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Castlevania: Cacophony of Incarnation 2016


MindWanderer
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Just now, Jorito said:

I sure am! My song is done (all glorious 4:12 of it), I'm just holding off with submitting to keep options for last minute polishing open and on the off chance that I might get some vocals from Tuberz at the last moment. I'll send it in regardless, but it might mean you'll have to 'enjoy' my voice (with a cold) in stead ;)

Upload it and send me the link anyway, just in case.  I won't download until the deadline, so if you replace the file, I'll get whichever version you uploaded last.

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Yes, I'm still among the living, just haven't had much time to partake in the thread...Its funny since working overtime on this remix I found myself emulating the Count's habits. Sleeping all day, up all night, avoiding all daylight, leaving my dwelling only to feed and terrorizing the illiterate peasants of Walachia in the late 1890's.  I'll swing by tomorrow and see how everyone's doing, Night. 

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Simon Bracket, Round 1 is up!

As for the Soma Bracket, wildfire, Magnetic Ether, and Supercoolmike will be moving on to the next round.  As in the Alucard bracket, this will be a 3-way contest: each participant must use all 3 sources, and only the winner will move on (though 2nd place will get bonus points moving into the Dracula bracket).  As a reminder, the entry filename should follow the format:

  • Your Name - Remix Name (Your Source; Opponent's Source; and Other Opponent's Source)

e.g.

  • MindWanderer - Wallachia Just Keeps On Burning (Warakiya Village, 1476; Burning Town, 1792; and Master's Keep, 1944)
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8 minutes ago, Trism said:

The download link is correct in your latest post, however in the first post the Simon link downloads the Soma Round 1 zip file.

Fixed.

By the way, on the whole, you guys are seriously bad at following the file name rules.  I've had to fix 3 of the 6 in every round so far.  Please double-check them before you send me the link.

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20 minutes ago, MindWanderer said:

Fixed.

By the way, on the whole, you guys are seriously bad at following the file name rules.  I've had to fix 3 of the 6 in every round so far.  Please double-check them before you send me the link.

Not sure if I was one of them (I tried), but if 50% of the names are wrong it probably means the instructions are too difficult or unclear ;)

Or as Sun Tzu put it: "If words of command are not clear and distinct, if orders are not thoroughly understood, then the general is to blame. But, if orders are clear and the soldiers nevertheless disobey, then it is the fault of their oficers.” :P

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I always copypasta what the directions change and replace all the info (remixer name, source names) by copying them from the first post. I use the temp title TITLE throughout the writing process so I can just replace it later. So mine will be:

  • ladyWildfire - TITLE (Abandoned Castle, 1479; Inner Quarters, 2035; and Inner Halls, 1476)

It isn't rocket science guys. :P

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28 minutes ago, Sir_NutS said:

I am guilty about not properly naming it.  I was planning on solving that and also working on some of the WIP issues and maybe give it a makeshift ending at lunch break but I couldn't get home in time, so sorry about that.

Yeah, I knew yours was last-minute, so I didn't want to call you out specifically... but under any other circumstances, I would have ragged on "VampireK.mp3" pretty hard.

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15 hours ago, YoshiBlade said:

Well...Ill out myself if necessary. Would it be possible to just let us know if we did it wrong? I'm neurotic about not causing annoyance and if it's wrong and I'm not being told, the problem never gets fixed. 

Yours was correct (though I question the grammar of your title).  Most of the people who are getting it wrong are very clearly not paying attention.  The only two that fell into the "close, but no cigar" category were one that included their opponent's name, and one that inverted the two source names.

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19 minutes ago, MindWanderer said:

 (though I question the grammar of your title).  

As someone who loves the dramatic pause, I tend to use the "..." very often when posting or composing messages and I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to decide if I should do the "...wine" or the ",wine". I thought the "..." in it's purest grammatical sense was used to signify an unimportant portion of two separate ideas "The President said the enemies have found the base...but there is little need to worry" and I chose to try and do the more grammatically accurate, but less dramatic option, going against my natural inclination. Oh cruel Fate how you mock me!!!

