DMZ

I want to learn more about scales, specifically, I want to practice my ability to take a song and say "oh that section is in that scale", or read a bunch of notes and say "oh that's in this scale and it generally produces this mood" (assuming scale is not notated, i.e. I was playing around in FLS Piano roll and have no idea what I did but it sounded nice). Are there any quick tips some of you might have, or some good on-line resources that might be helpful? I've been using http://www.looknohands.com/chordhouse/piano/ but that's mostly just useful given that I already know what scale I am looking for.

I enjoyed the style but I found the first 2/3s to be only foreplay for the main melody which only came in the last third of the song (2/3's intro is way too long). I'd say reverse that. Let people know what melody they are listening to first, THEN go crazy with it. Then go back. Cheers.

Intro: Good start, cool vocal effect, but the pad does not compliment it, imo, which makes the intro stretch 0:40-1:15: Fell asleep. 1:15-1:43: The kicks need to be stronger, but I like the snare at 1:22. 1:43: Awkward transition. 1:53-2:54: Kinda digging this part 2:54: Again no transition 3:04-3:16: Cool stuff but I don't see how this fits in with the rest of the song. Gonna stop here. Here's the big picture: As mentioned before lots of original stuff, lots of ideas, but no structure at all to the song. Repetition is good--nay--key. Successful art from all mediums, notably music and poetry, acknowledge this. Imagine a novel or movie in which you have several characters: different characters appear at different times, but they all generally re-occur throughout and together, form a bigger picture as a whole. Here's what I suggest: take what you've learned from this and arrange your future stuff with bits and pieces of things you've experimented with here. Work on structuring the song so that it tells a coehesive story. Intro, Act 1, breakdown/chorus, Act 2 (breakdown/chorus, Act 3), conclusion.

Reminds me of http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01537/, Summoner's Love, one of my all-time favourite OCR remixes (big compliment!). That being said, your arrangement is lacking a bit of depth (yes that's fine on an ambient track). Vocal queues are nice, but at least on one occaion, way too long which only becomes distracting. Also, consider starting the song a little sooner. Start the soft intro before the operator's voice. I get that you are recreating the ambience of waiting on the phone, but don't make it sound too practical. If this song is soo good, I'd listen too it all day and get upset when someone actually picks up. The ending fader could be a little smoother too. Keep it up!

Yeah, LOVED where the intro was going and then the sax just killed it for me, but piano and harp work for me. The second part caught me off-guard, it's good, but could use a bit of polishing. If it where me, I'd replace the sax alltogether, throw in a second pad just after the begining, and up the overall depth by adding small details here and there. I have to say, I like the slow tempo on this one. I've heard enough fast tempo gerudo remixes and none of them I find as interesting as this one. Otherwise I'll keep my eye on this one. Keep it up!

Clayjrjr2 needs to learn how to take critisicm, a bit of humility, and what OCremix is all about first. OCremix is a place for remixes, not covers, i.e. don't just open up a midi file and asign samples to each channel. I have little music production experience but I know virtually every OCR song inside-out and what I listened to was not a video game remix by OCR standards. You should probably rethink what you are trying to achieve by posting in these forums, because so far it is not on par with OCR expectations.

Nope. Similar tones to pixietricks' and zircon's 'Delivery of the heart'. In fact, you're probably hearing the FF7 'Anxious Heart' track http://ocremix.org/song/114. Incidentally, Fishy also appears amongst that list for 'Aire Tam Break' although the Anxious Heart interpretation is short and IMO somewhat unfitting to the chosen genre. I'm willing to bet Fishy slipped a little Anxious Heart into this one to pay it proper justice. That, or I may be over-analysing. Either way, a great arrangment.

Gusty Galaxy man! Apparently zircon was tinkering with it.

zircon the man. You're my hero!

Call me boring and "newschool" but I wana see a Super Mario Galaxy remix. Actually not. The soundtrack for Galaxy is just so damn good, there isn't really much to improve on. Let me rephrase: I want to see an homage to Super Mario Galaxy's soundtrack, and more specifically Gusty Garden Galaxy (#1-28 ), also a recuring melody in Purple Coins (#2-19) (I think? both melodies feel so similar). I'm pretty sure it's an original. Or did I miss the theme in a previous Mario game? Let me know. This track is just so damn inspiring and empowering in Gusty Garden Galaxy yet energetic and cool in Purple Coins all at the same time. I'm wondering if it has any other hidden qualifiers in other genres of music. This is the kind of melody I could listen to 5 times over in 5 different musical styles all in one song :/ If you haven't played SMG yet, get crackin', you're missing out. Nothing quite like floating across ?-shaped planets stomping giant groundhogs with Gusty Garden Galaxy fully orchestrated in the background!

