Liontamer

Well, what sticks out immediately are that the first verse vocals are too loud on top of the music. Meanwhile from :59-1:34, the source tune's pretty obscured by the screaming. While it was clearly an artistic, purposeful choice, the mixing there was just obliterating the source tune for way too long. 1:17-1:34 was like a contest to see how many screams could be layered to finally snuff out the theme. As far as the lyrics mentioning rape and whatnot at 1:59, I'll live. Stupid as hell, in poor taste, and just out for shock factor, but that's all just on a personal level and nothing that would make me reject the track. If you wanna go \m/, who am I to complain? The ending wasn't horrible, but it sounded like the track just ended when there could have been a minute or two more of development. Yep, while I don't agree with all of her vote, I'm in total agreement here. Listen, you guys are actually pretty good, so a NO here ISN'T an indictment of you two as artists, and the seeming focus only on what may not be clicking doesn't mean a lot of this doesn't work. The talk about how the lyrics need to go and how this needs a lot of production work aren't really something I agree with, but DA and OA have valid crits as well. I feel that just by developing the arrangement ideas a bit further (instead of ending the track so abruptly) and by tweaking the mixing during the screamo section, that may be enough to better realize the potential of this. I think what's here MOSTLY works, it's a unique & creative take, but it just needs some additional development and mixing tweaks. Definitely don't be discouraged and see if you can enhance this a little further for the win. NO (resubmit)

Like 'Singing Mountain' from Chrono Trigger or "Little Money Avenue" from Streets of Rage 2, if it's in the game data, it's valid to arrange. However, I haven't seen any confirmation that this song is hidden in the game data based on the NSF and NSFe available, and (unlike FF2's unsued Dungeon theme) it hasn't been used in any subsequent game. I'd put it down as ineligible unless some other information turns up.

No problem, Dan. If you want to reach out to individuals who contributed and see if they'll provide their arrangements to the series on an independent basis, that's OK. Beyond the forums, the Artist pages on the site provide social media links so that you can contact artists on Twitter, Facebook, their personal homepages, or whenever we know about.

That's a good point, I do hate that man. Fixed.

Sure. Just not you! No, if your sub is possibly lost in the shuffle, let us know, though the inbox now is pretty reliable as far as stuff delivering, so if the email delivered, we should have it.

I'll look into your material, Hugo, and find out what's up.

I have to fully agree with the NOs, the timing of this sounds too stiff, and I'm actually disappointed by the YESs when it's abundantly clear this is flat and mechanical-sounding. It's just causing a split vote that had no business happening. I've certainly heard worse as far as a piece sounding flat and unexpressive; the sample's not terrible, but the realism and tone of the piano are too obviously fake and any dynamics inherent in the writing are gone. Sorry, Verdegrand, I think we all know you're talented, your YouTube material rocks socks, but you're going to need a more expressive sample or a reasonable-sounding live performance to get this otherwise solid arrangement passed. Not sure what happened here, as I've heard and it seems like you could fashion a rich-sounding performance with your eyes closed. Don't be discouraged with this vote, we know you can get this where it needs to be as far as the articulations and sound quality, and it's not an indictment of your actual skill level.NO (resubmit)

Yep. Yep. Ben, I'd prefer NOT to glib you, but they already said it. You need to upgrade those sounds, whether it's through new samples or more creative usage of effects and processing to personalize what you have now. A lot can be done with "stock" kind of sounds: http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01475/. It's not happening here yet, and it's undermining an otherwise cool arrangement. NO (resubmit)

Dayum. Without grandpa-ing too much, I think I'm in Palpable's camp for the most part. While I'm with DarkeSword that there IS bass presence, the Needle Man lead was shrill, both leads were thin, the arrangement seemed to lack direction (though I agree with Palp that better mixing could make the direction of it more clear), and the combination of these electrosynths with flimsy, loose drums and thick, layered claps just didn't click at all to me. Disregard the crits (mine included) about the arrangement seemingly lacking direction, because I think it's just a matter of choosing better leads and re-balancing your parts. With new leads and better EQing, everything could fit more comfortably together. I didn't hear the original version, but this certainly has potential to make it down the line with some tweaks if it doesn't make it this go-around. NO (resubmit)

