Leaderboard

good job everyone

Voting Guidelines Teams were tasked with writing three mashup arrangements of two songs each, one from a Streets of Rage game and the other from an Etrian Odyssey game. In order to make your vote, listen to the remixes and, for each pair, choose the remix that fulfills the following criteria (listed in order of importance): The remix arranges both source tunes in an interesting and identifiable way into one cohesive piece of music. The remix is well-produced within the conventions of the genre. The remix is enjoyable to listen to. Stream the remixes via Soundcloud or Download the Round 1 Remix Pack (MP3). For your reference, here are the source tunes for Round 1. Streets of Rage vs. Etrian Odyssey Fighting in the Street Labyrinth IV - Sandy Barrens [Dungeon: 16F-20F] Streets of Rage 2 vs. Etrian Odyssey II Never Return Alive Scene - Wings and Cherry Blossoms [Event: Ones with Wings] Streets of Rage 3 vs. Etrian Odyssey III The Poets II Cityscape - Between the Azure Sky and Sea You can also use this thread to leave comments about the tracks. Remember to be kind and constructive. Thanks for listening, and thanks for voting!

Voting Guidelines Teams were tasked with writing three mashup arrangements of two songs each, one from a Streets of Rage game and the other from an Etrian Odyssey game. In order to make your vote, listen to the remixes and, for each pair, choose the remix that fulfills the following criteria (listed in order of importance): The remix arranges both source tunes in an interesting and identifiable way into one cohesive piece of music. The remix is well-produced within the conventions of the genre. The remix is enjoyable to listen to. Stream the remixes via Soundcloud or Download the Round 2 Remix Pack (MP3). For your reference, here are the source tunes for Round 2. Streets of Rage vs. Etrian Odyssey III My Little Baby Cityscape - Engrave Thy Name and Go Forth Streets of Rage 2 vs. Etrian Odyssey Alien Power Strife - Rapture [Normal Battle: Final Floor] Streets of Rage 3 vs. Etrian Odyssey II Ending Return of the Heroes [Ending 1]

This was a super fun showing! Just writing down stuff I've brought up in the discord and listening party: - I helmed (arranged, produced, mixed) the lion's share of Dead Waste. seph was super helpful in spicing up the guitar parts I wrote and doing some extra textures/transitions. H36T did stems for piano and female vocals, Ronald did some dark ambient synths/FX, and I consulted with josh and Moebius on drum part-writing and mastering, respectively. - both the gf and I thought the ocarina in Shifting Sands was a soprano sax, lol, but after the drop I can hear it better. - Shifting Sands is also the most VVVVVV-sounding thing JSA has done, imo. The low end profile right before the drop kicks in is great. Xaleph(?) did a great job with the mixing. - "Seven Fists" is the punchiest one this round, imo. I joked with seveneyes/alex that he was gonna master it to -7LUFSi and it came out to -6.9. "Dead Waste" and "Mix" both sat around -10 to -11LUFSi (different people mastering). Its Run, Lola, Run-sounding transition is awesome. - I'm pretty sure all of Team Streets was floored by the Etrian!Sakura arrangement. It took us a while to figure out the flow of ours, in part because the Cherry Blossoms MIDI was formatted as triplets instead of "true" 6/8 or 12/8. The buildup/sound design in the intro is great. - I also had no idea Weeks also did the low vocals during the breakdown in Etrian Sakura! Her range is crazy. - Moe's time changes were super fun and Moe/josh overdubbed seph like three or four times in Mix. Moe also schooled on josh and I by making one of his transitions a seagull when we were trying to arrange it with drums or guitar, lmao. - Sun Shine (In My Heart) has some good vocal balancing for the time-crunch. I also can't hear "Azure Sea and Sky" without hearing the lyrics now. I joked in the listening party that Moe should have stuck like 30 seagulls in his to make it a fair fight. I also thought it was neat how many credits each track had - it seemed like each team member had a hand in nearly all of each others' tracks. Looking forward to Round 2!

These are fucking bangers. I am glad I got to finally listen to them. Wonderful job to both teams. <3 Kinda funny how I can directly distinguish who is in what team, just based on the sound palettes, techniques used and their individualistic motifs from previous work of theirs!! It's a highlight to hear everyone's hearts and passions and skills mingle together to make something this unique, and both series' OSTs are pretty crazy and gives such a weird, lively, and wide variety of possibilities to the imagination on arranging a remix! So, kudos to the series selection, source choices and the end results! Look forward to more, and remember, no matter the result, these are fire and I was thrilled listening to each and every one of them (several times over.) :)

Sent these over to DS last night, but here's my take for one of the years!

