to me. If it serves a purpose for your creative vision though, leave it in! The rest of the arrangement sounds great! I love the build to the climax with the choir, and the more urgent feeling of the chord stabs at 1:25. This template sounds like a winner to me.

@AngelCityOutlaw Thanks man! Just to quickly clarify, there aren't much of any RPG elements in Wargroove - it's much more like Advance Wars in that units don't gain experience or level up, and instead you build units each turn and have to understand which units are effective against each other. Victory comes from toppling an opponents HQ or taking out their commander. Wargroove also has a really good critical hit mechanic that relies entirely on unit positioning rather than chance (with conditions being different for each type of unit), so while it's pretty easy to pick up, the strategy gets absolutely wild. It was really fun watching the beta testers go at it with each other and develop new strategies that I never would've thought of.

I had the pleasure of writing the music for Chucklefish's Wargroove, a spiritual successor to old-school tactical games like Advance Wars: Being a huge fan of tactical games myself, this was a bit of a dream gig and I'm extremely proud of how the tunes turned out. Wargroove is available on Steam, Humble, Switch, and Xbox One/Windows 10 (w/ Xbox Play Anywhere). The soundtrack is available on my bandcamp and on Steam as DLC (can also be bundled with the game for 10% off!). It'll also be available on all major streaming platforms by the 15th. Hope you love both the game and the soundtrack!

So does literally every piece of music ever

I'm not saying there won't be people who don't like everything you do, because of course there will. I'm saying that the people who don't care for your original work but DO like your remixes weren't going to be drawn to your original work anyway, so it's not a "loss" in terms of your audience. On the flip side, there are people who WILL like both who will have only heard of you because of your remixes. Being sour about someone liking one thing you do and not everything you do is stupid and a waste of energy imo

I write for games full time, but I still see a lot to be gained from arranging. So yes! I still remix when I have the time. I'll try to be concise for a change: You get to make a piece of music you enjoy listening to (and perhaps learn what exactly it is you enjoy in a piece of music) You get to study that piece's structure, harmony, etc. and apply what you learn to your own originals (though I find straight transcription to be even more useful for learning) You get to practice strengthening your weak points without the pressure of writing an amazing original melody/chord progression/bassline/drum groove/whatever, since it's already done You get to learn how to reuse pieces of a track to improve your arrangement game (mostly for soundtracks or theme-related albums, but it's been extremely useful for me in a work setting) I think in terms of potential for musical growth, there's a LOT to be said about arranging, and I think the inspiration and forward momentum someone can get from an existing tune/game they love is also an important part of the remixing game. For what it's worth, I don't find the "is it mine?" debate to be very useful. Something I consider MUCH more important when I make a remix (or any piece of music) is "do I like listening to it?" EDIT: I also think looking at building an audience in terms of remixing vs. originals is silly. Those who will be interested in your originals will be interested regardless, and those who won't, won't - it's not a matter of "splitting your audience". If a remix was what got the ears there to listen to your other music in the first place, it can only help

Hey man I really like the arrangement for the most part, but I think dropping it down to just the piano at 0:38 breaks the flow in such a short track. I think keeping the energy a bit more during that section would help the track's progression a lot, and transitioning to Monster Dance right out of Bloody Tears' arpeggiated intro section is a strong structural choice. I also think the piano isn't carrying the track as a lead instrument. It sounds pretty dry and fake, and it's mixed pretty far into the background. The drums also hit me as too loud and compressed. The cymbals are pumping on a lot of their impacts and they get pretty sizzly at times - heavy compression can be pretty unflattering to cymbal hits. I really like the timbre of the snare and kick though (with maybe a tad more low end on the latter) and the funky writing works great, I'd just pull the drums down a bit as a whole. No qualms with the guitar/bass - once the rest of the balance is touched up and the weak lead instrument addressed, I think this'll be a sweet track. Hope that's helpful!

Fair enough, my counter-point would be that it's a teacher's job to be hard on you and expect more out of you though. When people don't (appear to) have any motive other than the commentary itself and providing their opinion, it can be a real kick in the ass to hear someone doesn't like something. And whether or not the commenter actually knows what they're talking about vs. just trying to puff themselves up, if it pushes you to improve, the effect is the same (at least in terms of general advice/impressions - if someone's telling you to blow up the low mids on all your instruments or something like that, that's another story). Using myself as an example again, I used to think of myself as a great composer, even after I found out exactly how bad of a producer I was. But when you hear "wandering melody" and "stagnant harmony" (or whatever variation of that, if the feedback was coming from someone who didn't have the musical vocabulary to describe it as such) over and over from people on forums or non-musician friends or comments from complete strangers on music hosting sites, it eventually sunk in that "oh wait a second, maybe I'm actually not nearly as good as I think I am". That was what it took for me, and it made much more of an impact than it did in situations where someone whose outward purpose in critiquing me was to help me learn. I guess some additional context is also necessary to clarify my point - I've never been a good student until I "decide" I want to learn more about something, and I know I'm not the only one. Again, that's what it took for me, and I have to wager there are others who operate the same way. As a bonus, I came to find out eventually that a lot of those people giving me that feedback actually WERE being hyper-critical and couldn't follow their own advice. But the result was the same - I put my nose to the grindstone to learn how to better structure a tune, how to write stronger melodies, how to mix better, whatever the criticism might've been. I still learned as a result of the feedback, regardless of where it came from or how much the person giving the critique actually knew themselves. Hopefully I didn't botch the point I'm trying to make in so many words, but basically: feedback from different sources can have drastically different effects, and people will respond to the effect it has on them accordingly.

