zircon

OHDANG! I missed your post Reforged. I REALLY want you to be in on this, I loved your Tetris mix.

Haha, fantastic!!

I'm selling a new, unopened copy of Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree. This is the console follow-up to the very popular "Big Brain Academy" DS series, so besides improving on the established formula it draws on some of the Wii's features (eg. using Miis.) A great gift for any Wii owner this season, even if you dont have the console yourself! http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=204295551&listingid=10070447&dcaid=17902 I will sell for $40 shipped, a bargain compared to any retailer. Plus you'll be helping your ol' buddy zircon out.

OK, pixie and I will actually not be coming this time around... sorry guys! Scheduling just isn't working out for us this year, w/ a couple things already planned with our respective afamilies. However, we can still do the overnight thing in Pleasantville, if anyone needs a place to stay or wants to chill. The caveat is we had a few too many people last time and the rest of my family was not so happy about that, so just contact me via PM/AIM/IRC if you're interested. First come first serve.

He did just do Medal of Honor, and I never really saw a major different between those two franchises, as a layperson... also, he did a bunch of Nintendo reviews lately (Zelda:PH, Super Paper Mario) so maybe SMGalaxy wouldn't be realistic. I'm hoping for something like Mass Effect.

Breakdown of source usage: :35 to :41 is the only part of the source being used. :00 to :40 in the remix: Original material w/ chord progression from the source. :41 to :58 arranges the source riff (lead guitar melody) :58 to 1:15 is original. 1:15 to 1:31 arranges the source (piano) 1:31 to 1:48 is original 1:48 to 2:13 arranges the source (lead guitar) 2:13 to 2:46 is original 2:46 to 3:36 arranges the source. So, about 108 seconds of 232 seconds total. Assuming I didn't miss anything, and not counting the general usage of the chord progression, this is under 50% - about 46.5% to be more precise.. unfortunately, the standard that most of us go by is that you need at least 50% source usage to qualify in the arrangement category. So this does not quite cut it. I expressed my concerns about that a few times in #ocrwip Production is great, as is performance, structure, general musicality... very much like Linkin Park except without the vocals (perhaps for the better??) I don't have any complaints there. If you two are willing to go back to this, I recommend using more of the source. You only used a 15 second chunk and there is a lot of other material to use, plus when you DID arrange that chunk, you did it the same way pretty much every time. You can definitely turn this into a yes with a little more source usage. NO, resub

Fantastic mix! I'm glad Will subbed it. Production and especially performance are both excellent; the playing is really expressive, which really brings out the emotion in the arrangement. The interpretation of the source incorporates some nice variation and original writing. It's possible others will NO this for being too close to the source, as it does constantly have the harp riff melody from "Omen" without a lot of change. However, I think the rest of the writing around that element makes up for it, and the mix doesn't extend far enough for repetition to be an issue. YES

Yeah, that may be so, but especially in this day & age communication is paramount. If you can't articulate to someone why and how what you did sounds good, that's a negative. It makes learning and collaborating that much harder. That's why I think theory plays an important role regardless.

Someone posted "their" Terranigma remix on the WIP boards. It's actually yours. He didn't even change the tags.

Music theory is really broad, and can encompass topics that would require up to doctorate-level education. So you might get a wide range of answers, potentially I for one have taken one full year of music theory as part of my generalized "Music Industry" degree, along with one term of "Modern Arrangement Techniques" (which covers some topics that might fall under theory), as well as one full year of "Ear Training" which again has some crossover. I also have some mixed experience from about 8-9 years of piano lessons, though I really didn't learn much formal theory in that. Actually taking classes on the topic was tedious at first, and not everything stuck in my head, but being able to listen to a song and analyze its chord progression, knowing what notes to write in a scale so it sounds 'right'... very useful skills. Learning the piano and learning music theory go hand-in-hand to a degree. You will have to learn the basics of scales and note names, at the very least, when learning how to play the piano. I would try to do them both at the same time.

Dave is the sole programmer behind the entirety of OCR, except of course for things like MediaWiki and vBulletin. I don't think we've ever had multiple programmers for anything.

