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Posts posted by Devsman
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Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not ignoring you; it just takes me a long time to find a chance to work on this stuff, haha.
I think I've improved the reverb, and now I'm working on getting dynamics adjusted. Oh and hey, there's an option to randomize velocity. That could come in handy. Seems kinda tricky to set the value just right though; I'm ending up with mostly samey-sounding velocities except like once every two or three measures there's one that's way too loud. *shrugs* I'll keep playing with it.
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So there's a story with this one. Feel free to skip it. See the bolded line below.
The year was 2004 and Business Tech Essentials was boring me to tears, when I discovered I could listen to remixed video game music for free instead of actually doing my work. Purely by coincidence, I had recently discovered Mega Man and become absolutely obsessed with it, which I remain to this day. So at a time when I was constantly searching for any video game tune that would be cool with some kind of twist, I stumbled upon Mega Man Legends. There's no shortage of cool tunes on that MML soundtrack, but this one particularly caught my ear. I think part of it was the context: while it makes sense for the ruin to get darker as you descend, this one actually gets brighter. Mysterious af.
Anyway, I wrote up a pair of drafts of what I would want it to sound like: one as a grandiose pipe organ piece that (frankly) kinda sucked, and another as a more ambient tune that had more promise. I still really like the sound of that one, but I kinda ran out of ideas when it was like a minute and a half long, and I hated anything I tried to do to go forward from there, so I decided to take a break. I came back after a week, nothing. A month, nothing.
The months turned to years. I met a girl, I finished high school, I decided to go into engineering instead of music (it was a tough decision, but ultimately a good one). Every now and then, I'd load up that midi (I told myself once I liked the arrangement and got to an ending, I'd update my techniques then) and listen to it, and see if I could figure out where to go next. Predictably, it never went anywhere. At this point, it was on a thumb drive since I had moved on from my dad's PC to my own laptop.
Well, I graduated college, married that girl, lost that thumb drive somewhere along the way, and got into indie gamedev. Video games need music, and I wanted to do this thing right, so I upgraded my software, techniques and even tried to learn some composition from youtube videos and internet articles.
I had kids with that girl, an OCR remix literally changed my life (https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03719), and while all this was swirling through my head in the year 2023, I decided to give a listen to a classic album that was a favorite of mine: Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I've always thought it was kind of hilarious how the opener was two different songs just mashed together because why not, and I made a passing joke of it in my head: They should make an exception to copyright law... If you ever get writer's block, you should be allowed to just add Love Lies Bleeding to the end of your tune.
Wait a minute... Writer's block? Didn't I have that once? OH YEAH.
So now starting from scratch because that old midi of mine was long gone, I actually decided on a kind of low-intensity hard rock remix of yet again the same tune from Mega Man Legends, and figured, once I get stuck, I'll do that. I'll literally just glue on Love Lies Bleeding to the end of it. You know, just as a joke. And I did, and it was frankly kind of hilarious. I obviously couldn't submit that to OCRemix, but it did get the wheels turning in my head. And besides, what better way to hone my skills for composing an actual video game soundtrack than by practicing with a familiar tune and connecting with a community to get feedback?
So I decided, once and for all, I was going to finish a remix of the Main Gate tune even if I hate it, and I was going to do it before the end of the year 2024, since that would be 20 years since my first attempt, and frankly I can't remember what day or month it was when I started. So you could say this thing is (kind of) 20 years in the making. ... Kinda sad, when you put it that way, actually.
STORY OVER. IF YOU WERE SKIPPING IT, HERE IS WHERE YOU START NOW.
While it's incomplete and needs a ton of help, here is my most recent swing at a Mega Man Legends Main Gate remix. Here's the original:
In mine, I kinda wanted to lower the intensity as well as the tempo and focus on a couple of less common ideas that I have always found cool in spite of (or perhaps because of) their rarity:
1. Modulations to a lower key instead of a higher one.
2. Swapping the role of soloist (or in this case, soloists) and accompaniment so that the melody pretty much serves as context for interesting harmony.