These are just going to be first impressions from voting, so take this all with a huge grain of salt! The City Is a Warm, Dead Waste: I love the variety here! It reminds me of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin in some ways, it doesn't surprise me to see a few Team Whip alumni on this one! Guitars are kickass here, and there's a monster amount of synth variety too. There's a solid amount of cohesion with the sounds chosen here, though I'm somewhat less sold on the arrangement itself - lots of great ideas but I think it'll take me some time to grasp where the arrangement is actually taking me. I think there's some reverb fine-tuning to do here, a lot of the elements feel overly boomy, which takes away some of the bite from elements like the drums. Other than drums/guitar, I actually surprisingly can't pinpoint individual elements contributed by each artist - there's a lot of sounds that feel like they could have come from anyone, which is pretty neat! 🏆Duel of the Shifting Sands: Ooohhh, 8-bit plus! I'm not surprised at all by that, but I'm not used to hearing it with all the extra bits and bobs, and I gotta say... I dig it! A lot. I think there's untapped potential to process the chiptune elements a little more dynamically, but overall, the blend works pretty damn well. 3:02, hell yeah! This is a great way to drive this home. I was on the fence about which track would get my vote, but this section really clinched it for me. Overall, I saw a huge amount of potential and TONS of great ideas thrown out from both entries in this duel, but this track feels like like it has the edge in terms of focus and cohesion. 🏆Seven Fists Under the Sakura Tree: Motherfucker, you guys are not playing around. This hits IMMEDIATELY off the rip. That fill at 1:06, excuuuuse me? I think this has a bit of the same "washiness" that I noted in "Warm, Dead Waste" where there's just a little bit less clarity to the mix than I would like, but I don't think the track suffers too much as a result. Ok, and now we go into something completely different at the end that somehow also works? I was trying to write out my highlights as I went along, and I just couldn't keep up. The sound choices, writing, production... y'all are crazy for this one. This is going directly onto my Smash Bros. playlist. This is going to be hard to beat. Sakura Wa Karenai: Ok, so that's how you're gonna play this. The production on here is IMMACULATE right off the jump, I can hear some strong DJ Mokram influence on the world instruments, then some psytrance beats come in and I immediately know who's at the helm. The production on here feels a little tighter, but I'm waiting for the moments like Team Rage had in their entry that REALLY knocked me off my feet. Oh, there's 2:06 - that's more like what I'm talking about, but it still feels like you're holding back on the energy levels. We've still got time to go though, so we'll see where this goes. 2:42 really jumped out at me in a completely different way, but it was a powerful moment with the entrance of vocals and that beautiful FM piano. The sound design in this section is off the hook. OH BABY SHUFFLE RHYTHMS now we're cooking. Ahhh, this matchup is TOUGH. There's so many brilliant ideas here and there's actually quite a bit of connective tissue to bridge them all together, but will say that the energy management falls just a little short of my hopes. The mix is incredibly clean, from the instrumentation to the mixing/mastering, but it feels like there was room to push the intensity further. I still loved this a ton, and you gave the other track a serious run for their money, but Seven Fists takes the crown in this matchup for me. 🏆Only Trust Your Mix, Techniques Will Never Help You: this title sounds like something I would hear in an incomprehensible Youtube Short production tutorial, I'm curious what the title alludes to! This starts off with some pretty straightforward but catchy, bright rock that reminds me of old Sonic Adventure music, the lead performances are top-notch. I don't feel like this track was as ambitious as the other ones from Team Rage in terms of ideas, but it feels like perhaps the most cohesively-executed of the three, and just because it's more focused, doesn't mean that it's any less impactful. The seagulls are a nice touch too, reminds me even more of Sonic Adventure when we hit that part. Crazy breakdown at the end, this was really good! You Make the Sun Shine (In My Heart): Aww, so cute! This is definitely the hardest matchup so far just by virtue of the fact that each entry were clearly going for different things. The other two matchups, although executed very differently, ended up going for relatively similar energy, but this is the kind of diametrically-opposed matchup I love to see from GSM. The lead vocals are confident and fit the bill really nicely - some slightly awkward moments where the lyrics and the melodic phrasing don't perfectly sync up, but that's to be expected on a short timeline when you have to add your own lyrics to the equation. Across the board, I'm hearing brilliant synth riffs and excellent sound choices. I love the vocal harmonies that I assume colorado weeks contributed? 3:25 onward to the end of the song is when everything really clicked for me <3 The area where this struggles for me is the mixdown - it doesn't feel like it's quite baked yet, specifically in terms of relative volume levels. The lead doesn't always feel like the lead, and there's certain elements (like the synth bass at 2:40-ish, for example) that feel inexplicably louder than everything else. There's also several elements that don't quite feel glued together with appropriate level of bus compression or reverb to really give this a sense of place. When both tracks are full of great ideas but in totally different ways, I need to fall back to execution, and in this case, I have to trust the mix from Team Rage. There's no dead air this round, every team brought the heat in terms of concepts and energy! Execution was a little more of a mixed bag, ultimately I feel like any of these matchups could have been swayed with different levels of polish on the execution, which means that you all hit the mark in terms of blending the sources well. I am well familiar with the time crunch element of GSM, and it does tend to play out tougher for more ambitious, multi-genre concepts that will always take longer to polish. Even though I ended up generally voting for the tracks that felt tighter and maybe took a few less stylistic risks, it's not for lack of enjoyment of the more ambitious ones! If you didn't get my vote here, it just means that I thought the song needed a little more time in the oven - everyone did excellent work and I enjoyed it a lot!

Just chiming in to mention that I've sent a finished mix of Resident Evil 4's Save Room theme to VQ, so that's at least one track down for this project! Excited to hear what everyone else cooks up ☺️

Hello!!! Although I'm quite unfamiliar with this place, it is nice to meet people who enjoy remixing VGMs and OSTs! Although I usually make original tracks, I also make remixes. I met this place a few days ago, and I forgot introduce myself. I hope all is well!

Sounds like we need listening parties for both soundtracks... :-)

Here's a sample of some of my work! I've done some banners for Dwelling of Duels and some personal projects as well. Hope I can get the opportunity to contribute to this project!

Sounds great! Wouldn't mind doing another year or two if you need—here's some other work, aiming to showcase a breadth of styles.

Howdy! :) 🦇 Some of y'all know who I am, but in case ya don't: 'ello, 'ello--the name's VQ. Bit nervous writing this up, but here goes! Many here (including myself) have participated in (or know of) @Dyne & @The Coop's lovingly done, yearly [Unofficial] OCR Christmas Album, and I'd like to try and implement / propose something similar for ALL HALLOWS' EVE! 🧡 Out of every holiday in a year, Halloween has always been my all-time favorite, and it's a shame to have noticed not many artists or communities hold much weight for that time of the year--outside of any compos that chime-in for it as one-offs--and I'd like to give the opportunity for music inspired by Halloween, or that present "spooky vibes" to be freely envisioned and showcased for that special date! :D Here's the deets!

