[Liontamer]

Hello there; my remixer name is Sukotto42, and my real name is Scott Hannay(http://www.myspace.com/scotthannay, my original music site), and I've got a track here for you that I did a little while back, and just went over and re-EQed, re-tooled, re-whatever.
Anyway, it's a medley from Mega Man 3 for the NES. It goes first from the title screen into Shadow Man, into Snake man, then the boss battle. After that, it goes to the 2nd half of the credits music to close it out. Oh yeah, and it's all crunchy prog-rock.
I chose to do this because the first MIDI work I ever did was transcribing all the music from the game note-for-note, like 5 years ago or something. Kind of a labor of love!
Thanks for your time!

-Sukotto42
Scott Hannay

[JJT]

*nods*

yeah, this'll do nicely.

good arranging. though it's a tad on the conservative side, there's enough personal touches and flourishes to render it as your own.

the drums samples are really cheesy. you could find a much better set for free on the net without too much effort.

other than that, my rawk fist is raised in tribute to your guitar kwakery/prowess. good day.

YES

[Liontamer]

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/megaman2.zip - Tracks 1 ("Title" - :00-1:33), 9 ("Shadowman Stage" - 1:33), 18 (Protoman's theme - 2:54-3:00), 7 ("Snakeman Stage" - 3:32-4:13), 13 ("Boss" - 4:13-5:16), & 16 ("Ending" - 5:18-6:59/end)

Wish this was encoded in VBR so it sounded less lossy, but this was pretty well performed. The drum samples are pretty lame, like Jon mentioned. The snare in particular doesn't sound real and the tone is generic/out-of-the-box. Particularly weak transition at 3:00, IMO, but nothing to cry about.

Despite the conservative arrangement and weaker transitions (some much better than others) the performance was heavily personalized, which is where any ReMix needs to compensate in order to pass when it goes conservative. The countermelodic work in particular was well handled. Writing new parts & adding character and uniqueness to the presentation of the existing parts gets the job done here. Great debut, Scott! Hope to hear more from ya.

YES

[Vig]

the first thing that hits me is that the performance is sort of crunchy. However the opposing guitar lines present an interesting dynamic, some interesting harmonies, and a unique texture above the somewhat straightforward composition.

The track suffers from medlyitis. The transitions are nonexistant. holy crap my ending is cut off. anyone else have this? 4:31?

[zyko]

works for me.
the guitar playing is great. that intro reminds me of 70's prog rock. the tone of the guitar is nice. the drums are great and vary nicely throughout. the accompanying synths are very good roleplayers. i don't have a problem with the transitions - the whistling in the background was score. the arrangement is conservative and i would have liked to see you get a little more adventurous with it but there are not problems as far as guidelines are concerned.

it cuts off for me, too. so unless that's just me, look into getting that fixed.

a winner is you.

YES

[zircon]

I was a little put off by the intro here, I admit. The pitches not being entirely stable was not something I was expected, however as the mix progressed I got into the feel more. I'm still not 100% comfortable with the tightness of the performance- I think a little more precision on the rhythms and pitches would have been good, but it's not a huge concern. I'm going to disagree on the drum samples, though. Except for parts where they're exposed one piece at a time, they're serviceable. Maybe the open cymbal/ride could have been softer. Really though, the drum sequencing itself was VERY good so I think that made up for the sample quality being not the greatest. The synths were probably the weakest point of the production. I thought they tended to be overly basic and uninteresting, but since they weren't spotlighted, this problem wasn't a killer. On a side note, this sounds pretty damn good for a 112kbps CBR mix - I'd imagine it would be even better as VBR.

I think this mix is more than the sum of its parts. Maybe the drum samples aren't the strongest and the performance isn't as on-target as it could possibly be, for example, but all together it's a very 'human' feel that I like. The arrangement doesn't suffer from medley-itis thanks to the additive original material, so while no ONE part is a standout, the track as a whole is very solid. Props, and I hope to hear more from you in the future.

YES

[Vig]

alright guys..i don't know where any of this "original added material" is that Zircon is talking about except the ending, but this track has very little arrangement. It's the performance/sequencing that is strong, not the arrangement. The transitions like i said, don't exist. this is hardly a cohesive piece.

It IS an enjoyable track, but don't kid yourselves; there is next to no arrangement in this track. Be aware that passing this song is setting a precedent for allowing near-covers on the site. If you can live with that, so be it.

[Liontamer]

Originally Posted by Vig

alright guys..i don't know where any of this "original added material" is that Zircon is talking about except the ending, but this track has very little arrangement. It's the performance/sequencing that is strong, not the arrangement. The transitions like i said, don't exist. this is hardly a cohesive piece.

It IS an enjoyable track, but don't kid yourselves; there is next to no arrangement in this track. Be aware that passing this song is setting a precedent for allowing near-covers on the site. If you can live with that, so be it.

Originally Posted by Liontamer

Despite the conservative arrangement and weaker transitions (some much better than others) the performance was heavily personalized, which is where any ReMix needs to compensate in order to pass when it goes conservative. The countermelodic work in particular was well handled. Writing new parts & adding character and uniqueness to the presentation of the existing parts gets the job done here.

I think I summed up why this passed in spite of the conservative arrangement. Obviously Vig read what I wrote, but my quote underscores why this passed for any curious community members.

In some rare situations, ReMixers use an original's melody/melodies near-verbatim and put most of the focus on the supporting material, which is why we collectively look beyond just the melody. Sixto Sounds' Castlevania "Wicked Six" was another good example of this kind of approach.

The fact that the lead in this one was a live performance also helped compensate for the conservative arrangement of the source melodies, as it takes skill to learn the parts as well as perform them with a personalized style, as well as write new parts to fill out the rest of the track. That's why MIDI rips have 0 shot, yet cover bands/performers don't get shut down here. There was a lot more done here creatively beyond merely transposing the various source tunes to guitar, and that's ultimately why you see this up here.