Liontamer

Whatever you posted would get obsoleted in due time.

Barely had a hint of Super Mario World's Overworld BGM theme from :09-:11, but I definitely can't place the theme as being an arrangement, AFAIK.

Yeesh, imbalanced mixing. :'-( Drums at :03 were too loud. Piano at :18 was too quiet and buried. Flute/guitar interplay at :50 was good in concept, but the parts seemed to mush into each other. Guitar at 1:05 was blaring while flute at 1:08 was too quiet. String sequencing at 1:35 was poo. I use the term with endearment, but those strings were unfortunate, I'll just put it like that. That's a piano at 2:08, but you barely can tell since it's getting steamrolled by the guitars and drums. The arrangement's on point, but I'd tweak this mixing. Since we're not doing conditionals over production anymore, I've gotta unfortunately call this a NO even though the arrangement is balls out awesome. I'll live if this goes up as is, but it'll be pretty unfortunate, because some tweaks would result in a significantly stronger, more cohesive sound. Fix the levels so all of the smart instrumental interplay doesn't get undermined (and improve the strings at 1:35 if you can) and then we'll be good to go. Awesome combination of MM4 and MM6, y'all are a solid team. NO (refine/resubmit)

Co-signing with this in FULL, so I'm quoting it. Super bland instrumentation at :48. The frequencies of the saw from 1:00-1:20 were muddying with the countermelody that first faded in at :47. The melodic lead at 1:27 was WAY too loud compared to the other instrumentation, IMO. Good transition from the American Gladiators source into Ice Cap around the 2 minute mark, along with an interesting liberal usage of the Ice Cap progression at 2:36. There was a transition into the more aggressive part at 2:51, though it still felt abrupt and unfitting. The syrupy Ice Cap lead at 2:59 didn't click at all with the super gritty countermelodic synth. Can't really say the synth at 3:15 at or the whistling/ghost-like synth first used for doubling at 3:21 worked with in combination with the other instruments either. The finish at 3:33 was pretty swanky though; good transition into that, with a better combination of sounds that clicked, as well as a nice contrast with the previous sections. DA's right in that the overall arrangement plodded with the same basic beat patterns and progressions. This isn't terrible, CJ, it just isn't fully developed or cohesive yet. You might want to call this a done deal. But if you can spice some of composition up (so that the beats/progression aren't basically on cruise control from :46-2:50), and improve some of the instrumentation and mixing, you'd be in better shape. But there'd be a lot of work involved. NO

Still dislike the drums, but they weren't as big of a deal given the other improvements. At least the string tone was refined nicely and the worst offending notes were fixed. The guitar performance at 1:26 still sounded very stiff, especially paired with those machine gun drums. The guitar was more expressive at 2:10; not quite where it deserved to be, but stronger. Everything still sounds so robotically timed and lacking in energy and expressiveness as a result, which is a shame, because I loved the creativity, expansiveness and interpretation behind the arrangement concept. If this were on arrangement alone, it would be a clear pass. It's not a strong NO, but I'm still leaning NO. I wouldn't have an issue if it passed, I just think the potential wasn't realized because the mechanical timing zapped a lot of the energy and dynamics that were inherent in the writing, which was unfortunate. Still a very solid effort, so no hate. I just don't see any other way to get a pass with this without re-performing the guitar and playing the sequenced drum parts live into a keyboard. NO (resubmit)

I wasn't bothered by the sequencing as much. I understand the criticisms, but yeah, Emu is right, IMO, that it has a solid JRPG vibe. The instruments don't sound live, but the articulations are good enough/expressive enough to get by despite noticeable stiffness. That said, it took until 2:42 for the arrangement to truly open up into something totally creative and interpretive. Those kind of interpretive ideas need to come in much sooner. As far as OCR's standards goes, when you start off with super-similar instrumentation (pizz strings plus different lead with same struture), that's all well and good, but it should end up branching off into something different relatively soon, otherwise it just ends up being too cover-ish for a decent portion. That's not to discount the additions and changes that were there, but overall it didn't stand apart from the original enough, unlike the second half. You know we love your work, Patrick. If you're willing to revisit this, I know you could add some other ideas earlier on, not to make it busier per se, but just to add or change some things so the overall mood/sound turns into something more unique earlier on. The second half finished it strong. NO (resubmit)

