Xaleph

Is there anyone doing the art? I'll be interested to contribute some art. I used to play Tetris Attack with my wife as well.
Is there any requirement you have in mind, Xaleph? I'll be happy to discuss.
I know I have not been around this forum for 10+ years, lol. I previously drew & painted the art for "Sound of Speed" (Sonic 1 album). You can also check out my works on my website: https://www.dennyiskart.com/

Tetris Attack Album

This was a great game I played with my wife when we first got married nearly 20 years ago.  The original album project was set up at that time and I had accepted 3 songs.  The original thread is still around and there was plenty of interest at that time.  The songs I worked on I did a lot of it when I was sent to Louisiana for Hurricane Katrina relief (I built/maintained the supporting software for various gov't agencies, like power, rebuilding roofs, etc).  It was here that I had a lot of time (no internet, very little power except through the RV as there were no hotels) and being alone at night I just wrote music (3 songs).  In any case, I loved these songs and I wanted to put them towards the album - it was abandoned so I decided to start a new one.  I'm looking for people interested and will ask to move this to the album thread if I get enough interest.
I'm also thinking of possibly doing more puzzle game albums depending on how this one turns out.
I plan on programming the website - though I may recruit some highschoolers/college students (friend's kids) looking for experience to add to their resume.
Positions Recruiting:
Remixers / Musicians Art Rules:
Each song has a core instrument/style of play to represent the character and its critical/panic.
It is encouraged to use this instrument in creative ways throughout the piece (or versions of it).  For example, a prepared piano or different types of pianos within the piece. The instrument needs to be a main part of the song in some way shape or form as it is to be highlighted.  If the song is "bass", just having a bass isn't enough - it needs to be celebrated. What is an example of critical/panic vs normal?
Raphael the Raven (Lunar) stage and the panic/critical stage would both be a violin.  The normal stage would be playful violin but the panic/critical would be a horror violin style.
The actual genre of music could be anything as long as the normal stage has a positive vibe and the panic stage has an aggressive/panicked vibe.
Panic can just be fast or a fast paced song/style/genre.  It doesn't mean over the top aggressive. How do I know what instrument is to be highlighted?
I'll clearly add a list of each instrument corresponding to each character/stage below - though this is currently in progress.
What if I want to highlight a different instrument?
If both Normal and Panic stages are not taken, you can request a certain instrument to be featured (if we think it's a good fit, we'll change it).
 
Contacts:
Directors: Xaleph, Zack Parrish
 
Sources:
https://downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/tetris-attack
https://www.zophar.net/music/nintendo-snes-spc/tetris-attack
 
Track List:
Available (15)
Not Started (5)
In Progress (4)
In Progress > 80% final touches  (0)
Ready to Master (1) 
Total: 24
[instrument featured]
Demo Stage
- Normal Stage
- Critical Stage
Yoshi Stage
- Normal Stage
- Critical Stage
Lip’s Stage [Drum Kit]
- Normal Stage Mel Decision
- Critical Stage
Breeze Stage 1 (Lakitu) (Windy) [Voice]
- Normal Stage Souperion
- Critical Stage
Glacial Stage 2 (Bumpty) (Sherbert) [Trumpet / other high brass]
- Normal Stage Wassup Thunder (80%)
- Critical Stage
Forest Stage 3 (Poochy) (Thiana) [Acoustic Guitar]
- Normal Stage The Vodoú Queen (Acoustic/Slap Bass)
- Normal StageThe Vodoú Queen & Xaleph (5%)
Flower Stage 4 (Flying Wiggler) (Ruby) [Flute]
- Normal Stage
- Critical Stage
Water Stage 5 (Froggy) (Elias) [Piano]
- Normal Stage Emunator (20%)
- Critical Stage Xaleph (75%)
Blaze Stage 6 (Gargantua Blargg) (Flare) [Bass]
- Normal Stage
- Critical Stage
Sea Stage 7 (Lunge Fish) (Naris) [Mallet? Dulcimer? Clav? Rhodes? Pads? - unsure]
- Normal Stage Thirdkoopa
- Critical Stage Xaleph (75%)
Lunar Stage 8 (Raphael the Raven) (Seren/Selene) [Violin]
- Normal Stage
- Critical Stage Xaleph and pointblanket (done)
Boss Stage (Hookbill the Koopa, Naval Piranha & Kamek) [Cello]
- Normal Stage Zack Parrish
- Critical Stage
Bowser's Stage (Bowser) [Low Brass]
- Normal Stage
- Critical Stage
Other songs are optional though I recommend you check out Encounter with Bowser as it's pretty awesome.

