AngelCityOutlaw   Members

Sweet. Hey Alex, I just remembered we did Forze Del Male a few years ago, but a short version for Dwelling of Duels...
 
Maybe we should expand on that?

There was definitely profit.
 

I know I missed the deadline here, but I will have the update to you tomorrow night if possible - If not, Sunday. I kinda realized that the key change was throwing epic/seductive vibe off - so I'm re-doing that part with original composition. So it should be like 60/40 source : original

Oh hell yes! I just recently played through the first game again and I was planning on doing a remix of at least one tune from the game after I finish this Fire Emblem remix. Maybe I'll hold onto that KH remix for when/if this becomes a thing.
 
It should totally be a thing.

What you've described sounds exactly like it's "dying". What else is substantially decreased activity because there are "better" alternatives and a shift in public interest supposed to mean? It's like saying "Sure, people don't really go to video stores anymore, but that doesn't mean they're dying. There are still some left, but with a smaller customer base. Most people just prefer Netflix now, is all."
 
Nothing that's "dead" ever truly goes away most of the time as far as technology is concerned. When I worked for a movie company, brand new movies we'd get were often sent directly from Dreamworks or whatever on VHS. So VHS still around...but it's definitely a dead format.

I think it's a symptom of a larger problem.
 
OCR seems super dead in general compared to when I first came here a few years back. I don't know, it just seemed like this place was really happening around 2011-13. Now, the top threads in almost any part of the forum remain unchanged for days and some of those threads don't see a new post for quite some time. It's like everyone is either not here, or just lurking.
 
I'll admit that I don't really listen to a lot of the new mixposts, but that's due to my decreased interest in game remixes. I don't venture too far from the production and community forums these days, but I notice even in the workshop, it's not uncommon now for mixes to get over a hundred views but absolutely no response.

28 is "old".
 
Okay there Grandpa Strader, I'll get off your lawn. 

That is very true. Most of the remixes I listen to on here or tried remixing myself are from late 90s or early 2000s games. Games I had as a kid in other words. Lots of the newer games don't have music that is as simple and melodic as the older ones, so it's tough to remix or when remixes of it pop up on the site (like those Dark Souls remixes) I either don't listen because I'm not familiar with it or when I do, I'm not familiar with or passionate enough about the material to really give an in-depth review. 

I never want to hurt butts when I point this out but that's inevitable... it might be hard for a site that takes 6 months to a year for judgements to maintain an active member base. A year is a long time, by the time those judgements come out, people could have either given up with music entirely, or the feedback is irrelevant because they've improved. 
 
I would love nothing more than for this community to be large and thriving, and there to be music spilling out of every corner of the site, but that's not the way it's going right now
 
We're all busy and getting old (I'm 28 now) and it's time that we get replaced with the new generation of remixers, but it's harder than ever for them to actually be a part of OCR

Symptom of a larger problem sure.  
 
A significant part of OCR is the nostalgia factor. It hits pretty hard and people love to relive things they once found interesting and pleasurable.  But the nostalgia wears off quickly when you have to live it everyday.  Psychologists call the decrease in response to a stimuli over time "habituation" and I think we are seeing a significant dip in interest in VGRemixes across the board because of it.  It's probably also compounded  by the lack of loss we have in the digital age.  Back when technology moved forward and left the past behind you probably were not going to be able to play "classic" games ever again.  This added to the feeling of loss and likelihood of nostalgia.  Now you can get almost any game you want and play it in all of it's retro glory.  Until you get tired of it.  which is probably pretty quick.  
 
At some point you gotta stop living in the past and get on with things.  
 
...not me tho.  

I think it's a symptom of a larger problem.
 
OCR seems super dead in general compared to when I first came here a few years back. I don't know, it just seemed like this place was really happening around 2011-13. Now, the top threads in almost any part of the forum remain unchanged for days and some of those threads don't see a new post for quite some time. It's like everyone is either not here, or just lurking.
 
I'll admit that I don't really listen to a lot of the new mixposts, but that's due to my decreased interest in game remixes. I don't venture too far from the production and community forums these days, but I notice even in the workshop, it's not uncommon now for mixes to get over a hundred views but absolutely no response.

Just got Undying off GOG for 2 bucks. Wooooooo

Is Kirby moving or am I having a stroke?

Clive Barker's Undying is easily one of the most under-rated horror games ever made. If you've never played it...you just need to. I'd crowdfund the hell out of a remake of that game.

The problem is music/voice unions and such have little to no bargaining power in the game industry, because music/voice (performance audio, really) are the only unionized disciplines that appear in game development and production, and even so, there are plenty of (extremely talented) non-union artists and performers. They can't reach to any fellow unions to put pressure, because... well, there are none.
 
Just look at the AFM fiasco with Austin Wintory. AFM didn't get what they wanted, so they made their own union members suffer for it. The game industry didn't like the terms that AFM had put up, because from their perspective, those kinds of demands were ridiculous and they had never seen them before. After all, everyone else doing programming, art, and whatnot aren't part of a union and are just subject to whatever their workplaces throw at them and this includes the publishing economic system in games that SAG-AFTRA is trying to fight (and AFM was trying to fight before them). In their eyes, why should voice actors be any different? The exception would seem unfair from the outside, and of course there's the obvious factor that they would lose money.
 
