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Rexy

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Posts posted by Rexy

    Bringing friends to OCR

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I bring up OCR to RL friends and while they do discuss about some of the nice things I do there, the only physical person who's actually heard some of the stuff on the site... is my own mother. *_* She'd accompany me sometimes to OCR's conventions in London and hear the performances there, and she actually enjoys what she hears as well!

    In addition, there was an old friend I had on the old Scorehero boards whom I discussed some of my involvment in OCR for, and he somehow took a huge amount of interest in Dj Mystix's works (mostly out of his OWN nostalgia, but he still enjoyed what he heard).

    One day though, I'll get someone introduced to OCR, and then they'll start posting here even if it's once or twice a week. :P

    How to release 4-track EP (game music)?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Most artists regardless of skill tend to release entire albums on Bandcamp. Even many of OCR's artists have gone that way - it's a great way to get started if continuing to make albums is your thing.

    And for the record... OCR doesn't normally take remixes of loader themes - it would've helped if you contacted them with a different sample of yours in the first place :)

    New tradition - September is FLOOD MONTH!!

    in Announcements

    Posted

    A chance for another FF6 / Sonic CD flood? I'm game. </shamlessselfpromotion>

    In all seriousness, I have a feeling that if one of these floods will have a huge amount of Sega in it, I feel as if it'll either be a huge new material block on Sega Mixer Drive or one that could spread out over weeks. But this is still a great way to let go of that queue!

    Man, I remember a time back in 2005 when there was nothing in the queue left to be judged on... :lol:

    New Nintendo 3DS (3DS's successor)

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Personally I don't know what to make of this direction. When I heard about the news earlier this week, I felt as if I was totally down for Nintendo having a cosmetic change similar to the DSi... until I saw that there was a game in development (technically a port) that would take advantage of the new specs and not run on the old ones at all.

    Granted, there had been a small number that would only work on the DSi, but that wasn't the main focal point of shifting units - the camera and DSiWare was. And I'm aware the latter couldn't be done on the regular DS; but the way I saw it was that it was the predecessor to the 3DS's eShop.

    But I'm going off tangent with this one - while Nintendo's focus to the more 'hardcore' market can be seen as a good thing for those that actually play games, the need to make an entirely new system disguised as an upgrade seems rather sudden considering the 3DS has been around for 3 years.

    And if 'hardcore' also means more buttons, does that make the old Game Boy line any less 'hardcore' just for using a d-pad and a few other buttons?

    See, there's my usual early skeptics on the subject. The least I can do now is just see how it fares and whether the move could turn out to be the right decision or not.

    What are you career goals?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I don't know; I learnt the hard way though that no matter how good your grades are, no matter how determined you are to get amazing jobs and the like, the general consensus of the world's population is that they don't want anything to do with people that have physical or mental difficulties. That's what seemed to be the big gate for me that I personally can't jump no matter how full of knowledge I am.

    So I'm practically in Meteo's boat on doing music for fun but more with the reasoning that I can't go far enough to get what I desired to do when I was a teenager. But I still enjoy the art form and I can't leave it behind for anything else, and I'm sure some of you guys may feel the same way.

    What are you career goals?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    My 18-year-old self would still have a burning passion to write music scores even if it's for other forms of media. However, with where I'm at now, the only career goals I even have are to eventually get some stable paid work that I enjoy doing rather than being stuck in an office all day. I'm also good with the idea of taking any of the music / visual skills I picked up in my student days to use as a freelancer, though.

    Sonic The Hedgehog Marble Zone Remix

    in Post Your Game ReMixes!

    Posted

    Ehm Rexy, you're referencing stuff which I (and probably more people) don't understand. It's a that I connected the dots to the link in your sig, but that's it. Has he submitted this track for you to play on your radiostation? Or do you play Workshops WIP's as a favor to give people some exposure? Not really following there :-( I've got abosultely nothing to say about the way you described what can be improved with the track (I wholeheartedly agree), I'm just pondering where the "very good" remark came from :wink:

    Or am I missing a post that's been deleted in the meantime? :)!!

    To be fair, I do a lot of searching around on the Internet for stuff to play during the show, which can include any finished Workshop pieces that get my interest. The comment about 'getting told I have more lenient standards' actually was a comment given from Eino Keskitalo about his OWN work.

    But I'm usually very open about music. I also want people to have a little charisma along the way :)

    Sonic The Hedgehog Marble Zone Remix

    in Post Your Game ReMixes!

    Posted

    Glad for you to share your work here in the OCR Workshop. However, as people here, we want people to really go above and beyond while at the same time having fun as musicians.

    That said, to say this remix is "very good" is a complete lie - in fact, while people have said SMD is more lenient in regards to music standards, I can't play stuff like this on the air in its current form. And let me explain why.

    * Arrangement-wise, it sounds like a MIDI rip. Two loops and a fadeout sounds like a dead giveaway to me - that is a complete no-no for OCR.

    * Drums are just KICK-hat-SNARE-hat all the way through - gets really boring after a while. If 90s dance is your aim with this sort of thing, a good piece of advice is to listen to a LOT of commercial releases for the genre you're trying to reference - you may learn a few things about the key elements for the genre and how fills and transitions work out.

