Liontamer

Who's "The Damned"?

We needed more ladies to add some class around here. After listening to Deia on OCAD, we realize we made a mistake. But we'll live with it. Congrats, and get ready for HATE!

Lesson: never try to Skype with Deia. Her mic sucks it.

Would much rather force a line break for the prefix and title to avoid shortening the prefixes.

Wha? Nah.

"Inspired" is right. The source tune was only used from :10-:30 & 1:08-2:10. Not nearly enough Castlevania in here, not even 27%. I would have loved to have heard a lot more CV here, but whachagonnado.

I loved the cymbal work, and was interested in the textures being built up, but the tone of the drums brought in at :22 didn't gel with all that. Too punchy and hollow like the others said. I always harp on it when drums are being done wrong, and this is no exception. Especially positioned as loud as they were, their constant presence with that poorly chosen tone just weakened the whole package. The source tune arrived at :31, and the texture definitely still sounded like a strange, ill-fitting combination of sounds. The drums never clicked with the organ, and the supporting instrumentation left the background sounding empty and unfinished. The synth writing from 1:36-1:51 didn't sound as melodious as it should have. The guitar solo at 1:52 was decent, but the sample was pretty exposed and didn't sound realistic. That was the first time I've heard you sequence a electric guitar in the context of it needing to sound authentic, which is a good risk to try; not terrible, but keep at it. Interesting organ stuff at 2:23, though the way it resolved at 2:34 with the sustained note sounded awkward again. The synth writing from 2:40-2:55, was definitely wankish, which initially hit me the wrong way. But on repeated listens, the writing of it sounded OK. Not that it pushed me either way, but man, I hated the last drumroll at 3:26; it just sounded tacky, and there was no need for it when you had a decent finish there by just fading out the organ note. No hate on Will. This one's decent, and the arrangement had some solid ideas. But the execution didn't sound nearly polished or cohesive enough for my vote. I would have loved to have heard Will take another pass at this given the great critiques that were pointed out by the others. NO (resubmit)

Glad to see you tackle Lufia! Right from the get-go the backing instrumentation was very flimsy, and the soundscape was too dominated by the guitars in the midrange. The mixing is such that everything besides the leads sounded distant and quiet. Weak transition at 2:18 to "Battle #3," I agreed with Palp. You've gotta connect these themes much more seamlessly. However, I did like the change in the guitar tone and effects at 3:38 for a nice change of pace. The transition at 4:43 was even MORE jarring and abrupt, which was a shame. There's just 0 flow there, it's lazy. With the leads taking up a lot less foreground space, the poor drum tone and sparse backing instrumentation were a lot more exposed until 5:21. The guitar performance was strong, and while the drum tone was weak, the drum writing was also good. The overall arrangement was very conservative and just sounded like a rock adaptation. It wasn't a bad one, but the interpretation beyond the genre change was too limited. Coupled with the poor mixing/balancing, flimsy backing textures that didn't properly fill out the background, and weak transitions, that's more than enough to say it needs significant work. I think the others are being too lenient when they say the arrangement needs a little tweaking. You've got a good start here, Trevor, but you really need to get more unique, interpretive and personalized with the the treatment of these themes. More melodic interpretation, more grace notes, some rhythmic changes; spice up the delivery more. Follow all the production advice the other Js put out there as well and then give this another shot. NO (resubmit)

The opening synth sounded generic and buried, but then a new lead took over at :52. Nice drum sounds added in at 1:33. Gotta agree with the others who said the various background elements had a lot of ear candy. Sometimes it got downplayed by the lead, but was still OK-sounding with the mixing. 2:58's section was a retread of :52 only with some added strings that basically blended into the background, followed by a brief key change 3:38, then deconstruction from 3:58 until the end. The backing beatwork was OK, but definitely plodded on cruise control after a while. Some changeups/evolution there would have really freshened this up. I liked the overall interpretation and changes of the mood compared to the original, so I've got no hate on this mix. But I thought the beatwork being so repetitive with relatively limited dynamic contrast from the other elements was a negative. The main source tune "Bandlands: Cave Music" did that too, but the dynamics were much more pronounced than they were here, IMO, which was the key difference. I don't mind subtle dynamics, but thought they weren't quite pulled off well here and this ended up sounding too static. If this had more effective dynamic contrast, I'd totally be down. NO (borderline) That said, the rest of the panel is feeling it, and there's a lot of good things going on with it, so congrats on a solid return, and I hope we hear more from you! I remember having to tell you on Twitter that you should consider submitting again to see where your skills were at, so I'm glad the PAX get-together finally pushed you into going for it!

