zircon

Nutritious: Oh yeah? Awesome Thank you! I guess probability can be in our favor sometimes. I also think that the system might give preferential treatment to higher-ranked tracks, in terms of playing them more, so more people can have a say on whether they deserve to be higher ranked or not. Kizyr: Agreed... while having OCR's support in the finals was definitely cool, I can't imagine that more than 40 or 50 people from here actually signed up to help vote. One of the other bands in the finals had over 150 fans registered in his fanclub (definitely more than me or Jill, almost more than both of us combined.) But even that considered, according to Daniel Palmer (founder of the site), there were literally millions of votes cast last month, a record number.

I encourage everyone to register for OurStage. If you're a listener, by judging (or simply browsing the top 10 of your favorite genres) you'll almost assuredly discover some great new music. Plus, you'll help promote the best indie artists who might not otherwise get attention. If you're an artist, for exactly $0.00 you get the chance at winning lots of cash, and you get to show off your music to tons of people who might not otherwise hear it. Even if you don't make it to the later rounds, because of the way the system is organized, your song will still be heard all through the month until the end. All that being said, if you want to vote *only* to support OCR artists (including new entrants like Dhsu, Star Salzman, and Beatdrop) it's a LOT harder before the quarter-finals. There are hundreds of songs per category so it's significantly harder to get to a specific person.

Alright, locking this thread since I want to build the tension before the release of this project. Keep your eye out over the next few months...

"Merciless Goddess" might use live guitar... if it's sampled, it's very high-quality, better than anything I've ever heard. Otherwise, it sounds to me that generally he uses samples extracted from Steinberg "Virtual Guitarist" which has been pretty widely used over the last few years. For his leads I think he uses a simple sound from one of his hardware units that is just tweaked to perfection.

I don't get it...

Haha, that didn't make it anywhere last month. Here's what I entered this time around: Techno/Club/Dance * Breathing You In * Mindbender New Age/World * Antigravity * The Koto Chill Electronic * Throwdown * Warhead Instrumental * The Art of Zen * Drum and Bossa

Ever since the release of Voices of the Lifestream, I have received countless emails and PMs asking what game I would cover next. And consistently, among all the people that I've spoken with, the common request was an FF3 project. Yes, the timeless console RPG from over a decade ago, BEFORE the greatness that was FF7. It took months of planning, but I'm finally proud to announce that the project, Final Fantasy 3: "Echoes of Eternity", is well-underway, thanks to McVaffe who is making his triumphant return to the community by co-directing it! Here are the ReMixers that have been recruited to tackle this AMAZING soundtrack (65 songs!!!) * Mazedude * Ailsean * pixietricks * AnotherSoundscape * sgx * Joshua Morse * Children of the Monkey Machine * djpretzel * Sixto * AE & PlanetSkill * analoq * Fishy * zircon * norg * SnappleMan * D-Lux * Jeremy Robson * JigginJonT * McVaffe * virt * Steffan Andrews * dimmer * Red Tailed Fox * Bart Klepka * LeeBro * binster * Armcannon * AmIEvil * The Coop * Carbunk1e * tefnek * bLiNd * Rellik * Bladiator * OverCoat * JAXX * and others... --- Definitely some old school faces in there... and while some of these folks haven't been active for years, when I emailed them about this project they were so excited about remixing FF3 that they all jumped on board. The entire soundtrack is spoken for and our final deadline is June 31st. We've arranged the project into four CDs, like VotL, and each CD has its own genre and sub-director; for example, JigginJonT is handling the "Jazz" CD and bLiNd is doing the "Trance" CD. You can expect a project release no later than mid-August - I'll be posting WIPs sometime in the near future as a teaser. In the meantime, check out the cover art djpretzel put together: (Note: We are arranging tracks from the NES version, not the recent DS remake) Feel free to leave any comments here. I'm so excited to finally be working on the one project that could possibly top Voices of the Lifestream. ps. We will be needing mirrors, as well as advanced seeders, so please post if you can help with either of these things!

