zircon

Yeah, fast weapon switching is fantastic... I dunno how I lived without it. Question: What kind of mouse sensitivity levels do you guys use?

Nope, I got him while the sentry was already upgraded. The trick is switching weapons to the sapper FAST.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=RErz4hbZ05Q EPIC spywork. Earlier I had my greatest spy moment yet... knifed an engy and sapped his toys immediately afterwards w/o dying to the upgraded sentry.

My vote is Goldrush, Gravelpit, Dustbowl, Warpath.

Can someone please summarize the ending? Maybe I'm dumb, but I just don't quite understand what actually happened. (spoiler) Diego's group at the end is 32 people, counting himself. Then there's Celine, of course. Were there any other people left alive? Why does Diego express surprise at being "Omega", when that's what his group was before, and there's no one left anyway? Did Celine basically just... kill EVERYBODY at the end? It doesn't make sense to me.

I'll be playing tonight. I'd like to do Goldrush, and then maybe Gravelpit or Granary.

I'm sure the guys that actually produce all the music for the show will be playing, probably with some support.

I don't think OCR will ever expand to hosting original video game music. However, there are lots of people on this site that write original game music, so if you're looking for music for a particular game project, you can post a thread here. Just remember... we get a lot of people posting who have little more than a game concept or early prototype, and few other resources. If you're looking to recruit people, keep the following things in mind: 1. You will ALWAYS get more interest if you are offering direct compensation. 2. Commercial games tend to attract more people than mods and freeware (everyone wants a pro credit.) 3. The more screenshots, video, and design docs you have, the better. 4. A pro website and an existing team is helpful.

The problem appears to have fixed itself? I managed to finally boot into safe mode on the desktop and run a scandisk on my main OS drive (C:)... restarted, and everything was dandy. Maybe a corrupt part of the boot sector, or something.

Brief suggestion (as I'm still reading over Doug's review and listening) - update your first post with the latest version of the WIP... don't make people scroll down to see if you posted a new ver. Saves hassle. Edit: OK, listened through. I have to agree with many of Doug's comments. There is a lot of repetition in terms of the primary Zeal riff, and very few chords used. In my opinion, atmospheric DNB really benefits from those extended chords, going into 9ths and 11ths, sustains, quartal stuff, and so on. I think you could have moved the harmony around more in that respect. Perhaps this would also encourage you to do some more with the Zeal melody and/or use more riffs. This is not to say that this is too conservative - it isn't, but it feels somewhat simplified, and there isn't as much meat as there should be for a mix of this length. Shoot to add more harmonic & melodic material, and/or consider shortening the track overall. I'm only on my laptop speakers, but from what I can tell the production is really ace. As I said to Doug in the chat, I'd say the drumwork is impeccable. You did a great job here. This would be a strong sub overall, and while I'm not sure it would necessarily receive a YES, it's definitely close to the bar. I'd like to see you go back to this and work on it more. Good luck!

Earlier today, my desktop PC, which was working fine, had a video lockup as I tried to load Team Fortress 2. The game started to load and my video mode changed, then a window popped up and changed the video mode back to my desktop. Then it seems like my video card got stuck in a loop, continually changing between the modes. Eventually, even as I tried to ctrl+alt+del and alt/tab back to my desktop, my monitors eventually both went black. The computer sounded like it was still running just fine, so I don't think it froze, but then again, I don't know. Anyway, I restarted, and when I did, I noticed the computer was hanging after boot. The Windows XP loading screen (green loading bar) showed up, and then after that, my monitor went black. This normally happens for roughly 30 seconds. However, this time, it took at least 5 minutes. Finally, my desktop started to load as normal, except even after 10 minutes, all I could see was my wallpaper and the mouse. It was as if the desktop and explorer simply did not load. I could open the task manager and see processes running, but did not see anything out of the ordinary. I ended up closing explorer (which seemed to be frozen, requiring an "End Now") and trying to reopen, to no avail. I then tried restarting on my XP64 partition, which is much 'cleaner' - no good. Likewise with safe mode, which simply hung on the list of .dlls after a few dozen were listed on the screen. I tried turning off my computer for hours and then booting later in the day, but again, I'm basically locked before the desktop loads, rendering my computer nonfunctional. What happened? WORTH NOTING: It's extremely hot right now. The computer was running all weekend with core temps a good 15c above normal (at idle, they typically run at about 30-32c; according to CoreTemp, they ended up at ~50 idle.) I wasn't experiencing any instability, but because the ambient temperature in this room is so high (a good 75 degrees at least, I'd estimate, if not more - there's no airflow and no air conditioning with outside temps of 95+) I suspect this may be the cause.

This is called "sidechaining". The method with which you accomplish this depends on your sequencer and the plugins that you have. The basic concept is this - you have two signals. The kick, and then everything else (which could just be a single pad, for example, or the entire mix.) The sidechain input is the kick. The sidechaining compressor takes that input, and when it detects a signal, it will compress the OTHER signal being fed into it. Thus, when your kick hits, the pad gets compressed. Rhythmic kicks = rhythmic compression.

