zircon

I dunno what you mean, given that there's only one ReMix on OCR of it... I don't think there are any on VGmix either. So if anything it's UNDER-remixed compared to other FF7 themes. tru dat be, it is hard to remix, it has so much variation and just is outstanding as is Admittedly, it'll be hard to top the Advent Children version. However, if we do decide to cover it, it'll be good. I guarantee it.

YO! We're back from VGL (posting at my dorm from 3AM, pixie is behind me and djp is nearly asleep on the floor.. good times). Earlier in the day we chilled with Darkesword and his buddies, as well as bustatunez, then for the show itself we met up with Merk and Atmaweapon and eventually Moguta and D-Lux (an unexpected surprise!) Anyway, the best part was that we not only got to hang out with all these big-name composers, but we got interviews with all of them. Amusingly enough, before we went to a hotel to relax and do a bunch of interviews, there was a "meet and greet" session with all of the people from the concert at a sort of panel, signing autographs.. as it turns out, djpretzel had a spot there! Anyway, this is going to be a hell of a show. LOTS of editing to do and I'm the one that's going to be doing it, so it's going to take a little longer than normal. I expect to be done on Monday sometime, and it will probably be coordinated with a front page update by djp where he'll be spotlighting VGL and this special edition podcast episode. Long story short, awesome concert, hooray for video game music, and check back Monday to hear the show. Goodnight!

I dunno what you mean, given that there's only one ReMix on OCR of it... I don't think there are any on VGmix either. So if anything it's UNDER-remixed compared to other FF7 themes.

The mix is 6:55, that's the ending. Doesn't sound abrupt to me though.

Wow, was the intro inspired at all by the Princess Mononoke soundtrack? If I didn't know better I'd say this is right out of there. It's very similar stylistically. Anyway, very good job there. In terms of the rest, :54 was somewhat abrupt after the very quiet and mellow section preceding it, more because of that high flute hit. After that point, I like the direction the mix heads. Considering you're still working with not-so-great samples you do a FANTASTIC job of orchestrating things, and your production is very good. The one section that is problematic in regards to sample quality is 2:29 to 2:43 - things just sound kinda fake there. You could have done with a little more reverb perhaps to cover that up. The middle section leading up to 3:50 was excellent. Really, the arrangement as a whole is VERY well-structured and aside from the abrupt transition towards the beginning, things flow extremely smoothly. This is probably my favorite work of yours so far. You did a fantastic job on nearly every aspect of this remix. Any complaints I have are rather minimal. YES

I'm not sure I could justify a YES vote on this one. Listening to it next to the original, really, where's the interpretation? It's pretty much the same key, close to the same tempo, the same rhythms, very similar texture and nearly identical instrumentation. This is an upgrade of the original that is slightly expanded; and there's not a whole lot you can do to expand it in less than two minutes, as Larry mentioned. While it might be enjoyable in and of itself, I don't see it as a significant rearrangement or interpretation compared to the original. In addition I don't think it's very interesting - you could argue it has the elements of an engaging mix but the actual execution falls short. NO

We're still working on this.

Then you haven't been playing with good Fury warriors. While Dual Wield Fury is heavily stat dependent (you need VERY good epic gear to do good DPS), 2hand Fury provides 15-25% of a DPS improvement over arms. The only reason not everyone does it is because most people consider it to be inferior for PVP. In my old guild, typically, Rogues dominated the top 3 followed by an Arms warrior with epic gear and a Bonereaver's Edge, but once one of our big DPS Arms Warriors with a Sulfuras respecced to 2h Fury he was #1.

A comparably geared combat Rogue SHOULD beat the Warrior every time, looking at the bigger picture. Against multiple targets, the Warrior will do a lot (though Blade Furry can help make up for it). Fury warriors however do more DPS than Arms.

I'd be happy to do it, just give me a bit.

Would it be helpful if I did something like put together a video of how one might typically work with GPO and FLstudio? Like a 5-10 minute thing of writing a particular theme. That might give you a good idea of how fast note entry/editing works.

It seems really silly to buy a $400-$600 program if you just want to do MIDI editing in a piano roll. I don't know, check out energyXT - it has a pretty good one. But if you didn't like FL, you won't find anything better. It's almost universally agreed upon that FL has the most powerful piano roll around.