@colorado weeks I'll shoot you a DM shortly, so we can chat about it. ♡

Not a whole lot on the CRAC server ATM, as that might pick up after some competition stuff passes and/or if I can get a channel & thread spinning personally for the album. I haven't advertised it on OCRs official server or Pixel Mixers or DoD. Unsure if I should really, as I don't wanna badger people or ping everywhere like mad. I'll try to muster up the courage to do so maybe over the weekend. :) And that's a fantastic idea! I'll update the second post later on today! I've had someone talk to me about it via DM on Disc, so maybe people seeing that he's got something in already will get others excited for it!

halloween album??? sign me the HELL up!!! if you're still looking for a dedicated website i can handle hosting/web design!

This reminds me of the old Hyadian Megaman music and boy this is a great treat for me. Fantastic job!

Thanks, and nice to meet you too:)

I would like to "throw my hat into the ring", so they say, on this idea:)

Heya! And welcome aboard! :D Yeah, this gives me an excuse to finally go back to some old spoopy compo tracks I've done years past and rework them as well. :P No better time than the present, for sure!

This is an amazing idea! I've got an old MNP that I've been tinkering with for... the last decade? Crap. But it might fit this album, so consider me signed up!

Found myself with a hankering to listen to some of that cool, mellow guitar goodness from Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core. But rather than listening to the soundtrack on Youtube, I figured I would look it up on here and see what people have made. I didn't find a single song. Like, I'm doing the search thing correctly, right? There are ZERO Crisis Core remixes listed here? Right? Weird, man. Weird. Alan

I never played either game, but I would be willing to help with or participate in any/or of the two. :) I'm sure something from their OSTs would be cool to do. ♡

Larger:

@Guy In Rubber Suit let’s get you on 2004. Wanna avoid any specific characters from games but having people on the art is fine. Just art, and leave space for typography. @CNDR wanted to see a sample of art before you can claim a year, which is why I hid your previous post. We’re also not using season names, we’re specifically saying “Q1” instead of “winter” etc.

I tried to keep this brief, but as you might know, that's not my forte. FIRST, the facts... On October 28th I informed staff that I was stepping down from my role as president/admin/owner/etc. of OverClocked ReMix, and on November 1st I also stepped down from the board of Game Music Initiative, the 501c3 non-profit organization that funds OCR. In short, I no longer feel I have the bandwidth to do these roles justice and to not only maintain, but advance, the missions of both projects. I will be working with Shariq Ansari (DarkeSword) to transition my responsibilities and ensure continuity of operations. The (excellent!) mix posted on Halloween was published without my direct involvement, subsequent posts up to the milestone #OCR04500 have been superbly executed, and I am confident that staff will continue the work necessary to operate - and evolve - OCR in my absence. I will be even less available than I have been, lately, so I apologize in advance for any lack of responsiveness. THEN, the feels... Where to even begin? It's hard to encapsulate over two decades of history; omissions are inevitable. What began as a neat side project I started in my parents' basement in 1999 snowballed into something far beyond my wildest expectations, due to the blood, sweat, tears, and unbridled, rampant creativity that thousands of you have contributed. Much of this happened before social media was even a thing and before the platforms/services we now heavily associate with the modern internet had come into being; it was a frontier, and we were on it, and we took it pretty seriously because we knew how amazing VGM is, how creative arrangements could effectively convey and explore that vast musical landscape, and how a small fandom communicating via email, IRC, & forums could collaborate to build mighty, new things. We took it seriously, often too seriously, but we ALSO played more than a few rounds of Shaq-Fu at conventions, made some truly ridiculous (but always musical!) joke mixes, and developed internal circles of lore with our own memes & jargon. NOT in strictly chronological order: there was some drama with now-legendary composer Jake Kaufman; VGMix entered the fray; we added a judges panel so it wasn't just me making stuff up; we released our first community album; the unmoderated forum birthed its own sort of... subculture; the site itself evolved to be database-driven and not just two giant dropdowns sorted by game/date; we posted mixes submitted by composers George "The Fat Man" Sanger and Jeremy Soule; we met/interviewed Hiroki Kikuta and Nobuo Uematsu; our album trailers by the incomparable José the Bronx Rican started blowing minds; we started appearing in person at Otakon, PAX, MAG, others - much love to all for having us; we bumped into Leeroy Jenkins at ROFLcon and gave him a hoodie; we started hosting from our own server and managing the technical side of things ourselves; thanks to Mr. Shael Riley (among others!), we got to remix the music for an actual Street Fighter game (!!); we released fifteen more albums... ...and then we turned ten, on December 11th of 2009. Quite a first decade, and I missed hundreds of things I shouldn't have. Hundreds of firsts, some tragic lasts, and millions of memories that can't quite be conjured by words. In 2011, we stood up for Fair Use at World’s Fair Use Day, an event organized by the non-profit Public Knowledge. In 2012, we launched our kickstarter for Final Fantasy VI: Balance and Ruin, it was taken down, we talked with Square lawyers directly for a couple hours and made the non-profit project structure clear & contractual, and we relaunched a successful kickstarter. That's not always how those things go! We launched Game Music Initiative in 2016, creating an official 501c3 charity to formalize the finances around OCR and potentially support other VGM-related projects, too. On a related note, I’ve absolutely loved seeing OC ReMixes featured by charity speedrunners Games Done Quick (GDQ) - it’s exactly the type of thing I always wanted to see, that synergy. Things do start getting a little quieter from then on out, and I think there are a ton of reasons for that, but it has been an incredible and improbable journey that I wouldn't have missed for the world. Thank you ALL for making it possible; OCR was always yours, I aspired only to stewardship of something I wanted to exist for everyone. FINALLY, the future… It's time - some would say past time - for OverClocked ReMix itself to be ReMixed. That's the point, right? Infinite permutation; endless possibility. You don't always know the day, month, or even year when your influence on something starts holding it back, or when the waning amount of time and energy you can dedicate becomes a liability. That type of certainty is often elusive; it can be a difficult diagnosis to even contemplate, and you need to look for & listen to signs. In addition to just being too much of a single point of failure for OCR (sorry, engineering mindset), the last year I've been asking myself whether it was time to let go, and I think the answer is sometimes in the asking. I have been stretched thin, like butter scraped over too much bread, and that's when you leave the Shire. Beyond representing what I genuinely believe is best for the future of OCR, I absolutely confess a personal wish to redirect reclaimed time & energy to my family and my own music. Being a husband to my wife Anna and being a father to our daughters Esther and Sarah is my meaning; I have always put them first, but now I can put them even MORE first. Esther just started learning trombone, so in a few years, expect a collab! Sarah is building her confidence learning piano & makes me proud every day. I want to write new music for them, and with them, and that requires more time than I've had. I believe the principles that have driven us - embracing all games & all styles of music, emphasizing interpretation & creativity, offering both curation and critique, and providing a non-commercial platform for those who seek it - are truly timeless, but there are many ways to honor them. I look to the new leadership/staff to galvanize, streamline, diversify, and re-imagine, within that immense space. I'll be leaving them with some ideas of my own; please let them know yours. I ask the community to support them, embrace change, provide guidance, and be patient; I believe it will be worth it! Thanks, - djpretzel

