Cave Story Remix Project 2

@nailcliper

Alright, suggestions noted. Actually, before I went for the "all-black-kind-of-doom" look, I did try the skulls, and there's not enough room and doesn't look as good as the all-black one if I did make that room. The red eye thing...looks plain bad when applied XD;; But I did make the whole figure of Ballos much clearer, and I think it looks better. Thanks for that!

Spoiler

@GIRakaCHEEZER

Thanks! And...Lace's idea for the first? If he's already making one then I guess I'll have to wait for it so I can make the final edit with the URL and all. Or I can just see his idea and make something out of it if he's alright with that. Or I can do it myself XD;; I'm planning to use fahrenheight's work though, since I think it REALLY fits well with the theme and the concept that's currently up:

http://fahrenheight.deviantart.com/art/Yay-for-Kanpachi-144719087

EDIT:

And here's my concept/could be final if approved or not/dunno really for the 1st album:

Spoiler

@nailcliper

By the way, I'd switch it already but I might as well wait for the final approved album art before I do, so I can re-tag everything properly and re-upload it all as well. However, general note to everyone involved, re-uploading will take long for my internet isn't exactly anywhere close to fast >>;;

 

I figured the red eye thing wouldn't work out too well. But one out of three is good for me . It does look much better now, though those things on the left(the tops of skulls?) look out of place now.

I like this art for album one, it looks really relaxed.

Quite alright. It's probably easier to do everything all at once

 

Awesome, glad you liked it, and here's the final edit to the album art then, without anything out of place

Finalized Album Art - Choirs Of Demons

Spoiler

I uploaded it directly to csrp2.org, along with the new (basically enlarged LOL) version of Azure Resonance. Already edited the "Product" page, so the two new album art should appear there. Hoping for more response on the 1st one though, so this can be done ASAP and while I'm in a working mood XD Thanks for all the suggestions nailcliper!

 

Always glad to be of help

 

[15:16] Schokobecher@fuck-the-system.biz: Hey Flashy, could you do me a little Christmas favor?
[15:16] Flashy: ahhh, what is it?
[15:17] Schokobecher@fuck-the-system.biz: Could you give these guys a shoutout on your website? http://www.csrp2.org/
[15:18] Flashy: ahh, hang on. a lil busy atm, but i'll check that out
[15:24] Schokobecher@fuck-the-system.biz: okey
[15:25] Flashy: has anyone tweeted of this?
[15:25] Flashy: i'll retweet it

Yo.

 

I'd say go ahead and finalize the first album art too if nobody else has anything to suggest.



Gir made a comment earlier that many of my remixes are too quiet. I had never really noticed this until I listened to some my my remixes right next to some of other people's, and mine are indeed noticeably quieter. You can see this visually in Audacity:

Doukutsu Death Dance (Final Battle remix by me):

Cave Story War (Final Battle remix by rtnario):

So I messed around with some compression/amplification in Audacity, and I eventually came up with something that sounded reasonably good and reasonably loud:

original
compressed

Though the compression fixes the volume issue, I feel it loses some of the musical subtlety, and sometimes the "muffled" sound in the loud sections caused by the compression sounds awkward. Even though it's at a good volume level, I sorta feel like the soft one works better, and people can just turn up the volume on their computer if it's too soft. What do y'all think?

Alternatively, if anyone else is better at "tweaking" audio files with compression or whatever than I am, maybe they could try messing with it and/or some of my other remixes to get something that sounds better?


edit: I gave a little mention to this project on the Cave Story Facebook page


edit: also, frozen, you suggested having each album as a zip, but unfortunately this particular hosting site doesn't allow uploads of more than about 10 MB at once. Supposedly, there's a way to upload faster with FTP, and maybe that would remove the limit, but when I tried it, I couldn't even get it to upload anything. Perhaps the "File Manager Pro" would work? Anyway, idk about other browsers, but in Chrome, you don't have to actually download the mp3 files; you just click the link and it starts playing in a new browser tab (and yes I know it technically is downloading, but it's less of a pain in the ass since it starts playing before it finishes downloading).

 

If everything else fails, contact me for Space on my server.

 

@nailcliper
Please re-upload Through The Labyrinth Revised 2.mp3, download link doesn't seem to work and it's an internal MediaFire problem apparently, so yeah.

@Wedge of Cheese
Hmm, I think I can try helping with that, but I also think my altering of it may change the overall sound since I'm planning to put it through different types of compressors myself. That, and you have a lot of remixes XD;;

As much as possible it's general that you're supposed to retain the dynamic range of your songs to keep everything intact, not unless you have a genre like mine and must specifically go for something loud. If it's the former, use the Amplify option of Audacity to maximize loudness (IIRC it automatically detects the loudest possible level without unnecessary clipping and compression going on. If it's the latter...I guess you're definitely gonna need to re-compress everything )


Oh, and what's wrong with a MediaFire link that has an entire album of remixes? It's not like the whole album links have to be hosted on the server itself...they can be mirrored everywhere right?

