zircon

For the kiddies, of course. "Basic Reading Skill Required!" is on the back of Dawn of Souls, or something like that. They make these games so the primary market who owns Nintendo handhelds (kids) will be able to beat them, I guess.

Volume levels are still inconsistent across the board here. The intro is really quiet, can't really hear much of what's going on. More compression please to even things out. The drums are now a little too loud in comparison to other parts. The stereo field is definitely better, good job on that. However, the texture is still minimal. You need more meat here, as I wrote in my previous vote. You addressed some of the production issues but this is still not quite there. The piano/strings section later is too minimal, and I don't think the tempo change fits either. Some good fixes and concepts, not everything worked though. Keep at it. NO

?_? It's the same samples in both. Plus if he's a Reason user, he doesn't have the ability to use the VSTi.

Native Instruments Pro-53

Frankly... not a fan of the original. It's so basic with such a simple chord progression and minimal melody that I imagine it's hard NOT to do a great arrangement of it. So, for this mix, let's see. The intro is pretty long but it works. Some BT/sgx-style stuttering and ambiance going on as well as quotes from the melody. :51 is kind of awkward as there's no bass or lower pad to reinforce the chord, just feels meandering. Once the big detuned pad fades, though, things pick up. I found the transition at 1:22 to be awkward. It should have been bigger and heavier somehow, but I just wasn't hearing much of a volume difference. I don't think the mix is overly LOUD, but overcompressed? Yes. Go easier on the compression so the dynamics are more audible. As the mix goes on, I think several of the other judges nailed it. There is a tone of stuff squashed into the foreground, taking up the mids to high-mids. But what about the rest of the frequencies? The lows and low-mids are unloved and the whole thing sounds a LITTLE on the dull side. 3:08 is a nice breakdown but it's a little too minimal, and when the beat comes back in, it comes in a little too loud. Again, the overcompression removes the dynamics. The section that follows is cool in theory but some of the notes + chords wander around too much. Ground yourself to the original more there and I think it will work better. Then, more loud stuff and a closeout. Alright. I think there is a ton of good sound design going on here. But there are a few big issues. One is the lack of dynamics - too much compression. Another is that the frequency balance is off, to the point where it is just fatiguing to listen to. Additionally, a lot of the original additions stray far from the original to the point where I do not think they are adding much. Try slimming down the mix by about a minute or so. It will probably feel more cohesive as a result. Mixes can be really loud and still be musical & non-fatiguing. It is very hard to do, and you need high end gear. Instead of trying to max it out, just go easier on the volume. Even dropping the compression by 5db or so will not make this mix too quiet. We can turn up our volume knobs to compensate; we can't turn them down to make up for lack of dynamics. NO

I don't know what those words mean!!!!

OCR site projects typically consist of songs exclusively written for the project.. if not, then they're older OCReMixes. Cool links but they don't really have anything to do with this project.

Here are some mixes I think would be applicable. Just a little sampling. Start with bLiNd's stuff... http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01009/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01423/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01137/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01441/ Then, FFMusic DJ... http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00436/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00628/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00950/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01052/ (collab with sgx) NoppZ has some cool stuff (more House-y) http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01529/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00652/ DJ Redlight has some fantastic material, not quite trance or house, but breakbeat (you might be able to work it in) http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01547/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01375/ Our very own djpretzel has got some great house/funk tracks. http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00182/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01186/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01310/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01361/ U-ji is old school, and awesome. http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00380/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00534/ Disco Dan has some GREAT trance/dance mixes. http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00464/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00563/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00464/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01020/ Who can forget Rayza? http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00986/ http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00681/ And so on and so forth. Here are a couple others. http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01512/ (VIRTUALVIBE) http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01416/ (DistantJ) That should be a good start.

