MindWanderer

Really nice! I've tried for this style of instrumentation before myself and always fell flat. May I ask what samples/soundfonts/VSTi's you used? Especially what sounds like a guzheng (the main lead), I've been looking for a decent one of those for a while. The flute about 1/3 of the way in is weaker than the rest of the instruments, and sounds more fake. The piano is odd--one honkey-tonk instrument among a bunch of Asian ones. There's a short bit at the end that seems thematically out of place as well. Otherwise I like this a lot.

How did I miss this? <buys Metroid Cinematica> I humbly suggest you link to the Loudr page for Metroid Cinematica, or your website for it, instead of iTunes. I had to Google the album to find versions I could actually preview/buy. Oh yeah, and pledged, too. Over 33% in a day!

I love these guys. They could have marketed their updates as a whole new game twice over, but they just keep adding free updates to an awesome game I spent $2.50 on (and got again in a Humble Bundle). I don't know how they stay in business.

The theme is announced at the same time as the pairings, so no one gets a head start. The themes are always pretty generous, so a "bad" theme isn't generally a deterrent to signing up. In special rounds, the theme isn't withheld, but the "secret ingredient," specific sources, etc. are, so no one can start early.

No signups, so I'm postponing the round until after SFRG.

Official answer: Dragon Age is also a video game in the Mass Effect universe. I'm sure there will be Turians and Asari, most likely Salarians. Quarians, maybe. Krogans and Geth wouldn't make a ton of sense--the Salarians would prefer the Krogans to just go extinct, and no one at all was pro-Geth before ME3. (Could easily be a stowaway, though.)

Season 3, Episode 7 Theme TBA About ReMixing With the Stars ReMixing With the Stars is intended to give beginning remixers some support, encouragement, and mentoring in their quest to become great, and as a sidenote, to become posted remixers. Beginners are mentored by experienced remixers to push their abilities to new heights and submit collaborative works according to the theme of the month. Who's a "Star" and who's a "Novice?" There are no fixed rules on this. Originally, RWS treated anyone with an OCR mixpost as a "Star" and anyone else as a "Novice." Later it evolved so that anyone could elect to be a Star, but posted remixers couldn't be Novices. The reason was because a lot of really good remixers expressed a lack of confidence in their abilities and didn't feel they were good enough to mentor someone else, but RWS gets a lot more Novice than Star signups. Now anyone can sign up as either, but please be honest with yourself. If you have several direct posts to OCR, you're probably in a better position to give help than receive it. If you have a giant bowl of Wooden Spoons from PRC and mostly only win by default, the reverse is probably true. But if you feel that you're pretty good and your OCR submissions just get NO'ed due to minor nitpicks, go ahead and sign up as a Star if you want. If you have been posted but each submission takes you months and multiple resubmits, feel free to sign up as a Novice. Or not, it's your choice. If you're on the fence, bear in mind that being a Star is a much smaller time commitment. One caveat: This should not be your first attempt at creating music in a DAW. The Stars' job is to provide mixing, production, and arrangement advice. It's not to teach you how to choose or install a DAW, load VST's, work with a MIDI piano roll, arm your microphone, etc. If that's where you are right now, try PRC or MnP as a first compo. Rules Enrollment/Pairings: Stars: Sign up by posting in this thread that you're available. Mention any time restrictions or or other limitations you might have, or if you have any particular strengths you'd like to offer (playing a live instrument is a great one). Novices: If one or more Stars have signed up, just post to claim one! First come, first served. Get in touch with your Star as soon as you claim them, so you can get started on your mix as soon as the theme is posted. I encourage Novices to rotate between multiple Stars to get different learning experiences and perspectives, but if the same people keep signing up week after week, repeat pairings are fine. If there aren't any unclaimed Stars, feel free to post to say that you'd like one. Exception: If you signed up for the last episode and got paired with a Star, but did not turn in a mix, you get bumped to the bottom of the list this round. You may only get a partner if there's a Star left over at the end of the enrollment period. This penalty is only for the one episode unless this becomes a chronic issue for you. Pairings for everyone who signed up within the official "enrollment period" will be posted at that time. However, if anyone wants to sign up after that, or can't find a partner until after that, they're welcome to join in. Mixes: The Novice must be the primary remixer. Stars can contribute by giving advice, performing with a live instrument or vocals, and with production, including sample quality, balance, and minor arrangement adjustments to fix timing or dissonance issues. If you don't use the same DAW, you can exchange MIDIs or rendered stems. The Star may also contribute a short solo segment arranged entirely by them. No one other than the Novice and Star may help in any substantial way. You can use multiple sources in your remix, but at least 51% of the remix must be based on one or more qualifying sources. For example, if you use 3 sources, and only one fits the theme, but it's present in more than half the mix, then it's fine. Submissions: All entries must be submitted to ThaSauce by the deadline. Check the ThaSauce page for the exact amount of remaining time (the image in my sig should also be correct). Give credit to your partner in the submission description, and provide link(s) to the source(s) you used. File sizes cannot exceed 20MB. If you have trouble uploading the file or getting a ThaSauce account working, post a link to your mix in this thread and I'll get it on there. If this is your first ThaSauce compo entry, don't do it at the last minute! Voting: Use the ThaSauce page to vote. Entrants (Novices or Stars) may not vote for themselves, but your mix gets a bonus first-place vote if you vote. Support your partner by voting! The deadline is on the ThaSauce page (or in my sig, once voting has started). Previous Seasons Season 1 Compilation Season 2 Compilation Pilot Episode: "Beginnings" Season 1, Episode 1: "Spooky!" Season 1, Episode 2: "Origins of Home Gaming" Season 1, Episode 3: Special "You Can Never Have Too Much Mega Man" edition Season 1, Episode 4: "Yesteryear" Season 1, Episode 5: "Ultra-Modern" Season 1 Finale: "Touched by a Star" Season 2, Episode 1: "Country Road" Season 2, Episode 2: "Tropical Vacation!" Season 2, Episode 3: Special "Wish on This!" edition Season 2, Episode 4: "The Need for Speed!" Season 2, Episode 5: "Pacifism" Season 2 Finale: "Rising Stars"

