Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Download the Vampire Variations trilogy: http://vampire.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Vampire_Variations_Trilogy.torrent Following the success of the first album in October 2011, Alexandre Mourey (Chernabogue) and KNGI.org are proud to present Vampire Variations: Volume II – a whole new tribute album to the Castlevania series, released on October 31, 2013. This new album focuses on two major games from Konami's series: Rondo of Blood (PC Engine CD, 1993) and Bloodlines (Genesis, 1994), and on the music composed by akiropito, Keizo Nakamura, Tomoko Sano, Mikio Saito (Rondo of Blood), and Michiru Yamane (Bloodlines). But this time, we decided to put it to the next level: 2 albums, more than one and a half hours of music, more than 25 musicians and performers, and full album artwork. Everything was done by fans, for fans, to celebrate the games' anniversary. The project's musicians were asked to arrange the tracks the way they wanted to, and to create their own vision of the soundtracks. The project features several different genres, including orchestra, metal, funk, electronic music, and many others. In order to respect the work of the artists, no final mixing or mastering was applied to the project. The project's artwork was created to bring the universe of Castlevania to life, but also to give Vampire Variations its own visual identity. Unlike the first project, different covers were designed for the second one to allow listeners to chose the one they prefer. I would like to thank all the people who made this happen, who trusted me, and who dedicated their work for the project. I truly hope you will enjoy this new musical experience, as much as I enjoyed directing this project. The Dark Lord is rising once again. Hold your crucifixes close. What an horrible night to be cursed once more... -Alexandre "Chernabogue" Mourey

Download the Vampire Variations trilogy: http://vampire.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Vampire_Variations_Trilogy.torrent It is with an immense pleasure and honour that I am able to present to you Vampire Variations: A Musical Tribute to Castlevania. Vampire Variations was created to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Konami's landmark series, Castlevania. Twenty musicians to arrange the mythic soundtrack of the original NES game that started it all. Andrew Warwick as visual artist to recreate the unique atmosphere of the demon's lair known as Castlevania. A wide variety of musical genres going from rock and orchestral to jazz and electronic music, including various references to other titles from the series. It has been a true honour and a privilege to create, direct, and contribute to a such project. I would like to thank everyone who supported this venture, and to all people involved be they musician or visual artist. Now, be prepared for an Aria of Sorrow, a desperate Rondo of Blood to this Symphony of the Night! The Lord of Shadows rises from his grave and only one man can stop him... ...What a horrible night to have a curse! -Alexandre "Chernabogue" Mourey

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Link is a 403.

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Wow, we have some great "Moon" mixes on OCR already, but this is my new personal favorite. The soundscape's a little muddy for me, but the way this is produced, it only enhances to the energy of this and allows Will to go VERY big with the sound. Will with an amped-up, Disney afternoon punch in the face. This. Is. Awesome. YES

Very exposed, mechanical-sounding piano to start, but that was quickly dropped after the intro for the rock verse. No problem with the warping effect there, just the rigid sequencing. The drums seem slightly awkward; they're definitely too loud over the top of the guitar lead. In principle, I like the idea of the organ usage from :41-1:00, but 1) it was barely audible, and 2) what could be heard seemed like it was clashing in places with the melody (so perhaps it was better not being heard). You'll have to fix the organ writing. 1:07-1:43 had another "Big Blue" verse but it was just a cut-and-paste of :21-:57, so something different should have been done there to develop the arrangement further. Consider some melodic or rhythmic variations, or changing the instrumentation, just something to provide some meaningful variation to keep the piece from being too repetitive. Cool original soloing from 1:53-2:18; great energy and pretty expressive, though the transition back to the theme could have been smoother. Pull back the drum work some so that it's not barrelling over the lead guitar, I'm not against the fadeout ending. Sure, I'd like something more conclusive, but what's there wasn't inherently wrong, and I never get harping about fadeouts. Also, props for adding melodic doubling and other part-writing under the last verse of "Big Blue" at 2:18 for some variation on the source. Develop the source tune some more for the 1:07-1:43 verse, fix that organ writing so it's not clashing, and adjust the loudness of the drumwork (in that order) to tighten this up. Consider an actual resolution for the ending, but IMO as long as the rest of the piece is fully clicking, that shouldn't matter. Promising stuff so far. Even if you've moved on from this piece, definitely keep submitting arrangements and improving your skills, you have good potential based on the energy of this piece! NO (resubmit)

Not much else I can say that Palpable hasn't covered. I see what DarkeSword's coming from being into the robotic feel, and we have plenty of OC ReMixes with a mechanical tilt, but I'm with the others that the leads were bland and the the overall execution of this felt too stilted and lifeless as a result. NO

