Nase

the thing is, musical parts are very codependent. the part you perceive as the worst one has a chance to become great once you mess around with the other parts or add new ones that build around it. if you're talking about a whole section of a song that doesn't really work out, then i agree; sometimes it's better to start fresh than endlessly fixing something that wasn't very good to begin with. once the parts are getting smaller though, i'm having more trouble simply declaring stuff as bad. if i kept the part in the project file, it usually had some aspect i liked about it to begin with, and the question really is: will i be able to fit it into the track? or will i be able to build the track around it? personally, i get a lot of fun and reward out of making unlikely connections between stuff that doesn't seem like much of a match initially. so yeah, i do think that 'delete worst part' kind of oversimplifies things when you put it in a musical context. for me, it's more like 'shape your pool of existing parts into something that sounds cool and deliberate'. dunno, maybe you'll find that distinction less important than i do. basically, my opinion on any kind of system is that it means compromise. that's ok, because utter freedom is confusing. in this case, your goal is to maintain a steady output of solid quality, but you will probably sacrifice some opportunities to do something really crazy you didn't know you could do. your brain will inevitably grow attached to the system and declare it as its zone of comfort. but you know, that'll always be better than just randomly dicking around without any results. that can always happen if you're giving yourself more freedom than you can handle.

polishing/endlessly rewriting stuff is just hella boring and more often than not makes me feel sick of the track. if i'm doing something just for my own enjoyment, i usually prefer to start a new tune instead. what can i say, i believe in edutainment. i feel like i learn more when i'm not obsessing over some project until it's perfect. i've also listened to older stuff that kinda grew on me because of its roughness. i think one of the most prevalent problems of amateur artists is that they're so set on achieving their predetermined goals that they will not recognise how powerful those happy accidents can be. learning to turn weird musical flubs into something that makes a tune memorable (and possibly evolves into a stylistic element of the artist) is just as important as any analytical ability imo. possibly more important. it's the same in any field really. just like the holy grail of figurative drawing...as the typical teenager, you either draw something that you deem realistic, or your drawing sucks plain and simple. it's not hard to see that this leaves less room for experimentation. of course the craft aspect of art is important, but i dunno...i see it getting enough love. we live in a decidedly left-brained society. (the left hemisphere is the sequential one fyi ) keep refining your procedure, if it feels right it probably is for you. for me it is not and never was. that doesn't mean i never made or make shitty music, because i definitely have :y i just decided to accept and leave it. good stuff comes around eventually.

Heroes of Newerth.

good ol krautrock

Uhuh. I don't think E-Bison said anything like that. The question isn't if you should use the information available, it's all about how you use it. Slavishly sticking to a map made by someone else when starting out on a musical journey bears the danger of, well, very boring results. The driver's license metaphor is soo bad, seriously. Making music probably won't get you killed. If i could crash into a tree without getting hurt i'd do it all the fucking time. Something interesting might come out of it. To sum things up with another crappy metaphor, use the knowledge available but don't be afraid to steer away from the road. and crash into trees. lots of them.

Secret of Mana final boss: http://tindeck.com/listen/ulhs i was stoned out of my mind and thought i was writing great progshit. listening to it the next day was both hilarious and disappointing. Mickey Mouse Castle of Illusion Stage 1: http://tindeck.com/listen/bkvu was testing some orchestral samples. extremely cheesy. technically an ok arrangement though. Secret of Evermore medley thing: http://tindeck.com/listen/dxnd more boring orchestral fluff. oh, and spiritual followups to 'Bros with Dix' that annoyed me after 30 minutes. http://tindeck.com/listen/obrv http://tindeck.com/listen/gujq enough for now, time to listen to other people's miscarriages. nice topic indeed.

in the end, i'd leave those questions to your own intuition and experimentation. people are gonna mention some examples of widespread consensus such as 'better leave the bass in the center'. definitely makes sense most of the time, possibly holds true for all the music you'll ever be doing, but that doesn't mean it's the best thing to do universally. not meaning to kill the start of a discussion btw, as i could learn a lot more about using the stereo spectrum. just pointing out that as ever so often, there are no real absolutes to be found.

haha ___________ wonderful piece man.

personally, the fantasy demonesque posing shit i only find mildly annoying. what really makes me rofl is the dude with goatee and oh so badass expression on his face look, filmed from a low angle perspective. as performed by exhibit 'Z'.

battle with zant in 5 parts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw1QJc5RKu8 i didn't even play the damn game, yet i worship it. oh lol someone made it in mario paint composer. brave effort haha seriously though, that gradual decline into fucking madness, realised in such a flawless fashion, is something i hadn't really heard before in a video game.

yeah, i was sad when i saw em removed. deleting them was consistant with the guidelines, but i would've loved to see them pardoned (among some others). classic ocr tunage imo. ah well...

