AngelCityOutlaw

I'd say you're having trouble because most of those tunes are really difficult to categorize into a genre. Most RPG town themes never fall into one category of music. Most commonly though, it's just a more relaxing piece of music that is either a lullaby or ambient tune. Like, in most of the examples so far, it is basically a string instrument (or something emulating one) playing a progression of arpeggios and a melody. Wind instruments, a music box or another string instrument usually carries the melody. There is usually not much in the way of percussion either. It's all pretty minimalist. As for harmony, just use a lot of extended chords etc. in either a major or minor key. Lots of 7ths, 9ths and Sus chords for example.

What Tim said, basically. Though at a certain point, you may need better samples than whatever you're using. Lower end libraries etc. tend to not have much in the way of articulations and you can only simulate so much through other means. The mixing will not make it sound more "real". It'll just give you a better mix of fake sounding instruments! Also, respect for the Avatar avatar and name.

I was playing around with some more retro sounds and the result was another oldschool tune that sounds like it could be from the era when fighting games had music that was just a funk guitar away from a porn soundtrack! Complete with cheesy orchestra hits! https://soundcloud.com/angelcityoutlaw/quarter-circle-forward-punch

I'm not saying that women don't have a different vocal tone from men or that classification is never necessary, I'm saying the media, critics etc. fixation on it is unnecessary in the context they use the term. Like, why was it at all necessary in that blabbermouth article to begin with "Finnish female-fronted metallers..."? Like, they actually could have saved themselves time by not typing that because the fact that the band has a female singer had absolutely no relevance to the article at all. As I've stated before, I haven't been able to find articles by similar media that begin with "Female-fronted country/pop group Lady Antebellum"... This isn't like tagging your YouTube video, SoundCloud or a list on Wikipedia where if someone is in just such dire need to hear a woman sing metal or rock music they will now have a term they can punch in and get a list of bands. That is exactly what I'm going to tell you lol. Her vocal performance IS unique yes, but it's unique to her. Sure, listening you can tell it's a woman singing, but her performance is going to sound different from even what another woman would do. Also, her style is not at all unique as far as the genre goes. Maria Brink literally does everything from metalcore style screaming, operatic clean and 90s sounding Nu Metal half-rap vocals like what she does in that song - which is also my least favorite In This Moment song Here are what I feel some better examples to demonstrate my point. She sounds more manly than Dio. Now for some classic rock You mean to tell me that those women all sound so different from the men who sang the originals that there is good reason for magazines and stuff to make a point of calling them "female-fronted" anytime the band is the subject of an article, even when the article has nothing to do with the topic of women in metal specifically? You know, Sam Phillips once said this about Elvis Presley: "If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.'" At the start of his career, many assumed Elvis to be black because of his accent, especially when he was on air on Dewey Phillips' radio show in '54. If I'm understanding this correctly, you're against racially categorizing genres of music because you seem to feel that accents or tone ("diversity of voice", which you feel should be celebrated) which, depending on where you're from, some might associate with a particular race or ethnic group is an unnecessary distinction to make. However, you're for "celebrating the diversity of voice" so long as it's about women?

I'm arguing that "female-fronted metal" probably is sexist because despite the fact that women can and do sing in all the same vocal styles as men do in the genre and there are plenty of women singing or otherwise playing in metal bands, the media still (as exemplified by the articles I shared that you admitted you did not read) makes a point of saying "this band has a girl singing, you guys" usually right in the first sentence while other genres of music traditionally seen as "male" genres do not get the same treatment. I agree, because what race the person singing or playing is tells you nothing about the music - just like how a person's sex tells you nothing about the music or style.

