Liontamer

The opening piano sounded pretty meh, though it wasn't exposed beyond the intro. Cool voice sample at :03 too; would have enjoyed hearing more stuff like that employed. Anyway, one thing that hit me was that the balance felt off at times, causing some pretty indistinct textures. For example, the lead at :39 was getting buried, while the stuff around it was pretty muddy and caused a lot of clutter. The lead at 1:10 was also cool, but sounded pretty distant, and the bass at 1:37 was indistinct (moreso at 1:49 when things filled out further). The composition/arrangement were excellent to me, and I didn't have any problem with the dynamics here. Obviously Mazedude gets a lot of benefit of the doubt with me creatively, so I'm assuming to some extent this kind of lo-fi mixing approach is purposeful, but it's done to the extent that I think it sounds too lossy. Some of the sections sounding sharper and cleaner would have made the lo-fi wash more effective by making it a point of contrast. Anyway, I'm not influenced by this being by Mazedude, but I thought the arrangement was creative enough to push past this weaker mixing job. If it's rejected on those grounds, I don't have a problem with that, but after comparing it with some cleaner stuff and seeing how this compared, I think the mixing quality squeaks by and shouldn't hold back this excellent arrangement. YES

Who's Nobuo Umetsai? Just chiming in since the Js enjoyed this one. Super basic textures, though some good basic effects to fill out the soundfield. That said, dat sax sample is LONELY and sounded super exposed. Much better stuff at :57 with the sitar and a lead that had a flowing, more natural sound. The parts together were almost off-key at 1:18; not quite, but it was very weird how those instruments sound together. The stiff timing on that sax never sounds good. It the tone didn't sound so fake and the timing didn't sound so robotic, this concept could work better. Interesting cover concept where you do a good job trying to personalize the sound. Like Chimpa said, this needs sample/effects improvements and some production TLC to make the overall sound richer and more natural. It's not borderline to making it, but this has potential. NO

Man, that takes me WAY, way back. The opening piano was cool. The strings entering in were definitely an improvement from before. The arrangement was still good and I'd pass it if it were about that alone, but the mixing and balance here unfortunately weren't on point. At 1:18, the bass and strings seemed to add mostly mud to the piece and needed to be sharper. Something about the layered strings sounded almost out of tune with the guitar lead until 1:41. The tempo was still plodding, but even though the pacing was slow and deliberate, the dynamics in the writing were still good, even if the execution with the instrumentation was lacking on account of the mixing. My main dealbreaker issue: in the effort to thicken the textures up, things often were too crowded and imbalanced. During the fullest parts (e.g. 1:18-1:41, 2:06-2:27, 3:22-3:34, 3:57-4:42), the bassline might as well not be there because it's too indistinct and get swallowed up. Also during those fuller sections, the balance between the parts was way off; the lead writing is certainly more of a plucked style, so it's not very in-your-face, but it sounds like it should be louder and in the forefront compared to the supporting instrumentation. There's too much competition between your parts for space, rather than them working in tandem. For example, the piano at 3:38 sounded great until the bowed strings and brass came in at 3:45, then it could barely be heard. It's not awful, since the focus is on other things, but it's strange to have that part get so completely swallowed up. The crescendo from 4:20-4:41 is supposed to sound powerful, but it sounded more cramped than anything else. The drums at 4:41-4:42 sounded like they distorted briefly. Not quite sure that kit fit with the orchestration around it, but I'll live with the sound choice. I wish I could offer specific advice on how to declutter and re-balance this, Alex, but the other Js and the Workshop forum may be able to help there. The arrangement is still sweeeeeet, but the mixing's a problem with these richer samples now in place. You've gotta tame 'em. NO (resubmit)

Original Decision: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2700 Hi Larry! I forgot what the normal way was to resubmit a track so I thought I'd message. I asked on the IRC channel if there is a policy on how old a remix was and if there was a time period in which it could be resubmitted and Zircon told me the period was indefinite. So yeah I'd like to resubmit a veeeery old remix (must be nearly 9 years now) and since I remember you judged it, I know you'll know it's a resubmit! The remix is 'Run Away With Me' from GoldenEye 007. Here is a link to the original remix that was rejected (currently no mp3 uploaded, I can provide one if requested): And this is the updated version which is now titled "Run Away With Me (2013)": If the link does not work, alternatively it can be grabbed from my soundcloud: If I remember correctly the problems were with samples, some robotic and odd dynamics and some repetitiveness in arrangement. I believe those are fixed and it has a different end section now. Not sure if I need to provide anything else, let me know and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Cheers Larry! ----------------------------------------------------------- - "Runway" (2:54-on can be ignored)

