Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

4th time's the charm? - LT Resub 2 Resub 1 Original decision Name: Arceace Real name: Ben Clifton Game: Sonic 3D Blast (Sega Genesis version) Title: Enigmatic Melody Original track: Rusty Ruin Link: Comments: I'm throwing this one at you again! I've focused solely on increasing the production quality and mixing of the final track this time around. I would really like to thank timaeus222 , SuperiorX, and G-Mixer for giving me some wonderful feedback on the WIP forums. -Arceace ----------------------

The performance was a little loose, but the energy was good. The interpretation was solid and used repeated variations to not let such a short piece be repetitive. The one big drawback I had, and it might be something that can't be helped given your equipment, is how thin the piano sounded. If there was some way to get a richer sound here where the notes sounded fuller and the decays weren't so fast, the piece would click much better. The way the track cut off at the end before the last chord fully went quiet was unfortinate as well. It's a small detail to be sure, but it's important. The piece could use more time as well, with another variation employed such as a tempo change to give this a little more substance and maybe pull it up between 2:00 to 2:15 in length, but that's not necessary. NO (resubmit)

Good substance despite the length - LT Hi, it's me again. I guess you didn't receive my email reply containing a new remix submission (I sent it the night my first remix with Chris got posted; when you post up one of my remixes I give you another one ), so I'm just sending it to you again. This is the reply to your email "Let's rock!" 'Yes, let's. Here's a remix I'd like to submit to you guys, and frankly, to tell you the truth, I'm not so confident that it will get accepted. It's a live performance, not done with any fancy audio software, so it's obviously not perfect. But I'd like to give it a shot. If you decide for any reason to turn it down, please let me know what I can do to improve it for a future submission. This is a piano remix of the classic Super Mario Bros. theme, tweaked in a unique way. It's called "Mystery vs. Mario". Interestingly, I actually started the remix by trying to play the main theme by ear in a different key, and ending up off tune. And inspiration to make this remix came from... nothing really - this was done at 1 in the morning, after a hard day of school. I still can't believe that over-tiredness actually helped me, but hey, it worked (shrug). But enough talking. Here is the link, Enjoy! You mentioned on the summary of my last remix that this year you'll probably find a way to put up music videos integrated with their songs, so I figured that if it does get accepted now, by the time you put it up on your website there'll be a good chance that this feature might be available, so here's the link for the music video: The video actually adds to the song, so check it out. Thank you so much for your time and effort! Please let me know what the results end up being, and all the best! Avitron ' Please reply back about the status of the submission. Cheers! Avitron ------------------------------------------ http://youtu.be/wGX4obVl64w

We need a higher encoding, but I imagine we'll have a WAV or FLAC available as part of the BadAss 2 release. The arrangement's cool, although something about the textures was on the thin side throughout the entire piece. Also, the opening electric guitar sample and the sampled bowed strings ain't foolin' nobody. Nice job getting so much mileage out of the OoT source, which was a very subdued, low-key choice. It was used very extensively and served as a great foundation to build around with original writing. Onto the dealbreaker, there's something VERY off about the mixing. Right now, many of the parts seem to share the same frequencies and end up mudding together very indistinctly. Unless that's addressed, I can't pass this, as much as I felt the arrangement worked. Get the mixing cleaned up with the parts properly seperated, and this would be good to go! Maybe beef up that weak opening guitar too. NO (refine/resubmit)

ReMix: Ganonize CONTACT INFO ReMixer name: DaMonz Real name: Emery Monzerol userid: 31308 ReMixer name: Trainbeat Real name: Sébastien Dufour userid: (none) SUBMISSION INFO Name of the games arranged: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time; The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Name of the arrangement: Ganonize Name of the individual songs arranged: Last Battle; Ganon Battle Links to originals: http://youtu.be/qpIn2xMJyv4 (Ocarina of Time) http://youtu.be/LfISliRCnO0 (Link to the Past) Comments: Hey judges, it's us again! First off, this is our second track for BadAss vol.2. Once again, it's been great working together with Sébastien. He provided the guitar tracks swiftly and efficiently (and also gave a nice hand with the mixing), so props to him for all that! As for the arrangement, this one was hell of a tricky beast to tame. 7/8 time sig feels quite weird, and it was difficult to write most of the stuff that's in there. I think it worked out quite well, and I had particularly lots of fun writing the drum parts. Don't get me wrong though, I had a blast making the whole thing! Oh and by the way, at 2:30-2:48 in my ReMix is a little reference to this track: http://youtu.be/rrjUidAnvDU. I didn't know if it was worth including it in the songs arranged, so I just thought I'd mention it here. Thanks again for your awesome work, and I hope you enjoy! DaMonz P.S.: if you'd like a source breakdown, please don't hesitate to ask me for it and I'll send it to you asap. ---------------------------- http://youtu.be/qpIn2xMJyv4 (Ocarina of Time) http://youtu.be/LfISliRCnO0 (Link to the Past) http://youtu.be/rrjUidAnvDU (Link to the Past) - cameo

