99.8% Done with a Video-game music Tribute album

[Damashii!!]

For those of you that don't like reading long posts (it's okay, sometimes I don't read everything either) just click on the links and let me know what you think, but the very first link is the worst one (it's a 4 month old WIP).

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Yo, I kept checking the judges panel for the past 4.5 months and I finally saw that my submission was posted in the waiting list. I thought we weren't allowed to post another submission until it was received by the judges, but after re-reading [and actually understanding] the submission rules I saw that we could submit within a 3-week period... so yeeeeaahh.... I'll definitely be submitting more stuff now that I don't have to wait a bajillion-trillion-fillion-onion days to send multiple stuff.

I'm about 99.8% done with a Video-game tribute album that I've been working on (while waiting to submit more tracks:wink:. okay, okay, I've beaten that horse enough already.) Today I just now received the guitar parts from a friend for one of the songs so once I mix that and finish the album cover art I will be completely done by this Weekend! (if you have any suggestions on these tracks, I'll take not of them but I'm planning on releasing the Completed album by Sunday Night [latest]).

There are 11-12 tracks (I might squeeze two or three songs together in the final product) but these are the only tracks that I will most likely submit to OCR (I'm going to be honest... I can take criticism and suggestions, but some of these tracks were such a headache that I honestly don't want to redo them again--- "Not wanting to redo them again" is the literal translation of the Latin root word "lazy."):

Track 2: "Simple and Clean" from Kingdom Hearts

This is the original WIP. I knew in my mind that I wanted to achieve a Ratatat/Nujabes vibe with the song, but honestly the WIP sounded too much like a bad video-game with bad music that one could receive on a bad Christmas.

This is what the final product turned into. HEADS UP: do not increase your speaker volume too much. Yes, the intro may seem "too quiet" but the entire song is a giant crescendo/decrescendo. I'm not a crazy KH fan, but to me "Hikari" is an emotional heartbreak-y love song so I tried to make it sound like a relationship (the intro is like the confusion before an imminent break up, the middle is the awkward feeling between both lovers, and the end is supposed to hint that maybe things could get better). Also, sorry about the abrupt end. Each track in the album leads into the next.

reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orrnfPTqkuQ (Warning, very mushy lyrics. Do NOT listen to this unless you've just been rejected). also, IT SOUNDS BEST WITH HEADPHONES (unless your sound system was imported from Dexter's Lab and it's already perfect).

Track 3: Variations on the "Kid Chameleon" soundtrack

This track is supposed to be an obvious nod to Daft Punk's "Face to Face" and Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon" (duh). The drum sample is from Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" and it is the reason why I seriously do not want to edit this song anymore. The Blue Screen of death caused my entire drum samples to be erased, so I had to redo the ENTIRE drum part (for non-samplers, just listen to the song and I think you'll be able to hear what I'm talking about).

References: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X32quIJqzKY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70VeFZVvJI0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H3KspN5zoQ&feature=related

Track 4: Variations on the "Shining Force" and "SF2" soundtrack

I just got the guitar parts in from my friend; so this is the 80% final draft (I just have to mix his guitar parts a bit). RPG games usually have interesting music (in my opinion) and Shining Force honestly got me into Progressive Rock. So this is supposed to sound like ELP's adaptation of Shining Force.

references:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkRgpoa6mr4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NqjbbPtoYg&feature=related

Track 5: "MegaMan 3" theme

I don't know what style of music this is. I guess you could say prog/fusion/katamari-esque but I really don't know how to describe it. It's like trying to explain how somebody could have a blaster-cannon in place of an arm.

References: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiQgYfyUdDs&feature=related

Track 10/11: Title theme from "Madden 91" (the best title theme of all Madden games, might I add.) It's supposed to sound like the cheesy-yet-intense old-school Hard Rock bands. The intro is pulled from Road Rash but the rest of the track is the Madden theme. I'm willing to take a few suggestions on this (up until this weekend) but if somebody says the cowbell is too loud they must be crazy. If you can still hear after listening to this then the cowbell isn't loud enough.

Track 11/12: "Bob-omb Battlefield" theme from SM64

This is what I submitted to OCR. I'm actually willing to edit this because I don't feel like it is really that much different from the original version, but I'm DEFINITELY not going to edit The Kid Chameleon Track at all... that track was a nightmare.

I'll have the free download link of the Entire album posted by the end of this week (it doesn't take that long for me to wrap up a project, but that's enough time for me to clear any second thoughts).

[AkumajoBelmont]

Track 11/12: "Bob-omb Battlefield" theme from SM64

Dude, that track is brilliant.

Some of the other tracks are a little hit-or-miss when it comes to production, but you've obviously got a lot of talent, so I can only see you getting better.

But that Bob-omb Battlefield remix. Wow. Just wow. (actually, reminds me a LOT of housethegrate, which is just awesomeness)

I demand you link me to an mp3 now. Youtube just doesn't cut it

[PROTO·DOME]

Yeah I agree, that Bomb-omb battlefield is seriously KICK-ASS. I slammed the keys down for kick-ass. And AkumajoBelmont is right (again), the other's production is a little hit 'n' miss, but meh, doesn't matter.

