MindWanderer

It's early yet, but I think you probably win both "Most Obscure Game" and "Hero theme that sounds most like a boss battle." Great choice, I really want to see this reach the finals!

If you do decide to trim it down, you could cut out one of the loops between 1:38 and 2:34. The third iteration of the four was the least interesting to me, and that was the section I felt was most repetitive.

Amazing production, a very enjoyable adaptation. But it is basically a medley of covers, and the judges will probably reject it just on those grounds. It's also so ambitious in production that it feels really short. Orchestral scores, like this one is trying to be, are usually very long. My personal advice would be to take what you have and add more personalized content to it. For something like this, 6 or 7 minutes is probably not too long.

Soo... many... good... choices... I tried my best to stay away from Squaresoft games, but damn, they really do have the best music. Several tracks from Wild Arms just barely missed the cut. I did get Lufia II in my #1 spot, though.

Interesting that you don't want these public. You realize there's a higher chance for conflicts this way, right?

Or, what you'll probably have to do, which most remixers do, is learn how to produce it in a DAW with samples.

If you're concerned about the investment, Reaper is compatible with just about everything, and has an unlimited, unrestricted free trial. You can use that to start to get accustomed to what you can do in a DAW. I think both are true. You need to train your skills to make good samples sound good, but you also have to train your ear to identify a good sample from a bad one. Both are important--you can make free samples sound awesome if you have the chops, but you need the ear training first to know what you're even aiming for.

See screenshot:

Very cool. I'm definitely in, I've been having trouble self-motivating lately as well. I'm anticipating the villains bracket to fill up first.... I also really like the idea of an optional losers' bracket--a real losers' bracket makes the compo drag on too long, but this will just be for fun. And the summons idea is good, too (and Darke should think about using it, it makes even more sense for Mega Man).

Some more questions: What about characters that have more than one theme? For instance, Kefka has a "story" theme and a battle theme. Can we pick either? What about themes that belong to a tight group of characters, such as the Four Fiends? Are they ineligible, or can we pick them as a group, or do we just pick one of them (such as the first one you encounter, or the leader)?

Some fun ideas and interesting arrangements. Production is generally pretty muddy, and a couple are obviously unfinished as full arrangements, but there's a lot to entertain. Tike Dyson was one of the more original takes on an overdone source.

Ah, I loved the original, very glad you're continuing to work on this. I still feel like the bass is too loud. It's dominating the soundscape throughout. It's also a bit high-pitched for a "bass," so it conflicts with the melody more than usual. And on top of that, it's a very "interesting" bass, with its sort of "swirly" LFO, which makes it even more distracting from paying attention to the melody. The arrangement is still great, but that bass is really grating.

Very nice. I always love when people demonstrate that you don't need expensive tools to make a great mix. You give me hope that in 10 years, I'll be able to make some of my own remixes passable.

Results! First Place: Da Legend Of Da Regg Aelm Ya by Jorito, with 3 votes. Second Place: I'm The Soul Blazer by HoboKa & BrothaDom, with 1 vote. Since compo participation is at a severe low right now, there will be a break before Season 3. There will also be a format change of some sort--I had originally hoped for some consistency within a season, with the same people coming back pretty regularly, but that hasn't been happening. Might do something similar to PRC and MnP and let the round's winner choose the next theme, and just keep it rolling. I have to think about it. Also my own schedule is going to start being chaotic pretty soon.

We've been going through a really dry spell in compo participation in general. I don't think it has anything to do with the format of any given one of them. I'm just hoping it's a temporary thing; maybe it will pick up with the next DarkeSword compo or approximation thereof.

Voted, though I think what will make or break this is the tutorial/exposition/feedback aspect of it. For people who are real music novices, it won't make a whole lot of sense what the correct solutions are. Just saying "*bttz!* That was the 5th!" is only helpful if the player has a minimal background in music theory. Really minimal, but non-zero. This would work beautifully as a mobile app, if you had the ability to "freeze" a string and then strum the rest. You could do the same with a mouse (I couldn't tell from the tutorial if this was an actual feature), but it wouldn't be quite as tactile.

