Jump to content

thebitterroost

Members
  • Posts

    56
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by thebitterroost

  1. One almost surefire way to avoid this guilty feeling you're having would be to reach out to the composer(s) directly (not the game company). There's no guarantee you'll get a response, but if they think it's fine, I'd think that would be pretty authoritative.

    And yeah, it is a game of weighing risk. But on the bright side, the most likely consequence is just to be told to stop, and these things have a pretty large track record! Starting with sites like VGmix and Dwelling of Duels, people on the internet have been sharing covers and remixes of game music for 15+ years. I've personally yet to hear about anyone getting hit with a C&D, much less actually getting sued for damages. Another final step could be to submit your covers through a publisher like Distrokid, which will direct any royalties made by your cover to the owners (I included a screen grab from that section of their submission page).

    Actual fan-made games, on the other hand, haven't been as lucky. Though, again, even notable ones like Chrono Trigger Crimson Echoes and Another Metroid 2 Remake have only ever been slapped with C&D letters. So even the ever-protective Nintendo seems to be hesitant to actually pursue pressing charges.

    Screen Shot 2019-05-07 at 1.12.34 PM.png

  2. On 5/1/2019 at 11:19 AM, JohnStacy said:

    The identity thing is one I actually hadn't even considered, but now that you bring it up, I definitely think that is a big factor.

    Unfortunately, we humans are hard-wired for deep-seated tribalism, even over the tiniest shit. (One of my favorite podcasts has an episode on the topic, well worth a listen: https://soundcloud.com/youarenotsosmart/122-tribal-psychology)

    On 4/5/2019 at 8:51 PM, JohnStacy said:

    a lot of the critiques really do seem to be trying to say "you only like this game because of nostalgia, and if you didn't have the nostalgia you wouldn't like it, and if you do like it it's because you don't know anything about good games." I will not contest that first part. If you honestly think that Ocarina of Time is viewed like it is without at least some nostalgia, you're wrong. The second point also is somewhat valid. I have known of quite a few people who played it for the first time as adults and didn't like it. Younger people who played it for the first time also don't get it. So you can make the argument that nostalgia fueled the view of the game as a masterpiece. However, if you're going to make that argument, you have to take into account that Link to the Past, Zelda 1, and Wind Waker typically get the same response. Apply to Mario games, Metroid, etc. This is where the argument actually falls apart in most cases.

    The last point is one I highly object to. I really never have gotten into the idea that people have where "if you like this, it's only because you don't know what good <thing> actually is."

    The keyword there is "good," where someone cites a subjective element as objective (aka: the "No True Scotsman" fallacy). You'll always encounter self-important types that will lean heavily on this to try to assert their opinions as somehow more valid than another's. C'est la vie. There is some validity in someone pushing back on someone else who uses their nostalgia to all-out lionize something while dismissing all else (vinyl, anyone?), but doing it that on a general basis relies on ignoring context. A reasonable person wouldn't look at cave paintings next to DaVinci portraits and say "those cave dudes were talentless hacks, amirite?", or look at a Mac Classic and say "this is the best computer ever made." Those things are items of their era, and best viewed in that light. So for OoT, it arguably really *was* one of the best games of its era, because comparing it to most 3D adventure titles that existed around its release, it was larger, flashier, smoother, and so forth. Extending that comparison infinitely into the future is a fool's errand for those lionizing it, and a strawman for those dissing it.

    Also, SoE was indeed great, and @JohnStacy should definitely play Cuphead if not to just enjoy the art and animation, which are top-notch. (It's got an easy mode, too :wink:)

     

  3. This really is the symptom of the universe in the digital era with regard to just about any artistic medium. Since you are not selling your remixes, I wouldn't consider it a problem. At best, you're even potentially helping the copyright owners by giving fanfare to one of their properties, increasing the chance that a viewer/listener may check it out who otherwise wouldn't have. IP owners still have the right to claim infringement outside of fair use, but many don't bother because of a combination of effort and bad PR.

    When you make money off of it, that's a different story, but is still super common. As an example: There's a plethora of Etsy artists who sell stuff that is slathered with 3rd party IP with no end in sight. So what's the deal there? The DMCA specifies that only the original copyright holder can submit an application to remove their copyrighted material, which makes it an endless task of swatting at flies while also potentially suffering some bad PR in the process. So, while the occasional sellers get hit with a cease & desist, it rarely goes beyond that.

     

  4. On 5/2/2019 at 11:10 AM, Argle said:

    Any DAW that's not expressly designed for electronic music/live performance.  Specifically Reaper because it's very cheap.

    I'll second this. Not only because a Reaper license is very cheap, but because it is much more flexible than many older DAWs. The company provides a thorough set of video tutorials via its website/youtube, and once you've gotten the hang of it, its layout and command structure can be molded to emulate many others'.

  5. I might wind up feeling like an idiot for asking this, but where do I add/edit a forum signature? I wanted to add a sig advertising my willingness to record some live drums for folks if they wanted them, and hit a roadblock. I searched this forum and found some references to a user cp area, but I can't find that specifically. In most other forums, there's a text field for it the "edit profile" area, but not in this one. Also couldn't find it under account settings. Thanks in advance to the kind soul who can help :banghead:

  6. On 11/13/2018 at 10:56 PM, The Damned said:

    Potentially unpopular opinion.

    I find it... cringey.

    It doesn't look that good, and I don't think Ryan Renolds is the right actor.

    Don't worry, you're not alone there. I'll go a couple steps further and would extend that statement to just about everything Ryan Reynolds has ever been in (*prepares flame shield*). I just don't find the dude very funny. This role just seems like a way for him to try to take the Deadpool persona and milk it for the audience he couldn't reach in the box office with those R ratings.

