Shadow Wolf

Potential bug with the composer listings: Nobuo Uematsu's page shows that the most recent posted remix of his works is "Too Much Fighting" from VoTL, but as I speak, "Suco De Melancia" from VoTL is the most recent mix on the front page, just posted this morning. In other words, the composer page for Uematsu hasn't updated yet. Maybe you just scan and update every now and then, but I would figure that's supposed to happen automatically. Anyway, now you know.

I love lamp.

"It's business time. You know how I know? 'Cuz it's Wednesday night. Awwwwwww yeah." I love FotC.

Hey, since you're here, thanks for 'Summertime.' Best mix ever. My brother hates it though, so I can play it to piss him off. WIN.

So I should have reviewed this a year ago, but I didn't, and do you know why? Because I'm a HACK, that's why. This is an awesome mix, straight up, and it is in my opinion the best mix of 2006. It's totally epic, which is awesome considering your source material. I really loved the transition from and to chiptunes to intro and outro the mix. Excellent synth work, it really creates a lot of sonic texture, and just throws a wall of sound at you. You can't climb over it, so just ride the wave, and it's a fun ride. Great mix.

It's a really nice frequency analyzer. You get it in programs like Adobe Audition. Also, your mix is going to have a baby, and it's a boy. Congratulations!

I LOVE this picture. Dave just looks fucking intense. I dig the Clint Eastwood squint, like he's gonna no override you and rearrange your sidebar if you step one INCH out of line.

Definitely need more info. But this is a fun game, we should do it more often.

Well, I listened to it... and started flipping through my 711 remixes. Surprisingly enough, I found a good match in the A section: And He Returned Home from Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Is that what you're looking for? It sounds a bit different, namely your MIDI is in minor and the opening of this mix is in major, but since you were going out of your head approximate is good enough. If this isn't it, there's 710 more where that came from. Do you remember if the bit was from the very beginning of the mix?

Booyah! Bringin' the review after a year and some change! I've always liked this song. I end up listening to it a lot because it's the first mix alphabetically in my 2004 folder. But why I'm REALLY Here... I noticed in iTunes the song is also 4:20 long, so I was wondering if thatt was deliberate? I figured probably so, but I must know.

Sweetness, thank you!

Another advantage of the 6 mb limit is that it pushes people to do away with excessive filler and get to the mix. For example, the only time this rule was EVER broken was on April Fool's Day, 2006, when Dave posted the 11 mb, 15 minute 'Terra Fortnight Megamix' (Which I still have) . Even though it was trying to be funny, you quickly realized that if a mixer had a higher size limit, they'd also have simply too much time to play around with. The temptation to simply fill time might be too great.

I'm not anywhere where I can download it yet, but you get huge props for the best project writeup EVER.

Overall, the arrangement of the mix is very well done, you seamlessly took 3 fairly different themes (especially Descent) and worked them together seamlessly. Really, my only issue here is the string sample. It’s noticeably electronic, has no sound character, and just sounds bad. That’s really unfortunate, since the arrangement was excellent, and that would’ve been the icing on the cake. The piano sounds great, actually, nice reverb and good tone, and I really like that you put the marimba in there during the Descent sequence, it added a nice character to the sound,and it was also one of Robyn’s favorite instruments for the first 2 games of the series, especially Riven. So I guess marimba just = Myst to me. Summary: excellent arrangement of the themes and a great first mix, but also continue to work on your production. Good job!

Don't know if anyone's aware of this yet, but track 6 is completely missing from the direct rar file download. Someone mentioned Sexy Boy and I hadn't heard it. That would be why. EDIT: Nevermind. Keep it. No, not really. For one thing, nice to see you back, Elly, haven't heard from you since Dark Side of Phobos. Now, as for the mix.... As a piece of music, I like the sound. It sounds like a Linkin Park/Nelly Furtado mashup more than anything. Very Mike Shinoda remix flavor to the instrumentation, reminiscent of some of Fort Minor's stuff. I like the beat chopping. BUT... it doesn't fit with the rest of the project. Not that stylistic changes are bad, but I think what hurts this one most is the lyrics. Your voice sounds great, but the lyrics are just silleh. A little more work there and it could've been gold. But keep in mind I am HARSH on vocals and lyrics, so take it with a grain of salt.

Dammit! As I was listening to this, I was actually thinking "That sounds a lot like a sax, but it definitely sounds like a clarinet too. Sax or clarinet? What is it? I obviously went with clarinet, which means I am now the proud owner of [Epic Fail]. So is it an alto sax, or what? I'm not too good at id'ing the different types.

