ThaSauce: Misc. Community News

GameInformer.com Interviews Powerglove

Thu, 06 May 2010 18:55:50 PDT

If the only thing that comes to your mind when someone says the word “Powerglove” is a failed Nintendo peripheral, it’s time to start thinking differently. Powerglove is also a metal band that chugs out blisteringly brutal renditions of your favorite video game tunes. From Sonic to Final Fantasy IV, from 8-bit to MIDI, no catchy gaming song is left un-metalized.

During the middle of the band’s current two-month tour, I had the pleasure of meeting them for a nice chat over some cheeseburgers. I spoke with Chris Marchiel (guitar), Nick Avila (bass), and Bassil Silver (drums) about their favorite games, the band’s history, fan’s most requested songs, and why they think metal and video game music blend together so well. (Unfortunately, Powerglove’s additional guitarist, Alex Berkson, was unable to make it.)

Head over to GameInformer.com for the full story!

Game Music Remixer Hyadain Reveals Himself as Pro Composer

Thu, 06 May 2010 15:00:07 PDT

From Destructoid:

Japanese game music remixer and YouTube denizen Hyadain has revealed his true identity: professional composer Kenichi Maeyamada.

Hyadain, whose work originally debuted in 2008, has been known for creative remixes of famous game music, adding clever, generally humorous vocals and jokes about the game. Earlier this week he revealed his identity to the world, showcasing some of his professional work including the 11th opening to the long-running anime One Piece.

Despite his primarily silly repertoire, the revelation that Hyadain is a pro is little surprise to those who have followed his work. Some of his songs, such as his remix of the main Final Fantasy theme, showcased rather complex vocal work that your average fan isn't going to be capable of performing.

While Maeyamada is primarily a composer, it's nice to see the man behind the music can stand on his own voice. You can check out his full discography on his site.

AnotherSoundscape IndieGames.com Interview!

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 10:24:45 PDT

From ansosou.com:

An interview I did with Jeriaska for IndieGames.com JUST WENT LIVE!

I talk a bit about my work with Morsel, some of my upcoming work, indie game’s music, my work on OCR, IWADON and how I go about making music. Be sure to give it a read and leave a comment, it’s interesting stuff if you’re the least bit interested in what I do!

I’ll also take this opportunity to tell you about n.anosou, my new side-project. It’s basically a tiny little netlabel that will be mainly for me and friends/colleagues to release original music you can’t find elsewhere. The thought is releasing miniature albums with 5-7 original tracks every now and then. Keep a look out in the coming weeks for snippets from the first release and DEFINITELY look forward to the first release itself!

Nerdapalooza Lifetime WHAT?

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:32:17 PDT

hex just updated the Nerdapalooza blog, lots of cool stuff in there but WHAT A NERDAPALOOZA LIFETIME PASS? For just $350?!

Lifetime pass to any and every Nerdapalooza sponsored show

VIP Access to any Nerdapalooza show you attend (where applicable)

Nerdapalooza Final Boss Club T-Shirt

Digital copies of any and every release that Nerdapalooza makes, musical, DVD, or otherwise

Special exclusive goodie at every Nerdapalooza Annual Festival

That's BARELY more than a single entry to MAGFest with the super supported badge and (sorry Brendan) WAY better in my opinion! Holy crap. Only 50 are availible, and if I had a job I'd be CRAZY to not buy one. Anyway check out the full article for other nerdy stuffs.

BGC named a Power User of FL Studio

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:36:36 PST

From biggiantcircles.com

Hey friends and fans, some pretty cool news that I’ve been meaning to share for the past few days: The good folks at Image Line software, the makers of FL Studio have appointed me the honor of being considered a “Power User” when they found out about my use of their software for my work in Mass Effect 2.

I’m very honored and flattered by this, though truthfully I feel a little… out of place, haha. Most of their other Power Users are successful producers, DJ’s, or performers who largely deal in electronic/pop music. But it’s all good, I’m proud of my work on Mass Effect, and it looks like Image Line is as well, enough so that they figured it was worth giving me this cool badge, so to speak.

