Liontamer

http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01284/

I'll just be honest, unless you're packing some awesome music and I just haven't heard it, no hate, but I doubt you're gonna be an official OCR album. But email admin@ocremix.org with what you have and I'll take a look next week.

Didn't feel anything down in GA. Glad to see on Facebook that it's just a bunch of people going "BAH!" and not "AHHHHH!"

For the first minute, I was totally feeling it. I don't disagree with anyone saying the steady beat lasted too long, and that was the main drawback. For about a minute, I was firmly in the camp of "this isn't dragging out, c'mon," because the beat sounds good. But aside from some dropoffs here and there, this simple beat indeed dragged on WAAAAY too long. The arrangement works nicely besides that, and while you should keep Vig's production crits in mind as well, I wasn't bothered by those issues. In other words, if the beats weren't so repetitive, the other crits wouldn't add up to a NO. The lack of instrumental changes Vig also pointed out would be downplayed by the subtle dynamic contrast that would be added by the beats changing up. So just get the beats off this bland auto-pilot they're on and you should be good. NO (refine/resubmit)

This right here. Before reading the votes, this was really nagging on me, but I couldn't articulate the issues holding this back. The bowed strings sounded too sparse and the sequencing was on the mechanical side, though not the worst I've heard. The pizz strings later sounded fine, but, during the chorus, the bowed strings were too quiet compared to the beats. The bowed articulations definitely need to be refined to sound more humanized. The beatwork at the foundation of the track was pretty vanilla and repetitive for the first half. Better, more progressive stuff at 2:00, though the lead synth playing the melody was kind of weak. Back to the pizz strings around 2:30. The arrangement isn't too cover-ish, IMO, as if it was just a verbatim cover, but what's there could still be more melodically interpretive and creative with the bowed & pizz strings and the synth melody of the chorus. It's just a little too plain of an arrangement when it comes to the lead elements. Like OA said, you need something else there to further flesh this out. Right now, you have bland leads with relatively straightforward arrangement trying to carry most of the track. The potential's there, just refine this further and send it on back. NO (resubmit)

Completely disagree. You're basically saying the title has to appeal to the superficial and stupid. The album is "The Sound of a Hedgehog That Runs Very Fast in His First Game." If people were expecting superfast BPM and can't get over that, especially when the original music wasn't superfast BPM, I couldn't care less. The single dumbest criticism I saw of OA & Scaredsim's Green Hill Zone mix on YouTube was that it was too slow, when it was slightly faster than the tempo of the original. It's an album about a speedy hedgehog not a speedy soundtrack, it's a play on words, and we have more than enough people without a stick up their ass enjoying the album to care about a minority of people hung up on the album title. It's the same people complaining that Voices of the Lifestream implied an all-vocal album; it's just a short-sighted, stupid criticism.

I had no problem with the structure or style of the track. It's perfectly fine for OCR as far as the writing and concept. That said, "Totaka's Song" is pretty short, and you didn't use it enough here for it to be the dominant aspect of the arrangement. For a 2:43-long track, this needed more than 81.5 seconds of source usage for the source tune to be the dominant aspect of the arrangement (i.e. in use more than 50% of the time), and for me to give it a pass on arrangement: :05-:15, :20-:30.75, :52.75-1:02.25, 1:30-1:52, 2:30.75-2:41 = 62.5 seconds or 38.34% Not nearly enough use of the theme in here. I like the slapsticky stuff going on. But you need to figure out other clever ways to have the source in play without getting, e.g slowing it down and using it as a backing part via some low bowed strings. Just think of some things you can do to further integrate the theme in here, preferably without just playing it more and more at the same rhythm and tempo in order to provide variation instead of mere repetition. The production sounds good, and the instrumentation sounds well put together. Now get the second part of the equation working. NO (resubmit)

Sorry, my man, really not feeling this track at all. The source tune was used enough, but the sequencing is just super unrealisitic and mechanical-sounding, and the guitar chugs at :17 sounded extremely fake and atonal. The melody sounded off-key from :38-:48 & 1:21-1:32, and NOTHING clicks together as far as the instrumentation, so the textures sounded loud yet sparse & flimsy. The resolution at the end is poorly written as well. Just brutal to listen to, you need to really get the fundamentals down as far as building something cohesive. NO

There are so many people who don't realize that at the time they sent their first (poor) submission and hate us to no end for rejecting it outright. Glad you didn't give up!

