Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Man, what a lengthy build. :43's section was part of that build, but sounded VERY empty as if more should have been going on. Man, some fugly, dry sounds at :58. Just muddy and distorted sounding. Ah man, the source melody finally came in at 1:12 and the samples were so rigidly sequenced and exposed, and the arrangement was too straightforward. 1:47's stuff at least sounded more new agey with that Blade Runner-ish lead. But overall, just a lot of poorly mixed, unpolished, messy sounds that are typical of the developing artists in the European scene (no hate). It's not mixed well at all and the dry instrumentation and very mechanical timing isn't that pleasing to listen to. I hate to sound to like an asshole, Chris, but this is just taxing to listen to. However, don't be discouraged, but please aggressively use the Game ReMixes feedback & Music Production forums here for advice to start improving your works. NO

Man, I know I'm going back to some older subs here that he voted on a while ago, but Vinnie's POVs are on fire. No hate on anyone else, but among our group, he's my MVP. I can't help but agree with his insight all the way yet again. Everyone needs to get ears like his and join Team Brown Heat with us! Yeah, right off the bat, the piano timing was too mechanical, and the soundscape was pretty murky. I was waiting for things to possibly get cleaner to show off some sort of purposeful contrast with the intro, but it never came. The pad at 1:32 was too loud and upfront and was covering up the piano & winds. The dilemma I'm seeing is that if the mixing were cleaned up some, the rigidness of the piano would be further exposed. Well, I'm glad it's your problem and not mine. But seriously, Vinnie broke the production issues down the best. The arrangement is already solid, so aside from breaking up the monotony of the left-hand writing, the rest of the work needed is on the production front. Take another pass at the production, Josh, and use the Game ReMixes feedback & Music Production forums here for advice if you have to. Please don't be discouraged. We'd love a Uforia mix here and you've got a great base here. This is a great arrangement that just needs to have its potential fully realized with stronger production work. Hope to hear this piece again on the panel. Resubmit it and we'll get to re-evaluating it much quicker, since we can have it bypass the usual waiting time. NO

Weird build for the intro. It seemed like things kicked in at :27, but the soundscape was still very murky. Some interesting Metroid-style synth at :39 that sounded like original writing on top of the Brinstar theme before moving more into a cover of the theme. Agreed with Palp on that sine lead not sounding as smooth as what you hear in the Prime soundtrack, but it was solid enough. The snare was flat and the pattern was plodding. Palp was right all the way; you and Will take a look at 3:53's section where the mixing sounded somewhat cleaner, then figure out what additional parts were causing all the murkiness when in play. The big things that stuck out were 1) the soundscape being really murky, murky enough where it seemed like too many details in the writing were being washed over, and 2) the vox sounding pretty fake during its more exposed moments, usually the faster note changes. It sounded serviceable enough when holding some of the longer notes, it just sucked at the more rapid note changes. Like OA mentioned, the attack was a bit too slow. Arrangement-wise, the two themes came together fairly cohesively, though some of the Brinstar usage felt a bit too straightforward and cover-ish. That said, the sum total of what was there was OK. So I liked the arrangement overall, but fix up (in this order), the mixing, drums and vox, and then give this another go. I could see someone going conditional on this, but the way all the issues come together really drags the arrangement and doesn't come close to realize the potential. The bland drum writing really dragged this down, and the soundscape was just too indistinct. The soundscape could be attributed to the story/imagery behind the pieces, but IMO it still didn't work and just sounded like a lot of details were being lost in the haze. No need to be discouraged, this is shaping up OK, so I recommend y'all give these issues another pass and see how much y'all can polish this up. As long as the production is cleaned up somewhat and the drums aren't so plodding, this could have a great chance of passing. NO (resubmit)

