Liontamer

ReMixer Name: The Native Dialect Website: http://www.youtube.com/thenativedialect Name of game arranged: No More Heroes (Wii) Original Song: "Beam Katana Chronicles Remix Name: "Ebony Intuition (Shinobu's Theme)" Link to remix: This is an arrangement rather than a remix, but it does contain elements of the main theme in question. The inspiration for the track comes from Shinobu rather than Travis Touchdown. ---------------------------------------------------------- - "Beam Katana Chronicles"The argument could be made that the handling of the melody should have been more interpretive, but it mimicks the structure of the original, which is more about instrumental and textural changeup to provide the variety. That said, see what more you can do melodically with the theme, and squeeze some more juice out of it. The piano sequencing at :14 was very mechanical and unrealistic. The lead was also too quiet and overshadowed by the beats. The beeping-style lead at :54 had more of a sound that would sound OK rigidly sequenced, but was behind the beat and sounded out of sync as a result. The lead at 1:08 was too shrill, but the one at 1:22 sounded nice, with some good subtle delay effects. Bad hiccup in the timing at 1:35 when the beats dropped out. Work on better balancing the levels and EQing the parts to have their own space so nothing sounds either too soft or overpowering. And details like the timing being slightly off between parts, you have to iron that stuff out. You have a lot of good energy towards making these songs, along with a good YouTube following, but need to get better at the details that would take your skills to the next level. NO

Contact Information Your ReMixer name - hRook Your real name - Hunter Bridges Your email address - hbridges@gmail.com Your website - http://hrook.net/ Your userid - 26952 Submission Information Name of game(s) arranged - Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest Name of individual song(s) arranged - "Hot Head Bop," "Mining Melancholy" Additional information about game including composer, system, etc. (if it has not yet been added to the site) - Composer: David Wise System: SNES Link to the original soundtrack (if it is not one of the sound archives already available on the site) - http://rapidshare.com/files/92401558/Donkey_Kong_Country_2_OST.rar Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc. I was inspired to make this piece one day when a friend of mine was in town. We spent a day playing through Donkey Kong Country 2 and I remembered how excellent David Wise's soundtrack was. I have also wanted to submit a piece to OCRemix for quite some time now, but never got around to putting something together for submission. The situation seemed like a perfect marriage. I'm a Commercial Music student at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. My primary instrument is drum set. I am constantly around many different players and the easiest common-ground between everyone is jazz music. Personally I am not that great of a jazz player, but what I like most about the genre is the colorful harmony and ability for each individual player to be expressive. However, it is truly difficult to capture the humanity and expressiveness of that in MIDI data, so I had to make some stylistic alterations. One of my largest drumming inspirations is Thomas Pridgen who, up until recently, performed with The Mars Volta. He has a distinctive flavor to his playing; a very jazzy approach to progressive/experimental rock that echoes his past experience as a gospel player. The drum writing is very inspired by Mr. Pridgen, and I decided to significantly incorporate organ into the piece to compliment that. Since prominent organ is common in gospel, jazz and The Mars Volta's material, I figured it was only fitting. Another aspect of this piece embraces the idiosyncrasies of desktop musicianship and electronic music, using expressive and responsive synthesizer patches to connect the piece with its SNES roots. With some of the synth voices, I tried to come within reasonable distance of emulating original sounds in the pieces. I also incorporated some guitar playing to compliment the very fusion-y sound that resulted from mixing the gospel drums and organ with the electronic-leaning synthesizers. As far as arrangement goes, I simply couldn't decide between pieces since the original songs are so groovy and catchy. I decided that since the two were pretty similar in feel, I would "sandwich" them together (Start with part of A, play all of B, finish A). I put a lot of work into this, it being my first submission to OCRemix. I hope you enjoy it! ---------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KR3hE0_6Nk - "Hot-Head Bop" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akIgv3_U0Sk - "Mining Melancholy" The production didn't sound quite right to start. The panning was too wide. The opening Rhodes already sounded pretty distant, followed by the guitar/epiano countermelody at :21, and the lead at :41. Everything that should have been in the foreground was way too quiet and soft. The melodic intepretation was kind of ho-hum to start. Some original guitar wank at :59 that should have smoother, but at least it was audible. Decent delay on the piano at 1:19 to cover up the fact that it was mechanically sequenced. Awkward transition into the Kannon's Klaim theme at 1:48. Texturally, things felt pretty scattershot with the drums, which didn't enhance the theme more than distract from it. Not getting any synnergy with how these parts came together. 2:43-3:02 was organ wank before going back to Kannon's Klaim. 3:21, interesting buzzy sounds there. 3:40 had a decent groove, before transition back to Hot-Head Bop at 3:50, which just had a totally different, disconnected feel from the previous section. There's just so little flow in those 20 seconds of transition. I'm not against combining themes at all, but the way it was done here wasn't effective. Better to break the two themes out into unique tracks given how uncomplimentary they were to one another here. Looking forward to the other opinions on this. This was a good base, Hunter, so once you refine the execution of things and get the textures clicking better, you're gonna be putting out some solid stuff. I hope we hear more from you! NO