DA summed up the positives and negatives well. The strings strained for realism the whole way, but the sample quality was solid enough and the execution was more than reasonable and passable, IMO. That production was paired with a solid arrangement that worked well with noticeably new and different partwriting complimenting the source tunes. This had a mood that you'd love to hear performed by a live orchestra for an even more dynamic feel. Nice work, Kevvviiinnn! YES

Damn. Yeah, pretty sweet cover. The tempo was increased and used different Genesis-y/chiptune sounds for much of the instrumentation aside from the excellent guitar, but yeah, structurally it didn't feel different ENOUGH than the original. Which is a shame, because clearly there's different partwriting in several of the chiptune parts I heard. It's not devoid of any creative interpretation, obviously, but it needs other ideas to further differentiate the overall sound and mood of the piece more from the original. Both still sound like primarily Y2612 piece with the same structure, only the arranged version has some (great) non-chip flavor with the guitar, but that's probably the only thing that really stood out in the arrangement as having a distinctly different sound palette than the original. It's a good piece, Ken, so I don't want that sold short, but it needs some additional creative interpretation to put it over the top, especially when the writing structure basically stayed the same. Whether that's employing some other instrumentation, adding solos, doing some sort of rhythm or tempo changeups or whatever works for you, this needs more to distinctly stand apart from the source tune. I hope you're not discouraged and would like to either re-submit this or submit more stuff, since you know what you're doing when it comes to putting together good music. No hate on this, it's just a bit too conservative on the arrangement side, IMO. NO (resubmit)

The boom-tss beat foundation and some of the synths chosen here were a little too generic-sounding, and the snapping percussion style sound was flimsy like DA mentioned. But the interplay of the two source themes was definitely interpretive and creative. The arrangement is clearly in the right direction. It's a little long and comes off a bit repetitive-sounding over the course of 4 minutes, but that part is where it needs to be, even if it could be spiced up some with more interesting dynamic contrast somehow. I thought OA summed it up. The various synths sounded too upfront, a bit grating, and when more than one electrosynth was in play, I felt like they were crowding each other in the same frequency range. Texturally, this sounded pretty weak despite all the parts in play (chimes, bells, beefy bass, those all sounded good in a vacuum, IMO). It's like OA said, it felt like all the sounds were pushed up into (and competing with each other in) the foreground. That's the best I can articulate there, but I'd love to get some more opinions. Good luck with the rest of the vote! If this doesn't make it, hopefully you're able to make some tweaks that will help push this over the top. NO (resubmit)

I literally was going to write a vote hitting basically these issues, but Vinnie's right. I curse the panel for disallowing conditional votes, because this is one where some proper production/mixing tweaks would get this where it would need to be, and I'd rather YES this. But the backing track indeed sounds very lossy and distant; it's a classic example of where poor sound quality makes it seem like the encoding quality is 96kbps or something silly like that. The vocals did sound too dry as well, but I could live with that providing the instrumentation mixing was fixed. Sorry, Austin, I love the arrangement, and you nailed the concept, but the mixing needs some TLC before I can so-sign as is. NO (refine/resubmit) EDIT (5/14): Also just noting that Palpable saying "Urgh" was because he likes the track, and wants to pass it, but he can't yet due to the issues holding it back. It's not frustration at the artist or anything like that. If it doesn't make it, hopefully you can tighten it up for the win.

Or, you know, no.

Rather than something in the overall OCR plagiarism thread, this needs its own thread until the arrangement is ID'ed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z13XFlZDhKg It's an arrangement of from Kirby 64Would anyone know where this Kirby 64 arrangement is from? Could be from a doujin album, arrange event or just someone's solo work? It's not by Fairuzons/fairuzonss, who was suspected by KyleJCrb and verified by Dhsu to have stolen & plagiarized multiple arrangements from http://vgmdb.net/album/4876 on his Newgrounds account, which has since been terminated along with his YouTube accounts. Based on the dates of the verified stolen material plagiarized by Fairuzons/fairuzonss, the stolen Kirby 64 is possibly from 2007 or earlier, and definitely no later than May 2009, but it's tough to know for sure. Thanks for anyone who can help!

