Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Yeah, there's a slight volume increase from last time, along with some added material that bumped the length up another 33 seconds. I thought the last version was good enough as is, and the volume on the new one seemed plenty loud to me. I'm echoing zirc's POV that it's good to go.

These foos bring it on a consistent basis. Many good b-day wishes for them.

Submission: Love & the Trigger * ReMixer name:LastEncore * Real name: Dominic Hines & Hassan Boyce <<< Hassan doesn't have a OC login and such but we would like it to just be formally known as a HD track. * Email address: lastencore@hotmail.com * Userid :24806 Game Arranged: Chrono Trigger Individual Song Arranged: A Prayer to the Road that Leads Composer:Yasunori Mitsuda Link to it: Additional info and stuff- Umm, hi. This is LastEncore which is exactly one half of the producer/songwriter duo of "HD." We really don't do remixes very often as we try very hard to compose new stuff for people to listen to. So I "Encore" stumbled upon this site years ago and my friends and such always tried to get me to make a remix to submit but i never would simply because I always felt when remixing a lost a lot of freedom. So one day I start playing Chrono Trigger for the first time ever and hit 'A' on this organ in this church and it hums these absolutely beautiful, dark, relaxing chords for about 10 seconds. I immediately turn it off and reload fight the bosses again just to play this tune again. After that I just had to create a song around it. Since it was simply chord changes I was still able to retain lots of melodic freedom throughout and was able to compose something nearly classical in the background. After intensively creating the melodic lines of it I move on and can't decide what kind of drums I want on it. Well that is where Mr. Boyce comes in. I layed down a basic step for the beat complete with the full percussive layout and he just took and ran with it. So this is how it turned out. As my first submission I'm really just rushing to get it out there and hopefully the mastering and EQ isn't to bad. So uuh love the site and everything it stands for! Peace. Based on the success of this I may remake some of my other favorites...unlikely though. Brief song overview: This is an RnB/HipHop/Trance remake of a small chord progression in a great game. So I don't know how many of those exist but I also had to remix this since no one else has. Got to love that! Also this song is arranged in a way that it's almost MainStream as if Vocals could be placed above it following a RNB setup. Hope someone likes it... Inspiration: The chords were just Brilliant and had to be made into a full length track. Honestly I still haven't got pass this part of the game. Sad but True. Production: It really was as simple as me hearing it twice and playing it on my keyboard I keep beside me. Just linked it up to fruity loops and took it as original piece of mine. Got to work on it and finished it up rather quickly. Spent a week or two fine tuning the details and changing some instruments. All in all it was very easy to make and just flowed out of me. enjoy it i hope. I love this song and my Girlfriend loves it even more. So it tries to be something fresh and original while trying to follow some very hollow footsteps laid by the chords. So yeah I'm going to submit it now...I think I got everything I was suppose to get. ---------------------------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ct - "A Prayer to the Road that Leads" (ct-116.spc) Yeah, pretty much anything attempting to arrange this needs to use that 3-note pattern religiously and build around it, which you've done, IMO. We'll see how the others feel about it, but despite adding a lot of new stuff, the source tune was present the entire time and stood out enough to not be marginalized. Good dropoff at 3:27 and awesome close at 3:40. I'm definitely not against a good hip-hop instrumental, but several of the synth choices were grating/abrasive, and the textures were on the thin side, so those were really the only things I'd refine to make this totally cohesive and passable, IMO. This could be shortened a bit and not lose anything, but this was surprisingly substantive stuff for a 4-minute mix of a 3-second source. NO (refine/resubmit)