No one else cares what you think about how new or popular the source material is.

As if that's never happened before. Try to self-edit and give some non-stupid comments next time. The vocals felt a bit low compared to the music, but it's a nice mix, and solidly produced. Cool stutter effects more in the second half. Interesting take on it, Mofo. Definitely a good listen!

That pic's getting slammed by traffic. Someone should host it on their own.

It'll be out this year. I'm waiting for one big batch of WAVs to update, and then we should be ready to go. Hopefully within the next month we roll this out.

Hahaha, love that FF7 pic. And that Deia getting me in trubba being all up ons was the origin of the Stevobomb. Happy birfday, (not) Mega Beardo!

My stopwatch had you at about 170.25 seconds of source usage with 261 seconds of the track, so 65.23%. Since you asked. If there was any doubt, it wouldn't have been a direct post. Like Dave said, the arrangement was very additive, but it was certainly a fitting direction to take it in. Love the source tune, and loved the wank!

I'm assuming you mean OC ReMixes? If so, I can send you a list later today.

Not sure if the production "issues" are really that much of a dealbreaker, and a lot of y'all are wrong on the arrangement. I had trouble making it out entirely as well, but after stepping back from it a while ago and coming back fresh on it 2 months later, some of the stuff I felt was liberal was pretty obvious, so perhaps others need to go back to this and give it a fresh listen. I thought OA had the best NO regarding how he felt the source was treated (it's present, just not dominant enough), but the others NOs on arrangement seem to just say the source simply wasn't there enough. A NO on arrangement is looking like a really bad call, IMO.

Thanks for pointing those out. Something else to look at.

I'm just going to clarify/back up what the other Js said. Jordanius: Seems like you want to revise Gitaroo Man... again? If the changes aren't drastic, we don't need to revote. If they are a major overhaul, like your past major overhaul, we'd need to revote. At some point, I'd call it a wrap if I were you, BUT it's your arrangement, so if you need to do some more to get it where you need it, that's fine, just keep us in the loop by mailing the judges about how it's going. Just reply to our previous conversation from the judges mailbox and I'll see it. Strader: We generally post the album versions of mixes, so as long as your lossless version reached the project people, we'll also get it. Also, though we prefer MP3 submissions, I have no problem encoding other people's WAVs if they need a higher bitrate but don't know the ins-and-outs of how to encode. If needed, they can always talk to me about that.

<djpretzel> post-vb4, for sure Pretty durr, so just wait for it, Goghagalla [sic].

Our policy at OC ReMix is no ID3v1 tags on ANYTHING. They died in a fire.

I was about to say, the implication is it's something else, because all the individual OC ReMix postings work fine according to him, so that would mean it isn't necessarily a bitrate issue. Anyone else having these kind of problems with MP3 CDs of OC ReMixes or OCR albums in their car stereo?

I will gladly continue being silly. Credit where credit is due means no undue credit.

Dunno what drum samples those are for the first half, but I've always hated that snare tone. Never seems to have enough realism and body. Oh well. The guitar work was kind of thin and grating and the piano sound lacked realism. Those were the production negatives that stuck out, but nothing was near a dealbreaker issue. The way all of the elements were put together so cohesively (downplaying the issues) really helped in those regards. Was feeling the arrangement, which retained a lot of the dynamic ideas and energy of the original while definitely presenting it in a unique and interpretive style. The final section from 3:01 until the end really finished things strongly. Nice work on transforming this deadly aria. He can has long YES

I did, but we can talk Kyle, and see what I may have missed.