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Liontamer

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Everything posted by Liontamer

  1. What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.
  2. What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.
  3. What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.
  4. What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.
  5. I'm on Chrome for Windows (7) and I'm not having an issue. Is it visible in other browsers? Seems potentially difficult to replicate.
  6. The drums were the weak link for me; the snare tone was weak, so the sound of it didn't really gel with the rest, plus its pattern plodded and the drumkit didn't adequately fill out the background, IMO. There were super empty parts like 1:36-1:39 that needing more padding (not a big deal alone, but followed by 1:39-2:06 which also had that emptiness issue to an extent. There was also some pretty lame machine-gun effect stuff from 2:05-2:06, 2:17-2:18 & 3:38-3:44 that wasn't a dealbreaker on its own but just lacked polish. The writing of the soloing from 2:06-2:33 was a true highlight. The arrangement was conservative but decently personalized, and the guitar performance was expressive enough to get by, though the timing was a bit stilted in places. So what the percussion takes away, the rest almost carries it. I'm not hardcore against this passing, but feel this could be solidly over the line if some of the minor things that added up here with the percussion and emptier spots. It's definitely a contender, so I don't mean to be discouraging, Chris, because I like the potential here, but I'm not quite there yet with feeling this measures up. Good luck with the rest of the vote though. If it doesn't pass, you definitely have the ability to ensure it does with some tweaks. NO (resubmit)
  7. I have an FAQ space at the ready! Q: What will the money be used for? A: Additional funds will help OCR by covering our improvement costs, as well as bandwidth, hosting, promotional, and other administrative costs. There's no profit motive. Q: Didn't you make a gazillion dollars on the FF6 Kickstarter? A: No, international shipping kicked us in the butt (we didn't charge extra for it), plus our arrangement with Squenix had non-profit restrictions, which was fine since we never had a profit motive. Q: Is OCR going to shut down without the funding? A: No, don't worry, we're NOT in dire financial straits, we're just looking for help to make these additional features a reality. OCR is a labor of love! Q: You're not artists, you're just a platform for artists! A: That's not a question! We've been working our tails off on this platform for 14 years and we want to make the world a better place through VGM. In the future, we will be linking/promoting individual artist Patreon accounts from artist profile pages, where applicable, FYI. Q: Will the music continue to be free to download? A: Of course! Q: Can I have one big ZIP file with all the ReMixes? A: :/
  8. After a break in 2013, it's once again time for SUPPORT OCR MONTH! Or should we say "Monthly"? This year isn't fundamentally different from past fundraisers donating though PayPal, but for 2014 and beyond, we're also adding in steady support through Patreon! SUPPORT OCR on PATREON! OC ReMix has worked to showcase video game music as an art form since 1999. With nearly 3,000 OC ReMixes and 50 community albums released so far, we plan on keeping the FREE music coming for years & years to come! Now we're asking for YOUR help to take OCR to the next level (and then some) for several much-needed goals, including: RELEASING WAY MORE MUSIC!! We'll be expanding our workshop area to instantly integrate ALL arrangements posted on our forums into the site's searchable database! We want to offer the best of both worlds to artists AND listeners - a curated selection of approved/featured mixes AND a massive database of works-in-progress, submissions, and more! Upgrading our forums to offer more features for visitors and artists alike, including blogs and on-site file hosting! Developing a mobile app, making higher-quality videos, and holding more live performances & convention appearances to spread the VGM love! Hosting LOSSLESS ReMixes, retagging all past albums, and sharing all OC ReMixes on SoundCloud! Pursuing legal assistance to file for 501c3 status and become an OFFICIAL non-profit organization dedicated to the recognition of VGM! FURTHER INCREASING THE AWESOME! Help keep us going, ensuring a steady flow of funding to pursue additional site improvements!! We want to keep things simple with $1 and $5 pledge levels, because it's not about high dollar amounts, it's about community and simply chipping in a LITTLE to help OCR improve a LOT! If you're able to pledge more, you rock! Those who pledge $5 a month or above will not only get exclusive Patreon backer updates, they also score a FREE ALBUM EVERY MONTH from our sister site OverClocked Records, meaning you get even more great music, including game soundtracks and original works by community artists! We've also include the GAME MUSIC SUPERFAN tier at $100 a month - if you can swing that, you can be an OFFICIAL OCR SPONSOR. We'll promote your site, enter you in a drawing for random swag and prizes, and be at the ready to answer your questions about OCR, because that's an unreal level of support! Please consider backing us! If every listener pledged $1 a month, we'd be golden. Whatever pledge you can manage will help us at OC ReMix marshal the time, resources, and manpower to tackle some long-awaited projects and initiatives! Thank you to everyone for your support, and we're happy to answer any questions on this thread!