Results! Two-way tie for first place between Mark Sparling and Garpocalypse, and Yoshiblade and KingTiger, with 11 points each. Basically, other than their own votes, they each got one 1st-place and one 2nd-place vote. supercoolmike and Geoffrey Taucer bring up the rear with 8 points. Signups for next round begin shortly.

Yeah, but those were spin-offs. I think people expect more consistency out of the main numbered series. Add a "Tactics" or a "Crystal Chronicles" or whatever and people don't expect it to the the same sort of game. Heck, it could be something instead of a game entirely (i.e. a movie). But the "core experience" should mean something.

I think it's just because us old Final Fantasy fans want more Final Fantasy. There's a reason folks get excited about their remasters. Same reason Mighty No. 9, Bloodstained, and Yooka-Laylee are getting so much positive feedback and funding. Every Final Fantasy since X-2 has been a radical departure from what we used to love: vastly inferior music, realtime combat, and severe pacing issues for starters, and often direct control of only one party member, an unexplorable world, and excessive "fan service." I enjoyed FFX-2 despite the crappy music, but I never finished XII or XIII, having reached parts of both games when they just started to drag. FFXV looks more like an action game than ever. I think if they'd just swapped the names around, I think they'd be in a much better place PR-wise. If FFXI and onward had been a new IP, and Bravely Default had been called FFXI... well, we'd still be complaining about not enough new FF games, but we wouldn't be accusing Square of betraying us.

That would be pretty darn tricky. Option 1 destroyed all AI in the galaxy. That means a huge setback to research and the extermination of the Reapers and Geth. But it's possible to just not mention either of those races and figure it's been a while, we re-invented AI since then. Option 2 created an immortal super-being that commands all AI in the galaxy. There's no way the Reapers would be uninfluential in this new world order. And even if Shepard can't control any AI in Andromeda, anything that was ever in the Milky Way would have felt that control before leaving. Option 3 meant that all organic life became semi-cybernetic. Absolutely no freaking way that wouldn't affect everything that originated in the Milky Way, which N7 did. The only thing I can think of is perhaps a "generation ship" left the Milky Way before the conclusion of ME3 and thus escaped its ramifications. Then this could be centuries later but still be unaffected. The story has to leave the Milky Way because 1) that's the only way to escape the galaxy-spanning effects of ME3, 2) they hadn't explored very many stars, but they had explored all the mass relays, and 3) the developers felt like they already filled out the "map." I personally think it'll be good to get away from the political structure of the first trilogy, and get into a galaxy with new, powerful races. There will still be echoes of those politics, but they'll be in control of only the local government and not the whole galaxy.

Hm, I wonder if they'll actually create different models for the different items in the outfit you could get. (Hopefully just not for the underpants.) If they take the FFXIII-3 approach and create premium custom costumes for regular gameplay, this would be a simple addition. Just waiting for the Cloud-in-drag vs. Sephiroth videos.