Regarding FL Studio, I’ve used it for some 6 – 7 years at this point as the primary host/sequencer program for probably over 95% of the music I’ve made. Like any software it has it’s strengths and weaknesses, but it’s definitely played a key role in all the commercial music I’ve written, whether for video games, film, or television. So thanks again, Image Line. Keep up the hard work with your software!

For more information, visit my Power User page here – http://flstudio.image-line.com/documents/jimmyhinson.html

I Fight Dragons Signs Deal with Photo Finish / Atlantic Records

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:15:02 PST

This was only a matter of time, really. I got the newsletter today explaining that I Fight Dragons has been signed by Photo Finish / Atlantic Records (the same label that handles 3OH!3, my guilty pleasure). Needless to say I'm really happy for them, but I'mma let you finish. Nah, just kidding. Just happy for'em. Below is the e-mails.

So yesterday we shared some big news, and I wanted to send it out to everyone officially today. Please excuse the length of this email, but it's a big topic. That said, feel free to skip to the end if you'd prefer :)

If you've been reading our emails / blogs / twitter lately, you've probably been suspicious as to this 'secret announcement' we keep alluding to. Well the time has come, but I feel the need to explain first.

When we began to work on demos and recordings back in 2008 for what would become I Fight Dragons and Cool Is Just A Number, we didn't have a specific 5-year plan for how things would go. Personally, I had spent the preceding couple years trying to find the kind of music I most wanted to be making, failing again and again. For half of the band, this was the first real 'band' they had ever been in, having come more from classically trained musical backgrounds.

I say all of this because at the heart of it, our fidelity has always been to the music. I think that's how it always should be. The music comes first.

Then came 2009, and we finally pushed ourselves out in public for the first time, armed only with our newly-minted EPs with their comic-booky art and our NES controllers, clad in Justice League shirts. We were scared shitless, but somehow it still felt right.

The amount of welcoming energy, support, help, and love we received right from the get-go was simply astounding. We were completely blown away by the support of people who loved our music, who agreed with what we were doing, who became a part of all of it.

I say this all because in 2009 things changed for us. We realized that although the music always has to come first, there is another layer. The true joy (at least for us) is in sharing it with people who love it as much as we do, and connecting with them, and helping them connect with each other. It's all one big self-reinforcing exponentially-expanding music-art-emotion-thought network of amazingness.

So in the fall of 2009, we took the big plunge, hitting the road full time across the nation on tour with mc chris. It was without a doubt the most exciting experience of our musical lives, playing 45 shows in 55 days over 15,000 miles, meeting new fans and connecting faces with people we had only connected with online before.

So far, so good, right? Well, yes and no. It was hard to admit for enterprising new-minded folks like ourselves, but during that tour we started to hit our limits. We were still doing the bulk of everything ourselves, marketing, distribution, web design / development, social media, PR, and more, and trying to do that while driving hundreds of miles every day and playing a show every night was simply an impossible task.

To top it all off, we're a six person band. In this brave new internet-age, artists like mc chris, Jonathan Coulton, and a handful of others have been able to forge 100% independent music careers for themselves, but almost without fail they're solo artists. They are self-produced, and more importantly they can tour with almost no expenses, which is where a lot of that living is earned. We're still just one band, one income, but with 6 mouths to feed.

So we had to admit that we needed to grow.

This is where the big news comes in. Since late August of 2009, we've been talking with Photo Finish / Atlantic Records about signing I Fight Dragons and helping us expand what we do and connect with even more people on a larger scale.

They have been amazing throughout the whole process, incredibly excited about everything that we've done already, and very interested in preserving our creative control. They're also incredibly open to continuing this new kind of connection we have with fans, and helping it grow in new and exciting ways, which is incredibly important to us. Not to mention the fact that so many of our musical inspirations have been on (and continue to be on!) Atlantic Records. It's a label with both an incredible history and a desire to grow and change with the future. Photo Finish is an arm of Atlantic which has acts such as 3OH!3, and they are really awesome with internet-centric cool ideas, which we definitely love.

