zircon

Nope, she's not. not yet :>

This needs to be louder overall and EQed differently... the instrument balance just feels weird. Why is the harp so loud but the melodic strings are hard to hear? The voice used needs some more reverb, sounds very dry. In general some of the individual parts could be sequenced better. The high end percussion (shakers) is weird and a little jarring. Too sharp. Then it just drops out abruptly. Arrangement is little off too. I'm having trouble hearing the Metroid elements at times. Not a bad start though, keep working on it.

I bought this VST/DX plugin suite for $450 about 2 years ago. Don't really use it much these days but the plugs are quite good. Includes Renaissance Bass, Compressor, EQ, Channel, Vox, Reverb, and De-Ess. Copy protection is hard drive OR dongle based (you choose). I'm willing to let it go for $300, as it currently sells for $450 still. No shipping as it is digital. Here is the catch, this would be an unofficial transfer. Waves charges an exorbitant transfer fee of literally hundreds of dollars. This is total BS imo and I am not willing to pay it. The plugin can't be authorized to multiple users anyway, and it's not as if I'm trying to pirate it here (I wouldn't have bought it if that were the case - I could have just cracked it). So I don't feel obligated to pay the exorbitant fee. You will get my login info and you can change all the appropriate information to your own and then DL the plugins as you please.

Haha, Paul "Synclavier" Hardcastle... I'll have to remember that. Don't forget to get the Korg Legacy Digital Edition if you can. Has the M1, which Paul uses all over the place in his tracks. In fact the lead from "Valley of the Harps" on Jazzmasters IV is an unedited preset from it.

Trust me, Kanthos, I have been in a similar situation. Here is what I've found after years of dealing with lack of inspiration and general writer's block. * There are definitely some people who are naturally inspired. They can hear songs in their head, develop melodies and chords naturally, and can basically write constantly without ever running out of ideas. Their only obstacle is the implementation of their ideas. I for one am not one of these people. * Worrying too much about implementation (detail, production, realism) is counterproductive. Establish a workspace and set of tools so that you can get right to writing. This may involve tweaking your computer specs or buying a new one altogether, creating templates for your sequencer with sounds pre-loaded, creating synth/effects presets (eg. a "mastering" preset for the master track, orchestral multis for Kontakt) and so forth and so on. * Along the same lines as the above point, try to limit the tools you are using. It sounds dumb, but if you can just get to know a few tools really well it will make things easier in the long run. You can still HAVE a large library of stuff to choose from, if your "go to" tools don't get the job done, but not having to think about which synth or sample you want to use for a particular passage is helpful. * Listen to music you don't normally listen to. You like jazz? Go listen to some ethno/new age. Orchestral? Try some country. Buy entire albums from artists you like if you only have their singles. Constantly expose yourself to as much music as possible. If there are songs you particularly like, ANALYZE them. Break down the chords. Figure out why you like them - then try to replicate the effects. Don't worry if it feels like you are just copying someone else's music. Some of my better songs have come out of tracks that were merely copies of another artist's work initially - they just naturally ended up being different. * Change your work area. If this is not possible, try to vary up your daily routine in any way that you can. I don't know the exact neurological terms to describe the effect, but generally speaking, doing new things (even if they are minor) or doing old things in a new waye (walking home a different route) forces your brain to think slightly differently and expand. This expansion can carry over into other functions, possibly leading to more creativity. * When it comes to ReMixes, try to take things one step at a time. I find it intimidating to try to conceptualize an entire arrangement all at once. Find a simple part of the source tune and use it as your anchor. Worry about "OCR standards" later. This might be 1/4 of the total chord progression, a simple part of the melody, a rhythmic motif, or a set of harmonies. Personalize this first and take as much time as you need to do it. By breaking down the source tune into bits and pieces it becomes far easier to remix, and your remixes will probably be far more creative in the end. * You said you are limited in sequencing? BS! You don't need to play in things live. Use the mouse. If you didn't have tendonitis I would say that either method works, but you do, so I'm straight-up telling you that you need to develop your mouse input skills. This may also involve upgrading to a sequencer that has a better piano roll. Learning keyboard/mouse shortcuts and mastering mouse-sequencing will enable you to get your ideas down FAST no matter how complex they are, and regardless of whether you can play them or not. Just my 2 cents. I once read in an interview with BT, perhaps one of the greatest musicians alive today, that he is no stranger to writer's block. He said his solution is simply to WRITE MUSIC. He said you shouldn't care if it sounds crappy or cliched. Eventually something good will come, you just have to keep writing. He also noted that if less than 50% of what you end up with makes you want to throw up, you are doing better than he is! Worth noting also is that BT is extremely prolific with his work, so reading this surprised me.

Yes and there was an announcement about it. There's also a "Store" tab on the main ocremix.org page - estarland.com is the new retailer.

