AngelCityOutlaw

I would say that really depends on the game. Yeah, this might be a can of worms, but whatever: IMO, 90% of video game soundtracks are not as inseparable from the pictures in the way that movie scores are. That's because music in games often serves a different purpose: To signal something to the player or background beats. The melody of Green Hill Zone pretty much lets you know you're playing Sonic at this point, those blaring trumpets in Zelda let you know you found a new item, Guile's theme is just really catchy and you know it's his stage, the music in Castlevania is just really badass and fits the gothic theme. But in all of these cases, the composers could've just as easily come up with something completely different that would "vibe" with the game just the same. You could literally swap the soundtracks from the original NES Castlevania out with the Rondo of Blood OST or even that hard rock album that Naoto Shibata put out in the mid 90s and especially for someone who didn't play the games and has no nostalgia for the soundtracks, I guarantee you the substituted soundtrack would be completely appropriate. In film and cinematic video games, the score is very much emotional support to the picture. The perfect score can lift a scene to such a level that you just can't imagine it being any other way. The opposite is also true in that a bad score can utterly ruin it. and Star Wars is a perfect example. I STILL get chills every time I see the binary sunset scene in A New Hope with the force theme, with that particular orchestration, rising up in exactly that moment.

There's no cowbell. EDIT: Actually, there might be in that one fill

Indeed! In a double-time feel, the note values are halved, giving the impression of a doubled tempo. If you set your metronome to 130 over Escape From The City, you'll hear that the snare hits are on the off-beats, four per measure. So instead of the snare stressing, 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & it's stressing 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & Also, say your guitar riff's rhythm is a steady string of 8th notes at 200. You will get the same effect if you play the riff at 100 BPM, but all sixteenth notes. Sounds to me like the Crush 40 song probably was recorded at 130, but with a double-time feel. Many find it easier to follow the click at that pace.

Out of sheer curiosity: How old are you? Because the stuff you're saying here sounds like things I'd have said when I was a teenage, metal supremacist. No you don't lol City Escape is played at 130 BPM double-time. That is the equivalent of 8th notes at 260 BPM. If you don't believe me, put a metronome over it at 130 and then at 260. In this thread you have claimed: • The song's are slow, which we can objectively prove most of them are not. • You have claimed that the melodies are not memorable. But again, the songs are extremely popular. So they just might not be memorable to YOU • Stated that Crush 40's songs are just slow strumming of chords...which again, is objectively false as evidenced by songs like Open Your Heart, Live and Learn, and just about all the others. So you don't know what you're talking about. You just don't like the songs and rather than just accept that and move on, you're trying to "prove" that you're somehow right. You don't need to justify it; just say you don't like it.

I disagreed with your claim that the guitars are low-quality (thought I don't think they're amazing) and I spoke of distortion as an example. I also said the exact opposite; less distortion equates to a more dynamic guitar tone. The overtones become increasingly prominent and the guitar's sound more homogenized and compressed as distortion increases. You can try it on your own guitar if you have one; crank up the gain on either amp or pedal to max or close to it and you will hear that the guitar loses dynamics and if you look at it as a waveform, you'll see it looks greatly compressed compared to a clean, strong DI signal. So saying the guitars are more bland from less distortion is literally at odds with physics. What would you considering an "exciting" melody? You're welcome to this opinion of course, but again: The Sonic Adventure vocal tracks are among the most popular and recognized in video games. I don't even think as many people would be familiar with Guilty Gear's vocal tracks. This is why I have great difficulty believing you. Most of the SA tracks ARE fast. It seems that you consider anything below the steady stream of power/thrash metal sixteenth note rows to be "slow". ...right

They are no more repetitive than any song typical of the genre and less repetetive than normal even by VGM standards. As I recall, many of them are also cutdown edits of the arrangements on the Crush 40 albums. I'm sorry, I know this is a bit subjective, but these are among the worst examples you could have picked if you're talking great guitar sounds. The bulk of both bands work consists of excessively-distorted, thin-sounding, scooped guitars. No doubt Kai Hansen and Dave Mustaine are fantastic guitar players, but the production quality of MOST metal bands has never been stellar. Also, solos have nothing to do with whether or not a piece of music is good. I'd consider something like this to be a "quality" guitar tone. Lead: Rhythm, hate on their music all you want, they have phenomenal production. Probably the best out of all the big rock bands today. Both examples, as far as guitars go, are not using much distortion and let the amp's natural breakup do the work. You can hear, especially in the Kenny Wayne song, how the guitar's distortion fluctuates as they pick harder or softer. Dynamics. So if you're criticizing Jun's guitars in Crush 40, I'd definitely look to better examples than Gamma Ray Again, this makes me think you've not actually listened to the band's songs in full or really paid attention to the pop-rock soundtracks on Sonic at all. You'd be hard pressed to find too many video game fans who CAN'T sing you Live and Learn, City Escape, etc. end to end. Look, it's fine you don't like the soundtracks, but you're making some pretty ridiculous arguments here.

