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What music inspires you?


WillRock
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So OCR has a vast assortment of very different artists with many different styles and influences. 

 

So I'm wondering. What music influences and inspires you? If I wanted to listen to music similar to yours, where should I look? 

 

I'll go first - I consider my main influences to be Vince Dicola, Joe Satriani, Van Halen, Journey, Michael Jackson, Pendulum and Daft Punk. 

 

What are some artists that influence your own music?

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I tend to be inspired by zircon, Stephen Anderson, and once each, Weather Report and Zalem (you'll see some Zalem-esque didgstep on the BadAss V3 album). Obviously with zircon the styles range pretty widely, from dubsteppy EDM, to expansive ambient, to aggressive D&B. Stephen Anderson is a hybrid orchestral film score composer, Weather Report is pretty snazzy Jazz Fusion, and Zalem... well, look below.

 

I think I can pretty safely say I have my own style now though, in mixing dubstep with funky stuff.

 

Some stuff from Stephen Anderson:

https://soundcloud.com/stephen-anderson/orc-wars-opening-sequence

https://soundcloud.com/stephen-anderson/covert-mission

https://soundcloud.com/stephen-anderson/dinosaur-dna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYP4wKD-6J8

 

Some stuff from zircon:

https://soundcloud.com/zircon-1/augment

https://soundcloud.com/isworks/celestia-terrarium-naked-by

http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02547

https://soundcloud.com/zircon-1/9-fiberoptics

 

Some stuff from Weather Report:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae0nwSv6cTU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMQUFvv0WRY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSUk8bSVHYc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7_vNpVXubA

 

Some stuff from Zalem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ9TJmmwRBY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXBGZoBYaLY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiozWbBNzT0

 

On a side note, I figured out how to post youtube links as links. :razz:

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Nirvana, Aqua, Toy Box, Baltimore, Nu Shooz, Peter Shilling, many one-hit-wonders from the 80's and 90's represent people who ( at least to me) embody the ethos of "Just make it sound good!" I know that seems like I'm besmirching great artists, but the first and for most thing I look for is is it good...ignore whether it's technical or gonna change the world or use of trills on the 5th and 3rd notes...is it good? Also anyone who's working hard on here to make something, them too! Seriously Ben Briggs, Flexstyle, bLind because they don't feel removed from the community, but also everyone who puts their art out for examination in the Workshop too!

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So OCR has a vast assortment of very different artists with many different styles and influences. 

 

So I'm wondering. What music influences and inspires you? If I wanted to listen to music similar to yours, where should I look? 

 

I'll go first - I consider my main influences to be Vince Dicola, Joe Satriani, Van Halen, Journey, Michael Jackson, Pendulum and Daft Punk. 

 

What are some artists that influence your own music?

 

Joe Satch, Van Halen, Micheal Jackson, Jun Senoue, Daft Punk, Zedd, Dreamtheater, etc.. To many to name hehe

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My influences are: Composers like Hans Zimmer, Nobuo Uematsu, Danny Elfman, Phil Collins and Jeremy Soule. Groups like Queen, Daftpunk, Mike Oldfield, Michael Jackson, Blind Guardian and Nightwish. As for OC remixers, Zircon, Danny B, XPRTNovice, Jake Kaufman and Bustatunez.

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Well actually, the style I'm mostly aiming for is actually inspired by two OCR greats, namely bLiNd and Flexstyle :P

 

aaaaaaaand my day is made. :D

 

As far as what I tend to be heavily influenced by--definitely Pendulum, anything by the Animusic team, the Beatles, lots of older Christian bands (dc Talk, Newsboys, Relient K, etc.), BT, Hybrid, Pet Shop Boys, Vangelis, deadmau5, various Hospital Records artists like Netsky/Sub Focus/High Contrast/Mistabishi, lots of Trance Around the World featured artists (hosted by Above and Beyond), Seven Lions....and of course some OCR stalwarts like bLiNd, zircon, SGX, and Big Giant Circles.

 

Gosh, I listen to a LOT of music. :P

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My inspirations come mainly from prog rock/metal bands. Recently I've been very inspired by Genesis for example. Other big influences in my style are Marillion, Frost*, Symphony X, Toto and Pain of Salvation. I also have some jazz influences but I can't really point a particular band since I don't actually listen to much jazz but I've read a few books and stuff about jazz theory because I love them chords but I'm not into improvising and solos that much.

 

When doing remixes, however, I tend to look for outside inspirations depending on the style I want to achieve. Sometimes I get inspired by other remixes, like zircon's, Willrock's and others. Other times I search for specific inspirations depending on what I want to do. For example, I listened to many western songs when doing a Paper Mario remix once!

