Liontamer

I like how several Js were like "watch out, this is pretty liberal, Larry may no rikey", when the source tunes were all over this and they're just deaf. This is why it's bad for me to take time off. Great work on this; strong stuff!

This community rocks the world!

Not today, not tomorrow. But I have every OC ReMix retagged with everything. I'mma keep pushing to replace the individual mixes with my stuff, bet. Happy birthday! Side note: I've been so busy with moving and work, that I basically voted on nothing on the panel for 3+ months. First time ever in 5 years. NEVER AGAIN! I'd do an interview, but I'm not famous for e-muzak. I'm just an enabler for the community. Also, do like Pizza says and shut down the site.

Nope. "Windmill Hut" was all over this one, including several areas where it was more of a background player, and then you had the "Lost Woods" cameo. Source usage wasn't an issue on this one. Nice work on this one, Ad. YES

I don't recall holding up SoS on account of my file tagging.

I don't record them. Kroze has recorded a lot of our stuff, so we need to see if we can get his excellent footage. I did the ReMixer interviews, which Dave has.

It's because we hate you. (We actually do have a form letter already written for that; perhaps we'll start using it.)

I haven't heard the arrangement so I've got no opinion on that. But definitely don't question your judgement just because opposing votes are unanimous or gravitating toward one result. You're always allowed to be an outlier. You may wind up being the majority. It's smart to weigh the opposing POVs to see whether you were too harsh or lenient; everyone should be doing that. I'd say take some time to marinate on it.

Undeveloped, plodding, repetitive, boring, not melodious, and didn't sound much like the Frost Man Stage theme. Jeez, you'd think I was Disco Dan with that vote. Sure, there was a groove, but there wasn't much to the track beyond that. Sorry, bro, can't say I was feeling this on any level, and I've loved the source tune since way back. NO

Not a bad track, but a ton of things should be improved. The drum writing was alright for the most part, but the samples were poor and sounded too fake, undermining the energy you were going for. Learning how to get sequenced drums to sound realistic is tough, but not knowing that is signficantly holding your music back. Work on that first, and you'd be in a lot better shape. NO

I'm on the other side of the fence. This is a cool expansion, but basically sounded like a cover with modern sounds and additional ornamentation that sounded nice but didn't really distinguish this as going beyond a cover with new instruments, IMO. The overall structure and feel of the piece was way too much like the original for me to pass it. The arrangement basically loops at 2:16 & 4:34. Some structural variation would have been more interpretive. There was some dynamic contrast, but the flow was essentially verbatim with the SNES original. I enjoy the track in a vacuum, and it's a cool cover, but I definitely won't sign off on it here. I don't think this has substantial enough interpretation to stand apart from the original. NO

Clean up the soundscape a bit, keep the backing pattern fresh and evolving a little more, and see what other new ideas can be introduced with interpreting the melodic arrangement. Otherwise, I think this isn't far from passing, but needs that additional push of development and polish. Very promising stuff, so far, Aaron. Hope to hear more from you! NO (resubmit)

Not bad for a first sub, bro. You're going in the right direction as far as interpretation, but need some work at really developing a fully fleshed out piece. Upping your production skills is also needed, but focus on arrangement first. NO

Agreed, the rigid timing made more sense once other elements came in, but I still think the instrumentation, particularly the piano, sounded pretty poor quality. There was no reason to encode the file so low at 96kbps either. The vocals were decent, but were too quiet. Other than that, the instrumental side of the arrangement dragged on quickly due to the repetition. Trim some fat off or introduce more dynamic contrast with some changeups. The little new writing brought in on top of the source at 3:09 was interesting. Too bad that wasn't brought in earlier BGC pretty much offered the crits I would have said, so let's see some more work on this one and see where you can take it. NO

A little bit more energetic, but I still think this didn't full realize its potential. There was still some degree of clutter that could have been cleaned up, but the overall production was solid enough. The dynamics were improved a little bit, but the arrangement from 2:08-3:46 was definitely groove biased in a way that was too repetitive and didn't set my world on fire. But as part of an overall arrangement, I'd say the development of the piece was OK. I'm willing to say it's certainly competent. And it's interpretive and creative, so I'll say it ultimately squeaks by. Good luck with the rest of the vote, Nick. No matter which way it goes, I hope we hear more from you! YES (borderline)

Poor samples, poor, unrealistic articulations, poor balance of the instruments. The concept and time signature change were interesting, but the execution was beginner-ish. This was cover-ish, but did have some stylistic differences. Still, for a 2:10 track, there would need to be a lot more development. This sounds MIDI-ish and would be solid on VGMusic, but even then, sounding MIDI-ish doesn't mean the timing and articulations automatically sound so fake. Needs a lot of TLC, as well as deeper development of the textures and arrangement, to have a fighting chance. I don't think you should bother resubmitting this, but do keep at it as far as making music, because production skills will come with practice. NO

Not a problem. Done.