Very interesting approach to the arrangement here, let's break it down: Track begins with a pad, bass and an irregular kick pattern (it doesn't bother me as it did other judges though). Things seem to be in E minor here but at 0:26 the B melody from the source enters and there's a big point of contention, since the original is on F major (for this section) and you didn't change the key, which creates a huge dissonance. Of course, write-up shows you actually intended this but I don't think it's effective. Dissonance is a valid tool but I don't think flat out slotting a melody over an unfitting key works without extra effort, it's something you probably need to set up effectively. At 0:49 we move into a new section, with bass and melody on A major, an odd choice after the dissonant part. The beat here is cool though, the hi-hat pattern is very Chrono Trigger-ish. 1:13 seems to be kind of a reprise of the intro that leads into an actual reprise a bit later. A fun drum fill moves us into a new section at 1:38. I like the energy here. The lower of the 2 melodies seems to be playing some liberal variations of the souce and 1:51 echoes one of the chord progressions from the original. A fairly odd synth arpeggio leads into a section with distorted guitar around the 2 minute mark that's basically one riff played over a set of different chords, would've been a good spot for a solo or something of the sort. At 2:27 there's a bit of break/keyboard solo over a static 8ths rhytmic pattern which leads into a repeated arpeggio starting from around 2:45 to 3:01 in a small "drum solo". We then get a reprise of the 0:26 melody but without the dissonance, much more pleasant! Finally, at around 3:35 we reach a take on the source's end of loop section and the track ends. On the arrangement side, this is definitely an interesting piece. Changing Barret's Theme into a "battle theme" is a fun idea. Generally, I think the structure of the arrangement is solid but I have some criticisms. First is the dissonant section. You mention it "compliments everything that comes after it" but I don't really see it, the section right after the dissonance is an extremely upbeat one which is just a big whiplash that makes the dissonance lose purpose. There's some pay-off for the dissonance with the reprise at 3:01 but I feel that reprise would've still worked well without the big dissonant part earlier. Second is that there's a few parts where we basically have a bass part and percussion without nothing particularly interesting happening on top, like 1:01-1:13, 2:03-2:26 and 2:44-3:01. I also have a bit of trouble catching the vibe of the arrangement as it moves from tense sections to very upbeat melodies often. As a positive, I enjoy the general rhytm of the track, it's energetic and fun! On production, there's a big issue with the samples used... they're simply not high quality enough. I won't bet on this but some even seem taken directly from SNES soundfonts, which is a valid approach if you take the time to write and produce them well. Bass, particularly, suffers from this, as the sample picked doesn't really cut well through the mix. Even if you can't find better samples, it'd also be a good idea to invest time into sound design. As an example, the synth doing the backing from 2:27 to 3:01 could really use some effects to sound more interesting. I don't have big criticisms of the mix itself other than sample quality really, the track sounds well. Overall, there's a lot of potential here. Arrangement has interesting ideas but it needs some refinement. Production needs more work, focusing on making the instruments sound better (either by finding better samples or by mixing the existing ones in smart ways to make them better). I'd recommend hitting the workshop on the forums or the Discord and hopefully you hit us with a revision in the future! NO

Howdy, Jonpon! This will probably sound like I hated this track: I fully agree with proph's notes. For starters, the instrumentation and production simply aren't up to par. The lack of a rhythmic constant makes the intro difficult to follow. The transformation of "Barret's Theme's" A section melody you've given from 0:24-0:48 is nearly unrecognizable, and the dissonant layers underneath aren't doing the section any favors, either. The rapid descending arpeggios in the intro callback from 1:13-1:38 sort out the intro's rhythm problem, but proph's right that a bunch of parts are just stepping all over each other because they're playing in the same range. It seems like the organ is carrying the melody line at 1:38-2:03? I can barely make out the "Barret's Theme" C section melody; without Nobuo's stepwise figuring from the source material, your interpretation is tenuous. The lead at 2:27-2:44 has another tenuous source connection; as a nitpick, I don't agree with the highly active lead line over the top of a pulsing pedal tone bassline and no other rhythm section. There isn't any setup for the ending at 3:32. It's not all doom and gloom, though. The organ lick of the source B section melody at 0:49-1:13 is solid. The segments that truck along like 2:03-2:27 feel great. The reprise of the A section motif at 3:02 works much better than your first statement at 0:24. There's a cool story behind your arrangement. You've got an arrangement with promise and potential here. If you haven't already, I highly recommend taking this to the #workshop channel on the OCR Discord. It's more active than the forums these days, and the folks there can help you take this track to the next level! NO (resubmit)