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I'd say my biggest influences are Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Dirty Loops, Foo Fighters, The Beatles, Paul McCartney, tons of underground old school Hip-Hop, 80s/90s music, and rock/hard rock/very specific types of metal (metal that is actually music, thank you very much). I have tons but those are the main ones.

 

When it comes to video game music, mainly Mario, Zelda, Sonic, Fire Emblem, Metroid, some Halo music, and other stuff lol. Koji Kondo is one of my biggest inspirations (if not the biggest inspiration) when it comes to the legitimate composers. Jun Senoue also writes great melodies for the Sonic games, and Martin O'Donnell's just awesome because he is.

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aaaaaaaand my day is made. :D

 

You're welcome :D

Concerning the composers which inspire me to make music are Yasunori Mitsuda, Nobuo Uematsu, Noriyuki Iwadare, Hiroki Kikuta and the long list of Mega Man (X) composers. Bands are not that important, at least as long as I don't learn to play the guitar and learn to write metal :P

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Romantic, Impressionist, Anime/Film/Game Scores, Jazz Fusion, Prog Metal

 

To name names, I take a lot of influence from Gundam Build Fighters (Yuuki Hayashi) and Gundam Unicorn (Hiroyuki Sawano) these days. For my softer stuff, I kinda try aspire to people like Howard Shore and Jeremy Soule's compositional mastery.

 

Pretty soon I want to try my hand at the kind of stuff Animals as Leaders makes.

 

All of my electro stuff comes from a mixture of bLiNd and zircon.

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Classical: Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Gershwin, Saint-Saens, Mozart

Film: Alan Silvestri, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Michael Giacchino, Danny Elfman, James Newton Howard, Thomas Newman

Games: Austin Wintory, David Wise, Yoko Shimomura

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I started out listening to Nobou Uematsu and creaming my pants at all of his compositions. I love how he was able to create some of the most remembered pieces of gaming music history one after another. I was once a part of a Final Fantasy 4 Fan game and I was asked to make original music for it. Even though I was completely new to digital music I tried my best and studied his pieces thoroughly(especially Dancing Mad).

Then I found out about Kenji Ito and Yoko Shimomura and listened to a lot of their work. I grew up listening to Queen almost every day so I usually listen to them if I am having writers block of some sort. Recently I found Motoi Sakuraba and have been experimenting with MP3 Orchestrations trying to get even a little bit better with them. Sakuraba is an insanely talented composer and I always go to Smough and Ornsteins theme when trying to make up an orchestration. Danny B is someone I've looked up to for a few years now, he's honestly the reason why I have been so active making music and remixing a lot of songs. The kind of music I am most inspired by is the style of Aivi and Surasshu(the composers of Steven Universe). It is so brilliant and I aim to capture the way they combine chiptunes, digital synths, and jazz together for something that always gives me an eargasm.

Now when it comes to my biggest inspiration, I would have to say that would be Nujabes. I did not even try to make beats until I watched Samurai Champloo and found out about his work. He was a legend and his music always inspires me. When I found out about his death I got inspired and decided to stop sitting around and start making digital music again. 

tl;dr Chiptune Jazz

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While I fancy a few western artists (Alan Silvestri, Sean Callery, Marc Mancina), my inspiration comes pretty exclusively from Japanese composers.

Too many to name but standouts be Yoko Kanno, Yuzo Koshiro, Yuki Kajiura, Hitoshi Sakimoto, Taku Iwasaki, Kenichiro Fukui and Noriko Matsueda.

When it comes to OCR, I favor the old school/guard: Vampire Hunter Dan, ABG, Harmony, Marc Star, Rellik, Protricity, analoq, Tweek and Nutritious.

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They run the gamut...

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, They Might Be Giants, Bobby McFerrin, Jeff Buckley, Al Greene, Prince, RHCP, The Flecktones/Victor Wooten, Pavement, Badly Drawn Boy (hour of the bewilderbeast), Turkuaz, all the early 90s grunge rock greats, Return to Forever, Yes, Fiona Apple, Erykah Badu, Ben Harper, Alt- J, beastie boys, New Deal, Bibio, James Taylor, Rufus &Chaka Khan, flaming lips, Air, D'angelo, MJ (the early live Jacksons stuff is outta this world), Zeppelin, Jimi, Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, Bonnie Raitt, Leonard Bernstein (the Chichester Psalms will blow anyone's mind)

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I've been mostly inspired by T-Square (and jazz fusion in general) lately. But there's tons of artists who serve as an inspiration in one way or another.

 

I love T-Square. I stumbled across them on accident a few years back trying to find out who played the sax solo in the Cowboy Bebop theme song. Such a great band. I've wanted to make a remix in that style for a while, but my sax chops are way too weak for that right now.

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