Complete Project Review: GREAT project. The whole thing is an amalgam of very surprising instrumentation choices, ethnic instruments, and smooth jazz sounds. It’ really unlike most of what we’ve seen here before. I’m one of the few human beings that has actually beaten the game, and it does an excellent job of interpreting the soundtrack. Days of Summer: Nice subdued opening, great acoustic work, and a sweet lounge music sound. It helps that this is one of the best themes in the history of gaming, but you did a great job with it. Thieves of Fate: The chord structure in this song, especially the chorus, is strangely reminiscent of Closing Time from Semisonic, and that's not a bad thing in any way shape or form. The piano and guitar work extremely well together, and the backbeat works as well. I'm a little bit iffy about the electric piano coming in at 3:42 and 4:32, not because it's a bad patch, but it sounds harsh in tone and volume as opposed to the rest of the soundfield. I didn't really care for the e-piano riffing at 4:32 especially. I really like the inversion at 5:32 as you swing into gear for the end of the song. (At least it sounded like an inversion to me, maybe you just moved the whole shot up an octave higher.) I don’t particularly care for the vocals, but I almost never do. Fury and Tears: This mix has a really good energy to it. Sounds like a Benny Hill chase scene in some places, but the electric guitars make up for it. Good take on the original theme though. Starbright: Excellent sax work, right from the gate, and amazing work weaving channels together without overloading the mix. The beginning has a nice busy street jazz sound to it, reminds me in a lot of ways of the soundtrack to SimCity 4. If the background sounds are any indication, this is a live performance, which makes it even more impressive. Loneliness: Neat decision bringing the piano and guitar in on the exact same line. This immediately shows a great new age/electronic flavor. I like the bongos as well. Good synth work all around, it can be hard to mix that with orchestral and make it sound really good. The build at 3:32 into the electric guitars was subtle, unexpected, and I liked it a lot. Thrash’s Snakebone Pit This makes me think of James Bond, and I have no idea why. It’s big, it’s overblown, and it’s fun. It’s a very Monty Norman-esque mix. Adventure, danger, spies, and really loud guitars. The Scar-Stealing Girl At the beginning, I’m not even sure how to classify this. Synth, definitely, but what else? It’s got a really slow, deliberate backbeat, and I like the kind of low-fi quality of some of the samples up ‘till 1:52, where we drop into an excellent piano solo. Actually, an unbelievable piano solo. It’s sending tingles down my spine. Wow. I love piano solos, and this is an amazing arrangement of the theme. The electric guitars at 2:45 only help it. Then at 3:22 we whip out the Bongos and go really electronica. Nice ping-ponging with this section. It bounces back and forth over my headphones. Good panning work. I like the (basically) guitar solo at 5:02, and the music box is a wonderful touch. This is the best mix of the album in my opinion. Running After You: Darangen doesn’t do orchestral. 10 bucks says it goes electric before 2 minutes. Oh, I was right. Still though, great work with ethnic instruments at the opening, and the trademark Darangen shred still sounds great. You’re weaving between orchestral to industrial. That is just f***ing impressive. This mix kicks ass. Great work, you never disappoint. Requiem for Another World: What instrument is opening here? It sounds vaguely like a panpipe, but I don’t think it is. There’s a very nice ethnic music quality to this, there’s a lot of instruments I’ve heard before but I can’t identify them. I actually like your voice work here, it fits well. You have my permission to keep it. Fuego Frio: Is that an accordion? For some reason this reminds me of another song I’ve heard that was supposed to make me feel cold. Originally parts of this sounded like they had a Russian flavor to them, but I’m also getting kind of a waltz/flamenco/tango vibe as well, which is probably closer to what you intended, since the mix name is Spanish. Either way, a very well done waltz mix. Hallucinogenic: The voices! They’re back! Were any mushrooms harmed in the creation of this mix? Because it certainly sounds that way. Great production and mastering work to make it sound like that. Part of it is the nature of the mix, but my only complaint here would be that it wasn’t significantly musical. But who cares what I think? Confronto Finale: Hooray trance! Nice shift to orchestral using the drum line, that was sneaky. There’s a lot of pent up energy in this song, and even though it’s energetic, it just feels somewhat like it’s never entirely let out. But it’s still a great mix. Good work switching so seamlessly between orchestral and electronica. Summer’s Dream: Marimba. Now there’s an instrument you don’t hear every day. This project has a ton of ethnic instruments. It does a beautiful job portraying the theme though. It’s quiet, contemplative, and it has a really great resonance. Last time I heard a marimba used like this was the Riven soundtrack. Furthermore, I’m astounded that you just did 7 minutes and 41 seconds of solo marimba and I didn’t get sick of it. Way to break the mold with this one. Le Tresor Interdit: Epic. Clarinet for the lead is a really interesting and awesome decision. It really carries the mix well. The acoustic work in the back of the mix fills it in really well. This is really a great example of the flavor of the entire project. Great mix, great project. Nicely done.

This project sounds great so far, even though I've only gotten to Thieves of Fate. The chord structure in this song, especially the chorus, is strangely reminiscent of Closing Time from Semisonic, and that's not a bad thing in any way shape or form. I only have one question: Can we PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get an instrumental version of this song? The acoustic work is amazing, and I'd love to hear it alone.

My name is Shadowolf and I hope Dave sees this topic so he can laugh at the irony of the fact that after all that bitching about the sidebar, now people want it to be there no matter WHAT website they're on.

