zircon

I don't think the economy had anything to do with it. Some of the ex-RTW developers have spoken up and it sounds like the corporate culture just wasn't very good, which in turn led to massive lack of oversight and major financial problems. In other words, they were not smart about money, management or development.

Reposted from KVR/Vi-Control, this is the latest sample library from Impact Soundworks, a collaboration between myself and fellow composer/remixer Will Roget, II (aka bustatunez!)

Well, with Koan, that was written for the project and released as a teaser - it was thought that SOS would come out much sooner than it did. On the other hand, Blue Skies was included in Chrono Symphonic on request.

Sure! Why not

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-o15Xmaz2A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO14WFh1k-I&feature=related

Excellent! By the way, we now have a gameplay video up so you can see how the game looks + plays:

Space Whale Studios is an independent game development company I co-founded in Philadelphia last year with four other people. Our mission is to create addictive strategy, puzzle and retro-inspired games that are easy to pick up, but have lots of depth, unique graphics and kickass audio. We're just now wrapping up work on our first title, an action-puzzle game called Return All Robots! (or RAR!). We'll have lots of videos about this game up on our YouTube channel soon, but in the meantime, here's the gist of it - you're a lowly intern at a big science corporation who gets tasked with cleaning up the aftermath of some kind of giant catastrophe that has released tons of 'good' and 'bad' robots all over the facility. Your goal is to travel through several different labs (worlds), rescuing the good robots while avoiding or destroying the bad robots and making sure they DON'T escape. Your primary tool is a remote control which calls all robots to move toward you. Just get all the good robots to the teleporter square without any of them dying (or without YOU dying), and you're all set. There are a few twists, however: 1. Robots only move in cardinal directions. If you're diagonal from a robot, they won't know what to do. 2. ALL robots - good and bad - move at once. 3. You can't call robots while they're moving - in other words, you can't change their direction at all. Only when they've stopped (hitting a barrier) can you call them again. As if these challenges weren't enough, the various labs you have to travel through are filled with a range of perils, from liquid nitrogen to cryo-fans, lava, tesla coils, acid and fire. New mechanics are unlocked as you progress in the games, such as a heat ray to melt ice blocks, a "robo buddy" that you can position as a mobile obstacle, turret/laser robots and more. We're ultra-hyped about this game, which should be released on Xbox Indie Games and PC by mid-October. To celebrate, we'll simultaneously be releasing a physical + digital soundtrack (composed by myself and fellow Philly musician Mike Worth.) This brings us to: REMIX CONTEST The rules are simple. Remix, arrange or cover any track from the RAR! OST. Any length, any instrumentation. We'll listen to everything and pick our top 5 favorites based on creativity and overall enjoyability. Prizes First place: Your remix featured on the RAR! OST (= you get paid.) Plus, you get a copy of the physical soundtrack and game disc (or XBIG download code, if you prefer), any Impact Soundworks sample library, my entire discography (6 CDs!) and the Uhbik plugin collection for PC/Mac (amazing multi-effects by the creator of Zebra, REALLY powerful stuff.) Second and third place: Physical soundtrack + game disc (or game code), entire zircon discography. Fourth and fifth place: Game disc (or game code), any 3 zircon CDs. Deadline September 29th, 2010. Email your entries to aaversa@spacewhalestudios.com with the subject: "RAR Remix Contest Entry - Yourname - Remixname" Don't forget to mention which source tune you remixed! Source Tunes Check 'em out below! I had a ton of fun writing these tunes, which were designed with SNES, Genesis and 80s influences. Mike Worth collaborated with me on the main theme which is as cheesy and catchy as you might expect, but my personal favorite is the "Training Montage" tune, inspired by the track of the same name from Rocky IV. http://www.zirconstudios.com/music/RAR/ We're looking forward to hearing what you've got! Connect with SWS on: Facebook Twitter YouTube