You can pick out the modulations easily because they're preceded by a change in the chord progression and accompanied by a bass drum roll. It transitions from B minor to Bb minor to A minor and finally A major right at the end. I love the way it feels when it resolves to the new key; there's a kind of contrast between losing energy by virtue of the modulation but raising tension in the composition. But I think those transitions are kinda awkward and/or abrupt. Especially the second one at 2:50.
I also feel like things get a bit repetitive in a number of places. I mean, it's a pretty short chord progression (and tune in general) in the original, and layering the melody in/out only helps so much...
I'm afraid I have no idea what to do with the piano in final major part, lol. Nor how to transition into it. Which is sad because the piano was the point, haha. I tried a couple of things and I hate all of it. I'd kind of like to do something other than arpeggios since I've been doing that for like 3 minutes at that point but it sounds awkward without some kind of movement. I do like the chords I chose for that part though, including the sus4-minor resolution and the Mario victory progression at the very end, so I'd like to keep it instead of just ending in A minor. Besides, the tension leading up to it HAS to go somewhere.
There are also the obvious problems that this sounds super robotic and I don't actually have any clue how many hands you would need to play it (sorry, I'm not a pianist), which other than recruiting real musicians, I'm not sure how to solve, haha.
And then there's the bass drum. I kinda like what it adds to the transitions, but I can't decide if it's awkward that those are the only times it does anything. I feel like it needs to either do more or get cut entirely. I tried adding in some more to the A minor section but it felt like it was intruding on what was supposed to be a pretty simple instrumentation.
One last thing: do the piano and flute feel like they have roughly comparable amounts of reverb? I can't decide if that's what it is, but something feels off about the two voices together.
So! Any comments, tips or pointers are very much welcome! Thanks!
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I don't really have any constructive criticism but I had to comment on how much I love this, lol.
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Man, I love this. It gives me so many cool ideas, too.
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I don't dance. Except to this.
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Ok so here's something I threw together with Synth1 and the Atmospherik Mekanisms soundpack from 99Sounds. I also added one that was just the percussion.
I didn't bother to clean it or even write a decent melody; it just uses the Jpop IV7-V7-iii7-vi progression and loops the same two phrases over and over after a layering intro. But as a proof of concept, I think it sounds ok.
I think with some processing on some of those samples to make them sound bigger, this could make for some pretty cool machiney percussion.
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On 12/11/2021 at 2:32 AM, HarlemHeat360 said:
I'm not at my PC right now so I can't say for sure, but 8dio has a few free VST packs that contain a plethora of interesting sounds. I'm pretty sure some of them are more machine like as you put it.
Other than that, Damage 2 certaintly has plenty of industrial type sounds to choose from
Thanks for the suggestions! Lots of good stuff in there, especially Damage 2.
It kinda hit me just now, it may not be a bad idea to wait until I have a car problem and then ask my mechanic when I drop it off if I can record some sounds. Not sure how they'd feel about a customer walking around when they're trying to work but you know you'd find some great sounds that way if they allow it.
Also, if you're me, you don't have to wait long for car trouble.
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Forgive me if this comes across as Devsman thinks this comment section is his personal blog, but I think this is worth sharing.
About eight months ago, I was listening to this, and asked myself, why am I still here? So I posted the comment above to let the remixers know it had made me think.
To provide context, I was an engineer by degree but never managed to get a real engineering job. They just didn't happen where I lived. I was nine years into constantly getting my foot in the door, getting experience in a kinda-sorta-related industry, and more or less just losing hope of ever landing the job I wanted.
So to be asked why are you still here was like a movie character making eye contact. Of course I knew why--my dream job just didn't happen where I lived.
But I thought, you know what, that's not insurmountable. I'll do something crazy for once, just for kicks. I actually applied in the next city over, got an offer, and even convinced my family that we should accept and make the move.
Eight months ago, little kid Devsman would have been ashamed of my job. Today, he would say "you do what?! That's freaking awesome!!!"