Do they really, though? Which bands specifically chose a female singer because of a different sound and image it would give their band? I mean, I don't doubt that this is a thing that's happened, but I can't think of any band that actually did this. Like, Tarja was in Nightwish because she and Erno were friends on account of having the same music teacher. Amaranthe has Elize because she was friends with Jake and Olof years before. In This Moment has Maria Brink as singer because she is a founding member who met Chris through mutual friends. Most of the most famous metal bands with a female singer didn't actually chose her for any other reason than fate as far as I can tell. I recall back when Gossow joined the band it was a big deal that they had a girl in their band as the death metal growler/screamer, but I don't remember the band themselves making a big deal out of it - the media did. Also, Angela was one of the only women doing death growls at the time in a band signed to a label giving their music international distribution and touring. So, I would agree that having a woman fronting your death metal band while headlining tours back in the early 2000s worked to Arch Enemy's favor, was it really something the band exploited, or was it their label, agents and the press? I don't think this is at all an equivalent comparison. How is this marketing exactly? Black Metal is a legit genre of music for composition and production reasons and the lyrics and image are a part of the genre. Sure, maybe its shock-value works in marketing, but I still don't see how this is at all the same.

Definitely. Lita came to prominence from playing in The Runaways and when I first heard Kiss Me Deadly via my mother's cassette tapes at a young age, mom told me about how Lita, along with Doro was a "girl rocker" and that's what made her stand out at the time. If you look up the IMDB entry on The Runaways movie or even the wikipedia page about the band, "all-girl rock band" is in the very first sentence every time. Now, it's important to remember Lita, Doro and a handful of other women are likely going to get the "female rocker" or whatever label with greater relevance because they were the first celebrity women in the genre. This is more about how the label is or should be meaningless now. Ironically, Blabbermouth themselves also posted this recent article about Battle Beast. Literally the first fucking words of the article lol This type of branding is not a common occurrence in other genres. Consider that The Runaways being a famous all-girl rock band even has its Wikipedia page starting with "The Runaways were an all-female..." but Salt N Pepa, one of the first all-female hip-hop groups does not mention the fact that they were one of the first until much later in the first paragraph. Here is an article from Bloody-Disgusting from 2 years back about In This Moment Once again, first words in the article. Looking up Shania Twain or Reba, I don't see them anywhere say "female country singer Shania Twain" or whatever. Also, if you go on YouTube and search something to the effect of "girl guitarist" you will find a shitload of videos of "best girl guitarists" or something like that and almost all of these women are playing rock and metal genres. To top it off, anytime I've ever tried to form a metal band (had a girl as the lead singer most recently) I always got at least one woman responding to my ad asking "are you okay with girls in the band?" I know western society is now this increasingly "politically correct" where the Dukes of Hazzard are apparently evil and racist and need to be censored from TV now and people blow stuff way out of proportion, but the more I think about it, the more I think there is a legit issue here.

You can set up a six string to reach that low or get a baritone though

In recent times, there has been a fair bit of controversy surrounding the label of "female-fronted" metal bands ever since Floor Jansen did this interview a few months ago. Today, I read this new interview with the group "Amaranthe". I really like this interview because there is a whole section where Elize, Jake and Olof share their take on the title. Personally, I've got to agree with Floor, Olof and Jake on this subject. I don't think the title of "female-fronted" is relevant anymore since there are a myriad of different metal sub-genres and bands with female singers now. Like, I could give you a massive list off the top of my head of bands fronted by women that all sound completely different. In the comments section of one of the sites that posted the Floor Jansen interview, I saw the argument repeatedly made that "women sound different from men, so the label is justified because it tells you that it's a woman singing" which I personally believe is the most profoundly stupid argument anyone could make regarding the subject since A) It doesn't matter and B men sound different from other men just as women sound different from other women. It's as ridiculous as calling metal "7-string metal" because the guitarists use 7-string guitars and they "totally sound different from six strings, bruh!!" As a side note, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the discussion between the members of Amaranthe on the subject of sexualized female singers in metal and I completely agree. So what do you all think? Should the title of "Female-fronted" be dropped entirely or nah?

You'd have to get through the legions of trolls saying "That was totally me!" though

I think it mostly comes down to this

Exactly. His presence is still made known even if he's not here. It's not about not wanting to come back, it's about no one hearing anything from him at all for nigh a decade. As pointed out a couple posts back, this person hadn't shared a picture or anything so if they wanted to completely vanish, they could do so. but I'd be more willing to bet on that if this person wasn't a popular, active and contributing member to the community who just suddenly dropped off the face of the Earth. Like, if I'm understanding this scenario right, it wasn't like he just became less and less active over time and no dissatisfaction for the community was expressed. It was just a full-stop - which again, for a person like that in any sort of community is weird and suggests more than simply "meh, I'm bored with this now". It's possible that he just had enough and quit cold-turkey, but I personally doubt it. We will (probably) never know. It's one of the great mysteries. Like, where is Amelia Earhart's plane? Why does every superhero have a red-headed girlfriend? Or, just how do they get the caramilk in those damn chocolate bars?