For what it's worth, I used to be "Silverguy" when I was, I don't know, 10 or so. Then, when I started playing online RPGs, it became "Silverhawk" which stuck for another 5 years until I began my music career (if you could call it that) as "dj zircon" Thankfully, I dropped the dj... Basically I agree with the points made here, but I do want to talk about search engine optimization. If you ever plan on using your pseudonym for more projects (eg. you decide to do more professional art pieces) or in general want more recognition, you want something that is unique. "zircon" is not unique because it's the name of a company that makes stud finders, as well as an element. It took me years to even get in the top 5 search results on Google, and I'm still not #1. In this sense, "The Otaku" is even worse. "The" doesn't really even get picked up by search engines and "otaku" is a generic term. Now, I'm not saying your pseudonym is bad at all, and if you don't really ever intend on doing a lot with it, then nothing I'm saying applies. But if you ever want to build a brand (so to speak) and you're having doubts, you might consider switching to something more unique. The power of Google and easy-to-remember domains can never be underestimated.

The Halo ad is the only banner I can think of that obnoxiously says something on a timer. Seriously, no other ad I've encountered does that. There's such thing as obtrusive ads. YouTube banners by default are muted, so it's just an ass thing to do to make your ad UNMUTE periodically to shout at the user.

Actually, I can't stand the Halo advertising either. There is some stupid YouTube banner ad for Reach that yells "BRAINWASH" every so often if you leave it open. This is a huge pain since I often leave my YT homepage open to check comments every so often. It took me awhile to even figure out what it was.

EX Hayate going through fireballs makes it an almost no risk move... I don't like that. The fact that it's an extremely fast linear attack with great distance and big followup options alone is powerful.

A "true successor" to Super and Prime? Didn't we already have 3 Prime games, Zero Mission and Fusion, not to mention the Castlevania GBA/DS series and Shadow Complex (especially Shadow Complex) which are all basically the same thing?

The soundtrack really is amazing, though I haven't played the game. It has even inspired a track on Jill's upcoming album.

Ah, Hakan buffs!!! That will definitely make me play more. DD: The online lag isn't bad if you're on a good connection and playing people with max green bars. It's not the arcade, but definitely solid.

Hmm, I see the distinction - I suppose the ideal solution would just be the continued partnering of the ESRB with game retailers, much like the MPAA and theaters. Anyway, keep up the great work!

Hmm, I would argue that it's better for more developers to take risks as opposed to the drab 'design-by-committee' type games that are so prevalent today. When yo think of most classic games, the production teams were much smaller and thus it was easier to take risks and explore new directions.

A few points of clarification: 1. It is not almost impossible to sell arrangements of existing music. In fact, it's extremely easy in the U.S. - there is a provision in our copyright law that forces copyright holders to allow their songs to be covered and re-sold, provided the cover artist pays a royalty of 9.1 cents per song (per album) sold. Of course, this rate can be manually negotiated IF people so desire, but that is the automatic default which can't be contested. Furthermore, there is even a website/organization (Harry Fox Agency) that allows people to purchase licenses of existing music all in a webstore. No waiting, just type in the song info, # of copies and hit purchase. Couldn't be easier. 2. I can't speak for events LIKE Comiket, but at Comiket itself a lot of the music is arrangements of Touhou, whose author put it in the public domain for anyone to remix/arrange/resell. That's why it's so popular, or at least, one of the reasons.

I'm not sure that was really a scale. It sounded kinda like: Db Eb E F# G A Bb C But they added in extra tones. Just solo over any minor scale and add a tritone and it will sound something like that.

That's just an old, unpolished version of this: http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01559/

You know, I anticipated this kind of response and did my very best to avoid it by saying "if that's the right word for them" Yes, I understand (along with the rest of the judges) that chiptunes can be written in a variety of styles, as you said. Much like how solo piano music can be jazz, classical, blues, etc. My point was that we don't cut people any slack if they choose a more limiting production style, genre, whatever - and you can't argue that chiptunes are inherently limiting (polyphony and available timbres.) That limitation also means that chiptune artists tend to gravitate toward a particular style (dance/electronica) though obviously there are exceptions. I'm not sure where you get the idea that we're "closed-minded", though. Everyone on the staff loves chiptunes. Most if not all of us have gone to at least several live chiptune shows. We love listening to C64 and NES soundtracks. But we can't make a special exception in our standards for any style or genre. GrayLightning argued this vehemently with the following example. What if someone submitted a remix in "yoga style" which is just banging two rocks together with someone humming on top? Should we say that we have to evaluate that remix only within the bounds of its own style? Should we do that with EVERY style? What if someone submitted a Venetian Blinds style remix at 999bpm with almost all distortion and white noise throughout? That's a legitimate genre, but should we go easy on it because that's what all the songs in the genre sound like? Even if you disagree with our position (that we don't judge chiptunes within their genre), don't call us closed-minded. We've discussed the topic internally at GREAT length and there was never a complete consensus one way or the other. The one thing we did agree on is that we all enjoy chiptunes of many kinds by many artists, and that even if we don't tend to post them here, that doesn't mean they're bad music.