Way over the size limit, but if you feel like providing feedback that could carry to a future piece, feel free - LT song title: A Decade of Travels Remixer Name: GK Real Name: Gerald Kaye website: http://tekkaxe.blogspot.com , http://www.youtube.com/tekkaxe Name of game(s) arranged: Final Fantasy 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Name of individual song(s) arranged: "Main Theme"(ff1), "Main Theme"(ff2), "Eternal Wind"(ff3), "Final Fantasy IV Main Theme"(ff4), "Main Theme of Final Fantasy V"(ff5), "Terra"(ff6), "Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII"(ff7), "Blue Fields"(ff8), "Over the Hills"(ff9), "Prelude"(ff7) but i've also attached it in case that link expires before you get a chance to judge it. --------------------------------------------------------------- A lot of 'em Piano doesn't sound bad, but the sequencing doesn't sound realistic. Transition at :46 had 0 flow and the drums first used at :58 sounded out of place, and the arrangement of the lead/melody was repetitive, finally changing around 1:56. The overall textures still weren't clicking. Some different drums breaks added at 2:19. Such an awkward transition at 5:11 to the FF5 Main theme. Short and sweet, I wasn't feeling the instrumentation choices, and the textures didn't click whatsoever. If more complimentary sounds were used, this could honestly sound worlds better. As is, it was just some syrupy leads, generally over the same flimsy core percussion pattern, incomplete textures, and transitions with no flow. For 12 minutes. It's not totally awful, and I could see a lot of FF fans feeling it. But that doesn't mean it was a cohesive arrangement or medley, or a well-produced piece. Can't run with it here. NO

Yes, yes! Needs some D. Wise.

The strings & production have always bothered me (which I said as much judging it), but composition/arrangement-wise, this has got it going on. Definitely very creative and one of the coolest time signature changes for a ReMix!

Well, the chords use the rhythms of the original's chords, just not the notes. And when you're dealing with such a simplified part, you really have to keep the notes sounding similar so the connection is overt. In this case, I see what you did there, but the two note backing pattern sounds too different compared to the original. The rising and falling synth notes starting at :25 were too liberal to be connected to the source at all. The 4-note melody first used at 1:03 was inspired by the first 4 notes from the classic source melody, but the kicker again is that only the rhythm's the same while the notes are completely different. The original guitar work at 1:42 was pretty solid, though mixed somewhat roughly. It should be cleaned up a bit, but production-wise it wasn't a dealbreaker. If the goal was to retain the overall mood while evading copyright, then mission accomplished. So you don't venture too far away from the theme, work with it 1-for-1, then see what melodic or rhythmic variations you can build from there; just do what you can so that you don't change the melodies/notes too drastically. ROFL, finally THERE'S the recognizable theme at 3:24. The concept here is cool, Brandon. Just use the theme in a more recognizable way, and this concept and sonic pallette is already strong enough to get a pass. Definitely want to see this resubbed. NO (resubmit)

Funny lyrics over instrumental VGM arrangements is my inference to the overall premise. It's brentalfloss, of course.

