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Everything posted by Liontamer
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OCR03947 - *YES* Streets of Rage 2 "Las Calles de la Rabia"
Liontamer replied to Gario's topic in Judges Decisions
To me, the tempo and relatively samey pace did have this drag for me as well; this was a flatter/duller energy level than I expected for such a long piece, but that was more of a personal taste thing. Any suggestions for tweaking the arrangement would be more like "nice to have" things rather than anything fundamentally wrong with it. The only thing that stuck out for me that I would have changed was the one spot where the time sigs briefly changed from 2:10-2:26; it didn't serve much purpose and broke the flow of the piece, but I'll live. Other than those crits, this was a reasonably personalized arrangement and the mixing was solid. Great source tune choice, and I like how Patricio gave it a grittier energy. YES -
OCR03970 - *YES* Super Mario Bros. "Reflecting Pool"
Liontamer replied to Gario's topic in Judges Decisions
I've added a link in the first post to this mix at 3x speed. For the NOs on recognizability, listen to the sped up version, then go back and listen to the sub and see if it's still a NO-go due to the slowness. But the source is definitely there in a very straightforward way. -
The track was 3:29 long, so I needed at least 104.5 seconds of overt source usage for VGM to be considered dominant in the arrangement. 35.5-57.5, 58.75-1:06, 1:22.5-1:53.5, 2:09.5-2:58 = 108.75 seconds or 52.03% overt source usage Close, but the source usage checks out for me after giving this a lot of time to marinate and initially having similar timestamping conclusions to Gario; there were some liberal portions where the notes were different or simplified but the source rhythms and patterns are clearly followed. That said, to follow up on Jive's POV, IMO the arrangement recognition standards can't come down to whether we think a casual listener could pick out the source usage enough; we have enough cerebral arrangements (Navi's Final Fantasy X-2 "Chauffage au Gaz" strongly comes to mind) where the A-to-B source-to-arrangement connections are there yet not obvious at all. We once has someone on YouTube say that Rozovian's Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time "Eye of the Storm" was unrecognizable and thus too liberal. This mix wasn't an example of going that out there, but the point still stands that the judges are the ones more carefully examining the arrangements, and fans generally aren't. And, of course, differences of opinion on an individual level are fine with me. The trades between the arrangement and original writing were seamless, and you could easily think Dave's original motif was taken from that source or somewhere else from the SoM soundtrack. Nice shaker, tambourine, and ocean SFX accenting the piece, and the percussion and bass work are always exemplary stuff. Dave's work always has an organic flavor to it despite the lack of live instruments; one part good tools, but also understanding how to use those tools. Nice work! YES
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Good, intense energy here, and nice work adding some Christmas/holiday instrumentation touches to the picture. The background writing was pushed back more than it had to be, and I think you could have had more clarity in the soundscape while still maintaining the track's intensity. Finally got some breathing room with the brief dropoff at 1:53 and again around 2:15. With the chorus at 2:26, it felt like a cut-and-paste of 1:11's section, but it was brief before moving onto some other new arrangement ideas followed by some awesome soloing. 3:34 with the same chorus section being repeated again as a cut-and-paste. At least when 4:04 retread 1:30's section, there was more intesity to it to present a difference from before. I'm just picking apart some meaningful issues with arrangement and production that addressing could have made into a more thoroughly developed and polished piece, but there's no doubt that this is a very well-personalized cover that packs some power behind it! Welcome, Glyndwr! YES
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OCR03858 - *YES* Final Fantasy 4 "Devotion to the Motif" *RESUB*
Liontamer replied to Liontamer's topic in Judges Decisions
Just some brief comments on this version since I heard the first one. I initially wasn't sure why the main melodic line was pushed back during the build, but the "Theme of Love" melody was front and center at 1:06 after the extended build, so I'm ultimately OK with the source being downplayed to start. I heard the little touches to the beats first starting at 1:39 to create some variation; nice work! That's exactly what I was talking about, just incorporating some subtle differences with the beats and some swooshing SFX embellishments that make textural variation apparent without having to do something drastic. The piano at 2:43 having more body and realism to it would have made the final section stronger; the last few notes in particular were so exposed, but I'll live with what's there because the sum total of the arrangement's solid. Nice work, and thanks for being able to revisit this, Austin! YES -
*NO* Chrono Trigger 'Chrono's Fight Dance' *RESUB*
Liontamer replied to Gario's topic in Judges Decisions
The beats are still meaty, and the arrangement remains energetic, but there's a REALLY washed out and muddy/muffled sound to this still; it makes 0 sense, and this mixing would need to be addressed for me before we could post this. Once the soundscape thinned out some at 1:30 you hear the difference, but at 1:59 it's just cluttered again, with 2:15-2:45 particularly sounding very washed out. On headphones, this sounds pretty poorly mixed now, so I'm not sure how this has 2 YESes at all unless headphones aren't being used (I did compare with my usual control track to be sure it wasn't me messing up my listening settings). Not sure what changed between this and the previous version, but this made it a tougher sell instead of getting closer to YES, and it's 100% on the production level. I'm not mad, but it's a waste of a resubmission to mess up the mixing like this. NO (resubmit) -
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Loving this set, Doug, and I've been playing a lot of old favorites last night and this morning while working. Thanks! Just noting I found lot of dupes in the VGMix2/X folder due to minor differences in artist names and mostly game titles (e.g. Final Fantasy 7 vs. Final Fantasy VII).
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