The first thing that immediately stuck out is the the piano sequencing is poor. You're gonna have to spend time working on that, or your end result will always sound half-assed no matter how good the composition is. The completely unrealistic sequencing prevents you from really getting into the listening experience. Source usage: :06-:10, :12-:17, :23.5-:25, 1:47-1:49, 2:29.5-2:32, 2:39.5-2:40.5, 2:55-8, 3:05.5-3:07, 4:04.5-4:07 As far as the arrangement, you've got me going off fumes. I'd try a deeper breakdown, but it's not worth the trouble, because like everyone said it's way too liberal to begin with. This is basically an original track inspired by "Report from Destroyer" with little cameos of the theme sprinkled in. Sorry bro, this one's just not for us. I'd also say spruce up the production/realism for the piano before it goes on any album. This isn't good enough sound quality, just being real. Backing up the NO Override.

Overall the arrangement was too conservatively structured, IMO. For the first half, the additive elements didn't do enough to distinguish it from the original given the structure. The latter half did a better job of changing the overall mood though. The ending was fair abruptly at 2:41. The piano sequencing was better than decent, but didn't sound quite natural enough. The bowed string sequencing starting at :49 was also very odd. It was a background player but the decays sounded very fake, making the subsequent attacks also sound weird (e.g. 1:25-1:44). The brass sequencing at 1:44 was serviceable. All of the samples were fine, but the articulations didn't sound quite as natural as they should have. All in all, this is a short mix, so everything needs to be clicking for me to pass it. Most importantly, IMO, the arrangement should be more interpretive in the first half. And the sample articulations need to be smoothed out so there aren't any fake-sounding spots. Solid stuff so far, Mattias, but it needs to be further developed and refined. See what another 3 or so hours would bring to the picture, then definitely send this one back. It would be cool for you to have our first Crisis Core mix! NO (resubmit)

Wait, you wanna admit you know these people? OK, I will edit the first post to highlight the distinct effort towards de-sausaging the delegation!

Haha! CHzzy, my nizzy.

HAHAHAHA! I LOVE this. This is greatest thing I've ever heard in game music ever, and we need to stop music'ing, period, now that I've heard this. But seriously, someone make an OC ReMix of that! (For anyone not getting the OLR reference, Solo's just saying it's pure OLR style, that track. And it is. It's truckalicious. )

Pimp it on SpaceBook!

Two threads, one in Community, one in Announcements. For you fools who skip the main page... I'll merge them later. Fire away with your questions for the Mass Effect 2 music team!

Well, the poster is the creator, that's clear enough having read the credits in his own video. Why he's talking about himself in the 3rd person, I'll never understand. It just comes off very fake. That said, thanks for crediting the music!

I gotta say, was streaming this last night, and I was loving it. Really fun stuff. Some people will hate on the autotuned vocals in "Square Mile" but I thought they were great. I loved hearing the range of the tracks. Having "Funky Rustic", "Eagles March", etc. on it are examples of how this is a very diverse album.

I'm enjoying the arrangement, but completely agree with Vinnie on the production and how the low-end sounds really crowded. It just doesn't sound solid and definitely needs to be cleaned up before we move forward. YES (conditional)

http://ocremix.org/info/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Why_aren.27t_the_ReMixes_ranked_by_popularity_or_numerical_ratings.3F Dave has something special in store planned for #2000.

There is no absolute, definite criteria. We have the discretion to handle situations like that on a case by case basis. But everything you said is pretty dead on as far as how we'd decide on something being OK as a game source.

Ooooooh. Sonic 4, eh? 2D! Sega learned from Mega Man 9, it's time to bring back some old hotness! http://www.sonicthehedgehog4.com

This one's easily my favorite mix of OA's; silky smoove stuff. Much like Final Fantasy Adventure 'Wish Upon a Wendellian Star' for Big Giant Circles, 'Letting Go' is also the one that locked me into seeing Andrew as a possible judge. It's a great contribution to K.K. Setlist and I'm very glad we finally have it up here. Nice work!

[br00tl!] Nice work, Jon!

Not a writeup reader, I take it.