AngelCityOutlaw

Nah, I've worked on some tunes from like, the time I wake up till the time I go to sleep. You'd think with that kinda time invested, my music would suck less. If you're feeling depressed about it, it may be an un-diagnosed case of "masterpieceitis". A condition where you feel like every piece must be the greatest thing you've ever done. A condition which is only remedied in two ways. A) Giving zero shits. Actually making it the best thing you've ever done. Just keep in mind that B is relative.

I tried (failed) to compose something that sounds like something out of Prince of Persia, Uncharted or the mummy. https://soundcloud.com/angelcityoutlaw/back-to-babylon Anyway, see what you think. It's only about 2 minutes long, but criticize what is there if you wish.

To avoid the news and keeping up with current events as much as possible. The world only gets worse with each passing year and the less I have to hear about it among the noise of liberals and conservatives fighting about it, the better.

Good to see the woodwinds gettin' some love! I was talking to a friend of mine just the other day about orchestral music and he's like "Nobody cares about woodwinds anymore". At least we know Archangel still does. Great work!

So I finally got around to watching the remainder of book 4 and my god....I loved the series - it was fun. But the ending sucked miserably and the motivation of the villain was stupid as was a problem in all but book 3. I love the series but....just some things I can't get over. Breakdown rant/thoughts on each season. 1: Amon was a fantastic villain. Up until they gave him a ridiculous backstory. Basically "I hate my father who just wants me to be a tool of revenge!" So you ran away to republic city and....did what he wanted anyway? You also didn't realize Tarrlok was your own damn brother!? You didn't realize this councilman was your own brother despite having the same name, clearly being of water-tribe origin and you seemed like a guy who knew what was going on politically in republic city. What!? The idea that he was an angry non-bender whose family was murdered by a fire-bender was an infinitely more interesting and convincing story. 2. By far the weakest of the series and the only really good thing to come of it was Varrick, who was easily the most entertaining character of the series. Unalaq...dude wtf? I get that the theme here is religious fundamentalism and he felt like bringing the human and spirit worlds together was the thing that needed to happen, but I still don't get his reasons for merging with a spirit he full well knew was evil. He really came across as one of those "I'm evil for the sake of being nefariously evil" type of cookie-cutter villains rather than "I'm just misunderstood, but my cause is just and whether or not it's bad depends on your perspective". After Korra defeats him...she sticks with the genius idea of leaving the spirit portals open (like her uncle wanted) which does nothing but cause massive problems for humanity for the remainder of the series which could have been avoided if she would've just closed the damn portals. Don't get me started on the utter nonsense that was the final showdown of book 2 either, I still don't get just wtf happened there. 3. Easily the absolute best of the series. Immaculate work all around. It is also the only book in which the villain's motivation is clear and somewhat logically sound. Zaheer hates the fact that people have to live under authority and wants them to be free of that. In short, anarchy. He sticks with this belief throughout the series. The pacing here was perfect, the character development of Korra and Bolin was great as was the relationship strengthening between Lin and Su. Not to mention it was much more intense than any of the other seasons and touched on seriously dark subject matter. It also utilized bending in logical ways that the Avatar series previously neglected. Like, holy crap, we FINALLY realized that airbending could be used to kill a person by removing the air from their lungs etc. All around, epic season and the way the whole series should have been. 4. Much like 1 and 2, starts out strong and just botches the landing toward the end. Not to mention the pacing was utter garbage once again. We spend literally half the season on the Avatar getting her mojo back, Toph shows up just for the sake of having Toph and we never get anything close to a clear resolution on what was up with the evil Korra spirit. First it's implied it's all in her head, but the spirit dog acknowledges its existence. After that, it's never explained as just what it was. A reflection of Kuvira in Korra? Maybe, but was it a separate entity, in Korra's mind or just...just what the hell was going on here? Kuvira's motivation was terrible as well. "I'm an orphan and mad that I don't get the love and attention I want, plus I hate monarchy so I'm going to form an empire with concentration camps and take over everything!" Yeah...that makes a ton of sense. Also, the ending with Korra and Asami is the hot topic of debate and I'm personally not convinced that it was anything else than caving to the shippers. You know who would've been better for her to wind up with in the end? How about nobody? How about, she remains this super strong, "I walk to my own beat" independent badass that she was supposed to be? Not to mention that Korrasami becoming official just generates controversy to distract that the villain's motivation was totally stupid, a spirit portal was opened because reasons and Wu decides not to be King anymore. So here is the punchline to the series. Wu decides not to be king and instead form a democracy, because that's as we all know "better" inherently. Yeah, way to spit in the face of "there can be no utopia", it's only the theme of the whole damn series. Also, what's your plan, Wu? Just walk into what is still the Earth Empire which is logically under the rule of someone to take Kuvira's place and the large remnants of the empire are still in control and no doubt at war with rebel factions still and say "Wait guys, no. We're gonna be a republic now!" Way to keep feeding the war machine. Where is the Avatar to prevent all of this you ask? Why, the same place the plot went - taking a vacation in spirit land with her new girlfriend while shippers argue on the internet about who is or isn't homophobic based on their thoughts on Korra being paired with Asami. The Earth Empire remains in power with rebels still scattered about and boy-king has the genius idea to overthrow it and install democracy. It's complete anarchy and discord and the red lotus is still out there. Zaheer has won.