Yep, it's a monthly contest. Free to enter. Of course no one at OCR has ever done this well before. You only have to listen to 15 seconds of each song in order to vote. However, once you listen to at least 15 seconds of any given song, you never have to do that again.

Just click "Music" on the front page.

Man, it's more than a little discouraging that the #1 song ("Myriad") hasn't moved ALL DAY... after all our efforts On the bright side, one of the OurStage staffers wrote up a blog post about Jill and I. Really nice of them! http://www.ourstage.com/profile/quinn/posts/14

I did remaster it but I don't remember doing anything drastic. Anyway, this is an awesome remix... it inspired me to try to learn how to improvise better, which I've been working on for a couple months now since I heard it.

Well, in an ideal world, all listeners would be completely objective, not biased for or against any genre, and without any kind of personal preference. They would vote based on a number of factors ranging from songwriting to arrangement, production, structure, performance, overall musicality, etc. However the world is not like that. When you open up any sort of voting or evaluation to the general public you get massive bias. And if nothing else, the only way to counter bias (eg. some people love country and will never vote for my techno song, simply because they hate techno) is with more bias That said, the first round of OurStage is so random - there are usually 250+ entries per category - it's basically impossible to ask people to vote for you there. None of us asked anyone to vote for us in the first 25 or so days of the month; that was all random strangers, and even then we made it into the top 20 of our respective categories.

Hey bro, sorry we had to be competing in the same category, but you ended up pretty high up there!! Way higher than any of my songs got last month. So definitely enter again - you'll have my support To everyone: THANK YOU for all the help! Now that we're in the finals, your votes have reset, so you can vote more. A LOT more, if you so choose (over 700 'battles' available). If I manage to win the grand prize, I will give everyone who became a fan any CD of mine, free of charge. You get to choose which.

Yeah, but things could get hairy tomorrow if the other competitors get THEIR fans to vote too. Remember, if you voted in the quarterfinals, your votes are reset for the semifinals (where we are now) so you have another 45 rounds that can be judged. These will also be reset for the finals, which are one day (this Monday) where we'll all be (hopefully) competing for $5,000

Technical knowledge is meaningless if you don't know how to apply it. You're great at remembering large amounts of useless raw data, but dumping that on someone who just lives in their parents house and needs a quick, $100 fix is nothing but trolling. You might know a textbook method of dampening sound via physical renovation of a wall, but that's not a practical method, and your inability to differentiate between the two is why I say you don't know what you're talking about. Of course you've also spouted misinformation on several occasions as well, let's not forget that. Why do you think experienced guitarists like SnappleMan and Sixto keep telling you that in the guitar picks thread...? In other words, knock it off. Don't respond again to me OR this thread unless you have something specific, relevant, and constructive to the OP.

Prophet of Mephisto did a remix of this; we rejected the first version, but I think he resubbed it... one way or another you'll probably be hearing it.

sgx!!! I had no idea you were competing in Electronic in the quarter/semi-finals!! Jill and I will be voting for you for sure. Coactive is sick I'll edit the topic.

The lemur is just a boutique product... it's too expensive to be feasible at this point.