Pretty sweet work man.

[RDX]

So I went through your youtube account and I found this piece of art

If you were to expand your wing cap/starman theme into something fuller, well that would be amazing.

Your Bob-Omb Battlefield arrangement is equally amazing though

[Damashii!!]

Dude, that track is brilliant.

Some of the other tracks are a little hit-or-miss when it comes to production, but you've obviously got a lot of talent, so I can only see you getting better.

But that Bob-omb Battlefield remix. Wow. Just wow. (actually, reminds me a LOT of housethegrate, which is just awesomeness)

I demand you link me to an mp3 now. Youtube just doesn't cut it

back to the drawing board... I really don't understand how you (as well as the others) find the Bob-omb mix to be good... lol, I seriously slopped that whole thing in a few minutes sometime last year (I re-uploaded it on the Tube this year). After hearing the Super Mario Galaxy "Throwback Galaxy" rendition of this theme I seriously through my hands up and said I'm done with Bob-omb.

oh well, thanks. Now I know that apparently my best work is the stuff that I spend the least amount of time on . (When I used to be in a few bands they all liked the songs that I slopped together a few minutes before practice but they didn't care much for the songs that took me weeks to "perfect." So obviously I've been cursed by the muses).

And I'll just put the link up with the rest of the album.

[Eino Keskitalo]

Woohooo! Shining Force 2!! This piece brought a smile on my face. I enjoyed it! Writing and arrangement is pretty good!

I have some quick crits. The keyboards and guitars sound great for the most part. Biggest problems in the piece are mixing and drums.

The mixing is kind of uneven.. I'm not a good mixer myself, but it feels like the instruments are not balanced, competing with each other.. there's no sense of common space between the instruments. Maybe someone with more skills can give advice. Well, perhaps this is only a raw/rough mix, not yet refined - that's what it sounds like in any case.

Drums are.. a bit strange. They have a lot of good writing, good fills.. but there are timing issues, and sometimes they're strangely badly sequenced (while at times sequenced well)! At some points, the beat doesn't sound "together", there's points where hihat should be keeping the time but only plays short runs. It doesn't have to be keeping the time if you want to do something more different, but those bits just don't sound "together", I hope you get what I mean. Also, the drums "sound like samples", by which I mean you can hear the same sample repeating and it feels unnatural. Mixing the piece better in general probably would help the drum sound too. I have to say I found them mostly good, but there were some strange passages with strange flaws.

When it comes to writing, I enjoyed most of it. But I felt that the intro went on a bit long and didn't say much. Once the piece got going, it was more enjoyable. I'd say compress the intro to a shorter version and concentrate what you have to "say" in it.

I hope you keep working on this piece, because this site, and the world in general, needs more Shining Force love! And good work so far!

--Eino

[Nase]

fuck yeaaaa

i know how disproportionate the effort/feedback relation can seem with music.

never devalue your own opinion, but i can only ditto the praise for bob-omb.

a sufficient amount of soul can override any production obstacles, and this has more of it than 90% of the stuff you hear around here.

bonus points for the ms paint video.

edit:listened to all tracks now, heaps of cool things in there. all too messy production does get in the way sometimes, but the concepts and structures are wonderful for the most part.

[Chernabogue]

Your "Bo-Bomb Battlefield" track was insanely good, keep going!

[djpretzel]

i know how disproportionate the effort/feedback relation can seem with music.

never devalue your own opinion, but i can only ditto the praise for bob-omb.

a sufficient amount of soul can override any production obstacles, and this has more of it than 90% of the stuff you hear around here.

bonus points for the ms paint video.

90%?? Really? You sure it's not 89%? Or 91%? I guess we should get the Soul-o-Meter out...

Seriously, given your comment about effort/feedback, it seems hypocritical to simultaneously praise this one track while insulting the overall site and, mathematically speaking, hundreds of other artists. Everyone should be able to find a way to provide positive feedback without negative comparative hyperbole; I strongly recommend it.

Back on topic: to ditto yet again what everyone else said, great track!

[Nase]

Seriously, given your comment about effort/feedback, it seems hypocritical to simultaneously praise this one track while insulting the overall site and, mathematically speaking, hundreds of other artists. Everyone should be able to find a way to provide positive feedback without negative comparative hyperbole; I strongly recommend it.

hey david, i don't really like 95% of all music that much. ocr music still compares favorably when it comes to my general quota of showing any interest at all.

i'm not saying it's shit music, i say i don't care much for 90% of it. you're spot on with the soul-o-meter comment, it's entirely subjective bullshit, but it's bullshit i wanted to say.

i just can't help it. i'm a grumpy man and i have to express how badly my synapses want to be tickled the right way and how a lot of stuff just doesn't do it for me, no matter how much excellent musicianship and production wizardry is involved.

mind you, this isn't meant to be some stupid dualistic rant. there's some stuff on ocr that i love for both its production and composition.

it's just that it's rare. because the really good stuff is rare. fact of life for me.

i hope that helped putting my statement into perspective. it's touchy stuff i know.

sorry for the deviation man.