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57 minutes ago, YoshiBlade said:

As someone who loves the dramatic pause, I tend to use the "..." very often when posting or composing messages and I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to decide if I should do the "...wine" or the ",wine". I thought the "..." in it's purest grammatical sense was used to signify an unimportant portion of two separate ideas "The President said the enemies have found the base...but there is little need to worry" and I chose to try and do the more grammatically accurate, but less dramatic option, going against my natural inclination. Oh cruel Fate how you mock me!!!

Actually, you got the grammar exactly backwards.  Ellipses are used to indicate a pause regardless of sentence structure.  Commas are used to separate clauses conveying discrete units of meaning, or for repetition.

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/199471/is-using-a-comma-as-a-pause-correct

http://fandom-grammar.livejournal.com/86156.html

http://fandom-grammar.livejournal.com/28398.html

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Since this is a tough round to call, I'm taking the extra time to write reviews and collect my thoughts.  As usual, I may come across as overly critical, but on the whole, this was an exceptional round.  Going to be some strong competition in the Dracula bracket!

  1. The Witching Hour: Production-wise, OA delivers, as always.  The A->B->A/B->B arrangement is pretty typical for these compos, and I could have done with more blending earlier on.  The blending itself seemed a little awkward--the elements were interleaved but never seemed to really interact with each other.  It's a real shame, too, because I feel like the treatment of the minimalistic Castle Center, a tough source to work with IMO, was exceptional, and I would have loved to have seen it get some more melodic components added to it.
  2. I Never Drink, Wine: Very thin soundscape, unfortunately emphasized by direct comparison to OA's mix.  The buildup to the opening at 0:32 was weaksauce, and again at 2:31.  Not much use of Castle Center that I could hear.  Interesting use of clips from Dracula, but, except for the title quote (which had no backing music), they were pretty muddy and I couldn't understand the words.
  3. The Fury within the Wicked Heart: Orchestral/rock fusion is a favorite genre of mine, but I don't feel this was the best execution.  The chugging overdriven guitar doesn't play well with the orchestra, and there are quite a few places where their notes seem to clash or go off-tempo.  The guitar is a little too loud, too.  It's a little repetitive in places, e.g. the intro goes on for a little too long IMO.  The two themes weren't blended together very well as far as I can hear, it's mostly Heart of Fire -> Wicked Child with some original sections.  Maybe some aspect other than the melody is being blended, but I'm not hearing it.
  4. This Wicked Heart of Mine: You did a great job here of intermixing the two sources, although it sounds like you found some of the key differences challenging.  I actually had to listen to this several times to catch which segments were part of which source--they're interleaved so thoroughly that I kept thinking it was sticking to one source when it was really using both closely together. Interesting decision to really focus on the intro of Wicked Child, at the expense of the body of that song, but I think it worked pretty well.  Lyrics get seriously repetitive; I feel this would have benefited greatly from real ones.  It feels like the balance is heavy on the high end; if you revisit this (and I hope you do), I'm hoping someone in the Workshop can comment on that more specifically.
  5. Don't Cry for Me, Vampire Killer: Not a big fan of most of these melodic variations, personally.  Just a matter of taste.  I felt like the intro and breakdown had the strongest production quality, and that the melodic sections were pretty thin.  Might just be a poor choice of lead.  Basic A->breakdown->B arrangement structure, no interplay between the two sources.  The "hiccup" at 3:10 seems unintentional, since it happens only once, so it sounds like a skip.
  6. Dracula's Madness: Interesting departure from your usual chip-heavy style.  Not really my thing, but it's well-executed for what it is, certainly up to your standards if not your style.  I just wish you'd managed to get Bloody Tears in there earlier--even incomplete, I might have voted for this if it met the compo's basic concept.
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Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. I definitely plan to finish this one properly, with better vocals and to look into some weird pitch issues that I haven't been able to track so far.

It might be hard to hear, but there's actually tons of source in my track, and yes, they are very intermingled. I didn't stick to just the melody, but there's also lots of smaller melodic figures to be found all over the place. Examples are the rhythm guitar figure at 0:17-0:19, the Wicked Child melody with the Heart of Fire arp organ 0:51, the guitar lead at 0:45 and some stuff in the intro that gets lost in the mix :P Guess I'll write them down for when I submit to OCR.

Thanks again, you'll see it come back in the workshop and hopefully on OCR at some point.

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