Here are some of my recommended tools I've used the most (I'll mark which ones were already mentioned as "*"):
Drums (Libraries) -
*ISW Shreddage Drums Heavocity Damage Drums (Samples) - I always go back to these
Platinum Percussion (great for world music) BHK D&B Rough Connections Vol. 4, Bladerunner Dread Drum & Bass (for fast music) Equipped Music - Smoker's Relight Vol. 1, Vol. 2 (for Downtempo music) Black Octopus Leviathan (for hardcore EDM) Goldbaby Drums (MPC60 Vol. 1-3, When Alien Drum Robots Attack Vol. 1-2, for general use) Synths - I always go back to these
*u-he Zebra2 (for practically ALL of my music honestly) *Xfer Records Serum (mostly for dubstep) Samples -
4Front TruePianos (physical model actually) *Spectrasonics Omnisphere, Trilian ISW PEARL: Concert Grand (truly an amazing Yamaha C7) ISW Resonance: Emotional Mallets (mostly for glassy percussion) Embertone Friedlander Violin and Blakus Cello (usually as solo instruments) OTS Evolution Acoustic Guitar (Steel Strings) Neo-Soul Suitcase (realistic electric piano, if I wasn't satisfied with just synthesizing that in Zebra2) Transitions (Samples) - I always go back to these
ISW Juggernaut: Cinematic Electronic Scoring Tools Effects -
u-he Uhbik (mostly "T" [tremolo] and "G" [granular]) *Guitar Rig Effects (free or nearly so) -
Variety of Sounds Density MKIII (compressor), NastyDLA MKII (delay) *kiloHearts Essentials (most notably, Ring Modulator and Transient Shaper) ISW SNESVerb (SNES reverb emulator, $20) digitalfishphones endorphin (compressor) *dBlue Glitch v1.3 (free) and v2 ($60) Lofi Plus (bitcrusher; hard to find, let me know if you need a link) Sonalksis FreeG Stereo (Gate Plugin) Misc (free) - I always go back to these
s(M)exoscope (spectroscope to check waveform loudness) *TDR Nova (Equalizer with Sum and Difference capabilities) TLs-Pocket Limiter (simple, soft knee limiter. Never got overcompression since!)  

i don't think it's that - i think the plugin just hasn't been tested well on FL. i should write the dev a letter, really.
the whole plugin is a bit wonky in FL - like, the for the included presets in ML drums, half of them load with a badly distorted kick drum. when i load the kick drums myself in my own presets, all plays fine.
i can use it fine right now if i just record the master with edison, the sampler, in FL...
i think the finnish dude who made it needs a few bug reports from FL studio users.
 
 

DarkeSword just moved the post (Thank you!!)

We had some others show interest - I do have the Lunar Panic mix mostly done, I'll be doing some touch-ups, fixing the ending and submitting it.  I'll likely move a lot of the status updates to the projects/albums discord channel.

