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Arcana

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Posts posted by Arcana

  1. It's been like 15 years since this was released. I still think it holds up. Interestingly, it's not due to the samples - I think sample quality's improved since this has been posted, and mixing techniques have kind of moved ahead as well. To me the composition itself still stands out, though.

    For me, there's so much tension here, so much emotional weight. There's contrasting elements from the immediate bombastic brass to the quiet descending moments and then it all picks up again. I listened to it and didn't realize it, but I had been holding my breath. It feels like extremely intense film music. It feels like it's designed to bring you along for a really tumultuous ride. There's stuff I can learn from here with general "tension and release" perspective. Also, yes, there's tons of percussion. It's not meant to emulate "real life" and yet it comes together. That I think is a feat of mixing in itself.

    GrayLightning was a genius and a total class act. Miss you dude.

  2. I went through this debate myself around March replacing the exact same set of headphones (AKG K240s).

    I didn't have a chance to audition a lot of headphones and kind of went in only doing some research. Here's my table:

    • Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro ($170). Bright sound profile
    • AKG K712 ($290). Bright sound profile
    • Audio Technica ATH-R70x ($350). Scooped sound profile
    • Sennheiser HD600 ($330). Flat sound profile
    • Sennheiser HD650 ($370). Flat, bass sound profile
    • Shure SRH1840 ($500). Flat sound profile

    I limited my headphones to open-backed only. I discounted closed-back headphones (which limits options quite a bit; there are a lot of good closed-back headphones that aren't that expensive).

    From all of the readings that I did, the Beyerdynamic and AKGs were pretty bright in the midrange. Audio Technica was well-rated but the comfort was supposedly so-so. Sennheiser HD600 was apparently the most flat and balanced of the lot.

    I eventually went for the Sennheiser HD650 because they're more bassy and really popular in EDM. I went with those instead of the much cheaper Massdrop HD6xx because I wanted the higher-quality construction and durability. Apparently the Massdrop HD6xx (which is only $220, but you need to do a group buy) is the same, sound-wise, as the HD650.

  3. It's been maybe fifteen years now since this song was published. I listened to it when it first hit OC ReMix and I came back to it now because I'm working on a song with some polyrhythms and a vision of a 9/4 section hit my brain and I realized (after a little digging) that it was this song I was hearing.

    The comments talk a lot about the production quality and the cacophony and all of that, but the real thing is that the song was memorable, and interesting, and eye-opening. There's unexpected stuff, choices that make you raise an eyebrow, and overall it requires a little bit of guessing as to what the composer intended at times.

    The fact that after you listen to some part of this song and have a strong reaction to it, though, makes this something of a classic.

  4. I came here just to post that I remember this song, I enjoy it (even if it's more for the memory of its existence than actually listening it) and that my life has been enriched by this song. I'm really glad that OCR didn't remove this song due to lack of arrangement or lack of quality or anything else like this, because this song really is a big part of the site's history.

    Listening to someone play the new Zelda DS game as I type.

  5. I heard of this today and thought that some members of this community might be interested in checking it out. I haven't personally used it (neither as a patron nor an artist) so I don't know how well the model works, but it's a very new service and might be worth checking out for members of this community, given the community's general interest in independent artists and bands.

    It's called Patreon http://www.patreon.com

    It is basically kind of like KickStarter, but more about ongoing support rather than supporting a big huge project with a deliverable. So rather than giving $20 or $40 with the intention of getting some big album when it's done, you're giving $1 or $10 as a "thank you, keep doing cool stuff" to the artist.

    Here's an article explaining some of the concepts behind the idea as well from the founder:

    http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20130510/00083123031/cool-new-platform-supporting-artists-patreon-jack-conte.shtml

    Once again, I haven't actually used this service but I thought it might be of interest to this community. If you do try it out and there are good things or bad things you should definitely let me know and keep us posted.

  6. ReValver will work in Logic if you just ignore that message. However, the workaround to this bug is to save the default preset (0) as blank with no amp loaded. Logic just has a problem with amps in the initial preset for some reason!

    http://forums.peavey.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=22452

    According to the Peavey site there's an update to the Revalver HPSE that'll fix this.

    Direct link at http://www.peavey.com/products/revalver/downloads/revalverhpse_osx_120326.zip

  7. I bought a pair of Mackie HR624s from a pawn shop for about the price you asked.

    Rokit KRK 8s tend to get good reviews as middle-of-the-road monitors, I would have bought those if I didn't get the Mackies. The bigger drivers will help with the bass, 6" can be a little light on the bass side.

    As for monitors vs. headphones, I used to mix on headphones, but mixing on monitors is just... well, more fun in my opinion. But when I'm doing precise mixdowns, I'll A/B my mixes on both headphones and monitors and adjust.

  8. Yep, I sure have. However, that tutorial is Garageband-exclusive (refers to certain patches within Garageband) and seeing as I use Windows, I obviously can't use Garageband or the tutorial.

    I'm a Mac user, if you want me to I can make a project with these presets and just kind of play them so you know what they kind of sound like. Then you can go find equivalents for Windows.

    But PM me and remind me to do it this weekend or I might forget!

  9. I still want to remix a song from this game. I've been put down for "Battle on the Bridge" but it's on hold for now until I gain mad skillz.

    There's a big problem, though. The soundtrack is complicated, diverse, and quite advanced and it's really, really difficult for a noob like me to even make something that'll be comparable to the original track. The soundtrack is intimidating!

  10. Great thread! Lots of interesting insights.

    I'm not afraid of writing my crappy music. It's fun. Maybe I'm in denial though, and mistake fear for boredom. :) I've also finally noticed that when I'm making something and it seems crap at the time, it surprisingly often sounds a lot better the next day. So these days I just keep going instead of giving up. I'm also learning to not be afraid of editing anything I already wrote (I just keep a backup copy/a muted track of the previous version in case I want to go back).

    --Eino

    If there's something that doing One Hour Compos have taught me, it's that someone out there will find even the weirdest crap that you make interesting in some way.

    In that respect it is encouraging to be able to go back and fix things up. Unfortunately I have also been told to "start over" a few times (mostly when trying to do remixes for album projects) which is pretty discouraging but that's why album directors exist - they're there to make the hard calls and you as a musician have to accept that sometimes.

  11. Hey OCR! Was bored today so I made a tutorial on how to make sounds wider and fuller in Logic Pro (although you can apply the same principles to other plugins in other DAWs!)

    It's a pretty basic idea but it's very effective. Experiment with not only instruments, but synths, and maybe percussion too. Have fun, enjoy!

    Cheers,

    ~Syllix

    posting in here so I can refer to this later. I'm a Logic Pro user too so props for that.

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