Hello, I've been a follower of OCReMix for several years and have decided to try my hand at a piano arrangement. Contact information: Real name: Peter Smith Remixer name: SoUnDoLe email address: ihatelibby@hotmail.com userid: 2661 Submission information: Game: Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, GBA, 2002. Piece arranged: Chapel of Dissonance All soundtrack information is already on OCReMix ReMix title: Chapel Gymnopodie Additional information: This is a gymnopodie modelled after structural style of Erik Satie's gymnopodies. While not the only writer of them he is certainly the composer who pretty much defined all the form's features, especcially in regard to tonal language based on colouristic harmony. I have taken the main 8 bar melodic motif from Chapel of Dissonance and given it a new context and harmonic sense, used improvisations springing from it and melodic alteration devices derived from the original motif. It was recorded by pianist Vatche Jambazian(who should probably be credited in the write up if this is accepted) performing on a Steinway & Sons piano in the East Recital Hall of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, on the 11th of July, 2008. I hope that you enjoy it. --------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/download_file/8168 - (10) "Chapel of Dissonance" Needed more than 91.5 seconds of source usage to pass. The theme was in full effect from :14-:35 & 2:03-2:54. There was some seemingly original writing and rhythms in the style of the source, but I heard pieces of it overtly from 1:00-1:07, (as well as hanging notes continuing the melody ending at 1:07 with 1:13-1:16 & 1:19-1:22), then liberally arranged from 1:22-1:45. That breakdown is definitely open to interpretation, so draw your own conclusions, but as long as 1:22-1:45 checks out with you, this used the source enough. A higher encoding would have been nice; this was lossy as all get-out, but serviceable. Some judges might complain about the left-hand writing being too similar throughout and the lack of a more pronounced dynamic curve, but it wasn't a problem to me; it was a purposeful choice and, to me, it fit the style and mood, similar to Radiowar's "Lanterns." It's somber & melancholy and the interpretation was strong enough. YES

There is no double standard and it didn't survive lockdown because it's fun nonsense. It's here because, for its time, it was a creative enough, interpretive enough arrangement compared to the original NES theme. Lockdown was about removing submissions violations, not applying a current standards bar to older ReMixes. It was never even at risk for Lockdown, and neither were a lot of older, less developed ReMixes from the old days. This isn't going anywhere.

Nope. That would exclude quite a few gamers.

As Fishy noted, it's 6 years old and the arrangement standards were lower. It's still expansive for its day. The bar has moved higher and the current standards stress that you need to compare mixes in the last year to get a good idea where the current bar is. For another example of a strong mix with a conservative melodic arrangement, check out http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01747/

That doesn't help people become better musicians and it lowers the site's reputation for high quality, creative arrangements. Not gonna happen. "Oh yeah, whatever Mazedude sends, automatic YES." Yeah, I agree with you all the way. We NEVER reject established community members or judges for submitting arrangements that are too conservative. http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2490 http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2569 http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2815 http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=12719 Like Fishy says, you need some proof, not just your convictions. We work hard to call things fairly and objectively, even when judging the so-called A-listers. I've worked with DS and Palp for a long time; I've never seen any huge philosophical differences in how they apply the standards. Also, it's not difficult to "divine" what makes a good submission; the WIP checklist is a very comprehensive resource that I wish more people would internalize and use, because it lists almost any issue why a submission would not make it. Sorry, bro, you just have a ways to improve as a musician. There isn't any nepotism just because you have yet to have a mix posted. ("I want the truth!" - "You can't handle the truth!") Fishy told you what was up. I will try to get to these WIP forum ideas later this weekend and comment on the list of ideas so far.

