Rexy

Wrinkly's classroom often felt rather understated to me, given that it felt more like a mash of melodic ideas than a structured track,, but it's Nutritious and I felt trusting for him to handle such interpretation swiftly. After that ridiculous bass intro (!!!), the theme's arrival managed to adapt into this more lively setting that had been built into, and even though the original is already messed up as it is, a lot had been done to show the familiarity behind the source within the soundscape. Even going past 1:30, a lot was done with the backing manipulation to really maintain the familiarity and play around with this electronic twist. In fact, the attention to these synths and the manipulation on them throughout blew my mind, and even then he didn't back down on the string placement either, especially considering the orchestra appears to be his main skill card. I have to say, I'm not really a big fan of the dissonnance at 2:45 though; I understand that the synth does the B melody part and the bass synth does some groove-driven writing, but I would've thought some attention might've been done to the latter to prevent any such clashing. I'm just quite picky in regards to such writing, but with the amount of attention paid to the soundcape it could pretty much be excused. All in all, the DKC2 project was a great outlet to showcase Nutritious's diversity, and I am glad that he managed to play well with his tracks here. I've understood that he'd kept on improving his synth chops down the line as well so I'm glad he managed to keep a solid grasp on it, and so I'm all set to see how far his skills come in future endeavours

More old school Rayza, and I trusted him to provide the pure cheese back in the day; and here I got what I was looking for! Arrangement-wise, it stays safe to the source, and sticks primarily with the writing for the first minute of it, though there manages to be some good expansions in regards to progression - and the Formula 1 sound clips brought in were similarly very tongue in cheek The drum levels could've been better, not to mention the cheesy sound effects similarly being louder than the rest of the track, but for a mix that's 10 years old it feels very clean and well reachable if you're looking for something that's considerably more carefree in sound. Overall, I really dig this - fits the thrill of Top Gear to a T

I'll be there alright! This project is going to be pretty

You beat me to the punch! I was going to start a workout thread! So yes, it's January and quite a lot of us want to shift that Christmas weight, but it gets hard to work out if you're stuck with what the Gym is playing, which is usually the pop music of the day. Trust me, of all the times I've been doing Aerobics classes for the past few months, the Black Eyed Peas gets old kinda fast. >_> But if you want a solid Gym soundtrack, then it has to be something to match the energy. Preferably nothing below 120bpm (making it easier to keep to the beat?), must have a positive soundscape, and if it has vocals then it must inflict positive thinking. Here's my personal recommendations to take down to the Gym: Armored Core: Nexus "Hyper Monkey Likes the Dancefloor" (Mattias Haggstrom Gerdt / DragonAvenger) Donkey Kong Country "Chekan Winter" (Jason Covenant) Last Ninja 2 "Central Park Metal Mix" (Commando 64) Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past "Labyrinth of Dance Floors" (Jeff Ball) Mario Golf "Fore on the Floor" (DarkSim) Mega Man 8 "Above the Clouds" (Jewbei) Mortal Kombat 3 "Mortal Konfrontation" (The Dual Dragons) One Must Fall 2097 "One Must Rise 2011" (DigiE) Sonic the Hedgehog "April Rain" (The Cynic Project) Sonic the Hedgehog "Still In Your Marble Zone" (DiggiDis) Sonic the Hedgeghog 2 "Chemical Blip" (Anti-Syne) Sonic the Hedgehog 2 "Chemixtrixx" (PrototypeRaptor) Sonic Triple Trouble "A New Ray of Light" (Sadorf / Sir NutS) Street of Rage "Bare Knuckle Blitz" (WillRock, and like someone said above me a lot of his works fit in the Gym ) Streets of Rage "Groove On" (ambient) Wild Arms "Telepath Tower" (Mike Saint-Jules) This may be just the tip of the iceberg, and I am sure others may contribute to this somehow. I hope these end up as a good starting point

For most of the time, I use Youtube to get the song. I would either then look up any MIDIs on VGMusic merely as a reference, or if they aren't accurate enough, I'd transcribe it myself (I believe my skills to be frighteningly accurate ). After that comes the studying of the different components of the source, and planning out the arrangement on paper, before putting it all to practice. And voila, my methods

I can't see myself being attached to any of those on the list, so I'll just nominate Rayman Origins, Super Meat Boy and Heavy Rain. o_O

I have been using Alicia's Keys for the past 6 months; fairly inexpensive in comparison to other patches, works well when used alone and comes with some meat custom settings. It's a Kontakt piano so it requires the player to use it, which one can get from the Native Instruments website for free. The only drawback is that it's very delicate in texture, so you may need to keep looking if you want something for more aggressive sounding works.