My best stab at the "Torn Apart" opening lyrics (:00-:10), having seen 2 decent attempts on YouTube to clarify: "The object is destroyed. We cannot get those gears coming closer to the Solaris area. We suggest that we evacuate the bridge as soon as possible and start evacuation pods. Over." EDIT: So I mailed Matt a while ago with my stab, and here's the confirmation he sent back. "We are approaching around two thousand feet, we're getting closer to the Solaris area. We suggest we evacuate as soon as possible, start evacuation pods, over." I gotta admit, I'm not sure that's actually as accurate as what was previous speculated, but if he says that's it, we'll roll with that.

The ability to do custom thumbnail images would entail being a partner channel, which I don't see us doing, since we don't own the music on the channel, we just republish what's submitted to and approved by us.

Why would the issue be with B&R? The files themselves wouldn't be the cause. Shouldn't the thread title be "Issue with Windows Media Player"? From reading the responses, this isn't really getting anywhere. You could use a Google+ hangout or Twitch broadcast to demonstrate what's happening in real time, that might make it more clear what's going on, and someone could hook up some real-time assistance. I'd help, but I never use WMP.

You didn't miss out; it's not over. The upvotes keep coming, the questions keep coming. If you have answers to others Qs you can answer from your own Reddit account or we can edit them into the OCR answers. Let's go!

Even though I am chopped liver (I am), I'm helping too!

Sometimes it can take a little bit for the site's cache to clear, but at least on my side things are showing up fine. I'll double-check with djp if anything else needs to be done there.

Right now, you can't. Maybe one day.

It's only 10 hours driving. Then another 10. You got it!

Yep. Hook 'em up.

Otakon 2013 August 9-11, 2013 Baltimore, MD - Baltimore Convention Center http://otakon.com OC ReMix: Video Game Music Community of Awesomeness!!! Panel Room #2 Friday, 4:15-5:15 PM What should we do for our panel? If you're gonna be there, give us suggestions! Final Fantasy VI will definitely factor into it!

I don't mind FLAC or WAV, those just can't be attached. But if you host them, that's fine with me, since an MP3 can be made from those.

The distinct stereo panning periodically used here was just too wide. For example, from :32-:38 & 1:35-1:39, it's like 5% left-95% right, which is over the top to me. I'm not saying panning can't be used in a cool way, but don't make it that drastic. Maybe that sounds alright on speakers, but on headphones, it just sounds bad. Jesus though, was this ever loud. Fuck. Can't wait until I'm an old man and can't stand stuff like this anymore. Nice changeup at 2:08 to the washed out sound. The percussion added in at 2:28 should have been pulled back. It shouldn't have been louder than the lead, but it wasn't a huge deal. Another extremely wide pan from 3:23-3:28. I put a hex on you. Anyway, aside from the volume being set to ear-break and some questionable (but brief) panning, this... was... awesome. Great energy, great performances, and reasonably well mixed. Loud doesn't have to mean cluttered and indistinct, and it was nice to hear something \m/ where all the details can still be appreciated. Nice work, Steve! Want something intense? It's right here. YES

I thought the drums were pretty empty and, drowned down by the guitars, had little presence in the piece. The guitars and padding did a decent job setting up an airy, distant mood; so why would the percussion sound so much drier? At least by around 1:19, they were pushed more into the background, obscuring how dry their sound was. Also, the way the drums got WAY louder at 3:04 was like swinging the pendulum totally in the other direction, making it too loud and interfering with hearing the rest of the piece. It's a solid attempt so far, and I like the dark sound of the pads and foreground elements, but the textures were never cohesive on account of the percussion never being mixed in the right way, and the bass work nearly being drowned into submission. I'd love to hear another pass at the production to improve some things here. Some potential here though. NO