Remixer Name: Prince Of Darkness Real Name: Tony Dickinson E-Mail Address: Basstony4813@yahoo.com Website: www.tonydickinson.tk Userid: 24705 Game: Final Fantasy VI Song Name: Cyan's Theme Information: This is only my second major video game remix released. I've always been the lurking type, developing my arranging skills deep in the shadows, and only doing something when I felt I was finally ready. This song was my second entry into the Dwelling of Duels competition (and second victory), and I had an overwhelming response. I've always loved really emotional-sounding tunes, despite me being mostly a mechanical, precise, heavy metal robot. With this song, I brought in all of the jazz and fusion influences I could muster and pretty much slapped it together as I went through it. Normally, I would do almost all of the arranging in a notation program, but this time I used more instinct in a more real-time setting. I love this type of genre, because it also helped me express my bass skills more, considering bass is really my primary instrument; whereas, 99% of the time the guitar would be in the spotlight. It's not entirely out of the spotlight in this, of course, as it offers some of the most emotion in the solos. ----------------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff6 - "Cyan" (ff6-113.spc) Audible clicks/pops at 1:03, 2:03, 3:03 & 3:40 (among other places) but they were mostly absorbed into the background. Still gotta make sure those don't show up. Lots of good areas soloing while alluding to the original, but there was too much of that and not enough "Cyan" theme directly involved. This was 5:05-long, so this needed more than 2:32.5 of overt source usage for me to pass it. Here's the usage breakdown I had: :39-1:07, 1:11-1:45, 3:04.75-3:14, 3:39-3:50 (liberal, but fine IMO), 4:23-4:42 - about 101.25 seconds or 33.2% of the track Yeah, when the source tune's overtly there less than half the time, that's when the arrangement veers too much into "inspired by" territory to me. I listened to the SPC, and all 8 individual voices on their own looking for anything I could have missed, but the breakdown is as good as it gets for me. I'm open to other info, as always. Awesome interpretation when the source tune was there and a smooth performance, though. Things like original writing as well as soloing while backing parts allude to the chords or rhythms of the source tune are like icing on a cake. But in this case there ended up being more icing than cake. This is a great piece of music, well performed; nothing wrong with it in a vacuum, but, as far as the standards go, it needs to incorporate parts of the Cyan theme directly for the majority of the arrangement. If you're not interested in revising this, Tony, that's cool, but I definitely look forward to your future mixes! "Zero Light" was awesome; if you're down, try to remaster it to bring out the bass more, and send it over. But that was excellent too, especially for a medley. In this case though, nothing personal, just calling it down the middle. I enjoyed the track regardless, and when you make a name for yourself in DoD as quickly as you have, that definitely means something. Hope we hear more from you! NO (resubmit)

I would try making sure you can click the contest link, because you're not gonna win that way.

Remixer name: TheLeviathan Real name: Jake User ID: 14128 Name of Game: Chrono Cross Name of song: The Star-Stealing Girl Hey all, I finished this a few months ago and finally decided to submit it. I got the inspiration to begin this remix after seeing Diggi Dis' version posted way back. Chrono Cross is one of my favorite OSTs, and Star Stealing girl is on the top of that list. I thought that the track was screaming for an even more ethnic version, even though the song already had ethnic elements. I tried to expand on them and add some of my own stuff to add my own personal touch to the piece. Instead of focusing on one set of ethnic instruments, I thought it would be neat to blend Asian, African, and European instruments together. I am finally satisfied with how it turned out. Hopefully you'll enjoy it. LINK: -------------------------------------------------------------- http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Chrono_Cross_psf.rar - 306 "The Star-Stealing Girl" Good personalization, solid new part-writing the whole way through, finishing off with a pretty interpretive last third. The chanting felt slapped on top, but was otherwise a reasonable concept; definitely something Mitsuda would have done if you're familiar with his modern work. Good job retaining the melody while making this its own animal. No hate here. Where ya been, Jake? Welcome aboard! YES

He never gets the 192kbps bitrate ceiling right - LT Contact Information * OA * Andrew Luers * Andrewluers@gmail.com * oceansend.com * 14963 Submission Information * mix name: Letting Go * Game: Animal Crossing * Original name: KK Chorale * Original: (brace yourselves): comments: IN THE EVENT THIS GETS ACCEPTED, PLEASE PUT IT ON HOLD FOR JOECAM'S PROJECT This is exactly the type of song that needs remixing, where it has a beautiful and charming melody, but abysmal original sound quality. I mean, I love KK more than most people and it's even tough for me to stomach those "oh me oh quay quays" sometimes. The melody is pretty intact, with a few changes, but the rest of the song is completely redone, with a lot of additional counterpoint, and an original bridge section. This ended up being one of my more personal remixes, if such a thing were possible. This is easily my favorite song from the soundtrack, so i'm glad I got the chance to remix it. --------------------------------------------------------------- Liking the geetars up here. Felt like the snare stuff could have been spicier, but oh well. Lots of good personalization of the theme, and of course a barebones source like this was ripe for expansion. Solid. YES

You could also download them all in a few clicks via the torrents, listen through them, and get rid of anything that doesn't appeal to you. You could spend the time you would have spent randomly searching actually listening to the mixes.

