Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Co-signed. There's not much to add other than confirming that while this is a nice piano cover, it's basically just a very straightforward adaptation of the source material to piano, with little other interpretation, expansion or personalization of the material. It's an enjoyable piano arrangement, but it's such a straightforward cover that it falls outside of what we're looking for in terms of substantive interpretive arrangement. NO

Not much more to add to what OA and DA said. Promising stuff here in terms of personalizing the arrangement, but this is dry as hell. Give the backing instrumentation some further body (the core beat pattern was BORING; spice, plz). The wind-down got BONE DRY from 3:16 until the end; seriously, in no universe will that ever fly here. You know better than that. Like they said, it's legitimately a great start, but don't skimp on the fine tuning needed to make this sound fully fleshed out. This is totally worth a resubmission, so bug anyone and everyone who you admire in this community who may be willing to give you some tips on this WIP. Lots of potential here, don't drop this one. NO (resubmit)

Pretty awesome soundtrack. WELL worth a listen for any readers here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msoPVdN78FQ&playnext=1&list=SPC63672E893D00DD5 The trailer music is certainly based off motifs from the game's soundtrack, if not made for the game itself. I couldn't find the trailer music outside of the trailer vid, though it's a cult game and the soundtrack may not be spread around as much on YouTube. It would likely check out, but just FYI that I had no conclusive info that the trailer theme was originally made for the game. Again, it's PROBABLY fine. First part of trailer theme: :33-1:00, 1:15-1:28, 3:14-3:28 (very quiet on plucked strings), 5:13-5:41 Second part of trailer theme: 1:29-1:53, 2:21-2:31, Chapter 1 theme - 1:53-2:21 played by the lower strings PC98 final boss theme - 3:28-3:54, 3:56.5-4:45 The arrangement checks out, and I liked what I heard there adapting these themes to a more electronic style. Trailer theme arrived at :32, and I'm already thinking the levels are too hot here, though they're tolerable. Am just I getting old? Until 1:44 (which was a beautiful transition adapted from the original), the track was sounding too loud and cluttered. 3:14-3:30 was another area where I felt my ears were getting battered. Anyone else, from 3:42-4:10, lemme know if this is too compressed or if my ears are turning into Grandpa Larry. Actually once the distorted stuff was brought in at 4:16, I think I was firmly against this one on production grounds. Short and sweet, clean up the mixing and we're good to go, but I can't support this one as is. NO (refine/resubmit)

Interesting opening that eventually revealed itself as "Ruined World" around :22, as far as I can hear. Weird changeup at 1:27. Not sure what was going on melodically with this section, as I couldn't tell if it was tied to any of the sources. It seemed to be loosely tied to the CT game over theme for maybe 10 seconds, but not really after that. If someone could ID what, if anything, was being arranged from 1:27-2:45, let me know. In any case, it felt like a more meandering section that came off as filler. "People Seized with Life" arrived at 2:47. The soundscape was decent, but the plucked string sequencing brought in at 3:00 sounded too robotic and unrealistic. Not sure why there was a programmed note flub at 3:44, but it needs a quick fix as well. The overall instrumentation of this piece was fairly solid, so make sure there's no weak links in realism if possible. Nice change in the mood of the source at 3:55. It was structurally conservative, but had a much more forceful sound than the original, with an even bigger dose of strength at 4:25. The mixing was a bit muddy, and the levels got too loud then, but the overall arrangement approach, while conservative, was personalized well in the section. The piano sequencing in the background of that section was rigid, but those flaws were covered up nicely due to the placement of the instrument. Then at 5:00 the rigidity of the piano was exposed. And again, I'm totally missing what theme, if any, was supposed to be represented here. I guess another part of "People Seized with Life" here, but again I'm not sure. It's not great, but at 5:36, the writing sounded cohesive enough and finished it well. As I've said numerous times (and HoboKa might complain about douchey criticism against him a la SnappleMan), I still feel he just doesn't have an ear for writing his own original music. 1:27-2:45, a section that sounded more like original writing was meandering and not very musical. But 5:00-6:17, while also a bit meandering, didn't have any huge sour notes or glaringly bad structure like I've heard in some long ago subs, so there's hope on that level yet. When he sticks close to the source tune's original structure and then tries to put his own sound and some expansive writing to it, he's more likely to hit something pleasing to listen to as far as the notes. Suggestions: 1. Create a real transition leading into 1:27's section if you're going to keep it. 2. Make the 1:27-2:45 section more melodious or figure out a way to trim it, or cut it entirely and create a different transition. 3. Improve the realism of the sequenced guitar at 3:00. 4. Improve the realism of the sequenced piano at 5:00. Otherwise though, this was close for me and has a lot a positives, where just a bit more tightening up will get this over the line, IMO. I could see this getting encouragement and/or YESes. That said, great start either way. NO (resubmit)

We only do torrents based around round #s, so probably up to mix #2500 on this update.

Where's PROTO·DOME at? e.g. http://protodome.bandcamp.com (he made his own artwork)

Great point!