So, as of February 4, 2010, we are officially announcing that I Fight Dragons is joining the Photo Finish / Atlantic Records roster.

Now some of you may know how big a deal this is, but some may not. So just what does this mean?

Well for one, "Heads Up, Hearts Down" is currently #5 on Denver's top Alternative Rock station, KTCL 93.3. Atlantic's awesome radio team will start to take it to stations all across the nation in the next few weeks, and before you know it, you might start to hear Chiptune-Rock on your radio dial. Nutso, right?

Another difference is that we're going to record and release our debut full-length album with Photo Finish / Atlantic. It will be available in retail stores across the nation, and the new singles will also be taken to radio by their intrepid team. To top it off, they are giving us huge amounts of creative control, and we are incredibly excited about the album.

The final, partially related, HUGE piece of news is that we'll be headed out on tour this spring with our fellow Atlantic Records bands 3OH!3 (Photo Finish), Cobra Starship (Fueled by Ramen), and Travis McCoy (of Gym Class Heroes, on Fueled by Ramen). The tour is called the MTV "Too Fast For Love" tour, and the first announced dates are up on our site: ifightdragons.com/shows.html, with more to come. We are going to be playing some huge rock shows!!

So to sum it all up, this is a big big step forward for us. We hope you will join us in celebrating, and we're happy to answer any questions you have, since we know this is a lot to take in. You can reply to this email, or post a comment on the blog entry that contains all of this info Here. We sincerely hope you're as happy as we are, and that you'll take this step with us on this crazy road to wherever the heck it is we're going :)

Sincerely,

-Your Friendly Neighborhood Dragon Fighters:
Brian, Bill, Hari, Laura, Packy, and Chad

PS - we only have a handful left of the 500 DVDs that went on sale 2 weeks ago! We'll probably run out by the end of this week, so make sure to get yours asap if you want one: (Click Here for DVD Info)

The Nerdy Show podcast counts down their top 20 nerdy things of 2009

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:23:35 PST

From GM4A:

Including many of the artists which we feature here, on this very site regularly, the Nerdy Show recently counted down their favorite nerdy things of 2009. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we present to you the Final Boss of 2009! In this episode we unleash our list of the Top Twenty Nerdy THINGS of 2009, in a VERY specific order. Movies, video games, people, music, concepts – if it’s nerdy then we judged its worth.”

The gang discuss their picks, in between playing music from the releases on the list, including tracks from videogame orchestra, I Fight Dragons, The Protomen and Pixelh8. Head on over to the Nerdy Show website, and download Episode 18 :: 2009 Final Boss now!

Week in Video Game Inspired Music 11/30-12/06

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:29:53 PST

From GameMusic4All:

This week in VGIM, the biggest thing, IS OUR OBVIOUS REDESIGN! Did you not notice!? We got us some nice forums as well too! Well besides that we have some cool news stories, even an in-depth look at the history of chiptunes.

Also a few new podcasts and a couple great remixes (Link’s Awakening anyone?). Up top we have some fantastic art by Rocco D Commisso who you might know from the great Megas inspired art we featured last year. “Galaga” is the simple name of this great pin-up piece. Also congrats to good pal jmr for his first piece published on OCReMix!

NEWS

Interview: Concerto Tactics – The Music of Hiroki Kikuta and Hitoshi Sakimoto via Gamasutra

Endless loop: A brief history of chiptunes via Transformative Works and Cultures

Microtonal Chipmusic Compilation taking submissions via chiptune musician Little-Scale

Interview with Shota Nakama of the Video Game Orchestra

Homeward Bound Earthbound Review by Chris Pranger

Sound Current: ‘Yokohama’s MediaMix ‘09 – Game Remixers Unite’ via GameSetWatch

For the full story check out GameMusic4all.