I think the addition of a second part to "The Prelude" only started at FF4, but I'd need to look into that more. Well, the melody of the opening notes is certainly interpreted into this crystalline flourish of piano. Structurally, it could be more interpretive, but this seems like a reasonable expansive take, with the instrumental variation (1:06, then 2:13), choir, heartbeat drums, and expanded piano writing. I thought the overall feel of the piece was modified enough to be something we could work with. I'm open to other opinions. Given the submitting artist's history of song creation, we might need to research existing MIDIs. Tentatively... YES

Interesting buildup, but the first synth and the drums brought in at :36 were underwhelming. Texturally, there wasn't much going on to start. I liked the fidelity changeup at 1:25-1:29 in principle, though it was just strange the way it was used. The arrangement had aspects here and there that were more interpretive, particularly 1:57-on. That 5-note synth countermelody first used at 2:03 was run into the ground by 3:00, so I'm glad it ended soon afterward. You have to get the textures fleshed out some more, and make the structure more developed and cohesive. Right now, there's little flow to this piece. NO

The drums were pretty empty. The guitar sounded too upfront compared to everything else, while the background elements just quietly mudded together in the background and didn't have enough presence. The guitar lead itself was thin and grating; there needed to be more body on it, and the playing needed to be much smoother. Arrangement-wise, there was little interpretative to be found beyond adapting the songs for the genre. The freestyling on top of the chord progression at 3:02 was finally something, but not enough given there was only 41 seconds left. Not bad for a first stab, but not much to this beyond the cover, and it's not mixed well. NO

http://twitter.com/brentalfloss/status/16239074275 Let's see whatcha got. EDIT: Inside the mind of djp:

http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=29498

1. Companion Cube 2. Hakan 3. Bill Rizer (Contra)

Welllllll, well! SAMBA TIME, baby!

A tutorial for...?

A winner is you! http://twitter.com/Norgans/status/15516990311

Yeah, that's a bad attitude. This version's already different than any other before it. OPEN MINDS plz, not closed.

Chillaxation.

Don't blow it, Dave! If you need help, read Marriage for Dummies!

There's the expected snag of whether the tagging would be allowed to stay the same. Provided that we did not have to compromise our file tagging (or it was in a way that djp is OK with, per Last.fm), I'm in favor of this. The only other questions I have are whether iTunes would have a page that would have a description of the "podcast", and whether anyone else has successfully done a podcast that was just used to serve free music. If we expanded the reach/audience of the ReMixes, and the artist info and URLs were all up in 'em, I don't see how that hurts the site. By that extension, obviously there are people that subscribe to the OCR YouTube that don't/won't come to the site; they just favorite the videos they like. But at the same time, expanding our presence there has also led to a traffic increase by new visitors from YouTube. This was in spite of djp's reservation that it could pull visitors away from the main site. Well we've done it for a year now, and we get more visitors as a result, not less. As far as outside distribution, we could argue it, but there's really no argument to me. There are a lot of instances where people encounter OC ReMixes without being on the site. More awareness is good and would trickle down to the site. The entire point of Stevo's idea is to go where the people are. We could have argued 6-8 years ago that we shouldn't have had our music on Audiogalaxy, Kazaa and LimeWire, because people could get the ReMixes without coming to the site. That reasoning would be just as short-sighted as dismissing iTunes. If we didn't have to compromise the presentation of the tracks, and Stevo's speculative idea was actually doable, that would obviously be great. I just don't believe it would be that simple. It's worth looking into though.

