Liontamer

What's the status at this stage?

When? I'm just planning on voting instead if we haven't received anything yet, OR you can ping Lee.

These beats were definitely not phat enough. They sounded pretty bland and basic to me. I'd change the tone to something more complimentary, with more punch/body, but with the volume pulled back. The hats also needed to be pulled back, so I'll be the umpteenth judge to call that out as well. Those perc patterns definitely droned on after a while and got boring. Get some more variation in there without upsetting the laid back feel. Arrangement-wise, this generally got the job done, but this could have used more melodic/structural interpretation to stand more apart from both the original and DCT's own laid-back OC ReMix of it. I agreed with the production of the opening piano coming across as a screw-up, but it wasn't there long enough to have a significant detrimental effect to my vote. I actually could see what he was going for, even if the execution wasn't there, that's probably why it didn't bother me as much. The sequencing of the plucked lead was too rigid, as Palp pointed out. "Ooh, no" on that violin at 3:30. Quiet or not, the mechanical sequencing was very, very exposed to me, especially that awful fast decay. Yeah, this is definitely full of potential, Peter, it just needs some production TLC to balance the parts & smooth out articulations to get this sounding its best. See what you can do to spice up the arrangement as well on it in some places. No need to be discouraged; take another pass at this and push it over the finish line. NO (resubmit)

I've heard this before, but not with my judging hat on, so let's see how I feel. The issue of the credits having lots of quick transitions doesn't account for the jarring instrumental and mood changes found in this mix. The Credits source tune had flow that this does not have. The musicianship's not really in question, though the guitar work should have sounded sharper and wasn't mixed as well as it should have been, as Vig mentioned. We'll see if the transitions are particularly bothersome and denote a lack of flow... 2:07 transition was weak. 2:36 transition was weak. 3:20 transition wasn't great, but was OK. The 2:36-3:20 beatwork patterns didn't fill out the background enough and got repetitive after a while. 3:52 transition wasn't great, nor OK, but not all the way awful. 4:17 transition was great. 5:17 transition was fine. 2 mehs, 2 ehs, and only 2 yeahs for the transitions, IMO. This has way less flow than the original. Plus plodding, empty beatwork for one section, and lackluster geetar production. I liked the Special Stage stuff that opened things up, but after that, the multiple issues here ultimately added up to an unfortunate NO-go.

Opened up pretty hot with the hand drums, so I was wondering where and when this song would start going wrong. Unfortunately, I anticipated something, because the one big flaw in your work so far is that the production is completely inconsistent. Then, right at :07, the piano sounded completely mechanical, lo-fi and distant. It's just ugly and completely disparate from the rest of the sound quality. The flute sequencing was also fake-sounding, but serviceable. The bowed strings at 2:48 were just as fake, it's just a shame. The other judges went into way more detail on what else was wrong, so there's no point repeating that. This would have easily gotten the job done 9 years ago, but the community as a whole is way past this now, which is why this mix is not strong enough anymore for a YES. You really need to work on your sample articulations, because your arrangements never have the grace and expression you're hoping to convey in the writing. I hate to sound too negative, but having judged a few of your subs in rapid succession, the same silly production issues killing your execution becomes legitimately frustrating. That said, Guilherme, you wouldn't be the first ReMixer to have some big issues they need to get past before they're putting out consistent work, and that includes several of the judges in their early days in the community. Keep at it and you'll get there. NO

Not digging these snare shots at all. They had too much snap, and were positioned too far upfront, so they took a lot of focus away from the leads and didn't mesh with the soundscape. Plus, the velocities sounded near-identical on every hit. The string articulations weren't good either, but weren't fully exposed. The guitar wank support part that came in at :47 behind the lead guitar was too loud and was competing to be heard with the melody and drums. The levels on the parts were too similar, again making it difficult to focus on the leads. The vox at 1:00 sounded flat. Really weird synth and string writing combination at 1:11, 2:59 & 3:23; the parts clashed a bit and didn't sound like they were in the same key. Deia and OA shouldn't have let that slide, it's just screwed up. Things got more on track going back to the verses at 1:35. 1:59's section was OK, but the textures were getting repetitive. Lots of good soloing wank at 2:23, but the drum pattern just being the same looped stuff with the same realism issues was a bit on the lazy side. I thought this had potential too, but wasn't even feeling it as much as the others. The textures and arrangement ideas were pretty repetitive; half the song could have been cut and it would have said essentially the same thing. Coupled with the weird writing/clashing issues and unbalanced levels, this would need significant TLC to pass. That said, I remember when your stuff was complete brutality, Joe, so keep at it. You've obviously been improving. NO

I'm counting on you both to 1) BRING THE HATE and 2) NOT MESS UP! (Editor's note: Justin and Drew were hired due to being hateful and perfect.) Yes, we hate you.