(11/40) I See What You Did There Call out a poster on the Works in Progress forum who is attempting to pass off someone else's ReMix as their own. (6/40) Thanks For Nothing Encourage a poster on the Works in Progress forum to submit a mix that gets a unanimous three NO votes. (20/40) K-Wix Stamp of Approval Write at least ten reviews of three hundred words or more in the Works in Progress forum. (37/40) Intense Boredom Be the most recent poster in at least half of the threads on the first page of the Works in Progress forum. (38/40) Grand Rexy Be the most recent poster in all of the threads on the first page of the Works in Progress forum.

Ever since we started using torrents, I've always had every OCReMix on my computer & iPod. Even before that, right after my family got DSL, I was downloading the mixes alphabetically, one by one. I really like having the entire OCR collection because it's just so diverse. Sure, there are some pretty bad tracks in there too, but even some of the oldest stuff can be great.

The idea of WIP moderators or approved reviewers isn't a bad one, but we'd need to give thought to who qualifies. One issue is that we (the judges) generally snatch up anyone who has judge-level qualifications. In other words, speaking generally, the only people who are really qualified to review a WIP with regards to the OCR standards is an OCR judge. There are a handful of individuals who either don't want to be judges or were formerly judges, for example, that also qualify. Now, the upside to this is that despite what some people say, WIP critique can be very useful even if the conclusion of the reviewer is not necessarily what a judge would conclude. There are plenty of people who are capable of hearing issues that judges would certainly point out, for example, such as bad guitar tone, unrealistic drum sequencing, conservative arrangements, etc. I am impressed by the critiques that I have seen from certain people in the WIP forum, as they often cover everything or almost everything that I would have said in a vote. However, despite this, even the best reviewers can be misleading. Over the years, I have seen some of the most active, thorough reviewers give critiques that are "wrong" compared to what a judge would say. I've seen established ReMixers and reviewers tell someone on the WIP forums to submit a track that, to any judge, would be an obvious NO. I'd be concerned if we were to appoint a handful of people to an official non-judge position, and then end up with submitters saying "But the WIP reviewer said it was a YES!" If we were to do something like that, we'd need a clear disclaimer that the official reviewers we have picked represent good musicians with thorough critiquing ability, but that they are nonetheless not judges and their opinion cannot be construed as such.

I know it's nice to have dynamic contrast in any electronic piece, particularly trance, but the volume before :37 is incredibly quiet. I could barely hear anything up until that point, and when I checked my mixer I noticed I was listening at practically twice my normal volume level. Please turn that stuff up big time so it's actually audible! Once 1:05 kicks in, things are up to a pretty good volume level. I do feel like you could make things louder if you grabbed a plugin like TLS Maximizer or George Yohng's W1 Limiter to squeeze a couple extra decibels out of the master track. In terms of synth and sound design, I have to be honest; things are pretty bland. This reminds me of blind's "Temple Trance", which was cool, but six years old at this point. Each sound choice is a trance staple, and there is a huge reliance on detuned saw sounds for all the different parts. Gating and arpeggiation are heavily relied on, both of which are also big cliches. I would have liked to hear some smooth, simple leads soaring above the mix, or perhaps acoustic instruments here and there. The lack of variation in the percussion was also disappointing. There were no special fills, no changes in rhythm or meter, no breakbeat loops or anything to really switch up from the textbook 4/4. The bass is also a pretty lo-fi sample playing a simple rhythm. I'd switch that up for something more interesting, in both sequencing and tone. Even a filtered square or 303 type sound would probably be more engaging. The arrangement is OK, but not too adventurous - I think you could do much more interesting stuff with the melody than the repeated rhythmic variation you're doing now. If you don't want to change that, consider adding in a significant breakdown section to give yourself some melodic freedom. You might also replace the source melody at some point with a new melody, solo OVER the source melody, or perhaps change up the chord progression. This most likely would have passed several years ago, but at the moment I feel like the production & arrangement are just not quite at our bar. NO

This struck me as very quiet right off the bat. Is there any reason why the volume is so low for the first :48? I was expecting things to pick up after that point in terms of loudness, but even though new instruments were coming in, everything still felt fairly subdued. The mixing makes it very hard to distinguish between the harmony and melody parts. It wasn't really until 1:28 that any part of the track was of a solid volume (in this case, the drums.) On top of the voume issues between the different parts, the piece overall lacks mastering. There doesn't appear to be any compression or limiting, which is really important in adding "glue" to a mix and evening out the loudness. Volume issues aside, the bass is panned to the left which is very distracting to me. Bass should generally always remain in dead center. Throughout the piece I noticed a general lack of reverb, which made a lot of the parts sound rather dry, for example the string sample. I liked the use of delay, but without reverb, and without making the delay stereo (eg. bouncing back and forth from left to right) it didn't add too much to the depth of the texture. Additionally, the sweeping synth at :56 has far too much high end and is almost inaudible except for the grating treble. Definitely re-EQ that or bring it down an octave. I actually didn't have a problem with the drumloops here and in fact liked the instrumentation overall. The crowd effects were a bit corny to me, however, and I think you could have done without them. In terms of the structure and arrangement of the piece, I thought your interpretation of the source tunes was good. However, the layout of the track seemed a bit off to me. It basically takes 1:28 before things start to thicken up, and that doesn't last for long until 2:00. We get 16 seconds of density before 2:16 when things drop out and the outtro starts. After listening to this a few times, I felt like I was missing a strong "hook", chorus, or climax of some kind. You have heavier parts, but they last a very short time, and the rest of the piece is mostly a sparse texture. That, combined with the repetition of some of the riffs, leads me to recommend that you consider adding more meat to several sections here or possibly expanding the length if you have to. I do like this mix overall, and I think it has promise. Certainly, as an early effort, it's impressive compared to a lot of what I hear. Keep at it; even if you decide not to resub this one (assuming it gets rejected), keep our advice in mind for your next work. Good luck! NO