This Week in Video Game Inspired Music

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:03:52 PST

From GameMusicForAll:

I have decided to start a brand new weekly section. Every Sunday I shall bring together the smaller links I dig up every week and introduce them to you in this segment. As well as update you on the latest releases out ofRemix: Tha Sauce and OverClocked ReMix.

I also hope to toss up some random art to kick off every article, like this awesome painting above byfunnelbc.

As with any other article or news, if you have a good link to send my way for this article, definitely get in touch!

Articles
Sound Current: 2 Player Productions – Reformatting PAX for DVD from GameSetWatch

An audience with Video Games Live’s Tommy Tallarico from geeks.co.uk

Designers Announced for Exclusive Visualist T-Shirts from Blip Festival

Shows & Podcasts
Digital Ensemble #207 and #208 with Special Guests!
A bicycle built for three
Alphabutt Soup

Podcast: NLFM Episode 1 – Open For Business! from Nintendo Life

Remixes
Latest Remix: Tha Sauce songs
Battle in the Ancient Temple (Zelda: Majora’s Mask) by Liquid Wind

Altar Perception (Tales of Symphonia) by Monobrow

Autumn in Yesteryear Guardia (Chrono Trigger) by Protricity

Smithy is Going Down (Super Mario RPG) by NintenJoe 64

Smoothe Criminals (Xenogears) by The Vagrance

Meteorites and Rabbits (Super Mario Galaxy) by jmr

Tryst With the Enemy (Metroid Fusion) by Protricity

Worm Grinder (Super Metroid) by Liquid Wind

Pangaea’s Onomotapoeia (Secret of Evermore) by Meteo Xavier

Crepuscle Results (Sonic 2) by Xenon Odyssey

Investigating Outer Heaven (Metal Gear) by Mutherpluckin’ B

Latest OCReMix releases
Berinstar (Super Metroid) by 8 Bit Instrumental

The Masked Man (Street Fighter II: The World Warrior) by Nutritious

A Mighty Enemy on the Battlefield (Lost Odyssey) by The Dual Dragons

Minibadass (Aquaria) by Daniel Baranowsky

Ravaging Reptile (Mega Man 3) by AeroZ

Psi Piano Omega (EarthBound) by Shnabubula

BTMNTBAMLOL (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project) by Danimal Cannon, KBart, Stemage

And finally, we end with this recent video from dntsje called Bad Apple!! on LCD Screen 128×64 pixels.

Nitro Game Injection #124: Swordfish Ride

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:37:31 PST

Hiatus? What hiatus? Kyle & Larry are back to give you a dose of great game music. On this episode, the duo talk weather, surf rock, Captain Lou Albano, and of course, games and game music. Album reviews return to NGI, and the guys take an in-depth look at Metroid Metal’s newest release, Varia Suite.For shownotes and more visit the NGI website.

Nekofrog presents: The Agony of Man ALBUM PREVIEW

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:08:49 PDT

Nekofrog posted on OverClocked ReMix:

My debut album is nearing completion, but for a few reasons that cannot be revealed here, it will be some months before it finally sees an official release. Until then, I figured I'd throw up a preview of what's to come. This preview consists of two fully completed (length-wise) songs, and one abbreviated song.

Entitled "The Agony of Man", this album features a trilogy of songs depicting the birth, life, and death of a man, detailing the major events that define his tragic life. It also spans various different genres of metal, including thrash metal, progressive metal, death metal, melo-death, and many others.

Track 1: This song is entitled "Overdose", and is unrelated to the trilogy. Some of the other musicians that I've shown the project to have described this song as progressive/melodic death metal, however it lacks any type of vocals. So if you're one of those types who likes the guitar of melodic or progressive death metal but can't get past the cookie monster vocals, this is probably right up your ally.

Track 2: This song is entitled "The Funeral", and is the middle part of the aforementioned trilogy. It details the death and laying to rest of the man's wife, and his regret at having ever met her and inadvertently causing her death. EMO FAGGOT. Vocals (yes, this song has vocals) were recorded by DrumUltima of, derp, OCR fame.