For 192kbps, this sounded awfully muddy. That warbling effect was kind of annoying and sounded too much like an FL preset effect that was abused. If the production weren't so cluttered, this would really have a much better shot, as I thought the arrangement was fine. But you have overly compressed-sounding sections like 2:27-3:20 & 4:26-4:53 that are just too cluttered and indistinct, which I felt more strongly about than CHz. The ending at 5:38 didn't fully fade out, so we need a copy that properly captures that final fade. Not sure why the arrangement was considered jumpy by CHz, as I thought the dynamics and flow were decent enough. IMO, clean the production of this track up before we can post it. If the quality were more bordeline, I could go conditional, but such extended periods of muddiness, I've got to formally go NO and ask for a resubmission.

This needed 134 seconds of overt source usage for me to be OK with the arrangement. I'm likely missing some more liberal things, but from what I could overtly make out, this passed my source usage/arrangement sniff test. :18-41, 43-49, 52-1:10, (1:10-1:17 backing, barely audible), 1:17-1:25, 1:50.5-2:19, 2:21-2:41, 2:49-3:05.25, 3:09.5-3:11, 3:17-3:18, 3:42.5-3:46, 3:49-3:53, 4:08.5-4:11.75 So I made out 133 seconds of overt usage along with 7 seconds of barely audible backing based on "Forest Interlude" that pushed it over the top. Onto the general comments... What a sloppy, abrupt fadeout of the rain SFX at :29, just no attention to detail there. Interesting take for the disco style though. The piano in tandem with the rigidly timed beats wasn't quite working, but once things shifted at :52, things were a bit more tolerable, even if the core beats never meshed with the other instrumentation well-enough, IMO. Agreed with Vinnie about the string attacks needing to not be so slow. Aside from those criticisms, the overall arrangement was very creative and the performances solid. The dynamics here were excellent and things stayed interesiting throughout. Y'all deinitely came through with a solid collaboration! YES

Structurally, it initially held pretty fast to the source, but there was good expansion along with much needed flourishes and personalization to really pick up the interpretive potential of the arrangement. Not feeling the sequenced guitar at :56, but I've heard so much worse. This was solid enough. Really disappointed in the awful crowded production from 2:17-2:30. The splashy percussion and the barely audible bassline playing the source resulted in a messy, unfocused soundscape. Definitely get the source usage pushed more to the forefront to avoid that brief hiccup. That said, things picked back up nicely after that brief hiccup with some awesome synth writing to cap off some stylish arrangement ideas. On the whole, I'm really digging the approach here. Production Issues aside, it's definitely a epic-style take on this one that really amped up the enegy level and generally clicked. Ultimately, I can roll with this as is. But if you COULD tweak these issues, you should do so. Nice work nonetheless, Dihaz! YES

Definitely opened up sounding fairly strong. Some nice intense production here. The theme finally kicked in at :48 with some pretty cover-ish guitar work. During those main verses, the drumwork was surprisingly flimsy and didn't fill up the background space well. At 1:15 when more guitars were added, the soundscape got a bit muddy, though it wasn't a huge deal. About a minute and half in, the arrangement just wasn't very interpretive yet, and felt too much like a sound upgrade. At 2:01, the soundscape got crowded again and 2:07-2:13 just sounded like a compressed mass of noise with some machine guns drums on top of everything and no clarity. I did like the arrangement getting a bit more interpretive from 2:01-2:23 before going into some original writing. 2:58 finally got into playing the source tune with some different backing writing, but it was very brief, only until 3:09. More original soloing before referring back to the source at 3:20 with good interpretation, but again only briefly before a key change at 3:35 for a final personalized take on the Grabbag theme. I hear what's wrong with the drums, but thought they sounded reasonably OK regardless. The second half of the arrangement threw in more personalization techniques to put some slight variations of the source tune, which definitely lifted the arrangement up. With the prodiction, the fuller sections being so crowded definitely threw me off and the drums could stand to be further humanized. It didn't bother me as much as the other NOs, but the drum issues that were pointed out were more exposed in some of the sections that weren't as dense. Sorry for the long wait on a decision, Eddie. When the call is split, we need more opinions and feedback to get at the issues and make it clear what needs work. If you still have the source files and could spit-polish this, this could easily be out first approved Grabbag mix and we'd love to post it! Please make those recommended tweaks and send it back. We'll fast-track the evaluation of a follow-up submission of this. NO (resubmit)

$20 more up in yo PayPal!