Tetris Attack Album

This was a great game I played with my wife when we first got married nearly 20 years ago.  The original album project was set up at that time and I had accepted 3 songs.  The original thread is still around and there was plenty of interest at that time.  The songs I worked on I did a lot of it when I was sent to Louisiana for Hurricane Katrina relief (I built/maintained the supporting software for various gov't agencies, like power, rebuilding roofs, etc).  It was here that I had a lot of time (no internet, very little power except through the RV as there were no hotels) and being alone at night I just wrote music (3 songs).  In any case, I loved these songs and I wanted to put them towards the album - it was abandoned so I decided to start a new one.  I'm looking for people interested and will ask to move this to the album thread if I get enough interest.
I'm also thinking of possibly doing more puzzle game albums depending on how this one turns out.
I plan on programming the website - though I may recruit some highschoolers/college students (friend's kids) looking for experience to add to their resume.
Positions Recruiting:
Remixers / Musicians Art Rules:
Each song has a core instrument/style of play to represent the character and its critical/panic.
It is encouraged to use this instrument in creative ways throughout the piece (or versions of it).  For example, a prepared piano or different types of pianos within the piece. The instrument needs to be a main part of the song in some way shape or form as it is to be highlighted.  If the song is "bass", just having a bass isn't enough - it needs to be celebrated. What is an example of critical/panic vs normal?
Raphael the Raven (Lunar) stage and the panic/critical stage would both be a violin.  The normal stage would be playful violin but the panic/critical would be a horror violin style.
The actual genre of music could be anything as long as the normal stage has a positive vibe and the panic stage has an aggressive/panicked vibe.
Panic can just be fast or a fast paced song/style/genre.  It doesn't mean over the top aggressive. How do I know what instrument is to be highlighted?
I'll clearly add a list of each instrument corresponding to each character/stage below - though this is currently in progress.
What if I want to highlight a different instrument?
If both Normal and Panic stages are not taken, you can request a certain instrument to be featured (if we think it's a good fit, we'll change it).
 
Contacts:
Directors: Xaleph, Zack Parrish
 
Sources:
https://downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/tetris-attack
https://www.zophar.net/music/nintendo-snes-spc/tetris-attack
 
Track List:
Available (15)
Not Started (5)
In Progress (4)
In Progress > 80% final touches  (0)
Ready to Master (1) 
Total: 24
[instrument featured]
Demo Stage
- Normal Stage
- Critical Stage
Yoshi Stage
- Normal Stage
- Critical Stage
Lip’s Stage [Drum Kit]
- Normal Stage Mel Decision
- Critical Stage
Breeze Stage 1 (Lakitu) (Windy) [Voice]
- Normal Stage Souperion
- Critical Stage
Glacial Stage 2 (Bumpty) (Sherbert) [Trumpet / other high brass]
- Normal Stage Wassup Thunder (80%)
- Critical Stage
Forest Stage 3 (Poochy) (Thiana) [Acoustic Guitar]
- Normal Stage The Vodoú Queen (Acoustic/Slap Bass)
- Normal StageThe Vodoú Queen & Xaleph (5%)
Flower Stage 4 (Flying Wiggler) (Ruby) [Flute]
- Normal Stage
- Critical Stage
Water Stage 5 (Froggy) (Elias) [Piano]
- Normal Stage Emunator (20%)
- Critical Stage Xaleph (75%)
Blaze Stage 6 (Gargantua Blargg) (Flare) [Bass]
- Normal Stage
- Critical Stage
Sea Stage 7 (Lunge Fish) (Naris) [Mallet? Dulcimer? Clav? Rhodes? Pads? - unsure]
- Normal Stage Thirdkoopa
- Critical Stage Xaleph (75%)
Lunar Stage 8 (Raphael the Raven) (Seren/Selene) [Violin]
- Normal Stage
- Critical Stage Xaleph and pointblanket (done)
Boss Stage (Hookbill the Koopa, Naval Piranha & Kamek) [Cello]
- Normal Stage Zack Parrish
- Critical Stage
Bowser's Stage (Bowser) [Low Brass]
- Normal Stage
- Critical Stage
Other songs are optional though I recommend you check out Encounter with Bowser as it's pretty awesome.

i tried that one out after reading about it in your post, and it's quite good. it has a rather hifi sound that works well in contrast with the age old vanilla addictive drums 1 that i still use.
i got the basic drum expansion plus the grit and yamz pack. so, 90 bucks for a lot of possible combinations.
these aren't the most articulate and fine grained dynamic drums, the packs are pretty small (just 300 mb on the grit drums e.g.). old AD1 has way more dynamic range for subtle ghost hits and stuff.
but they sound plain good, and are suitable for harder hitting rock/metal stuff that AD1 vanilla doesn't do well. so between the two, i feel i got all the drums i need now!
it does seem though like ML Drums is crashing FL Studio when you try to export audio with it. that's pretty bad :P
 

The Sages have been killing it with their Wednesday night Office Hours sessions on Discord! If you're needing musical feedback and growth advice, y'all gotta be in there. :-)

Awesome to see this Sage business! This is important stuff. Just yesterday I was talking about OC ReMix's rare feedback culture to a musician friend of mine. Can't wait to see what you come up with.