Two great remixers, two people I remembered from making their start in the People's Remix Competition (boy have they grown up fast ), and two downright great people overall! A hint of fruit for the Swede: And a hint of sweet for the fruit: Hope you both have/had a great time today

I remembered when Lara Croft was used to advertise around 10 years ago. And boy was it awesome.

Didn't we have a thread like this before?

Let me try and list a few that stick out for me. - Okami - Rayman Origins - Wii Sports (don't ask it's quirky enough though to warrant coverage eventually) - Super Smash Bros Brawl (if only for the main theme) - Maybe Professor Layton? Should handhelds count? All I know is that my dad loves it and I'll take it in its stride. As for games on the list, I'm in favor of Portal, Heavy Rain and the Mario Galaxy games. Hard to find an emotional connection elsewhere though.

I remember liking this a lot when I first heard it; it's face melting Sixto, but it barely ever grows old. Indeed, there's this hint of difference thrown in with the ambience and the steadier tempo, as well as the movie quote to fit with the transition straight to the source. There's been some good separation of the pulled-off synth and lead here, which managed to work well for source manipulation, not to mention some great wah manipulation in the second variation of the theme in particular that further adds fuel to his playing style. Even throwing in the regular boss theme at the 3 minute mark, and served as a great accompaniment to a strong face melting solo. Not quite as progressive as some of the others I have seen in past mixes, but the precision is easily there. I must admit, the fake ending took me by surprise, though to see the second half of the Shredder boss theme come through to end it properly erased doubts altogether. Even then the ending still felt a little anti-climatic, but as long as the structure's there, I'm cool with it. Production-wise, it's clean Sixto with a lot of detail in there. Not much difference I could sense from past tracks except the drums sound much sharper and fitting the genre, to the point that I could literally feel the smacks of the kit as the track goes through. In fact, even the drum writing is fantastic - usually I don't pay attention to it because it tends to get a bit same-ish in playing style (and by that I'm picking similarities in "Go the Distance", "The Skull Fortress" and "Metamorphic Rock" here ) but the amount of precision and energy brought in especially in varying up some of the cymbal parts and fills as well manages to really make it shine. Sure, my only complaint with it though is that the 'chorus' sections tend to feel copy-pasted, but I couldn't really envision them any other way. Otherwise, this was a GREAT addition to BadAss and marked a fantastic year for the Shredder, and I hope Sixto keeps melting our faces off in the time to come. Remember, play more, buy less!

I remember not quite being wowed over this one when I first heard it, mainly due to the length and randomly changing soundscapes on the beat. On the positives - the theme itself is surprisingly manipulated for what it was, and the manipulation of the chocobo sounds adds a hint more fun to it The production was decent for its time; kind of muddy now in comparison, but there's been some good attention to clarity and particularly the selling point in the panning. Even the tuba, which would indeed sound mechanical by today's standards, managed to fill in some good space in the mids and added to the mix's quirky nature. But all in all, it's a short and quirky mix, and whether you'd come to appreciate it would be down to stylistic preferences more than anything else. I don't mind the length nowadays; for something as brief as the Chocobo theme it's workable. Either way, I see this as one of the more different entries in mp's library, so if you want to get your bwak on, be our guest.

Metal Man, the PM you sent me was just a "hello". I didn't receive any WIPs from you aside from your "sheet music" sketch.

Not a problem! I should probably do the same but I'm *this* close to beating Rayman Origins at the moment

Well done you three! Having seen you guys' progression as musicians I know you'll all do great as additional members of OCR staff

Awww, that's very kind of you Alex Two guys with the same interest in the same song, collabing. That's the community spirit I'm talking about!