Track 3: This song is entitled "Descent", and is unrelated to the trilogy. This song takes elements from thrash metal more than anything, with some fast riffing near the fadeout. This track is going to be a doozy when the full thing is unleashed :)

In the coming months, a few more tunes might be "leaked" up until the album's final release. Thanks for listening, I'd appreciate some comments if you enjoyed it, or otherwise.

Nerdapalooza Highlights Video

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:15:09 PDT

Z poster on Hipster, Please!:

I'm really trying to stop rambling on about Nerdapalooza, as I understand that it's sort of asinine for me to do so. I mean, I wasn't even there!

Still, I think this is just a little too interesting not to pass along. It's an event recap by Corey Clark that my boy MadHatter turned me on to. It features music by Schaffer the Darklord, performance clips from The Grammar Club, The Megas, MCs Frontalot and Lars, and some great interview snippets with the fans, performers and organizers. Give it a look-see. Then be sure to rate, comment and/or pass it on.

McVaffe Launches McVaffe.com

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:45:07 PDT

McVaffe posted on OverClocked ReMix:

I'm not that comfortable with shameless plugs, but I told people who have asked me through the years that as soon as I was able to put together a new site of my new and old work, that I would do so. And so I have, so here it is:

http://www.mcvaffe.com

So far the site contains the vast majority of my work, much of it which was created in the late '90s and early 2000's when I joined the site and began submitting remixes. It's no coincidence that my discovery of Overclocked led to what was one of my greatest periods of regular output.

The fact that I owed such a huge debt of gratitude to OCRemix and to its community members through the years for supporting, inspiring, and shaping the way I developed my sound led me to post about the site here. I searched for all of the old original remix WAVs I could find, and uploaded them in higher bitrates than I originally submitted here. As well, there are some remixes there that either didn't fit the guidelines of OCR, or ones I never quite felt polished enough to submit.

For any Youtube fans, I spent over a week creating original game captures and editing videos to some of my remixes, which to me increases the nostalgia factor tenfold. It was a ton of work but it was a great experience playing the games again and seeing Sonic snowboard down a mountain, or Mario chase a giant eel. It reminded me so much of why I loved games and game music in the first place. Link is below:

http://www.youtube.com/mcvaffe

Finally, I wanted to share part of a new project I'm working on with a close friend and artist. It may somewhat be considered an original album, but the presentation will be revealed once we figure out how we will put everything together. Short version: It's a personal project of original music based on the inspiration of the amazing composers who originally got me into game music composing and remixing. It's simple, sweet, and hopefully will remind listeners of the good old days of Super NES and PS1 RPGs from which I've drawn so much inspiration through the years. The music can be found on the front of www.mcvaffe.com or from the youtube link.

And as for a new remix, Jimmy Hinson told me to work on Earthworm Jim. And I can't not listen to Jimmy Hinson now...

Thanks for reading all my crap guys! For those who don't know I lost my job of over 11 years about 3 months ago, which was especially hard for the farewells I had to say to people I've spent years working with day in and day out. The silver lining to that event was the extra time I'm having to refocus, and work on projects like this. I hope you enjoy the site, find stuff you like, and that I may continue to create stuff that you can enjoy in the future. Thanks for reading, and for lending your ears.

I've taken this time to add McVaffe's website, as well as Anosou's, to the Artists tab on ThaSauce. I'll be looking for more artist blogs and websites to add to the pages soon, and if you have any suggestions, be sure to let me know.

OC ReMix Special on NEW Groove Bias Drum Library!

Sun, 31 May 2009 16:01:28 PDT

Special offer for OCR members only! $10 off and $10 of each sale gets donated to the site! Click here to get the Kontakt 2/EXS/Halion version, and here for the Reason version.

I'm proud to announce that the newest Impact Soundworks sample library, Groove Bias: Vintage Drum Sounds, is officially available at a special price for OC ReMix members! Not only arebustatunez and I offering this sound collection at a discount, but for every copy we sell we'll donate $10 to OCR.