It's a difficult theme to initially wrap one's head around, but it's brief, so that helped. Honestly though, variations of the themes are used in massive chunks of the arrangement as the leads, so I'm not sure how "not enough source usage" is coming up. It shouldn't be. The arrangement was 5:48-long, so it needed at least 174 seconds of overt source usage for me to pass it on that level: :33.75-1:06, 1:17.5-1:40, 1:52.75-2:50, 2:52-3:04, 3:36.5-4:07, 4:31.5-5:05.5, 5:10-5:17 - 195.5 seconds or 56.18% My timestamping was actually conservative, I just picked out the most recognizable parts of the theme, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't giving some of the usage the proper credit, even if it was just for brief times. Don't really care too much once it's clearly over the line for dominant usage. Jeff could give a more thorough breakdown if we had to ask, but I don't think it's even necessary as far as being able to tell that the source tune is frequently in play. Definitely ask for it if you need it though, I've been there. The higher strings noticeably strained for realism, so that's always going to stick out, but they were used well enough overall. Loved the woodwind lead at 1:17. The variations here were pretty impressive, arrangement-wise. You got a ton of mileage out of it, but the instrumental and dynamic variations kept the arrangement substantive the whole way through. For me, this was a pretty comfortable call on all levels. Loving the cinematic approach. Definitely would love to hear something like this performed live, as this would fit right in with a classical music repertoire. YES

OC ReMix & halc Present Pilotwings: Take Flight April 25, 2012 Contact: press@ocremix.org FAIRFAX, VA--OverClocked ReMix today released its 34th arrangement album, Pilotwings: Take Flight. This album was made as a tribute to Nintendo's Pilotwings game series and its original music by Soyo Oka (Pilotwings), Dan Hess (Pilotwings 64) and Asuka Ito (Pilotwings Resort). It features seven tracks arranged by Indianapolis-based composer and arranger Drew "halc" Wheeler in his signature "9-bit" style combining nostalgic chiptune instrumentation with modern electronic sounds and production techniques. Take Flight is available for free download at http://flight.ocremix.org. This album was produced to help promote video game music, was made by a fan, for fans, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Nintendo; all original compositions are copyright their respective owners. Take Flight also features halc collaborating with fellow Indianapolis-based OCR veteran Benjamin Briggs as the duo Insert Rupee. Friends since high school, Wheeler and Briggs teamed up twice to arrange pieces from the later installements in the Pilotwings series, Pilotwings 64 and the most recent entry, Pilotwings Resort for the Nintendo 3DS. The album's concluding track, "Depth Perception," is OC ReMix's first arrangement representing the Nintendo 3DS console. halc has been a contributor to OC ReMix since 2008, serving as a submissions judge since April 2011 and creating over 30 game music arrangements, including several from the Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, Kirby, Pokémon, Final Fantasy and Mario franchises. About OverClocked ReMix Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form. Its primary focus is ocremix.org, a website featuring thousands of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans. About halc Drew Wheeler (halc) is an indie chiptune/electronic composer and arranger currently sited in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is also a submissions judge on OverClocked ReMix (ocremix.org). In addition to his remix work, halc also produces original chiptune and electronic music in a wide variety of styles, including jazzy 9-bit, glitch, dub, dubstep, and electro. halc has released five original albums to date: Pixel Perfect EP in January 2011; Pixel Perfect LP in May 2011; Trending Topic EP in November 2011; Zero-G in January 2012; and most recently, Zero-G²: Supernova in March 2012. All of his albums are freely available at http://halc.bandcamp.com. Get 'em. Now. ### Download it: http://flight.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Pilotwings_series_-_Take_Flight.torrent Comments/Reviews: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=39776

Gonna have to revote on whether you're willing to have this posted as-is, since the track can't be touched up: As I said in my vote, I was leaning conditional, but can live with the track as is, so I'm affirming that YES.

Thine beats, they are phat.