I support this idea, number one because it's a good idea, and number two because it's not actually influencing the site. As far as people searching by genre, how far they get into OCR is a personal thing. When I first came here in June 2002, I was looking very specifically for Super Metroid Mixes for a Powerpoint slide show I was doing. I came back in October 2002 looking for some Mario 64 Mixes, and downloaded Sunken Suite. I loved it, so I downloaded a BUNCH of DJPretzel mixes, as well as a lot of Protricity. After picking and choosing mixes/games for a few months, I finally began downloading every mix posted to OCR beginning in mid 2003, and still do to this day. The point is I came in with very specific ideas about what games and artists I wanted to hear, branched off from there, and it's turned into a 6 year musical adventure. I don't see how it would be different if I'd come in with a specific genre in mind instead.

Jesus Christ, that's the last time I try to be helpful. I'll make sure to e-mail fuckin' Koji next time, he's sure to know.

It sucks battery like a hooker sucks... lollipops. Which is to say a LOT. The nice thing about Rockbox is that it's completely reversible. It's really easy to get rid of if you decide you hate it. There's pros and cons to using Rockbox, and I don't know if they carry across all the iPods. For reference, I'm using a grayscale 4g iPod, the last type made before they moved to color screens. Basically, Rockbox is for advanced users, period. I assume you know your way around a computer, you're a kickass remixer at any rate. But if you wanna squeeze your iPod for everything it's worth, I really recommend it. One notable issue it has sometimes is that it will get confused when you try to push the next button to skip a song. Sometimes it works great, but I've had it get confused about how many songs I've skipped, refuse to skip a song, display wrong ID3 info, etc. It's easily fixed by doing a standard iPod reset (switch hold on and off once, then hold menu and center buttons until it restarts), but you shouldn't have to deal with that issue in the first place. By FAR the nicest thing about Rockbox is that it allows you to drag and drop folders to your iPod rather than using iTunes for updates. You can view audio on your iPod just like it's organized in the folders, and Rockbox ALSO has a datatbase browser, so you can still look up music on the iPod by artist, album, etc. It's the best of both worlds as far as getting at music on your player. Also, if you have soundtracks with a large, deep folder structure, it's great, and it's as simple as using your iPod like a flash drive. The flipside of that coin is that if you use iTunes to meticulously organize your audio anyways, you can't just plug it in and have iTunes autosync it if Rockbox is installed. You can even fix this by getting hold of a folder sync program that will match up your audio folder on your computer with the one on your iPod. One other issue is that if you buy a lot of songs off iTunes, they won't be automatically added to your iPod. You may want to change things up a bit so purchased songs get dumped directly into a folder where you can actually find them and drag them to your iPod. Rockbox allows for much deeper customization of basic iPod functions, like a detailed EQ, separately adjustable bass and treble levels, as well as a bunch of different themes which can display huge amounts of info on your now playing screen, such as bitrates, file types, folder paths, even a peak meter. There's a bit of a learning curve with Rockbox, but it isn't terribly difficult, the button functions just change from the default firmware. In summary, I really like Rockbox, even if it does have some visible issues. It allows me to do MUCH more than the default iPod firmware, even if it does have some irritating quirks. That's great as far as organization, because I have 4300 songs. Plus, with Rockbox, if you report a bug or ask for something from the Rockbox developers, they rebuild the software daily. So it's much more likely your issues will be fixed than if you ask Apple to change their firmware. For what it lets me do, I'm willing to sacrifice auto-updates and reset it occasionally.

You like that damn eyeroll, don't you? I don't think IGN is a credible source for game music, but when the review is written by a guy with connections to top nintendo execs, I figure he's probably fairly close to correct.

I'm looking for further info, but I'm almost certain it is a completely orchestral OST. Yep, I was right. From IGN's review: "Meanwhile, the music, much of which is fully orchestrated, is absolutely superb -- some of the best in any Nintendo game to date (though we're sure Super Smash Bros. Brawl will ultimately take top honors)." It's on page 4 of the review if you don't believe me.

Your'e right, some of my info is a bit off, I'm going off a hardware and form factor study I did back in 2005 when I was still a CS major and not a nurse, which may as well be the 1800s as far as computers go. I thought dual core procs were hyperthreaded. I also got some terms mixed up, I thought RIMM was simply another term for DDR2 and 3 memory chips. My bad. I understand BTX was a form factor designed to increase airflow and cooling, but it's still a simple logical fact that it's easier to cool the contact points of a processor if they're exposed in any way, shape or form. In this case, even if the supports cover the pins from the sides, there is still going to be greater heat exchange directly from the pins to the heatsink, rather than from the pins through the processor to the heatsink. Furthermore, LGA775 architecture was never prominent, or even seen by any of my CS profs on any form factor prior to BTX. As such, LGA775 kind of got rolled in part and parcel with the BTX form factor, although it may not be the entire reason it exists. However, in summation, homes up above obviously knows more than me, so do what the man says.