Just remember to use the purchase links in THIS POST. We've spent over half a year working on this collection and we're really proud of the final result - but don't take our word for it... read on for more info + demos.

The goal of this project was to create a set of deeply sampled acoustic drumkits inspired by classic 50s, 60s and 70s records and the timeless breakbeats we all know and love. For decades, these sounds have been imitated and sampled over and over, but many producers have preferred to try and capture old kits with pristine, modern recording methods. Not so with this library. Our motto was "the more tubes, the better," and we armed ourselves to the teeth with beat-up mics, analog gear, vintage drums and tape machines.

Key Features:

* Three custom drum kits and a set of percussion recorded at three separate studios
* Only classic kits, gear, mics and techniques used for a true vintage sound.
* 3,500 samples (4gb) of unlocked audio content for your editing pleasure.
* Recorded into Pro Tools|HD in 24/96 format (16/44.1 for NNXT)
* Intensive sampling - a minimum of 5 RRs and 5 velos per kit part, up to 10 RRs and 16 velos!
* Full kit patches AND individual components so you can construct your own Frankenstein kits.
* Custom scripted patches for Kontakt and combis in NN-XT.
* Intuitive GM mapping for compatibility with any project or MIDI.
* Simplified mixing; designed with a great sound right out of the box.
* Additional overhead/room patches for user-controllable ambiance.
* A total of five snares, four kicks, nine toms, three hats (closed, loose, open, pedal), two rides, two crashes, two splashes, two rims, handclaps, tambourine, shaker, agogo, bongos, woodblocks, cowbell and triangle!

A little about the kits...

---
"Superfreak" (Milkboy Studios, Ardmore, PA) - As the name suggests, most of this 60s Ludwig 'Silver Comet' kit is rumored to have originally belonged to a certain funk music icon. The drums were recorded using high-end ribbon mics into an all-analog signal path, most notably a 70s Neve console with a few busted channels and lots of character. Outboard processors in the chain included gear by Empirical Labs, Tube-Tech, and Anthony DeMaria Labs. The saturation present on the higher velocities of some of the sounds, like the kick and snare, came solely from high gain running through all the tubes; no overdrive, distortion, or compressor saturation was applied!

"Tape" (The Audio Lab, Milville, NJ) - This one was a real hybrid, the centerpiece being a 30s Ludwig Pioneer Black Beauty snare. The kicks and toms were Tamburo original series, along with an extra 22" Tama kick. Our hats, cymbals and rides were a mishmash of faded, junked up old metal… just what we wanted. Everything in the kit was recorded through an analog signal path then finally to an authentic, 24-track Otari tape machine before being dumped into Pro Tools. Mics used for this kit ranged in age and manufacturer. Various workhorse mics from EV, Sennheiser, Shure and Audix were used throughout, and to get the trashy, crunchy room sound, we used a trashy 70s General Electric cassette recorder mic along with an RCA SK-30.

"Herodotus" (Real Music Media, Minneapolis, MN)) - John Gump (a.k.a. KVRAudio member Herodotus) recorded this drum set, which is the same make and model as Cream drummer Ginger Baker's drums! Mics used were a pair of Neumann KM-184s and Sennheiser 441s plus a Royer R-121. All of this went into some serious outboard gear like a classic UA 1176, Manley Labs VOXBOX, UA 2-610S and Manley Vari-Mu before finally going to a TASCAM reel-to-reel tape machine to seal the deal.

---

You can purchase Groove Bias today for a special OCR price of $89 (KT/Hal/EXS) or $79 (NNXT) via PayPal: make sure to use these links as they're for OCR members only!

Purchase -> Kontakt/EXS-24/Halion Version

Purchase -> Reason Version

10% of each sale will be donated to OCR! You'll receive your download link within 24 hours (usually much faster.) While you're waiting, check out the PDF product manual and the video/audio demos below!