Sometimes you come across a gem

@AshleyXR Yeah, pretty much the perfect beat to knock the teeth out of drunken hooligans, fascists, their greedy capitalist sponsors and merchants of war. Though their connections are not limited to a few countries, it rather seems to be a global phenomenon, depending on where the big money of the rich 'n' greedy people flows - quite similar to the Shadaloo organization, which also spins their webs or "fasciae" secretly around the globe. I'm really not happy to have to live in an era of continuous downfall again, especially when I think that my birthright to grow up in a socialist society was literally taken away from me by some greedy sons of bitches. But as a martial artist who grew up with Japanese full-contact karate, I somehow still have hope that, in the worst case scenario, I won't have to stand completely alone with such often cowardly, opportunistic followers of Western German and European beer and schnitzel patriots. Since many Arabs, especially devout Muslims, have come here, I have the feeling that the tide has turned somewhat, that fascists will no longer have such an easy time terrorizing people here and that the newer generation of neo-Nazis in particular are really getting knocked out in the respective neighbourhoods. For me, it was really impressive to experience the down-to-earth, straightforward, virtuous and warm-hearted nature of the Muslim people on the one hand - and on the other, the impetuous fighting spirit, pride and sense of justice when they encounter disrespectful, unjust and malicious people. Sometimes just one of them can be some sort of a Saiyan-like one-man invasion or a small Saladin army in itself. I followed some media reports where, for example, an Arab teenager was racially insulted by an adult German, who then even wanted to get violent, but the Arab teenager only gave him about three punches, the consequences of which killed the adult within a short time. Certainly questionable from a moral point of view, but truly impressive in terms of fighting force. You will rarely see hardcore hooligans and neo-Nazis fool around in a Muslim hood, and they won't even dare to terrorize the people there for too long. Because they'll easily get engulfed in the flames of the battle they tried to start there, learning the hard way through massive pain, loss and humiliation as a just punishment for disrespectful behavior. As I have occasionally dealt with Muslims and refugees from the Arab world in my job and have often talked to them, I have noticed that some of them are also active in martial arts and often have a really good education, not to mention the many natural beauties among the really cute oriental ladies. ... Kinda chaotic but interesting times and strokes of fate these days. ... But back to the "real" (digital) Street Fighter series. I also think that Street Fighter 6 doesn't have too many memorable soundtracks besides Ed's theme "König oder Feigling". But I strongly believe that it's quite hard and annoying for the composers to make new remixes of the iconic character themes one after another for every new Street Fighter game. Sometimes you really have to try out new soundtracks, new styles and music genres to evolve as a composer and enjoy the variety of new attempts. This doesn't always meet the taste of most fans. But sometimes it works out quite well. I remember that the developers of the Street Fighter series had a similar approach with completely new character themes in Street Fighter Alpha 3 for Playstation (still own this game). And this game had at least a few pretty nice new tunes, for example Ryu's theme "The Road":

I can't believe this hasn't gotten a review yet, so before this gets review bombed, I just want to say that the award it got from the Game Music Remix Awards in 2024 is fully deserved. Absolutely amazing singing from NiKo and rapping from Shinobi! The ingenious lyrics and arrangement are also top notch. I personally prefer TheMan's latest Brawl arrangement, but hey, he should already have an award in every GMRA category. Genres mean nothing to him, and yet he excels at many of them.

I'm on the edge of my seat- the album finally nearing release. I've followed this from the start, and my aged heart can hardly take it anymore! Much love to everyone involved.

Hey everyone! This time, something new! A Live performance of my newest piece by the Game Music Ensemble at UCLA: The Power and Raphael mixed together from the soundtrack of Baldur's Gate 3!

How did this get so far down this list without a vote from me? I mastered it, and I probably figured that made me ineligible to vote on it but I think we decided that wasn't the case, so here goes, finally. I apologize for this ridiculous wait time from me. I love this arrangement so much. Mo has such skill at creating an extremely varied soundscape, in every regard: energetically, instrumentally, emotionally, and with ear candy for days and days. No one element ever gets repetitive or outstays its welcome. Mo is a talented musical storyteller. The feel of this arrangement is slow and purposeful, and... HECTIC as all heck... at the same time, what a cool ride. *And the sidechaining in this mix is so good that it brings tears to my eyes* And hey, the master sounds really great too! YES

Absolutely beautiful. Also incredible restraint in not just going full on Song of Storms here, hahaha.

I'm a not-quite-first-time listener here - I heard this on GameDuels back then. I followed along with the source breakdown just fine, and with these sources brought in, I'm glad that the Knight n' Grail music provided most of the melodic anchoring - they made it much easier to follow. I am, however, going to disagree with the difficulty of following grooves as outlined further up, and that's because the groove does have a downbeat leading into the individual bars. It is tricky to anticipate when there's a change to another time signature shift, though, but it is way less of an issue when most of it is at 7/4 initially. Credit where credit is due with the soundscape - there's a great selection of dreamy pads and synth/keys that send this in a more atmospheric direction, and I am all for the ride. But mix-wise, it's not a perfect one. There is bass, but it's a very light sub-bass - and that takes more of a backseat to the various leads, which vary in panning, echo, and tone. One is a piano that is louder than the others, is hard-panned to the right side, has a high amount of reverb and a pinch of a chorus effect, and dominates over everything else. It works when cooperating with the hard-left organ and has had moments where it allowed the sweeping pads to take more of that front stage. But it's not as effective when it's eating up the soundscape around it and, therefore, adds unnecessary clutter. Now, here's the big question. Is this a dealbreaker? Surprisingly, no. The master has no issues with clipping or over-compression, and the waveform allowed for a consistent level of narrow dynamics without going the whole "waveform sausage" route. This decision is something that I can chalk up to artistic intent despite its imperfections. If it does get sent back, then I wouldn't mind the panning being tighter and some tweaked instrument balancing - but after further deliberation, I see no reason for it not to be posted as it is. We would appreciate a warning the next time you send in something that a previous iteration of the panel had last assessed, just saying. ;) YES