I agreed with Vinnie the most on the production, and I'm not getting why OA called the production "clean," when it definitely was not. Opening piano sounded stiff and fake, but was serviceable since it was obscured by the synths and string pad that came in shortly afterward, and then sounded like it have a bit more delay on it to give the notes more body. String pad wasn't great either, but again, used reasonably well enough. The mixing was too murky and indistinct until all that padding dropped out at :38. Again, not brutal, but on the low end of serviceable. After :38, things cleared up nicely for the introduction of the melody. I could see some people put of by the melody being so busy, but different strokes for different folks. The high-end for 1:28-1:58's section was blistering, ouch. All of that really needs to be EQed to take some sizzle off the highs. Poor separation for 2:25-2:54's section. The lead synths were very grating, yet had no clarity, just like 1:28-1:58; not sure how you were able to do that, but Achievement Unlocked. The extended ending sequence from 2:55 until the close was solid, and I was really digging it. The very end was a weird finish that I wasn't feeling all the way, but it wasn't a big deal. The arrangement was pretty solid overall and an easy YES. The production, on the other hand, really needs another pass before this is posted. It doesn't have to be perfect, Jamison, but for a 192kbps file, the off-kilter mixing makes it sound like it's 64kbps. Take another shot at the production and clean that sumbitch up. YES (conditional on mixing) EDIT (5/24): To close this out, I'll go ahead and change my vote to NO, per DS's recommendation and encourage the production touch-ups mentioned in the previously conditional YES. You're hitting that critical period where your arrangement chops are there, but the production chops aren't. It's not quite apples to apples, but WillRock, OA and Level 99 were consistently in this boat back in the day, so don't be discouraged and keep at it; you'll get there.

Has to be unbiased. Deep down, you should be able to tell if that's the case. Prot used to recuse himself on Star Salzman's subs, but I've never had a conflict of interest or a problem voting on anything myself.

If you do one for Sony's PSN debacle, I nominate Flexstyle's "Before Everything Happened" to close it. http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01996/ Sony-published game for the PS2, and the title is where Sony wish they could be.

Still working on it. It involves 2,000+ mixes being retagged, though I continue to make progress. I don't have an ETA, but I'll see what kind of progress I can make in the next few weeks.

The recent YouTube plagiarist closed his account, so that's 1 win. I hit up Dj Bjra about a new Newgrounds contact, so we'll see what he says and try to resolves some of these grosser cases of multiple stolen tracks.

Not feeling the exposed, unrealistic string pad from :15-:30, but it was pulled back a bit once the leads & rhythm arrived at :30. Props on the added development, expansion and personalization in the arrangement as well, Klaus, this was a very substantial upgrade, IMO. Now we're good to go. People should definitely be digging this. YES

Apparently it was poop! Commence, drama! http://www.originalsoundversion.com/mega-man-the-robot-museum-review/

The bitrate really should be higher, so I'll ask about it, but this was a nice personalized take here, much like Justus Johnston's Touhou Youyoumu: Perfect Cherry Blossom 'Icy Peaks.' Normally would have closed this up at 4Y/1N, but just wanted to check on it and see if any issues were worth looking at. I wish the lead sounded more smoothly performed, but that was just personal taste. The execution here was solid. Good deal here, Jonah, pretty expressive. YES

Currently, no. We're working on something more robust than just genres that will eventually be integrated into the actual database. For now though, there's http://ocremix.org/forums/tags.php Prior to that work, we absolutely refused to classify genres, because most people wanted us to tag the mixes with 1 genre in every file, which is impossible given how many mixes are multiple genres. With a tagging system, we can have as many descriptors as we need and include instruments and moods as well, all without touching the files themselves or changing the Genre tags in the MP3s from Game.

The balance is still iffy, and I thought the percussion was still treble-heavy and overpowering, which SHOULD be addressed. That said, I can live with it; it's not as imbalanced as the previous version. There's also some pretty obvious crackling/distortion from 3:14-3:28 that really should not have been there, but most people won't notice it and it wasn't a dealbreaker. The opening piano seemed altered a bit, but I didn't have a big problem with it anyway and don't think anyone else should have made a big deal about it. The tweaks definitely raised this a bit. It's not where it should be to address all the issues, but it hit enough of them to change my vote. Nice work, Peter. Thanks for taking another shot at this! YES