At the bottom of the UCP, for the Message Editor Interface options, change "Ehanced Interface" (WYSIWYG) to "Standard Editor."

What it would be is a tag around the URL that embeded the video. If it was the URL without those tags, it would just be a regular hyperlink.

Yep, a long, long time. [/Larry has more info than you]

Stream of consciousness: Basically the same issues, sorry homies. I like the instrumentation and the production was solid overall, so it's not a matter of being able to put together a polished sounding piece of music. There's some dynamics, but I still think it sounded unfocused like the changes are there for the sake of being there. There's just no real flow or evolution to the arrangement. Yeah, perhaps consider incorporating another SMB theme or, again, develop more dynamic contrast with rhythmic or tempo variations of the six-note source. NO (resubmit)

I think it's just been a low priority, but seconded.

That was quasi-confirmed at MAGFest 7. Not that we don't trust Howard Drossin (Howard kept it real), but since then MJ's passed away, allowing Brad Buxer (a member of MJ's music team and a person on the inside with Jackson himself) to corroborate those rumors and explicitly state that they collaborated on that credits theme. EDIT: This too - http://www.sonicwrecks.com/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1259861977&archive=

Shaun, why was there a Last of the Mohicans theme cameo in "The Last Fatima"? Sure sounds like it; just found it interesting, as I haven't seen that movie in maybe 12 or 13 years.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff4 - "The Final Battle" (ff4-43.spc) Structurally, folks will be surprised to learn that this is basically laid out exactly like the source tune, which is about 2 1/2 minutes. The track was 7:46-long, so I needed more then 233 seconds of source usage for a YES on that level: :00-:24, 1:30-2:30, 2:40-2:50, 3:04-3:10, 3:16-4:02 (loosely based on the bass pattern of 1:19-1:28 of the source), 4:02-4:08, 4:20.5-5:17, 5:32-5:37.5, 5:42.5-6:32, 6:42-6:52, 7:06-7:24, 7:26-7:34 253.5 seconds, not counting the loose bass connection or any other connections I might have missed. I didn't check vs. anyone else's figures, so I might have missed other areas, but this was a pretty straightforward call for me as far as the source being used enough. The percussion was probably the major weak point of this for me, and there was so much going on that the soundscape was often too cluttered. I gotta give zircon some props for cleaning this up a lot. The original version was a mess. I understand crits on the female lead, and I agreed to some extent, but nowhere near where BGC was coming from, which I think was over the top. There were a couple of nasally-sounding moments, but I liked lisabela's lead. We're a hobbyist community, and the delivery was more than strong enough, IMO. I don't have an inherent problem with the growling Zeromus vocals, but I thought they were too indistinct and should have been more understandable. You can go with "artistic expression" that since Zeromus is evil, he's a bundle of unchained energy, hence his part sounded so unrestrained. Not how I would go with it personally, but the vocals were otherwise well-produced and I can let my personal take go. I wish the choir stuff had been more prominent, me being in it notwithstanding. But the way those vocals were put together was really impressive; it's a shame they weren't a bit louder, but I can't imagine how tricky it must have been to mix those into the rest of the track. 5:17-onwards really should have been condensed. The Meatloaf-esque rock pera stuff at 7:07 seemed to come out of nowhere. Not an inherently bad idea, but it could have been more seamlessly incorporated into the piece. And this is coming from someone understanding the A-to-B connections to the structure of the original. I hate to seem out of touch, but this doesn't seem like an easy NO. And I heard this WIP and it's many, many problems from the get-go, and bitched about it, so I'm not being easy on it. There was an ambitious, expansive and creative arrangement, the dense soundscape was reasonably handled about as good as you're gonna get it courtesy Andy, and the voice work was strong even if I disagreed with the tone of the Zeromus vocals. It gets some signficant stuff wrong in the execution; the percussion was weak, there was clutter, and the track was too long. So I think if Jay improves, he'll look back on this in a few years and have more perspective on it. But those are basically the major crits from me, and not enough in light of what did work (which was a lot) to drag it down to NO. Flaws and all... YES