I'm really excited - we have some cool stuff planned ahead!

I'm really excited - we have some cool stuff planned ahead!

These resources aren't plug-ins: they're great reference tools!
Brad the Mad's Tempo Calculator (Chart, lists given bpm subdivisions as ms and Hz; chart goes from 60 bpm to 179 bpm) Tuneform's Tempo Calculator (converts bpm to ms) MIDI CC List (Chart, lists common CC uses) Virtual Instrument Delay Chart (Google Sheet, lists delay offsets for most orchestral VST instruments; organized by instrument section, brand, library, and articulations). Use these as a starting point and adjust to your project as needed Tap Tempo (Webapp, click or tap a key in time with a piece of music to get its tempo) I was chatting in the Lounge on Discord with folks last night discussing the importance of tools like the tempo calculators: some time-based effects plug-ins (reverb and delay, but also the attack and release controls on compressors, limiters, gates, expanders, etc) have no tempo sync function. If you can convert the subdivision into ms or Hz, you can manually sync your plug-ins to your project tempo/tempi (plural of tempo).
You can also use this chart to maintain a relative pulse while changing meters: in the example I gave from a project Seph and I are working on, there's an intro segment at 90 bpm, 4/4 time that evolves into a verse in 12/8 using the same structure as the intro. 12/8 is functionally equivalent to 4/4 with a triplet subdivision, but most DAWs only give tempo expressed in a quarter note bpm, so maintaining 90 bpm gives an incorrect pulse from the click. But if you check the chart, you can see that a quarter note at 90bpm equals 0.667 seconds (666.6 repeating ms, or 667 for simplicity's sake) and a quarter-note triplet equals 0.444 seconds (444.4 repeating ms). Scroll down the chart and you'll find 135 bpm has a quarter note value of 0.444 seconds and a dotted quarter note value of 0.667 seconds: for all intents and purposes, the quarter note value of 90 bpm equals the dotted quarter note value of 135 bpm!

I really like the song and the mix.  The only critique I'd have (which isn't much) is that there is a midrange where the frequencies are just a little low or there isn't a lot of instrumentation (maybe over-filtered bass and percussion to give room for synths?)  It's just slightly noticeable but not huge.  I think overall your dnb music is fabulous and I really hope you do more vgm remixes.  We need more dnb imo and you have a really good knack for it.
 

I like the way you think. And it looks like R5 has got audio in with a nifty autotune type thing. It's called Neptune...I'm sort of disappointed that it's not called ReTune xD
I think most people probably hated R4 at first. I basically went from Garage Band and Orion Platinum to R4 and I thought it was the biggest piece of bullshit I ever saw. But after crunching some deadlines for some projects in my Music Tech class, I realized, "Wow...Reason is fucking awesome!" And now I can sketch songs out everyday, quickly AND easily.
It just takes some time. And Reason+Live=God.

Thank you for feedback.

I restarted the remix from scratch so it fits to the submission rules, I added an early version here. This time its a little more on the funky than the deep side
esto gaza oc remix.mp3

Gonna have to mention FabFilter for their top notch effects (their UI has basically become the de facto UI for digital effects), but especially Pro-Q, Pro-C, and Saturn.  As a bonus, they have many fantastic tutorials on how to use their tools, which are basically tutorials on how to use EQ, how to use compressors, etc in general.
Sonible I have less experience with, but their smart:limit is a fantastic limiter.

I think the change in genres could work - but you'd need to add space for the transition.  I have to agree with the other comments here though - would love to see more work from you, especially in that first genre (but I'm biased towards EDM haa haa).

Hey Vylent!
As was mentioned in the live feedback, having space between vocal phrases is helpful for the listener to digest what the vocal passage is doing and saying. The guitar lead in the older version is a great example of creating that space between the vocal phrases!
The intro in the older version has a stronger build than the current, though it goes without saying that your vocalist, Sirenstar, is absolutely wiping the floor with the AI vocal. Returning the levels to the drums on the out (as in the older mix) would better realize the vision of getting this mix close to Imagine Dragons.
There’s some rough cutting on the vocals around 2:44, and the breath coming in around 2:48, 2:52 is a bit hot.
I think that’s most of the feedback from last night! I am really looking forward to hearing this get polished and see it get submitted!!