1. Letting you know you can win the game. 2. We did an interview on game music to coincide with the giveaway of said game. 3. I was impressed by how much cool stuff GearCrave has folks win, so I wanted to spread the word. 4. $ 5. Not really #4.

Hello, I'd like to submit a remix I've done, including three themes from the classic arcade game Double Dragon, arranged in a medley. Link to download the file : Contact Information : - Remixer name : Lolo from GP - Real name : Laurent Roucairol (origin : France) - Email : laurent@grospixels.com - Website : http://www.grospixels.com/site/remix.php - UserID : 24777 Submission information : - Game : Double Dragon (arcade) - Individual music : level 1, level 2, attract mode - Remix title : Double Dragon medley - Composer : Kazunaka Yamane - Link to the original music : - Arrangements, MIDI programming and sequencing : Lolo from GP - Electric guitars played by : Lolo from GP - Comments : this is my rendition of Double Dragon music, including themes from level 1, level 2 and attract mode. This is rock version recorded with a real electric guitar. The drums, bass and Hammond organ are general-midi programmed and played with soundfonts. The aim is to stress the "seventies" feeling of the original tunes. Hope you like it. Everything is done on a 7 years-old PC with a Maxi Home Studio soundcard (made by Guillemot), and a french sequencing program called Quartz Audio Master. I only used Fruity Loops to record the midi instruments with soundfonts (.sf2 format), wich the Maxi soundcard is not capable of as it only uses .94b soundbanks. As for the electric guitars, they were recorded with a Fender Strat through an amplifier simulator (Behringer V-Amp Pro). Thank you ! Lolo from GP http://www.grospixels.com/site/remix.php -------------------------------------------------------------- http://akumunsf.good-evil.net/D/Double%20Dragon.nsf - Track 3, Track 4 & Track 1 This was cool, but there was definitely something missing here to fill this out all the way and make everything feel cohesive. The snare even sounded kind of tame. The sequenced instruments generally sounded good, but the background still sounded empty. The bass was quiet enough to basically be a non-factor. No meaningful transitions at 1:17 and 2:52 either, which was weak on the arrangement side. The arrangement had some expansive part-writing, but each section covering the different themes didn't really have too much melodic interpretation or development, so you had a fairly cookie-cutter arrangement. I liked the freestyling from 2:17-2:52 & 3:42-4:07 though, but would have preferred to hear that kind of stuff having some interplay with the source tunes instead of doing a cover-original-cover structure. The Grospixels are cool, and I'm glad Laurent submitted something, but the background needs something more to provide the last piece of the puzzle, and the arrangement just needs more development and interpretation. Cool cover-style stuff, but not kosher with the guidelines. NO

Here is a submission for putting up on ocremix.org. A guest artist that performs a guitar solo on the track is placed in CC:. It rocks quite a bit, so if the judges have specific tastes, it would probably be more pleasing to the thrash/gothic/power-metal inclined. Link to submission: Name of submission: Where All Things End Contact information: ReMixer name: 8-Bit Metal Real name: Dominic Arsenault Email address: dominic@le-ludophile.com Website: http://www.myspace.com/8bitmetal Collaborator info: ReMixer and Real name: Mitchell Emmen Email address: videogameguitarist@hotmail.com Website: http://www.myspace.com/videogameguitarist7 Submission information: Name of game: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest Name of song: Doom Castle Link to original soundtrack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGj80_DLZ3w&feature=related Link to MIDI file of the original song, pretty faithful, and probably less precarious than a Youtube! link: Thanks for the consideration and cheers, Dominic -------------------------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ffmq - "Last Castle" (ffmq-24.spc) Yeah, I commented on this whole album back when I first found out about it on the boards. For this one, the mixing came off too rough and abrasive. The vocals at :40 were off-key and swallowed in mud by the instrumentation. The arrangement was too straightforward, almost MIDI rip-ish. More structural and melodic interpretation would have been great. The textures were loud but thin; stuff like the uh...piano(?) at 1:49 had no body/depth to it. You relied too much on Mitchell's guitar work to flesh this out; his stuff was fairly good and gave this some edge, but can't carry the entire soundscape. The vocals at 3:36 were brutal. I don't wanna shit on this, because from your website, this is clearly a labor of love. But this is just not put together well at all. The sounds were poorly balanced the whole time, and you're unaware that you cannot sing well. :'-( The concept of 8-bit metal is cool and you have solid enough ideas on how to adapt real instruments to an 8-bit sound, but the overall execution was weak thanks to the poor mixing and off-key singing. NO