My god people, it's CRUSH 40.

It is always best, in my experience, to leave as much room as possible on the HDD with the operating system on it to the task of running the OS. So even if it isn't samples, it's still worth it. That being said, you just install the samples/vsts to the drive like you would just as if you were installing it to the internal HDD. Obviously, to use them, you'll need to have the drive plugged and have your DAW select that path. If it's for samples, a USB3 or whatever the Mac Equivalent is (Thunderbolt?) SSD is absolutely the best choice. I don't know how I ever lived without an SSD.

Well, I'm saying since his last departure.

I once PM'd Nekofrog asking an innocent question about his guitars on a Xenogears remix and he just blocked me. Guy has ego issues and they trust him with weapons in the US military... also Liontamer was wrong — Neko never returned.

With the recent death of Stephen Hawking, the SpaceX launch, the return of "Lost In Space" etc, now seemed as good a time as ever to try composing a retro Sci-Fi TV show opening. =D

In my opinion, and the opinion of many game designers I know as well surprisingly, AR and VR are more likely to find their homes in construction, police, military, medical, etc. fields than they are in video games. Tech wise, I don't think it's still a thing of the future (excluding Sci-Fi level advancements), but I just don't think it's found its best fit yet. I don't want to be in the game or have the game be in my living room. It's fine where it's at: The TV screen or Computer monitor.

Scoring Guitars 2 came out today, and while I generally detest libraries like this, it was cheap and flexible enough that it could be suitable for some background stuff in small doses. None the less, I made a Spy sort of theme with it, some drums and other stuff. I had this piano melody, but I decided I liked it better as more of an atmospheric track.

My Uncle was actually a firechief and his sons were firefighters, so I have some knowledge of it. In my opinion, and this just being honest (that's what you want right?) It doesn't sound like you're the type of person with the mentality for that job. First off, I wouldn't want someone whose primary motivation for the job is a "Kushy schedule" when people's lives are at stake. Secondly, are you certain that you are physically capable for the job? I hate to make assumptions, but generally people working long hours in chairs at any sort of call center and a relaxed schedule (which from my knowledge, firefighters don't actually have) is not typically the mark of someone who gets up and runs a mile every day at 5 am. Are you able to sprint for a long period of time? Are you able to lift a grown man or woman with minimal effort? Etc? Could you pass their tests? and from what my family told me, the tests (which vary by location) are usually a joke compared to what the job actually demands. Further, and I know that you hear crazy shit as a dispatcher, but actually dealing with the situation in person is dramatically different: Are you going to be able to remain calm when it's you who has to pull the bodies out of the building? Seeing children who are suffering smoke inhalation and might even have horrific injuries? Car accidents leaving people mangled or dead? Are you prepared to die saving a stranger? The list goes on But in my opinion, if the answer to any of those questions is "no" — then it's not the job for you. So for you and the sake of your community, I hope that you really take a good look within before deciding to pursue this further.

Achievement Unlocked

An excellent point. Reminds me of reading steam reviews for the Witcher 3, and there was one comment from a person who had a ton of hours poured into it who said "This game is great, you can do all the things you can't do in real life: Like casting spells or talking to girls." Of course, most marked that as funny, but I suspect it's not entirely in jest. I mean, there was that one guy about 10 years ago actually who married the chick in his Nintendo DS dating sim! Though I heard that relationship ended in divorce and she took half his shit. But seriously, when I worked at a game store back when, I definitely met socially awkward "incel" type guys in their 20s who definitely filled that void with anime girls to the point of pure cringe. I still hear horror stories, like apparently this one guy who was a regular customer has his debit card decked out in half-naked anime girls (with no shame) and apparently his room at his parents house is wallpapered from floor to ceiling with the same kind of imagery. and then there's the whole sex robot takeover people are worried about. Some people definitely let fantasy takeover where reality is lacking and because games put you in the driver's seat, it makes sense it would be easy to get pulled in too deep.