...seriously? i'm sure there are some people who have a need for this exact sound that software probably can't match exactly yet, but...are you really really one of them? even without taking the unreliabilities of old analog gear into account, it's a fuckload of money you'll be spending, and there are a lot of cheaper alternatives around, VA or real analog (prophet08 as yoozer mentioned. or juno60 or whatever) just sayin, if you really worship the moog sound and can't have it any other way, sure, have fun. in any other scenario...it'd be a pretty stupid purchase tbh. unless you tend to shit gold.

lol. seems like the quest of finding a kickass name leads many people onto similar paths, eh?

or just twiddle dem knobs and go 'oooh! ahhh!' dunno, that's how i remember my first encounters with a synth. it kinda was more fun to do at that point, and after a while of doing this i got the hang of basic subtractive synth architecture. i read up on filters, envelopes and all that a while later, but what really got me started with synthesizers was the process of twiddling knobs and waiting for the crazee shit to happen. YMMV ofcourse.

Synthesizing: Serious Business

sounding great. price is alright, can't justify buying it for the occasional use it'd get though. in case you ever decide to do a deal like the previous one again, i'll be picking it up most likely. shreddage+koto nation for $99 for example would be something i'd seriously consider. by the way, ever thought about doing a competitively priced brass library? thinking of something that's somewhat flexible in terms of genre (jazz, funk, classical etc). no need for every articulation possible, just cover some popular standards in different genres. it should have decent solo patches but the focus would probably be on ensembles. i just don't see any competition in the budget range you typically cater for. horns are probably harder to sample well than a lot of instruments, but if you could get that right it might become a bestseller. anyway good luck with this lib.

Rushjet is simply too hardcore. but really, may i ask why? don't tell me that you're faster with it than an experienced famitracker user... it just seems like unnecessary geekdom unless there are any advantages to it that i'm not aware of.

i dunno, i'd just draw one bar of panning automation into a pattern and loop that. takes 10 seconds. one plugin less needed. did i mention i hate crowded plugin lists?

on a related note: i remember downloading some SoE arrangements in the early days of napster. they certainly didn't have an amateur sound to them; could that have been bonus stuff from the OST release?

great stuff.

oh, so i did beat a dead horse indeed! thanks for illustrating that with a clever picture.

Hm. Lemme speak my mind here, at the risk of beating a dead horse... Really good (authentic) chiptunes, in my opinion, always have really good production. That's because production and arrangement are very closely tied together when making a chiptune. For example, you can't just apply EQ when the sound is too muddy or too thin. You cannot really add to the fullness of a track with reverb or other sound enhancing fx. You have to expand on the arrangement or choose different waveforms and such. Disclaimer: I don't mind the panel's policy regarding chiptunes. It's ok with me that they don't consider chiptunes to have sufficient production value in most cases. What I don't agree with is the notion that said production value can be judged completely objectively. See, I like fat analogue basses. I like the rich tone of a grand piano, i like a good dynamic string section and powerful rumbling brass. I also like raw square and noise waves put together in a compelling fashion. I cannot possibly make a distinction regarding sound quality. All of the above just sound awesome to me when they're pulled off competently. I cannot fault the production of a perfect chiptune, and that isn't primarily because I marvel at what has been done with the limited resources available, it is because it sounds fucking awesome to me, period. So yes indeed, I think the argument boils down to a different level of appreciation of music just consisting of basic waveforms. Of course that doesn't mean that the panel/djp don't appreciate chiptunes, they just think that their technical limitations result in a natural huge disadvantage when it comes to production. And that's perfectly ok, it's pretzel's site. In the end though, what really constitutes good production? i'd say it means nothing else than 'make it sound awesome. let the arrangement shine'. in my opinion, really good chiptunes achieve that. others are free to disagree. I dunno, why not embrace the simple fact that judging music inherently requires some level of subjectivity and move on? relentlessly pointing to standards and guidelines won't really settle this argument when it really is about different aesthetic sensibilities.

that's what i've been using for years, no troubles with accuracy so far. wow, looking at the lines...maybe it's just broken. can't think of anything that would explain this amount of drift (software related anyway). dirty lense maybe??

no rush, take your time. i'll listen again once you've fleshed it out. also, i didn't know there was a factual difference between criticise and critique apart from the fancy french syllable 'criticism' matches your definition of 'critique' in my book. pointing out perceived flaws and merits.

where's anything but tangerines? there's some pentatonic stuff that could be vaguely related to the bassline of the original, but otherwise... correct me if i'm wrong of course, but i find it hard to criticise at this point because there's no remix in it yet.