Now, that is a bad thing, yes. More disciplines in game dev/production need to be unionized because working in the game industry is pretty awful, working condition and quality of life considered. But as it stands right now, there isn't enough there for SAG-AFTRA to succeed in a standard union negotiation type deal, so their approach is... well, inefficient.
 
   
That's because the AFM is run by someone who doesn't understand the game industry. Mr. Austin Wintory himself:
 
 

Yeah. This is at the heart of what a lot of union negotiations boil down to: defining what "is" is. You can say something like "I fail to see why your late ass shouldn't be fined for wasting the publisher's money and the studio's time" and that sounds perfectly reasonable because people generally understand that you shouldn't be late for work.
 
But what if you hit traffic? What if you have an emergency? What if you're sick? What if you get into an accident on the way to the studio?  What if the dev miscommunicates the studio recording times? What if the dev told you to go to the wrong studio? What constitutes "late?" 5 minutes past call time? 10? Half-an-hour? What if you're 1 minute late and the publisher decides to slap you with a $2500 fine?
 
What constitutes "wasting the publisher's money and the studio's time?" Who gets to the decide what wasting time is? In the bit Bleck quoted, the word "attentive" is being contended. They have to clearly define what they mean by attentive, because the repercussions for not being "attentive" are pretty severe. A lot of people goof off at work every once in a while. What if whenever you goofed off, your boss took $2500 out of your paycheck?
 
Collective bargaining is all about working as hard as you can to clearly define the terms of the contract that everyone is going to abide by. Everyone in the union plays by the same rules, and management has to treat everyone in the union equally and according to the terms of the agreement. And everyone, generally speaking, has to be on board with the agreement.

Cool beans. I just wound up getting another paying gig with a deadline as tight as noose, plus this gives me an opportunity to do more with my track.

I'm going to offer a much different perspective - Honestly, I find it weird that you consider abandoning orchestral music to be musically "growing up" when command of an orchestra in both the real deal and sequenced is a coveted skill. Not to mention, the orchestra is the most versatile ensemble there is. With just the strings alone, you can write a piece evoking any kind of texture or emotion you can think of without actually having to change or rebuild the timbre of the instruments completely like you'd probably have to with a synth - depending on what you're going for.
 
My thoughts are that instead, you should stick to classical for the moment, but start making hybrid scores. Start integrating synths in your work - maybe take an older piece of yours and try arranging it to incorporate a synth bass or something. This way, the process of learning how to use them will feel much more "organic", if I might dust off the hipster music terms, to you than just throwing yourself completely into uncharted territory and saying "Okay, I used to write symphonies, but now I'm gonna do an acid-breakbeat track that will put the Crystal Method to shame." Eventually, you'll go from "classical with synth elements" to "electronic with some classical elements" and then inevitably "full on electronica".  I started by using synths in rock music and that made learning how to do other, completely electronic genres much easier - Worked for me, anyway.
 
EDIT: Though to be fair, when you do get to the stage of purely electronic, you'll realize that the composition of many electronic tunes of the EDM variety are a lot more "bare-bones" than orchestral. Usually, there's not much in the way of melody and the structure often follows this "build-up and breakdown" idea, adding more layers of synths and effects until it breaks down and starts again, rather than a verse-chorus kind of thing (unless there are vocals). An example, is if you listen to something like "Now Is The Time", it's pretty much the same shit over and over, but each time it repeats, it re-introduces the elements in a different order and a lot of the "leads" are more like synth-sound effects. This isn't to say you can't do more melodic stuff like what Zircon and a lot of VGM composers do, but I know I ran into the problem of my songs just sounding "wrong" compared to what I was going for and this was the most obvious thing I was over-looking.

Holy crap 
 
Tons of great suggestions in here! Thanks a lot, people. 
 
 
 
 On a cold winter morning...in the time before the light 

Oh, another I might recommend would be Way of the Samurai for the PS2. It's not strictly an action RPG. It's a somewhat short story-driven game that takes place in a small area. It's got real-time combat with a wide variety of melee weapons(primarily various asian-themed blades, but a few bludgeoning weapons and the like). All of the weapons have a different style and unlock moves based on how you fight with them. Trying things like jumping and attacking might unlock a new aerial  themed attack, while blocking and attacking with good timing might unlock a counter type move. In addition, your blade has a "Heat" meter that goes up by attacking or blocking(and down when doing nothing), along with a durability meter divided into 1-5 bars. Whenever the Heat meter hits max you lose a durability bar, and if you have no durability the weapon breaks completely. You can have the local blacksmith appraise a weapon ahead of time(before it breaks) to sort of save a copy, but outside of that you're screwed if you aren't careful.
 
No levels or stats. It's all about reflexes. Story-wise it's very short and takes place over the course of a few days, but has a large amount of endings based on almost everything you do. At the start of the game you can even decide to just turn and leave the area to it's own problems. You can respond to dialogues by attacking, or you can even stay silent by not choosing a reply for a period of time. It has a very ambient environment.
 
