Dafydd

I have no experience with Sibelius or CCC, but I'll try to answer what I can: I would also like a well-educated response to this question. It has do with how a mixer doesn't mix sounds the same way air does, but I don't really know why not. Not necessarily. It does often provide you with different samples for different velocities though, so one way you can vary e.g. drums is by having the velocity vary slightly for each note to emulate human perfomance (a human player doesn't hit the exact same spot on a drum with the exact same force every time, so the drum doesn't sound the exact same every note irl). Only rarely does a sample set have several different alternating samples for a given velocity (clearly this isn't the case with your drums). Most DAWs can randomize, for a selection of notes, the note velocities within a given range so you don't have to do it manually. Velocity is typically mapped to affect volume, but not necessarily so, and if you vary velocity from, say, 90 to 100, volume most likely won't be affected enough to make a difference, but you have potentially 11 different samples, which alleviates a lot of the "deadness". Most people can't. In fact, I remember some remix project that just plain didn't accept orchestral remixes simply because it's so damned hard to make them sound realistic. Jeremy Soule is one of the famous few who can pull it off. I have to listen really hard to tell his live-performed works from the sequenced ones. I guess it's something a conductor of live orchestras is especially well equipped to do (somewhat ironically, when you think about it).

This was awesome. Please finish it?

I love this source. Can't say the same for your power guitar, if that's what it's supposed to be. I also can't hear the bassline from the source. The mix generally feels very empty, it's like you've muted half the instruments. The marcato/staccato string breaks are a nice touch.

It sounds ok until the drums come in at 1:30 or so. Then it just gets really messy. The drums sound dead, especially the ride cymbal, and the toms mess up the lower frequencies something terrible. Even before that, the attack on the flute is too slow. The flute doesn't sound real at all. Making this sound good isn't just about sample quality, it's about humanization, modulation. A flute player doesn't play a melody with 5 second notes at the same volume throughout the note, they do crescendos, pitch slides, vibrato modulation (i.e. variations in vibrato depth and speed) etc., even when playing very simple melodies, and even if it's hardly noticeable to the untrained ear. Use all these things to hide the fact you're using a sampled flute, or it's going to be very, very easy to tell you're doing just that: using a sampled flute. This goes for all reed and wind instruments, really. It would also help if you could add a link to the judges' NO decision thread in your first post - that way we can see if there's anything they mentioned that still needs fixing. Don't give up!

Umm. Welcome to Arizona, I guess? Anyway, I liked this. Got a pretty serious ABBA vibe around 1:40-1:45. Not sure if you want to hear that, but there it is.

I agree with the others who said they didn't like the vocals much in the beginning, and I also found the performance overly sloppy. But... this is just too catchy not to grow on me, just like it did on them This is one of very few ReMixes I think would pass as a "normal" song to people who don't care for ReMixes (i.e. if you're not familiar with the source, there's no hint of this being a video game song, or a remix thereof), while still keeping plenty of references to the game in the lyrics. Plus, like Emunator said, the performance itself is like a nod to the original. Nice work!

Amen. Seriously, they should slap a warning sticker on his stuff - "May leave listener feeling unworthy."

You know you've spent too much time on facebook when you scratch your head looking for the like button...

Haha, in that case, I'd say it's closer to never than not usually. But again, it's not because we don't want to, it's because we're not aware there are updates to be made.

We do (or at least, we'd like to), but only if someone tips us off, and the bio has very few games listed, or there are ReMixed games on the site not already in the list. From the mascot bio project page: We'd like to keep the appearances lists up to date so that, for e.g. Diddy Kong, the appearance list lists all of the games featuring Diddy Kong that have ReMixes on the site. Naturally, we don't check every time a ReMix is posted on the front page whether it's the first ReMix of a game that features any of the 160-something mascots, but if you or anyone else notices any games on OCReMix missing from the game list of any mascot bio that should have that game listed, or if you know of any games featuring a mascot with very few games in its appearances list, you are most welcome to tell us so we can update the list.The bios themselves, however, we have decided to leave as is, as they were never meant to be up to date in the first place.