Just YESed this bringing it up to 2Y. Fair warning, so far we both think it's too compressed. Reduce the level of compression, or reduce the pre-compression volume by ~3db. I also suggested lowering the volume on the bass by about 3db.

Yeah, it's not clipping but it's overcompressed since the last time I heard it. This needs to be toned down. Also the bass is too loud by about 3-4db so I really think this should be reducd as well for the final thing. Overall this is really cool. I liked this since the first time I heard it on the WIP forums and I gave the mixer a decent amount of advice to shape it into an OCR-worthy sub (though I didn't get the chance to crit it one more time). Lots of great sequencing, high energy, and a totally SICK guitar solo. The voice samples were close to gimmicky but didn't cross the line. I also appreciated the quotes of both the new AND old TMNT show themes. Props on that! Arrangement has tons of personalization so this is good to go. Good job again (just fix those production complaints real quick) YES ps. "Turd Surfing" is worse than Wasteboarding Edit: As of 4/12 the primary production complaints I had were fixed.

I don't personally have them but I've been looking for them for quite awhile. All reviews I've read are pretty raving, plus all the demos I've heard sound great. I ordered the audio of Twisted Textures but it got shipped to the wrong address. sgx did as well; as that's a cut-down version of the full thing, he'd be one to report on it.

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/prod.aspx?p=btmusic.93236171 http://www.cafepress.com/cp/prod.aspx?p=btmusic.95545143 $90 each. Pretty sure they're Giga format (as opposed to the stripped down, less useful Audio format), though I'm asking on the BTMusic forums now.

PSF = Playstation Sound Format, basically the sound files that are ripped from the game. Kind of the Playstation equivalent of an NSF, GYM, SPC, or RSN. I'll ask Dave/Larry to look into it.

I checked a couple MIDIs from a Google search of "Valley of the Fallen Star" and as far as I can tell it is identical to "Cosmo Canyon". Except "Cosmo Canyon" is the name used by the OST and PSF so I think the "Valley..." label is probably incorrect.

Thin Crust/Atmuh/stupid handle guy - stop. Take it to PM or somewhere else.

There's no such track on the FF7 OST called "Valley of the Fallen Star"... do you mean "Red XIII's Theme" vs. "Cosmo Canyon"? If so, the source tunes are very similar, except one has more melody and embellishments than the other. Both have been included in one track, the remix Sixto and I did.

Yeah, also, I didn't write the intro page. Larry did.

Awesome!! Any chance of bringing Larry?

Completely lossless is a little too much to ask for right now. If you're talking WAV and AIF, bandwidth usage would shoot up by a factor of 5 - at least. Even FLAC etc would cause 2-3x or more increases in bandwidth costs. It wouldn't be worth it for Apple unless they charged people proportionally, in which case it would be far cheaper to just buy the CD. Maybe 10-20 years down the road.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/02itunes.html Speaks for itself. All I have to say is... BRAVO!

31 WAV finals now. Stay tuned...

I wish we could still ban people for being killjoys.

Congrats on the release, bro!!!

For those of you who are confused... * "ReCapitated" was a joke (but you can still DL the mixes here) * No, djp's ReMix was not a "real" mix * Suzu didn't actually leave, and the FF7 project didn't get canceled. Also I don't actually need CD art. STOP EMAILING ME!!! We put together the whole project in about.. 3-4 days. Credit for the idea of it goes to DarkeSword. pixie, Rama, and I headed it up with Rama doing the entire website design in about 48 hours. Major props to VRemedyZ for helping with the art too. Some "sub jokes"... * Leis Miller and smh's pictures are random Google images * Larry's picture was the only one in color * The "Leis Miller" mix was by JigginJonT * The "djpretzel" mix was by me * The "Shael Riley" mix was by big giant circles (but the Disk Mastah Smokabitch one was by Shael Riley) * The "JigginJonT" mix was by Dhsu, with crowd noises added by bgc * The "Dhsu" mix was by JigginJonT * Both "FFmusic Dj" and "smh" were actually Suzumebachi Unfortunately, Larry's track was not a joke and it does really represent his best solo ReMixing effort to date. Anyway, hope y'all had fun

Whoops, I meant to lock this before... lazy mods!

I personally work linearly about 95% of the time. So, I start with the intro and go from there. Reason being, I don't usually have any ideas beforehand. Once I get into the swing of things, ideas tend to come to me. The rare times when I do have ideas before I start mixing, I might jot them down first. But that's unusual. I think a good way to start a mix is by focusing on one part of the chord progression and/or rhythm and repeating that for a bit as you introduce layers. Jumping right into the melody is usually a bad idea and copying verbatim from the original is too. Play around a bit with the harmony elements from the source to create the mood/style of your song.

You know, though, despite the popular conception, OCR only has six mixes of that source... it really has been under-appreciated.