While the game could've been better easily, Spiralmouth's acapella score contribution turned out to be so catchy to me and add to the fun Saturday Morning Cartoon atmosphere the game was presenting itself with. Probably the first time I EVER paid close attention towards a game's title song. Even the game itself didn't disappoint itself score-wise; you'd be thinking exactly HOW they managed to get such textures done on a small 8-bit system like the Game Boy. o_O Katamari Damacy - Katamari on the Rocks NAAAAA NA NA NA NA NAAA NAA NAAAA NA KATAMARI DAMASHIIIII. Anything else that needs to be added is completely unnecessary. Klonoa - The Windmill Song I had stated in an interview with Mirby that these PS1 scores were often the ones that got me to pay a significant more amount of attention to game music than any other generation. Klonoa was one of the inspirational titles to me, and the theme song even proved itself with some great acoustic guitar programming for its time, time signature changes (holy 5/8 batman!) and fitting the appropriate nature for Klonoa's wind valley home.

Would've made more sense to go for a minim instead of a crotchet tie in bar 4, Metal Man. Oh don't say that - the Last Dungeon, being a bass heavy source, fits your style to a T and you managed to gain my trust. So I can trust you to really provide a solid result on it

I might do an intermission for Kaepora Gaebora, depending on how my other three (four?) coming deadlines go (FF6 / Wily Gauntlet Round 10 / Vroom / SD3). But either way, good luck in steering this through, Theo

To be able to listen to your own songs outside of context speaks volumes over how much faith you have on yourself as a person, so I don't see why people sometimes don't do that. It's like experiences in school when people run around with camcorders filming you - and then when you see it played back you shy over the recording they did of yourself. I have also shied over my own self-image in my youth, simply thinking that I'm a complete oddball in comparison to everyone else in the class. (And eventually I discover the reason for me being an oddball, but that's for another thread and another time.) So the same can also be said of your own artistic creations. Heck, I even shied away from my own drawings and paintings as a child after they were done, again for the oddball factor. And initially, the same could be said for my own music as well; I had similar poor confidence with my first musical endeavours on VGMix, and that was reflected when I hosted my first submission there, arranging FF7's "Wutai". I kept on stating in the VGMix chatterbox how nervous I was to go through the process and seeing people's reactions to it; though one wise set of words rang true from fellow site member Psycrow - "This is a videogame music site, not Who Wants to Be a Millionaire :P" As submissions increased, so did my growing tendancies to improve them. And within the years that followed I soon managed to feel an emotional attachment to some of them. The first track of my own that I EVER placed on my iPod, a Yoshi's Island collab with Jason Covenant, eventually went on to get rejected for liberal source, but it brought back fun memories of taking a PRC win after striving for so long and remains the only PRC entry of mine on there. Then came "Time's Anxiety", which GrayLightning saw as one of my best arrangements at the time and really wanted to refine it for OCR submission. And when I heard the final version, I was blown away by what he did to it and felt really thankful for the result that came out of it. That to me strikes as a very positive memory. And then over the years, with site projects coming abound - and the occasional Dwelling of Duels participation - I started to feel increasingly positive about my own material. True, I may keep finding tiny flaws when listening carefully, but it wasn't to the point that I'd reach for the volume slider and turn it down slightly, like in previous years. So yes, to answer that question, I DO listen to my own tracks. And in fact I have been growing in confidence over the years, though in spite of this I'm quite selective; the tracks of mine that live on my iPod are often my proudest ones, all to reflect that growth in self-belief.

