Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Worth noting, since we didn't mention it here before, that we later on sent Tony a copy of the judgments so he could read the production crits brought up and make some tweaks, which he addressed nicely. He also recruited Shnabubula to add some cool original comping wankery on top of some of the mellower sections. Tony mentioned that Sam cooked up his stuff in a matter of hours after offering to do it, so definitely props to Sam for some nice additions that further fleshed out the arrangement.

Song - The Skies Hold no Angels for Us Remixer Names - Level 99 and AudioFidelity Real Names - Stevo Bortz and Jay Yaskin Email Address - level99remixteam@gmail.com ; bass10854@hotmail.com Website - None UserIDs - 13318 and 24748 Submission Information: Name of Game Arranged - Final Fantasy IV Name of Individual Song Arranged - Castle Damcyan Additional song information and original soundtrack already on OCR Comments: This is a song that was, from the get-go, envisioned to be an epic rock song. For those familiar with Final Fantasy IV's story, they know that what takes place at Castle Damcyan is a short, but pivotal and highly emotional, point in the game. I (Level 99) was already working on the Final Fantasy IV project and had finished my remix of Dancing Calcobrena, so I looked to see if any other songs were still available. Castle Damcyan was, so I started listening to the music and getting ideas in my head. Due to time and resources, I asked to have the song and asked for others to work on it with me. AudioFidelity offered to help a bit since even though he had a lot of tracks on his plate to finish but also felt that Damcyan warranted proper treatment in the project. I also asked Avaris to contribute some synth/soundscapes and make an intro to the song The result is an almost-six minute rock song containing elemental styles of classic rock, metal, acoustic, psychadelica (the intro), and a few others. It breaks down as follows: The song is introduced by a dark and heavily atmospheric synth/pad/fx composition written by Avaris, and the fx present here are sprinkled throughout the rest of the song. The intro bleeds into an interpretive A section from the original Damcyan song with a basic chord lead. After the drums kick up the A sections melody gets a little more interpretive but still hovers around the original writing. A second guitar comes in and starts to compliment the first as it goes to the B section. Following this, the drums switch to prominently syncopating the rhythm guitar as the two lead guitars duel into the second B section. A new C section arises, which is an elaboration of the original chord progression from the song, with new writing on all the guitars. Wind sweeps in at the end of the section to take us to a memory of what Damcyan once was as a piano plays a major-scale progression of section A as children play in the background. And then bomb blasts at the end of this as the guitars all come back for one last bit of battling. The final section is supposed to convey a person walking through the ruins of Damcyan while a woman cries and two acoustic guitars usher an end to the dream that was Castle Damcyan. Now, we really wanted to give feeling to the intensity of destruction at the Castle, and the broken dreams brought about by its demise. While Avaris did some FX and the intro, the majority of synths were played by AudioFidelity, along with the second lead guitar, the bass, the drums, the final mixing, the piano, and lastly adding in the ambient sounds. The song was led and arranged by me (Level 99) - providing the rhythm guitars, the first lead guitar, and the acoustic guitars later on. I hope you enjoy our remix of Castle Damcyan, and I'd like to thank OA for pushing so hard for the highest quality of mixes in the FFIV project. Thanks for listening! ~Stevo --------------------------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff4 - "Castle Damcyan" (ff4-16.spc) 5:46-long = >173 seconds for more than 50% source usage. :50-:55, :57-1:10, 1:12-1:17.75, 1:19-1:25, 1:26.75-1:39, 1:41-2:01, 2:03-2:06, 2:32-2:45.5, 3:15.75-3:21, 3:23-3:30, 3:31-3:35, 3:38-3:44, 3:45-3:46, 3:48.5-3:50, 4:38-4:39, 4:42-4:43.5, 4:44-4:47, 4:53-4:54, 4:56-5:04, 5:08-5:09, 5:10-5:17, 5:22-5:23, 5:25-5:32.5 Or about 134 seconds (38.73% source usage). I'm a stickler, that's my call. If you count all of the grace notes and all of the rests in tempo with the source, you have the simpler breakdown of :50-2:06, 2:32-2:45.5, 3:15.75-3:50, 4:38-5:32.5 or about 178.25 seconds. Shows the difference that counting that stuff can make. Given how long the track is, I'd rather have heard more elements used that kept the arrangement more strongly tied to the source in some way, but I can see why it would be passed if you're more relaxed (not a backhanded compliment). There were some great original ideas incorporated here, and then some super liberal backing element ideas that Steve & Jay felt were tied to the source, but IMO were not enough like the source. So ultimately, I love the track, but I'm gonna go borderline NO. That said, I'mma look at the overall execution. The opening guitar riffs at :19 were a great example of original writing that wasn't directly from the source, but was a stylistic fit with it. Just listening to it, it sounded like it was from the source, but it's actually too liberal IMO when trying to make an A-to-B connection. Source melody kicked in at :50. The mixing was on the muddy side from 1:18-2:03 once things got fuller with the backing guitars, but things were capably produced overall. 2:03 went into some extended soloing over a foundation inspired by the source, though too liberal to count as a direct connection IMO. Another chorus from 2:32-2:46 before going into more original writing. Then a pretty solid dropoff focusing on the piano at 3:16 before \m/'ing some more until the excellent acoustic guitar section at 4:38. Really strong, fluid dynamics throughout the track in this one, along with some great original part-writing that weaved together very cohesively with the source usage. Once I went into the details, I thought the overall composition could have integrated some more source elements during the soloing & original sections to keep it more grounded in the source. That's not to say that I don't like the arrangement or that I think it wouldn't pass. Solid, energetic contribution to the FF4 project that'll go over well, and shows how both artists, especially Stevo, have shown a good amount of growth. Even if they bitch about how long the judgments take.

