Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Artist Name: Aaron Lehnen My arrangement was a fun technical metal re-envsioning of the notorious underwater level theme. I always loved this tune in the game despite the anxiety trying to swim around disarming the bombs in the dam. Games & Sources Today marks the 35th year anniversary of that awesome but brutally difficult Nintendo game. Platforms: Family Computer, NES Year: 1989 Developed by: Konami Published by: Konami, Palcom, Ultra

Swanky cover at :11; good personality to it. Better snap to the beats at :31 than Lucas's previous XC sub I judged, though I'd argue the pattern lasted too long until 1:09. Very nice dropoff at 1:09. Beats are back at 1:29. 1:48 goes for another section of the theme and I like the guitar work behind it until 2:17. Brief dropoff at 2:17, then goes back to the previous textures until ramping up at 2:29 with a synth line that was cutting through well until that finished at 2:59 and wrapped up. 2:19 would have been a good point to vary up the core beat pattern, but other things were significantly changing around it, so I'll have to live with it, even though it plods for me. Still, this is definitely a cool approach to a melodically conservative arrangement; the part-writing, performances, and textural changes. Diggin' it! YES

Weird direction to take this theme in. The kick at :26... where's the beef? TSori arrives at :51 and his trumpet doesn't cut through at all; seemed like it should ring out more in the foreground. Really don't know why this mixing sounds so nerfed. Maybe another J can better articulate why the balance feels off, or maybe Chimpazilla or ZackParrish would have some thoughts on the mastering side too. If this passes as is, I'm OK being outvoted and being a stickler. It'll feel like I'm demanding close to perfection. To me, smaller issues are adding up. This arrangement approach is fine, but the mixing is not good, and when the kick's in play, that beat pattern plods. The main electronic track sounds too lossy/distant, like it lacks high-end. Feels like TheManPF's contributions don't cut through during the verses. There's occasional random awkward noodling or sour notes in the background (e.g. 1:38, 3:06). From 2:49-3:13, it feels like there's a lot of rumbling/noise from the backing beats, while the synth and trumpet fight for who's the lead. The timing of the synth soloing from 1:42-2:23 feels stilted and resolves awkwardly. Good potential here, Lucas; the screws could use some additional tightening on the production side. Arrangement side's basically solid. NO (resubmit)

It was fine last time, it was simmerin'. :-P I hated you people the last time around and you still stink now! YES