[Damashii!!]

The mixing is kind of uneven.. I'm not a good mixer myself, but it feels like the instruments are not balanced, competing with each other.. there's no sense of common space between the instruments. Maybe someone with more skills can give advice. Well, perhaps this is only a raw/rough mix, not yet refined - that's what it sounds like in any case.

Drums are.. a bit strange. They have a lot of good writing, good fills.. but there are timing issues, and sometimes they're strangely badly sequenced (while at times sequenced well)! I'd say compress the intro to a shorter version and concentrate what you have to "say" in it.

I hope you keep working on this piece, because this site, and the world in general, needs more Shining Force love! And good work so far!

--Eino

thanks. the Shining Force song is kind of 80%ish (obviously the guitars have to be mixed more). I actually purposefully recorded the drum part in a juxtaposed manner, but I agree with some of the mixing. The intro length is due to the fact that each song runs into each other (I don't like albums that sound like a bunch of random unrelated tracks).

fuck yeaaaa

i know how disproportionate the effort/feedback relation can seem with music.

never devalue your own opinion, but i can only ditto the praise for bob-omb.

a sufficient amount of soul can override any production obstacles, and this has more of it than 90% of the stuff you hear around here.

thanks for the props. to reiterate what DJP said it may be a little too farfetched to state "90%." Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I will definitely vouch for unbelievers that if you spend a day just browsing the songs on OCR's database you will find plenty of "soulful" music. OCR has become somewhat like Wikipedia for me in that I start looking for one specific thing but then I end up veering away from homework by spending hours listening to random remixes.

for now, I'm going to leave this thread alone until I post the link to the final copy (most likely by Sunday), but if this thread goes further "off topic" then please feel free to move it to the proper place.

[Nase]

thanks for the props. to reiterate what DJP said it may be a little too farfetched to state "90%." Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I will definitely vouch for unbelievers that if you spend a day just browsing the songs on OCR's database you will find plenty of "soulful" music.

yeah, i already feel bad about writing that by now, haha.

it was an awkward statement to begin with and i kinda didn't grasp how inflammatory it was yesterday. i shouldn't have started with comparative pie charts to express my appreciation, i guess.

that said, if i check out 10 songs on the site (wip boards or posted, no matter) and find one i really love, that still qualifies as 'plenty of' good music for me.

let's try a different approach:

your stuff was inspiring to listen to. that doesn't happen to me every time i listen to music. i is happy.

[Damashii!!]

Done Done Donnnnnnnne! 100%

http://www.last.fm/music/sir+jordanius/What+I+learned+from+Videogames

Each track is free, but I don't have a link to download the entire Album (the instructions are too complex for me, and no I'm not old. just old-school).

For those of you that don't want to browse, here's what each track is:

1. Super Mario 64, File Select theme

(I'm not good with genre discriptions, but I guess "chill out")

2. Kingdom Hearts, Simple and Clean

(electronic/noise-rock/Ratatat-ish)

3. Kid Chameleon, Devil's Marsh/Fantasy

(Basically Daft Punk's "Face to Face" in Chameleon format)

4. Shining Force 2, Overworld and themes from SF1

(progressive rock, synth rock)

5. MegaMan 3, Title and themes from MM1 and MM2

(rock/jazz fusion I guess.)

6. Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Chemical Plant

(Michael Jackson tribute-ish, motown/disco)

7. Bionicle MNOG 1 and 2/ Junkbot/Backlot

(these are a bunch of online Lego games and I don't know if anyone else played them but I definitely went for a POGO chillout vibe with these.)

8. Skunny Kart title/Runescape's "Miracle Dance"

(Samba/chillout. "easy listening")

9. Tetris theme/Chocobo theme (minor version, not the happy one)

(ABBA/any 70s-80s disco band you can think of. The lyrics were originally an extremely suicidal/emo song that I wrote during teen angst nonsense; so I purposefully sang cheesily to make it a cheesy song and not a whiny complaint)

10. Runescape, Autumn Voyage

(techno-ish? bboy? I dunno, I just know it sounds dance-able or like something I would play at a party)

11. Madden 91 theme

(old-school Crotch-rocket hard rock)

12 Super Mario 64, Bob-omb Battlefield

(...middle-school jazz band)

I will admit that some of the mixing is atypical, but the instrumentation and composition is my style of production. If it sounds like every instrument is soloing it's because it's true; My music typically is never background chords+rhythm+catchy melody. I'm pretty sure that you WILL find several new things if you listen to my songs over and over. This project was mostly just for fun as I will soon be upgrading from SONAR 4 to possibly SONAR 8.5:)!!.

Also, I read in the Recording/production forums that proper earphones are vital to the mix of the overall sound:shock:.... yeeeeaah... I usually just burn CD's and see how it sounds in my car, my parents car, my friends' cars, and my boom box. Overall I'm proud of this project (I'm freaking glad to leave the Kid Chameleon song alone) and I look forward to improving and collaborating with others. And if you actually read this entire message then I salute and appreciate you.