Well, there's definitely some personalization here in the approach with instrument variations of the leads, and original string/pad writing. Melodically, however, there's obviously not much interpretation. The final section at 2:21 has a lead that sounds more reminiscent of EarthBound's sound than anything before it, just noting. The arrangement approach was subtle and developed to some extent, and I'm not inherently against relatively simple textures. But given the minimalism in the writing and textures, and how this is basically in the same tempo as the original, I felt there needed to be additional development through other means such as some melodic variations, or employing and varying the source tune's countermelodies. So it's not like this is way too conservative of an arrangement, but this arrangement wasn't quite developed ENOUGH to put the level of interpretation over the top. Good stuff so far, Justin, but see what other substantial arrangement ideas you can incorporate. NO (resubmit)

A decade ago, we had 44 fewer albums and 1,711 fewer ReMixes. (Catch up!) Well in what you excluded, you mentioned the 2 Diablo series mixes on the site, as well as the two that were removed. Dunno what "Rogue" is, but anything that's not in our Changelog, and not on the OC ReMoved page likely never was on the site. Sounds like what you're thinking of may never have been hosted on OCR as an OC ReMix. Maybe someone posted it just on the forums or to VGMix1.

Flex, he's talking about swapping a song in the inbox. I'll allow a one-time instance, sure. Submit it, Brandon, make note of the issue and I'll check it out.

Thanks for the more thorough breakdown, Brent, I appreciate it. I held this for my vote (sorry for the wait) because I wanted to understand what you did beyond "this is too liberal" and see just how close it was, or if it was WAY off the rails. Well, the Menu Theme sounds really abstract at first blush, but it's really just 12 slow notes in pretty distinct 3-note patterns (if I have it correct, D-C-D#, D-C-E; E-B-G, E-B-G). Anything that sound like those note patterns should be pretty obvious. Instead, the "usage" of the menu theme if you can call it that, was more about the ambiance, like Brent said. That's unfortunate, because most of the stated usage of Daniel's Theme and Back Hall were there, so using the menu theme in a more straightforward and overt way would have put the source usage over the top. Based on your breakdown, I was able to time out what I was willing to give credit for: 0:18-0:25 high melody = Daniel's Theme 3:11 0:38-0:48 melody = Daniel's Theme 2:01 1:55.5-2:17.5 = Back Hall 2:31-2:39 - slight but overt variation of D-C-E portion of Menu Theme melody was only recognizable usage 3:26-4:25 = Daniel's Theme 2:01 4:25-4:46 = Daniel's Theme 3:11 5:25-6:15 = Back Hall 6:19.5-6:25.5, 6:31.25-6:37.25 = Daniel's Theme chords - 2 notes of 4-note pattern are from Daniel's Theme 4:04-4:10 [did not count - 2:51 whistle synth = Daniel's Theme 2:01 (disagree, too liberal; notes are too different from source, unlike :38 in the mix)] Of this 6:52-long track, I could make out source material from: :18-:25, :38-:48, 1:55.5-2:17.5, 2:31-2:39, 3:26-4:46, 5:25-6:15, 6:19.5-6:25.5, 6:31.25-6:37.25 = 189 seconds or 45.87% overt source usage) Brent knows the arrangement went a bit too liberal, but the track itself and its overall mood were great. You certainly don't HAVE to revise this any further if you're happy with it, Brent, but if you wanted it posted here, it wouldn't take TOO much more effort to get it passed, IMO. Adding more identifiable source usage of the menu theme (or any other source) during the original sections or wherever could seal the deal. Do your best to bump the source usage above and beyond 50% so that the VGM usage is dominant in the arrangement (per the standards), and you'd be good to go. NO (resubmit)