Jeebus. OK then! :-P YES

Artist Name: TheManPF Additional artists: Zach Chapman; Connor Engstrom; colorado weeks We're back with another DoD tune, this time from HAL Laboratory month (otherwise known as Kirby month, because duh), I was in the mood for a cheesy pop ballad after listening to this song from the Spy x Family soundtrack (it's actually the THIRD time this anime inspires me to make a song, first with my little Smash Bros. rap, and second time with [REDACTED]). I was also looking for something with vocals and, as far as my research went, this is the only vocal track in any Kirby game that I could find. Worked well enough though. I did the arrangement, mix, electric guitars, yadda yadda, y'know the usual. The chord progressions in this arrangement are completely reharmonized, I usually don't reharmonize much on my vgm arrangements, because I like keeping things faithful and recognizable, but I didn't love the chord progression of the original, and it didn't really fit the cheesy pop ballad mood that I was going for, so I tried rearranging the chords in a way where it brings a more cheerful and hopeful mood rather than an eccentric rock-y one the original had. The vocal melodies are untouched (except for a very slight change in the pre-chorus), and some core melodies from the original also remain intact to keep the identity of the source recognizable. In the bridge where the guitar solos happen however I made use of the chord progressions of the original song because I think it brought a good contrast. The lyrics in the original are gibberish, but the ending credits provide a very nice "translation" of the lyrics which are already structured to be sung along to, which made the job of fitting the lyrics in the arrangement a lot easier, neat! My concept of this arrangement "World of Pink" is a rose-tinted world, a happy place you can go to in your mind whenever you feel exhausted from the outside world, you go there, and you have a happy time, you can relax and enjoy, everything is perfect, and you don't have to worry about anything. Of course this is more of a fantasy for us, and eventually it vanishes and we have to go back, which is what I try to express with the ending being slowly bitcrushed. I've been in a bit of a funk lately and I've found myself doing a lot of feel-good-y music for the sake of trying to fill a little bit of a void, and having music like this to listen to helps me relax and feel a little bit better. Zach is once again playing the bass for me, he's always been a super talented bassist, but I feel he has been improving a lot since he's started, he improvises and sticks his own bass lines, he brings me stems faster than anybody else, and his recordings are always squeaky clean. I'm incredibly lucky to be able to work alongside someone like him. I invited Connor Engstrom to play acoustic guitar in this track, who you might know as one of the guitarists from The Tiberian Sons (!). I left my acoustic guitar back in Argentina years ago, and I haven't been able to get another one to record, so I'm in the need to get someone else to do it for me. It also happens that the person I got for it is a lot more talented than me, and not only is his rhythm playing extremely tight, I also took the opportunity to stick a solo section for him because I knew he would be able to pull it off with flying colors. I haven't collabed with him before and that's a big mistake, he's one of the best collab partners I've ever had. colorado weeks did me the favor of singing this one. I love vocals, I love lyrics, I love music with vocals and lyrics, and almost every time I do a vgm cover I find myself finding excuses to put vocals on everything, and when I do, I usually like trying to experiment with different singers. I've met colorado weeks in the OCR discord first but also noticed them hanging around DoD from time to time, I noticed they had a "vocals" role, and checked out their music. WOW. Angelic voice, I need this in a track of mine asap. It was really fun to collab with them and they did a fantastic job at nailing the exact kind of vibe I was going for with this song, even if I think this was very challenging for them to pull off, so kudos to them! This entry ended up placing 4th out of 22 tracks in HAL Laboratory month, which I think is pretty decent considering I actually struggled to finish this one very close to the deadline, even with a non-ideal mix. This version is improved a bit from the DoD version, and I hope you guys enjoy it as much as the DoD community did (: Lyrics: Strange horizon, ready to go Feast your eyes on a new world A new dreamland, a new place where you'll laugh and smile Along the way, stuff your belly and nap awhile No one can hold you back, new fields full of mystery The sky's opened up, and there's so much to see Running wild Just let your heart take the wheel and show you the way Fresh spring breeze Adventure is awaiting you in the fields of a new world Don't be afraid, face your fears and you'll hunger for more The tension builds, plunge ahead on this thrilling tour Think of all the friends you've made, all of them living free Their cares have been washed away by a wild sea Laughing loud Even if you're far apart, they're right by your side Hearts full of love Everybody here is welcome to live in this new world Strange emotion, what do you feel? Roaring ocean of a new world Open hearts already fluttering free and riding the breeze Nothing but love to share with everyone we know New world New world New world New world Games & Sources Game: Kirby and the Forgotten Land Songs arranged: Welcome to the New World! (https://youtu.be/vUS-Za5MhMg) Original composer: Neichel; Shinya Kumazaki; Tadashi Ikegami; Taro Nagata; Yuuta Ogasawara (whew that's a lot of people) System: Nintendo Switch Year: 2022

Artist Name: Black SeeD Hello again, Another track from my album (Black SeeD - Wings of Renaissance (2024) (Full Album) (youtube.com)) ! So this one is a mix of FFX "To Zanarkand/The Truth revealed/Sprouting" and KH2 "Dearly Beloved". Genre : Atmospheric/Melodic black metal (no surprise) There is stuff from the 3 versions of "To Zanarkand" theme. - There may be too many source usage ? The 3 theme have the same main melody of course, but I'm also using specifics from the three of them, so if this should be categorized only as a Sprouting or Truth revealed and Dearly beloved, I'm fine with it. Intro is from the truth revealed. From 00:00 to 00:47, then a breakdown from To Zanarkand bass melody, then back to Truth revealed using again the bass melody, guitars are coming in with hints of the violins melody from Truth. Short breakdown with the general main theme of Zanarkand (almost). Then, calm break to introduce our good friend "Dearly beloved", without using the high melody yet. 04:15 : The chorus ! This contains the high and mid melody of dearly beloved, hints of "To Zanarkand" melody with the bass (01:00 - 01:04 in the original song), the whole lot on the chord progression from Sprouting (I started the track as a Dearly Beloved/Sprouting remix). Then we have some earlier section coming back, with the mid melody of Dearly Beloved added. I hope you'll enjoy that mashup ! Games & Sources Final Fantasy 10 - Truth revealed/To Zanarkand/Sprouting : Nobuo Uematsu