Apparently, they're considering Star Wars and Marvel worlds. Not at all a surprise. While I love me some Star Wars and Marvel...please no. Pleeeeaaase no!? I'm probably the only one who doesn't want to fight hordes of Storm Troopers with Donald, Goofy and Haley Joel Osment or beat the shit out of Dr. Doom with an oversized key. Too many ingredients.

I bought it for the sake of seeing how realistic I could sequence a guitar since I am a guitarist. Strange purchase, I know. I'd say that in a rock/metal rhythm playing context, it's actually fairly easy to get something that sounds pretty damn convincing without a ton of work. A lot of it, in my opinion, has to do with the fact that there is a lot of finger noise and all those subtle details in with the samples. Also, with that style, as long as you trigger the keyswitches where you would logically palm-mute, hammer-on, slide etc. it should sound good. Plus, since rock music uses a lot of distortion, differences in velocity aren't as noticeable so you don't have to worry so much about when to play loud or quiet since it's pretty much always loud. EDIT: Also, the double tracking feature works great in Shreddage II, which is a necessity for that kind of rhythm. However, I find that sequencing any sort of playing style beyond that is pretty damn hard.

They should just call this "Anime Cliches: The Road Trip" Still looks pretty cool. I'm all for the idea of action-rpg as long as it's not like XIII where you just give your team mates a vague idea of what to do while mashing the x button repeatedly.

Welcome to OCR! The best online music, video game and video game music community in the history of the known universe. Some would say that's my opinion, but I like to think it's fact. Anyway, I'm lovin' this piece. I'd definitely say you've got the oldschool JRPG town theme style down. Love the guitar, lots of dynamics and percussive elements really gel together nicely.

Theories? Frozen. So much Frozen will be in III I've been playing the HD Remix of 2.5. Currently playing through birth by sleep and I'd actually say it's my favorite of the KH games I've played. Beat Aqua's story, now halfway through Terra's.

Hey man, dat fakey brass was the sound of my childhood

I always think that they must have a real bitch of a time listening to rock music then.

Sup? I composed a short tune that emulates the style of Street Fighter II and other CPS2 games. Tell me what you think! I know the mixing and all that is crap, but I think at least the song is decent.

Feel like I'm the only one whose favorite was the Alpha series.