Dear Ocremix, We wish to submit to you our recent remix of 'Enclosure' from the original Metal Gear Solid. My friend [Kyle James, CC'd in on the address above} and I [Tyler Langan] wish to submit this remix under the collective name of Squarewings. We can be contacted at this email, tyler.langan@gmail.com or on our myspace www.myspace.com/squarewings Our profile on the forums can be found at http://www.ocremix.org/forums/member.php?u=24775 This song came about after a recent play through of MGS4 and the discovery that they had brought back (albeit briefly) the famous enclosure theme from the original game, as this has always been one of our favorite pieces of music from the Metal Gear Solid soundtracks we decided to attempt a reworking of the piece, in a more dramatic style. We feel the whole mix has an early 70's prog feel to the sounds, with the screaming Marshall stack guitars and classic B3 Organ's over strings, we also recorded much outdoor ambient noise to add subtly to the recording and added an ethereal passage to the end as a fond farewell to everyones favorite gruff-voiced hero. So long Snake, gone but never forgotten! I believe this is all of the information that you require, if anymore is needed please do not hesitate to contact us. Many Thanks. Squarewings Tyler Langan & Kyle James. -------------------------------------------------------------- Metal Gear Solid Original Soundtrack - (13) "Enclosure" & (01) "Metal Gear Solid" The guitar at :24 was mixed in WAY too quietly, which was too bad, since it sounded cool. Actually, the whole thing was poorly mixed. The e-piano sounding like an organ first used at :39 was a decent idea, but not when it was so lonely sounding. Where's the support? The beatwork added in at 1:40 sounded mechanically sequenced and had no synergy with the rest of the track. 2:20 finally beefed up some other elements to fill out the background a bit, but the texture was still thin and didn't get the job done. The bass and strings had no presence even compared to the quiet guitar work. I really liked the tone of the guitar work for the MGS theme at 3:24, but again the rest of the instrumentation didn't complement it well. Flesh the textures out, get the overall volume louder with the parts better balanced, and rethink the percussion. The melodic interpretation could have also been more substantive as well. Decent stuff, but with a total lack of attention to cohesiveness and polish. That can be corrected over time, so keep working on improving, guys. There's a lot of great resources in the ReMixing forums to improve you execution with your existing setups, so I hope to hear from y'all again. NO

Nutritious Justin Medford NutritiousMultimedia@gmail.com http://nutritiousmultimedia.googlepages.com 16520 Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy IV Anxious Heart (FF7), Main Theme (FF4) This song was originally created for the Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core arrangement competition at Squaresound.com (it placed 6th, which seems to be the only place I'm allowed to attain for their competitions ). This is somewhat of a sister mix to my previous submission, Full of Courage, for the FFIV project since it utilizes the same source tunes. Anyway, I'll go ahead and paste my sub letter to them below: I haven't heard any of the Crisis Core soundtrack, so I decided to stay in familiar territory and remix a piece from FF7. Anxious Heart was an easy choice for me because of its moving chord progression. I decided to go for a much more mysterious and hopeful feel in my take of the original. You'll probably notice that it eventually leads into the FF4 Main Theme briefly as things crescendo. This was actually somewhat of an accident on my part as I was intending for the piece to lead into the FF7 Main Theme. When I was writing it out, I inadvertently began writing the FF4 Main Theme instead. I later realized what I did and changed it to FF7, however, it didn't fit the mood or style nearly as well as FF4. So, I ended up keeping the FF4 theme in the final version. -Justin --------------------------------------------------------------- You keep working hard, you'll place higher. You don't sound deflated, but of course I'll say you shouldn't be discouraged if you've felt that way. http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 104 "Anxious Heart" http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff4 - "Main Theme" (ff4-07.spc) The brass could have used some more oomph, and some of the higher bowed string articulations sounded pretty fake when they were exposed, so there were some flaws. But this was otherwise a creative and effective meshing of the two sources. The overall treatment feels more BGMish than attention grabbing (not a negative), but short and sweet, I'm down. YES

