zircon

This mini-documentary speaks for itself. I don't agree 100% with the angle the author of the video takes, but it's certainly interesting.

In Progress: Eternal Champions - Intro Phantasy Star 4 - Title Streets of Rage 2 - Under Logic (w/ tefnek) 2x FF7 Mixes Nausicaa medley (anime) To Do: FF6 - Zozo Super Mario Land 2 - Main Theme (Redo) FF2 - Overworld

Catchy little tune.. some of the sound choices here are more interesting than we usually hear from dance tunes, so props for that. It does seem a little sparse at times, but overall I think the problem is more with the arrangement of the song. It's a few chords over and over with some slight variations. Definitely not BAD but you could use more.. "stuff" in there. There's not even any kind of melody or riff going most of the time. With some polish to the arrangement/structure this could pass I think, since the production is pretty cool. NO

This is pretty catchy. I think I would probably go with a borderline 'YES' if I had to vote on it.. pretty nice variations you have going on, solid groove, good production, I like it.

I gotta agree with Darke. Lots of basic, default FL sounds, and a simplistic arrangement. You really have to do more than this to get on this site today. I would go to the ReMixing forum, read some tutorials, download VSTs and soundfonts, listen to newer remixes and get an idea of what their arrangement is like, and then try again. NO

I'm really not feeling those weird phasing cymbal crashes.. they're piercing, and really take away from the soundscape. However, from the intro alone it's clear you have some pretty creative sound design ideas going on. It takes about 2 minutes before you actually bring in the Terra theme, and as much as I like the intro, that's a little long. Production-wise, I would scrap that FM bell lead. It's not mixed well and it's just ugly. The guitars sometimes sound a bit off rhythm and there's LOTS of clipping going on when the melody comes in. The strings at times seem on the dry side, as well, and though this may be more of a subjective thing, I think the drums were probably compressed too much. Lastly, and this is most apparent in the B section, I thought that things were just sort of muddy when you had all the different parts playing at once. It didn't sound like anything was properly mixed or EQ'd to stand out. The highlight of this remix is the arrangement. I thought there were some really cool ideas going on in that department, and the flow of the track made sense. The main Terra melody is treated somewhat blandly, and I would have liked to hear more variation there, but for the most part I'd say this is clearly an interpretation and don't have much beef with that aspect of the remix. My only complaint is the ending which is practically non-existent. The big problem here isn't the concept, but rather, the execution. The production is simply sloppy. There's no attention paid to individual parts having more or less precedence. There's clipping all over, and the guitar parts don't seem synced up, and sometimes they don't hit the pitches straight-on. All of these things need to be tuned up significantly before this remix has a chance of passing. However, if you can do that, I think you'll have a solid piece on your hands. Keep at it. NO

The intro is certainly interesting. Most prelude remixes I've heard start with those arpeggios and nothing else. Good to hear that you've switched it up, though I'm not sure about those sort of lo-fi, high-pitched voices. I don't think those add a lot. 1:09 sounds like you took the arpeggio line from one of the games' original sound, rather than recreating it with your own instruments/synth. I say this because of the sort of trail of short delays after each note, which, as I recall, is what the SNES did to simulate reverb. If this is in fact the case, I would strongly suggest making sure you have recreated the arpeggios as we really frown on ripping directly from the OST. Anyway, so like Vig said, the first two minutes are pretty promising (albeit a bit drawn out). Then all of a sudden, there's this really abrupt, ugly transition, before a basic 4/4 dance beat comes in. The beat itself is somewhat weak, and the bass synth isn't very strong either. You're still using the voices which I don't see the relevance of, and that isn't helping things. Then, the sampled arpeggios come back in, a REALLY weak lead plays the main melody, and stuff just doesn't change after that. You use the same sfx transition you did before to go to another section, but the new section isn't all that hot either. I like the idea of a breakbeat thing with new synths.. just the execution of it isn't very good. So overall, I'd say the concept of this remix needs some work. There are some good ideas scattered around, particularly in the intro, but they need a lot of polish. Cut down on the repetition, add more variations, tweak the synths more, and make a real ending and you'll be on the right track. NO

Hmm.. I'm assuming this is a live recording, because it sounds kind of centered and there's a lot of ambiance. If it's NOT live I would suggest cutting back on the reverb. If it is, I would try to use a stereo enhancer or imager of some kind to make it sound less mono. Otherwise the production isn't bad. In regards to the arrangement, it's got some pretty good ideas to make things interesting. However, you skip over chords in some cases and I think you shouldn't do that as much. I would go easier on the pedal to make sure things don't sound too mushy. There are some nice variations, however, the piece is too short and repetitive overall. You basically have like.. 45 seconds of ideas which are more or less repeated a few times before the song just ends abruptly. Most of the time you're not changing your motifs which doesn't help (left OR right hand). What you have isn't necessarily boring, but you DO need to change things up. Here's something to consider. Write out a few different left hand patterns/motifs and try to work those in as you repeat. Also, take a look at the large form of the piece. Maybe add a section where you have some of your own original material mixed with other themes from FF6, for about 30-45 seconds, before going to a bridge section that transitions back to a climax with the decisive battle theme? Something along those lines. Mess around and see what you come up with, and run it by the people in our IRC chat (#ocremix / #ocrwip) and our WIP forums. NO

