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Topic: Official remix addon 3: The Ur-Quan Hierarchy (Read 40767 times)
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Smaug:
What you want out of this project seems to be dramatically different from what others want out of the project. In fact, what I get from your review is that you don't approve of this project *at all* and you don't like the concept of remixing songs *at all*. You'd prefer remastering songs to truly and imaginatively remixing them, changing the "spirit" of the song you know and love.
Well... it puts you kind of in the position of someone reviewing horror movies who just doesn't like horror movies, or reviewing a French restaurant who just hates French cuisine. We know that the majority of what you say is going to be black bile, except in the rare cases where a remix isn't very highly remixed (except in the few good romantic, non-scary scenes in the movie; except for those generic entrees the restaurant has that don't taste very "French").
So there's no reason for us to hear it, because the fact that a remix project was created and everyone was behind it *means* that most of us strongly disagree with your basic presuppositions here. Remastering the .MODs with different instruments is a project entirely different in scope from this one; this project exists because people, unlike you, don't see songs, even really really great songs, as holy objects that must not be defiled by imitation. If an interesting theme or structure or melody has musical depth to it, it has the potential to be explored and played with in a lot of different contexts. Many great artists agree, and *do* spend a lot of time rethinking songs into new genres (moving from orchestral to techno, from ballad to dance), using the same theme in a creative way, and so on.
The most annoying thing about fandom for those of us who are merely semi-fans is the amazingly powerful hold nostalgia has on people, so that they're unwilling to admit that a version different from the one they know and love has the right to exist, much less sully their own hard drives. It's not like the original .MODs or 3DO tracks are going to be wiped from existence and replaced with the "official" remixes. Go on playing the game and listening to your same old tracks, and let those of us who don't grovel in abject worship of sacred music have our fun. It's worth offering constructive criticism for things that you think are worthy goals that can be worked toward, but if there's a project whose goals you utterly despise, announce your displeasure once and then just walk away. There's nothing more annoying than people who do things like endlessly nitpick over how each divergence from the novels in the Lord of the Rings movies *proves* Peter Jackson should've never ever been allowed to make a movie, or how each and every scene in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones *proves* the prequels should've never ever been made, and so on.
For what it's worth, I do have a soft spot for a lot of the 3DO tracks (my first exposure to the music) and I don't particularly care for some of the reworkings. I like 3DO Quasispace and the original Arilou theme (both of which are completely absent in the official remixes) and I, too, am leery about the more experimental remixes, like the Mycon and Spathi.
But I'm glad they're out there, because they provide a new option for others who want to hear something fresh, and there are some remixes (Ur-Quan, Ilwrath, Melnorme, Commander) that instantly replaced the older tracks in my affection when I heard them. I may not agree with all of the changes that were made, but I would never go as far as you did in claiming that changing an original song is a terrible sacrilege. I'd rather that for each track from this game (and for each of the tracks that contain tunes I particularly like) there were a thousand mashed-up, ripped-up, spliced-up and screwed-up remixes, with 990 of them being utter crap and maybe 10 stumbling onto sheer brilliance -- even if for all of us it'd be a different 10 for each.
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Chrispy
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I wouldnt say that Smaug stoped us from having fun playing star control with the new music...
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BeyondTheShatteredMirror
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Smaug - I'm a musician, trust me when I say that high quality samples that don't cost a tentacle or a leg are very hard to come by...
to the remix crew. good job 
whee.
Duane P.
"Beyond the Shattered Mirror"
http://www.soundclick.com/pro/?BandID=26402
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Hookturn@1000ft
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I'm pretty much concur with Smaug about the remixes. I think all those times I playe the game with the original .mods etched the tunes into my mind, and nothing less than a remake of those isn't enough.
Still there's a lot of good remixes in those 3 packs that I really like ( See Smaugs first long post to find out what )
If you guys plan to remix the Yehat tune, please do a remake aswell.
PS. Mark Vera, where's the full Hyperspace remake (?) of which you so kindly let us hear a quick teaser ( Hyperthing.mp3 1.22min ) in February? Can't wait it
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Vee-R
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Trust me, they are HARD to come by. If anyone here knows of a good set of cheap orchestral samples that can be used for more aggressive, cinematic orchestral music, then send me a mail or private message, PLEASE! The only decent sets of orchestral instruments I know of are 30+ GB in size, and cost a fortune.
Hmm, check your PM box...
btw, I seem to have posted my impressions of the new remix pack in the PNF comments thread instead of here... :-/ you can check them out over there, but I just have to state my agreement with an earlier post here - the Thraddash remix does indeed surpass the one I did, by leaps and bounds even. Good work! 
