Liontamer

WE'RE LIVE!

Sometimes, there's no update other than date. But we be votin'. As for that GIF, no.

Just PMed Dustin for an additional breakdown. We'll see what further info we get back. EDIT: Heard back today. Hey Larry, Yea - he's got it right for the most part, its just an electronic take on the original - The electronic flute parts that start up in the 2nd half are completely original parts, just seeing how far I could push the original source material. The electronic/chippy sounding lead that comes in at 2:03 is loosely based around the original lead, but I play with it so much, its pretty hard to tell. If its too different, I understand.

Like a fine wine, this is one I appreciate more with age. Excellent, creative arrangement!

Almost a decade since the last Ico mix, and definitely a decade since this theme was arranged. Nice work from all of OCU on this, and notMe for providing ideas and inspiration from his older arrangement [which was sweeeeet, he should still tweak it. :'-( ].

The soundscape was just a bit too murky when the padding was in play (mostly choruses), but it was OK. I also disagreed with Deia about the balance. Consider increasing the volume of the leads a bit. Though the balance was definitely not a dealbreaker, I don't see why the foreground writing didn't cut through more throughout the piece. Even if it's meant to blend in more with the other elements, the leads were surprisingly too quiet, which undermined the energy of the composition some. Minor thing, but something at 2:51 added audible hiss that abruptly dropped out at 2:58 (along with a light pop at 2:55). Again, no big deal, but just keep an ear out for small issues that you'd rather not have in the final render. Aside from feeling the lead guitars were comparatively too quiet to everything else, this was solid. Like Deia and OA said, great personalization and energy here in the arrangement! YES

What about calling you Quasi-Director?

No problem, I'll take the blame. DIRECT YOUR TOMATOES HERE! -----> What about "Special Thanks", "Inspired by" or something along these lines to credit "OC ReMix Community Members" that better acknowledges the role and the impact you're trying to convey?

I'll also say, that kind of director credit makes no sense and looked like a placeholder more than anything else, which is why I went "huh?" when I saw it. There's a director who coordinated; there aren't 12 directors or no director. Anyway, it's not conspiratorial; it amounted to "OC ReMix Community Members? As the directors? That doesn't make sense... Who actually coordinated it? Brandon Strader? Right, I remember. OK, Brandon." I get what you're going for, Brandon, but it's not the first album picked up from a different creator/director and calling the community the directors isn't accurate, otherwise every album would credit "OC ReMix Community Members" as group directors. Crediting a different entity is almost like Alan Smithee-ing the credit. Besides, you earned the director credit, that's literally the role you performed. In any case, it's not that deep, and I'm certainly not mad, but that has to be said because 1) emotion's not conveyed in text, and 2) Brandon always assumes the worst.

I shared the potential updated version that exposed the sample a lot more. The softer chugging was fine, but anytime the sample got louder, the timing sounded stiff (e.g. 1:03-1:06, 1:11-1:13, 1:18-1:20, 1:24-1:26). I can pick it out, but it was masked reasonably well. When I asked Argle to tweak it though, the drier mixing of that part exposed the sample a lot more, so I said don't worry about it, and we'll just the RESUB as is.

Update from Argle - The sampled guitar was much drier and more exposed here, IMO, for reference.

Awesome source tune. Since Palpable had heard it, he should have voted on this right away, as it has an awesome Legend of the Mystical Ninja vibe. Great find! Opened up with some pretty thin & exposed samples, especially the backing strings until :11. The mixing became muddy right at :12 especially because of the way the bassline was mixed. Still, interesting if not somewhat dissonant groove from the funk guitar-like rhythm (thanks for the instrument ID, zircon). Source melody kicked in at :43. The lead articulations at :43 were very robotic sounding as the melody repeated; it was a pretty exposed lead, and because the textures didn't fully gel, the rigidness of the timing and attacks stood out much more. I thought the mechanical sequencing being so exposed hurt this, making the energy sound too static and undermining the energy of the writing. Even if the mixing were stronger, this sequencing staying like this would be a significant issue, so I'm surprised it wasn't brought up before. The bassline did fill out the back some, but also was kind of muddy. Beyond the bassline, the other instruments weren't really glued together, resulting in a thin overall sound. 1:49-2:06's verse was just a cut-and-paste of :43-1:00 (some sort of variation could be helpful), but the lead WAS varied nicely with the e-piano from 2:05-2:21. Also worth noting the bassline-driven groove first used at :43 was a creative as far as the arrangement goes, but was repeated wholesale as well. Try varying up the bassline there too. Also, the funk guitar-like rhythm that comes in at the very beginning NEVER stops. It's a cool part, and I know you're anchoring the piece with it, but drop it out or vary the rhythms at some point earlier than 2:21. It ultimately droned on and made the track feel too repetitive. It's got raw potential and definitely some arrangement creativity, Mitch, but the rigid sequencing and repetitive groove took this down. Gotta consult the Workshop forums for feedback and help improving those aspects of the piece. NO

Opens up pretty cool. The drone line from the original sounded cool along with the main melody theme playing lightly. The percussion & claps first used at :26 sounded kind of cheap (though the layered claps sounded better). More interesting minimalist build, followed by the kicks added at :47. Seemed pretty beefy and cool headed into 1:30. The melodic arrangement was a bit straightforward, so I was waiting for some evolution in the song, but the theme went more minimal 1:42 to at least change that up. I was just about to comment on how this was dynamically flat for most of the mix, then I read the other votes... These were perfect calls. OA was dead on. I loved this too, but once you get to 1:15 (or even arguably 1:01), the energy level essentially topped out and just hovered at the same intensity with basically the same repeating motif for nearly 2 1/2 minutes (about 2/3rds of the mix) for almost the entire rest of the piece until the wind-down at 3:33. It's definitely a cool piece in a vacuum, and you DO have those minor variations in place as OA mentioned, but the dynamic curve was WAY too flat after the initial build-up, which made the song sound extremely, extremely repetitive in the long run. If you can successfully address the lack of dynamics, you'll have a winner. Definitely give this another go, Kirby! NO (resubmit)

I too am "jelly," as the kids say.