  9. All OCR album tracks are also on the OCR stream, not just the individually posted ReMixes. That's why "Skull-Head" is already in the rotation.
  10. Liquid Neon has a couple older mixes from '01 and '02 that didn't age well but have beats that are somewhat similar to the style of Venetian Snares. http://ocremix.org/artist/4289/liquid-neon Having listened to some Venetian Snares, their style seemed perfectly fine for the site. Given what I heard from their Rossz Csillag Alatt Született album, it'd be more a question of using VGM melodies extensively while having a melodic theme click with the style of breakcore's beats. But I don't see it being "unlikely" as far as the feasibility of fitting the standards, just less likely given that we don't have any breakcore musicians around these parts for the time being.
  11. Can't say I'm aware of any options besides re-downloading the files. Others know more, so I hope someone else chimes in, but I'm not aware of any programs that just store MP3 or FLAC metadata without a corresponding file.
  12. OCR and Video Games Live have been tight for years, so we're SUPER hyped to announce that the upcoming VGL show at E3 will feature, for the first time EVER, an OC ReMix performed LIVE in a major concert series! zircon & Jillian Aversa will be performing "Till We Meet Again", their arrangement of Celes's theme from Final Fantasy VI: Balance and Ruin, this WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11th. This is also the long-awaited premiere of ANY music from FF6 at VGL! • Jill & Tommy announce the news! http://youtu.be/SnHa5Yitor0 • FULL INFO! http://videogameslive.com/index.php?s=e32014 • TIX! http://axs.com/events/249875/video-games-live-tickets?skin=nokiatheatre • VIP TIX! http://wl.flavorus.com/event/VGL-VIP-Los-Angeles-CA/239845?afflky=videogameslive The concert will also feature brand-new segments from games like League of Legends, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft and the Banner Saga, plus artists and composers such as Christopher Tin, Austin Wintory, Malukah, Critical Hit, Jason Hayes, Inon Zur, and many more. Not to mention all the other awesome stuff that happens at VGL like contests and giveaways - we'll have LIMITED EDITION physical copies of Final Fantasy VI: Balance and Ruin for some lucky audience members! If you're in the LA area or you're in town for E3, check it out! Wed, Jun 11, 2014 - 8:00PM Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE 777 Chick Hearn Court Los Angeles, CA 90015
  13. We'd have to hear the piece(s) in context, but as long as it's not gratuitous usage, it's probably fine. Would you believe... for fun? http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-20/kiu-eggplant-wizard.html
  14. I didn't hear the first version, but it's funny that hats and overcompression came up, because here I be with complaints about those 2 things. Yeebs, dat volume, why? Nitpick: the hats used from :08-:42 & 1:58-2:09 should be pulled back a bit more. Nitpick that turned into an issue over the long run: whatever that "thwippy" SFX-style stuff from 1:06-1:56 & 2:09-2:21 was was getting undermined due to the compression. It's a cool part to add texture, but especially from 2:09-3:05, that part was mixed in a way where it sounded like artifacting rather than a purposeful element; it's just could sound much better. Otherwise, it's a solid arrangement. SFxT plays a lot more of a supplementary, background role here, but augments Tenchu's "Rain" theme nicely. The lead synth for the melody was a bit tightly timed, and I thought the compression was more than necessary, but the overall package clicks together well enough. If there could be some further production tweaks before we posted this, that could fix a few minor things, but this is a solid piece! Good job, bros. YES
  15. Kris had a pretty good breakdown. I was more conservative on the timestamping, but still wound up on the right side of 50%. :00-:13, :15-44.5, 1:15-1:31.5, 1:33.5-1:47, 1:49-1:50.5, 2:03-2:15.5, 2:19.25-2:32, 2:33.5-2:40.5, 2:47.75-2:53.75, 3:02-3:05.5, 3:10-3:18.75, 3:20-3:20.75, 3:24.5-3:25.75, 3:27-3:27.75 127.25 seconds of a 228-second track, or 55.8% overt source usage The track sounded needlessly lossy to me, like it was missing high-end clarity, but other than that, I really enjoyed Mattias's take on "Lindblum", as well as the cameo of "The Place I'll Return to Someday" at 3:02, which was a nice touch. I'd love to hear a remastered version before the album drops, but if not, it's still a strong arrangement. YES