Some in the list are waiting to be posted, FYI. Whatever few I'm missing, it's because I don't have lyrics for them Although if injury wanted to finally provide lyrics to 8-bit Eighties, that would be great. I've also seen sketchy transcriptions of Pac-Man Sinergia; if anyone could definitively get that down, I'd have those too. This list is brought to you by Larry retagging every OC ReMix, including lyrics for the ones that have lyrics. Nag your local pretzel today to get these shiny new, organized MP3s! OMG LIST OF MIXES WITH LYRICS Avoid these mixes if you are closed-minded (read: dumb) Artura Dublin Delight Astérix Niggaz 4 Life Banjo-Kazooie In the Darkness Lies Bust a Groove Bust This Groove '81 Castlevania II Simon's Symphony Castlevania III Demon Seed (Corrupted Infatuation) Castlevania Transylvanian Temptation Cauldron II It's Binary, Baby! Album Mix Chrono Cross Dreaming Still Chrono Trigger Forever Until Tomorrow Chrono Trigger Team Gato Chrono Trigger The Incredible Singing Robot Chrono Trigger The Place We Knew Chrono Trigger Town Life Civilization IV Destined for Greatness Commander Keen: Secret of the Oracle man sieht sich galaxie Conker's Bad Fur Day Rhapsody in Poo Dance Dance Revolution Solo 2000 Dazed & Destroyed DarXide Starman (don't lose yourself) Dizzy the Adventurer Mix Dizz Donkey Kong Country 2 A New Place Donkey Kong Country 2 Trapped in the Minds Donkey Kong Country 2 Us Monkeys Together Donkey Kong Country Funky Monkey Love (Valentine Edit) Donkey Kong Country Permutation Doom Asphyxiated Soul EarthBound Da Black Market EarthBound Home Again EarthBound Venus-Signed Banana Peel Earthworm Jim 2 Invertebrate Retreat F-Zero The Freedom of Zero Final Fantasy IV Éminence Grise Final Fantasy IV Fighting for Tomorrow Final Fantasy IV Rhymes with Elixir Final Fantasy IV Somewhere to Hide Final Fantasy IV Tororian Love Song Final Fantasy IX The Rose General Final Fantasy V ROBOVoice Final Fantasy VI Cantata for Dancing: I. Mors ego sum mortis Final Fantasy VI Cantata for Dancing: II. Fuga Kefka Final Fantasy VI Keep Out the Veldt Final Fantasy VII Adrenalyne Kyck Final Fantasy VII Deliverance of the Heart Final Fantasy VII The Crossroads Final Fantasy VIII Devotion & Deception Final Fantasy VIII Shine Tonight Final Fantasy X Journey's End Final Fantasy X Summoner's Love Legend of Zelda Hyrule's Angel (The Sleeping Beauty) Legend of Zelda Rabbit Joint Cover Legend of Zelda The Music of My Groin Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask Link to the Mask Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Falling Back Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Prayer Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess No Hope Lost Patrol In the Air Mix Mario Kart DS Charade Mega Man 2 ROBOVoice Mega Man 2 The Annihilation of Monsteropolis Mega Man 3 Blue Reflection Mega Man 3 Cataclysmic Clash Mega Man 4 Get a Weapon Weapon Mega Man X Dreams Come True Ninja Gaiden II In the Atrium Pac-Man Sinergia Paperboy Smooth Delivery Persona Satomi Tadashi Northside Rx Portal Live from [sUBJECT HOMETOWN HERE] Punch-Out!! Little Mac's Confession Secret of Mana Dragon Song Seiken Densetsu 3 The Fearless Angel Shenmue Come to Bob's Pizza Shenmue Dreaming While I Wake Sonic & Knuckles Lover Reef Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Oil Ocean (WT-40 Mix) Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Knuckleduster Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Memories Frozen in Time Sonic the Hedgehog Absolution Comes in Dreams Space Harrier I Got the Spacebeam Star Ocean Summertime Stormlord Seneca's Marble Pack Edit Street Fighter II The Ken Song Streets of Rage Elevation [groovepump mix] Super Mario Bros. 8-bit Eighties Super Mario Bros. The 2-2 Blues Super Metroid Kindred Super Metroid The Mother Is in Control Tales of Phantasia as time goes on (you are love to me) Valkyrie Profile The Shining Blue Armor Descends Wild Arms A Ring and a Promise Wild Arms Dové L'Amore Wizards & Warriors Kono Sekai De Wizards & Warriors Theme Wizards & Warriors Wizards in My Armor (Warrior in My Long-Johns) Xenogears Hymn of Aveh Xenogears My Child Xenogears Pillar of Salt

Duly noted, although Dave knows about that issue. But we'll see what he says on whether it's a relatively straight forward fix.

For no reason, I refuse to make these fixes. (i.e. done, the fixes will be live later.) Re: GGX, I see what you're saying and agree, but Dave has a point that conventionally, practically no one at all uses "By Your Side" as a subtitle, unlike say Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. But I have added the data of the full GGX name as an alternate name.

For real, join or die.

Yeah, it's got an epic feel. This definitely put Jay on my radar as soon as I heard it.