 
There's also Way of the Samurai 2(PS2) and 3(PS3), but I haven't played them and I've heard they don't quite match up. WotS4 is available on Steam, but I have yet to play that either.

When I think Tactical RPG, I think more along the lines of Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem. Assuming that's what you have in mind, the main series that stands out for me is Shining Force.
 
Shining Force I & II are both Genesis games. They're fun, but admittedly there is a bit of level-grinding around the middle (though nowhere near as bad as FF Tactics). If I didn't play them emulated with the ability to speed up things, it probably would've been a little more irritating. Nevertheless, the strategy is good, and the fact that nearly all battles are story-related (i.e., very few random encounters) helps to keep it from feeling repetitive.
 
Shining Force III is one of my favorites. It contains a very epic story that spans across three episodes. That is, there are three separate games, each of which is from a different character's perspective, and they're interrelated such that certain events in one game affect certain events in the next. The strategy is challenging, and while it doesn't require leveling up per se, I did find it really difficult without a bit of grinding. Unfortunately, there are two major down-side: it's only for Saturn, and only the first episode was ever translated. (...I have a Japanese Saturn and all three episodes, so this wasn't a problem in my case, but the rarity might make it prohibitively expensive.)
 
 
So, well, if it's not apparent from my signature and name I can elaborate a bit on this {^^}. To give a few 10-second reviews of the games (not counting imports)...
- Lunar: Silver Star Story (PS1): Major overhaul of the first Lunar game (The Silver Star for SCD). Feels like a classic JRPG though with a richer backstory and mythology. It's not my favorite of the series, but it sets up the universe and is relatively the easiest one to find. I didn't find it terribly difficult, but I've heard varying opinions on the challenge level.
- Lunar: Eternal Blue Complete (PS1): Remake of the second Lunar game (Eternal Blue for SCD). This is a more epic and longer JRPG and goes deeper into the background of the world. This is my favorite of the series, though it's better to have played SSS first. This is also one of the more challenging games of the series, though not as difficult as the original SCD version.
- Lunar: The Silver Star (SCD): The original and first Lunar game. This was ahead of its time in terms of the music (which is fantastic), voice acting (...perhaps only so-so by today's standards), and depth of the world. I also like the original more than the remake. The challenge level here isn't too high, though, especially if you're used to more recent RPGs.
- Lunar: Eternal Blue (SCD): The original sequel. This and EBC (the remake) are very similar, and (unlike TSS/SSS) the remake added a lot and only removed a few things. This is also possibly the most challenging game of the series, and requires you to consider position, turn order, and a few other factors well beyond "which one's stronger" in battles (unless you toss up your hands and just level-grind).
- Lunar: Legend (GBA): Very toned down version of The Silver Star / Silver Star Story. Not worth playing and the challenge level is a complete cakewalk.
- Lunar: Dragon Song (DS): THIS GAME DOESN'T EXIST MOVE ALONG NOW
- Lunar: Silver Star Harmony (PSP): Toned down version of Silver Star Story with a few added plot points. It's... all right, and gives you the same story, so it's worth it if you can't find Silver Star Story. It's much easier by comparison, though.
 
I admit my own bias here, considering these games formed a core part of my life. So, I won't go into talking up the games (and don't feel bad if you find them a bit meh). KF

Some interesting suggestions thus far!
 
 
 
I haven't witnessed many JRPG storylines that actually make sense. 

You've got way too much time on your hands. 

A different mindset that I take with this that others are going to disagree with:
 
If you don't know how you want to remix something, don't remix it. Trying to force a track where you have no idea what you want it to sound like is not an organic process.
 
Get better at writing and learn how to wield different styles effectively. Make sure you *enjoy* these styles, too. If you know what a style sounds like, you're more likely to be able to hear a certain song and imagine it in that style, and that ability is the foundation for starting your arrangement. In my experience, arrangements that were born out of request or specification (I need to remix [insert name here] tune for project/compo/because I like it) always paled in comparison to arrangements born out of initial ideas ("The Fire Emblem theme from Smash Melee, but cranked to 11, and with orchestral part writing in the bridge!")
 
That's not to say you can't have inspired ideas in projects/compos/picking your favorite tunes; you definitely can, and you should enter compos to exercise that. But even in compos, I've had a few instances where I simply just was unable to think of a clear idea on what to do and was essentially forced to output a grinding of the gears, so to speak. I had to completely revert to mechanical, theoretical understanding without enjoying what I was writing and just do "the melody" and "the other melody" and "making sure the harmony is correct" and "adding cymbal transitions" and then mixing it together. I've also committed to projects and then left after picking a cool source and not actually thinking about how to arrange it.
 
This runs true in many other mediums of creative output as well. A similar sentiment is shared in screenwriting. The top screenwriting books will always tell you that you have a hot concept if you can describe it concisely while capturing the essence of it and differentiating it from what's already out there.

Thy wish be granted
 
Also, you could go to loopmasters and download some of the free demo packs and practice mixing the loops together.