Just noting I've only heard the version updated on 4/11. The string sequencing opening this up sounded pretty poor; very exposed mechanical timing. The way the theme was modified during the verses ended up sounding atonal; it's not clicking with the rest of the track at all. The string sequencing and notes during the verses were core to the arrangement, but it's jacked, so I already have to go NO since you need to address that. The changeup at 1:02 was much stronger, writing-wise. Very cool tweak of the Schala theme melody. I did agree with the mixing criticisms. Even with this new version, it's only serviceable. I could potentially pass it with that kind of average mixing if everything else were on point with the arrangement. That said, this was a 320kbps sub (too high) but the track still sounded like it could have been 128kbps, maybe 160. There's a lot of good rhythmic alterations and ear candy with rock parts, the mallet percussion and the other instrumentation that is cool when you notice it, but isn't really mixed clearly. The strings need more body and less robotic timing during the verses, and they (along with the mallet percussion) need to cut through more during your chorus. The mallet percussion at 1:45 was getting crowded out. Anyway, the arrangement itself was strong, we just need the strings on point (or that instrument changed entirely) and the mixing cleaned up further. Keep working on it, you'll get your groove back. NO (resubmit)

Yeah and just to clarify, when we were speaking with our Capcom contact, they didn't realize the OC ReMixers-only restriction would be frowned on by the legal department later on either, otherwise we wouldn't have put that in place. Thomas is from the ghetto, and thus suspicious of "The Man." I don't think any conspiracy level stuff is behind the wording, so I doubt Capcom's gonna sell/profit off of the arrangements if you submit they. BUT they could based on that agreement, so if you're afraid they would and you don't want to open yourself up to the possibility of them doing that, then don't submit, that's understandable.

Just including a source breakdown for the curious. It turns out the game with the most representation among the sources was New Super Mario Bros. SMW - :05-07 (2 seconds) SSBM - :13-1:06, 1:29-1:42 (66 seconds) SMB1 - 1:06-1:19, 1:19-1:29, 4:06-4:15 (32 seconds) SMB3 [& SMB1 together] - 1:06-1:19 (13 seconds) SMB2 - 1:42-2:40 (58 seconds) NEW SMB - 2:40-4:06 (86 seconds)

Some of the synth work in the opening sounded pretty vanilla. The guitar performance was a bit on the stiff and lifeless side to start, but it sounded somewhat stronger for the final section (2:46-3:11), even if the overall energy and expressiveness could have been bumped up. The chugs opening things up sounded OK, but there's just a mechanical feel to the guitar performance as well as the sequenced elements. Not feeling the synths from 1:07-1:19 or 2:22-2:47; bland, generic synths with very stiff sequencing, they just sounded devoid of any feeling. The interplay between the guitar and synth from 2:22-2:47 just sounded odd; It was a great concept, but neither element really took the foreground, and the synth wasn't melodious. I sound pretty negative, but the overall arrangement concept is strong, let's be clear. However, the execution's not there yet. I disagree with the YESes; even if you acknowledge it's flawed, I don't think the execution is cohesive enough or expressiveness enough yet to do justice to this arrangement concept. I think you need to see what you can do to tweak the mixing, , Dustin, and also consider re-recording the guitar and cut loose in order to breath more life into this piece. What's here is OK, but it's, hypothetically, along the lines of a 8th-10th place DoD effort. It doesn't have the polish and energy that the top entries in a typical month have. Do what you can to make this more consistent and polished. NO (resubmit)