Got it. Yeah, I'm not crazy about forcing people to either vote for or against themselves, so the voting will need to be by other folks.

Got it. Still awaiting HoboKa and BrothaDom's entry, due in about 9 hours.

This made it into my playlist minutes after I downloaded it from the compo. It certainly isn't easy to make mixpost-quality mixes using vanilla FL, and this was the only entry from the compo that I did keep, but I'm thrilled to see this standing defiantly on the front page, where it belongs.

After the last VBulletin downtime, I keep having to re-login despite checking Remember Me. The OCR VBulletin cookies expire in 24 hours, so I'm guessing that's the issue.

Submitted mine. Fair warning, my voice is still audibly strained from having been sick. But I think I improved the production somewhat over last time. Please, please give me constructive criticism this time! I'm not just doing this to listen to my own voice, and I'm sure as hell not doing it to win.

I remember noticing VGM in an extremely primitive form from arcades--I found the minimal music of Rastan quite catchy, and I'd hang out in the video arcade of my local roller skating rink watching people play and getting that tiny musical phrase stuck in my head. Pitfall II for the Atari 2600 was the first game I remember playing that had a real, catchy "score" (even if that score was just variations on one song). I realized that I enjoyed VGM, and remixes, as music in junior high. I put a tape recorder up against my TV to record Final Fantasy IV's Black Chocobo theme, and Beginnings and Vampire Killer from Super Castlevania IV. It didn't dawn on me until just now that all three of those are remixes! I've been browsing for VGM remixes since college (late 90's). I believe it was rpgamer.com that used to have MIDIs of RPG music available for download, and I had quite a collection of them. The Castlevania Dungeon was also a major source of music for me. I'm not sure exactly when I noticed OCR as a specific site, but I've had remixes from OCR in my music collection that must date to within a couple of years of its founding. Short answer: just Yahoo searches for specific game music, probably Final Fantasy or Castlevania at the time. Not much. There are a few, small groups of friends that have formed for non-musical socialization, but I'm not among those. There's some off-topic chat, but it's pretty random. VGM is music to me. I listen to music from OCR, game OST's, and other remix and cover artists every day, almost to the exclusion of all other music. It's familiar and comforting, but exciting at the same time. The music played at my wedding was 90% VGM. I went to the More Friends concert at Universal Citywalk many years ago, and when they played the FF main theme I had to actually fight the urge to stand up and put my hand over my heart. I'm a gamer, and VGM is the music of my culture, no less than hymns and contemporary Christian music are to someone religious, or Mariachi is to a Latino. It's a huge part of who I am.

Gonna have to do this all in one night, I'm just shaking off an nasty cough. But I think I have better production ideas this time, so it might still come out better than last round.

30 is probably too many, both for OCR-I and for tracks that can be cleaned up to the appropriate level of quality. But there's no reason to choose a number now; put out the call, see what you get, go from there.

Since the season has been spent with the Novices collaborating with Stars, now is the time to turn it around. (Sort of--this would have worked better with more consistent enrollment, but oh well.) The four participants have been paired with each other to collaborate for the season finale. Your mission: Remix either your partner's source in your style, or vice-versa. (The other source can make a cameo if you want, but no more than that.) Collaboration should be as even as possible. Each participant should try to bring their strengths to the table, whatever they are. No letting one person do all the work! Pairings Esperado with Jorito: Legend of Legaia: Rim Elm in Reggae/Funk or Transport Tycoon Deluxe: Main Theme in Trip Hop [*]HoboKa with BrothaDom: Advance Wars: Eagle's Theme in Ambient House or Soulblazer: Underground Castle in Rap/Hip-Hop Have fun youse guys. Note; It was always my intention to drop out myself if we had an even number of participants otherwise. If someone needs to drop out, say so and I'll substitute myself. Otherwise I'm happy sitting out, especially since I'm doing the singing thing this week.