So thank you, remixers, for the wake up call. And to everyone else:
Your fate is in the stars. Why are you still here?
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The kind of stuff you hear in factory/mine levels:
Some of this seems to be actual samples, or sound effects repurposed as percussion, so I'm not necessarily looking for anything that matches super close to any particular sounds here. But if there's a way to get a lot of sounds in the same general spirit, that would be awesome.
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23 hours ago, DarkeSword said:
Sure, fair enough. It may also be because the progression of the melody and backing track sort of has a downward motion. The highest the melody goes is in the second measure. After that there's a lot of descending lines in it.
Ah, I think you're onto something here. I just came up with a few simple melodies to hum as-is and then a whole step lower, and it does tend to sound sad, even if it goes from a minor chord to a major.
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18 minutes ago, Meteo Xavier said:
Darkesword's just being curtly dismissive, as always.
For me personally, I don't get the same impression but I can imagine how you might. Especially if I listen to it in my head as a slow solo piano song or something like it, I can definitely hear a lot more melancholy; specifically like someone or something trying to put on a bright, happy front while being far more down behind it.
I feel like there have been songs I've also much later caught subtle emotional hints and impressions like you have though I couldn't name any examples of memory right now.
Yeah, that's exactly how I'd put it.
Another tune that does something similar, but I understand why a little better, is Aurora's Theme from Child of Light, which has a really obvious minor chord progression, but the melody focuses on the major third between the third and fifth to make it sound cheery in spite of its own key:
It's so effective that there's even a solo version that could completely fool you:
Heh, I'm trying to learn some music theory, so I've been looking for stuff like this to try to understand it.
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On 6/14/2021 at 10:06 PM, DarkeSword said:
I mean, it's in a minor key. That's probably why.
Hm, I dunno. A lot of times minor doesn't sound sad to me exactly, but maybe like dramatic or edgy. Sometimes it even kind of contrasts a fast tempo so the song doesn't end up sounding like something out of Barney. Like in a lot of rock music.
As a kid, I usually heard it more like that, where it just would have been too much to be fast and also cheery so they mellowed out the melody a bit. It's kind of recent that I really started noticing it sounded a little sad.
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I could never put my finger on exactly why, but it sounds kinda sad to me.
Not like weepy sad, but more like, a little bittersweet or something.
Anyone agree?
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I always thought this would be a cool mix.
In the style of
or
Vocals/lyrics optional.
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So I just did my 2021 update, haha.
New additions:
Mega Man X 'Rolling' by Maverick Astley
Donkey Kong Country 2 'All Aboard the Glitter Express' by Light Pillar
Ocarina of Time 'To See Like Me' by Bowlerhat feat. Felix Brassel, Pierre Vyncke, Gregory Ksiondzyk, Dirk Bosman, David Jans, Chae Yeon Lee, Hee Hyun Lee, Louise van den Heuvel, Arno Grootaers & Rebecca Driesmans
Sonic the Hedgehog 'Speeding Towards Adventure' by Azzykay316, Final Kingdom, Furilas, Jorito & Tuberz McGee
Mega Man X5 'Never Gonna Give (Up the Funk)' by Jorito feat Tuberz McGee, Anton Corazza & Eino Keskitalo
Final Fantasy VI 'Dream 'Til Tomorrow' by Earth Kid
Street Fighter II 'Family Man' by Overclocked University & Moonlapse
Golden Sun: The Lost Age 'What I Want to Say' by Vylent and TSori feat. Spy Girls
Fixed mistakes:
Added Metal Gear Solid 2 'Big Shell West Bristol' by BenCousins. I accidentally left it out when I first put the yt playlist together.
Moved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV 'Pizza in the Van' by Chidi Enyia, MMvsUSAF, Roqsteady and Samara Smith to the end of the playlist, where it was supposed to be.
Many thanks again to all the Remixers who have contributed to the site!
4 hours ago, twiilit_ said:For the two tracks that were removed in Disc 2, it looks like they were deleted. There's a page on OC ReMix that shows which remixes were deleted and why, and both of them are on it.
