Pl511

Thanks a lot for all the advice, guys! I always love getting feedback on every aspect and it seems like you've all covered pretty much everything. ^^ On the end of the mix, I know I really should've put a coda or a little wind-down at the end, but I was running out of ideas quite badly by that point unfortunately. Glad you all enjoyed it!

In one of the longest development times for a track I've worked on yet, this remix was conceptualised just over two years ago, and it hasn't been until recently that I picked up the perfect software to finish the arrangement. I also wrote three extra counter-melodies to play off of the main melody. Hope you guys enjoy it, it's been a crazy journey finishing it off! | Soundcloud Link

Nobody appeared to have mentioned this before, but AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I'M SO GODDAMN EXCITED.

So I'm going to be working on an EP/album thing after a couple of people have suggested me to! Super excited to start writing loads of new music with an interesting purpose. Not sure what kind of music I'll have on it (most likely just the standard sort of orchestral-y ambient-y kind of stuff I usually make) just yet but I decided to start on the first track early before I begin all of the heavy lifting in summer with some larger and more full sounding orchestral and solo piano tracks. Anyway, this is the first minute of The Halcyon Steppe (title might also be a work in process, but we'll see). This utilises a lot of the new software I've acquired recently for strings and woodwind, and - while I haven't got around to doing everything completely properly yet - I've put a lot of additional care in individual instruments instead of just as a cluster like I usually do. Feedback would be appreciated!

| Bandcamp LinkWorking on this has been without a doubt the largest project I've ever worked on, with the total length coming in at more than double the length of any other compositions I've released on this channel, and it's also probably been the most fun to work on. Written for AccentCancel's 'Nothing is True; Everything is Permitted', a short fan-made film loosely based on Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed video-game series, this track was created during the film's post-production during a period of about two weeks. This is also the first commissioned piece that I've worked on, and it's been a really fun project to write for. Obviously it'll probably be more enjoyable to listen to it with the film itself, so check out the links below if you want to see that as well. Nothing is True; Everything is Permitted (Short Film): YouTube Link | Vimeo Link

I'm currently asking myself this question right now having sold about 50$ worth of music on bandcamp in the last 6 months. It's obviously a pretty shitty time and work to money ratio, but considering it's a thing I do in my free time with little negative impact on any other aspect of my life, this - in my mind - is a pretty sweet achievement. I've almost completely decided on making an EP of 3 or 4 songs, and I'm just getting round to starting procrastinating for all the preparations I need. Because I'm a student, I consider this as an investment in my free time so that I can get better at music production and composition while having a little fun and possibly making enough money to pay for something nice. Also obviously it's pretty cool to be able to say you've made something like that by yourself (or as a collaboration, or whatever) and practising this kind of thing will hopefully be a good idea to improve on your skills and creativity for future projects.

I'm currently trying to start planning a résumé for if I ever get any more offers/opportunities for individual jobs or commissions in music composition/arrangement, and I'd like to ask a question to anybody who has either written a résumé with this, or for people who have been involved in looking at résumés before. I've done some composition for school projects, a school play and other small things, but I'd really like to reference my YouTube channel in some sort of professional context without it sounding like I have no idea what I'm talking about. I have quite a few compositions on there that I sell on bandcamp, with the only really notable one being 'Spring', which got pretty popular after SivHD featured it in one of his videos (which led to a pretty huge increase in sales) and ~10 000 views from that (currently sitting at around 17 thousand). I've also got a pretty large number of arrangements, remixes and covers of songs on this channel, and - because I feel like I have learnt a lot through creating them, tweaking, working with different settings, getting feedback, etc - I want to try and show that without it looking like all of that was a bit of a waste. Any ideas?

Finally posted this on youtube after making a few changes.

Yeah, I saw that and went for the other license. Still 70% off, hooooly crap. XD This is kind of amazing.

If you're a student, you NEED TO SEE THIS RIGHT NOW! http://www.soundsonline-europe.com/CCC2EDU For those with verifiable Student ID, 85% off the Gold editions of Hollywood Strings, Brass, Woodwind, and 4 other available instruments of your choice (Stormdrum 2 is there, Ministry of Rock 2, Solo Violin, Voices of Passion, etc). Seriously guys, go go go!