Thanks for the more detailed breakdown, Mike. I gotta say, I held this vote up just to sanity check it, but WOW that is one liberal arrangement. I barely made out anything. Thanks to the comments, I was able to at least distill the claims of source usage and work from there: OK, I stripped down Mike's breakdown and then tried to A-to-B all the connections and I came up with: Sooo... yeah. I didn't think much matched up with the source tunes, and this pretty quickly went off the rails as far as any meaningful recognizability. Cool track though. I was hoping I'd ID something that made it a pass, but thems the breaks! But yeah, on the panel, you never give ANYONE the benefit of the doubt when it comes to source usage. NO

I should clarify, I don't think the level of dissonance fully clicks in this piece. I should have said the word "fully," but it's definitely not a case of "not at all." Like I said more towards the end of my comments, I completely get where that idea's coming from, I just think it's a bit much given the way the dissonance sustains so prominently, as opposed to the original where it's much more subdued. There's (arguably) a happy medium as far as how loudly to mix that part, or at least introduce the line more softly and then gradually raise the levels on it and make it more foreboding that way. I'll disagree with OA in that I think 2 1/2 was an OK length. I see how one could want some more time to it, but I thought it was developed reasonably enough, at least enough to not hold it back from posting it on that level. Jake, if you can tighten up the mixing on this, and/or consider some of the arrangement critiques that you end up agreeing with, I think this could get posted in some form. Don't drop this!

Don't get too busy and make the rest of us look bad(der).

There's a lot to like about this track, but the production job isn't getting it done, IMO. Some of the cymbal work (e.g. 1:04-1:08, 1:13, 2:19-2:21) sounded very fake when exposed, and the machine gun drumming starting at 1:20 was too loud. The vox added in at 1:07 ended up sounding like indistinct mud for the most part, and didn't contribute much during the verses at 1:28. Really not feeling the glassy lead combined with the guitar 1:15. The glassy lead and electric guitar combination at 1:38 didn't click for me, and just seemed to make the glassy lead sound goofy and out of context, unlike when it was used in the relaxed intro. Same issue with the organ-type lead cameo at 3:02, it just sounded too high-pitched to fit well in this kind of rock piece, at least for me. Also, once the lead guitar arrived for the lead doubling at 1:38, the rhythm guitar basically melted into the vox and both were indistinct. The piano sequencing at 4:09 also sounded robotic, though serviceable; if the articulations could be humanized, that would be helpful, though not a huge deal if it was left alone. The mixing from 2:57-3:34 was too cluttered with the vox, synths, drums and guitar just muddying together; that could be said for basically most of the verses and every chorus here, and that's what's ultimately pulled this below the bar for me. There's just too much clarity missing for me to get behind this, even though the arrangement is so promising. NO (resubmit)

Nice lo-fi start, though when things peaked at :21 and the track officially kicked off, it should have had more high-end clarity to it. All throughout, the lack of clarity dinged this track, even though I enjoyed it. Man, I've heard some crazy chiptune tracks, but the way everything in the arrangement was played around was overloaded with ear candy and manic energy. Short and sweet, an awesome arrangement! YES

Before you know it, it'll be 15 years.

I don't know what was specifically done to improve the realism here, but this was a significant improvement. Maybe Fishy can give us some more information, since the submission letter was the same at before and didn't detail any of the changes. Obviously, it's not performed live, but the samples sounded much more credible overall, and the result was a performance that was much smoother this time around. Nice work, Guillaume. We've been waiting for something like this from you for a long time, but finally we have a finished track that does justice your arrangement concepts with solid sample and production quality. YES

Original Decision Remixer name: Bluelighter Real Name: Guillaume SAUMANDE Mail: ID forum: 30998 From the album project: Final Fantasy 9 Game & Songs: Final Fantasy 9 – Sleepless City Treno Composer: Nobuo UEMATSU Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkA17QI1gSM Comment: Hi OCR! Treno’s theme is really my favourite of the game; so that I could play this in loop in piano:) For long time, I wanted to know what it would look like with an orchestral dimension. ff9 album project was the opportunity to make mine! In this mix, I wanted to insist on a cheerful rhythm of marching band, with also some more exotic parts by using of woodwinds and pizz. This new version is made with better quality of samples. Thanks to fishy who really helped to finish this mix and get a version presentable to OCR! I hope you’ll like this arrangement --------------------------------------