Once again bluefox, STFU. You're giving tons of irrelevant and inaccurate information. I'm not going to keep warning you. I wrote a guide to buying soundcards here: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=7681 But I'll go into a little more detail. In terms of features, external soundcards have physical controls, such as volume knobs and possibly panning. This is really convenient if you do a lot of tweaks and don't want to keep opening up your soundcard software to change volume levels. Externals also *usually* have more inputs and outputs. For example, I use a Presonus Firebox, which allows me to plug in up to two microphones and four instruments (!) simultaneously. And it's pretty small, too. The disadvantage of externals are that they take up either a Firewire or USB port, they take up more physical space (since they're not inside the computer), and they can add a little bit more latency - USB and Firewire take a tiny bit more time to transmit a signal than something connected internally. However, in my experience, this is negligible. Pro soundcards have a number of features. Note that an "audio interface" is the same thing, and the term most commonly used when referencing soundcards for musicians (you wouldn't call a Presonus Firebox a "soundcard"). Here is what they do, at their core: 1. Transmits the sound from your computer to speakers or headphones. 2. Manages MIDI sent to OR from your computer. 3. Allows the input of sound from outside your computer; eg. via microphones, turntables, or other instruments. What's the difference between a pro soundcard and a consumer soundcard? * A pro soundcard has better drivers. Better drives mean less crashes in your host program (FLStudio, Sonar, Cubase, Reason, etc...), better latency, and more processing efficiency. With bad drivers, you might load up 10 equalizers on your computer before you can't load any more. With good drivers, you could load 15, or perhaps even 20. * A pro soundcard has superior "analog to digital converters", and vice versa. All this means is that if you hook up your turntables to your soundcard, there will be less noise. Stuff like Soundblaster soundcards has noise problems. * A pro soundcard may have built-in software that allows you to affect the sound going in or out of it. This is commonly called "DSP" or digital signal processing. For example, the EMU 0404 soundcard (internal), which is pretty popular among ReMixers, allows you to use all sorts of effects on audio in your computer. This does NOT use up your computer's processing power, so it's nice. You could put an EQ and compressor on any sound coming in from your turntables for example. * Consumer/gamer soundcards rarely have more than one input. With pro cards, especially external interfaces, you usually get multiple inputs of different sorts; 1/4" (instruments), XLR (mics), S/PDIF (digital), etc. So, as you can see, the soundcard is definitely important when you're interacting with any external devices, but because good soundcards have good drivers, you will also be able to do more with your software before running out of processing power. Make sense?

OverCoat and I love this OST. We'll probably remix it.

No processors that this guy - a hobbyist musician - would be getting would have HT, so it's irrelevant to talk about it. NONE of the Core 2 Duos have it, nor do the quads. I've also never seen any newer Xeons with HT. DJ Black: What you're talking about has very little to do with the sound card... if you're finding it hard to balance parts, that's just an issue of learning how to mix and use EQ properly. Of course, training your ear is another vital component, as is getting a good set of headphones or speakers (I suggest headphones.) I have a whole thread in the "Guides & Tutorials" forum that goes through selecting a new sound card or audio interface - check it out.

Wrong answer. If someone were asking about soundproofing in general, your advice MIGHT - and I repeat MIGHT - be relevant. But the vast majority of people here are not professionals, and even of the professionals, virtually no one would be in the market for doing this kind of serious remodeling to their environment. The advice statas and I gave is practical to the OP, and they're proven methods that are far more relevant to people reading this thread than what you posted. There are countless resources available on the web and off that would cover the answers to pretty much any question asked here. That's not the point. People don't come here looking for answers taken from textbooks and technical documents. Sometimes if the questions are really obvious we direct them elsewhere, but the point of this forum is to share helpful advice to people in specific situations. If someone asks "What orchestral samples should I get? I only have $100 and I'm just starting out," no one in their right mind would recommend an $8,000 VSL orchestral package. You've done the equivalent of that here. Again, completely unrealistic for the OP and vast majority of people here. Bluefox, I have very little tolerance for people here who give advice without paying attention to what is being asked, and who speak at length on topics they understand little about. You're not a remixer, you're barely even a musician, so if you're going to try and help remixers and musicians, you better have USEFUL things to say, or I'm going to remove you from the forum. Consider this a warning.

Realistic proportions, awesome

Erm doesn't the Wii HAVE a hard drive...? Where is it downloading VC games to?

Yes, you would go right into your soundcard, although ideally you would have an audio interface/sound card that has 1/4" jacks to begin with. You then load up the plugins into a host program like FLStudio, Cubase, Sonar, Logic, etc. Exactly how you do this, and exactly how you set an audio track to receive input from your soundcard's input, varies based on your host.