1. Why do you think so many people submit and share their remixes to OCR? It can be for a number of reasons. Some may want to write music and get to share their creations with the world. That can be a very common reason because what other outlets are there? Back in 2005, we were spoiled for choice with OCR having the pinnacle of them, VGMix being free for user submissions, Remix: ThaSauce having a more relaxed atmosphere, RPGamer's Sound Test section being very welcoming for RPG remixes, and the Dwelling of Duels to be a part of if you're a live instrument player. But now the climate has totally turned itself on its head. VGMix is dead, hence it seems as if more and more people have gone to send stuff here to get a chance to be heard. Sound Test has trickled down its updates to the point that we are lucky to have an update 2 months after the last (believe me, I sent "The Feather's Reflection" over there back in June complete with the sheet music and it's still not up ). R:TS has also slowed down its updates. And the Dwelling of Duels, while standing strong and having become a more friendly environment now than in previous years, still is no place for someone merely equipped with no live instrument connections. So if anything, the community climate appears to be "OCR or bust"; I know some people may say Youtube, but if there's anything I've learnt from my time there, it's that the audience there is generally too "demoralzingly devoid of substance" (taking a leaf out of djp's book haha) to even pay attention to what you've done. So really, for the artist out there, there's barely anywhere else to go other than OCR. That brings me to another point: They want to improve as a musician. Sure, I know we have the workshop for that, and indeed one of the mixes I had passed was a result of extensive time in the workshop, but even then the judges may find out things that others could not. They also to me appear to be friendlier than they were a few years back as well - even some of the harshest veterans had more digestable feedback that would benefit your work for the better. And to be honest, I don't think the newer (more improved!) version of "Hogtied" would have existed without that feedback. But back to the workshop. That helped form one of the two Crash Bandicoot tracks I had passed - although that actually took a while to come to a conclusion. The performance was refined extremely well and I recall that Stevo LOVED how it turned out (thank you man ); however, at some point in mid-November I was told that there was a conditional yes due to the piano sample used. After some quick work with a different one, it got the formal pass from that judge and the track reached the TBP list that weekend. Even now I'm still refining my solo piano technique, but I feel that I will indeed be getting there. And let's not forget the obligatory point 3 - They want to be famous. You have to admit it - with the amount of industry credentials the site has, people may think that remixing game music is the way forward. For most it can be, but what about some of the more deluded people that this site has drawn, and the meme origins from some of these? ("Can the judges djp", "Your opinions as of late are ridiculous", "(deadly) (production) (cuts)" etc) And look at the amount of older blood here too - I've seen people deciding to suddenly jump in onto the site when they were approaching their 30s, and we've even had rare instances of people remixing in their 40s on here. To be honest, I feel more inspired by people like that than the younger blood, because it tells me something about their modesty and their feelings towards the site, not to mention telling some of us hard-on-our-luck people that we can never outgrow this scene any time soon. tl,dr; Fame, No other way to share music, Self-improvement. 2. Why do YOU do it? The question you really should be asking is, why DIDN'T I do it in the past few years? That was a time when I felt as if I wasn't going anywhere within the community, with VGMix going down and my involvment within the wider community taking several negative blows. At that point, I just wanted to take a more care-free approach to writing music, hence deciding to remain as strictly an album artist (I'm on the site without panicking about the judges) and doing the occasional remix while I try to pursue a more realistic career. And indeed, I let go of the PRC right when I was starting work. But in spite of all this, I've been with this same company for 3 years. It's not at all what I wanted to do, and though my work has been more central over the years, I felt as if I was cheated out of my studies for something like that. If there's anything I missed since my school days, it's the thrill of building as a person. Suffice to say, there had been a 5-month delay between Brandon Strader asking me to send "Hogtied" to the panel and me actually sending it; part of it was Brandon not even sending his end of the blurb, true, but part of it was also my fear of the panel - for what I felt ended up being a great collaboration, I didn't at all want to have my pride destroyed again. And I still wasn't confident when I sent "The Feather's Reflection" over either, over a month since the Threshold listening party. Only when I saw "Hogtied" on the blue TBJ list did it make me think I should make a move on it, and indeed I did. And to be honest, after everything I faced with my solo piano works circa 2005, I honestly wasn't expecting it to pass, let alone get four straight YESes. Then that following April I started to push myself and try "one last time" to get a Crash Bandicoot mix past the panel, because that was my goal since I discovered the site - to witness one make it on the front page. It's part of my adolescence, and part of my namesake. I felt that the only way I could even get past the site, or even come close, was by means of writing solo piano arrangements. So you can color me surprised when the OTHER Crash mix, written for the Dwelling of Duels the following month, passed the panel first! o_O And at that time, I had a more positive outlook. So to sum this up - I submit to the site because of the great PR between the submitters and the staff. My means of musical expression, while a great thing to dive into, can be seen as a mere second in comparison to something like this - not every song I make gets eventually sent over, simply because I feel some don't tend to fit within OCR's mission. And sure, I may have Brandon pulling my leg every now and again making me think that the staff are the opposite to what I'm thinking ( ), but I pledge a lot of trust into the site to make sure it all works out, and will do everything I can to keep on refining my technique. At this point last year I considered myself lucky enough to even have 2 songs on the site; now, I feel as if there's a way to really bring myself out. It's a long post, no need to read it all at once, but my feelings about it need to be said, hahaha.