Sorry for not evaluating this sooner. This needs to be quoted so that everyone reading understands what we're discussing: http://ocremix.org/info/Submission_Standards_and_Instructions I'm agreed with all of the other NOs, I love this arrangement. And if it were just a Turrican II arrangement and didn't involve arranging non-VGM music from Pinchcliffe Grand Prix (:13-:37, 1:58.5-2:21.25) as well, I'd YES this treatment in a heartbeat. There's just too much incorporation of non-VGM source material to pass this. Martin, obviously we all enjoy the track, and the combination of these two themes is awesome, but it just falls outside of the site's guidelines. If you were willing to change the harmonica part to something wholly original that was inspired by that movie song but not actually arranging it, we could accept this mix, but otherwise we can't justify passing it. Nevertheless, it's a really cool track that everyone reading this decision should listen to. Please don't be discouraged; we definitely want to hear future submissions from you! NO (resubmit without Pinchcliffe Grand Prix arrangement)

\m/ and HAPPY BIRFDAY to my favorite JCrb, whatever that is!

Opened pretty interestingly, reminding me of Mega Man 8's soundtrack with the sounds. I liked the chiptune stuff at :24 as well. Though the snare shots seemed like they were all the same velocity (boooooo), the drums brought in at :37 sounded alright, though perhaps should have been pulled back in volume a bit. The piano should have been louder and shouldn't have competed as much with the supporting instrumentation. Deia really nailed it here; you really need some EQ love here to separate the parts more and give them room to breathe when things are busy. The piano timing was OK, but could use some humanization with the timing; if everything else was clicking, that wasn't an issue that would bother me enough to reject the piece. Yeah, the synth first brought in at 1:27 needed some more life to it, and the wild cymbal shots from 1:44-1:46 were a minor thing but seemed out of place; they make good accents, but didn't gel with the instrumentation when they were off-beat. I didn't agree with Deia's call on some notes being off; everything seemed fine to me. Poo on the key change at 3:11, but no big deal. I'm a little sour on using the doujin arrange section for the finish; it was just a cameo and well integrated, but there's no permission to use it, so I'd modify it. I may not have anyone co-sign with me on this, Aaron, but aside from Palp, I thought all the Js were pretty positive with the arrangement itself, and I would even go as far as to say the arrangement and concept themselves are an easy pass. The mood and writing are both strong, IMO. On the other hand, the articulations is holding you back. There's definitely a lack of energy and expressiveness in the instrumentation that's undermining an otherwise great arrangement. Lean on the Workshop and veteran feedback on how you can get your sounds to be more expressive, and seriousnly nag the hell out of anyone who's good and will listen. But don't mess with this arrangement, it's fine. In say 2004 or 2005, this could have made it. See if you can pull this up to a YES, this has great potential. NO (resubmit)

Emu, it's just you on the issues you're hearing, AFAIK. Try another setup. Fully in agreement with this. The synths here were pretty generic and not mixed well IMO. It's not terrible, but something about the mixing makes things sound kind of lossy and distant. The treatment of the Stage 1-1 theme (an awesome theme, of course) was pretty straightforward. The drums at :14 were pretty poor; they really need more energy. Palpable & Vig were right, the percussion writing basically had one gear most of the way, and that was a big reason this dragged out after a while The transition to "Stage 1 (Secret Area)" at 2:45 wasn't awful, but it also wasn't very smooth, and felt like an awkward key change to move onto the next thing. The transitions at 3:36 to Stage 1-2 and 4:46 to Stage 3-3 were also pretty weak as well. I'm not sure at all what OA or DA were impressed by, and I thought Palp was wrong given how flimsy the transitions turned out. Sorry, Dennis, I wish I could be more positive on this arrangement, as Turrican's music is excellent. But the sound design was bland, the instruments lacked impact, the mixing lacked clarity, the transitions didn't flow, and there wasn't much dynamic contrast throughout the piece. The effort is there, but there's just a lot of detail work that falls short as far as making this cohesive and well-developed. NO

Ah, so you're like that 1 person who dislikes every awesome YouTube video.

Definitely aware of these issues with the old albums, just like I was while working on the main torrent update. It's not a main priority (for now), but I can't imagine I wouldn't tackle it at some point. For albums, I generally order the artists in a collab by share of credit or whatever order the primary artist gives. For OC ReMixes, we order them alphabetically, as they're generally displayed on mix pages the same way (and have the benefit of writeup pages for context). Unless djp had an issue, I don't see a reason for a change. The albums are different entities from the individual mixes, and they have their own separate but consistent tagging style.

Happy birthday to the hardest-working lady at OC ReMix! She (along with her cat) is the lifeblood of the j00js!

