PRC280 - Results - Celebrating 20 Years of Shining Force II Part 2

The People's Remix Competition 280

PRCv11-20

Hello everyone and welcome to the People's Remix Competition!

After winning the spoon in PRC278, Evktalo did better this time and defeated one of the largest contributers in the history of PRC; Sir Nuts. Gercr claimed third and I don't have to tell who won the last place wooden spoon.

Source:

Hi Kevin,

I'm again picking a track from Shining Force II for the SFII 20th Anniversary Mix Drive! This time I'm picking the excellent Town theme. Again, I believe this can be done in a variety of styles, and hopefully it's a bit less complex than my previous pick!

MIDI: http://shiningforcecentral.com/content/midis/shiningmidi_38_1301696700.mid

MIDI is by none other than OCR's own Jarel Jones aka Arrow

Again, as an extra incentive to enter, I pledge to enter the next round and work the winner's choice into an eventual OC ReMix submission!

Last, link to the drive thread - it's going pretty good! http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=47555

cheers,

--Eino

Source: Shining Force II (GEN) - Town Theme

MIDI or check the Vgmusic link in the quote above

Game Wikipedia

ThaSauce link: Click here to submit

To submit a song at the compo page a ThaSauce account is required.

If anyone has problems with registering or uploading the song to ThaSauce, please upload the song somewhere else and post a download link in the thread. I recommend Soundcloud, don't forget to allow downloads to enable me to upload the song at ThaSauce.

To register and submit, do the following.

1. Click the ThaSauce link.
   
2. Click the 'You are not logged in' button in the upper right.
   
3. Click on 'register' (at the bottom).
   
4. Read the terms and click 'I agree to these terms'. If you don't agree with them, upload the song somewhere else and post a download link as mentioned above (by doing that, you allow me to upload the song at ThaSauce.
   
5. Continue the process by filling in your information.
   
6. A confirmation mail will be send. There might be some issues with it (meaning that you don't get it), if that is the case, upload the song somewhere else as described above.
   
7. Login with your username and password, go to the mentioned page and submit the song. If you want submit two or more songs you can create multiple ThaSauce accounts or upload the song somewhere else and post the download link.
   

GOOD LUCK!

PRC instructions

1. Limitations at ThaSauce require your entry to be 20 MB or less in size. Length for length's sake and MIDI rips are not allowed (only as Bonus Mixes). If anyone has problems with uploading songs to ThaSauce let me know (in this thread) and post a download link to your song in this thread (so I can upload it to ThaSauce).
   
2. Entries must be posted in the ThaSauce link by Wednesday October 1st 2014 at 10:59 am ThaSauce time (18:00 UTC, 19:00 GMT): check the ThaSauce page for the exact time left.
   
3. You may enter as many mixes as you like and work with as many people as you like on each mix. You are free to create a second ThaSauce account for that, it's needed to be able to upload a second remix. You can also upload it somewhere else and put a download link in this thread
   
4. Do not make qualitative comments on an entry until the results of the vote have been posted in this thread.
   
5. Mixers cannot vote for themselves but if they vote they recieve a free first place vote added onto their score.
   
6. The winner of this round may select the source for PRC281.
   
7. You can find the full rules list at this page as well.
   

For those interested, I did sort of a mix (using Automixing of Deckadance) of several (mainly dance) PRC tracks of the past 10 years (mainly tracks in season 1-5). More information, and the mix of course, can be found at this Soundcloud link!

Doulifee's PRC Archives! For information about the previous contests.

PRC ThaSauce Home Page!

Can you see Eino Keskitalo taking over OCR?

Only 6 hours left.

i´ll upload in a little.

Done

Awesome! Thank you again gercr I do hope more tracks show up, but at this rate.. I'm owing you some tunes.

Awesome! Thank you again gercr I do hope more tracks show up, but at this rate.. I'm owing you some tunes.

I hope an extension helps; two additional days.

Well, it appears that I didnt need to wake up early to finish the song...

It's results time.

Total number of mixes - 1

And the winner of PRC280 is Gercr by default.

Congratulations Gercr, you deserved to win, since you are the only one who entered. You may select a source for PRC281, send your source to me (with a MID/MP3 file, otherwise send a second source with a MID file) by PM, other options are PM me @ ThaSauce or by e-mailing to bambombim@gmail.com (I prefer a PM @Ocremix).