Production-wise, this one's still far enough on the muddy and imbalanced side to me that I can't pass it. Some higher frequencies sounded like they're just lopped off. The light vox seemed to be creating some of the problem, but I'm no expert here, so another J can hopefully clarify the issue further. The pronounced chorus at :40 did cut through better at the lead, but it sounds like this lacks separation between the parts. Otherwise, this was still fairly cluttered, and I was hearing the rhythm guitars more than anything when you didn't have the source melody in play. The leads, the backing guitars and the drums all seem to moosh together in the same frequency range, so things are stepping over each other a lot. The bassline work's there if you listen closely, but it almost might as well not be there. Still a very awkward transition to "Metal Man" at 1:34. 2:17-3:28 sounded like mush the last time around, and it's definitely improved, though it's still fairly swamped to me. The track cut out before the vox finished fading; watch those details. Yes, I typed it again, because the ending cut off the same exact way as last time. The stiff sequencing that was problematic before (e.g. 1:08, 3:29) was smoothed out a bit to where it's no longer a significant problem, IMO. Meanwhile, the soundscape was less muddy than before, but many parts still strained for clarity (or even presence to begin with) and need more separation. It's a good effort towards improvement, but it's unfortunately not there yet. This seemingly would need a good deal of work to re-balance this and clean it up some, and I'm not sure you can necessarily get it there. That said, the arrangement's still promising, and it may be salvageable; however, it still needs further mixing TLC. NO (resubmit)

Original Decision Contact Information > ReMixer name: HeavenWraith > Real name: Antanas Palaitis > E-mail: > Website: http://www.heavenwraithmusic.net > Forum userID: 50325 Submission Information > Game: Mega Man X, Mega Man 2 > ReMix Name: Charge! Towards The Sunset Of Intergalactic Dictatorship > Original Name: Boomer Kuwanger Stage (MMX), Metal Man Stage (MM2) > Original Author: Makoto Tomozawa, Setsuo Yamamoto, Toshihiko Horiyama, Yuki Iwai, Yuko Takehara (MMX); Manami Matsumae, Takashi Tateishi (MM2) > I've (hopefully) refined the mixing of this piece while trying to stay as close to my original arrangement as possible. Some changes were inevitable but otherwise I think I did a pretty good job regarding that. Especially considering that all my guitar recordings for this song were low-pass-filtered for some silly reason, haha. Correcting past mistakes, as usual. Thank you for your time. -------------------------------- - Boomer Kuwanger - Metal Man

The tempo's still a bit plodding when the basic beats are in place, but there's definitely more spice to the arrangement now in the form of more creative variations and much stronger dynamic contrast over the course of the 6 minutes. The tempo change also fully clicks now, which was much needed. Now you're playing with power. I'm really glad you decided to come back to this one, Emery; you did a great job tightening this up, and it really shows off your creativity that much more. YES

Original Decision: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=43275 CONTACT INFO ReMixer name: DaMonz Real name: Emery Monzerol userid: 31308 SUBMISSION INFO Name of the games arranged: Super Mario 64, Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Name of the arrangement: Medieval Koopa Jam Name of the individual songs arranged: Koopa's Road, Medieval Jam Link to Koopa's Road: http://youtu.be/0rygsWPCjNQ Link to Medieval Jam: http://youtu.be/gtJyq0STBu0 Comments: Alright, so after all this time I finally decided to get this track fixed. Thanks a ton for your awesome comments as usual, I agree with all the feedback I got from the previous evaluation. In the first version of my ReMix, I think I might have focused a bit too much on "not sounding wrong" instead of "sounding right", so I'm very glad you guys helped me realize that. In this revision, I tried to alter the arrangement to keep things as interesting as possible throughout the track, and I also tried to beef up the production. I think this ReMix has much more impact than before, and I'm looking forward to getting everyone's feedback to see if I'm right! ;D P.S.: I got the idea of mixing these two sources together when I was listening to Medieval Jam, when I noticed the chord progression similarities that Larry noticed in his post The first idea of the ReMix was to use this to connect the two sources together, by replacing Medieval Jam's ending with Koopa's Road's beginning. Fun fact. ----------------------------- "Koopa's Road" - http://youtu.be/0rygsWPCjNQ "Medieval Jam" - http://youtu.be/gtJyq0STBu0