- VR, aka Ringwraith
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« Last Edit: July 05, 2004, 08:56:10 pm by VileRancour »
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"Space cannot be measured. It cannot be angered, it cannot be placated. It cannot be summed up. Space is there.
"Space is not large and it is not small. It does not live and it does not die. It does not offer truth and neither does it lie.
"Space is a remorseless, senseless, impersonal fact."
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Mark Vera
*Many bubbles*
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Me?You mean me,personally? How nice of you to ask!
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Yea I hate the remix team... They forgot to put the Yehat remix in the last three packages :-/
It was ment to be in pack 3, but we forgot that change when we looked in older song lists - and the remix isn't ready so it would have delayed pack 3 even more.
Are you doing a remix pack for melee and menu stuff? (Meaning, everything else from the smallest explosion )
I started the project myself (I have list and description of every single soundfx file in UQM), but haven't got much time for it. I'll resume on it some point. I suppose it'd be better to remix, and not try to remake the original effects; except for the obivious like pkunk insults, rebirth, ur-quan blaster. Rebirth I already made, insults need just some cleaning up and blaster is star trek sound and I have that somewhere already in higher quality.
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« Last Edit: July 06, 2004, 11:05:10 pm by Mark_Vera »
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umgahbob
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fun
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Wow, I see I missed the fireworks. 
Anyhoo, I like the songs and thought they added a lot to the atmosphere of the game. The yehat music is my favorite... so do it justice. 
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Fsi-Dib
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The Crimson Corporation
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Hmm, another remix pack, which I think was clearly worse than the earlier ones, but that's just my opinion.
Where should I start? Smaug already made some good points. First of all, I want to critisice about the Kohr-Ah, Ilwrath and Umgah songs. Kohr-Ah theme has too fast a drum beat and the bass doesn't seem to fit so well. Not that bad, not so good, three stars out of five.
Ilwrath theme is worse than the earlier remix, this one has way too much distortion. It gets so loud in one point you can't hear anything else. If you really want to use distortion, I'd suggest to use something else than a saw wave.
Umgah theme ... This one is the least I like. No, wait, I don't even like this one a bit, I hate this one. Sorry, Jouni, but this one made my ears bleed. The original had a clear beat, it didn't clip and do stuff like that, it just had weird samples and other sounds. Let's say I haven't ever played SC2 earlier in my life, and I'd hear this the first time of my life, and someone tells me this is the music of an alien race. My impression would be a 24/7 high weed growers with whom you can't converse intelligently. Umgah are pranksters who master biologics, they are not some junkies!
When I heard the Mycon theme, the first thing that popped into my mind was Farscape's theme, maybe because of the choir. That's a bonus, but the minus is the drum beat. Knowing the Mycon the drum beat should be quite simple, but the result is good, better than the original at least.
Ur-Quan theme was a good one. The "wannabe-snare" sample is disturbing and the main strings could be louder and have more ... echo? Otherwise this one would get a A++ from me.
The other two one's (Thraddash and VUX) were near perfect, the distortion was used deliberately. Thraddash was definately the best one of this pack, the drums (or the bongos and sorts) were a magnificant addition!
Am I blind or is the Yehat remix downloadable?
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« Last Edit: July 07, 2004, 09:36:14 pm by Fsi-Dib »
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The unofficial music critic.
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VOiD
*Smell* controller
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Hi y'all! Just thought I'd throw my hat in the ring here.
First; it's terribly flattering to see all this high praise of the remixes we've done, and in some cases, surprising. We've toiled and toiled with the Ur-Quan remix for months, discarding several attempts along the way, and hit some flak for the way we did it (particularily the "kssht" sample, as you've all pointed out). In contrast, the Thraddash remix was more or less completed in one night, and it's being hailed as one of the best remixes. Go figure.
Anyway, I was knee-deep in the mud in Roskilde at the time this pack was released, otherwise I would have commented on Smaug's post and the whole debacle that ensued earlier. Seeing as the whole thing seems more or less resolved now, let me simply remind you all of the words on the Precursors' website:
"Precursors' mission is to bring, to all Star Control 2 fans, wonderful Star Control 2 inspired music - not just re-makes of the old songs, but also totally different versions and brand new songs."
In essence - what we are NOT doing, are remasters.
With that in mind, it's time to go back to work on pack 4. 
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« Last Edit: July 08, 2004, 05:44:51 pm by VOiD »
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Deep Jiffa Owns j00!
