satoka-eldon

Excellent suggestion. "The Solipsistic Ineloquent Buttballs of Prof. Mrs. Hieronymous Beaverwipe, The 13th Duchess of Neo-Gloucester" it will be.

I'm working on a new track at the moment that has two main points that I want to convey in the title: 1) It's an orchestral 'credits-style' arrangement for a game that hasn't been released yet. 2) It incorporates three tunes from three different games from the same series. What tags (e.g. 'remix' or 'medley' etc.) might be most appropriate? <Edited to remove crap and get to the point.>

The source is from the 2018 E3 trailer, starting from 0:27: Most recent version here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Nwn65M8wE7YtAncJSLjw2Kvo-KO4PKNo Comments appreciated, especially on the mixing. <Edited for brevity.>

Minor comment: can't quite put my finger on why, but it sounds a bit unfocused from 1:30 to 1:50. The buildup beforehand (culminating in the cymbal crash at 1:30) made me think it would have a more clearly defined rhythm to it. Otherwise it's very cool, and I hope you can extend it a little more~

Thank you very much! I guess I should just give it a go, huh? I will wait a few more days before submitting (since I just realised there are other bits I'd like to change), but I guess the worst thing that can happen is that it gets rejected out of hand. FWIW I've uploaded a slightly updated version with rebalanced strings (thanks Souperion!) and other minor adjustments. https://soundcloud.com/eldonreeves/mashup-pokemon-lavender-town-golden-sunelemental-stars (Note: Soundcloud won't play the updated version unless the cache is cleared.) By the way, Light_of_Aether: your orchestrations are amazing! Looking forward to hearing the final product from Metroid Reorchestrated~

I wouldn't know about the app, because SC is region-locked The issue with bots and behaviour of users is an issue on Youtube as well. I've been a victim (lol) of following/unfollowing tactics on both platforms, and also had market-bots leave comments on YT videos. I think the audience thing applies to both platforms too though, since fewer people have SC accounts. Hard to bring in repeat listeners when fewer people are hanging around on the platform every day. Not sure about degradation in YT though - my feeling is that the comments have always had the ability to be toxic. Edit: something that annoys me about both platforms is the stats that are shoved in your face all the time. I don't want to see how many people have been listening over the last day or week every time I log in, thankyouverymuch. (Twitter became a lot better after I installed the Demetricator addon, and I wish it were available for more platforms natively.) /rant

I have an exam on Monday. Probability of getting something together greater if there's an extension~

Interesting that you've been on SC for so long! I'm also on both, but uploading different stuff - I'm always vaguely anxious about splitting views across platforms for the same tracks. The sub growth on my YT channel is a lot higher than for SC (four times more for the former), which I think is because a lot of listeners don't have accounts there. (The playcount is comparable for both, although SC is a *lot* more generous when it comes to this.) I've read about the streaming quality issue before, and I hope it's something SC will eventually work out, although it's not a deal-breaker for me at all. (I've mostly been uploading soundfont remixes there, where the sound quality isn't great to start with.)

Very cool! I think I'll stick to Maple Treeway though if I get time for a quick remix.

I only found out about Soundcloud after starting to upload stuff to Youtube, but I prefer not having to waste time on adding animations to a video that doesn't include real instruments. Plus, I always feel like Soundcloud is a lot less stressful - sharing doesn't require a Twitter or Reddit account, there are no downvotes for people to troll with, and it's not the end of the world if there are some parts of a track which aren't perfect yet, because you can always go back and correct them later. I think the two main points in Youtube's favour are (i) that for tracks with real instruments, being able to see the performer perform is a plus point - if you share with family or friends for example, it's more obvious that it's really you, and not some random share; and (ii) that it has a far larger passive userbase. So, the question is: which site do you guys prefer for uploading music? And why?

Is this an either or? Or we have to mix them together?

I really enjoyed reading this, although I don't think I could come up with an analysis to the same degree! I now realise that I've incorrectly labelled tonicizations as modulations when describing pieces of music. However, I am also kind of surprised to read about the rareness of actual modulation - I can think of quite a few tracks by Motoi Sakuraba off the top of my head, in which he includes sudden key shifts for different sections of a track. For example, the second section of the theme for both Vale and Page One add extra flats into the key signature at the start of new sections. Or, are these 'sections' too short to constitute a real key change?

You're right - it's to do with the attack speed. I really need to investigate how to improve quickly articulated strings - not the first time I've had this problem! Thanks for having a listen

Here's my bonus entry, by the way. (I did this very quickly last night, so some of the EQing and note lengths are a little off, but whatever

Thanks for all the positive comments! Actually, I've really been struggling to 'market' this. I tried the word 'mashup' to start with, but it's not quite right; and it's not really a cover of the two songs either. The comment on the string section is very fair - I added it in at the last moment to try and fill out the middle frequencies and provide dynamic contrast with the first half, but didn't EQ it properly. Will change! I think if I were to submit, I'd definitely go with the name "Soulless Sanctum" - much better than the variations on "Elemental / Lavender / Stars" that I'd been stuck thinking about, so thanks again! (I guess my biggest concern for potential submission right now is whether unhumanised, raw soundfont remixes are acceptable. I know there's no criteria for having to make music that sounds like it came from the game, but I really want to try to keep that Golden Sun feel.)