My first track with my recent purchase of Ancient Era: Persia. Money well spent.

This is something I've actually been putting a bit of thought into in recent months; just regarding music in general. I don't think Twitch would be a good option given its niche, but there definitely needs to be a video or music streaming service that makes it possible for people to actually have their stuff heard. Soundcloud USED to be the best, but ever since they removed groups (for SOME fucking reason) it's easily just as tough as getting anything out there on YouTube, which used to be "by creators" and is now "bye creators".

When I worked in a game store, I had a colleague who said the same thing about games being like work and I agree. To use Total War as an example again, I tried getting into Rome II as well, but they got rid of the "short campaign" AND added in each turn being 1 of 4 seasons instead of only 2, multiple victory conditions AND each victory condition has multiple requirements within itself. You can't just conquer 15 cities and destroy two factions and call it a day anymore; it must be at least 4-6x as long as the full campaign in Rome 1. I just googled, and most people report putting in between 50 and 100 hours into one campaign... Too much work indeed. No way I'm spending that kind of time in front of a screen and not getting paid for it. I have about 40 steam games, most purchased for dirt cheap on sale and I've probably played about half that. You think "what a deal!" at the time, but if you're not playing them, it's money wasted. Sounds like a good solution. That's the thing about "open-world" games: they're probably the worst for being a time sink. I've heard people complain that games like Prince of Persia, Tomb Raider, Uncharted, etc. are "too short", but I find them just right. I've played through 2008 PoP twice on PC and it totaled 13 hours; same deal with TR and Uncharted. That's also been my counter when people rip on people on ripping on games for being a "waste of time" because "everyone who says games are a waste of time will spend hours watching Netflix or something". For comparison, most serialized TV dramas like GoT, Rome, Battlestar Galactica, Spartacus, etc. are 40 minutes. So 120 minutes is 3 episodes and a quarter of a season. Many, even most, video games 120 minutes might see you past the tutorial levels, and I don't care what anyone says — video game plots still suck and aren't anywhere near as good or intellectually stimulating as even some of the most mindless movies and TV. Plus, watching Game of Thrones winds up being a bit more of a social activity in the sense that so many other people you know will watch it too, it gives you some common ground to talk about with a lot of work colleagues, etc.

Sorry, I double checked and was over-estimating it. He has 1,115 hours and guess that's in like 3 - 4 months. That's still insane, all the same. That's over a month of your life just into a game.

Just randomly saw this video on YouTube, and felt compelled to talk about it I've mostly cut games out of my life, expect for the odd binge every now and then. Over the last couple, 3 months I've been playing Rome Total War and it's become my most played game on Steam now...at 30 hours. I feel ashamed of that, but that's absolutely nothing compared to many people. One of my friends, he's married with a kid and has sunk over 2000 hours into one game in less than a year, yet can't understand why his wife is pissed at him! For me, putting hundreds, let alone thousands of hours into a game is unthinkable as an adult; shit, I don't know that I ever pulled that off as a kid and as a teenager, I never played games for most of those years as I was too obsessed with music and playing guitar. Curious to hear your thoughts on the whole subject.

One thing that helps me, is the idea that TV composer Ron Jones talks about: Limiting yourself to "the main thing" and "the other thing" with the "other thing" being optional. If you just limit yourself to focusing on something like writing the melodies for the entire piece before doing ANYTHING else, all that's left is to harmonize it, add percussion, etc. It's why a lot of composers still start from just a piano sketch; no distractions or VSTs or anything like that to play around with.

Strategy game type theme I wrote as I've been playing a lot of Rome: Total War lately

Personally, I'd say you're completely off the mark in terms of his usual style. I know you said "similar" and not the same, but this track definitely sounds like 80s thrash metal. Mick's stuff is basically a fusion of 90s post-grunge (with a smidge of "djent") in terms of guitars, so bands like Pantera, Korn, Nickelback, Meshuggah, Motley Crue's 1994 album, etc. all nail that sound. but his drums aren't standard kit drums about 90% of the time. It's mostly cinematic, sound-design based stuff. He claims it's his own stuff, and I'm not calling him a liar...but it all sounds suspiciously like heavyocity's damage. Basically this Plus this Equals this kinda rhythm section. A minor exception is the DOOM score, which is basically down-tuned thrash metal with cinematic and electronica elements.