  16. Well, the track's enjoyable, but this is a VERY liberal take that relies more on rhythmic similarities than actually following the source melody. It'd be perfect for something like Turtles in Time: ReShelled if the aim was to have a "soundalike" where permission wasn't given to use the original music. It's like hearing a commercial using a knockoff James Bond theme where the timing's the same but the notes are different to avoid legal problems. Example - "Agent 070" James Bond soundalike: http://www.audiosparx.com/sa/summary/play.cfm/crumb.1/crumc.0/sound_iid.659939 Flat out, THAT was the vibe I got hearing the "straightforward usage" of the Genesis source. For example, the main verses of both tracks, leaving out the first 5 notes of the source that were left out of the arrangement: Source: C#-B-A-Ab-A-B-E (:01-:03), C#-B-A-A-Ab-F#-Ab-Ab-E (:06-:09) Arrange: E-D-C#-A-B-C#-B (19-:22), E-D-C#-B-A-Ab-B (:24-:27) Hell, I dunno music theory, but I DO know when I don't hear a similar enough melodic treatment and the intervals aren't the same even when the timing is. It's like this the whole time, I'm getting a pure "soundalike" vibe, and I can barely give any credit to this track. About the only times I felt I could give the arrangement credit on were portions like :39-:48, 1:12-1:21, 2:49-2:58, where the bassline from the original is more explicity referenced as a background part. Even at 1:41 at the seeming shift to the "Warming Up" SNES theme, the way the notes are changed sounds like it has jack to do with the source material beyond a minor resmblance. 2:00-2:15 vaguely sounds like "Warming Up" and not in any overt sense. This vote so far is giving this track a HUGE benefit of the doubt over sounding well-executed rather than sounding like an identifiable arrangement of these two themes, and it's a drastic mistake. Vinnie, Kris, Justin: Someone here please demonstrate how the notes of the melody or any other part of the Genesis source OR the SNES source are being used with clear A-to-B connections. I need to be shown where the substance is first, and as far as I'm concerned, it's a very uphill battle to call this anything but a copyright-circumventing "soundalike." In the serious business world of judging, I'm fighting this all the way. This is an awesome piece of standalone music, that's essentially a wholly original track, and I think we've fallen VERY far off the mark on analyzing arrangement if this somehow passes. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but this kind of inadvertant, benefit-of-the-doubt, sounds-kind-of-like-it vote has definitely happened before and I've had to flip a table. And I'm definitely flipping a table right now. Absolutely not. NO
  17. Mike's vocals were OK, but the way the word "studio" is sung seemed too low and didn't quite fit with the music in that spot. I get that the approach is kind of a robotic vibe, but it didn't click there for me in that one repeated spot. During the more crowded sections (e.g. :39-:52), there's a lot of indistinct sizzling noise in the percussion, and the guitar chords. Literally from :53-:56 as the guitar fades, I literally hear the soundscape go from too cramped to nice and spacious. And then at 1:06, the guitar returns and I'm getting the same issues, i.e. Mike's vocals fighting for space and the cymbals sounding too hot and slightly distorted (best example for cymbals: 1:53-2:05). 