zircon

I'm getting better at video editing and my YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/zirconST) is really starting to pick up steam. So, I've decided to prepare my biggest video tutorial project yet, a comprehensive walkthrough of creating a remix from start to finish. It's definitely going to be a big undertaking, but I think it would be pretty useful to a lot of people. However, before I start, I'm curious what you guys think would be good to include in such a project. Keep in mind this would be 4-6 videos long (in all likelihood) so there's a lot of time to work with.

I gotta say, this is among the coolest things to ever happen to an OC ReMixer (or should I say, Anime ReMixer?!) Congrats man!

Holy crap, prozax on OCR again?! Awesome. I definitely hear the Satriani influence - good stuff man!

Completely legit, I've worked with the owner before.

Yep... pretty much exactly what the topic says. It's Sean Paul's "Get Busy" mashed up with "Wild West" from FF6 (aka the Veldt) plus a bit of Umaro for fun, and some additional beats to thicken things out. Really goofy, but pretty funny, particularly in the chorus. Enjoy! Video: MP3: http://www.zirconstudios.com/music/random/zircon_Get_Busy_on_the_Veldt.mp3

Yeah, very sorry that we couldn't make it to your place on Friday, Xerol! I think the logistics of a Friday gathering are very hard to pull off, since a lot of people park AT the con, and driving back out to your place, and then BACK into the city (or south of it, as was the case with Jill and I) is very tricky. Not to mention we were pretty fragmented until late in the evening, since Dave got stuck in traffic and Larry was MIA for awhile.

I'm down.

Congrats! Haha, man, at this rate you're going to be saying that you won the lottery in a few weeks It's been quite the year for you.

Yeah, like I said, tons of RAM is great for orchestral stuff (though I've never gone above 4gb for a project.) But this guy is using Addictive Drums (the entire library of that in RAM is like... 2gb) and plugins. No way he should blow $200 on 4 additional gigs.

In terms of skills unrelated to music technology, I find myself relying most on my solid knowledge of how to play the piano as well as the fundamentals of music theory (eg. about a year or so worth of college courses on the topic.) Ear training and dictation is also fairly important - I did a year of that as well. When I'm making remixes, 9 times out of 10 I don't need a MIDI or any sheet music. Sometimes I need a MIDI if the chords or sequences are incredibly fast and/or complicated, and too hard for me to make out, though that hasn't happened lately.

Absolutely NOT worth it to upgrade with those plugins. I just finished up a massive orchestral project with 8+ live tracks and over 25 VERY RAM-heavy instruments. Didn't even crack 3gb. Unless you are using the very latest orchestral samples - and a LOT of them - 4gb is absolutely fine. Also, REAPER is a real DAW Both Will and I use it regularly. It's among the most powerful, stable and efficient ones out there. The only thing it doesn't have is a lot of built-in plugins, but the ones it does come with are insanely useful. The tuner, pitch engine and EQs are all great.

Happy Birthday, Dave & Alexis! Or perhaps... Happy Birthdave and Happy Birthalexis.

I think it would be redundant to do ANOTHER Capcom vs. anything when there is already a Capcom vs. Marvel (well, MvC) game in development. Seems silly to add a "Capcom vs." or "vs. Capcom" game to that universe when it's already being expanded. I'll be interested to see how they integrate Tekken characters into SF. Will they be keeping the SF4 engine with focus attacks? How will Tekken brawlers fare against the myriad of projectile characters in SF?

This is cool, BUT... it's not really all that new. Basically, he just turned an organ (which was already electronic) into a controller and hooked that up to a synthesizer. Steffan Andrews (the OCReMixer) did this years ago: http://www.orchetect.com/resources/midi-organ-pedals.php While he didn't hook it up to a synth (that's not that hard), he completely repurposed an ANALOG (non-electronic) footboard into a MIDI controller. Very cool stuff.

I'm looking for screenshots - as high res as possible - of the OCR front page from April 1, 2005 and this year (EA Remix and Remixinator, respectively). If anyone has 'em, post, link or PM them to me - much appreciated!

Well, that's still pretty nonlinear though. Most people don't think of the Mega Man games as very linear, and they have even less selection than Demon's Souls does. The world feels pretty open and there are a lot of ways to approach any given challenge. Yeah, but that's like saying Contra isn't hard because once you memorize the spawns and attack patterns, it's easy. The point is that there's a lot of stuff to memorize, most of it can't be readily anticipated, and the game is rather unforgiving of your mistakes (eg. you tend to take a lot of damage from enemies, you can get dazed/stunned easily, there are basically no checkpoints, no save/reload system, gimped lifebar in spirit form.) The combination of those things makes it a hard game.

Haha, yeah, no. If anything at all, OUS and OCR staff used to be on kinda rocky terms, though there's absolutely no hate either way now. OLR does post joke remixes, but that doesn't translate to "all joke mixes are bad." You can have a funny remix that also has great production and arrangement.

