Paragon

Hey, thanks a bunch for pimping DoD, guys. (And thanks to Oji for being a better off-the-cuff speaker than me, haha.) It was a good panel, pretty funny. Maybe next year we should have a DoD vs. OCR street fighter match?

edit: nevermind, i can't read

wut a dum project i sure hope there are no paragons on it

Anyone know where I can get a drumkit soundfont with an electronic/techno-type kick that's all fuzz and no attack? Nothing too harsh, something that would fit in a spacey/trippy type song.

At first, I knew there was something off about it, but I didn't realize that it was a microtone/tuning issue and not an intentional "classical dissonance" thing. Either way the only section it really affects for me is the one at 0:52 (and when that part repeats, of course). The main-melody-over-guitar part is easily one of the most haunting pieces of a remix I've heard. . .helped in part by the fact that these are LIVE INSTRUMENTS. I have tremendous respect for someone who can not only play, but also manage to record an acoustic live instrument like the violin or cello. Contrabass is cooler, though.

I expect this to get a lot of negative reviews because of the "poor" (read: not quite professional) mastering (and who the hell can consider production more important than arrangement/composition in the first place, anyway?) and the style in general, but as an avid fan of the crazier styles of metal out there I can say with confidence that this truly is a great song. It's got a damned BLASTBEAT at 2:22. Tremolos from hell. Excessive (in a good way) cymbals and double bass work, using damn good samples. The only real flaw in this mix is the production, which as I noted isn't all that catastrophic of a flaw. Sure, it would be NICE if the guitars had a beefy, Nuclear Blast sound to them, but it would be NICE if I had a million dollars and a pony, too.

Where might I find a tribal-sounding tom-tom set? It can be part of a regular drum kit or a stand-alone tom set. I need at least six toms of different "pitches" (yes, I know they have indefinite pitch, but I don't know what else to call it). I've looked around Hammersound already. . .

Any good choir/choir-like "aah" voice soundfonts?

This just pales in comparison to Toroian Love Song, in my opinion. Everything about it is, well, good, but. . .missing something. I can't really fault it for anything, but nothing really stands out as praiseworthy. It could very well be the choice of song to arrange rather than the fault of Silent himself, though. Thought that just occurred to me. . .the verses of this sound like a sort of dance/polka song. Just an offhand comment.

You call this having a Trigun influence? Where are the crazy-weird tom rolls? Heh. Overall though, honestly, I do like this. It doesn't really have the western feel of Trigun IMO, but it does have a synthed guitar that sounds good in its own right. I haven't heard anything from Jethro Tull so I can't comment on relation to that.

Cons: The guitar, for the most part, sounds awful. I understand that a synthed guitar is difficult to work with, but I think it would have been better with a different instrument. (Except at the beginning of the Storm Eagle theme--that works.) It's too repetitive. The beginning, for example, should be shorter--hearing the main section of the beginning repeated again after the solo bit just made me think "yeah, I've heard this part already, come on!". Maybe cutting in half would've worked better. (The problem is, it builds up to a preclimax, then drops back to something non-climactic, like repeating the same buildup again--~1:46 to ~2:06 is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.) Pros: The actual arrangement (the variations and solos) is quite good. The drums are great--while I usually hate this type of snare, I felt it worked very well with this song. As mentioned, the Storm Eagle section is great, as are the transitions.

This mix is a perfect example of how to remix. Ailsean took a mediocre VG song and turned it into one of the top five mixes on the site. The background synth and bass lines provide a wonderful atmosphere for this mix, but what REALLY takes this mix to the next level is the second guitar. Without it, this mix would still be good--the mix's first climax is when the first guitar kicks in--but using it fill in the pauses in the original theme with noodling worked so incredibly well (see: ~2:15). I hope to be able to write harmonies and complimentary melodies half as well some day. The only thing I would change is the pinch harmonic in the main guitar at about 2:30.

Ahh. . .is there any non-battle VG song that doesn't sound awesome with acoustic guitars playing the melody? The bass is a little loud at times, but it's not enough for me to call this mix anything less than great.

"Not a song", haha, some people. This is a work of art, it's immediately been vaulted into my top five OC ReMixes.

While black metal in and of itself is pretty limiting, this is a very good mix. The blastbeats are definitely cool, but go on for too long. . .maybe alternating them with a double bass roll with the snare hitting on every first beat, and a ride/crash every other beat. . . And the vocal sample is cool, where'd you get that from?