- "SMB1 Overworld BGM"Sections like :22-:59 had the same progression as the source tune, but everyone should know how I feel about that by now; just using a source tune's progression is a nice touch, but that doesn't count as actually using the source tune (otherwise we could accept original tracks where someone just followed the chord progression of a piece of game music). So I wanted to just double check how much the Overworld theme was actually in play: Since this was 3:08-long, I needed 94 seconds' worth of explicit source usage to at least qualify it on using the source material: :00-:22, :59-1:17.25, 1:45-2:21, 2:39.5-2:57.5 = 104.25 seconds or 55.45% Anyway, the source usage was over the line, as far as the source tune being used during more than half of the arrangement, but the source tune arrangement wasn't developed enough for this to work as a standalone piece at all. There were a couple instances of the chorus being used in a stylized way, but it was pretty much taking the 7-note opening to the tune, giving it some minor variations and repeating it over and over again. Well, the email header mentioned this was an instrumental, and you weren't kidding. The actual instances of VGM arrangement here are too repetitive. It's not a bad beat at all; it's mixed well and sounds pretty solid. But there's not enough substance or development here for this to pass as a standalone track. That's not always the case with rap instrumentals, but that's absolutely the case with this one. What's there with the instrumental right now sounds sweet, but doesn't develop the themes as much as repeat the same ideas over and over. You'd definitely need add lyrics to this to flesh it out and add that missing piece of the puzzle. Ideally, those lyrics would ALSO use either the Overworld or other Mario themes a bit, so that you're offering some other VGM arrangement ideas in there. Cool start, now put some words to it to take it to the next level. NO (resubmit)

Your ReMixer name: TUNE Your real name: Tunde Junior Your email address: tune@theycallmeTUNE.com Your website: http://theycallmeTUNE.com Your userid (number, not name) on our forums: 48891 Submission Information Name of game(s) arranged: Super Mario All-Stars Name of arrangement: SMB1 Overworld Name of individual song(s) arranged: Overworld (Main Theme) Composed by: Soyo "DJ Alice" Oka and Koji Kondo Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc. I used to produce video game remixes on OCRemix under the alias "lilsonic". Then I went the hip-hop/ pop route and disappeared from my roots as a VG Music Remixer. I'm trying to slowly come back and see if I can incorporate what i've learned in the industry into OC Remix. This should be fun. What better way to start than to remix the music of the first video game I ever played back when I was 5 years old. Time to have some fun! - TUNE

- "Swimming BGM"A bit torn here, or at least annoyed. As far as expansiveness and the overall premise of the arrangement, I'm all over it. This was clearly a creative approach, and a lot of people would enjoy it. BUT... by 2 1/2 minutes, I felt like the techniques that kicked in at :40 had already been overused. I'd heard the essentially the same beat patterns, the same stuttering technique of the death sound, the same gated-type stuttering of the melodic arrangement, the same countermelodic stuttering pattern. Brief break at 1:32, then more of the same at 1:39. At least by 2:31, we finally had the source in a minor key with a different-sounding lead, though everything surrounding it was pretty much repeating. Over the 3 1/2 minutes, the overall groove just felt way too static and repetitive. That's not to say there aren't subtle dynamic changes and dropoffs within the arrangement; it's obvious those are all over the arrangement as well. Ultimately though, those beats and techniques became too repetitive. This needs some stronger attention to dynamics. Some of the dropoffs of the beats were encouraging, but some tempo changes, more rhythmic variations on the arranged theme, and more variation of the core beats at the foundation of the track would really help this not drag on. The core creatively and treatment of the theme is great, Tyler, but this groove and the overall ideas are just too much on cruise control once you've established them. IMO, the overall repetition isn't justifying the length of the track. I'm sure you can spice this up some without sacrificing the overall vision you've had for this piece. I can see this potentially getting some YESes, I just don't think this is as fully developed as it could and should be. NO (resubmit)

Link: CONTACT INFO Remixer: Tspeiro Name: Tyler Speiran e-mail: website: http://www.youtube.com/user/tspeiro User ID: 49080 SUBMISSION INFO Game Arranged: Super Mario Bros Name of Arrangement: Squids N' Fish Name of Song: Underwater Theme

Just gonna keep it brief. Arrangement-wise, I like it. Cool mood, cool time signature changes. The main issue is that the track feels too dry and thin. The soundscape just comes off too sparse most of the time despite the volume, one example being the organ parts. Not really a fan of the snare tone either, it didn't quite work. Everything sounds too clean. This was pretty close, and it could very well pass as is. However, there's something about the relative spareness of the soundscape that prevented the instrumentation from fully clicking and sounding cohesive. Hopefully, we can get further insight into the potential issue. It's OK, but could use another pass to polish this up. NO (resumbit)