    * Bass totally doesn't sound like a bass - in fact, it feels more like a sweep string that's trying to sound like a bass. If you want to keep the effect then that's fine, but a good tip for the future is that you should duplicate the bass layer and change the patch on the copy to a no-reverb sine or triangle or something. That should give the bass the punch it desperately needs.

    * Most importantly, BE CREATIVE! :-) See if you can add any other writing ideas along the line, whether it be some new rhythmic parts for the main part, an entirely new music section, or just some deviation on the basic marble zone melody... or anything of the sort. Everyone is free to go nuts!

    Hopefully this will help you get off the bat and start getting better. I know that with enough time and energy, you can do it :)

    Classic Sonic Bosses - Overly Dramatic remix

    in Post Your Game ReMixes!

    Posted

    I'm gonna have to go at speed for this one, being the Sega remix hunting nerd that I am.

    * Arrangement-wise, this is a medley. All the songs are just stapled together, which is a complete no-no for OCR.

    * What makes this 'overly dramatic'? None of the transitions feel overly exciting, and there's no expression in the instruments to make it feel like it. I see some attempts with some of the synth arpeggios and pulses, but that's about it.

    * It also feels horribly compressed and muddy to me. I don't know exactly what instruments you tried to EQ if any, but my best suggestion would be to go back to each one one-by-one and cut any frequencies out that you don't need. That would also help remove that unneeded punch across the entire song as well.

    I think someone like Timaeus would probably do better than me at figuring out any additional production issues, but I seriously mean it on the arrangement front - for OCR, it would absolutely not work in its current state.

    My apologies for being so brutal on this, but it's part of helping people like you start to improve. :)

    Happy birthday, Rexy!

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Thanks very much for the warm wishes guys! :)

    I had a lovely day with family - one of my aunts took me on a museum visit, and much later on at night I went to a nice Italian restaurant with my brother and parents. What a wonderful day it ended up being!

    Here's to many more years of being an idiot hobbyist. :nicework:

    Legacy: Game Boy 25th Anniversary - History

    in Projects

    Posted

    I'm afraid it's too late, as the release is almost ready to go. Maybe Larry can SUPER SPEED check and add this as a bonus track (the back cover would need a change tough...)

    Malcos, please try to contact Larry asap, maybe there's still a chance.

    Quoted for truth. I could have sworn the second management wouldn't have left anyone behind from those that worked with the first.

    Whether it makes it on or doesn't, we'd still be really happy for you to send it to the site anyway - Gunstar notwithstanding, we don't hear much from you often :o

    3-Part Cover of 2 video game songs (5PM from Animal Crossing and E-102 Gamma from Sonic Adventure)

    in Post Your Game ReMixes!

    Posted · Edited by Rexy

    I understand your request loud and clear. I'll see if I can point out some basic critiques to help shape out your vision - it's a big ambition for a new face. :)

    - Good thing you mentioned FL Studio 11, because the ugly Slayer soundfont does not work in this instance. You're trying to make it sound laid back in the middle of summer, but instead the synth-metal-guitar-wannabe has ensured that everyone relaxing on the beach is being chased away by a bull stampede.

    -- If you want my advice here, I generally prefer to use e-pianos to be the rhythm for that serene atmosphere. It's a good idea to double track two almost-similar-sounding instances of e-piano and panning them on opposite sides of the stereo field, the position depending on those for the other instruments (and certainly don't push either of them further than 40 each way otherwise it'll just sound too wide).

    - The organ sound at 1:05 sounds way too thick in tone for what it's trying to do. I sense that it has a major tone that it's trying to work with, as well as a lower sub-tone that adds too much congestion to the lower rhythm area. To help this, I would suggest adding an EQ High Pass at 350hz - that would eliminate the ugly low register, while still keeping the dominant tone clean.

    -- For future reference, this key chart might help for future equalisation quirks:

    http://www.vibrationdata.com/Resources/piano_keys.jpg

    If you have problems with unwanted frequencies, this could help you out accordingly as to finding out what tones in your VST may not be needed and taking action.

    - That theramin at 1:21 / 2:41 needs transposing. It's 3 semitones up from the original progression - bring it back down there. ;)

    - The piano playing major 7th arpeggios instead of the original's minor 7ths doesn't translate well to the rest of the track. You wrote them purely as natural notes, while in the original its patterns are:

    [G B(flat) D F / F A(flat) C E(flat)]

    If you were meant to do that in the first place, then that's what you gotta adjust.

    Outside from all this, the authenticy is something that I feel can't be done with stock FL samples. I know how hard it is to just work with so little so young (heck, I had been there >_>), but you can always look around KVR for any freebies that could really enhance the experience you're working on. Once you get more comfortable working with these freebies, that's when you can start looking at commercial VSTs and judging any demos from those in comparison to what you would have used.

    As for synth guitars... if you still really want those, I'd recommend you ask another guitarist to record them live for you. That is by far the most authentic way. :)

    I hope this helps you - and good luck with the rest of your project!

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