Hm, I took a look and it says they were removed by request. There are a whole lot of ReMixes from this author that were removed by request. Huh. Well, I suppose that's all anyone needs to know.
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Dang man. Why am I still here?
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3 hours ago, Jonathan David Arndt said:
@DevsmanHow do you search for remixes with lyrics?
(I tried some time ago with downloaded files, and a text search for "lyrics" turned up... well, hundreds of them. But I was never really sure if that search was conclusive.)
When you find a remix with a tag you want to search, you can just click the tag and it will bring up everything that has been tagged with that tag.
https://ocremix.org/tag/lyrics-original
https://ocremix.org/tag/lyrics-existing
You can also browse all tags here:
Though the site does warn that this is still beta and might not work well.
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9 hours ago, Cyril the Wolf said:
I never realized how many vocal remixes there were on OCR.
Neat.
Yeah, I was surprised at first too. And this isn't even close to all of them. There were hundreds, probably thousands of them last time I searched.
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So I have a playlist I've been working on for a couple of years now; finally decided to share it! I have a couple I've put together, with different criteria, so the criteria for this one was:
- Must have prominently-featured vocals (not just background OOH AHH)
- Must be from a game I like, or at least a game with music I like
- Cannot be featured on an album I already listen to separately
Now, this is pretty rough criteria--I bent or outright ignored the rules for a couple of tunes I just really liked. So if your remix doesn't appear, please don't take it personally! I probably just never played the game it comes from, or already had the album, or maybe just not personally a fan of the genre, may even just be newer than the last time I added stuff, etc.
It is (rather uncreatively) titled OCR Vox. I just put together a youtube playlist for it:
Here is the track list. I separated it out into discs, like some of the OC ReMix albums do. Each disc has its own opener and closer, and of course I sorted them all based on what felt to me like the most natural progression musically.
DISC 1: This disc was mostly composed of tunes that felt like intros to me.
1 (Disc 1 opener). Castlevania: Symphony of the Night 'Lost in a Nightmare' by Palpable.
2. Donkey Kong Country 'Permutation' by Nicole Adams, injury & Entheogen.
3. Mega Man 4 'Standing on Top' by Flexstyle and Jason Covenant.
4. Donkey Kong Country 2 'A New Place' by injury, M.J. Ault, Nicole Adams & Tepid
5. Super Metroid 'Kindred' by Jillian Aversa & zircon
6. Ocarina of Time 'Generations' by DrumUltima, Jillian Aversa, XPRTNovice & zircon
7. A Link to the Past 'The Goddess Gets Groovy Tonight' by Garrett Williamson & Sir Jordanius
8. Mega Man 9 'Daft Drafts' by zircon
9. Donkey Kong Country 3 'mojo gogo' by prophetik
10. Final Fantasy VIII 'Eyes on Me (Not Faye Wong)' by FFmusic Dj & Rydia of Mist
11. Mega Man 2 'Smooth Steel' by Malcos & zircon
12. Street Fighter II 'Ryu Next Generation (RNG)' by jdproject
13. Chrono Trigger 'Lucid States' by ambient & DragonAvenger
14 (Disc 1 closer). Ocarina of Time 'Lullaby of the Sky' by Jillian Aversa and zircon
DISC 2: Discs 2 and 3 were for tunes that had an "act 2" feel; which I know is really vague, haha. I mostly split them up because otherwise there would be this one disc twice as long as the others.
1 (Disc 2 opener). Final Fantasy II 'Grind My Crank' by XPRTNovice
2. Metal Gear Solid 'Never Go Away' by Chris | Amaterasu, Claire Yaxley & Dj Mystix
3. Chrono Trigger 'The Incredible Singing Robot' by Star Salzman
4. Mega Man 10 'Going Commando' by Brandon Strader (What happened to this one? I can't seem to find it anymore on OCR or anywhere else; naturally, I had to omit it from the yt playlist.)
