OCR01467 - *YES* F-Zero 'Voices Broken'

[JJT]

In 2003 I was a sophomore in college. My roommate owned a crappy Danelectro guitar, a crappy Squier P-Bass and an extensive collection of indie rock. This combination turned into a pretty effective outlet, and I would spend hours fumbling my clumsy piano fingers over a fretboard and experimenting with VST plugins.

Time passed.

Two semesters later I woke up and realized that I had lost an academic scholarship, gained a sense of alienation from my peers, and had somehow created a Cakewalk project full of sloppily recorded guitar/bass parts. They were fashioned into a crude likeness of the Mute City theme, and carried traces of the bands that had devoured my soul over the last year, especially Sunny Day Real Estate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_Day_Real_Estate) and The Pixies. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pixies) It sounded cool in a raw sort of way, and I got some encouraging feedback from guys like Suzuembachi, Vigilante, and Ailsean.

Ultimately, I opted to forgo the project and channel my energy into starting unsuccessful bands (http://www.championvinyl.net) and being a mediocre student athlete.

Time passed.

When I joined the panel in late 05 I decided to sit down and finish mixing this, because OCR doesn't have enough gritty mixes that sound like they were recorded in a Seattle area garage circa 1994.

Rawk.

Mixer: JigginJonT
Game: F-Zero
Track: Mute City
Title: Voices Broken

[Vig]

Well, it's no Fortnight Megamix, but what the hell.

YES

[Liontamer]

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/fzero.rsn - "Mute City" (fz-09.spc)

Well, y'all know me, I'm generally not about the lo-fi. I felt a lot of subtle details got obscured on account of the production, and wished for something cleaner. I would have liked to have heard Gray tackle the source files for a production nudge, but the overall atmosphere was very good regardless.

The arrangement on just the intro was excellent, from the guitar fade-in to the referencing of the source melody to the bass work to the percussion. The percussion work in particular was ridiculously well-written. Very very interesting to listen to on its own, I loved all of the different instruments and tones Jon employed there.

I liked wet-sounding guitars on melody at :53 for a very nice laid-back, tropical vibe. Snappy percussion at 1:17 only added to the enjoyment. Nice chill section from 1:36-2:23. The arrangement never loses track of the source material at any single point, even during the guitar soloing when the bass keep working away at it. It'll satisfy both those who want their arrangements straightforward as well as those who want lots of additive original ideas and personalization. It's really the best of both worlds, and does a great service to the source material.

Production was a hit on some level and IMO you do get a sound quality disparity with the drums vs. nearly everything else, but the writing was nothing short of A-grade/official arrange album quality. The progress on this one reflects a turbulent ride for Jon, but after hearing the WIPs for this one since a few years ago, I'm glad this one's finally seen the light.

And Champion Vinyl? Stick with that name.

YES

[GrayLightning]

Quick vote. More comments later.

Jon asked me to listen to this a few days ago and I personally loved this.

Unique, well, well above the bar stuff. Actually this might be my favorite work of Jon's on a collective level.

YES

[zircon]

I like this. Very creative in the arrangement, and also in the timbral choices. The production is a little weird at first - it's not your standard rock song by any means. But the choices made are not necessarily bad and listening to it a few times, I don't think there are any major problems. The lead is a little soft comparatively but that is not a big deal. Lots of creativity, enjoyable.

YES