Nah. Though FF5 parts 3-5 could use a compo or four to get the final stuff complete. I am indeed collecting those, but there's no plans for a formal FLAC release yet. One project at a time, but it's something I'm privately maintaining for now. Once the new torrents come out, and ReMixers see these updates have in fact happened, I think artists who haven't responded to my callout for lossless versions before will then also come out of the woodwork.

http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?p=734023&postcount=172 BPMs will NOT be embedded in the mixes for the revised torrents at all, because we can't ensure the accuracy of all BPMs generated by a DAW or BPM Analyzer, especially for pieces that use tempo changes. Things could change, but if we integrated BPM into the site database on any level, it may make more sense to do ranges rather than exact numbers.

Cool idea! Just FYI, track 2 on your list is from VotL. But certainly a fun concept! Time for Chrono Trigger and Mega Man 2 playlists structured in a similar way.

Just asked about this; when djp next updates the site, he says this'll be fixed so the lack of slash doesn't 404. The update's planned for this year, and he's working on it, which is why some things that could be tweaked on the current site design/coding aren't being touched.

The links currently require the trailing slash at the very end. http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02038/ - WORKS! http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02038 - 404! I think djp said he'd change/fix this up at some point, so that the lack of slash wouldn't cause a 404. Though I don't know what that involves, it doesn't sound too tough, so nagging might work.

Yeah, I'll just say again, if our ONLY standards were posting music that sounded awesome, and we didn't care about the strength of the connection to the original VGM, this would be approved without hesitation, Joe. But for the first half, there's got to me more overt usage of the "Special Stage" theme rather than (essentially) improvising over a very loose chord progression. Definitely don't be discouraged, and let's hear from you again with a revised take on this theme or another VGM arrangement.

"Late Goodbye" is definitely eligible (and a great song): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poets_of_the_Fall#Early_years_.282003.E2.80.932004.29 The KoRn track is most likely eligible, but I've yet to see the smoking gun evidence for it.

The answer's already there. Proof your Blind Guardian track was commissioned for Sacred 2.

Well, you said it yourself: Then we hope you, and everyone else, will remain understanding. When there's an actual update, so WE know what the status is, everyone will know.

I didn't say anything new; I basically just said everyone's been speculating, and I haven't seen anything accurate yet, so folks should just wait for things to play out. When there's more to report either way, the community will know.

I'll check on that this weekend! Sorry if I lost track of it!

I'm always down if I have free time to do an interview about the history of the site or how it's come along in the past 12 years. I don't make GOOD music, but I've terribly sang on top of some VGM before! http://olremix.org/remixes/99

The piano timing was pretty stiff, along with the woodwind sequencing. The warbling-style sounds brought in at :23 was a strange fit with the more organic-style instruments. Wasn't a big fan of the drum sound at :23; it just was too loud and crowding out other instruments. The synth line handling the Dr. Wily theme at :47 was a stronger fit. At 1:33, the hand-drumming was interesting, but the mixing was messy, IMO. The piano probably should have been more forward, BUT because the sequencing was so rigid, it would be exposed more; so you're left with a quiet, robotic piano that doesn't fill out the soundscape well and makes the overall timing of everything sound like it doesn't match up. But the main issue I had hearing the drums was that it made the overly rigid timing of the piano and woodwind stand out a lot more since the parts didn't lock together. Same with the airy strings brough in much later around 3:12. Texturally, all of this sounded like an awkward, patchwork kind of setup, and wasn't cohesive enough basically the whole way. The arrangement had merit, but I didn't feel this end result was cohesive enough yet, and it could stand another coat of polish. NO (resubmit)

Since you gave such a detailed breakdown, I timestamped it myself, though it wasn't close: :00.5-:18, :20-:25.5, :28.5-:58, 1:08.5-1:15.5, 1:32.5-2:01.5, 2:04.5-2:10.5, 2:13-2:26, 2:44.75-2:52, 2:53-3:12, 3:25-5:10.5 Not gonna bother adding it up. Anyway, I'm just gonna co-sign with the others who felt we need another pass at the mixing on this. OA and Vig had it right, the vocals are too dry and too far forward, dry being the biggest problem, IMO. I enjoyed the arrangement otherwise and hope we get a tweaked version soon! NO (resubmit) EDIT: Actually, forget it, I think this is fine. I've listened about 15 more times, and while the vocals OR instrumentation could use something to fill this out further, the vocal mixing actually isn't a big deal. The 2:28-3:01 section was the big offender for me, where the guitar work felt too dry with nothing around it to make up for the thin sound, and I was wrongly conflating that issue with the vocals. But that's really the only area bothering me, and the rest of the production sounded reasonable to me, just needed to get used to hearing this and seeing how everything fit together. YES

When we have movement we can let everyone know about, we'll be sure to let everyone know, believe me.

Y'all need to stop speculating on what's going on, including these perceptions of Kickstarter.

Yes, he's always been the only webmaster of the site.

Do you want that for your forum name as well, or are you keeping it as is?