I don't think the vocal execution is "poor." It's not the greatest, but it fits the spirit of the song. We've let live orchestral/band mixes pass that also don't have the greatest execution. Nor are the lyrics all that lazy... just profane, and worth a chuckle.

This is bad, like the Powerglove. Also, don't think that Sagat cameo (2:02) went unnoticed, you punks.

Kicks ass. Can't believe nobody mentioned that it's done in the X Japan style, and X Japan is awesome.

Absolutely worth playing. I haven't quite beaten it yet - I'm on 5-2 which is a frustrating world because you have to walk through muck all the time - but I've enjoyed the hell out of it so far. It's definitely hard. Honestly, it's like a spiritual successor to Castlevania. There's a big exploration factor, it's non-linear, your characters can advance (a little bit at a time) and there is a huge memorization and player skill element to winning fights. You can easily die to normal traps and enemies, too.

On Edge's recommendation, I'm using Goozex, which I love. Great way to trade games around WITHOUT paying any sort of monthly fee.

The new Castlevania games are very different than the old ones. The old ones were far more based on player skill in defeating bosses, as you had no real inventory, no experience levels, no shops, no grinding, etc. You had to be good enough to fight through a level without getting hit or dying too many times, learn boss patterns, and rely on your platforming skills far more. In the new CV games (which, mind you, I do enjoy) most encounters can be beaten simply be leveling up more, finding better items, or spamming healing/defensive magic/items in boss fights. There is little actual platforming challenge. The new ones are a very specific kind of platformer, with an exploration focus. The old ones were strictly action platformers with minimal RPG elements. AoS is extraordinarily similar in gameplay to SotN. The only real difference, EFFECTIVELY, is that AoS has more spells. Otherwise, it's extremely similar. I played through all of PoR using only Jonathan. I never saw the need to switch to the other character, honestly. And again, it's all minor variations of the same thing. It could have been another game mode of SotN or AoS and I wouldn't have blinked. Just because the way you obtain new abilities is different doesn't make the gameplay at all different in any significant way. Admittedly I haven't played Order, so I can't comment on that, only the ones I have played. In Portrait, being "outside of the castle" just meant being in Paintings which really was not any different at all. The level designs were still similar and the gameplay was still similar. Strictly cosmetic. The Mario series evolved WAY more than the Castlevania series. CV has made one and only one big jump, and that was from their old style (no RPG elements, no exploration) to the SotN style (RPG elements, exploration.) Otherwise, they've only made incremental improvements. The series as far as I can tell is getting very stale. Part of this is the nature of the recent CV games. They're not adding any fundamentally different features to the engine or the gameplay. Every challenge can always be completed by just grinding, finding better items, min-maxing, etc. and player skill is ultimately minimized by the end of the game. Compare this to the Mario series. Even though I played and beat SMG1, SMG2 added a ton of completely fresh levels and challenges which kept me interested the entire time. Because Mario is inherently skill-based as a platformer, adding new and dynamic areas will always be an interesting challenge. As a big fan of basically all the series you listed, I would say that Castlevania is by far the most stale by far. All of those series you've listed have made drastic changes over the course of their lifetimes, even with recent installations. Those that haven't are probably primarily skill or plot-based (or both) meaning you don't need to add major gameplay features in order to keep it fresh - more levels and minor tweaks are just fine (eg. Half Life 2.)

As someone who has played just about all the GBA and DS Castlevania games, I have to disagree. They're all pretty similar. The gameplay approach is the same; you explore a massive castle (maybe with sub-castles or paintings or rooms or whatever), fight bosses, gain XP, level up and find weapons/moves/powers. They're all minor variations on SotN. The specifics of the magic or ability system are not that important since the gameplay itself is very similar. You're still platforming, you're still exploring with the same kind of map structure, you're still able to level up and get stats/items to boost your effectiveness and heal you in battle, and so on and so forth. That's not to say that I didn't really enjoy Aria of Sorrow, Harmony of Dissonance, Circle of the Moon and Portrait of Ruin (all of which I own.) But the formula is definitely getting stale. I don't see "radical directions" at all. ALL the core gameplay concepts are virtually untouched. There's minimal innovation at best.

OC ReMixes cannot be used in any commercial endeavor, as per our content policy: http://ocremix.org/info/Content_Policy If it is strictly noncommercial then yes, that would be the right approach (technically we don't require you to ask permission, simply give proper credit, though it's the right thing to do!) If you need original music by OC ReMixers for a game project, may I direct you to ZirconTrax, a catalog of over 300+ ready-to-license tracks available at low cost for projects like yours. Many of them are provided by OC ReMixers like myself, sgx, bLiNd, Joshua Morse, Mazedude, bustatunez, Big Giant Circles, pixietricks, etc. We can also arrange custom music for you if you need that!