To each their own, I guess

Granted, zircon, this is a subjective matter. Perhaps I've listened to Chaos so much, I'm somewhat biased in feeling that it plays out much more uniformly than VotL. Still it's not a question of any tracks detracting to the project. About the original FF7 soundtrack being just as "varied", well yes and no. Yes, there are different moods, different tempos and different instrumental flavours, because the game needs to adress to each and every different mood, tempo and "situational flavour" brought on by the storyline. But the style doesn't change throughout the game. Style reflects personality. I can pick up a bit of Nobuo Uematsu instanly in all but a few FF7 tracks and it all just fits together. When I jump from Full Frontal Assault to Short Skirts to Embraced Empathy and then back to some JENOVA Celestial, it just feels like I'm skipping through my OCR playlist on my MP3 player looking for 2 or 3 songs I particularly crave for. A bit of Bladiator here, some zircon there... but there won't be any VotL album cueing. And this fact I think is why VotL is IMO good, but not great. And I see that by how many mixed reviews there seem to be. You're bound to please people with some stuff, while dissapointing them with other stuff. I'm curious, did everyone kinda just work on their tracks on their own, or was there some serious interaction between everyone, or somewhere between?

Zircon, you took that as negative criticisme and I'm sorry if that comes off as a little mean. I'm the first to admit that what you guys do is the best. I wouldn't be subsribing to the music on OCR weekly for a few years now if that wheren't the case. I don't mean to diss the OCR veterans; it's just that this time around, actually, I enjoed mostly stuff from the newer people, like I stated earlier. The point is, I found VotL to be too big of a project for such a varied group of artists. Project Chaos worked great. Blood on the Asphalt and Chrono Symphonic where superb. VotL is just good, mostly because it just feels like a giant compilation of songs sharing nothing more than a title in common. That's just how it feels like to me. Still I'll probably be listing to this as long as I have been Chaos and BotA. Good job! BTW, there is nothing wrong with trying new things. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. But people get bored quickly and are always on the lookout for new. I mean there's a reason why movie sequels are always worse than the originals...

My Thoughts? It's same old OCR. bLiNd steals the show with his usual trance style (Why does JENOVA Celestial remind me of Snowbound?), pixietricks supplies just about the only vocals while BGC gives us very avant-garde music. Shnabubula and Bladiator have got the piano solos covered. Zircon's a bit all over the place while RTF tackles the Jazzy/New wave/Bossa nova stuff and Sixto Sounds delivers the upbeat electronic-rock. That's not to say that they don't deliver - not at all. Each artist, even those I didn't name, give us a fantastic piece of work, each in their own style, some outdoing themselves, others not so much. And that's where the problem arises. The album has way to many different styles, styles we are mostly already familiar with. There are bound to be tracks that we will be dissapointed with, especially concidering the expectations of such a great game. Black Wing Metamorphosis didn't work for me (7 artisits on one song?), Lunatic Moon didn't sound right at all, as if it didn't know what it wanted to be (even though I love Sixto Sounds style and Zircon's production quality); maybe that kick-ass theme has just been revisited too many times. As for The Crossroads, it's the same story: the style just didn't fit with Cid's original kick-ass theme... although 3:30 seemed quite enjoyable. The project was too big and it needed new blood. Hats off to mustin for Serenity, Xaleph for Son of Chaos, Star Salzman for Airships make me happy ('cause that song makes me happy too) Jeremy Robson for Valse Aeris (great style!), Trenthian for Crystal Sermon (not so orignial, but just that much more grand) and well bLiNd for just a kick-ass job on all three pieces.

YES! Thank you! 5 years I've been searching for a descent Road to Bowser mix! The original was kick ass, what took so long? Finally, a piece of work that does justice to the original. I loved Monstrous Turtles, I'm gonna love this one just as much. The pause at 2:30 couldn't have been done better IMO. Brilliant. I've got my eye on you mate. Cheers.