Live Performance Video Demo (produced by Brandon Bush)

Jake Kaufman - "Slap Them Skins" / Drums Only (classic 60s funk)

Brandon Bush - "Spies Like Us" (Spy Hunter remix) / Drums Only (secret agent funk)

Andrew Aversa - "Ragol Weather" / Drums Only (synth/jazz fusion)

Andrew Aversa - "Acoustic DNB"

Virt (Jake Kaufman) - "World's Most Wanted Wiener" (GB Edit) (MJ-style funk)

tefnek - "Big n' Nasty" (big beat)

ps. Thanks to pixietricks for the Groove Bias logo and SgtRama for the product UI!

OverClocked ReMix StarCraft Tournament

Sat, 23 May 2009 16:23:08 PDT

garian posted on the OCReMix forums:

Ok guys! I was saying the other day on IRC that we should have a small-potatoes SC tournament, and even offered to donate 20 dollars for a prize (either cash or whatever you guys would deem appropriate)! I was hearing that there is already some interest (most notably Nekofrog, Tensei-san, and Battousai) and wanted to see if there were other folks who'd want to get in on something like this.

I was figuring that we could even record the replays with commentary if people were comfortable having other folks watch their games... even though I doubt many of us here are really "good enough" to warrant actually having a VOD, it'd be nice to see our own flaws and compare strats.

What do you guys think? You can message me on IRC or Steam (add me: https://steamcommunity.com/id/garianse) but please not here because I hardly ever check my messages or email.

Update May 22:
It seems most people want to have two tourneys, a 1v1 series and a 2v2 series pairing people by their skill. Each round of the tournament will be decided by a best of 3 matches. I'm thinking that we should maybe aim for a mid-to-late June date to begin playing, but I don't want that to be set in stone until we've got some more of the details hammered out. If you're wanting to "sign up," go ahead and make a post with the race you play and the name you'll be playing under. Check this post for future updates!

Nerdapalooza; Summer MAGFest? Well kinda...

Fri, 22 May 2009 15:04:54 PDT

Most people know by now that I've been a resident of Florida all my life, and that I moved to Orlando a few years ago to attend Full Sail University's Computer Animation Bachelors of Science Degree problem. Since I didn't have a car I lived pretty close to campus, and I got pretty familiar with the surrounding area in the Comic Shop down the street. It was through this comic shop that I got to meet one of my favorite musicians, as well as learned about Nerdapalooza where myf (aka Mythril Nazgul) would be performing just a few days later.

I planned to walk the 8 miles it'd take to get there if I couldn't find a ride, and luckily I did find a ride, because 8 miles is a lot longer than it seems on MapQuest. When I got there I was greeted by myf himself, along with DJ Snyder of the Grammar Club, who happened to be sitting with MC Frontalot and Schaffer the Darklord. Kind of intense stuff, really. Until then I'd only heard/seen MC Frontalot through Penny Arcade and G4, but now he's sitting in front of me. Inside I saw ytcracker going through songs on his laptop and I met artists like Random and Zealous1 and was completely blown away. I had no idea that Orlando was so rich with nerd culture (though I suppose I should) and I was told by quite a few people that it was getting bigger every day.

Well now Nerdapalooza 2009 is coming up, and it's bigger than ever. So big that mc chris has already been confirmed as a guest, as well as Beefy and Shael Riley of the Grammar Club in their first ever live performance. Suzu and starla are making serious attempts to come join the awesome, rumor has it AE might be making an appearance, and I've recently heard via twitter that OCR may be cooking something up as well. You can bet ThaSauce'll be out in full force, but what about you?

Nerdapalooza is the closest thing to a summer MAGFest we have going right now. A mid-year nerd gathering with more music than you can handle.

For up to the minute updates, and full line-up as it's announced be sure to check out the Nerdapalooza website (which recently got a facelift) at http://nerdapaloozafest.com.