Because I work on a laptop, I have to deal with problems of CPU and RAM usage pretty often, and it's changed the way I deal with strings a lot. I also use a MIDI keyboard for recording input and then adjust it manually by hand afterwards. Because of this, I now see my strings library as essentially 8 parts - One violin, one patch with multiple violins; one viola, one patch with multiple violas, etc. I also mix down to .wav everything after I complete it, and move the original midi recording to a separate muted instrument track titled something like 'Violin Arco Melody' or 'Cellos Staccato' and so on. This means that I've essentially come to think of each part of the strings as a separate sequence of chords (and perhaps a melody) that could be played using just two hands (or perhaps 3 if I've manually added in additional notes) on a keyboard. While this doesn't necessarily give me a huge deal of room to work with in some instances, I've got a sheet of the ranges of each individual patch for each part of the ensemble, and I can use this to exploit each instrument as fully as I can to create a full sounding texture and harmonies that can be written independently to the melody. Regardless of how workaround-y this system actually is, I find that usually some of the best writing for strings comes from when you write parts independently and then add them together. If anything doesn't fit, you have room to change it. If something you hadn't considered might work well fits nicely, you've just created something awesome at only a very small cost of a couple of seconds.

Hey there! I'm a student currently studying for a maths and music degree so maybe I can help a little. As of yet I've only had a single OCReMix, and that's currently still not posted, but I guess I could help a little. My first encounter with VGM was when I got my first Gameboy with a copy of Pokémon Blue. I was pretty young at the time and consider Pokémon Blue to be the game that led me to love video-games, a somewhat life-consuming hobby that I've had since that point. The first time I started loving VGM was with Pokémon Mystery Dungeon's soundtrack. It was the first of many to follow where I found myself playing particular levels over and over simply for the music, something I hadn't ever thought about doing before that game. Things like Pokémon RSE also are memorable as being the reason I bought my first set of headphones so I could listen while playing without annoying anybody else. My first point where I actively became an avid listener to OCR's stuff (and VGM in general) was when I discovered bLiNd's Final Fantasy XIII remix 'Blue Skies' after searching for the FFXIII soundtrack. This discovery also led me to the rest of OCR. I'd loved a lot of soundtracks of games before that, but at that point I developed a massive interest in this area and this inspired me to make my own arrangements and compositions. I'd say that to this day that remix has been my favourite track of all time because of how perfect and expertly crafted it is. I don't really contribute a huge amount to the OCR community other than the occasional arrangement and remix, but I think the community as a whole is incredibly welcoming and friendly, with a large amount of people open to discussion of just about everything that could be discussed. It's a strange feeling reading threads where some of your favourite ReMixers are talking about things completely unrelated to video-games, but I'd say it's one of the best forums for finding friendly interaction that usually doesn't get overly angry. Recently I abandoned ideas of doing a Maths degree after years of wanting to do it because I knew that my dream is now to be a composer instead. A lot of this has come from the talent I've seen displayed by members of this community, and I'm striving to use every arrangement or remix I've heard or made in creating my own music and style, so I have OCR to thank for a lot of my ambitions and for a lot of the paths I've chosen to go down academically.

Thanks a lot for the critique! I've actually never heard that song before, but the resemblance is uncanny... It's actually based a little on the , but that's kind of weird that both of those tracks sound so familiar. That bit from 1:02 was probably my favourite part to work on of the whole track, and I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm slightly on the edge of agreeing with you about the woodwind at 0:27 - I'm happy with how I got it to sound, but I agree there could be a little more balance. I also agree with you on the ending, although I sort of like how abrupt it is at returning to the original motif. Thanks a lot! I aimed to give the piece that sort of feel, and I'm glad that came through!

Soundcloud Link | I've been working on a series of short-ish demo-reel type tracks, and this is the first finished one of those. I recently got some new strings and I think the difference in quality has been pretty awesome to see as I redid the parts I had started with Cinematic Strings 2 (sooooo much nicer sounding than what I was using before! ). Any feedback would seriously be appreciated!

That was sweet! Lovely overall sound, nice space-y/spectral feel you managed to create. Vocalist was awesome too!