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What can I say about our scene's chaos agent, Brandon Strader? Welcome back. :-) I have my own special "appreciation", a carefully chosen word, for my interactions with Brandon, and I sincerely meant "chaos agent" as a term of endearment. As much as he went about it in the wrong way, we did have the formation of our Game Music Initiative 501c3 non-profit organization hustled along due to Brandon's complaints, so there's the genuine positivity of that outcome (in hindsight, of course). Strader's extremely talented, and hopefully not as prone to conspiratorial confrontation these days. He did a great job here, the vocals were really on point!

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Artist Name: Pipko Fanfare A sort of post-rock or doom metal-ish take on "Another World of Beasts" from FFVI by Nobuo Uematsu. Slow, introspective, sludgy, heavy, and moody. Games & Sources Final Fantasy VI: Another World of Beasts

Artist Name: 7DD9 First of all thank you for the previous feature on your channel. "Flashback from the Future" was re written and remixed with synthesizers. I approached the game soundtrack gently and with the respect it deserves on today's standards, as this game was (is) one of the best Cyberpunk / Sci-Fi / Dystopian games that i ever played. Games & Sources Game : Flashback - The Quest for Identity (1992) Music Soundtrack : Main Theme Flashback released in 1992 and the soundtrack was written by Jean Baudlot and Fabrice Visserot. Original Soundtrack :

Partners in crime: * AarekMG - https://ocremix.org/artist/18738/aarekmg - Tenor saxophones * DakotaCityRag - https://ocremix.org/artist/18730/dakotacityrag - Alto saxophone * minusworld - guitars, bass, VSTs, arrangement, production The remix no one asked for of a song no one heard in a game no one played! I present to you my arrangement of "Decisive Battle! Demon's Arena" from "Aa Harimanada" on the Sega Mega Drive: "Sumo Swagger". Dwelling of Duels just ran a competition in April 2024 for Sega Genesis and Mega Drive games. I never owned one. I remember playing Sonic 1 and Golden Axe 2? Maybe 3? I remember playing nothing else from that console. It's been a long time since I didn't know what I wanted to do when the DoD theme was announced, so I thought it would be fun to go hunting for tracks that grabbed my attention. The long story short: I was looking through Japan-only releases when the music of Aa Harimanada, a mediocre sumo wrestling fighting game, jumped out at me as being particularly interesting. I settled on "Decisive Battle! Demon's Arena" because the track already has a huge amount of swagger to it and I thought it would be fun to lean into that. AarekMG and DakotaCityRag joined me to make the awesome saxophone chorus. There's 3 tenor parts by AarekMG and 1 alto part by DakotaCityRag. The source track has a funny drum intro because it's played during a cutscene, but it doesn't flow very well musically. I decided to nod to it with two drum-heavy sections: the taiko drums underneath the bass solo and the Aja-like drum break following the guitar solo. Otherwise, I think the rest of the arrangement is pretty straightforward. I hope you enjoy this DEEP cut! Games & Sources Aa Harimanada - 08. Decisive Battle! Demon's Arena (https://fi.zophar.net/soundfiles/sega-mega-drive-genesis/aa-harimanada/08 - Decisive Battle! Demon's Arena.mp3) (YT: https://youtu.be/vT6Vw5bugIQ?feature=shared&t=331 Composer: Hirofumi Murasaki

The Sages have been killing it with their Wednesday night Office Hours sessions on Discord! If you're needing musical feedback and growth advice, y'all gotta be in there. :-)