There are no music stores in my area that stock these cards so that's not an option. I don't think I've seen them in ANY store, actually.. you don't usually see software plugins ready for demo purposes. Maybe it's different in Europe Anyway FXT worked fine when I tried it, and it's a lot more cost-efficient than a $1000-2000+ piece of hardware, no?

To be clear, I wasn't asking for recommendations on which card I should get.. I was asking if people had personal experiences with the cards, and what motivation I should have to buy one. For $1100 I could build a top of the line music PC or get two premade Dell PCs that match my current one in power. I could then use FXTeleport to farm out exponentially more plugins than I could run on a $1100 powercore card.

Anyone here have any experience with these? I'm looking at a few now, and it seems like there's not a lot of motivation to buy them as you could practically build a new, top-of-the-line computer for the same price.

No.. you wouldn't want to expand the dynamic range, you'd want to compress it and then normalize or apply gain. That's the whole point of compression. If he IS talking about the overall volume of the song, then the compressor threshold is not being set low enough so as to equalize the volume levels.

JABB is a pretty nice sample package, but unlike soundfonts, you really have to work with it a lot to get it to sound good. Same goes for GPO. I wouldn't dismiss it so quickly. As for one note at a time? That sounds like a configuration problem, unless the patch itself is monophonic (possible for solo instruments). ST ain't coming back anytime soon though.

I'm pretty sure the VST would run properly even if you didn't HAVE a soundcard. You just wouldn't be able to hear it. Your card should be fine.

Well, honestly, while you could use multiband compression, I would simply adjust the levels of the parts as required. If the highs are too low (or whatever) then boost them! Compression in that case is almost like the lazy way out.

Yeah both CDs sold out at a surprising pace. However you can pick them BOTH up at iTunes (it's a little cheaper than CDbaby, actually) or alternatively, buy 'em in their original WAV format on my website (www.zirconstudios.com - electronica section) for a few dollars less.

q-pa; it was a combination of games, you could select from a menu. Me and djp played some SSF2:Turbo matches after but I was thoroughly beaten.

haha, nice. You should really check out my original album "Impulse Prime" if you haven't already.. there are more phat beats where FH came from.

Recently, both the panel and djp have been particularly busy. We have something of a backlog of mixes to be posted to the site (quite a few, in fact) and are finishing up the last few subs in the queue. This last batch is from 5/21, so a little less than a month behind.

watkinzez is correct, but don't forget, you can check the shownotes for a complete list of background music. This episode had quite a lot of it, too!

You can.

VGDJ Episode 043: Video Games Live Edition has been released at www.vgdj.net ! It's finally done! We were sort of against the odds on this one, with me having to edit the show, pixietricks not having internet for most of the time, Pro Tools crashing, my main audio drive dying, etc.. but we really think you guys are gonna dig this one. There's too much cool stuff to describe. Ya'll just download and give it a listen. Oh, and needless to say, vote for us this month if you haven't already ps. A new batch of pictures is available from before, during, and after the show @ http://www.vgdj.net/album (page 5 and 6)

You're welcome to use my track in the game.

Uhhhh... So even if I played 8 hours a day... it would take me around 44 days to do it?! Yeah, I'm thinking no. It's just too much time, and I've heard there are more then 1 hour long raid of 40 people. It must be a pain in the ass coming up with enough coordination to carry them out. How about grinding, do you have to do it if you want to play competitivly? The level to 60 really is not that bad. On paper it LOOKS a lot longer than it actually is. Many people on these boards have more than 1 60.. at least a few people have 3+ and I know some people personally with 5 or 6 level 60 characters. Compared to other MMORPGs it's pretty easy to level, plus if you play casually you get rested experience (eg. the time you spent logged off translates to an experience bonus when you log back on). 40 man raids are tough, but you don't have to do them - I think only 1/4 of the WoW population probably does. Your average 40 man raid is between 3 and 5 hours, though I have been on some MONSTER marathon runs like from 2pm Saturday to 1am, but I don't do that anymore. It all depends on how you want to play. WoW is a flexible game.

I'd say around 300-350 hours. Probably on the higher end if it's your first character, because you'll want to have fun; do quests, PVP, run instances, mess around on the AH and with tradeskills, etc. If your SOLE goal is levelling up you can do it pretty fast (more like 200-250 hours).