Hey Xaleph, I think you've pulled some of my VSTs from the Discord server anyway, but here's a list of some stuff I use commonly:
VST Instruments
u-he's Zebra2, Hive, Diva. All the u-he synths are notable for having free versions with very limited paywall restrictions; the free versions don't limit settings at all, they just play static or randomize notes intermittently after 20 minutes of rendering/use. This can be worked around by reloading the instance, and it's obviously an easy workaround for final mixdown. FM8 by Native Instruments - goes on sale a lot FMDrive - very cheap Genesis/Mega Drive synth that can read the original instrument files Roland Sound Canvas - not free but essential for a lot of GBA/SNES type sounds. A lot of them make up GBA soundfonts unaltered; Golden Sun, Pokemon, etc. Sforzando and Samplelord are both worth bringing up as soundfont interfaces; the former is free and the latter can notably read some proprietary instrument files used in E-mu kits like the Proteus. Performance Samples has paid VSTs but also a lot of freebies; I use the strings and percussion a lot. They just require a certain version of Kontakt. VST FX
Guitar Rig - I use Guitar Rig 5 specifically. Its amps/cabinets are really diverse and convincing and I use the reverb effects on pretty much everything. Convology XT has a free version with a lot of convolution reverb presets. I use them in conjunction with these Impulse Responses a lot to emulate how reverb effects were achieved on the PS1. EliteReducer 2 and CMT Bitcrusher are both free bitcrushers. MeldaProduction has a lot of versatile free FX; I use MCompressor for sidechaining and MVibrato for gated/tremolo effects. ToneBoosters has a lot of free legacy FX i.e. Barricade. Tokyo Dawn Records has some good free/paid FX like Kotelnikov; I use the paid version on my master bus pretty much all the time.  
 

Oh man, you gotta add Famisynth to the list! Not only is it 8-bit heaven, it's 100% free.

http://mu-station.chillout.jp/plugins/FAMISYNTH-II/index.html

https://equipboard.com/xaleph if you want to know my gear
DAWs
Reason Studio Ableton Live Audacity Garage Band Notable VST/REs
Objekt (Reason RE - paid) Serum Vital Kontakt (SAC, and others) Spitfire Labs Spitfire BBC Ugritone (Doom & something else?) Reason ( Kong / Radical Piano / Pangea / Klang / Mimic / Thor / Europa) Notable Effects
Guitar Rig Pro Kilohearts Reason (Audiomatic / Scream / RV7000 Mk II / Echo / Pulveriser / Sweeper / Synch EM / Alligator) Notable Utilities
Psyscope iZotope Ozone Advance / RX Musescore

I was going to give this an official name (something better than "Tools we use"), but I wanted to start a post that lists some VSTs (free and paid) that I know a good number of us use for mixing.  This is not intended to be a clone of a list of all possible VSTs, or like 2 people in our community use it so we put it here.  It's intended to be a place to find out what others use in our space that we find particularly useful.  Just replying with a simple name of a product isn't good enough for me to put it on the list (for the reason I stated above) - though you can always respond with plugins you personally found among the most useful (or just most used in each song).  I want to avoid this being a junk drawer that has no real value.  The value will come with a curated list of tools that we feel are worthy.  
 
For a list of DAWs we use and to find performers of specific instruments, please visit https://ocremix.org/workshop or ask in our discord.
 