Web Game 'Fathom' feat. the music of Danny Baranowsky

Tue, 19 May 2009 02:45:44 PDT

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to talk to Danny Baranowsky about an upcoming game project for which he was writing music for. Well, I didn't have to wait too long, and now have had the opportunity to bring to you news of what appears to be an excellent game, with most excellent music.
Fathom. A web game by Adam Saltsman, featuring the music of Danny Baranowsky was just recently released, and it is GOOD!

http://adamatomic.com/fathom/

The game features Danny's music, which is completely chiptune, and most excellent. In fact, if you'd like to listen to a track directly from the game, there is a free one linked in the article from Offworld.com, where Danny himself linked me to show off the new game and his music.

http://www.offworld.com/2009/05/gimme-indie-game-the-hidden-de.html

Also, be sure to check out db Soundworks, Danny's personal website which featuers news as well as games he's worked on. It also features a chiptune jukebox where you can stream music right ont he site. It's absolutely awesome!

In review of the game, let's just say I haven't played through as much as I'd like to, but from what I've played so far, it looks very, very good. Plenty of depth to it, and worth the time to just sit and play with it.

Thank you Danny for keeping me up to date with your works!

New ReMixing Site in the Works

Sat, 09 May 2009 14:53:38 PDT

Out of the shadows comes quintin3265 with a post on OverClocked ReMix:

Hi,

Even though I've been following the remixing community for close to fifteen years, believe it or not, this is my first post here. I'd like to call people's attention to remixSite, a new video game music site I've designed with the significant help of several others.

I started out trying to learn symfony and JQuery, then attended some video game music concerts, and somehow ended up with an entire website for originals and arrangements of game music.

The site allows users to post either final versions of songs or works in progress, which are indicated by a separate flag. Songs can be rated and reviewed, and artists can post updates to songs (for example, a better quality sample or a remade passage). You can associate your songs to original tracks and search to find if others have remixed those tracks.

Take a look at http://test.remixsite.org and see for yourself. The site needs further testing and I wouldn't consider it worthy of production use until people have messed around with it a bit more. Feel free to upload some songs and post comments. There is a bug tracking system set up and feature requests are welcome.

remixSite is not designed to compete with Overclocked Remix, as it has a different structure and has no judging criteria. In fact, if people are interested in remixSite, I would prefer to work with community members to integrate it with the various music sites, instead of, for example, creating yet another forum.

Comments welcome!

-Steve

In a short conversation in #ocremix everyone had a lot of different opions. Some people questioned the need for yet another site, while others embraced the idea of a functional idea solution to what VGMix has been trying to do for about 3 years.

I agree the site does a much better job filling the VGMix-esque niche and has a pretty different mission than that of OverClocked ReMix or ReMix:ThaSauce. Right now it has some fancy AJAX modules and some nifty effects (with problems of their own); the VGMdb integration is particularly nice, however I feel it's just not far enough into the project to form any real opinions.

And finally: I think it's particularly important to note that this site promotes synergy (like a boss).

OverCoat Goes to Cleveland [Blockparty 2009]

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:28:59 PDT

Blockparty Website
Blockparty Compo Results

So I braved the awful flight to Cleveland [and Cleveland itself] for Blockparty, which is hosted by Notacon, met up with virt, necros, a handful of people from #mod_shrine, and we just nerded it up for a full weekend. Consumed gallons of cocaine, coded java on cell phones, listened to Gargaj regale stories of demoparties gone by, and had probably the worst "home cooked italian" food in all of Cleveland. All in all, except for the whole Cleveland part, fun times were had. I even got 6th in the allgear music compo! Hoohah!

You can read virt's writeup here.

MAGFest music director and musician Dom featured in LittleBigPlanet blog

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 02:38:15 PDT

From GM4A:

Amazing musician, MAGFest music director, and constant supporter of everything video game music (including this here site), Dominic Cerquetti, or the more friendly Dom as he is known around these parts, was recently featured in the Media Molecule blog. The blog for the creators of the PS3 game LittleBigPlanet.

He was featured in one of their blog posts thanks to Dom's awesome keyboard work on a track from LittleBigPlanet. You can watch the impressive video below, and if you dig it be sure to check out Dom's Live Videogame Music Show every other Tuesday, in where he takes live requests for any and all video game songs!