Pretty cool stuff here overall. I didn't really have a problem with the music box, despite it being lower quality.. I think it sounds less out-of-place than the tambourine from "At First Innocence" which we passed. Drums and bass are a little dry and plain but it's not a big deal for me. I thought 2:25 through 3:15 or so dragged on a little long, though the concept was interesting. As always I thought there were some tuning and performance issues (general tightness) though again, compared to "At First Innocence" they are not as significant here IMO. I like what was done with the arrangement, but as per Larry's source breakdown, gotta have more source usage. I've voted like this on other mixes that were just a few percentage points off and I want to be consistent. That aside, I actually don't have any major problems with production, though I can see the merit in the criticisms provided by Shariq & Larry. NO

Awww man, but I just got this one. And I don't have a lot of money. :/

I have a 20" normal tube television from RCA. I bought it about a year ago.. Out of nowhere, a few days ago, whenever I would turn it on it would simply display a bright green monocolor image across the whole screen, getting gradually brighter, and then turn itself off. I have a cable box, so I tried disconnecting that. Same thing. I've tried unplugging the TV entirely, as well as switching where it's plugged into, but no effect. The audio comes through, for some reason. What's going on here? Did my TV just bork overnight for no reason?

$300 for this (at max discount) would get you QLSO Silver + QLSO Silver XP Pro.

You're not going to get the NL2X for less than $500. It sells new for $1k. Likewise, the Evolver is at least $1k. Not sure what that korg is... they never made a synth called the "MS20iC" - maybe this is supposed to be the Korg Legacy Analog Edition controller? I would avoid it w/o more description. Alesis Micron is definitely a nice unit that can do more than just virtual analog. Yoozer has one and has spoken very highly of it.

Well, it also may not have gotten a lot of reviews because it was posted in a flood of 13 other mixes, and the theme is more obscure. However! It's still great. I liked it a lot even when it was just TO, but busta's additions really make it stand out. Very impressive stuff. Take note Square. ps. Happy birthday Will!

Of course people (eg. parents) will support any media that adhere to their views, and oppose ones that don't. How is this wrong at all?

We use Miroslav at the school labs here, converted to EXS-24. It's definitely dated, and while you can get some good sounds out of it, I would pick QLSO over it without even thinking. VSL is also superior. Miro's recording quality is not as good as modern libraries; the built in panning is not so good, the depth of articulations isn't there, round robins are nowhere to be found, no legato programming, no fancy DXF or nv/vib modwheel crossfades, fast attacks are generally not so fast, and the brass are definitely more suited for chamber music style compositions than anything else. Not to say that you can't get a good sound out of it. One of my professors, a 2x Emmy-award winning composer who does regular work in film, TV, and advertising, still uses Miroslav every day and gets great results. But even he has said that he would like to upgrade sometime soon. The issue is, I suppose, orchestral sounds for *Reason*... as QLSO/VSL aren't available for it. GPO is a pretty solid offering but definitely less featured overall than Miroslav. It's rather entry-level and I don't think it would help you go far beyond what Orkester already has. I haven't touched it in over a year.

I would need to talk to Dave about this, assuming he doesn't see this topic himself. The issue with places like Dreamhost is that they tend to sell you more bandwidth than they actually have available... so we'd probably need to go over exactly what kind of hosting situation you have (eg. standard hosting account or dedicated server?) OCR does some brutal levels of traffic. I'll get back to you soon.

I do hear a little weirdness on the harp at the beginning, but that might very well be the sample, I'm not sure. Either way, doesn't strike me as a big deal. The plucks just kind of sounded hard and edgy to me when they probably should have been softer (but w/ a volume boost overall.) Arrangement is really nice given the simplicty of the original. Some of the rhythms seemed off in a couple spots, hard to put my finger on it, but this also isn't a big deal. The beatwork was also a little on the weak side, but that wasn't really the focal point. When Jill listens to various new age radio stations and CDs, I hear this kinda stuff all the time. Nice job. Fix the fadeout/ending though. EDIT 1/28 - Ending still seems abrupt to me. Still conditional YES on this. YES conditional

Hmm, are you SURE you have the bandwidth? Exactly how much do you have? Size of all the torrents combined I believe is about 11gb, that's a generous estimate.

I honestly don't know, because I don't know the specifics of the project. I know it's not gonna be like $50 or $100 or some pocket change like that, since (based on her description) it's a decent amount of music. But you'd have to talk it over with her.

Bump, surely someone here must be interested in earning some money for writing music.

Wintermute, absolutely, and I was not really one to fall victim to peer pressure either. I was merely generalizing. The stereotype of 'rebellious teenager' does not exist for nothing.