Wow. He... read my mind. Even down the to the crit on the introduction. How did he do that? Seriously though, it's a great take on two of FF6's already zanier themes, tackled with its own quirky approach. Also, Cain, apeing ilp0 was so awesome. That was a treat in-and-of-itself. YES

I actually felt some sections here sounded too muddy and cluttered, e.g. 1:15-1:44, 2:25-2:52 & 3:01-3:09, so that really could stand to be tightened up. I know Palpable felt it was within the bounds of taste, but it just seemed off to me in a way that didn't sound entirely intentional and honestly just obscured a lot of details. That's my main complaint, though I felt it was a dealbreaker for me. I loved the arrangement, and appreciate the way this instrumentation was made to work. Mokram made an awesome arrangement here, but something needs to be adjusted with the effects/delay/EQ or whatever to achieve a somewhat cleaner sound for the densest sections. I won't have a fit if this production quality passes as is, but I can't co-sign on this mixing yet. NO (refine/resubmit)

Feels rather directionless for the first minute until the SNES melody comes in. It's meant to establish the robotic feel, so I get that, though I'm not quite sure it works. The lead at :55 was super-generic and boring. Gotta get spicier than that. Though I liked the instrumentation going on around the lead, the beats don't fill out the track well enough, leaving the textures pretty shallow. The percussion feels like it's just on top of the other instrumentation without feeling integrated with it. The subtlety of the instrumentation was way stronger at 3:04, and the percussion fit so much better here until 4:13. The bass writing for this section was strong, but really needs to be louder to flesh out the bottom. The leads really need more humanization and sonic variations, like DA said. Right now, they're too mechanical (title of the arrangement notwithstanding), and the tone is just too bland. DragonAvenger really nailed it with her vote, so read it again, and fix everything she said to fix. The arrangement's alright, now you need to improve the production, articulations and instrumental variation to justify the length, otherwise it's somewhat taxing to listen to, stricly speaking about the sounds used. NO (resubmit)

I liked the concept of using Genesis-style leads along with modern synths and beats, but the mixing is really cluttered and all of the parts are just mudding together. The low quality encoding here didn't help. Good shit at 1:36 with the claps. Nice changeup at 1:57 with the Boss theme as well. The soundscape felt a bit empty since the claps were basically the main thing filling the background out. The brass samples at 2:46 were pretty poor; you need a richer sound there. Good treatment of the final boss theme at 3:04, but the leads are all saws and the percussion doesn't fill things out again. The choir sample used around 3:45 was also very unrealistic and exposed. The claps at 4:33 were too busy. The arrangement here was very promising, Avery, as I liked the twists you put on everything, but the mixing and production dragged this WAY down to a NO. The instrumentation is too generic, you have basically one type of synth lead sound most of the way. The sounds were all thin, yet the textures were cluttered because parts aren't properly EQed. Keep at it and see what more you can learn from the Workshop areas. NO

I thought the first minute or so wasn't as polished as it should have been and started the track off a bit weak, probably because the lead synth sounded pretty bland and generic. That said, I thought this came together suitably well overall. I thought the way "Scala" was used was more cerebral and not immediately obvious, but when I heard how it was in play, it was alright. Really, Balrog's theme clearly dominates the arrangements. The dub-wub elements were interesting without being obnoxious (not that I mind obnoxious in the context of dubstep), and the track finished fairly strong. Solid work here, homes. Nothing Deia said here was wrong, but I thought what was in place clicked well enough. Let's go. YES (borderline)

That's a good point, I do hate that man. Fixed.

See what happens? It was just an informal list there.

Aight. http://ocremix.org/info/ReMix_Changelog http://ocremix.org/info/Torrent_Update_v20121012 The non-numbered ReMixes listed on the Changelog were removed before OCR had a numeric ID system, so they have no ID #. If you want to us to call removed mixes something like #72.5 or what have you to shoehorn it into a numeric order, I can look into it. A placeholder page for removed mixes based on mix ID sounds interesting. It would be way (way) down the list of things to do, but sounds like something potentially fun to do once the next version of the site is out, and if djp's interested.

No, former judges aren't current staff, so they're not on that page. The reason I don't put "Former Judge" on forum profiles is because it muddies the waters on who can legitimately speak for judging issues involving the current panel. For now, I've put the judges list (in rough chronological order) here http://ocremix.org/info/Talk:Judges_Panel