Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Yoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Can't say I could identify anything resembling the SMB3 Airship theme, but maybe someone else will notice it. Not much of a flow/transition to Dr. Mario at :35, but I got used to it on repeated listens. Throughout the whole track, there's muddyness and lack of clarity that undermined the energy of the performance. The arrangement's pretty awesome and I thought the performances sounded strong for the most part. I'd like to hear a version with better mixing before we post it, but if we were unable to get it, I would have to lean YES (borderline). The mixing's bordering on mediocre, but the arrangement and strong performances barely tilt it to the point where I can't pass this up as is. If enough people make a strong case against it, I could switch my vote, as I DO want to hear a better version. YES (dancing on the borderline)

String and woodwind timing/articulations sounded fairly unrealistic for the first 20 seconds. As soon as the guitar arrived at :20, the mixing seemed needlessly muddy. Lead synth at :34 lacked expressiveness and just seemed too stiff/quantized. Woodwind at :53-1:00 didn't click with the other instrumentation and just seemed to get buried in mud under the guitar. Drumkit from 1:05-1:20 & 1:36-1:51 also was exposed and stiffly timed. I'm probably grandpa-ing about that flute and may need to get used to it, but it's only a smaller issue. The muddy mixing and overly tight timing were enough to pull this down to NO. It's an interesting arrangement, but the execution's lacking and it feels too stilted. NO

I think the arrangement's a pass, but yes, the string and brass (biggest offender, 2:28-2:57) sequencing being exposed/unrealistic pulled this down. It actually sounds relatively strong/serviceable, so it's not like this is poor, but sections like 4:09-4:25 where the timing was noticeably stiff occurred a few too many times. Like Flexstyle said, it may be a case were some reverb tweaks could mask those issues. The final section at 4:36 was very quiet, but beautifully written and with stronger execution/realism. All the woodwind areas sounded solid, if that's any consolation, it's just that the string articulations underneath strained for realism at times. I did agree the final section sounded too quiet; it kind of came across like a straight up cut of the volume rather than quieter playing. The arrangement itself was relatively conservative, but personalized well, including some nice subtle cameos of the main Zelda theme. It's promising stuff, LindsayAnne, and I think you could pull this off with these current samples, but this needs another level of production polish to pull it over the line. Posting this in the Post Your Game ReMixes! or Music Composition & Production specifically for production advice could be of help. NO (resubmit)

Just a note, not that it changes anything, but there will be no update on this due to the source files being lost. (And Chimpa's now a MAN, BABY!) Could you possibly tweak the volume of the vocals relative to the instrumental? If you send me a link, I'll make sure we vote on a tweaked version. If you don't want to touch it, that's OK too. Larry, Thanks for the update. You might've noticed I haven't sent in any mixes lately. I actually lost my laptop and was too lazy to build another one for music production. With that, I lost all my music files as well (although still recoverable from the HDD but I haven't done that yet). Short story, unfortunately, I can't update this mix anymore. Second thing is, quite honestly, I'm shocked to see a NO on this one. Not meaning to sound like an arrogant jerk but I strongly believe in this mix and made it with a lot of heart. Plus, Mr. Chimpazilla himself says so, loves everything about the mix and yet gives it a NO because the vocal levels are not in line with his liking. The judges I know on OCR would never do that I have huge, huge respect for you Larry. If you also think this is a NO, then I will accept it with no objection. But I really can't do anything about it anymore. I wanted to change the snare myself actually Have a great day

Very mechanical piano sound, and I'm agreed with the others about overcompression. Honestly though, if the piano and drumkit didn't sound so fake and exposed, I could get with this, since the arrangement was otherwise creative and varied. Watch the emptiness in the background in sections like 1:19-1:31; this thin, plastic bucket drumkit doesn't get it done, you need some additional padding or something to fill out the back. Arrangement's a YES, but the production issues definitely pull it down to NO (resubmit). It's not close yet, Ethan, but it's well on its way IF you can substantially refine it.

The instrumentation under the "Want You Gone" chorus from :52-1:10 didn't fit for me on first blush, but I got used to the style by the third iteration. Other than that nitpick, everything else was strong. Great balls-out performance and an easy call. A lot of people will hate it, and that's \m/. YES

I'd say more, but I agree with your breakdown, especially the lead at 2:27 sounding vanilla. Quoted for emphasis; please listen to this advice to add more substance and variety to the picture in both the sound design and the level of arrangement/interpretation. NO (resubmit)

Something about the string articulations/triggering sounds super duper fake, and the lack of realism's taking me out of this pretty quickly. Same with the woodwinds, and then brass during the second half. There's a stiffness to the whole presentation. The two source themes seemed entirely unconnected; besides the drumbeat underneath, there was practically no meaningful transition from "Jib Jib" to "In a Snow-Bound Land" and the changeup at 1:15 was awkward, IMO. There's some notable personalization of the sound given the new instrumentation, but not much interpretation of the source melodies. Lots of relatively muddy mixing that also wasn't helped by the hard panning. It seemed like the panning from 1:44-2:13 (most noticeably) was too drastic, at least in my headphones. 2:13 sounded like a cut-and-paste of :25's section. I hate to have a lot of criticisms, but there a lot of detail-work missing in the execution. NO

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I have most of the episodes. I believe I have one CD that got jacked up of older episodes, and maybe I could see if Species still has them in his archives. One day, I'll drop 'em on Google Drive or somewhere else in order to host 'em. I'll mark it down to do for the new year.

He means this tagging system for genre/mood/instrumentation descriptors: http://ocremix.org/forums/tags.php - It's not complete, but we've been working on populating tags for ReMixes that way. We'll be working on completing these tags for all ReMixes in the actual site database.

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Posting it Off Topic lowered the visibility of it. Moving to Community...

Sound design-wise, a lot of cookies were cut. OA's comments about the treble being relentless were on point, and some more dynamic contrast through more textural changes (particularly variation with lead) would have made this better. Not my cup of tea, I'm afraid, so I'll stick with the original on this.

Quality's aged, but hey, it's cool. One of the few beatnik-esque pieces on the site, which is sweet. I'm really surprised we've had nothing else remotely like it, because it's a cool approach.

There are areas where I wish the piano sequencing and beats aged better, and the ending should have been a better resolution instead of the bottom just dropping out. That said, I was surprised by how the deliberate pacing didn't plod for me. The lone cymbal, padding, and airy instrumentation all worked nicely in presenting a relaxing mood. A very solid debut mix by Gray from way back in the day.