Haven't had one of these in awhile! I think there is a lot of good feedback that goes on in the WIP forums. Not all of it is solid, because we're not going to bar inexperienced remixers from participating. However, on the whole, it's a good place to demo your mixes and see what people are thinking. #ocrwip is another resource. In an ideal world, the judges would frequent the WIP forums, but in the real world, all of our free time that goes toward critiquing is spent judging actual submitted mixes. If we spent our time "judging" WIPs then there wouldn't be much of a point to submitting to begin with. That said, we still drop in there from time to time. Do you have any suggestions in mind for how to improve those forums?

Sorry to hear you guys are having some problems. Rich is very open to feedback and there's even a bug report section of the site, so definitely let him know if you're encountering difficulties (but include what hardware you're using.) I'm still on the second teleporter pad, going through the series of harder fights (w/ the guard dogs) but I recently upgraded my stats so I'm excited to go back and kick some tail

Well, I'm just going by price. It cost me about $110 when I bought my computer over a year ago. I've heard the 8800GT (I think?) is about $200 or so, and that's considered a standard 'gamer' card. So the high end cards are probably several hundred over that.

Pezman: I don't know much about video cards, but the game runs reasonably well on my dual core 2.4ghz computer with an Nvidia En7600GS (512mb RAM). It's definitely not even a midrange card. Check your configuration settings and make sure it's not running at a really high resolution. If it's already pretty low, turn off some of the graphical features.

It is digressing, considering my philosophical views on music have absolutely nothing to do with your drums lacking in energy. Given that other people have levied similar criticism on your work, you're merely choosing to ignore my feedback (which everybody but you appears to acknowledge as having some degree of value) because you don't like me. I was a lot like you when I came to this site as well, throwing a tantrum and scoffing anytime people had something negative to say about my crappy remixes. Then I grew up. Have you noticed that your bad attitude, ENORMOUS ego and hostile responses have earned you contempt from virtually everyone in this thread? Setting aside every other factor involved, the way you present yourself is unbearably grating and pretentious. You've already been warned by a moderator other than me, and combined with the overwhelming amount of ill will you've managed to gather from the OCR community at large, you should be getting the hint by now that maybe you should rethink your behavior.

So all the remixes that change chord progression and melody are "bastardizing" the original? Even though both Doug and HousetheGrate do both? What are you even doing on this site? You couldn't be more wrong. I spend 90% of the time on any electronic track or remix working on the drums alone. Breakbeat and drum and bass music is practically reliant on groove. But that aside, I've had to write in just about every genre and I perform weekly in a fusion ensemble, dealing with complex syncopated rhythms for hours at a time. Anyway, by all means, please keep ignoring my advice and get your remix rejected.

You changed the style, yes, but as of now it's what we call a simple genre adaptation. It's not hard to do and we get tons of remixes like that. Most of them get rejected. You're on the right track, generally speaking - you're at the part in the mix where now you should be taking it in another direction. I'd like to hear you change the melody and chord progression more significantly. Add new chords. Jazz up the existing chords. Improvise more over the existing progression. Take half the melody and then replace the second half with a solo. Change the rhythms more. It's also hard not to critique production when the style you're going for is practically reliant on production. Maybe you need to focus on that sooner rather than later. Also yes, your drums have no energy. I didn't even notice "all that drum syncopation". The sequencing was solid but there was nothing appealing or interesting about them otherwise.

I had piano lessons from the ages of 7 to 18: once a week, 45-60 minutes long (shorter when I was younger.) I wasn't interested in music as a career until junior year of high school or so, which was roughly when I began actually trying to do remixes and make my own music. However, I enjoyed (and still enjoy) playing the piano very much. I loved figuring out things by ear and playing them, particularly themes from movies and games that I liked. However, I primarily studied baroque, classical, and romantic-era music with a little bit of jazz & showtunes. Towards the end of high school I started trying to learn more about music theory, but it's only since I got to college (Drexel U) that I REALLY expanded my sort of "musical infastructure". Three terms of music theory, a term of jazz theory, Songwriting, modern arrangement techniques, three terms of ear training, and continued lessons (albeit less frequent, and with less practicing on my part.) I've greatly expanded my knowledge of music, composition, and improvisation, though I'm still a novice in the grand scheme of things.