Pimped (and great jorb as usual), but you NEVER put the URLs in the actual YouTube descriptions. Why are you never doing this? It's like you don't want the traffic. Both your URL & Leigh's should have been at the top of the video description, e.g.

Uh, just because someone's very good, they shouldn't be allowed to compete? No reason to psyche yourself out. Anyway, everyone is eligible. The only people ineligible are the contest judges, i.e. Seth, Michelle, djp and myself.

We may be doing PAX, otherwise I might have tried this.

Both bands are excellent. You don't have to like Armcannon, but you don't need to hyperbolically shit on them in order to make your point. You've clearly never heard Armcannon's stuff, including their latest album, if you're claiming they never use interpretation in their arrangements. We're not gonna get into a big dramarama over which band is better or the best.

Dedicated thread! http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=24134

Founded in 2006, Kongregate is a place where independent game developers, artists and musicians collaborate to create great new Flash games, upload them to the site and then share in the ad revenue. For example, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix lead designer David Sirlin also designed Kongregate's first premium game, Kongai, which has over 6 million plays since being released last year. Kongregate is now teaming up with Scion for their Artistic Intersection Contest to offer talented musicians the chance to win BIG, including a US$5000 grand prize of a digital music studio, just for exercising their creativity! Join the hunt now by heading to Kongregate's Sound Collabs contest page, powered by Scion: http://www.kongregate.com/collabs/sounds Many of OC ReMix's musicians are professional-grade artists or industry professionals, so you guys are a great fit with Kongregate Collabs' goal of bringing people together to create games! Upload & submit your own original tracks meant for games and through Tuesday, July 28th, FIVE musicians EVERY WEEK will take home a US$100 cash prize for having the highest rated tracks and will also be entered into the grand prize round, where Kongregate's expert panelists will select one lucky winner of a brand new home studio setup! Take a look at what you can walk away with: Artistic Intersection Contest: Sounds Category Grand Prize! (US$5000 value!) Apple 15in MacBook Pro (including 4GB RAM, 320GB hard drive and Apple Care support) Ableton Suite 8 Akai APC40 Akai MPK25 Presonus Firebox AKG K240 MKII headphones Kongregate and Scion also have a corresponding Art Collabs contest for visual artists with more huge prizes, so be sure to spread the word to every creative mind you know today! Good luck, everyone! Links Kongregate Sound Collabs, powered by Scion: http://www.kongregate.com/collabs/sounds The Artistic Intersection Contest, for both musical and visual artists: http://www.kongregate.com/pages/scions-artistic-intersection Kongregate: http://www.kongregate.com Scion: http://www.scion.com Kongai: http://www.kongregate.com/cards

You buy! You buy!

If your driver's license says male, I'm gonna kick your ass.

Love that song. Glad he can't touch the kids anymore. Sorry, MJ, not your fault your were mentally gone.

http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 416 "One-Winged Angel" Ohhhhh. OK, NOW I get the usage on this; thanks a lot, Cain. That 8-note melody at :54-1:10 of the source is also used beyond the intro as the light vox backing pattern from :45-1:06 (would have made that louder) and the backing tone from 1:07-1:29, so there was always something connecting this to the source while the more overt OWA interpretation was going on. As soon as you make out that connection above along with Cain's other comparisons, the source usage is obvious. OWA's such a long track, it was hard to get a bead on it. Meanwhile, the latter half of the arrangement had a lot of very brief source references and chopped up usages of the source. The guitar work was liberal, but generally connected, moreso than what I felt Palp gave credit for, but it's not really a big deal to me, as there's more than enough source usage combining the foreground and background usage. I had no problem with the volume. It was loud, but it's meant to hit you in the face. Really glad to sign off on this one. Keep kicking ass, Jack. YES

Really smart arrangement. It really expands on the source nicely and is a great example of doing a lot with a little. Excellent ideas on the whole; welcome, Dennis!