I'm pretty curious about this, too. All three ending choices had major ramifications for every species living in the Milky Way; even moving to a different galaxy wouldn't work around that unless they ditch humans etc. altogether. Which they could theoretically do--there were no recognizable species in the whole trailer--but we do have the return of N7 and the Mako. It would be really hard for them not to anger a bunch of fans by picking one of those three endings as canonical, and equally hard to make it so that the choice didn't matter at all to the plot of the new game. Still, I'm pretty hyped. Looking forward to another $10 game with $15 of "must-have" DLC.

Wow, you guys really knocked it out of the park on this one. Strong work all around!

I'm not sure that FF6 had anything that could be "substantially added" either, but Square's remakes don't generally do that. They add mostly small things, like some postgame content. FF7 could certainly benefit from some small tweaks (like better in-game instructions for getting Vincent and a more comprehensible ending) that would make a noticeable difference. Most of FF6's bugaboos are less critical but harder to remove (grinding, random drops, the Coliseum), although there are some combat bugs they could fix.

It seems weird, but this and the backwards compatibility announcement for Xbox One are combining to make me actually consider buying the system. I missed out on the Banjo-Kazooie and Perfect Dark games the first time around; Nuts and Bolts is still on my "reasons to consider buying a 360" list somewhere. If Blue Dragon gets Xbox One support, I'll probably finally get on this train.

They already have official orchestral scorings of several of the tracks, done by Uematsu, so they might well take those and hire someone (one person) to do the rest of the soundtrack in the same style. There's an infinitesimal chance they'll hit up the fan community--this ain't Capcom. With Uematsu gone, it doesn't seem like they place any significant value on music at all, so we'll probably be lucky to get anything vaguely tolerable.

Yeah, there's a reason Ryu costs $1 more than the other DLC characters. They all seem overpriced to me, though (especially compared to Mario Kart 8 DLC, which has great value). I'll hold off and hope for a discounted bundle at some point. Yes, I know there's already a bundle, but the discount is underwhelming. Out of curiosity, since all attacks use the same button(s), how can the game tell between a Hadouken and a Hurricane Kick when Ryu is on the ground? There's no "back" in SSB unless you're airborne. Does it just infer based on the direction to the closest opponent?

Deadline is tomorrow, and I have no entries yet. Get 'em in!

Sure, that's fine.

With OCR around, I hardly ever feel the need to buy music. I pre-ordered History Repeating. Money damn well spent. Their lyrics are cheesy but often clever, their arrangements are a lot of fun, and their playing is fantastic (listen closely to the guitar solo in Annihilation of Monsteropolis--most guitarists just sort of smush their fingers all over the strings at that part, but they hit every note. I finally understood "hammer-on/pull-off" outside of Guitar Hero once I saw this live). If only they'd write faster.. I believe they all have full-time non-music jobs, so I get it, but man it's hard to wait years between each of their albums.

If it's possible, a tag system like many BBS software uses might be nice. Let it be a fill-in, but with autocomplete suggestions, so that tags can be consistent for the purpose of searches, etc. Anything anyone else has already entered would be suggested. This has many of the strengths of #3 without a giant list of clutter. Not sure I see the advantage of #2. "Favorite" is probably best--with this community I don't think people will list plugins they don't use, especially if it's in the same section as DAWs.

I'm not sure there's a sane way to use Reason in this type of format. If that's your only DAW... well... you can use the free trials of FL or Reaper, or give Ardour a try (Ardour 4 just came out last month, it works on Windows and is free if you compile it from source yourself, or pay a buck for a .exe installer).

This round's secret ingredient is Togu Audio Line's TAL-NoiseMaker! Get it at http://kunz.corrupt.ch/products/tal-noisemaker(32 and 64-bit, Windows or Mac). TAL-Noisemaker is a subtractive synth with several customizable oscillators, filters, and LFO's. It has a distinctive sound that can easily be used in almost any type of electronic music, and has a lot of room for creativity in sound synthesis. No one has chosen a partner so far, so arbitrary matchmaking time: Supercoolmike with Geoffrey Taucer, Mark Sparling with Garpocalypse. Go for it!

Maybe it's a temporary caching thing, but it looks like deleted posts in "Remix Comments/Reviews" show up in the remix comment summary section. See http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03139and http://ocremix.org/community/topic/41084-ocr03139-doom-helljam/ , with timaeus222's experiment in getting ampersands to appear (was post #3).