The track was 3:17-long, so I needed at least 98.5 seconds of overt source usage to be cool with the arrangement. I wasn't very worried about it, but it seemed like there were enough breaks from the source that I should check it. :00-16, 17-19, 20-25, 27-37.5, 39.5-45.5, 52-57, 1:04.5-1:11, 1:16.5-1:25, 1:30.5-1:41.5, 2:08-2:17, 2:29.5-2:39, 2:54.5-3:04, 3:07-3:16.5 = 110 seconds or 55.8% I could have missed some other usage as well, but it doesn't matter in the end. That said, the first thing that really stood out was "Whoa, this could use another pass at the mixing." As soon as it reached :14, I thought this sounded extremely crowded, and different parts really seemed to mud together in the same frequency ranges. It just kept doing it as it built up at :26 & :39. If y'all told me this was the 96kbps or 112kbps encoding, I would have believed you. Basically, :14-1:07 and 1:30-2:07 were the problematic areas to me; 2:17-2:55 as well, but less so. I definitely love the arrangement; I also am sad-faced over how swamped this sounded. It probably will make it, and I'd have no problem with it passing as is. It's an awesome interpretation, but I'll always just want to hear this cleaned up some. The lack of clarity is just enough for me to not be able to look past it. Sorry, Chris. If it doesn't make it, it would just take some EQing touch-ups to get it passed. I'd absolutely hate for this to not get posted in some form. Best of luck with the rest of the vote. NO (refine/resubmit)

Really loved the constant source usage throughout. Thanks for the breakdown to make the connections pretty obvious. This is an absolutely standout example of maintaining dynamic contrast and evolution throughout an arrangement with a slower, deliberate tempo; just because an arrangement is slower-paced doesn't mean it needs to plod. The instrumental switchups and various dropoffs & buildups in the intensity were all smartly handled. I'll definitely be using this as an example to point to. On the negative side, I wish the mixing here was cleaned up during the beefiest sections. The clutter of the mixing job in parts prevented this from sounding its best. For example, the synth from 1:01-1:23 was kind of buried; it seemed as if the electric guitar from 1:23-1:48 was mudding with other background parts; same criticism for the padding from 1:48-2:14. None of this was remotely enough to push this toward a no, but I'll always hope for a cleaner version. I'd love a fresh look at the mixing, but what's here more than meets the bar. Great arrangement! YES

Ooofs. Yeah... this isn't clicking, IMO... Yep. The dynamic curve was pretty flat here; this plods along most of the way was relatively sparse ideas. That was the most significant thing holding this back, IMO. It's also worth pointing out that something sounds kind of dissonant when the "Sky Chase Zone" countermelody is in from 1:18-1:34 & 3:02-3:17. Yep. Worth noting, the piano sample was serviceable, but the timing was too rigid throughout 1:50-2:24, undermining the emotion behind the writing. I thought the bass was fine, but yep on the ride. NO

The volume seemed a bit high, but had an interesting intro. Pretty beefy beats at :20. Oooooh, no... when the melody came in at :40, the mixing became a mess for a bit. Definitely too cluttered during the densest areas. The leads should have cut through more, and they also weren't particularly expressive. The more saw-style synths just created noise and didn't add a thing to the piece except crowding. Air horn at 3:38 & bubble SFX at 3:49 sounded too gimmicky, IMO, but whatever; that's not gonna swing a vote either way. Vig's right about the sparseness of the writing. The TEXTURES are loud/dense, but as far as the partwriting and tone that are contributing, again, a lot of the leads handling the Mystic Cave melody sounded very plain and very flat. The pace was really plodding and the dynamic curve of the composition was too flat. Play with some rhythmic, tempo or instrumentation changeups; just something to give this more life and variety over time. NO

Not a big fan of the piano sound here; it definitely gets by, but it has just that bit of rigidness that makes it very clear it's not a real piano. The first half of the arrangement felt a little by the numbers and the piano sample lacked the richness of a real piano (which can't be helped) and prevented things from sounding as awesome as they could have. In any case, the arrangement here got it done, so let's not miss the big picture. 3:16, 3:18 and a few other spots had some quick pops that unfortunately made it through; most won't notice them, and it wasn't a huge deal. Let's go. YES

You've been unbanned! HOORAY!

Depending on who you ask, that's all you guys do.