I didn't hear the same intensity/levels for every note, so I'm not sure what you mean there. It's awesome dance music. Do the robot. (No, really, play the song to this...) Seriously though, I get the point of the rigid sequencing potentially being taxing, at least for the slower parts (3:53-end), but it ultimately didn't bother me and sounded pretty stylistic, as opposed to failing at humanizing the sound or sounding too dynamically flat. The upbeat stuff especially was nice and stylish. Like Beyonce.

Yeah, we're on LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE! http://youtu.be/VE3YvfrW29c

read: The Ear Candy Game

REALLY smoove.

The opening brass at :20 wasn't the greatest, but definitely got the job done. Nice subtle dynamic shift at 1:08; very genteel, then moving into some nice, gradual escalation, followed by more changeups at 1:40 and 1:49 with some solid transitions. Everything was at a fairly even keel until getting more forceful at 2:16. Everything Adam was presenting here was dynamically interesting. Though you wonder where the choir went for the rest (if it were a real performance), nice use of the vocal cameo at 3:11. The weak point came at 4:04 with the brass sounding pretty thin and having fast decays that really exposed the samples until the bowed strings rose in volume and helped pad things out. The realism lacks, sure, but not too much to kill the listening experience vis-a-vis the standards. This was full of excellent rises and falls, and a thoroughly creative arrangement that I'd love to hear performed by a live orchestra. YES

If you're willing to revisit this, Matt, it shouldn't take a lot to flip a lot of these votes. But the sample quality has to be increased, or a better job needs to be done working around the piano sample's limitations to create a more realistic sound.

I'm right there in Palpable's camp. You really need to figure out how to get much, much cleaner, clearer sound quality before you submit anything else, otherwise the horrible production quality will always cause the submission to be turned down. Everything sounds distant and extremely lossy. The piano tone also sounds thin and brittle. Literally everything about the production prevented this otherwise solid arrangement from sounding good. I also agreed with Palpable that some runs were played too fast (e.g. 1:51-2:00); it wasn't a huge deal, but watch out for stuff like that. This same arrangement with clearer sound quality and a richer piano sound would have a chance at being approved. Until you can get a decent, clear sound from your setup, your time needs to be spent in the Workshop forums asking for advice. NO (resubmit)

Wasn't a huge fan of how the source tune immediately got pushed way back at :08 when the the guitars came in, but as long as that's not a constant thing, that's cool. Interesting approach going for the chiptune-ish leads. Good personalization of the theme at 1:16; it doesn't take much for an artist to just add a little bit of their own flavor while keeping the structure intact; really nice stuff from Juan there. From 1:50-2:21, I thought the rhythm guitar work ended up sounding a bit flooded. It's not that everything was muddy, not at all for me, but it was mixed in a way where the notes sort of slurred together; some more clarity would have been nice. Moved over into some original writing at 2:22 with that C64 vibe, followed by soloing at 3:07. 4:03 went back to the source on SID lead. Good stuff overall for the final few minutes; a bit cramped, but excellent energy. We didn't necessarily need to panel this one, but it's nice to formally comment on this new approach from Sixto. Juan did an awesome job combining the chip leads and influences alongside his signature rock style, and the arrangement's energy just grew and evolved over the course of the 6 1/2 minutes. It's like he's found a new toy, but damned if it didn't sound like he wasn't already familiar with how to put those tools to work. Great stuff! YES

Hahaha, what the hell is this? Well, that intro definitely caught my attention. Took a while to build, but the theme finally came in at :34. I thought the lead should have been more in the foreground. The positioning of things in the soundscape was definitely too distant; the premise itself isn't bad, but it shouldn't sound THIS distant, that's all. The melodic arrangement didn't really have much interpretation to speak of; up until 2:21 it was dependant on the surrounding instrumentation. Finally some melodic variation occurred at 2:21, followed by the original countermelody layered with another cover-ish iteration of the theme at 2:37. So basically there was only 15 or 16 seconds of some sort of melodic variations. See what else you can bring to the table there. Not sure the vocals fading back in at 3:14 really fit with the key of the source tune, so it was a strange way to close it. Nice delayed fade-out of the final notes. We're definitely not calling for it to be squeaky clean-sounding with no ambiance in the soundscape, but yeah, rework the mixing so the lead cuts through more and so everything doesn't sound so far away. Also, I'm overall OK with cover-ish melodic stuff when it's paired with otherwise interpretive elements and additions. That said, it's always a balance, and I think you'd be in better shape by interpreting the actual source melody some more. It doesn't mean you need to take it over the top with super-busy, complicated variations, just something more than what's here, which was a pretty paint-by-numbers marimba line. Great potential here though, it's a very unique approach as far as the style. NO (resubmit)

We used the Maverick Rising version. If there had been an update since then, you just had to tell me. Too latez now.

This mix is the business. Absolutely amazing work by Amy.