In my experience most good musicians and composers who say they don't know music theory actually do. It's just that they don't know the names and stuff, but they still definitely understand the concepts. Like, I surely can't be the only one who discovered as a child that all of the black keys on the piano sounded good together without knowing why at the time? I recall being like 16 and a friend of mine was like, "Dude, it sounds more metal when I play like this" and all of his riffs he was coming up with were playing around with the bottom open string, first, third and fourth frets. He didn't know it was the Phrygian mode, but he knew it was something that worked and how to transpose it to other keys. So the thing is, you can noodle around without knowing what you're really doing, but you'll eventually discover patterns and ideas that work consistently and allow you to keep composing original material utilizing the same concept(s). All of which can be explained by theory and is why I still think that if people just learned that shit outright they would be composing better music faster.

Hate to join in on the theory shitstorm, but... I disagree. The most useful application of ear training is essentially figuring out existing works, but not particularly useful in the actual creation of music. Esperado is a remixer/composer and if I recall correctly the OP was asking about how to go about bettering their sense of pitch so that it will be easier to transcribe tracks to re-arrange and re-compose? Yeah, theory is an analytical tool, but what people often forget about that is that theory came about because composers discovered patterns - a method to the madness that sounded good and allowed them to more easily compose the kinds of music they wanted. Theory is the mechanics of music and how it works. There is enough evidence to suggest at this point that it's not all just "subjective" given the fact that many cultures discovered the same scales, harmony etc. across vast distances and applied it in much the same way. Surely, the more that you understand about how music works, not only do you have a better understanding of music in general, but a better understanding of what you're doing and why it sounds the way it does, because music is as scientific and mathematical as it is artistic.

So yeah, basically know your scales and modes and just practice when it comes to ear training.

Well, the thing about theory is that not everything about it is essential knowledge to composition or whatever. It depends on the context. Like, knowing the difference between chord tones and non-chord tones is useful, but knowing the individual non-chord tone names isn't. Knowing the basic triads you can form off the scale is important, knowing the names of every possible extension and alteration...not so much. It's like reading music. If you were a copyist or orchestrator that is massively important knowledge, but for the purpose of composing and performing in the context of popular music it's pointless for most people. That being said, it's not rocket science to learn these things...and you never know when it will come in handy. As for ear training, honestly, the only real way to get better at it is to simply do it. As long as you have a basic understanding of the major and minor scale and how the modes you get from them sound on their own, it's simply a matter of practice.

Jin Kazama's theme from Tekken 3 on guitar.

You have no idea how excited I am for this game! I got the gold edition of it pre-ordered and I'll finally get to play it with some friends tomorrow. Exceptional music! Very well done.

The dynamics of the melody are one thing to consider. The thing about guitars and pianos and why composers have historically favored them for composing is that they can easily play just about any basic articulation. Legato, staccato, etc. and be translated to another instrument. Often, especially with orchestral stuff, I start by playing the melody on just guitar or piano and then see what instrument(s) would be most suitable given the dynamics and range of the phrase. Like Tim said, frequency content. As awesome as that bass or whatever you have might sound by itself, it might not mix so well with whatever is playing lead at the time and sometimes EQing doesn't cut it and your best off to just choose a different instrument.

Killer tune as always.

Zombie thread. Anyway, I still like it for the same reasons as before. It sounds cool, it's fun to listen to and make, and it's an art I don't totally suck at. Well, okay. That's a lie. I do totally suck, but I can make better melodies than I can draw stick people soooo...

I'm a lifelong fan of this franchise, but I've gotta say....it's gonna take a lot to get me to buy another SF game at this point. I wish I could say I'm excited, but honestly the game needs to evolve as do all of the major fighting games. It needs to be more than just a fighting game - it's been more or less the exact same for 20 years. I poured hundreds of hours into SFIV since it came out and from what little gameplay this trailer shows, and the series so far, there is little doubt it will be hardly any different from SFIV and that is not enough anymore for Capcom to get my money. I know I'm not alone at all in this thinking. Hell, Maximilian even made a similar statement in a recent video on his YouTube channel. So I hope it turns out great, but currently sitting at a "meh" for me.

I'll try to get my first WIP to you before Christmas! If not, definitely in the first couple weeks of January.