Man, most votes on a track ever? More likely than you think! So the good: this does a very nice job blending the sources, and it uses both in ample amounts (mostly using the C64 source as texture), and I like the soundscape. The production values are decent, as are the instruments used. However, the mixing is dense, and sometimes is easy to lose track of what people should be listening to in the arrangement, with the lead often being no louder than the accompaniment. This leads to a larger issue of the arrangement sounding like it's meandering aimlessly - there's little for the listener to grab as important so the overall arrangement sounds like a bunch of textures and ideas put into one package rather than an arrangement. After the 2:41 there is a melodic hook that's easier to follow which helps the song close off strong, and there's some material from 0:30 - 1:00 that could be used to grab the listener's ear if it wasn't so washed in reverb and mixed to match the levels of the rest of the texture. There are a lot of good ideas here, but I don't hear enough to keep the listener's attention over the textures, and there's too much going on to consider this minimalist or atmospheric music. I *hear* elements that could be used as leads in various points of the arrangement, but they need to blend less with the rest of the texture and not be washed out with reverb as well as be mixed more in the lead to work as such. I hear an arrangement in this, but it needs to be mixed better so that the listeners can hear it, too. I like it, but it needs more focus. Better mixing and cleaning up the likely intentional leads so they don't wash out so much would bring this the focus it needs. NO

One of my biggest issues with this mix is the panning. There's a heavy imbalance here with lots of things basically pushed all the way to one side. Hard panning can work in a mix with strong melodic and harmonic elements, but in an arrangement that leans heavily on undefined ambiance, it makes it difficult to find a focal point and I felt lost for a majority of the time I was listening. Beyond that, the mix itself feels muddy, as some of the other judges have mentioned. I won’t dwell on that, but from an arrangement standpoint, it took me about three minutes to even grasp what was happening. I don’t mind atmospheric arrangements, but this track feels like it’s missing something essential. The hard panning, combined with the mix’s lack of clarity, makes it difficult to interpret the composition. If the mix were cleaner, I might be more forgiving of the arrangement, but as it stands, it falls short in terms of structure and overall cohesion. To improve this, I’d recommend easing up on the extreme panning. This will force a more refined mix, requiring careful EQ and compression rather than relying on placement to create separation. Right now, it feels like hard panning was used as a shortcut to avoid detailed balancing. With so many elements working together, bringing them toward the center will help ensure each instrument is both necessary and properly positioned relative to the others. Or you may find that once you're forced to mix them together, some instruments are doing double duty and can be discarded in favor of a mix that is more effective. As for melody and overall direction, I’m not sure where to steer you. Part of that is due to the chosen sources, but it’s also because the track remains too ambiguous for a clear path forward. NO

You surely picked a challenging source with that Ninja Gaiden theme… After listening to the other 2 sources I have honestly no idea what to expect from this! K, so we begin with the arpeggio from the Ghost Castle source, I like the patches used here. There’s a brief tease of Ghost Castle melody before some percussion elements enter… Here things get tricky since you shifted the arpeggio somewhat unexpectedly to 7/8 (or /4? Whatever). Soon after, the melody from the other Knight ‘n’ Grail joins and I’m surprised that it actually fits well! A similar vibe continues until 1:16 where we finally get a clear presence of the Ninja Gaiden track. The mix gets a little busy here, I assume because of reverb or similar effects. I like that you somehow kept the Ghost Castle arpeggio as background despite the change in chords. Focus returns to Ghost Castle around the 2 minute mark until there’s silence and a neat transition at 2:40, which continues the Ghost Castle melody actually. I wish the bass was louder on this entire section, it feels very subdued in general. Eventually, the title melody returns and eventually the song ends. I feel the ending is a bit anticlimactic, after 4 minutes I was hoping for something more interesting but it kinda just stopped. On the arrangement side this is pretty cool, you do a great job mixing the sources, especially the 2 from Knight ‘n’ Grail. Ninja Gaiden is much less present but I’m not really surprised since that source is extremely odd. I also like that you changed the time signature for your own personal touch, something like that quickly makes the cover “your own take”. Structure of the arrangement also flows well, slowly adding more regular percussive elements and using recurring themes in a smart way. On the production side I think you nail it for the most part, although there's still some issues. I generally enjoy the sound choices in here and there’s clearly a lot of care put into how the soundscape evolves. The moody percussion in the first minute is neat although arguably a little loud. As something to look for in next mixes I think the reverb/delay (whatever you used for ambience) is coming too hot and loud into the mix, which creates a lot of mud and some slightly ear piercing moments. The mud is very noticeable in the Ninja Gaiden section since the guitar arpeggios generate a lot of it. Another issue I found was the bass, I felt I couldn’t really hear the bass but after looking at the EQ curve there’s actually a lot of bass so… I dunno, maybe you didn’t find a bass patch that cuts through the mix well. Consider layering additional patches for this instead of simply pushing the current patch harder. Overall, this is a pretty cool track! I really like the arrangement and although I think the production could be improved (basically, control the reverb/ambience mud and fix the bass), I feel it’s good enough to pass. Like Josh, I decided to come here and split the vote! YES

