Dafydd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ktBqTsiwiI This needs a remix.

*drumroll* Introducing my cousin, who 2 years ago didn't know how to make an mp3 from a wav, who despite my 15 years of making music, my 9 years in music schools, and with no formal musical education of his own, now makes music that sounds better than mine and is signed with a minor label, and who despite my 6 years on ocr is also very likely to beat me to getting posted. *cymbal*

Why did JD have his removed anyway? I like that remix, I still listen to it sometimes. I actually thought that remix was a reject that I downloaded from a wip thread, but apparently not. As for this... it's too big to be submitted (max limit is 6MB). Easy fix but I thought you should know before submitting. The intro is nice but a little dull - the first lead has too much portamento and neither it nor the second one has any reverb or delay on them making them feel really dry. Doesn't matter once the melody starts playing but until then it bothers me. As compressed as this is, the drums don't feel heavy enough, it's like they don't have any bass at all. The whole song could use some bass boost. The whole arrangment feels a little too sparse most of the time, it could be because of underuse of reverb. I normally don't like when people use reverb gratuitously and I should commend you for not doing so but this is a genre that actually relies on reverb a lot just to fill out the void. The treble instruments could really use more reverb, especially the pads, but the bass and kick are fine in that aspect. Anyway, kudos for trying to get Sparkman covered. It's a great theme and it's pretty weird it's still left out in the cold after this long.

I want to be able to rename threads that I have started, like I am on every other forum I know, PHPBB and vB alike. I know this has been brought up a number of times and I've forwarded instructions on how to enable this feature from another vB forum admin to DJP via DarkeSword. What's going on? I don't see how something like this could be so difficult to fix. If anything doesn't work as it's supposed to the vB support should be able to help.

Bah, cheer up. You're doing great so far.

I wish I had time for this... Axe Bring Storm and Obsession are really nice tracks, I think. I wouldn't be able to make anything before the end of January though.

Darn it, I'm have a wip with nes arps in it. Now I'm gonna look like I got the idea from you. Seriously though, this is really awesome.

Those sitars could use a lot more reverb. I'm liking the intro but it's kinda disappointing when it doesn't turn into something fleshier. Those drums are really cool in the intro but once the kick come in it's just terrible. The drums are too weak. The lead is horrible even though the reverb certainly helps. It sounds more like a harmonica or muted trumpet than a distorted guitar though. One thing I don't understand is why you're leaving out the excellent bassline from the original (the one I used in my wip). I know you're supposed to rearrange things, but if you take away the "guitar", no one would be able to hear this is a remix of the underground theme from sml. I don't wanna bring you down but this needs a lot of work before you can consider resubmitting it. I understand it's hard to make things sound good using a mod tracker but it certainly is possible. For starters, you should look for better drum samples. Listen to how this sounds with the bassline and a drumloop slapped on top. The last few seconds of the click are untouched, just to show you the difference. www.ngst.nu/distantnightmare.mp3

Is this information still valid? If so, where can a list of hitherto unclaimed source tunes be found?

I actually sort of enjoy reading the harsh comments the same way I sometimes enjoy hearing the judges panel in American Idol (or equivalents thereof). But the panels are worlds apart. The OCR panel would never tell a remixer that he's the worst remixer there is and that he shouldn't be remixing at all (the equivalent of which the AI panel say all the time). I agree it's a little harsh sometimes, and I agree that to be 100% professional they wouldn't be saying the things you quoted above. But then again, if you're used to listening to music you like, and then you listen to something that sounds completely awful, how would you stop yourself from cringing? Maybe to trained ears, a terrible sample has more or less the same effect as flatulence itself, only more painful? Whenever someone sings, and does it off-key, I find myself making the most tortured faces. I can't help it. I agree the judges aren't 100% professional in their comments, even though this has certainly improved over the years, but I wouldn't expect them to be. They're among friends, doing something they've been doing for a long time. They probably need to cheer themselves up somehow. In judgings of my mixes, I care a lot more about their ability to pinpoint what they think is wrong with my mix than the way they say it. That said, I estimate the amount of very good mixes that don't pass the panel to be fairly large due to most remixers never resubmitting mixes that nearly pass and that the people here are missing out on good music because the bar is set too high. Having been passed by half the panel this remix was probably pretty good and now I'll most likely never hear it. And yes, this paragraph is intented to assure you I'm not "on the judges' side" or anything. I hope this didn't come off as an attempt to butter up to the panel. I just think you're over-reacting.