Just to clarify, medleys are always fine at OCR, the structure and flow of the arrangement just has to be cohesive. This opened up pretty intense, though the melody was VERY buried at :12. And as the song went on, it stayed buried. Not much interpretation of the Stage 1 theme, and nothing I haven't really heard from past rock arrangements of this theme. Not a great transition at 1:21 to Stage 6. Yeah, the melody's still buried at 1:25 for the build up, but at least 1:35 we could finally hear the lead writing more upfront. Pretty bland take on the melody briefly from 2:01-2:08, it just sounded flat. Not really hearing much interpretation of Stage 6 along with the mixing unfortunately being too indistinct. The way the drumming was mixed so loud ended up competing for space too much. Midee & prozax covered Stage 6 and Boss in a straightforward but much more personalized and expressive way in "Tactile Freefall." http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01192/ This take is duplicating the conservative melodic treatment without the production or performance chops those guys have. I'm not saying they're the standard, but when this arrangement has enough similarities, it invites the comparison. It's just not up to that level, and the other one dropped here 7 years ago. Had no big issue with the full stop transition to the Boss theme at 3:07, as it was followed by a the fade-in immediately afterward. Not great, and I could understand why people would be bothered by it. This section was thankfully slowed down a bit to present a bit more of a personalized feel. At 4:10, we got into some harder stuff with a decent dropoff and re-building towards heavier stuff with Stage 3 at 4:30. Again though, the melody was fighting to be heard until 4:42 because of the machine gun-style drums. From 4:43 on though, the balance was much better, including when the drums came back at 4:54, so the finish felt a lot stronger than everything from the first 4 minutes. The soloing at 5:18 was solid enough, and helped this one close out pretty strong and with more expressiveness than everything that came earlier. Why wasn't there more of that creativity and personalization for the treatment of the other three themes? I like Year 200X, I've watched them perform at MAGFest, I know what they can do, and I've seen them improve year by year. That said, the last 3 minutes were stronger, more interesting and more substantially personalized and interpretive than the first 3, and much of the track had balancing that Vinnie did the best job of elaborating on. No hate, but it would really take a lot of mixing tweaks to get this sounding stronger, and I'm not feeling the level of interpretation as much as the others are, otherwise it would be a much tougher call for me. This isn't poor, but I agree with him all the way that the sum total of the issues dragged this down to NO. Sorry, guys.

Opening piano sequencing wasn't great at all. Too plinky. The chugging at :31 buried the piano and brass usage of the source. 1:04 shifted over into some more chugging. The guitars definitely lacked some bite, some energy there. Mallet percussion at 2:20 got steamrolled over, though it wasn't a central player. Interesting dynamic shift at 2:41 before building into the geetar-focused at 2:52. The lead really needed more power, more wailing to convey the energy inherent in the writing, but the overall performance so far was serviceable, albeit far from perfect. The 3:50 solo section was OK. Again, there were messiness issues with the production where the supporting sounds weren't as distinct as they should have been, but again, the overall arrangement and interpretation made up for it. The ending was sudden and weak, but... /shrug. Didn't have any qualms on the source usage. I compared both themes and it didn't seem to dance on the line, so I didn't feel the need to do the full breakdown. Overall, lots of small production flaws that hurt the listening experience and undercut a lot of the writing decisions and details Brandon made. This should have sounded a lot more polished. That said, the arrangement was there, and the overall performance and production, while neither were amazing, were solid put together enough to get a pass. I can totally understand why Justin went NO on production, and I'm really surprised only he and Vinnie rightly brought those issues up, because they were pretty obvious to me. In any case, no one component was great, but nothing dragged this down enough to NO for me though. I'm more a weak YES. Not borderline, but not far above that, no hate.

No problem. /)one!

Any mix using material from two or more games can only be assigned to one game in our database, usually the source tune that is used the most. If the arrangement uses a ton of tracks from different games in a franchise, we may use the first game in the franchise just to simplify things. We don't care about the balance between sources. The medley just has to be cohesively structured and well-developed. e.g. http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01515/, http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01108/

Ford logo was backwards at :12. Nooooo! The devil's in the details.

This sounds pretty enjoyable, however there's too much direct sampling of the original Sanxion audio for this submission to be acceptable. Obviously, there's separate guitar work as well, but the original C64 chiptune is in play for the majority of the track and there were too many sections where the ONLY connection was you sampling the original audio, which isn't what we're about. If the original audio is sampled, it has to be done sparingly and not be the foundation of the piece. Every other J should have pointed this out in their votes, but these n00bs don't know C64, so I'm letting you know this now so you don't waste your energy on a resubmission if it's still basically going to be like this. NO

The treble was on the piercing side, so I agree with Mattias there that it should be pulled back. That said, the arrangement was definitely solid, Smash moans or not. Wasn't really a fan of the moans. No hate (or effect on the vote), it just means it's not one I'd share with people when discussing what we do at OCR. Well, time to add this one to the pile alongside Xenogears 'Daijiru (Too Hot for Clothes)' YES (conditional)

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