Liontamer

Interesting simplification of the melody with the backing pad to start things off. :34 picked things up some with the beats as things built gradually. Good stuff at :52 with the added lead synths. Things do sound somewhat indistinct, but nothing that was a dealbreaker. Arrangement-wise, there's some solid personalization even though the treatment is melodically conservative. The thinness of the beats at 1:27 after such a long build was a disappointment; the soundscape was too empty on account of the core beats being fairly flimsy. The pacing was too rigid and the sound design of the lead was plain & generic, making 1:32-2:33 sound very flat and unexpressive. Again at 2:54 and 3:29, the timing of everything was too tightly timed, and the beats plodded. I get that this is meant to sound robotic, but there's a stiffness to this that doesn't click; hopefully another judge can better articulate what's the matter there. This is well in the right direction and just needs some additional TLC to ensure the beats don't plod, the the timing sounds less rigid, and (to a lesser degree) the synths sound less generic. Good base so far, Kyle, this is well on the way to getting there. NO (resubmit)

Sorry about not sending an email after the veto, Pieter; it's so rare, I didn't think to do that, so that's my fault. Right from the start, the piano timing being rigid still undermined this, the opening strings sounded pretty unrealistic, and the pipes first used at :11 still sounded very stiffly timed. The mixing was still odd here, and the pan flute brought in at 1:09 sounded even more like it was played at full volume and then just turned down, which made no sense. The way the volume drastically dropped at 1:09-1:29 & 1:43-2:12 from the louder piano sections before them also made no sense. The track sounded needlessly hollow during the quieter sections. It's a shame, because the arrangement itself was solid, but the piece passing before was the panel being too lenient on a number of smaller production issues that added up. The issues from before are all still here, and the balance issues are arguably even worse, so I don't think any tinkering around the edges can make this passable; you'd have to start from scratch. If the sample articulations can't be modified, it's a non-starter as far as getting this to pass. NO

Funny how the klezmer stuff from 2:19-2:58 seemed to wander off aimlessly, which some people will hate, but I loved vegging out to it. The build to the final crescendo starting around 3:36 got cramped by the reach of the apex at 3:52 IMO, but it wasn't a big deal. Arrangement- & concept-wise, love it. I love it. YES

Pretty much this. I don't mean to sell short the instrument dropouts and changes you employ throughout, but this has basically one intensity level/one gear, so it tends to drag out, plus the sampled harp and female vox articulations need more realism/humanization. That said, you managed to get a lot of juice out of this source tune, but it doesn't hold interest for nearly 4 minutes due to the dynamic curve being relatively flat for most of the track. I could see additional variations of this working, e.g. dropping out the drums entirely & changing the tempo and instrumentation for a section. Something like that could spice things up and retain interest while still keeping this march-like orchestration as the core of the arrangement. NO (resubmit)

I'm glad we at least got to the point where Josh, in fact, decided to submit this. It always sucks when talented artists, and even less experienced arrangers get intimidated by the submissions process or how they perceive the standards. Even if you're not sure something will pass or believe it's not what we're looking for or allow, SEND IT IN ANYWAY. A lot of people misinterpret or misunderstand the submission standards, so some artists needlessly psych themselves out as a result. Definitely have a beer or two, get that courage meter up, and send in your arrangements! Onto the track itself, the change to the organic drums at 2:26 seemed rather arbitrary on first blush, but OK. While sound design-wise, some of the synths & beats were on the vanilla side, the arrangement's cohesive, developed, and charmingly exploratory. I didn't think the production issues Chimpa and Emu cited were dealbreakers, just things that would be good to tweak if possible. There were brief spots where things were too buzzy (e.g. 3:23), and this could have been sharper/clearer, but I think the overall production quality as is was a pass, and don't want to make the perfect the enemy of the good. YES

Co-signed with Chimpa and Emu. I liked the wide, varied panning of the notes to start, and I'm surprised no one's ever used this idea before. That said, melodically, there's not too much development of Kraid theme, even though there was an attempt to personalize the sound. But kept at the same tempo and same overall mood, there wasn't enough of a difference in this arrangement compared to the original track. The melody having a lot of mud in it was a production dealbreak as well. Good initial concept, Scott, but the theme needs much more interpretation/variation compared to the original, and the track needs clearer, more balanced mixing. NO

Pretty loose and messy like the TJ&E style, i.e. in a great way. The mid-range seemed mixed too hot for me sometimes, but other than that, awesome energy and fun times. YES

This sounds like it's missing something to make it sound fully cohesive. I'm not against robotic timing for a purposefully mechanical song, but there's still something lacking expressiveness with the leads, e.g. the bassline brought in at :25 and the lead at :53. Also, there's a lot of volume, but not a lot of balance. EQ-wise, there are frequencies mudding together all over the place, which makes the soundscape sound lo-fi and cluttered. I agreed with Chimpa on 1:59-on just sounding directionless with too may things going on; the timing's stiff, there's no clear lead and no clear background players (all the parts are at similar volumes & overlapping ranges). It's an interesting, cerebral arrangement, but the mixing needs more work. Even though you've done some creative sounds & effects with the tools here, this could also afford to sound more unique with the overall sound design. NO (resubmit)

I'm the camp that this is a good start, but the production's not quite there. There's a lot of empty background space for much of this piece, and (despite the effects) a lot of the textures seem relatively too dry. There needs to be light but continuous padding of the background in the first half, so you don't have too much empty space. I also agreed about the beat patterns going on for too long without enough variation, which dragged down the energy and made the arrangement feel samey-er and blander than you intended. Dynamically, there needs to be even more going on with variations in the energy, instrumentation, and textures. Pretty close though, as the arrangement concepts were great and the gating was a creative approach. Keep at it, bro, this has promise. NO (resubmit)

No change needed, because "Power of the Meat" was not tagged as Poolside by artist request. If Josh asked for the change though, I'd do that.

Will get that in a future torrent update. Thanks for the catch!

Will be fixed soon. Good catch!

I like to hear note-for-note covers or MIDI rips, otherwise (like most OC ReMixes) they sound absolutely nothing like the original, which is required by the Proper VGM Arrangement Police. TL;DR - I'm open-minded. I like all the arrangement styles.

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I hope some of that winds up in the inbox and could pass the panel. ZX Spectrum stuff on OCR would be greaaaaaat. YAMAYAMA!

djp can clarify, but your conclusion there wasn't my takeaway, at least the only/primary takeaway. IMO, it's partly about getting non-gamers to try VGM, yes. But a bigger piece of it is getting gamers themselves to more closely think about and appreciate VGM. There are a lot of people in my generation (formative years being 8- & 16-bit) I could talk with about games we both played, but some just don't think about the music that much or remember it well. On that level, the music was disposable for them. So OCR's there to reframe their perspective through a low barrier to entry: free MP3s sorted by game title, no account needed to get 'em, maybe you'll check out something you remember and feel some nostalgia and/or appreciate the interpretation. TL;DR - In proving VGM isn't disposable, I'd wager OCR has more users who were gamers that didn't specifically care about VGM as kids compared to total non-gamers who discovered OCR and became VGM fans.

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Dunno how old that mistake was, but it'll be fixed tomorrow. Thanks for the catch!

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It's the Game Gear/Master System version of Scrap Brain, not Genesis. Fixed the link in the first post.

Welcome back! Posting here's fine, just host the songs and people can DL 'em and try to identify them.

http://twitter.com/frankiesamba/status/565026641257455616 We know the game, for reals! Anyone willing to take on this theme? If you create (or already have) a passable mix of this theme and submit it, just let me know and I'll expedite it, since it'd be cool to have Fester's Quest represented with this request.