[djpretzel]

This was one of those Psygnosis games on Amiga that made u wanna get game over, just to hear the music.
I'm attaching the original, since it is so small. Just in case you havn't played the game.
"If you don't succeed at once, try and try again"
Those ID3v2tag-guidelines blew right by me, tried downloading a few apps, but none edited anything other than the classic tags (album, year and so on).

/Erik Sundström

[Liontamer]

http://www.exotica.org.uk/tunes/arch...im/Awesome.lha - mod.g1a

Nice, this is the same guy who sent in that Pinball Dreams mix, which showed a lot of potential. Picked the game over theme from a game with an unlikely title, "Awesome". Yes, it exists. Pretty good original, all things considered.

Nice intro with the strings & drums. Production sounds really lo-fi/muddy unfortunately. Melody comes in at :28, and at the same time the song sounded a little swamped with whatever string or vox ambiance you had going on.

Great buildup from :55-1:05, and nice increase in the energy at 1:05 bringing in the punchy percussion, which could have used a denser/meatier sound to fill out the soundfield more, IMO. Just personal preference perhaps, but the tone sounded bland and didn't quite gel with the rest of the instrumentation choices. They sounded too upfront, but could use some delay or some other effects. The drum patterns here also sounds a bit too rigid/robotic.

Minor point, but the pause at 1:55 didn't quite work to me. I wouldn't have completely faded the track out there. There was also a good point made by Gray that the sounds are a bit unbalanced. For example, at 1:56 you had some nice writing ideas on the support strings that got nearly completely buried.

Nice freestylish/original stuff at 2:10 with the lead synth. It could have stuck out in the foreground a little more, but was ok where it was. It was shrill enough at times where raising the volume much would have been detrimental.

Drums at 3:53 were a lot weaker and sounded ultra-flimsy. Didn't like the tone on them again. Nonetheless, the writing/concepts/arrangement were pretty solid. And it's good to hear a track that makes proper use of a fadeout ending.

The EQing doesn't need as drastic work as the Pinball Dreams mix did, but it does need some more love on the high-end IMO. I know it's literally not that simple, but bumping up the 14K preamp by about +7.5db in Winamp gave a cleaner, clearer sound without ruining the song's atmosphere, so boosting the treble frequencies seems like the way to go. It still sounds kind of lo-fi that way, but not nearly as much.

Though I had issue with the drums not meshing well enough, I really liked the arrangement ideas. The source is very creatively handled, and the original writing integrates seamlessly with the arranged sections. Once you get your production skills up, your material will sound that much stronger and polished.

I can understand NOs, in that the production is lackluster as is, and the drums could sound less robotic and fit better. Despite the issues, I'm ok going conditional YES (very borderline) if/when the treble's boosted. Otherwise, it'll be NO (refine/resubmit). Don't really see the panel going for this, but who knows. I'm tentative enough where I can change my mind on it as well.

I liked the arrangement ideas you had in the DKC arrangement on your site ("Schlong Aqua") once you started getting more interpretive, but that one had weak, boring (and repetitive) drums as well. So it's good to see that aspect of your work improve to some degree with your more recent tracks. Keep up the improvement, please.

[GrayLightning]

The original is simplistic, old, repetitive, and ugly sounding. It really does show the amount of creativity you've put in this mix.

The beginning parts underwhelmed me a little, especially when you had the orchestral snare playing, it sounded out of place. Also for some reason it sounded much more upfront than your other orchestral instruments. Usually you'd want to put that further back. Even if going for the london and hollywood sound usually those drums/perc that are put up front are the more exotic or electronic stuff. But fine...

After that part though things really start to pick up when the synths and the beat start to come in at around the one minute mark. After that this one won me over.

The pads, sounds, dense textures were great. This reminded me of a Phantasy Star Online soundtrack touched up. Some of your sounds are throwback sounds, there's lots of choir synths that harken back to the late 80s but you use them all so well. Component synthesis works so well collectively here that it's really a greater sum than the whole of its parts. The production is generally good, especially for this genre. I don't necessarily think this really needs more treble, as a lot of music of this nature works best with heavier middle and bottom frequencies, that's what gives it such density. If however this doesn't pass and you were to tweak, larry's EQ advice only works for winamp - those don't correspond equally with music software EQ. I would work on rolling off the EQ at the mids instead and boost in the 8-12K range by at most 3db. EQing greater than that will make this very unnatural sounding.

The composition and arrangement in this is great, especially when you compare it to the shallow original. This is what remixing is about to me. You brought in so much personalization and style - your synths are fun and interesting - it's a kaleidoscope of absorbing textures. Perfect synth and instrumentation choices (except for the orchestral snare).

Has a few issues, but this is one of the most interesting mixes I've heard in a long time, pure joy and very chill! YES

[Vig]

entering day 3 of oxycodone-fueled post-surgery limbo, I feel like this track is aptly comparable to my state of consciousness: it makes very little sense, but it's really quite enjoyable.

I don't think it's just the drugs talking. The parts jump around wildly, but everything is bound together in a wonderfully ethereal cerebro-aquatic goo.

I can't even think of anything negative to say.

SEY

[The Orichalcon]

After reading that, I'm thinking it be time to make it compulsory for all judges to vote under the influence of painkilling drugs.

[JJT]

Yeah, okay.

Creative, cheesy (at times), groovalicious, over the bar. I don't feel the need to qualify this vote with anymore adjectives.

The only thing I don't dig is the fade ending.

-Jon Out-

YES