1:32-1:46 in particular needs room to breathe. What was the point of the call-response "throughout the day" at 1:09 and "and learning now" at 1:14? They're pretty buried in the track and on first blush sounded like garbled artifacts rather than an element adding texture. So anyway, the arrangement is a straightforward pass, so I'm sorry for glossing over that, but the mixing is too compressed for too much of the track. I'm surprised I'm saying this given the participants involved, but I definitely think this needs another pass on the mixing side before it's ready for primetime. Pull back the volume a bit, re-EQ some parts and give the fullest sections more space; right now, there's too much of this track that's pushing it re: volume and resulting in indistinct mixing. NO (resubmit) EDIT (6/23): What can I say? You need to treat my old-man ears with kindness and respect. Hey, if a non-musician like me can get a production call right every so often, I'm content. So this version's still a little cramped, in that the cymbals don't sound like cymbals and just sound like indistinct, lossy sizzle, IMO, and 2:36-2:52 for the close was getting crowded. HOWEVER, the rest of the mixing's way more on point, so I can look past those issues now that most of the other elements have room to breathe and the track sounds much more spacious and balanced. Even the way "studio" sounded in the spoken word-ish vocals was smooth when you can fully hear the vocals; same goes for the call-response vocals at 1:09 & 1:14. Really strong energy and performances. Glad to finally sign off on this one. YES
  18. HEY HEY! WE LIVE! http://youtu.be/Y8pW4foc79o
  19. The snare sounded too plodding, not varied enough with the pattern or velocities, and too upfront here. Meanwhile, the bassline (arguably) felt too quiet during the densest parts. The arrangement was suuuuuuuuper cover-ish to start, without anything major in the way of creative interpretation from :26-1:41. The lead, backing chords, tone and tempo were near-identical with the original and I just wasn't feeling much of an interpretive approach in performing it; it just came off like a grade-up arrange with some improved instrumentation. 1:41-2:08 did have some more creative synth soloing. The lead writing was cool, but this was also an opportunity to vary up the backing pattern more as well; you did that more after 2:08, so keep moving in that direction. Good original guitar writing over the foundation of the source from 2:08-3:02. The brass samples used from 1:54-2:07 & 2:45-2:59 lacked credibility. This could benefit from a fuller, richer sound there. Same with the opening strings to a much lesser extent, though those sounded much more serviceable. The ending at 2:59 felt fairly abrupt; it WAS a resolution, but didn't feel very satisfactory, at least at first. It took some getting used to, but I'm cool with it. OK, so in short, this is cool and has potential, and the lead synth and guitar rock the heezy. That said, here's what you can do to enhance the execution of this: * Vary up the snare intensity and timing more and just get more creative with the percussion * Add more personalization and interpretation to your treatment of the source from :26-1:41 * Improve the realism of the brass and string parts Good start, Bruno, with some awesome performances. I hope you're willing to see how much further you can take this! NO (resubmit)
  20. The opening breakbeat behind the groove felt generic, and the opening synth timing felt kind of robotic, but we'll see where this goes. Oof. Once that lead came in at 1:05, it was like trying fit a round peg into a square hole. The way the beats function here almost feels slapped on and doesn't compliment the melody at all. This lead sounds like it's moving too fast, like it's trying to catch up to the tempo of the beats. Plus, those two parts don't fit together let alone with the warbly part also handling the source tune. It's not dissonance that works in this case. The dropoff at 3:17 was much smoother without the beats, and I thought that section clicked the best, including when the drumkit reappeared from 3:39-4:01. When the full percussion returned at 4:01 along with the warbly synth, it's another instance where the synth being slightly behind the beat just sounds awkward. 4:45-6:12 was just a rinse and repeat of 1:05-2:32 with 0 variation. "Getting Old, Never Varying." You've definitely got to cut some fat out of this one. I'm also not as enthused as the others, unfortunately. The potential for a cool DnB take with this theme wasn't realized here. This has some raw, base potential, but it's too repetitive with too little development over the long-run, PLUS the dissonance, timing, textures, and beats ultimately don't work as is. Needs a lot of love and attention to get the execution where it needs to be, but it's not sophisticated right now. NO
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