5. Mega Man X4 'My Choice' by Brandon Strader (Ditto. I did find it on youtube, but it was uploaded by someone else and I didn't want to perform a faux pas if these were deliberately deleted)
6. Final Fantasy 'Find Your Way' by Darangen
7. Chrono Trigger 'Forever Until Tomorrow' by Paul Baxter and Star Salzman
8. Mario Kart DS 'Charade' by Hale-Bopp
9. Ocarina of Time 'Namors Gnudlib Theme' by Sir Jordanius
10. Mega Man 'Call of the Cut Man' by MEGAROCKMAN
11. Final Fantasy IV 'Over and Under' by Jason Brian Merrill
12. Donkey Kong Country 2 'Clouds Away' by Bekah Jones, DiGi Valentine and Palpable
13. Mega Man 9 'Concrete Heart' by AkumajoBelmont and Jason Covenant
14. Chrono Trigger 'Town Life' by djpretzel and Geoffrey Taucer
15 (Disc 2 closer). Ocarina of Time 'They SeeMe Rolling' by anterroir, Chimpazilla and timaeus222
DISC 3: Disc 2, part 2!
1 (Disc 3 opener). F-Zero 'The Freedom of Zero' by Harmony
2. Donkey Kong Country 2 'Us Monkeys Together' by Flickerfall
3. Legend of Zelda 'Hyrule's Angel (The Sleeping Beauty)' by Game Over
4. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 'Oil Ocean (WT-40 Mix)' by PlanetSkill
5. Mega Man X2 '(Don't Wanna) Hurt You' by Jorito
6. Final Fantasy VII 'Holding Hands' by DrumUltimA
7. Super Mario Bros. 'The 2-2 Blues' by brentalfloss
8. Super Mario Kart 'happy breakfast' by posu yan
9. Mega Man 3 'Blue Reflection' by injury
10. Donkey Kong Country 3 'My Red Hot Pursuit' by Wintermute
11. Sonic Adventure 2 'Knuckles' Unknown from M.C.' by Jose' the Bronx Rican
12. Mega Man 4 'Get a Weapon Weapon' by MMvsUSAF
13. Final Fantasy VII 'The Rules of the Road' by XPRTNovice
14. Mega Man 3 'Cataclysmic Clash' by Game Over
15. Final Fantasy VIII 'Shine Tonight' by Poolside
16 (Disc 3 Closer). Mega Man 7 'Seventh Climb' by Cyril the Wolf
DISC 4: These are mostly songs that sounded like closers to me.
1 (Disc 4 opener). Katamari Damacy 'Prelude, Fugue and Groove' by Gamer Symphony Orchestra
2. Legend of Zelda 'Rabbit Joint Cover' by The Rabbit Joint
3. Ocarina of Time 'Solace' by 2P & David L. Puga
4. Kingdom Hearts 'Destiny Forgotten' by adrian and Diodes
5. The Wind Waker 'Rime of the Wanderin' Seafarer' by zyko
6. Mega Man 9 'Smooth As Honey' by Sir Jordanius
7. Sonic Adventure 2 'Graveyard Theory' by Zone Runners
8. Nier 'Ancient Dreams' by Dj Mustix and Sabrina Valenzuela
9. Sonic Adventure 'Chaos Nightmares' by PrototypeRaptor
10. Mega Man 'Light's Out' by Game Over
11. Final Fantasy VI 'Anathema, Quietus & Apotheosis' by HeavenWraith
12. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 'SZRC Anthem' by Flexstyle and OverClocked University
13. Mega Man 2 'For You' by AkumajoBelmont
14. Sonic the Hedgehog 'Finality (Radio Edit)' by Cyril the Wolf and JH Sounds
15. Metal Gear Solid 3 'Innocent Deception' by Claire Yaxley and Dj Mystix
16. Mega Man X 'Dreams Come True' by Protricity and Star Salzman
17. Final Fantasy VI 'Forever, Young Rachel' by David Saulesco and Poolside
18 (Disc 4 closer). Chrono Trigger 'The Place We Knew' by Claado Shou, Jillian Aversa and Reuben Kee
DISC 5: What gives? Why is there a disc after the closers? And why is it overrun with Xenogears remixes? Well, long story short, these are where most of my 2020 updates landed. For previous updates, I had been mixing the new tunes into the existing four discs but they were getting so long already that I decided to add a fifth disc. And I just so happen to have played Xenogears (and a few other titles) for the first time shortly beforehand.