Several things about this weren't fully cohesive. The bowed strings sounded a bit muddy and distant, but not too much. There seemed to be a lot of empty space, with the plucked strings and brass sounding very upfront but the background sounding a bit empty. The thin bowed strings samples couldn't really pad out the background enough. At 1:08, the guitar articulations were pretty awkward, but I loved the writing. It's harder to mask issues when you leave every flaw so exposed. The timing was a bit jerky and should have flowed better like earlier. 1:45's section was a lot more successful with smooth timing. Whatever was introduced into the 1:21, 1:56 and 3:03 sections definitely cluttered and muddied things up significantly. Would love some clarification on what's causing that. I don't mean to make the perfect the enemy of the good, but this needs production needs a LOT of TLC before I can fully get behind this. This sounded so squeaky clean for the most part that weaknesses with the depth and articulations of the instruments weren't adequately covered up. Many sections needed to be filled out/padded out and the volume of the parts needed to be balanced properly. This gets a lot of things right, but the current result isn't cohesive enough to look past a lot of the production issues which is unfortunate. I really like the arrangement, but the potential of the writing wasn't realized in the execution. NO (resubmit)

Something about the opening beat really sounded like a loop preset. The strings definitely sounded flimsy and exposed, the piano sounded too quiet and fake, and the whole texture AND the whole arrangement was just really repetitive and underdeveloped. The beats were much louder than anything involving the source and the sound balance simply wasn't there. OA, whachu smokin'? Sorry Avin, this is sloppy and unpolished right now. A spit polish is not nearly enough to flesh this out, articulate and balance the parts properly and develop this track. NO

Seemed like this was potentially clipping/distorting a bit with some of the huge hits at the beginning and would love a second opinion. The denser parts definitely sound a bit muddy. Right off the bat, I'm definitely loving this arrangement. The string articulations weren't the greatest, but were definitely strong enough to work well. The placement of the instruments worked well enough to not expose the samples too greatly. The way the melody was altered on the woodwind and strings left it a bit less melodious than the original, but it wasn't a huge deal. I dunno why this doesn't have more votes, myself included. I'm sure the more orchestral minded Js could give some great feedback on the production side, but everything here was poppin' in a good way. The structure held pretty fast to the original, but the arrangement was definitely expanded and personalized well. Great stuff, and DEFINITELY glad to see Wizards & Warriors II get that love. It's been too long for that game. Nice work, Brandon, you're hitting a nice stride here, bro. YES EDIT (7/1/2012): Way back, I initially thought parts of the arrangement were using some of the Prokofiev's "Romeo & Juliet" verbatim, so I had major reservations despite the initial YES vote. But I was dead wrong, so sorry for holding this up long past due. Despite the purposeful similarities, it's very clear the IronSword title theme was just stylistically inspired by Prokofiev's work, but isn't an arrangement of Prokofiev, so everything kosher as far as source eligibility.

Track was 4:33-long, so I need 136.5 of overt source usage to pass it for arrangement. Soundscape sounded a bit full/flooded, and could have used a cleaner sound, but this was strong enough on the production. The arrangement almost was a pointalist style usage of the melody from around :28-1:28. 2:43-onward seems to have a very loose connection to I guess :26 of the source, but there's not much distinct connection to make there or anywhere. I have to agree with the others NOs that 2:43-3:41 sounded like a wholly original section on top on some vaguely similar chords, followed a mirror of the opening to wind things down, also unconnected to the source. The track apparently cut off a few seconds too early from the fadeout as well. :28.5-:35, 36-50, 51-:58, 1:06-1:27.5, 1:42.75-2:42.5 = 107.75 seconds or 39.47% usage I'm pickier than Vinnie on gaps, but we pretty much lined up the same as far as what we could make out vs. the source. Make no mistake about it, I feel >60% unrelated to the source is not good enough for arrangement. You guys YESing this can wave off actually checking how much source material is used, with some references to look at, but when you do, stuff happen like this: "Oh, it sounds alright, it sounds Mega Man-esque," and we get 3 groove biased YESs without enough qualification. I'd love for me to just be missing something obvious, but no one's pointed it out. It's too bad, because the sounds are pretty solid, the groove is good, and this is obviously put together capably. It's nice in a vacuum. It just needs more Gravity Beetle used in it for a stronger connection to the source tune. I really hope I'm missing something huge here with the arrangement as I'm comparing it, but it just doesn't seem to be the case. James, don't be discouraged, you're getting to be a very capable producer, so that's not in question. But that's only one half of the equation with a submissions; we do need the source tune to be dominant here, so we can ride with this to the front page where it belongs. NO (refine/resubmit)

It begs to be said.