 
? Sage Recommended
 
1. Instruments
1.1 Drums
Addictive Drums by xln audio ($159 || complete: $869) [drums]
ML Drums by ML Sound Lab (free) [drums]
Steven Slate Drums by steven slate drums (free || $119) [drums]
toontrack
EZDrummer ($179)  [drums] ? Superior Drummer ($399)  [drums] 1.2 Samplers
Native Instruments
? Kontakt (player: free || regular: $299) [sampler] [instrument building tool] Heritage Percussion by Impact Soundworks (free)  [sampler] [tribal percussion] ? Super Audio Cart by Impact Soundworks (gameboy: free || complete: $149)  [sampler] [chiptune] Shreddage 3 by Impact Soundworks [sampler] [guitar] Free -> Precision (free) [bass] & Stratus (free) [electric guitar] Hydra ($149) [electric guitar] - this one is my favorite of the Shreddage Line Impact Soundworks collection has a lot of instruments difficult to find, such as the Oud ($99) Spectrasonics:
Keyscape ($399) [sampler] [piano]  Trillian ($299) [sampler] [synth] [bass] Spitfire Audio
Spitfire Labs - free [sampler] [textures] [orchestral] [live instruments] 
Notable Lab Instruments: ? Arctic Swells, ? Astral Forms, ? Frozen Strings, Strings, Strings 2, Amplified Cello Quartet BBC Symphony Orchestra (free) [sampler] [orchestral] 1.3 Synths
Native Instruments
FM8 ($149) [fm synth] Massive X ($199) [wavetable synth] Reaktor ($199) [modular synth] Odin (free and open source) [semi-modular synth]
? Phase Plant by Kilohearts ($199) [semi-modular synth] 
Pigment by Arturia ($199) [wavetable synth]
? Serum by Xfer ($189) [wavetable synth]
Spectrasonics:
? Omnipshere ($499) [hybrid synth] [wavetable synth] Trillian ($299) [sampler] [synth] [bass] Spire by Reveal Sounds ($189) [synth]
Surge XT (free and open source) [hybrid synth]
VCV Rack (free || pro: $149) [modular synth]
? Vital (free || pro $80 || subscribe $5/month) [wavetable synth]
Zebralette (free) [spectral synth]
 
2. Effects
Deelay by sixthsample (free)
? Guitar Rig by Native Instruments (player: free || pro: $199)
Helix Native by Line 6 ($399) [guitar amp]
illformed Effects:
dBlue Glitch (free but may require jbridge) [glitch] [stutter] Glitch 2 ($59.95) [glitch] [stutter] iZotope: 
Stutter Edit ($199) [glitch] [stutter] Vinyl (free) [vinyl record] ? Kilohearts Essentials by Kilohearts (free)
Slate Digital
Fresh Air (free) [vintage exciter circuits and advanced dynamics processing] TH-U by Overloud ($269)
Valhalla Effects:
? Super Massive (free) [reverb] Vintage ($50) [reverb] Delay ($50) [delay] Xfer:
? OTT (free)  
3. Utilities
FabFilter (Pro Q 3: $169)
iZotope Utilities:
? Ozone (elements: $49 || standard: $199 || advanced: $399) ? RX (elements: $49 || standard: $299 || advanced: $799) SPAN by Voxengo (free) [eq analysis]
TBProAudio
ISOL8 (free) [Mix monitoring tool] Tokyo Dawn
TDR NOVA (free || ge: €60) [equalizer] Kotelnikov (free || ge: €50) [wideband dynamics processor] 4. Non-DAW Tools
Brad the Mad's Tempo Calculator (free) [Chart, lists given bpm subdivisions as ms and Hz; chart goes from 60 bpm to 179 bpm] Tuneform's Tempo Calculator (free) [converts bpm to ms] MIDI CC List (free) [Chart, lists common CC uses] Virtual Instrument Delay Chart (free) [Google Sheet, lists delay offsets for most orchestral sample libraries] Tap Tempo (free) [Webapp, click or tap a key in time with a piece of music to get its tempo] Notes
? Native Instruments offers a starter pack with several of the recommended tools called Komplete Start (free)
Free(ish) DAWs (https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2015/11/11/free-daw-software/ - he updates this regularly):
Reaper Cakewalk Sibelius GarageBand Audacity (audio) Cheap Stuff / Sales
Black Friday / Day after Christmas / Spring / Summer usually have sales Humble Bundle often has VSTs, sfx, and samples. Heavyvocity has some good textural tools (instruments & effects)
 

Sample Packs:
99 Sounds’ (free) 99 Sounds’ two 99 Drum sample packs (free)  
To Add
To Review
SINE Player, Soundpaint, Musio
Orchestral Tools, 8Dio
NES VST
 
 

Hello, I'm sharing a wip for a remix of Tomorrow and Tomorrow after receiving live feedback on the OCremix discord.
The goal was to mimic the style of Imagine Dragons (ie Warriors)
Source from 0:00 - 1:05 of 
 
and below is a earlier wip to compare changes I've made (for better or worse)
 