Going by statistics from having this laptop since back in September 2010 and this particular iPod since August 2011. According to iTunes, my most played OCRemix songs are every song off The Sound of Speed - if that album isn't sexy to you, I don't know what counts as sexy to you then. As for most played songs off the iPod - two of mine are way up there ("Hogtied" and "The Feather's Reflection" - hey, got to have an ego), along with OA/Scaredsim's "The Sound of Speed", WillRock's "Bare Knuckle Blitz" and Dr Manhattan's "Mr Pink Poncho's Western Rock Band". I just want my equipment to break less so I can be more accurate

Darangen's right - when I met Fishy, WillRock and ProtoDome for the London Gaming Con, they came across as extremely friendly and like-minded people. And the sheer amount of organisation on the panel we did and the antics afterwards were great to be a part of, and a worthwhile enlightenment into the more 'human' side of the OCR community. I hope to see them all again this December! Anyway, back to the point at hand. Naturally I was disappointed with the news when I found out. I saw this as a great working venture to pay honor to that one game that heavily changed my gaming outlook at the time, and that is something that I don't want to deny. So to see the news about the closed project come through, it made me feel as if all we did was a step in the wrong direction. But let's take Celes's words in the game as an inspiration - "You want to live in the world as it is? No? Then do something about it!" Of course, complaining to the staff is NOT a good idea as they have seen these two sides of the story come through. But what were you expecting them to do - push on the hidden project and release it under our noses, or let us release the thing while upsetting the other side? This comes as a compromise for both sides, and while it may be a stumble on this path, think about how the other side would react as well. But back to our take on this - let's take it all into perspective, right? Jason barely knows the game much but he has a vision to succeed with OCR's main aim in getting people out there, and coupled with that I have an emotional attachment that would make it work in ways that you can think. * When I saw the frozen esper in the Narshe mines, I stared at it in awe. * When I saw the moogle army, I just wanted to dive in the game and cuddle them all. * When I saw Kefka complaining about sand in his boots, I busted a gut. * When I saw Celes proclaim herself as "not a love-starved twit", I busted the other gut. * When I choked on my first run through the opera, I couldn't stop laughing at how I did that. xD * When I went through the Magitek Research Facility, I let the beat of the music flow in me, even going as far as doing an early case of the djp. * When I saw the apocalypse, I was scared and had nightmares on that scene for days. * When I (unknowingly) let Cid die and saw the following scene, I was crying buckets. * When I discovered the Falcon, I had this instinct to really work hard to overpower the odds. * When I saw the interior of Kefka's Tower... I apparently soiled my pants. .__. That's just a small list of feelings I felt with the game, and many of them ended up sticking inside my head a significant amount and have been very important events for my progression on viewing the world of videogames. In my honest opinion, it is THE best Final Fantasy game in the entire series and I felt honored to be able to work alongside Jason and see what can be done to work with it. And of course, some people may see us as the "raggy dolls" of this joint in comparison to the closed project. Well, we don't even know who's in the closed one so we can't come to close conclusions. What I can say is that they may have a vision, and even though we may not be considered the community ultimates, we have ours. There is more than one side to every story, and of course something can be said about a piece of music as well. Jason has a lot of production experience under his belt, while at the same time I want to make sure everyone brings out the soul of the music and really give it a sense of meaning. tl,dr; Don't worry about a damn thing! Just get in there, make great music, and make Uematsu proud - we can do this!

Hope you three had a great birthday! And yes, like Blake and Will I saw Liam in the flesh at the London Gaming Con; was a great person to get to know