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Full Credits Ridley Snipes - arranger, producer, guitar, engineer The Vodoú Queen - voiceover monologue Notes This track was made for the Pixel Mixers Silent Hill album, which is currently in the mastering process for distribution - this recording is my own master for individual/OCR release. I've been trying lots of new genres lately, and this is my attempt at wave. You might get a different description depending on who you ask, but "wave" to me can mostly be described as spinoffs of other genres (e.g. Hardwave, Wave Trap, Wave Phonk) - the main pillars being heavy usage of washy supersaws, wide distorted reese basses, spacious atmosphere, and usually a slower tempo than whatever it's pulling from. Skeler and LXST CXNTURY are my two favorite artists in this realm. The source tune is very simple and very Silent Hill - a linear piano melody bedded onto a droning triphop beat, sprinkled with reverse vocal slices and other unintelligible ear candy throughout. I think I ended up skirting pretty close to the 50/50 line on usage, so here's the breakdown: Intro 0:00 - 0:22 original melody loop, chords borrowed from source, original bassline to complement the source chords Hook 0:23 - 0:52 guitar plays climax of the source melody, chords and loop continue Verse 0:53 - 1:23 piano begins the actual A melody from source, synths continue the clean guitar melody Break 1:24 - 1:53 piano continues with melody B, VQ reads the monologue from the end of source track (after the song is over). There's more ambiguous source here but it is very layered deep in the background Hook 1:54 - 2:24 full blast of the original loop Verse/Outro 2:25 - end piano picks back up at the climax Had lots of fun with this one - hope yall enjoy it too.

And yet more Dwelling of Duels. For April 2024's VGMCon, DoD decided to host a special competition, a "Tornado of Solos" for the iconic Title Theme from Pictionary (NES). This type of competition is different from the standard DoD competition in the sense that everyone has to cover the same source instead of having a theme and freedom to choose a source that fits. Since everyone was doing the same track, part of the challenge (for me at least) was covering it in a way that would stand out. Anyway, this source has become kind of a meme in the VGM community thanks to the "IT WAS JUST PICTIONARY TIM" comments and such but, if I'm being honest, it's not the most impressive Tim Follin work IMO. Although the sound design is impressive, the composition itself is much less crazy than other Follin works (like Solstice for example). In any case, it has a ton of fun riffs and solos so it was still fun to cover. For my take I went for a jazz-ish cover, since it's a style that comes somewhat naturally to me and wouldn't require me to hunt for any collabers. I also didn't have much time to do the remix for several reasons (work and the death of my computer among them) so yeah, it was kind of a miracle I even made it in time... Somewhat unexpectedly, given the circumstances, my track was actually the winner of the competition so yay me I suppose. K, as usual I'll highlight some parts of the source to make judging easier. 0:08 features the first main melody of the source, 0:15 features the second main melody, 0:22 we'll call the "arpeggios" section, 0:34 is the "funky riff", 0:48 is the main solo and 1:26 is the outro. Now, for my remix: 0:00-0:04: Intro, taken directly from the source. I raised the BPM a little bit, from 128 to around 138. 0:04-0:32: First solo, the chord progression is based on the "arpeggios" of the source while the lead is based on the first few bars of the main solo. At 0:18 I change up the chord progression a bit while the synths plays something similar to the arpeggios part. 0:25 has a fun synth run! 0:32-0:52: Main riff returns with a funky bass and then we enter into the first main melody over a different chord progression. 0:53-1:14: Slowed down version of the second main melody followed by a return to the main riff. 1:14-1:53: Arpeggios section followed by another synth solo, reprising the chord progression from the first solo. 1:43 has a weird piano/synth run that acts as bridge. 1:53-2:53: Funky riff followed by 2 solos. 2:07 has a polyphonic solo, I don't do them often but it was fun, I wanted the 2 solos to feel different and that was a good way of doing it. 2:22 has a more standard synth solo over a jazzy chord progression (gotta love them stacked 4ths). The ending of the solo at 2:49 is also the ending of the solo from the source. 2:53-3:14: Reprise of first main melody and then second main melody. 3:14-end: Outro of the source covered pretty directly. That's it, hope you enjoy my weird take on this iconic Follin theme! Games & Sources Game: Pictionary (NES) Source: Title Theme.

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