Now that I've been using it for a couple days... here are my thoughts (on AVAdirect); + System is lightning fast!!! Unbelievable compared to my old one (which isn't even that old). + Packaging extremely secure. + Came with all the cables I needed, as well as the discs for the presinstalled software. + Windows was "burned in" and pre-configured with minimal settings. Out of the box it went right to the desktop within 30 seconds. Nothing extraneous - just Windows built in stuff (eg. firewall, update), the motherboard stuff (nVidia tuning, graphics card tuning, audio), and Nero DVD/CD software. + Absolute stability so far. No crashes! + Very clean + sturdy case. + When I spoke with tech support about installing my PCI cards and new hard drive, the rep was very helpful. - System took 11 business days to ship. I got it on day 13. According to their documentation, it's supposed to be on your doorstep within 10 business days (10 was the upper limit). Total it took 19 days from the time I ordered for the PC to arrive. - Wiring is perhaps a little too tight. When I opened up the case to put in my IDE hard drive, I found all the enclosures + drivers bolted firmly in place, and all the wires tied to various parts of the case. The location of the IDE port was obstructed by some tied wires, meaning I would have to undo all their wiring to install it. I decided to buy an external enclosure instead. - No room for full-size PCI cards, making my investment into the $300 Powercore Element useless. This is even after I said that I was going to use full size cards and needed the space. Overall, I'm very happy with the machine. I'm only frustrated at the "cramped" nature of the case which made it impossible for me to install my old hard drive and my PCI card. The slightly extended shipping, according to the guy who assembled it, was due to a bad mobo - I'm glad they caught that while burning it in!!!

That was from the sample library "Symphony of Voices" which costs about $400

3 to 4 on a decent card on a decent machine (<1.5 years old) is not a problem for small plugin loads. If you plan on using really intensive stuff that is pushing your CPU, then expect some pops and clicks.

Just got the new comp today. I plugged in only the basis (net, monitor, keyboard, mouse) and it looks like it runs BLAZING fast. Also it's basically 100% silent. Will be installing more after midterms...

I can objectively say that every single track on the project is unanimous YES worthy on OCR... at a minimum. Many are direct post. I have been strict w/ quality control and some people have made a lot of revisions to their track because of my feedback (and the feedback of others on the project). Now, some of the mixers are going in a slightly different direction than what you may be used to - for example, LuiZa contributed a sort of dirty, gritty ska remix of the slums theme(s). No, it's not a driving, bombastic medley like "Fire Cross" but it's still very good in a different sort of way. Likewise I collabed with pixietricks and it's not like anything you've heard from me before (not really like anything from her, either!)

Trust me, everything will be at least that good. http://www.zirconstudios.com/blindpreview.mp3 (posted in another thread) just to tease ya

Who's Pixietricks?????

Dave or Rama, could either of you convince me as to why you would want Vista for audio production? The RAM footprint is larger, it (apparently) lacks ASIO support or any emulated hardware support, has a rewritten audio stack that doesn't support extended hardware features like EAX, is incompatible with lots of existing hardware including many DSP cards, eats more CPU... I don't get the appeal.

It's compatible with any Kontakt-compatible sampler. DirectWave, if you have it, loads Kontakt samples. However, there are plenty of other Kontakt-compatible VST samplers that load into FL if you don't want to use DW.

"80's guitar"... do you want something clean? Distorted? Any particular tone?

Pft 20 minutes? I just got here in like 10

Penn Station is maybe a quarter of a mile away, that would be closest.

Kompakt is a stripped down Kontakt - it is not even really supported anymore by NI. It has the same import features as Kontakt 1 but editing is not nearly as powerful. Thus, if you have any Kontakt 1-compatible libraries you can load them into your Kompakt. This includes Giga, EXS, NKI, Akai, and a few others, so there are lots of libraries out there you can load. There is one stipulation: the Kompakt PLAYER that comes with many libraries is NOT capable of loading new sounds. It is locked and closed-format. While I have Kontakt 2, I still use Kompakt players quite a bit. They are less resource-hungry than K2 and less buggy, imo, so they are still worth using.

Hey, don't just take my word for it... http://www.zirconstudios.com/blindpreview.mp3

I don't think gol would ever do that. FL is pretty stable and has a good engine. The only chance of recoding it would be if it was ported to a different language entirely, but I have a feeling that won't happen (it's been in Delphi for so long).

bLiNd will return. He's got a mix to be posted right now, and it's gonna debut with the FF7 project and kick all of your asses.

Other way around. Patterns can now go (and be sliced/edited) in the bottom half, more like a traditional sequencer. Also there has always been a bounce function.