I want to be very clear regarding my timestamp notes: I always count stuff like held notes from phrases that taper off (e.g. 2:10-2:18, 2:46-2:51, 6:39-6:49.75) and quiet yet audible source references (e.g. 5:26-6:02.5). IMO, the case could be made that the connections aren't loud enough in some places and thus not dominant, even though they're there, but that's not my POV. I take loudness into account for the overall presentation of any piece, but for the most part, I count what I can hear. The music portion of the track was 7:44-long, so I needed at least 232 seconds of source usage for the source tune to be dominant in the arrangement: :00-:54.75, 1:33.25-2:51, 2:58-3:09, 4:27-5:03, 5:26-6:49.75 = 263.25 seconds or 56.7% Some subtle references included 2:58-3:09 & 4:27-5:03 referencing 1:42-1:55 of "Death Volcano" and then the light female vox at 5:26-6:02.5 alternating between the main melody and either 2 or 3 notes from a 3-note pattern from 1:06-1:24 of "Death Volcano." The way the source was deconstructed and subtly referenced in a lot of places was very tricky to pick up on, but I was impressed when I discovered the connections. My mistake if it turns out that was a direct connection as well, but :57-1:33 came off like more of a soundalike version where the source countermelody's rhythm was copied (:38-1:15 of "Death Volcano"), but the notes didn't sound the same or transposed. In any case, that was a stylistic connection, but not something I counted. As far as the arrangement's structure and pacing, I'm way in the Chimpa/zykO camp that this was an engaging listen. I'm totally down with the ebb and flow approach here, felt the dynamics were subtle but meaningful, and didn't feel that the track lacked the substance to justify the 8 minutes. A smart arrangement that asked for careful attention to the arrangement details, but good times nonetheless. Nice work, Trent! Also, I'm not going to speculate on how that big bong rip at 1:08 was acquired, but given what I read about David Icke's conspiracy theories (reptoids!), it makes sense. Good choice of SFX & voice sampling. YES

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The source usage timestamps checked out fine, well beyond 144 seconds, and I didn't need to calculate it. :14.75-1:29.5, 2:13.5-2:37.5, 2:38-2:59.75, 3:03.25-3:28, 3:56-4:21 Just responding publicly to Chimpa's question, sometimes a source tune that's more obscure requires judges to check it and co-sign on a call rather than go as a direct post. That's always fine to do, and we try to be clear that direct posts aren't only "ZOMG amazeballs" vs. panel votes being "decent." 2:13.5-2:37.5 referenced a countermelody from :57-1:10 of the source that was quietly handled by the male vox in the source, so at first I wasn't sure of any connection there beyond a stylistic similarity. There was more stuff I could potentially have credited, but I just needed at least half of the track to directly reference the source, so this wasn't a meticulous timing out of things. String sequencing tends to sound too tight for Alex's pieces, but it's not a meaningful issue here. Other than sanity checking the source tune being referenced, this was a solid call. Whereas the original goes for a more epic, grandiose sound, this version IMO gives off more tension. Nice, energetic orchestration, Alex! YES

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Busy as always.

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Needed at least 139.5 seconds of source tune usage in this piece for the VGM to be dominant in the arrangement. Didn't sound close, but like I do when original writing fits like a glove with source usage, I timestamped what I recognized directly from the track just to be sure. :01.75-1:00.75, 1:48.5-2:18, 3:04.5-3:18, 3:29.5-4:38 = 170 seconds or 60.9% overt source usage The adaptation to EDM was awesome, and the original writing sections that weren't from the actual source tune were seamless, sounding more like rhythmic changes or tweaks rather than Mike doing his own thing. Everything locked together perfectly there. Love the energy here as well. If you didn't know any better that this was from a C64 title, this could fit in well in Streets of Rage Remake. Props to Mike for a great tribute to Thomas Detert and his music! YES

That wasn't a project to create sheet music, it was a project to gather already available links to sheet music for OC ReMixes in one place. Definitely keep doing what you're planning to do for ReMixes.

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I've tidied up the first post. Anything with dead links is now at the bottom.

Yeah, where's the smoothness? Almost everything's VERY mechanical, and I agreed with the Chimpa that the theme integration wasn't solid. There were subtle usages of Auron's theme on the piano during the Gogo section and vice versa from the piano, but it wasn't a comfortable fit at all. The sax performance was decent, but needed more body & richness to the tone. Very rough execution so far; this would need some meaningful work, Alex. Decent arrangement, but the themes don't yet have any synergy or flow as a pair; you'll need to rethink some of how they combine together. And the sequenced elements badly need humanization. Challenge yourself to get more serious and thorough with the detail work. NO