[djpretzel]

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

[Lucavi00]

its nice, i dont know what else to say. Im not too picky about my game music so i like them all. This one is very nice though

/10

:P :P

[coreycubed]

A nice soft piece, fits well into my favorite bunch of remixes. Good beat, and the hushed voices kinda snuck up on me, hehe. Well done! I'd love to hear more stuff like this. :)

[Txai]

Joshua Morse is a great ReMixer. I like 'Frappe Cafe Vibe' and recently 'J! Groove'. His songs are memories.

Wow, and this stuff is very cool. On beginning has some tropical drums quite awesome. The production did a very clean transition. Mainly on 02:56 with the cute bells. The arrangement is my favourite thing about this ReMix. The piano was pretty played and created a nice melody. An interesting effect was made by the electronic voices. Also the dynamic strings was really a good surprise.

Indeed it´s really a great job. Very calm, atmospheric and pleasant. The original track was the second stage from Sonic 1. And the skills of the ReMixer actually did me very happy.

[DCT]

Josh Morse is beyond awesome; don't sleep on him.

Urbanizm+1

-DCT

[myf]

I'm taking some issue with the snare that seemes to lack change up for the most part, while standing out a bit too much for its lack of change. (Did that much make sense?)

Other than that, funky bass, good stuff. Enjoyable and light-hearted. What we've generally come to expect from Joshua Morse.

[RoeTaKa]

I only found out about Josh after his DD3 mix and am really fond of his material, great style and play on the material.

Alot of nice elements fill this up nicely from start to finish, it's just one of them lovely groove tunes I could stick this on for hours and not be fussed.

Really good rhythm and melody with the piano, sucks you in and puts a good dig into the flow. Rhodesy/Elec Pianos juice this up like being pelted with juicey fruits, the imagery is as satisfying as the sound.

Drums are on the repeat schedule, but complimentive none the least. Change in sound or certain samples might have made a nice variation but honestly I haven't heard what that might be like so it just isn't knocking me dry. Liking it.

The progression and overall fulfillment justifies the length, the mix is passing by quite quickly because it's quite satisfying at the right moments.

Great mix, more Josh!

[GeckoYamori]

Finally some actual serious House material.

[Rexy]

Just was when I was getting into J! Groove... :P

To bring my thoughts about this in a nutshell, I'm actually surprised with what came around. Seeing Joshua go towards the realms of laid-back house has done well to broaden upon his musicianship while going as far as showing every ounce of his creative stamina into the composition. I actually thought the transitions and basic technical input were a very, VERY big improvement in comparison to his recent Double Dragon 3 work (which like I emphasized I ended up digging it); add to the time of the week this has been uploaded and I think everyone should agree that it's one of those tracks to easily uplift your spirit for the weekend. Good call.

I also have my fair share of in-depth commentary to match, mind you:

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Remix

Having almost mixed the tune myself, I can sense that it's got some strong familiarities to the source material in chord progressions and melodic structure, although much of the pieces that made the original seemed to have been disconnected and reformed to generate a refreshing variation for the site. In terms of execution I'm down with much of what has managed to come down with his contributions here - fitting for the genre while at the same time doing well to attract its audience that way. Even through there I noticed variations on the theme by a lot of rhythmic reincarnations when appropriate as well as some additional melodic patterns to help broaden on that aspect of the track. Generally the structure for this is also well done to adapt to what's here; if there's anything that seemed to blemish the arrangement somewhat it’s what I think is a lack of an introduction, if not the fact that it seemed to be a bit sudden coming in with a full accompaniment set getting through straight away. Outside from there I feel that the listener is in for a smooth ride all the way through, and - no offense to djp or anyone else who covered the Marble Zone theme in the past - I feel this has to be one of the best variations of said BGM granted in a long while.

Creativity

A lot of the improvisations caught my eye, especially with most of the later ones that have helped to add to a further reflective garb; one that managed to grab my interest more than ever was the doubling up with the strings at 3:30. Given the general laid back atmosphere for the whole thing the linking together of the individual components of the track are that seamless you'd barely notice what's happening; I was hoping for some steadier drum transitions though but that's probably nothing more than a nitpick. In terms of a fresh pace I would have wanted to hear some more diverse arrangement going on within the accompaniment to match the mighty potential as shown in the melody lines, although that could be a light blemish to fit within a piece like this. Fortunately enough there isn't much to consider repetitive in this especially through a song that has been more dependant on groove; can be argued that some of the percussion riffs could have been a bit more varied but there's enough techniques lying towards backing variation and progressive layering to help make that less of a quirk. So I can say that when going through the mix, I feel that Joshua has been able to pull out a fair amount of surprises in terms of compositional technique to surprise his target audience, which I feel have worked well to make it worthy of its direct posting; heck, I felt that much of the creative aspects here are more accessible to me than were in J! Groove, so that can be saying something.

Production

The samples are very slick and fitting for the genre, especially with much of the synths and backing instrumentation; I can't say I'm much of a fan of the piano though as I feel that to make it sound a bit more like a realistic instrument it could have been given a softer attack, although it's still got its moments when executed down the line. Much of the sound spectrum wanted to aim towards low EQs and sounds, which I feel has done well to add to the jazz-like sound that he was looking for with his work; if anything I would have wanted more reverb on the chromatic instrumentation but that's probably just me. I found the encoding to fit very well - not many problems in terms of the overall clarity, so that's firm to know. The sound levels are generally well executed here in terms of sound balance, although I would have wanted a little bit more attention towards the drums and bass to match with some of the other instruments. And going towards the panning techniques, all the instruments have been identified in a crisp and clean fashion at their appropriate places around the field, all in a firm balance to help make that part stand out. My criticisms for this aspect of the mix aren't saying that I'm not too hot with this area, because I thought it was still well done while fitting the scopes of the genre; with a bit of closer attention to the "realistic" instrumentation and their processes it might have stood up to be a bit stronger. Otherwise, this is just fine.

---

I actually dig a lot of what came together with this. Gecko's right in saying that Hosue needed to be taken seriously in a mix, and Joshua here has done just that while in the same time showing a creative spin on a commonly covered theme in the first Sonic title. (and before you state otherwise, just look at the flood of those mixes at VGMix.) Some of its areas for improvement seem to show in the technical side, although those that can look beyond that will be able to see into a very charming mix from start to finish.

So yeah, it's good to see Joshua get back in the habit. Let's hope he comes forth with more material in the future, whether it's here, at the Urbanizm project or otherwise :D

[chthonic]

This is clearly an example of groove-bias and should have recieved the rejection form letter. It is not possible for something to continue for six minutes and twenty seconds and still be interesting the whole time. I am using bold to emphasize how serious I am about this issue.

Wait.

Yeah, this is awesome. I could have used a little more open high hat and a little less snare to give it more of a house feel, but that's nitpicking. Overall very groovy and enjoyable.

-chth