I voted too!

I might guess that it's to do more with the position of the mic, and whether you're using a pop shield (which tends to filter percussive noises), rather than something to do with your playing. I'm also new at production, but learning about humanisation has been one of the bigger revelations for me. I guess if you're playing something written using notation software via MIDI you won't have human-like differences in velocities or note-timing. What DAW are you using at the moment?

This is a very cool composition. Love the way its split into three movements - I see a pattern with the Dragon Quest arrangement! I particularly like the use of the male choir in the first and third parts. Do make sure you give them time to breathe a little though, or it might sound a little unnatural. I think the drums in the first section could be mixed up a little bit more, especially in the first section - there's not a lot of variation there. Your flute playing is probably better than mine, but I do think that especially in the faster first section it's worth making sure most notes closer to the beat (e.g. around 0:51). I'm not sure how much you're tonguing? (There are definitely some phrases which are introduced with an untongued note in the slower middle section, where it might be appropriate, but (in general) this can sound a little unfocused.) I'm not able to tell to what extent you've humanised the accompanying instrument in the middle section either, where everything should really have a little rubato. It seems that the note velocities all are quite similar (I may be wrong!), which comes off as a bit unnatural. Overall it's very impressive though!

Really like the concept for this - kind of a slowish rock track. Not heard a lot of remixes of AOE2, and this demonstrates what a shame that is! It's a matter of taste, but I think the repeated square (?) at 3:20 doesn't feel too at home with the otherwise rocky feel. Similarly, I wonder if it might worth swapping out the wind instrument (?) that comes in around 0:50 for an undistorted electric guitar. (I appreciate that you might have wanted to have this type of contrast deliberately.)

I just realised the bike theme is a variation on that of Goldenrod city XD I think overall it works - the lyrics are funny, and I especially liked the instrumental section at the start where the two tunes were blended quite naturally. The switch to a minor key for the bike theme works nicely as well - personally I love to swap major/minor sections. One minor comment is that I think it gets a little busy around 1:04 to 1:08, and 1:19 to 1:23, where the violin is playing semiquavers over the vocals; it might be worth paring out the violin part a little bit by removing some of the semiquavers (if that makes sense).

Totally agree with this! The length of the buildup implies a much longer piece (if not six minutes, then at least three or four). Preliminarily, it might be nice to hear the bass a little more prominently in the first section, and to delay the introduction of the piano until later - it sounds like it belongs at the climax of a repetition of the main theme. Do keep going!

I've been messing around a lot recently with the soundfont for Golden Sun, applying it to other games, and this is one of the products thereof. I started out by using the same instrumentation as for the Elemental Stars Chamber, and ended up incorporating some of the melody, too (albeit adapted to a different time signature). Any tips on how to improve further would be very welcome! I know there are all kinds of idiosyncrasies at the moment (especially for dynamics and variation of velocities - not sure how much the GBA is able to do), but I'm not sure which aspects I should really be focusing on. Original tracks: (I don't plan to submit this particular track to the OCRemix, by the way - I'm just experimenting~ ^_^) Edit: My biggest concern for potential submission right now is whether unhumanised, raw GBA soundfont remixes are acceptable for submission. And, if not, whether treating the soundfont instruments as an orchestra, and applying realistic reverb and note velocity variation, would come across as very idiosyncratic.

Sorry for not replying earlier! I think I can still nit-pick a little more on this: Around 2:40, there's some chromatic runs in the melody; assuming they're not in the original track(s), I think they could be reworked a little. For example, you could include some chromatic foreshadowing elsewhere in the melody (so that form part of a cohesive whole), or you could shorten the runs when they do appear. (Also, I personally would try to avoid fast chromatic runs that end in sudden jumps.) At 2:51, the highest note on the synth carries over whilst the next note in the melody is being played; you could try shortening it (so that it doesn't overlap [so much]) to avoid losing the melody. Also, I really like the way that the piece ends in terms of composition - I always find this part the hardest, since these tracks were generally meant to loop endlessly! It might still be nice here to allow the rolling percussion to be brought out a little more, to make it feel really satisfying. These are all matters of taste though, and I'm by no means an expert. I really like the improvements that you've made the EQ, and the track overall is really cool~

I think it would be fine, although I must add a disclaimer that haven't tried it myself. I think you can find a lot of pop songs that have multiple vocal layers done by a single vocalist. Don't forget that you can pan yourself around and adjust the reverb, as well as adjust the EQ, for different parts~

I think I know what you mean - you want the effect of a mixed choir, right? Not sure what the best way of going about this is, although as a first step you might try writing other harmony parts to fill in other frequencies.