Marathon - "Flowers in Heaven" HALO Original Soundtrack - (06) & (17) First things first, my source usage breakdown. The track was 3:41-long, so I needed 110.5 seconds of source usage for the arrangement pass: (:07, :09, :12, :15, :17, :20, :23, :25, :28, :31, :33, :36, :39, :41, :44, :47 - "Flowers in Heaven" dum-dum-dum string pattern adapted to drums) x ~.75 seconds for duration = ~12 seconds :49.75-1:32 ("Flowers in Heaven" melody) 1:49-2:33 (:00-:15 of "A Walk in the Woods" - e.g. 1:49-2:00 simplifies :00-:08 of the source, then 2:00-2:11 uses :08-:15) 2:44-3:00 (:42-1:03 of "The Maw") By my count, that's about 114.25 seconds of source usage. I'm not counting the "Flowers in Heaven" reference after 3:00, because it's way too liberal and just not overt enough in the slightest. That said, the arrangement is still an easy pass for me once I (finally) made the A-to-B connections. Thanks to Nick for providing his breakdown. He didn't give me ALL the information I needed, especially for isolating usage of "The Maw", but once I did my own checking, it was fine. Really intelligent interpretation with a great mood and a solid weaving of the themes. The thing to keep in mind, NONE of these source themes are super memorable or possessing big hooks and Nick's style is subtle, so it's easy to not make the connections. I certainly didn't and that's part of why this track languished on the panel. But the connections are there and are actually very direct. I really don't think this merits a NO on lack of source usage or lack of overt source usage. On the production side, I'm sure there could be some tweaks as suggested, but this was definitely fine as is. The textures were excellent, and I'm loving it. I definitely encourage NOs based on arrangement to do another check against the sources and reconsider their votes. YES

The structure definitely doesn't pull off the "Far and Away" style completely effectively, but I can live with it. I don't think that's the main problem, and the arrangement is fine. I also kick Jesse in the face for not realizing the entire break section is the second source that I linked. But yeah, while I don't agree with Jesse's arrangement reasons for going NO, I'm not feeling as generous any longer with the conditional YES. I'm taking another listen and there's just too much wrong with the production where it would take too much effort to lift it over the bar, rather than some straightforward tweaks that could be implemented to get the balance & mixing sounding right. I think it's a solid enough idea that's just not executed to it's best, and as long as you continue to learn & improve, you'll look back on this in a year or two and wonder how you thought this mixing sounded OK. If this doesn't make it, move on. It's just not working right now for reasons previously stated by the other NOs. Very sorry to drag this out, but when something is middle of the road or a close call, that's means it winds up on the panel for a long time. NO

I do like that too, as far as the color scheme goes, but Jose's hit you with the info a lot better. Getting Dave to give me feedback on what he would tweak with José's art is like pulling teeth (i.e. he's busy and this, understandably, isn't a top priority). That said, I'mm nag Dave though so we can move fwd with something this summer.

As long as the original files aren't modified, distribute away. That's kosher for VGMix as well.

Caught up with comments and additions as far as I can tell. Danke.

Just got off the phone with Brandon (Harmony) to confirm that he's DOWN with being there at 6PM for the show to help with the meet and greet as official OCR representation!

Brandon & Jose, mail me ASAP. larryoji@ocremix.org Sorry about being MIA on tickets, but not enough people were locked in, so that's OK. The group rate is only a couple dollars less, so don't feel like you missed out on the sale of the century (which was a cool game show, BTW; I'm dating myself). I'm not able to go myself because I got called down to Atlanta for a job interview this past weekend and am there until about July 1st. That said, I'm not in a position to be the one organizing things, but will help where I can. We still have a good group looking to go, and I encourage y'all to make it out, because OCR & MAGFest are doing the meet-and-greet at the venue before the show and will be hanging out! EDIT: Dave (who is posting below) smells.

You da best, mayne!

Yeah, as long as the majority of the arrangement uses the source tune and it laid out cohesively, feel free to structure it how you want.

Yeah, that's fine, Phil! That kind of stuff is hunky dory.

Nope. Twitter's downtime is today, the contest is tomorrow, so we should be free and clear to give away some SEGA stuffz!