The arrangement is personalized nicely, though there's an overall muddy and cluttered sound here, IMO. Obviously, it's meant to have an ethereal quality, but the melodic leads and piano were overpowered too much by the beats. The heavy kicks from :26-:52 & 1:30-3:06 were also a bit on the plodding side. More dropouts here or there could have prevented it from sounding plodding/fatiguing, but I can live with them as is, especially if the levels on that kick were just pulled back a bit. This may pass as is and I actually enjoy the arrangement a lot, but it's just a bit too cluttered and could use a tweak. That said, I'll go ahead and tip in favor of it. It's not groundbreaking for the genre, but it's definitely still a very creative, energetic take on Cyan, even if it muds together some. It gets it done! YES

Re-mixer: ZeroSynapseEDM Game: Final Fantasy VI Name of song: Destination of Souls Song arranged: Cyan's theme ------------------------- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi_Zex0qILc

Chipamp, a bundle of Winamp VGM-related input plugins, has been updated from version 1.0 to version 1.1. This revision updates a number of plugins, most notably updating the .VGM-format plugin to version 0.40. Chipamp is available for free at http://chipamp.org. Please uninstall Chipamp before upgrading! Below is a list of plugins included in Chipamp and their respective homepages. The version included in Chipamp is also indicated (this should usually be the latest & greatest). As a sidenote, chiptune plugins often rely on emulation libraries coded by other developers, so remember to check each plugin's homepage and documentation for a more complete who's who. Please contact us if you have additions/corrections to the below information. Included Plugins & Versions 64th Note 1.2 Beta 3 http://www.hcs64.com/usf/#64th [*] AOSDK Plugin Conversions, VIO2SF AODSF 0.10 AOSSF 1.21 VIO2SF 0.23 http://foobar2000.xrea.jp/up/index.php?page=1 [*] ASAP 3.1.5 http://asap.sourceforge.net/ [*] GEZamp 0.2+(beta) http://www.purose.net/befis/download/ [*] Highly Advanced 0.11 http://www.caitsith2.com/gsf/ [*] Highly Experimental v2.09 http://www.neillcorlett.com/he/ [*] in_sidplay2 1.5.4 http://www.winamp.com/plugin/in-sidplay2-1-5-4/222277 [*] Leonard ST-Sound 1.3 http://leonard.oxg.free.fr/stsound_download.html [*] MDX Input Plugin V1.14 http://www.page.sannet.ne.jp/i-tanimoto/ (404), i-tanimoto@pop07.odn.ne.jp [*] NEZplug 0.9.4.8 + 2 + 19.20 http://www.vesta.dti.ne.jp/~tsato/soft_sound.html#nezplug [*] NotSo Fatso! v0.86 http://disch.zophar.net/notsofatso.php [*] S98 Input Plugin v1.3.1 +8 (2011/05/31) http://www.vesta.dti.ne.jp/~tsato/soft_s98v3.html#in_s98 [*] SC68 v2.2.1 http://sc68.atari.org/ [*] SNESAmp v3.3.4 http://www.alpha-ii.com/Download/Main.html#SNESamp [*] VGM input plugin 0.40 http://www.smspower.org/Music/InVgm [*] VGMStream r1017-test http://hcs64.com/vgmstream.html [*] Wonderswan WSR Plugin v2006/5/3 ??? Changelog 0.9, 8/27/2006 Initial release 1.0, 12/17/2010 Removed adPlug, in_sk00l plugins due to conflicts with default .MID, .MOD Updated SNESAmp to latest version; fixes errors with Winamp 5.6+ Updated 64th Note to 1.2 Beta 3 Updated NEZplug to 0.9.4.8 + 2 + 19.20 Updated NotSo Fatso! to 0.86 Added new plugins: AODSF, AOSSF, ASAP, MDX, S98, SC68, VGMSTREAM, VIO2SF, WSR, YM 1.1, 12/10/2013 Updated ASAP to 3.1.5 Updated S98 Input Plugin to v1.3.1+8 Updated in_sidplay2 to 1.5.4 Updated VGM input plugin to 0.40 Updated AODSF to 0.10 Updated VGMStream to r1017-test

That's the $1K reward, yeah. I do NOT have $1K. WOW!

People need to ask. Not every project asks for a subforum, because they don't automatically need it. I've never seen any email to the admin address or any PMs asking about this from anyone. If I don't know about it, y'all are asking the wrong people.