Except that they've flat-out vanished from the internet altogether it seems without any sign of return for nearly 10 years. That's a long time. Hell, the second-coming of Nekofrog will probably happen before you ever see this graylighting again. From what I gather, this person was in pretty good standing with this community and if everyone else is to be believed, seemed like he/she liked it here as well. They had AIM conversations, lots of collabs and remixes...the whole bit. They had friends. Then, without any real warning other than "I'm moving to work at a studio", with the story changing slightly with everyone he/she told - vanished. Gone. No one can find the person with his/her alleged IRL name on any form of social media or anything after almost ten years. I'd say that removes all doubt that it was an internet persona - hell, when I first got Facebook way back, lots of people I knew didn't use their real names - some still don't. With the justifiable paranoia some have with attaching much of their personal lives and info to the internet, it's really not unrealistic to say that this person died as they haven't resurfaced or contacted anyone after all these years and they didn't seem to have reason to want to cut all ties with the community forever. Like, if you were to leave here right now for whatever reason other than dying, what are the odds that no one you've met here would ever hear from you again? Pretty slim I think.

So this was obviously well before my time, but it really does sound like it was an internet persona and the person behind it died.

I just can't believe this...anyone who ever watched a movie and said "I want to write film music" or even TV and game scores, at some point they heard this man's music and it inspired them to compose. http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6605686/james-horner-film-composer-for-titanic-and-braveheart-dies-in-plane-crash

Congrats!

Damn, KH is like the Macbeth of video games.

Old man Xehanort was Leonard Nimoy and Old Eraqus was Mark Hamill I swear if Hamill dies on us too....

Because the first day of December 2016 will be a Thursday, just like in the calendar behind Eraqus. It's probably just coincidence or something to troll the fans, is my bet.

Worked for me when I played it backwards.

Here's my attempt at a "Drum N' Bass" style 30 second tune composed and mixed with the volume off. I just used a preset slidey-synth lead I made with Sylenth a while back, a sine wave for the bass and a supersaw for the chords. Drums are just a random loop I had sitting in a lonely folder somewhere. A flanger on the lead as well and cutoff filter intro always sounds cool. https://app.box.com/s/mtjtbfecd9q3wjwjccag1it07kpk52zx Prepare yourself for suckage, but to be fair that's the same line I use on music I made when actually listening to it.

Bad comparison imo. You can't really compare films against games in this context because the primary goal of film is to tell a story where as a game's primary goal is to...well, be a game. Even in story heavy games, they still primarily operate as a game. The remakes of Psycho and Rear Window were unnecessary because those films were never about special effects or any of that. They're already classic horror/mystery films with great scripts and now classic performances by Anthony Perkins etc. Actually, most in the film world consider special effects superficial and remaking a film because of that in its entirety would be a waste of money. Like, Disney no doubt they still have the pre-cgi material from Curse of The Black Pearl. I'm sure if they really wanted to, they could modernize all the CGI in the film - but since the script, acting and characters are already great - there would be no point in remaking Pirates. FFVII, being a game though...the tech has advanced so much since 97 that there are all kinds of neat gameplay mechanics that you can add, upgrading the soundtrack's production, give the character's voices etc. Might as well give it a graphics upgrade while you're at it. It's worth it and will probably be worth doing multiple times. Like, 20 years from now, they could remake Uncharted using all of the voice-overs and just upgrade the game mechanics and maybe add VR or something. That kinda thing is justified. TL;DR. Remaking a game is vastly different from remaking a film as the two mediums serve different purposes.

Yeah that was awesome. I hope they recorded a crap-ton of dialogue for her though, because a potential problem could easily be her repeating herself a lot and that gets annoying quickly. This game could also be fun co-op - I kinda hope that makes its way into this game.

I agree with the user BlackmanFord's comment on that article. "At some point Greedo will shoot first and purists will rampage."