zircon

Yoozer's idea is good but definitely time-consuming. I plan on doing a very thorough tutorial on making a remix from scratch, though this doesn't use all free/easily-accessible stuff. I like the idea of actually having a bundle of freely available (and/or custom) synths + samples, since we have stickies with this type anyway. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. For example, I would suggest things like: * Synth1 * mda Effects package * ProteusVX * sfz/some other soundfont player * A handful of free soundfonts etc.

There isn't any clipping in the soundtrack. If you're hearing clipping it's a problem with your monitoring setup or sound card/audio interface. Most tracks are compressed/mastered at a reasonable level, though "Clamato Fever" is definitely pretty intense. Do you have any examples of tracks where you're hearing clipping or over-compression?

Seconded

Thanks for the very kind words, all! I wasn't sure if people would like this or not.

That's awesome!! But wait... didn't he win TWO Grammys? http://www.grammy.com/nominees?year=2010&genre=All Best Classical Crossover Album AND Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)

Sorry about that, I need to rewrite/rerecord these to put on my current (new) website, www.zirconmusic.com. In the meantime, check that site out as I have tons of NEW tutorials and guides.

A. I've written entire songs in one pattern. Nothing wrong with that, though it does defeat the purpose of pattern-based workflow. I just find it easier sometimes for large orchestral pieces where I need to see how everything flows together. B. They're not taking out pattern blocks in FL10. They will leave them in for that version and probably more, but as of FL10 they are 'deprecated', meaning they are not on by default and new projects will import as pattern clip-based. You can still enable blocks, however C. FL's playlist doesn't 'need improvement'... it's extremely flexible and powerful, and will only get moreso in version 10. Lots of new stuff coming that people have already seen in the betas. I'm curious what you have a problem with.

Man I played some MVC3 today in Japan... and I had no idea what was going on. It seems fun, but like Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, it's incredibly confusing. SSF4 is complicated enough for me. I think I'll pass on this one.

I wonder if this has something to do with there being way too many projects...

Yep, and if you have any other questions feel free to ask... there are a decent number of people in the community doing pro video game work.

I have problems with my LCD HDTV speakers clipping w/ PS3 games as well. Doesn't happen at all with my 360, including HDRemix on 360. I would guess this is a PS3 problem.

Submitting remixes to OCR, which makes no profit and distributes said remixes for free, is nothing at all like giving songs to a COMMERCIAL video game developer whose goal is to profit from your work. I think it's insulting that the developer would not offer any money for something like this, and nobody in the community should take them up on it. Companies like Konami (DDR) and Andamiro (Pump It Up) have no problem paying artists for their contributions, so this company has no excuse. Now if this is a free product that they're making no money from, that's a different story.

As soon as budget allows, I'm picking this up. It's awesome.

Gorefiend!! That was the server I played on (I retired + sold my account right before BC came out.) Props. Most of my guildmates are probably still on.

Very good advice from Rama... since I wrote "Just Hold On" for FL9 I've resigned to the fact that lots of people are going to claim it as their own. But the day FL9 came out, I released an official YT vid for the track, which has far and away the most views of any JHO video or ripoff by a factor of at least 50.

True, though FL's popularity has been rising fast while interest in Pro Tools has been dropping. I doubt FL will ever be quite at the level of PT but still, it's not an obscure DAW.

Yep! As Zombie said, I have a couple EPs on there: https://www.beatport.com/en-US/html/content/release/detail/119423/breathing_you_in https://www.beatport.com/en-US/html/content/release/detail/104205/system 4 original songs total + remixes.

QFE... I also want to say something about traditional wisdom and recording technique. Things like "headphones aren't good", or "mix in mono", or "save mixing/mastering for last" - in my opinion, that's all bunk. In this day and age, you don't NEED an engineer. The fact that they were needed before was simply a byproduct of recording equipment being extraordinarily expensive. Anybody can develop an ear for "mixing and mastering" if they work at it. Much like how the distinction between lyricist and songwriter is dissolving, I believe the existence of a specialized mixing/mastering process is essentially obsolete, so the sooner you can really learn how to do it yourself, the better. I've judged over 500 ReMixes and so I can say pretty conclusively that most people don't have a problem with mixing and mastering, but with actually producing music in general. The final SOUND of your remix or song or whatever is determined NOT just by volume faders and EQ but also what notes/chords you write and what instruments you select. I can't emphasize that enough. You can't just write whatever you want with whatever instruments you want, then expect that mixing and mastering will somehow fix it. I've personally never done mixing and mastering separately. When I write music or create a remix, all that stuff is done as I go along. You need to be able to hear how the track will sound in the end as you're selecting instruments and writing notes. Adding a 6th pad instrument and thinking mixing/mastering will make it fit is a bad idea, so why wait until the end to realize you've made mistakes in instrument selection? Why not fit things in properly as they come up? Again, all of this is just my opinion, but my supposedly unorthodox way of working has done pretty well for me so far, and I don't attribute that to any natural 'talent' or ear for production.

Right but effectively it's being played back in the order it was recorded, at the same tempo, and at the same pitches. They didn't use a "sampled choir" per se, they took a choral piece and sliced it up. That's an important distinction and one I just wanted to make clear here. I don't think we're disagreeing on the technical aspect of things at least. The entire FF7 soundtrack, OWA included, is not based around entire recorded pieces sliced up and triggered, but very short individual samples/synthesized sounds assembled into full songs. That song is the one exception and shouldn't be lumped in.

My point was about the choir specifically. Yes, I understand that it was broken into smaller chunks. But surely you agree there is a LARGE difference between, say: * A set of samples consisting of consonants, pitched vowels and loop points that can be strung together to create words, chords and phrases at any tempo and in any key and * A entire choral piece recorded once and then simply sliced up into smaller chunks To say that the first thing is equivalent to the second is VERY misleading. If I say "I used a sampled choir in my track", the implication that basically any music maker would take away from that is that I used something like the first option: a sample library consisting of tons of vowels, consonants and pitches, painstakingly sequenced into a (nonetheless unrealistic) performance. They would NOT assume that I recorded a full choir singing an entire piece and then chopped it up. So that's why I'm saying it's more accurate to say the choir was "prerecorded" and not sequenced. When you say "sequenced", it implies that multisampled single notes and articulations were used to construct the phrase, not that a piece was chopped into smaller phrases and played back in order.

So, you're telling me that you think there were specific MIDI instructions (or the equivalent) specifying the notes and note durations of the choir? Because there weren't. When I say "prerecorded" I mean that there was, at some point, a live choir which recorded the vocal part to "One-Winged Angel". That entire recording was mixed and reformatted to a lower bitrate/samplerate and compressed so it could be stored on the disc. The entire TRACK is not Redbook audio, obviously, but the music system is not assembling each word or note of the choir one at a time. Whether that recording is being played back in chunks or in one continuous stream is beside the point... it's not accurate to say it's not "prerecorded" or liken it to synthesized sounds/MIDI scores.

Music that keeps playing without the disk doesn't have anything to do with where the music is coming from, considering games can (and do) buffer audio into their memory as opposed to streaming 100% of it in real-time. But I think the key point about One Winged Angel is that the choir was recorded live. It is not comprised of individual samples sequenced together. There isn't any sequence of notes specifying what the choir is singing.

But General MIDI itself isn't accurate either. GM is just a standard; a specification.

We don't post ALL album projects track-by-track on our channel, so this is a legit suggestion. Edit: Actually I didn't look hard enough. We do this for every album, sometimes it just takes awhile. Oops

Not a bad idea, but is there a reason we would make another channel for that? We already release album trailers on our main channel...