First, thanks for adding the source breakdown. That made identifying source usage and analyzing your arrangement much simpler. I’m not making the “Aquaduct” connection underneath the “Ghost Castle” arp until the bass starts the slides while the “Title Screen” melody begins to play. Still, each source is clearly represented throughout your track regardless. Proph already included a play-by-play outlining the arrangement and source usage above, but I’m including my own here. The track opens with the arp from “Ghost Castle” atop mechanical noises and bass sustains. As the other Js have noted, the bass is noticeably tamer than I’d expect for a track in this style. I didn’t have an opportunity to listen to this one on the first go ‘round the panel, but my understanding is the bass was too loud the first time through – seems like you overcorrected here, but I can hear it well enough. There’s a two-beat break and a shift from 6 into 7 at around 0:14 when the arp synth is joined by strings and claps. There’s some filter automation on the arp layers around 0:30 when a plucky synth adds the “Title Screen” melody into the mix. Around 0:45, the pluck synth’s pattern complexifies as the bass adds portamento. There’s a gradual release of energy around 1:00 as the plucks give way to the “Ghost Castle” arp. There’s a bar of 8 subtly thrown amongst the 7 and the extra beat seems to help this spot breathe. At 1:16, there’s a shift into “Aquaduct” and another meter shift into 4/4. The “Ghost Castle” arp gets molded to fit the 4. Excellent restraint on the percussion until 1:33, after the bar of 7, when the beat drops. There’s a mix imbalance in this segment as the pluck synth on the right overpowers the pads on the left until 1:33, where the plucks fall below the pads (note: from my listening experience, this is more pronounced in speakers or monitors than headphones). Hemo’s right that the pluck here is too hot, I’m hearing around 3.5 kHz – if you cut about 2-3 dB around with a medium Q, that would mitigate this issue. The drum groove intensifies at 1:50 with the return of the claps and some hi-hat drills. I’m actually on board with the drums mixwise here; to me, each part’s audible and in its lane. The claps are being used more like claves or a cowbell than like a backbeat layer here, which is probably going to throw some listeners for a loop and cause them to lose the beat, especially once this little foray into a 4/4 groove is over. While an unconventional use of the palette, this part writing choice works in my opinion because the snare is capable of holding the backbeat role without the clap layer. Back into 7 at 2:03 where the “Ghost Castle” arp returns and we get the melody from the same source – as an aside, the arp up to this point has been incredibly helpful for keeping track of the pulse against the intricate drum patterns. The plucks counter at 2:22 with a variation of the arp pattern. A break in 6 at 2:38, and then we’re back to 7 with the “Ghost Castle” melody in the plucks. The descending “Aquaduct” motif returns at 3:12 and flows into a recap of “Title Screen” at 3:27. The drums begin simplifying at 3:42, as does the pad running the “Title Screen” melody, and it feels like the energy is dragging here more than is necessary. But here comes a strong ending at 4:13 and we’re done. Is there a perceived lack of dynamics? The other Js have certainly made a good case for it, but I say Larry’s got the right of it with this track having a narrow dynamic curve. The meter swaps like the bar of 7 around 1:30 and the pause in 6 at 2:38 work wonders for managing the pacing as the track moves through the sources, and I feel the textural shifts more than make up for the slow burn in terms of track energy. As for the production side of things: as noted above, the right-panned plucky synth causes some panning imbalances. EQing the pluck could provide some more arrangement clarity in sections like 0:45-1:00, 1:33-2:03, and the return of the “Title Screen” motif at 3:12 – you might even have enough headroom left over to bring the bass up a couple dB. As it is, I’m not hearing clipping, pumping, or other overcompression artifacts, so this isn’t a deal-breaker for me in the grand scheme of things. I’m going to split the panel here with my first vote: I buck these NOs, too. As Larry mentioned, this one takes a few listens to grok. The production issues noted above are certainly worth exploring, but the arrangement is cohesive and there’s lots of creativity shining through on it. I say this is above board. YES

I honestly don't recall listening to this, I'm sorry but I just don't remember it. Ghost Castle's arp immediately cuts through and is recognizable. The melody from Ghost Castle that appears later on 0:45-1:00 is barely audible. During that part, I find that the right-panned synth pluck sound is overwhelming my focus and is distracting. I suspect this is for a few reasons: one being that it's panned (not hard right, but might as well be), and the second being it's frequency range is in that mid to high-mid range (~1.8k-2k kHz) that cuts through. I question if the synth pluck was supposed to be the melodic focus or not. It also helps when the melodic focus is center panned or close to center. And if you drive our ear to a melodic focus better, it would help alleviate the "wandering" sound that prophetik and Chimpazilla pointed out. No concerns an amount of source used here, adequate but not necessarily the smoothest listen with the time changes. There's a large lack of dynamic changes through the track that is making it tough to sit through. Yes, there are textural changes that help propel the piece forward with parts dropping out and being re-added or changed as it goes along. However, some softer or louder parts would help greatly. This by itself is not a dealbreaker and does not need to happen, but would improve it should you choose to revisit it. I feel like this one is close, but would need another go to pass. At a minimum I want to see a mix that let's us know what to focus on as a listener, and less distracting panning. NO

When the volume's up, this does still feel muddy, and I see how the delay/warbling effects can feel disorienting; I'm OK, but I can see why others would take issue with it, and those effects could be reduced without removing the overall sound it's meant to create. I like a fair amount of the sound design, though this still has a stilted feel, not helped in part due to the underwhelming claps, e.g. 1:42-2:38, as well as the bassline now getting pulled back too much, though I do hear it well enough that's it's genuinely contributing. It's not the most sophisticated piece, but my reservations weren't on the arrangement last time around, they were about the imbalances between the parts and that causing the piece to feel too meandering and unfocused. The finish didn't need to be grandiose, but it was flat and underwhelming; I'll chock that up to personal taste and not let that strongly color my opinion I understand the comments on the perceived lack of dynamics, but there's enough going on within a narrower curve, mostly from textural changes. Nothing about the rhythms and time signatures was throwing me off; for whatever reason, the busyness of this ultimately feels grounded to me, perhaps because I already heard the previous version. Same with the panning, nothing felt mishandled there to me. Arrangement-wise, very transformative and it creatively invokes the three source tunes, so I remain on board with it on that level. The sound design could have been more sophisticated in parts, but I want to be very careful that we're not too subjective here, when IMO this is OK with the production. I'd recommend looping this more and familiarizing oneself with the flow of it; to me, the writing's solid and I can better follow along with it now that the mixing isn't so odd. It's a solid mood piece and an overall cohesive enough piece of music to me. I buck these NOs; this is arguably too selective instead of permissive and what's here may have flaws but is more than cohesive enough to work, IMO. It's improved enough mixing-wise to push it over the line, and as much as I'm addressing potential issues, I want to be clear that the arrangement structure and creativity is actually there and the overall sound design and production are good enough for a hobbyist bar. YES