I think generally this divide is made because of limitations of old games - if there's a lack of a detailed chord structure, or a very simple bassline, generally it's quite easily to create your own inspired version of that. At the level of NES-, SNES- and to some extent early N64-era music, you can very easily analyse the music as being a creative illustration of the game. Even games with massive differences in tone would share a sort of musical pattern - the music would give character to the world, but without more detailed features that most other music has (think humanisation, swells, etc) the music could never expand to more than VGM, which - in itself - has become its own genre. VGM from those times was very much a completely different thing to the game itself - sure it added character, but due to limited capabilities it could never fully work as music in films ever could (except in occasional circumstances where a certain 'theme' would be used to display some specific emotion). This effect has been carried to modern music in games like Mario - the music is distinctly unfitting to the actual game-play, but as VGM it excels fantastically, demonstrating how versatile VGM has become. Compare music between Sonic Generations and Mass Effect, for example. Both have phenomenal soundtracks, but should these games be judged on the same plain? In a sense they are both background music, but the difference is incredibly obvious. I think the main reason why newer VGM doesn't hold the same appeal as other, older themes is that composers strive for feelings such as those evoked by Mass Effect, Halo and Skyrim - rich, powerful, beautiful music that could be compared very easily to film music. As a result, some creativity and clarity is lost, and definitely a lot of melodic interest can be as well (when was the last time you heard an orchestral song with a melody as recognisable as something like the Super Mario main theme, or Chemical Plant Zone?). Simplifying music by consistently using a full orchestra can sound brilliant even without a distinctly recognisable melody. That said, I can think of a large number of recent games with outstandingly fantastic soundtracks with recognisably remixable elements, from Bastion to Super Meat Boy to FTL to Minecraft to Thomas Was Alone to VVVVVV and so on. (I've selected these above all because they all feature a variety of instantly recognisable melodies - I'm sure also the increasing familiarity of them when playing through helps a lot.) These do seem to be games that people overlook, and I think that is probably due to nostalgia related purposes. Despite all of this, I'm pretty certain that in a few years we'll be seeing a lot of people remixing songs from the games that they grew up with.

That's awesome! The short film I've got right now has potential to be a pretty big thing if the internet decides it likes it, but I haven't actually considered things like the added exposure and potential gigs after that before you said that. I'm pretty surprised about the pay, though - with the amount I've been offered, I'll probably be working for about 3 or 4 times that rate per minute of music for a 4 or 5 minute long track. That said, I'm going to have to sort out timings with the actual film and presumably I'll be working with a substantially huge number of instruments to get the sound I want. What kind of things did getting that work lead you to?

I recently landed my first actual 'job' composing some background music for an upcoming short live-action film by some guys that found me through my YouTube channel, and I thought it would be interesting to see what kind of other first experiences people have had working in this sort of industry, whether it be film, music, or otherwise. I know it might be a little personal, but it might also be nice to hear the kind of level of pay received as well (on a per minute sort of rate).

Maaaaan, that sound~ That intro is really lovely in particular, awesome use of some of the things usually people forget with the piano. Nice chords too! I can't speak on behalf of the mixing or another at all, but I'm really enjoying the overall arrangement overall. It sounds really organic and natural, really atmospheric and calming stuff.

I really enjoyed that! It's a little harsh in a few places, but the arrangement itself is pretty beautiful. I'd like to ask, what piano VST are you using?

I found an old piano arrangement of Utada Hikaru's Sanctuary I'd made about a year ago, and decided to re-orchestrate it a little in my usual style. Not entirely sure where I'm going to go from here on - it's looking like exploring a few more interesting references might be a cool idea - but I'm liking the more free feel I've been able to put into some of the rhythms by not quantising chords. In general I think it sounds a lot less mechanical, and those woodwinds in particular are sounding a lot warmer. I'm a little nervous as to the quality of the arrangement itself because of the very slow harmonic movement and alternation between just two chords.

And it's finally done! Working out the ending took aaaaaages. I'm really happy with this as a finished arrangement - I can tell a few things sound a little out here and there, but I'm thinking/hoping that the strength of the arrangement can push past some of the less desirable sounding elements of the mix. Hope you guys enjoy! Critique would definitely be nice considering this is probably the most detailed arrangement I've ever worked on. Thanks guys!

I recently started a collab with David Locke (his first album came out, progressive rock, really worth listening to - http://davidlocke.bandcamp.com/album/riding-out-youth - but anyway, enough plugging ) on a rock remix of the main theme from BF4. We know this theme has practically been done to death already, but we're trying to at least bring a few new ideas to the table. Everything is still pretty rough - transitions, mixing, some of the sounds, some of the takes, structure - but we've made quite a lot of progress into the mix and so far it's sounding like it could be quite cool. Feedback would be seriously appreciated!