Thanks for the responses so far. This is on the same mousepad I've been using for a few years, and it does NOT move if I'm not touching it. However... putting a napkin on top of my mousepad actually seemed to help a lot. Weird. I guess I'll try some different surfaces and see what happens.

We don't discriminate based on genres at all, and you're underestimating the vast range of styles we hear. We've received subs in an enormous range of genres - think about the amazing range that is posted on OCR, and now imagine that you're only hearing about 10% of what we actually receive. I think every judge as well as djp himself would freely admit they've evaluated things in styles that they had never heard before. It's unavoidable because there are practically limitless genres out there, but thankfully the concepts of production and arrangement are pretty genre-neutral with a few rare exceptions (like chiptunes, which are intentionally very lo-fi.) There's certainly nothing inherent in black metal with orchestral elements that would be a cause for concern or merit any special attention at all. In the entire history of OCR that I'm aware of, chiptunes are the only genre (if that's the right word for them) where we had to spend a lot of time discussing how to judge them. Dave's judgment was that they don't get special exceptions, and that production and arrangement is just as important with them as with any other style. This does mean that chiptunes are effectively judged "more harshly" because stylistically, they're lo-fi, but we don't really cut them any slack for that. Listening to your YT links, a remix in the style of the first one would be fine. We had a Castlevania II death metal remix like that. The second one is (IMO) not well-produced at all. Too muddy with poor frequency balance. I could imagine a remix in this style being well-produced, eg. through proper mixing/mastering and balance, but retaining the vocal style, heavy guitars and fast drums. But if this is the exact sound you're going for in terms of mixing and production, I think you'd have a hard time passing. Keep in mind an album project does not need to be primarily comprised of mixes that would pass on OCR. About 1/3 is what we look for at a bare minimum (preferably more.) So if you wanted to do a few tracks in the exact style of your second YT link, that would be fine, provided a good chunk of the album is passable on OCR.

True, there is no law saying minors can't see an R-rated movie without a parent. But the effect is the same. The entire industry adheres to the MPAA rating system and all movie theaters enforce ratings. To me, the video seemed to be saying (in part) that we shouldn't have ANY restriction on mature content for minors, because minors deserve to be able to decide for themselves. I don't believe that is right - I think the argument should have stayed focused on the legal aspect of things, not a child's right to free speech via buying things.

This might seem like a dumb question, but I recently got a new optical mouse - about a month ago. From day 1 it seems to be very... inaccurate. I don't know how to describe it exactly, but the best way to explain would be that I can't draw a straight line in any direction. I don't have shaky hands and this wasn't a problem for other optical mice I've had (which have broken for various reasons, like damaged mousewheels or cables.) This makes it VERY hard to do precise tasks in a DAW, like drawing automation or even picking the right value from a knob or slider. Seriously, look at how bad it is. This is me doing my very best to draw straight lines. And it's not even some $2 mouse either. It was a $15 Logitech optical mouse. Notice how it just moves all over the place. I've tried changing my hand position, moving the mousepad and stabilizing the wire. None of that has any effect. Is there some way to... make the moues more accurate while dragging? Is that even possible? Edit: Also, it's not pointer speed or the "enhance pointer precision" option. This is some serious drift.

Huh... I love EC but this latest video I'm not 100% in agreement with. What is wrong with laws saying kids can't buy M-rated games? How is this any different than kids not being able to watch R-rated movies? Nobody would debate that film ISN'T art, yet virtually everyone accepts that it's OK for films to have ratings, and for children below a minimum age to not view films with certain ratings UNLESS an adult comes with them. What exactly is the problem with this?