when this came up ~18 months ago, i voted on this with primary criticisms being the balancing, frequency overload in the low mids, and the arrangement feeling meandering due to lack of dynamics. opens with the ghost castle arp and a ton of really fun sfx work. some very industrial stuff is going on pretty far away, and the title screen's surprisingly chromatic melodic line comes in at 0:29. it's neat how well that works among a very spare background. the riff at 0:47 goes on for a long time and gets a little tiresome fairly quickly (that synth's delay effect was cool in small doses but is irritating with longer lines, especially since it's in one ear hard). percussion drops a bit going into the textural shift at 1:16 - there's some new drums here as well, which are pretty hard to hear (especially the kick). the aquaduct arpeggio with the delay effect is back in the right ear and it's way louder than everything else. it gets toned back later which is good. this continues to wander around with the aquaduct theme in the front for a while. i found this section to be lacking in direction still. there's a simplification at 2:07 alongside a time signature shift, and we're back to just the kitchen sink effects alongside the ghost castle theme for a bit. this section is neat with some of the counterpoint between the melody and counterpoint, but it feels underbaked both because of how thin it is here as compared to the drums chiming merrily along, as well as because it's the same synths as most of the rest of the song at roughly the same volume. it's hard to pull out that this is more or less important than other sections. i still find the transition at 2:37 confusing as well - it really sounds like the song suddenly ends, and there's no real prep or anything set up to come out of it either. the synth work immediately following that break featured a few shifts that i found made it easier to pick out what was the most important. the texture here also feels more fleshed out. i didn't like that the lead instruments for this section were mostly in the right ear instead of centered. there's some fun stutter effects on the leads later on also that i liked. i don't think my opinion on this has changed yet. i still don't like the weird cut at 2:37, i still think the middle third drags, and i still think the lack of dynamics is a negative throughout. i don't remember the panned lead instruments before, but i find that to be irritating as well (i found myself turning my head regularly to the right to 'hear' the lead better) - in fact i think the piece is over-panned throughout. from an arrangement standpoint, i think that you would be well-served by being more intentional bringing out the melodic lines you're trying to have us trace. you've got three sources, and tbh i think they work really well next to each other, but with that comes an imperative to be very intentional about how you emphasize and define what's where without losing the general song-form structure that you're using. the story here isn't as clear as it should be, and a big part of that is that the natural ebb and flow of a track isn't here due to there being little dynamics. i'm fine with a track that doesn't have a clear melody, but what is melody should be cohesive and readily apparent, and that's not happening here right now. i do think you've fixed the mix a lot - i remember before the bass being totally overwhelming above everything else, and then all your instruments were very tightly mashed against each other. i think the bass is probably a bit overcorrected, but overall i found the mix to be passable aside from the panning stuff. my concerns are mainly with the song form and arrangement elements. i have a lot to say here and it probably sounds like i hate it. i don't! i think there's some really neat concepts here, and a lot of overlapping back-and-forth stuff that reminds me a lot of old-school remixes that i loved. i just...i got done with the full listen a few times and just didn't remember a thing that happened in the middle of the piece outside of that panned synth being so annoying. that's not a good thing given the interconnected nature of this remix. the track doesn't go anywhere for an extended period of time. i actually think this is a fairly straightforward fix - just cutting some cruft out of the middle and emphasizing your melody more via non-delayed leads is probably enough. NO

In my original vote on this track, I heard the potential and also the amount of love, effort and detail that went into the production, but I felt that there were too many ideas thrown in at any given time, and a lot of the parts sounded so random and didn't mesh well together, and it was exhausting to listen to as a result. It doesn't help that the source song is somewhat odd melodically. But VQ had already received some excellent guidance from the Sages to help her uncluster this arrangement, and then she reached out to me for further advice. It already sounded much better to me, but I was able to help her get it mixed even a little bit better, and then she had me master it. I think it sounds significantly better and I can now appreciate the vision that she originally had for the piece. The positive aspects of the sound-design and writing all shine through now without anything being overshadowed, and I really like it! And others will as well. The result is a dreamy, groovy, Eastern-themed soundscape that sounds really full and open yet loaded with fun details and ear candy, telling a story as it moves along. I love the vocal clips! Just a great track. Thank you for your trust, VQ, and this was fun to work on with you! Good job! Definitely "Chimp-approved," let's go! YES

i YES'd this last time but noted a few elements that i wasn't into. i still think the opening kick is too boomy (this might be a headphone adequacy issue here, there's a ton of subbass there). i still like all the interplay between the elements. there's less low-mid density which is nice. the outro's kind of all over the place, and without the backing elements the shamisen loses some luster. overall it's still a noodly melody that isn't for everyone, and there's still a lot of static and that's not my favorite backing element. but i like the complexity and find the creativity to be evident in a lot of places. this is still a pass to me. YES

The Judges Panel has been talking about ways to work through the queue of submitted remixes at a faster pace, and after a lot of discussion and weighing the pros and cons, we've come to a decision that's probably one of the biggest adjustments to our process in a long time: Submissions no longer require four (4) YES votes to pass. A decision is reached as soon as the difference in votes is three (3). To clarify the key change here: when a submission receives three (3) YES votes and there are zero (0) NO votes, the submission is accepted, because the difference in votes is three (3). If a submission continues to go back and forth without reaching +3 in either direction, the panel will continue to vote until all active judges have voted and the majority will determine the decision. This update to our decision making process will immediately apply to any submissions on the panel at the time of this announcement going live, and for all decisions moving forward. We won't be going back to previous rejections to find decisions that started with three (3) uncontested YES votes but eventually got rejected; in those cases, what's done is done. We hope that artists will find this new criteria a little bit easier to understand. Overall, we've been impressed with the quality of work being sent in these past months, and this should make it easier for us to get the slam dunk tracks through the process faster. Thanks to all the artists who continue to participate in our curation process. Hope to hear your work soon. - DarkeSword