Oof.. I can see what Liontamer means. The instrumentation here is very bland. Not that there's anything wrong with less realistic samples but they're not being used in an interesting way here. The drum pattern is especially mundane in both the samples, processing, and rhythm. In fact, the whole thing sounds like it could use some effects processing (reverb, delay, saturation, chorus, what-have-you). Unfortunately the arrangement does not make up for the very lackluster production, as it too is rather simple and dull. I encourage you to spend some time on our ReMixing forums to pick up techniques for adding spice to your productions. As for arrangement, that's up to you to improve. You need to do something besides choosing certain sounds to make the ReMix your own. NO

Hey, prepared piano stuff!!! Cool. I like the arrangement of this one. It's got a lot of interesting left hand stuff, some nice embellishments to keep the melody from being too plodding. Very nice dynamics and expression. Transitions like 2:37 are well done, and I particularly liked the improv around 3:03. The performance has some minor errors at worst but they're not even really noticeable - it's quite good. That aspect is totally fine with me. The recording quality is more than adequate. This is an excellent ReMix overall, and a good example of what a solo piano mix should be. YES

Right off the bat it's clear the production is pretty sharp. The sounds are nice. When the saw synth comes in, though, things get a little cluttered. Lots of low/low-mid stuff that muddies up the sound. The drums are nice and beefy, at least. Now what you have to do is make a nice arrangement on top of that. As it is, it's really straightforward.. structurally simple. There are no significant changeups, nothing to change the mood, it's always moving in the same direction the whole time. At 2:01 the melody seems to clash a little with the bassline, too. In my opinion, you should work on a wider range of synth timbres, cut back a little bit on the repetition, switch up the drum patterns more, and in general expand the arrangement to make it more interesting. It's not far off, so keep at it. NO

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1556648313270791252&q=zinwrath That's the "prequel" if you will.

I swear by FLStudio, but I do use some other tools (synths, samples) not bundled in it. However I would say FLStudio is the centerpiece of my studio and what makes all my stuff possible.

It's Tuesday, and you know what THAT means.. wait, what?! Ya'll check out www.vgdj.net for a special announcement!

Right. Though, HKs are nice if you're gauging your approximate relative honor to someone else who's been doing the same stuff. For example, if you've been playing WSG all day and someone else has been playing WSG all day, you have 1k HKs and he has 200, chances are you'll probably get 4-6x his honor. Oh yeah, and being in a GEARED endgame guild rocks. Last night I got Boots of Transcendence, Mantle of the Blackwing Cabal, and Angelista's Grasp. No one even wanted them.

Well, in AV, yeah, it's better to run solo if you're going for honor. But in other BGs, a big chunk of honor is coming from the wins (hopefully). In a good AB group for example you can 5-cap every 10-15 minutes which (on an AB weekend) means you're getting a good 8-10k or more an HOUR not counting the HKs involved. This week, rolling with an uber PVP guild on my server, I was able to net about 80k honor a day just dominating AB and sometimes WSG.. I had 240k before yesterday and I didn't even play Tues/Wed.

Well, if you're in a group, everyone gets the same CP. If you're not in a group.. I dunno, you're probably right.

You know there's no rap in this, right? And since there's only one other remix of this I can only assume you're saying that Star's is better, something that I'd probably agree with, but I think mine stands pretty well on it's own. I didn't take the same approach as he did despite the fact that we both used mostly electronic sounds.

Thank you all for the comments, I appreciate it. BrainCells; I agree the arrangement isn't incredible. However I found it very difficult to think of a creative way to arrange this one. The motif you hear right at the start IS the original. It only had a 20-25 second melody or so and that was it. So I did my best to play around with the progression, add some synth riffs, emphasize the drums, add in a little original section..

Two epics in two days.. heh, I remember one weekend I got three epics in one RUN, and the next raid I got another two. Gotta love DKP.

No, nothing is totally useless, but some are better for certain things than others. I've put an insane amount of time into PVP and the 30/21 spec just sucks for it. With no survivability, you're useless. You barely lose any real healing power with 30/21, since that spec is all raid abilities.