And if there are no complaints, I'm going to use the concept album art unless anyone brings anything up, k? k. XD

 

Never!

 

...care to elaborate

 

Never!

^that

 

...never to what

Also, another thing I thought before the final great big re-upload if everyone's done with their last tweaks to their remixes. Naming conventions. I'm thinking the files should follow through with CD#, track number and just title, to try and keep everything uniform and more like the album it's intended to be.

Example:

1-01_Town_of_Leaves.mp3
1-02_Village_Child.mp3
1-03_Through_the_Labyrinth.mp3
...
3-13_Core_Oppression.mp3

Of course, the underscore to substitute the space can be optional, but yeah, that's the gist of my idea for the final re-upload of all tracks.

...or we could keep it as is, but I already mentioned why we should try this XD Yay or nay?

 

Yeah, I like that, and underscores are good, as they get rid of that annoying thing where the browser converts spaces to "%20".

I'm guessing Schokobecher was being sarcastic...

As far as amping/compressing, Audacity does indeed detect the maximum that you can amp without clipping, but, in my case, that doesn't help much, since the instruments I use from my keyboard often have complex waveforms, and there are a lot of seemingly random spikes that show up in the waveform of the final mix. So there's little or no amping I can do without clipping (though I've found that if I allow just a tiny bit of clipping, it's actually not noticeable).

Did you listen to the compressed version? Like I said, it sounded somewhat awkward to me, but maybe that's just biased perception on my part, since I know very intimately what it's "supposed" to sound like.

 

Through the Labyrinth - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6JH2ZWRA
I'll try megaupload. If that doesn't work, then I'll assume it's a corruption in the file and re-record it or something

 

...
As far as amping/compressing, Audacity does indeed detect the maximum that you can amp without clipping, but, in my case, that doesn't help much, since the instruments I use from my keyboard often have complex waveforms, and there are a lot of seemingly random spikes that show up in the waveform of the final mix. So there's little or no amping I can do without clipping (though I've found that if I allow just a tiny bit of clipping, it's actually not noticeable).

Did you listen to the compressed version? Like I said, it sounded somewhat awkward to me, but maybe that's just biased perception on my part, since I know very intimately what it's "supposed" to sound like.

Ah yes, I've had this issue in the past. It's all about using the proper compression ratios. Wedge, your problem is that you are trying to compress the song in it's entirety rather than compressing each individual instrument. Compressing the final product is not a good way to go, otherwise you will get that "awkward" sound. Either you leave the tracks quiet, or you have to go back to the projects and compress each instrument track individually.
I don't know if you have software or whatever that you can do that with though. I mean, I'm guessing you're using your keyboard and not something like Sonar, ProTools, FL Studio, whatever, right? Though I'd be surprised if your keyboard didn't have have compression. But I dunno, I don't use keyboards much (even though my friend who's living with me has a super nice $3000 keyboard).

Anyway, I'm definitely no pro at compression, not like rtnario, but there's my 2 cents just the same.

 

Oic. Yes, my keyboard does have compression. However, compression is considered a DSP effect, and my keyboard has an annoyingly low limit on the number of DSP effects you can have going at once. The only one of my remixes I might be able to do this to is the piano medley, as it has only 2 tracks.


On a side note, some fun facts:

Most remixed song: Balcony (The Journey Goes On, Stronghold of the Wind, Soldier's Prayer, In the Distance, Pinnacle)
Only song to appear in all 3 albums: Pulse (The Journey Goes On, Egg No. 00, Fallen Hero)

 

If you're interested, here's an early version of the White Remix I had made:
http://www.mediafire.com/?nztwnyetmym

I decided at some point that I didn't really like it, so I gave it a rehaul.
Some of you who frequent #curlybrace might have already heard it.

 

I actually like that one better O_o

 

Just my oppinion but I think a lot more people would download the album if each CD was in its own Zip File instead of having to download every individual track..

 

I'm currently downloading all the songs and tagging them right now. I'm going to put both white remixes in there, since I think they sound different enough to be in there twice. I'm thinking after Cosmic Corridor on the Azure Resonance is a good place for it. When I finish, I think I'll and put them on mediafire or megaupload or something and let the more technologically-abled people deal with uploading it to the site.

If rtnario doesn't mind, I'm going to replace the image he used in his original tagged art with the album cover the song is coming from

Edit: http://www.mediafire.com/?84ftir7ncc9ay8m - All the tracks on the csrp2 site, plus the extra version of white, and the fixed versions of Lunar Eclipse and Through the Labyrinth. The ID3 tags should be fine, but if there's anything that can be improved upon, or if I missed something, then I'll fix it