1 (Disc 1 opener). 3D Pinball: Space Cader 'Interst5llar 5a5uke 5ever' by Sir Jordanius
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV 'Pizza in the Van' by Chidi Enyia, MMvsUSAF, Roqsteady and Samara Smith
3. Xenogears 'Pillar of Salt' by Star Salzman
4. Star Ocean: The Second Story 'This Love, Our Love' by DusK
5. Mass Effect 'One Small Step' by Moire' Effect
6. Xenogears 'Ragnarok' by FFmusic Dj and Geoffrey Taucer
7. Sonic the Hedgehog 'Live at the Springyard' by Harmony
8. Xenogears '7 Years Broken' by djpretzel
9. Final Fantasy VIII 'Wings of Freedom' by Forest Elves
10. Super Mario Kart 'A Road That You Go' by DiscoCactus
11. Xenogears 'My Child' by Abadoss, DragonAvenger and Nutritious
12. Mega Man X8 'Es-cop-ay' by KingTiger
13. Xenogears 'Hymn of Aveh' by katethegreat19
14. Mega Man 9 'Tornadosaurus Rex' by PrototypeRaptor
15. Street Fighter II 'The Ken Song' by jdproject
16. Final Fantasy 'Vivo Revenis' by Jordi Francis and Shadow Dreamer
17. Suikoden II 'Do You Remember?' by Jorito, JoyDreamer, Lauren the Flute, Trev Wignall and XPRTNovice
18. Kingdom Hearts 'Protect Your Kingdom' by Smooth4Lyfe
19 (Disc 5 closer). EarthBound 'Home Again' by Dale North
I think that's all correct. Please let me know if you see any mistakes, spelling errors, differences in order, etc. Thanks to all the remixers named above, and many who were not (because this is not an exhaustive list of all the remixes here that I really love)!
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I love this so much.
I love everything about this.
I love that not only did it pick a great source material I never would have dreamed would have remixes, but it also namedrops the title to show it off.
And I love that this is just a totally sweet wicked awesome killer 10000/10 funkalicious discothon MASTERPIECE.
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Holy crap I love this. Assassin's Creed II and MGS1, two of the best video games in history, and even a touch of Revelations in there, and it all fits like it's not even a medley. I love it all, the vocals, the arrangement, the instruments and effects, this might just be my new favorite remix on the whole site. Love love love love LOVE the bass drums too. Beautiful work.
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Thanks for the responses. All good suggestions, I think. I'm pretty new at this haha. I'll work on it some more and update later.
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Ah, thanks. Funny thing is I had already read that thread but I forgot that part (heh).
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v3:
What's new:
1. Biggest thing: expanded "B" section, added vibraphone melody and viola. Reduced repetition and shortened mix overall.
2. Added bass drum hit after the pause.
3. Removed ocean sound (for whoever's curious, I first applied a low-pass filter to the noise section before using it as noise profile; obvious after the fact
)Edit: I can't find how to mark it finished. I'm sure I'm staring right at it but... help please?
[WIP] Gate - Mega Man Legends (sorry, no title yet)
in Post Your Game ReMixes!
Posted
Oh I'm sure I will at some point. For now, this is more of a side project that came about from a rabbit trail and landed way off base for the kind of music I set out to actually practice composing (lol) so it probably won't happen for this remix.
This piano is actually the Grand Piano that came with Kontakt Factory, and sounds much better--at least to my ear--than what I was using before. I don't even remember the name of that plugin anymore, haha.
Anyway, thanks for the recommendation. I'll be sure to look it up in the future.