XPRTNovice

Hey there, To caveat anything I say, I am by no means experienced in any technical aspects of remixing. In my opinion, I got way lucky in that contest, and it was mostly due to my skills with live instruments and NOT my skill with DAWs. To me, the intensity of your drums don't match the rest of your samples. I get a very chiptune feel from this, but the drums feel, to me, like they're about to explode into a PROG METAL MASSACRE at any point - but they never do. The samples you lay on top are very 8-bit, if that makes any sense. I think what I'm trying to say is that your BEAT sounds like an intense dubstep sort of thing, but the sound quality doesn't round it out. the result for me is that I'm constantly waiting for your genius to unfold after a nice introduction, but I end up getting more treble-heavy chiptune, stuff. Does that make sense?

Hi all, At Emunator's request, I'd like to introduce myself to the group and talk about some opportunities for collaboration. I've been around this community since about January of this year, at which point I decided to try my hand at remixing. I've since had one piece accepted (Not the Taxi You Whistled For) and took first place in Zircon's FFVI composition with a piece titled Gobble Snarf Snap. You can check out both of them at www.soundcloud.com/xprtnovice - there are some other samples there. If any of you are looking for: Alto sax, clarinet, piano, acoustic guitar, flute, or vocal percussion, I'm your man. I used to have a Syrian oud, but I've since sold it and am still shopping for a replacement. I am also, quite uselessly, an excellent whistler. Everyone has their strengths, right? Right now I'm a little swamped with a host of life issues whose sole purpose seems to be preventing me from doing things I actually enjoy, so I might be a bit slow, but if any of you have something you'd like me to lay something down on I'd be happy to. Emu has me looking at some of the shorter pieces on OOT to go for a remix (Shop, Mini Game, Shooting gallery, and Horse Race), and once my life decides to shut up for a while I plan on tackling it. Looking forward to being part of the project with you all! Joe

I'm an experienced alto player and could play the part for you if you'd like.

Well, that's a lot of Rachmaninov's beef with Mother Russia, so maybe it's just a meeting of the minds. Was this a performance, or sequenced? It sounded performed to me, I was just making sure. You've got some nimble fingers. The best I could ever manage was an incomplete learning of Fantasie Impromptu, and I didn't really do it justice.

I hope you can back that statement up with some unbiased statistics...

Totally, I think I grinned like an idiot through that whole piece.

I realize that may have come off wrong - I tend to laugh out loud in a slap-my-knee kind of way when I hear things that are clever. I wasn't insinuating that your piece was laughable! And Rexy I really liked the groove of your Umaro track. It felt perfect. The piano was, of course, beautiful in your Gestahl. It felt very Rachmaninovy, which is a good thing.

Thanks Calum. In my opinion, I lack the ability to do things that are spine-chillingly-awesome because I have no real electronic skills - I would love to be able to produce something as outrageously cool as Mark of the Beatsmith or anything by Big Giant Circles or Zircon, but I don't have that level of knowledge. So I make up for the deficiency by doing "lively" things instead. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt I thought the Blackjacks lounge-lizard vocal thing was awesome, by the way. I think I actually laughed out loud when I heard it.

Man, this thread is starting to bum me out...

So, not that I'm impatient, but this track was "accepted" back in early May. How long does it usually take for things to hit the homepage?

Even though this was stickeyed, I just noticed it for the first time in the 6 months I've been part of the community. This is...awesome. I get to broaden my remixing horizons by not only picking tunes from games I like, and it's totally randomized, and it's totally awesome and I love you all.

I'm going to buy a sweatshirt right now. Will that help?

I am severely intimidated by this thread and don't know why I am posting in it. I don't have a big enough signature graphic, nor do I have nearly enough posts...

Stealing it.

Is it weird that I kind of like that?

That's like saying you almost decided to quit breathing. Yuck. Don't do that. I'm glad you turned around. This community is great for learning. Zircon has some great tutorials out there on youtube that helped me, and beyond those there are so many resources out there for you to learn. Good luck, man.

Wow! I am humbled, I had no idea people would like that track. Thanks everyone and congratulations all around Thanks to zircon for putting on the contest, this was a ton of fun. Who was track #1? I'm having trouble correlating the rankings with the actual tracks. Track #1 was actually my favorite, if for no other reason than the awesome trumpets.

mick, You'll definitely want to checkout http://farlandswritersgroups.com It's a collaboration of online writing groups centered around SF/Fantasy, sponsored by David Farland (David Wolverton), author of the Runelord series. The community is very tight knit and has proved a great budding ground for me as a young author (check my website if you want to read a bit of how my career has gone in the last year at http://josephzieja.wordpress.com). You could also try absolutewrite.com, but that community is considered very cutthroat and a bit snooty. I recommend Dave's site. If you do sign up, send me a PM. My handle there is "PermanentNovice". I'll help you get set up.

Love the build in the beginning and I love 2:30 ish. I think the transition into 2:30 could be a little smoother, though. I'm not a huge fan of this type of music, but I can appreciate a good mix when I hear it. The kick during the last minute was a little invasive, but other than that I think this is good.

I agree with some of the comments about depth. I feel like I'm spending a lot of time in the upper frequencies. When that bass drum first came in, I thought you were going to do something Hans Zimmer ish - tribal drums of sort would work really well behind that. It's a short source, but I think you could lengthen it with some ambiance-type sounds in there too. You've got a good haunting quality going on here. If you listen to Mark of a Beatsmith, that's kind of what I'm talking about. He took a short source and really pulled everything out of it. The end is a bit abrupt for me. Maybe you could peel away more of the instruments so it's more gradual?

This is pretty cool man. 6/8 is one of my favorite time signatures. Before the strings came in, I was envisioning something Baroque, but I tend to be a little silly. If you want to go orchestral, this could be a really cool concerto of sorts.

Dude! I've been looking for that mix forever! I found it on a website a while ago and didn't know it was up here. I love it. I wanted to collab with that guy but he never got back to me.

I just made my submission, Zircon. Can you confirm that you received it, since there are a couple of people here that seem to have had their subs lost?

Flex, I hit you with a PM.