I think another deeply valuable aspect of public feedback that hasn't really been touched on is that you might find out you're not as good as you think you are. Sometimes people on a forum are blunt and brutally honest, and as far as I'm concerned, that exposure is extremely important. Because hey, that's the way the world is, and if you really want to improve then you have to learn to be brutally honest with yourself. Sometimes, that's a practice that begins externally. When I was 19 and first starting out, I thought I was amazing. After having my ass broken repeatedly, learning just how much there was to know and breaking through that Dunning-Kruger wall, I was able to be MUCH more objective and honest about where I actually was, what my weaknesses were, and what to do in order to address them (or who to ask if I didn't know). If you already think you're the best, you don't have much incentive to improve, and without people giving me their honest impressions (musically experienced or not) I doubt I'd be half the musician I am today. Often it takes time to sink in, and sometimes people can be very averse to honest critique (I certainly was for a good while), but I find it to be another valuable part of the process. In this regard, I think feedback from strangers is much more potent than that of a mentor or teacher - finding out what your peers or the general public thinks about your art can be a powerful agent for introspection.

I'll concede that feedback isn't technically necessary in a mentorship (which is extremely strange to read), but I still think you're reeeaaally glossing over the importance of feedback. A "mentorship" in which the mentor isn't observing the mentee's work and giving feedback more fits the description of a generalized teaching course, where a teacher/professor is going down a list and throwing out advice or covering topics point by point, regardless of whether or not it's pertinent to the student. At least in my opinion/experience, this isn't the most effective way to help someone learn. Back on topic (and a slight edit for clarity): the feedback process, to me, is about looking at where someone needs to improve and providing targeted advice to help them learn how to do it. The source of advice doesn't matter imo - whether it's a forum rando or someone you look up to, you're the ultimate arbitrator of which pieces you decide to listen to and which you don't. Yes, personal drive/ambition is obviously important to anyone's progress as an artist, but why undercut feedback (even "forum feedback") as a valuable part of the improvement process?

...how the fuck is a mentorship going to work without feedback? Lol A mentor giving advice without knowing what the mentee needs sounds like an extremely ineffectual relationship

I think it's very important when someone's starting out. I had no idea what questions I needed to be asking back when I first started, and having people to point out flaws I wasn't even aware of and explain how to improve them is, in my opinion, absolutely instrumental to anyone's development (whether I wanted to hear it or not at the time ). Whether someone gets the feedback from a forum, or friends/peers with more experience, or teachers/mentors, I think most people need feedback from those with more experience up to a point. I know I did. Once you're familiar with the general concepts of music composition and production (and know where to look to further your knowledge), improvement becomes much easier to pursue on your own. But it's hard to know what questions you should be asking when you don't know what you need to know, ya know?

8Dio's having 2 weeks' worth of flash sales to celebrate their anniversary with a new featured product every 48 hours. I think they're only a few days in - Epic Taiko Ensemble was directly before Rhythmic Aura, so there should be 5 more sales on the way. Definitely keep your eye out, 8Dio makes great stuff EDIT: Also going to include my personal favorite library for lead strings (does both agile and flowing lines very, very well), also from 8Dio. An absolute steal at $44 - https://8dio.com/instrument/grandiose-violins-bundle/

I really don't think you need a MIDI controller, honestly. You can do anything a MIDI controller would let you do by properly routing controls to your MIDI outs and clicking things in - they're really only for expediting the process, if you're good at playing things in or recording automation live. I bought one when I was just starting out because I was under the impression that it was a necessity, but I've really never used it or any other hardware MIDI controller and I'm doing just fine (worth noting that I don't have piano chops anyway though, haha). If you're trying to save money, I'd say don't bother getting one yet and put that money toward improving your orchestral arsenal, if that's what you want. It's just another luxury.

Super excited. That Alucard Sword effect at 1:20 has me all kinds of hyped

I agree you can get plenty far for much cheaper. Miroslav is a great starting point and SUPER affordable. If you're looking for something more high end but still affordable, Adagietto, while not "over-priced garbage", is from 8Dio and is on sale right now for $118. It's got everything you need to get you going as far as strings - all instruments, sections and ensemble patches, any articulation you'd need (including nice legato patches), mod support on sustains/legatos. I also (foolishly) bought Albion years ago, and Adagietto pretty much eclipses it in every regard except for the spiccato articulations. Unless you also need to buy the full version of Kontakt, $700 is way more than I think you need to get going (which is hopefully good news!). Watch for sales! I always keep my eye on: Native-Instruments - they've had sponsored bundle sales of third party instruments, which has landed me some incredible deals Embertone - great solo instruments and prices, once you get to a point where you have a need Soundiron - they've got sales pretty frequently Ilya-Efimov - excellent ethnic winds and oddball instruments Strezov Sampling - while I don't own any of their instruments yet, they've got some affordable brass libraries that sound really great As blunt as MX is and as sour as I find almost every post of his I've read, I have a hard time disagreeing with most of his sentiments. I started with a pretty bare setup. I used the Kontakt's free factory library with Kontakt Player (also free) for my first game soundtrack years ago, and it worked out fine because I put in the time to figure out HOW to make it work fine. I think good MIDI composition is much more about creative processing and knowing how to use what you have than it is about what you actually have. Hopefully that's more encouraging than not haha. Good luck!