Rozovian explained this well, but I'd still like to warn you about reverb. What usually happens when someone is new to making music is they don't even know what reverb is. When they find out, they overuse it something terrible. After some time, they will have learned to use it with moderation. This example actually has too much reverb in my opinion: http://www.zirconstudios.com/Reverb%20Example%203.mp3 And I stole it from Zircon's remixing tips compendium. It's a little technical, but listening to his examples in part 4 certainly help make you understand what the various effects are all about. Check it out! http://www.ocremix.org/info/Zircon%27s_ReMixing_Tips_Compendium/Part_4:_Effects_Processing#Reverb

Congratulations, Rozovian. Red Canyon, eh? Been waiting for one. I'm hugely bothered by how the melody doesn't really play as in the original, but the mix as a whole sounds really good and the semi-distorted bassline is really nice, as are the quirky leads. They sometimes play notes that don't really fit, but oh well. The drums were a little dull, unfortunately, but hey, this is what I get for not posting in the wip thread for it (though I don't think ever I saw one...)

I don't mind a face not showing, it's just weird to have an avatar showing you his ass. Kidding. I don't know what LT would say about it, he has opinions about all kinds of things... like avatars being too ugly to be accepted... I use Paint.NET. It's free and everything, I mean, what's not to like? (Yeah, it does lack support for animated gifs, but hey, animated avatars aren't allowed anyway)

Due to the midi-ness of it all, it sounds like an actual SNES song. But I'm sure that wasn't what you were aiming for. The melody is what I really like about this theme and it's not really coming through here. There's absolutely no bassline in this remix. This, obviously, needs to be fixed. There's also no reverb on anything (again, midi-ness). Old wip of mine: http://home.student.uu.se/dahe9761/wip/Phytre Pighlet - Tyrol Pyramid - WiP 1.mp3

Sweet! It's nice to hear real bass for a change.

Haha, how authentic

I like the square but not the saw chords in the intro. The portamento is too long in the solo there. I agree the synths are a little too simplistic. There's also not a lot of action in the lower frequencies and everything has reverb on it. I'd love to hear some heavier drums and bass with no or very little reverb down low.

I know, but I've seen much bigger ones. Technically the limit still stands but LT has been making several exceptions, like this 31x42 one: I don't know how big they can get but I doubt you could stretch beyond 40x40 (i.e. exceeding the limit by more than a few pixels in either dimension). 36x32 shouldn't be a problem though. LT: It's mostly going to be height exceptions, not width. If we mess with width a lot, it starts screwing with the alignment of names, which I'm not down with.

It's not too big (not by today's standards anyway), you just need to crop it (remove the empty space around it) and give it a transparent background. Maybe a little contrast/brightness tinkering. Like so: But isn't there a picture of him showing his face? Looks like he's got his back turned here.

Looks sweet! Looking forward to it.

I'd really like it if there was an accurate gbs plugin that let you mute individual channels. nezplug++ doesn't do this, unfortunately. If the guy who made it had his website in english I'd write him myself and ask for it, but I can't find a way to contact him browsing through the menus. If anyone here knows enough Japanese to find an e-mail address, and maybe even send him this request (though considering how much programming he seems to know he should have some knowledge of English), I'd very much appreciate it.

Still waiting for the ability to change the title of my own threads. It's been built in the whole time and we still don't have it... Judging from the instructions I was given and then forwarded to djp via DarkeSword, changing the setting to allow this would only take a minute or two. PLEASE make it a sticky on your prio list. It would be extremely useful in the WiP forum, if not elsewhere.

Thanks anyway, dhsu. Liontamer - of course all of these charts would have to be maintained by the server, not by you or any other living person. I'm well aware you're working 25/8 as it is. I think it would be cool if judges votes weren't stored in their vote posts only but as a flag attached to their post or something - or a set of specific characters or words, or a smiley even, that would only be used for judges votes. That would require some modification to the forum software, and one that falls pretty far down on the priority list, but it would be cool, nevertheless.

I think it'd be great to have some charts over various things. Being able to view the number of remixes on the site per month, as well as the monthly number of submissions, number of yes'ed / no'ed /quick-no'ed mixes, judges on the panel, site income from advertisements / donations, number of forum users, forum posts, bandwidth usage etc. etc. etc. could be fun. Especially the part about income might help make people donate more (/often). Don't know how much of an impact it would have on the site performance, but if it's not updated more than once a month...

Going to the menu on top named Community and then to the submenu Forums gives you a list of subforums. This one isn't listed there. I don't know if this is intentional. Regardless, close this thread if it's already been mentioned.