Why not use -q 0 instead of -h? Anyway, the lame manual states -h is always enabled when using VBR.

It really sounds like something taken from an N64 racer main menu for a while

Content Management System (among a large number of other things, apparently). Thanks for the advice, Ramaniscence.

That would mean storing the videos on the site, which would impact bandwidth for the rest of the site considerably. The site doesn't even store the MP3's right now, I think. Leaves more bandwidth to run the forum.

I was recommended Wordpress by lots of people but after poking around with it for a few hours (!) I feel like it's mainly intended for blogs. This isn't the kind of website we're making, it's a simple, comment-free, categories-free, late 90's looking, M$ Frontpage-esque, boring company website, and it needs to be built using a CMS where the admin (dad) can edit pages and do some basic layout with floating images (yeah, that level of layout candy. Wordpress actually does this quite well, I think) with no knowledge of HTML. For reference, the website used to look like this before the crooks (look at the url and try not to cry) dad paid to host his page shut their servers down.

Yeah, what Emunator said. I, too, am surprised this made it to the front page. If I'd seen this, or something like it, on the wip forums, I would have discouraged from submitting the remix in its current state. The arrangement is interesting enough, but the samples and the production are very basic and lack punch. Take away the bassline (which is cool, btw) and I think everyone would see that.

Death Rally has some seriously awesome mod music, featuring FM synth seqs, slap bass, blip-blop and lo-fi leads. Honestly not sure how anyone could improve on any of this, but I think the soundtrack deserves some attention.

It's actually kind of sad how "toe-tapping" is a positive way to describe a track in this genre. I wish there was music that actually made me unable to stay in my chair.

I like the addition you made, but the fatness is still lacking, and the old ending was a lot better than the new one. Try putting the new section earlier in the song so it begins and ends in the same style - adding the new section to the end like you did now makes it feel like two different songs playing in sequence. The vocals are really the best element in this remix, and the effects on them are just right, I think. EDIT: Ok, so the ending and final verse isn't there yet, I didn't read your last reply properly. Oops.

I think you'd need a short section that doesn't sound quite like the rest in order to keep the repetitiveness down, make this a little longer, and add something new to the arrangement beside the vocals (which are nice, btw). I get the idea you want the part that starts at 0:23 to be really fat, but it's not. All that reverb makes this lose fatness. You could try compressing this a bit, but you'd probably lose the 80's touch to it. Light distortion on the bass would be interesting. The verses are pretty nice, with the short squares, the bass (which is a weee bit loud here) and the drums, and then the vibraphone coming in just before the chorus, but the chorus itself is too weak, it needs to stand out more.

This remix has a lot more of a solid, bassy sound to it than most of WillRock's stuff, while still keeping that 80's feel. Nice!

Somehow someone translated radiation into sound and made this website where you can "make music" using that sound. http://www.nuclear.kth.se/radioactiveorchestra/ For some more background info...

Awesome. I'm no fan of the style, but for what it's worth, this was great. Sounded like a professional job to me. What model is that guitar, exactly? If it's indeed an rg320, you have the same trem type that mine does, and I hate it. Have you done any modifications to it?

You know, this place could really use some more Duke mixes. I agree with that youtube comment though - before 1:26 I couldn't tell what this was a remix of, but once it hit 1:26 I instantly recognized the song from the game. Aside from being so repetitive, this was nicely done, I think. Sweet twang to the bass.

The lyrics are completely impossible to hear, at least to me. The way the melody instruments have attack on every new note (no legato) makes it all sound very fake. Aside from having the "choir" there, there's nothing new or exciting about this arrangement, so as far as OCReMixes go, you're screwed. Thanks for the background info though, and really looking forward to Skyrim and trying to graduate before its release. Oblivion definitely set a dent in my grades way back in 2007.