No worries about Shizz/OCR drama. There is none. I've read Cetera's posts in that thread, and I disagree, but the discussion there has been good. It's obvious it's not just one-sided hate and I don't see how there's any drama there. Considering you didn't follow your own POV when looking at "Spring Junkie," I don't see why you'd say that. The standards also don't exclude what you're claiming they exclude. For the Sonic 3 mix, I definitely gave you credit for your bass. I don't only take into account the presence of melody/countermelody, but I don't count rests or soloing over stripped down chord progressions. Context is important and I definitely differ with several judges on it. It's along a similar line to what Nick was talking about, only swinging it completely in the other direction. For most sections of "Hot Pink" being along the lines of soloing over a simplified chord progression (e.g. 3:15-4:23), it was not dominant enough, recognizable enough usage of the source even with the context of the original song to compare it to, IMO. No one said it was the final word, including myself. "I could be missing something else, but halc can speak for himself." Whenever I timestamp stuff, I always state there could be other areas I've missed and encourage judges to clarify additional usage and contest things. If "Spring Junkie" were a judging decision, I'd go more in depth than that quick summary (at 2:14 AM). It's not lazy to actually look at how a source tune is used rather than just going with your gut. What I've seen you and Nick imply so far is the notion that soloing over simplified chords most of the time should count but melodic usage shouldn't necessarily count. Can't agree with that. Taking Nick's issue and flipping it, IMO, you can't take a video game song's stripped down chord progression and plop on a few original melodies, make it sound pretty nice, and have it be up to OCR standards. That really makes no sense either. The discussion is fun though, and you don't sound bitter, Tony, it's fine.

The word context doesn't need to be in the guidelines. The context is provided by comparing Song A to Submission B. We're explicitly comparing the submissions to the original music, so we're already taking that context into account. Just clarifying, if someone takes an obscure part of a song like a supporting pattern, then that's the only part they use, then yes, it's more than likely to get rejected. That guideline is for the judges. The judges are the ones who have to scrutinize what's been done to an arrangement to directly connect it back to the original material, not the general public. I've heard a lot of arrangements that don't match the mood or instrumentation of the source material, which is implied to some extent of what Tony's talking about. A Spring Yard Zone arrangement lacking enough "SpringYardiness" for his tastes. If some people can't make out the connections in full, that's going to happen and we're OK with that. But that shouldn't be the barometer for what we approve, given how subjective that is.

Yeah, it's required. Context is what we're all about when we're picking this stuff apart, and we do it so you don't necessarily have to. Though y'all will. For this particular mix, just picking out the obvious parts for me (someone who has played the game and knows the music really well), I found the >50%. Once it goes over 50% source usage, I don't mind what else someone does with it with the writing because the video game music is the dominant direct influence of the arrangement. If that weren't happening for this mix, I'd be with you in complaining. But comparing A to B with a closer look that took me maybe 10 minutes, I saw I didn't need to be concerned. If our litmus test was "this has to be instantly recognizable, I shouldn't be required to think hard" (which HAS been proposed to us before by Double A Ron), then we'd reject a lot more stuff. Sometimes we need an explanation from the artist (e.g. http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01342/). I think we're a lot better community for allowing that. People should realize though, subs like that are pretty rare. Not every submission is that liberal. We still have room for more straightforward but still interpretive arrangements.

Context is very important.

Saw this at The Shizz: http://theshizz.org/forum/index.php?/topic/23717-oc-remix-submission-standards-revisions/page__view__findpost__p__1031367 You don't give this arrangement enough credit: The track's 3:42.5 long, so it needs 111.25 seconds of overt source usage to be at 50%. 1:05-1:28.25, 1:38.75-1:56.5, 2:22-3:42.5 = 111.5 seconds I could be missing something else, but halc can speak for himself. This definitely took a while to get to the source. That doesn't mean it wasn't in there. The feel being the same isn't required.

Excitement!

Both are smexy. I definitely rank JP ahead of US for stage themes, but people hating on the US one need to let it go. I'm not rocking "You Can Do Anything," "Believe in Yourself," or "Sonic Boom," or the vocal tracks on any side, but the US stage themes are great!

Thanks for the heads up. I'll go through the official takedown steps in 2 days if the video is still up.