I figured I should share my Equipboard as well.
DAWs
Presonus Studio One 4 Ableton Live 10 Notable VST Instruments
Adam Szabo Viper (Virus TI emulation) Arturia Analog Lab V Intro Decidedly DecentSampler (the VSTi is free, with free libraries available at their website and Pianobook) ML Drums by ML Sound Lab (Essentials, Luxe, Meld -- the free version is a stripped-down Essentials kit) NI Battery 4 NI Kontakt 6 and Kontakt Player 7 (Pianobook also has many free Kontakt libraries -- full version of Kontakt required for those) 8dio Claire English Horn The Alpine Project Ferrum Free Edition ISW Shreddage 3 (Precision Free, Stratus Free) ISW Heritage Percussion ProjectSAM The Free Orchestra Orchestral Tools Free Series (Layers) Orchestral Tools SINEfactory (Clutch, Crucible, Dynamo, Gearbox, Helix, Lucent, Manifold, Ratio, Rotary) Plugin Alliance x Brainworx bx_oberhausen Steven Slate Drums 5.5 Spitfire Audio LABS Spitfire Audio BBC Symphony Orchestra (Core -- Discover is free and covers all the basic articulations/techniques, and the top-level Pro version has more soloists and mic placement controls) Spitfire Audio Originals (Epic Strings, Epic Brass & Winds, Cinematic Percussion, Cimbalom, Media Toolkit) Toontrack Superior Drummer 2 Vital Notable VST Effects
Arturia MiniFuse Bundle (this came with my interface) Arturia Chorus JUN-6 Arturia Delay TAPE-201 Arturia Pre 1973 Arturia Rev PLATE-140 Korneff Audio El Juan Limiter (a free emulation of the legendary L1 Limiter) NI Guitar Rig 6 LE (free with Komplete Start) NI Supercharger (also free with Komplete Start) Plugin Alliance Ampeg SVT-VR Classic Plugin Alliance Black Box Analog Design HG-2 Plugin Alliance x Brainworx bx_console Focusrite SC bx_masterdesk (Classic available for free in the PA FREE bundle) bx_opto bx_rockrack V3 (Player available for free in the PA FREE bundle -- only does presets) Plugin Alliance Maag Audio EQ2 Plugin Alliance PA FREE bx_cleansweep V2 bx_solo bx_subfilter Double MS Free Ranger niveau filter Tokyo Dawn Records TDR Nova UrsaDSP Lagrange (granular delay) Voxengo SPAN Notable Utilities
Akai EWI-USB Evans x Sunhouse Hybrid Sensory Percussion v2 Presonus Notion 6

Oshit it's dj carbunk1e! I had your tales of phantasia thor remix on repeat on my summer workout playlist some 20 years ago, haha. Good stuff!
The idea of this track is that someone wakes up to their alarm clock on turbo mode and they have a total mental breakdown from having to wake up to the same obnoxious sound every day of their wretched life so they can waste their existence grinding away at a soul sucking job. So today, they make a very rational decision to pull out a gun to shoot their clock but miss every shot and have to deal with the ear-splitting repercussions of their insomanical actions as the alarm clock continues to taunt them while they're half-deaf until they finally kill it with the final bullet (Inspired by the first release of the Turok comic but with a gun instead of an ax, lol).

The main "synth" in my track is the 808 cowbell sample. I was really minimalist on this track and besides a sax synth most everything is just FL drumkit samples. Not sure how much more range I can get out of a cowbell but you were right in the comparison that it's lacking midrange umph. Maybe some more EQ with reverb could pull it off?

Also, I doubt I tuned any of the drums. That's something I totally neglected. Thanks for the reminder.

The extreme rapid panning on some of the samples is deliberate and I made automation pulse waves that more or less matched the waveforms of the samples that were panning to make the listener feel somewhat disoriented while the main track continued unchanged (gotta take any excuse I can get to deliberately screw with people cause that was the whole point of the original LISA game, lol). I don't think the main drums and percussion moves much in the stereo field though, I'll have to doublecheck.
The idea for a rumble in the beginning is fire, I'll have to take your advice on that. Thanks for the inspiration!

I've been living under a rock for the last decade and a half, so I don't have a discord let alone even know what it is but maybe I'll get with the times and check into it.

Thanks again for the input!