You may select any source from any game, as long as it doesn't have an Overclocked Remix and it hasn't been on PRC before. Check it at the list:

http://sites.google.com/site/bambombim/prc

http://bambombim.googlepages.com/PRCRemixList.doc (also downloadable via the link above).

Send your source as fast as you can, but before this Friday, 3 October 2014.

You can still vote and leave comments:

http://compo.thasauce.net/votes/index/PRC280

Would be nice to hear what you people think of the song, even if there is no competition.

Already sent the source, BTW.

Feedback it is!

This spacey/floaty, kind of fusion-jazzy style is a very interesting direction to take the source into. This was exactly what I had in mind - that the source would probably work well in many different styles and this was very exciting to hear!

I couldn't really (easily, from memory alone) connect the beginning to the source, but when the synth comes in around 0:42, it's really cool the (strong connection to) source emerges or appears. That was a very cool moment. Again, the second time the synth comes with a strong connection to the source around 1:51 is very cool.

The general flow of the piece is pretty static, in the sense it fades in, is quite samey throughout (with lots of noodly soloing), and fades out. The high points (in terms of dynamical arrangement) are the synth leads that connect strongly to the source. In a sense the structure almost feel like a long jammy outro, that is missing the more strongly source-based theme-establishing first half.

I think the piece would benefit greatly from more measured pacing: sections tend to bleed into each other here. Part of that is probably the drums and bass; they could more strongly signal transitions (and also, they're mixed very low). Having a more active, groovy bassline in some parts would help differentiating them. In general, sections seem to go on a bit long and the transitions between them could be stronger. (On the other hand, the dreamy flow is something you wouldn't want to lose either).

The jazzy guitar noodling in the intro is a good idea. It does feels like it goes on a little long, is a bit repetitive. You could start the guitar a bit later (f.e. 0:09) and figure a strong source-based hook for the part. Also consider shortening it so that the source/theme is established a bit sooner. Then again, I do like the dreamy flow and how the theme emerges quite late, and the unexpected chord at 0:29. Then again, you could save the chord progression until later, and cut about 0:15-0:40 (though you'd have to rethink the gradual drum introduction).

I think there could be more "ensemble" material before going to the bass solo around 1:00; strongly-identifiably using the part that follows in the source would work very well for the structure. I don't think the bass solo really clicks until 1:16 (there's a bit of overplaying IMHO - 0:57-1:02 and 1:08-1:12 are pretty good bits, following them with sustained notes would give the structure a bit of breathing space), and switching to guitar, the 1:28-1:44 soloing sounds great. Not sure about sticking to the same chord for quite so long.

I think you could get to 1:51 a bit sooner. The interplay between two synth lines during the rest of works decently well (and is clearly source-y). Only the 1:58-2:07 is pretty cramped with two busy synth lines, ending up chaotic (and perhaps also the fadeout).

Some portions do not mesh harmonically: 0:33 seems a bit odd (maybe the guitar descends strangely), 1:12-1:16 the unexpected chord is good but the bass seems to play in wrong scale or so. 1:58-2:07 the wah-style filtered synth seems to hit some off notes unpleasantly, and in the faded-out outro as well.

I think that's it. Lots of potential, loved the style and direction the original was taken into. Lots of concerns for structure and flow, I'd love to hear you rework those and expand this a bit (with more easily identifiable source usage!) - even in time for the Sega Mixer Drive show but I quite enjoyed this as a compo entry!

hey man, thanks for the feedback, really appreciate it.

I know the song had some problems, I wanted to remake the bassline, and the solos.

But to make it to the first deadline I had to rush it a little.

Then, for the second deadline I wasnt feeling like improving the song because I was kind of bored.

I dont really think I will return to this, but If you like I could send you the stems and midi files and you can rework it and fix it, and maybe add it to the megadrive

hey man, thanks for the feedback, really appreciate it.

I know the song had some problems, I wanted to remake the bassline, and the solos.

But to make it to the first deadline I had to rush it a little.

Then, for the second deadline I wasnt feeling like improving the song because I was kind of bored.

I dont really think I will return to this, but If you like I could send you the stems and midi files and you can rework it and fix it, and maybe add it to the megadrive

Yeah, I figured that time was an issue, I often have trouble with flow and structure if I have to rush for the deadline so I thought that was probably the case.

I'd LOVE the stems and MIDI files, I should very well be able to continue this piece! Maybe at the expense of my Castle piece, but collabs are cooler anyway and this is such a great theme we really should get an arrangement done of it. So yeah, send me the linkssss!