Jorito

Claiming sheet seems to confirm that you did. Welcome aboard, buddy!

I'm not a commercial games composer, but I'd say it really depends on the type of game and the overall sound needed to make that game work. You already mentioned a few (pixel based) games that work well with retro sounds, and then sample quality isn't really a thing (especially if you're just using/emulating old sound chips). A modern looking game will usually require a more modern sound, with more polished samples though. It's just expectations that people will have, based on a game's art style and gameplay, I guess. But at the end of the day -in my opinion- the samples are just a tool, and it's the composition and arrangement and how you write for/use your samples that will make a big difference. Better samples just make your life easier.

The Loser is still free, so if you’re okay with the disc theme (calm with a cultural bent), why don’t you hop over to the album Discord so we can talk further? https://discord.gg/PvRJhgax

Despite this forum topic not being very busy (since 99% of the activity is happening on the album Discord), rest assured we’re making good progress on the album and just had our first WIP check-ins. There’s also still a bunch of cool unclaimed tracks, so if you feel you could do something interesting with them and fit the album disc theme, feel free to join the Discord and hit us up!

It's not that difficult IMO. If you host your game somewhere where people can pay for it (even if it's a voluntary donation), then money comes into play (the 'environment' Larry was talking about), and when there's money involved, you just get a different type of discussion. Artists made the tracks to be enjoyed for free, and if somebody suddenly uses your free material and makes money off of it, it's just not cool. I have had it happen to me (somebody stole some of my remixes and from a few other people, compiled it on an album and sold it on Amazon and the like). It's just a dick move that you don't want to make. Summary: if it's a for-free thing, you're good. If there's money involved, check with the artists first because they either might insist on a piece of the pie (no matter how big or small) or just not be okay with you using their work in such a way. It all boils down to respecting the artists as well as the OCR community and submissions guidelines and to not abuse them.

I'm not sure if he's available at the moment, but I have worked with @JohnStacy many times in the past (French horn is his main, but he's like a one-man brass army), so it might be good to reach out to him, see if he's interested.

I marked it down for you, don’t forget to add that bit of cultural flair to it, as per the disc’s theme Also, the Discord (see above) is the best place to claim a track, share WIPs and just chat about the album or other things (also writing this for other people who might be interested in doing a track).

Yay! Let's get going! Looking forward to contribute another one or two tracks to this album myself too

I'm super partial to Super Cartography Brothers' "It's-a-me" from Funk Fiction, it's my jam (to the extent that I tried to emulate some of that sound in a Crash Bandicoot track I did). But yeah, that album is great!

A very simple idea that usually works is just to take parts of the melodies of the songs you want to mash up (like 2-4 bars, or maybe just 1-2 phrases) and glue them together into a new melody that flows nicely. So take 1-2 phrases from song A and put them in your track, follow that by 1-2 phrases from song B, then 1-2 phrases from song A again, etc. It will help if you puzzle out a structure that makes sense (e.g. use 2 phrases from each song from the verses, and 2 other phrases for the chorus). Or, what you could do, is take part of the melody from song A and use that as your verse, and use part of the melody of song B and use that as your chorus. A bit simpler, but can be very effective. At the end of the day it’s just playing around with it, messing with it until you have something that sounds good. Anything goes, no clear cut recipe. Just gotta try and try and try and eventually you’ll have something that works.

Of course the best album has to be &Knuckles ;) On a more serious note, it's hard to rate any absolute favorite for me, but it would be a toss up between Balance & Ruin and Super Cartography Brothers for me, I think. Probably followed by a long list of honorable mentions.

There's still this track that I did for this album originally that I'd love to have on the album. Mightcould also make another track, depends a bit on time and inspiration

Thanks for the update, and no worries. Focus on healing and recovering, the album can wait a while longer

Great and inspiring work! I’d love to see (some of) this on the site! I also enjoyed the new take on the logo, it’s clean, modern and still keeps the traditional elements in place.

Can’t go wrong with the Ozone Mastering Guide for an overall crash course in mastering (and specifically Ozone). It at least should answer some of your questions (and then some): http://downloads.izotope.com/guides/iZotopeMasteringGuide_MasteringWithOzone.pdf Also, IMO there’s not really such a thing as a workable preset for mastering, as every track is different. Sure, you might use the same chain for all your tracks (but even that is debatable), but at least the settings for EQ, compression, limiter, multibands etc will be different across tracks. You’re aiming at getting consistent output but the input can vary wildly, especially if you do wildly different genres, like me. $0.02.

I did a rendition of Tifa's Theme from Final Fantasy in a small, intimate orchestral setting featuring many performers for the Pixel Mixers FF7R tribute album. Tifa is a very interesting character to me. I wanted to try and capture Tifa's spirit as I saw her, as this strong, badass but also somewhat shy, deeply caring and slightly anxious woman and tried to express that in the music and the arrangement. Did I succeed? Well, that's up to you to decide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ewpTO-NtQU&lc

Pretty much staying inside, working from home on my steady job and taking daily 30-60 minute walks outside to stay sane and active. Apart from missing the social interaction with friends, family and co workers, it's doable; just got to be a bit more creative and intentional about some stuff. Not getting much music work done though; have been struggling a bit with motivation and energy lately, but that seems to slowly get back, so in stead I mostly spend the time relaxing and doing other fun stuff like learning to play the baritone uke and playing FF7R. All in all not too bad.

Oh wow, a remix of my remix! What a lovely tribute! Thanks for sharing

No, there’s not. There is however this WIP with placeholder vocals where you can listen to the Fresh Prince rapping in stead https://www.jorito.net/files/perel/perel_20190928.mp3

Sounds good to me.

A few things that work very well for me: I only take the lead stuff (melodies) from the source track and forget about the rest (e.g. chord progressions, basslines, etc.). Up-front I usually already have an idea for the genre/style I want to do, and I usually try to push myself to try new things and make the genre different from what the source track uses (e.g. make an orchestral Megaman track in stead of a more stereotypical rock arrangement) Arrangement structure is flexible; why stick with the exact structure that the source uses? No problem in turning the B section into a verse section, the C version into a chorus and use the A section as a solo, for example. In general, I write like 8-16 bars and then think "okay, I can either go more intense or less intense from here", make a judgement call based on that, and just run with it. Try to make it an organic part of your process and just treat it as an original, I guess (there's a reason I call my remixes "originals with stolen melodies"). Hope this helps some.

The same goes for me; the track vision always has been one with vocals, and the track was produced as such. An instrumental version is not what I envisioned, and hence it would feel incomplete. It's like asking for a track without the bass or the drums because you don't like them; a bit silly, IMO. Fair enough if you don't like the track as-is, but asking for an incomplete version isn't exactly what most artists would be on board with, I imagine.

Fun fact, I almost did repurpose it for Hometown Heroes! By that time I had already been talking with Odai for a bit and the Terranigma album was showing some vague hints of life. I guess it worked out great in the end; I got to do a few cool tracks for Hometown Heroes *and* for Terranigma!

Sorry

It's in the (third) sticky post: