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Holy shit, I didn't even realize it was the Saturn version, and the fact that it isn't the primary version of the song is criminal. Such an amazing tune, and looking forward to the remixes integrating it!!

Since I voted, let me give you my opinion as well : Razor Wind: I concede you my vote, you deserve it well. As Gario suggested, your kick is a little bit too weak, making it stronger or adding a short-attack bass would have reinforced your drums. Dopamine: A lot of energy, a lot of headbanging when I was hearing this. Metal fits Mega Man very well (yea this is a dad joke - I can, I actually am a dad -, or should I say bad?) which was well enough to give you my vote. Fire Truck: It was a tad too calm, in my opinion. I like the way you shaped your sounds, though, It has a professional feel behind it. Thunder-Crash Tornado Fusion: This is very Persona-like. I really "didn't see it coming" (lol did I tell you I was a dad?), but still very cool to hear. I may be picky about the sax that is maybe too much for this music, but that's me complaining, objectively this is a very nice work. Crash of the Tornado: OOOH, funky! Rythm was very well handled, and this was me shaking my butt on my seat for 2:48. Although your battle with pixeltea was maybe the one that made me hesitate the most, I must say that both are really well put remixes and that you got my vote solely because I have a crush on funk. Empty Desires: That's really sad that you could not get that done on time. It actually could have made me vote for you. it's well put together and I really felt like 0:59 was really too short xD If you finish that remix, I would gladly hear it. Drill Bits: I really enjoyed your chord progression, and I really liked how well It jams together. This would have been a really cool battle, but you got my vote by default. Note that since each remix ( except mine because I'm a madlad lol) incorporated very well their theme, I didn't feel the need to comment on that. And now, for some responses : Gario : Thanks for these nice words, but I didn't go by the rules and I deserve my defeat. AirMan is indeed included into the remix and it's not quite silent xD And as much as OCR accepts or not my remixes, in the end, I sill will make music as I like it ^^. I'll let you search a bit more if you are curious but in case I'll give you the sampling guideline I gave to DarkeSword to prove that I indeed used both themes in my remix. It's just There. MindWanderer : Yup, The point is, I didn't see how I could arrange them without one being dominant over the other. And since I wanted both to be present I got stuck thinking. To the point that I said " Screw it, I'm gonna be sampling, chopping and screwing". My goal was to create an original theme that would still fit in a Mega Man game, based on the two imposed themes. So yeah, didn't respect the rules and couldn't think of anything better than that I gave my remix just to see how people would react to this or how many time before they find out what did I sample and when x) I knew I'd be losing anyway. Ridiculously Garret : Thanks, though I added too much reverb on my had which makes me cringe each time I hear my remix, but thank you for your nice words too It was fun even though I actually didn't know how to read the rules, at least I enjoyed hearing those nice remixes. Are all the entries going to be in an album in the end? That would be lit af

I realized this is my first compo with the new forums! Having this separate voting thread with the poll setup makes tracking votes and reviews sooooo much easier than the old format. Love it! First round was pretty awesome, nice job everyone! A few quick thoughts from me: Air Man vs Metal Man Arceace: loving this song! Probably my favorite one of the round. I love the atmosphere in the intro and the hints at each of the themes. The integration of Metal Man into the lead was groovy - nice use of SFX too! I felt the arrangement meandered a little there in the middle after the Air Man segment (~1:30ish mark), but things were groovin' again come ~2:00. Overall a very nice sounding song, I enjoyed it! AxLR: Nice use of the retro low-fi sounds. I echo Gario's thoughts on the atmosphere - trippy & sample heavy, in a good way. Sources were definitely harder to pick up on, but I enjoyed this for what it was! Fire Man vs Cut Man Mak: good stuff! Standard rock/metal affair - I thought the guitar work was really well done and the integration of both themes was handled well too. Very fun song! Ronald Poe: soundscape is pretty thin and I'm only hearing the one source, keep at it! Tornado Man vs Crash Man ahhhh this was the toughest matchup!!!! Ridiculously Garrett: groooooovy - I loved your instrumentation and the overall vibe of this song. That EP I live for this kind of low-fi jazzy/funky music. I liked how the EP kept the track moving forward and the string stabs on the melody line were very fitting. It reminds me a lot of the stuff Amphibious makes, which is also right up my alley. pixeltea: this one was sooo good too! Ironically kind of a similar style to Garrett's, just much faster paced with a swingy jazz style. Sax sounds a little fakey, but I thought it fit the atmosphere well enough. I really really dig the arrangement and the chord progressions. Piano Crash Man parts were the scene stealers for me Ground Man vs Shade Man supercoolmike: thanks for turning your song in good sir! I liked what you had going. The atmosphere was really eerie and I liked the use of the piano and pads in the intro. The lead your chose for Shade Man was really cool too. I wish you had had the time to finish it up and integrate Ground Man too. Good start! Thanks all for the thoughts on my song! Yeah it definitely relied more on Ground Man, but as others referenced I used the Shade Man motifs as ancillary supporting melody parts. It was harder to integrate than I thought it would be at first. The lead at 1:13 did do a direct interpretation of the Shade Man motif too. I wish I had more time for it, maybe I'll work on it some more after the compo.

Fair enough, my counter-point would be that it's a teacher's job to be hard on you and expect more out of you though. When people don't (appear to) have any motive other than the commentary itself and providing their opinion, it can be a real kick in the ass to hear someone doesn't like something. And whether or not the commenter actually knows what they're talking about vs. just trying to puff themselves up, if it pushes you to improve, the effect is the same (at least in terms of general advice/impressions - if someone's telling you to blow up the low mids on all your instruments or something like that, that's another story). Using myself as an example again, I used to think of myself as a great composer, even after I found out exactly how bad of a producer I was. But when you hear "wandering melody" and "stagnant harmony" (or whatever variation of that, if the feedback was coming from someone who didn't have the musical vocabulary to describe it as such) over and over from people on forums or non-musician friends or comments from complete strangers on music hosting sites, it eventually sunk in that "oh wait a second, maybe I'm actually not nearly as good as I think I am". That was what it took for me, and it made much more of an impact than it did in situations where someone whose outward purpose in critiquing me was to help me learn. I guess some additional context is also necessary to clarify my point - I've never been a good student until I "decide" I want to learn more about something, and I know I'm not the only one. Again, that's what it took for me, and I have to wager there are others who operate the same way. As a bonus, I came to find out eventually that a lot of those people giving me that feedback actually WERE being hyper-critical and couldn't follow their own advice. But the result was the same - I put my nose to the grindstone to learn how to better structure a tune, how to write stronger melodies, how to mix better, whatever the criticism might've been. I still learned as a result of the feedback, regardless of where it came from or how much the person giving the critique actually knew themselves. Hopefully I didn't botch the point I'm trying to make in so many words, but basically: feedback from different sources can have drastically different effects, and people will respond to the effect it has on them accordingly.

Such a good source. Can't wait to hear what you do with it!

You are absolutely allowed and encouraged to vote for yourself if you feel that your remix is the better one. There is NOTHING wrong with voting for your own remix.

Well, I'll try to say at least something. Please don't take my words as a rant/taunt or whatever bad. I'm bad in finding proper words, due to my bad english. So I just say what i feel. And, yes. I had no time to learn language. Sorry. Razor wind. Cool sounding. Catching flow and clear understanding of happening. Glitchy stuff sound right in place. Can't say something useful from production side. Nothing bother me while listening. I'm OK with last pitched hit, cause i like it. Brings some natural ending to unnatural sound, from philosophycal side. Digital redemtion. I do not have any enthusiasm or interest, as expressed above. Sorry. Sounds like actual chiptune. And that's not good. Overall composition kinda senseless. It just moves to the end and nothing happening. I can't even take it as an ambient for my sound perception. Sources just mixed. I can't catch anything familiar, except some notes. I mean, I can hear something form both sources, but just because I'm trying to hear em. I checked your original stuff and I wonder why you made something like this. Cause your own music is interesting. Dopamine. Oh, wait. That's mine. It rocks! in beginning, but then it just suck. Fire truck. I can't call it a ReMix actually. I can hear both sources at the same time and not sure you've changed anything. Soundscape is empty and.. You know, I have a feeling, you just was too lazy to make something. Sorry if I'm wrong, but if im right you need to reconsider your attitude to similar competitions. You have my vote, just because voting for myself is bad. Sorry. Thunder-crash tornado fusion. Ah.. Fusy-jazy track! Tough to vote. Sources are there, production is natural(some freq cleaning needed). So in this matchup you've lost my vote due to lack of enjoyability. That dissonant piano is very cool, but it's more like "see me playing and get out of here". Crash of the tornado. Well, as I said. Very cool stuff! Great percussion, amazing bass, piano, strings and organ is the cherry on da cake. And sources well introduced. Best track in this round for me. Empty desires. Promising introduction. I'm sorry that you did not finish it. The only complain I had is the lead. I just don't like it sounds. Personal taste i guess. Drill bits Same boat as a first track. The only thing I'd suggest is to make bass notes a bit shorter when they in a pair. Ahhh. I hope you understand. Nice one!

@Trism. Should be a good matchup! Cant wait to see what you come up with for these sources. I'm excited to have the saturn version of the tengu source. Going to try out something new with it.

Timaeus did say that he wouldn't value a mentor's word more than anyone else's. That's true, but my personal experience is that teachers, good ones anyway, are usually way harder on their students than anyone else because it's their job and your failure reflects badly on them. People on forums can just ignore you if they don't like it and don't want to beat you down, etc. I had a kung fu instructor, shop teacher, etc. who were all hardcore on the students and it was for the better. There is also a flipside to this and it all keeps going back to what I've said about experienced people actually being the minority in public feedback: Some people think they are, and are really good at passing themselves off as gurus when in reality, they're no better (sometimes worse) than the person they're criticizing. Not to say they may not still be correct in their criticism, but I've seen or been on the receiving end of this quite a number of times. YouTube is especially full of bad advice/blatantly incorrect information from musicians who have many followers, and no one calls them on it because they like the person's music and don't know any better. That can also be a downside of a teacher, too. I don't disagree at all with your point about the accessibility, because that would be stupid, although I'm willing to bet that a lot of these people could throw a bit of money into this no problem. A lot of people will throw down money on new sample libraries, video games that cost 80 bucks, etc. but comparatively, how many do you think own books on composition, theory, orchestration, etc? How many have bought or subscribed to one of the online masterclasses (there are some good ones out there)? How many will spend a bit of cash to spend an hour or two on skype with someone like JJay Berthume for one-on-one feedback and lessons? How many out there have spent (or their parents have spent) 600 on a new Ibanez, but have never taken a single guitar lesson? Comparatively few, I suspect.

I think @Gario pretty much shares brains with me at this point. Yes, all this. Having a mentor is good and if you find someone who can help like that, go for it. But don't let that be your only avenue for learning. Public feedback can be useful too, because It potentially could provide a greater number of fresh ears. In principle it is probably easier to obtain (if the mentor would be hard to contact, which he/she probably will be because he/she is only one person who has a life). It opens you to potentially inexperienced perspectives that you should digest, which likely provide for you a realistic experience on how your music may sound to a general audience. The main problem with public feedback is of course that sometimes, you have to filter it and figure out who is actually saying what, because more experienced people might either speak with jargon, or less experienced people might say what they think they mean without actually projecting what they meant. That's the chance you take, and I am quite glad I took that chance for 2+ years... Fortunately, when I got public feedback, the people who came in (Flexstyle, Gario, Phonetic Hero, Chimpazilla, DaMonz, . . . ) knew enough, and I will fully admit that at the time it was I who needed to learn more! And it was because I took that chance and met those people, that I had extra motivation to keep coming back! So, for me personally, public feedback (forum feedback) was more important than mentor feedback. I don't think I had a real mentor (besides the Judges), more like I had some friendly collaborators...