  7. Thanks for the clarifications, guys!
    I read the "What is evaluation and when do I use it?" thread, but didn't get the notion that it had any effect on the actual judging process, time-wise or qualitative. I was also thrown off a bit by the "When you're ready to submit a remix to OC ReMix, but you're not sure if the remix fits the site's submission standards" qualifier. That made me think I was better off skipping the workshop arena, since I was confident in the quality of my work. Not trying to sound cocky or anything :oops:, it's just that I've recorded/mixed bands on a semi-professional basis for several years at this point and feel comfortable with that take. I guess I interpreted the purpose of the workshop to be more about soliciting help/feedback from the community at large.

    Anyway, with that in mind, I suppose I'll hit up the workshop with the track I recently submitted. I definitely appreciate the level of work you guys put into that process, and to reiterate, I don't envy you for that. I hope you all can find a way to lighten that load, and apologies in advance for adding to it! :P

  8. Hi everyone. I'm a newb here, but hopefully that won't detract too much from an idea as to how to potentially improve the speed of track judgment/posting without sacrificing quality. I searched for a thread that was about this topic, but only saw it addressed as a sort of sub-topic in this thread. Hopefully not beating a dead horse here.

    Anyway, I have an idea that may be useful for both the community and especially the judges, who seem to have a rather large workload to deal with. Considering how much they type out for each review, and how much time it takes for me to even compose a post like this one, it's not a task I envy. Given that the purpose of the judging system is primarily to set a minimum bar of quality, I feel like a large part of this task could be distributed to a larger part of the community. My idea is a two-stage approach, with the initial stage being something along these lines:

    • Create a user category of "sub-judges" (or whatever title would work) comprised of volunteers whose basic judging credentials are based on having some number (1-4?) of already accepted remixes.
    • Create a standard judging form that resembles the checklist from this forum to reduce the level of time commitment from sub-judges (with space for freeform commentary at the end). The aggregate of the forms can show a succinct basis of the reasons for the ultimate binary result of yes or no

    The results of these sub-judgments could be used as either a simple reference for the actual judges, or could be used to automatically reject remixes where the ratio of "yes" votes falls below a certain percentage (say, 20-30% or so?) with a minimum of number of sub-judgment submissions (I dunno, 10? 20?). Hopefully the end result of a system like this would be to reduce the workload of the judges while keeping things fair and transparent.

    I know this isn't a perfect solution by any means, and would create some extra work for the site designers/admin to create this little system, but hopefully not too much.

    Thoughts? :|

     

  9. On 8/28/2018 at 1:10 AM, Gamelore said:

    Just bare hands and raw weapons being used in physically realistic ways

    ...?

    latest?cb=20091002134734large.jpg

     

    Had to laugh at that some. I hope they've gone the Double Dragon Neon route and doubled down on as many of the ridiculous aspects of the game as possible.

  10. Firewind... haven't thought about them in a while. Wish that Gus G didn't have to bail on Dream Evil to make it happen.

    On 3/14/2019 at 6:06 PM, AngelCityOutlaw said:

    it's just way too much cheese and plastic nerd music for me

    I can agree with this. I really like early power metal (Helloween, Blind Guardian, Crimson Glory, etc), but like it less and less as time goes on, basically for this reason. Way too much time-correcting, sample-replacing, and all the other flavors of studio magic that create this over-polished and rather generic sound. Basically, most Euro-PM. Seen several bands who also couldn't really recreate their records' wankmanship live. Dragonforce / Sonata Arctica, anyone? 

    I've really been into the whole nwothm thing instead. A lot more of a stripped down / live / old school feel to it. Maybe not considered full on power metal, but usually riding that side of the fence between it and classic metal like Maiden and Priest.

    Or basically anything from this dude's youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCGbKiCJjph8Grazqmo7z4w

  11. Hello all. I've been writing and recording music for some years now, and was a longtime lurker/listener back in the VGMix 1.0 days. For whatever reason, I have never bothered recording a VG cover myself until this past week. Is it frowned upon to post things that you have submitted here on other pages/platforms (e.g. NewGrounds, SoundCloud, etc)? Since I bothered putting the time into it and wouldn't mind using it in a portfolio elsewhere, I hope that'd be cool to try to get the most exposure possible.

    Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere, just couldn't find anything about this in the FAQ and was having trouble coming up with search terms to find a similar topic/question.

  12. Hello errbody.

     

    I was recently made aware of some nice, free alternatives to sampled drum kits like EZDrummer, Addictive Drums, etc.

    http://www.powerdrumkit.com

    http://de-de.sennheiser.com/drummica

     

    I haven't yet tried the PowerMT kit, but I have loaded up the Sennheiser kit, and am pretty happy with it, especially for being free. It only features one kit, so there's no drum swapping, but you can swap the mics used on those drums (which is kinda neat in and of itself because it gives you an idea of the "color" of some of the different mics they offer). It is loaded via the Kontakt player, which is also free.

    I demo'ed it here: 

     

    Hope this helps someone who doesn't currently have the cash to throw down on a drum sample library!

     

  13. I guess it'll still be considered a novelty or a gimmick because of gender stereotypes (omg women being crass and aggressive!) and the fact that a lot of metal is known to have a very male-centric fanbase. I recall a joke I heard years ago that was something like "What has 1000 legs and 8 tits? A Cannibal Corpse show." The gap is closing (esp. in Europe), but the perception will linger, I guess. Just another tally on the "disappointed in humans" wall, eh?

     

    On the positive side, there might be less of that approach with smaller labels/audiences. I just got into Christian Mistress recently, and I haven't read much that over-sensationalizes their lead singer (yet, at least). Check em out, btw. Good classic stuff.
    http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16350-possession/

×
×
  • Create New...