ReMixer Name: AriesT Name of arrangement: A bitter Ending Original Track: Terranigma Ending Theme Game: Terranigma (SNES) Comment: In 2007 I played again my favorite RPG on the Super Nintendo. Afterwards I once again was amaized about the wonderful soundtrack. So I decided to remix the song, which is played when the credits are shown and the hero is flying around the world. This is my remix of the Terranigma Ending Theme. I used REASON 3.0, so do not expect any quality overkill of the instruments. However, I tried to make a rock ballad out of the originals orchestral ambient style. ------------------------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ts - "Return to Mother Earth" (ts-53.spc) Reason has some good stuff out of the box, it seems. Many of your bowed string articulations sounded pretty fake and were exposed as such, but overall the instrument quality was fine. On the arrangement side, more interpretation and structural changes would have been VERY welcome. Especially for a near 6-minute theme, there was so much opportunity and flexibility to not follow the layout of the source tune in such a straightforward way. The dynamic contrast throughout the arrangement could have been more pronounced as well. Do more to make this your own. NO

recorded by the band FOXHOUD in which i play trumpet weapon pickup theme (metroid nes) arranged by me and jamaal sawyer for the band i am ezana edwards this is my email the mp3 is up on myspace.com/foxhoundmusic it's a five second theme stretched out to eleven minutes the edit down it six. If you want the long version with extend guitar, trpt, and sax solos let me know the metroid theme kicks in at about 0:45 the original: http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/nes/metitem.mid ------------------------------------------------------------- http://akumunsf.good-evil.net/M/Metroid.nsf - Track 8 A case where there's interpretation, but it ends up sounding Metroid-ish while changing the theme too much, then involves too much wholly original, non-game composition. Stopwatch time - :45-:49, :55-:59, 1:05-1:10, 1:16-1:20, 2:26-2:28, 2:36-2:38, 2:47-2:49, 2:57.5-3:00, 3:07.5-3:11, 4:20-4:23 (very liberal), 4:40-4:43 (very liberal), 5:25-5:30, 5:36-5:40, 5:46-5:51, 5:56-6:04 - There could be more, so I won't add it up, but nowhere near 50% overt source usage The first instance of the theme being used was interpreted from :45-:54, but for such a theme, I felt the notes were changed too much after :45-:49 to be considered not too liberal. If you other Js feel the interpretation isn't too liberal, then you've got :45-1:26 & 5:25-6:04, then all those short bits cited in the middle. Great jazz piece, great performance (enjoyed the freestyling from 1:26-2:18 and 3:00-5:04). But too liberal an interpretation that doesn't use the source tune enough. Would be great vis-a-vis the standards if this integrated more Metroid themes or came up with extended variations of the theme that were happening throughout the piece. With such a short theme, it's easy to go off and do your own thing most of the time. A good guideline (and honestly the only way I'll ever approve stuff myself) is when the arrangement explicitly involves the game music source material more than 50% of the time. It's been done for Pac-Man, which had a short theme, so it could be done for this. But that wasn't the intent here, so I'll assume it's a moot point. Awesome stuff, and a good Metroid-inspired piece; just not something that matches the guidelines we have. I'm keeping it. I'd love to hear you guys with another game arrangement that uses the source tune as a more integral part of the track. NO

ReMixer name: Zardonic Real name: Federico Agreda Email address: zardonicst@gmail.com Website: http://www.myspace.com/djzardonic (or http://www.gorepriest.tk) Name of game(s) arranged: Chrono Trigger Name of individual song(s) arranged: Secret of the Forest (Guardia Forest) Comments about the mix: my will was to recreate the vibe of this great game with such beautiful music, into the catchy groove of drum & bass for club playing, giving it a powerful sound with subtle latin percussion for a caribbean atmospheric feeling. I hope you enjoy it. --------------------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ct - "Secret of the Forest" (ct-111.spc) Slight measure of synchronicity in encountering this track right after "Zebes Rising" was posted, since I felt the approach was pretty similar. Hearing this encoded in VBR would have been pretty cool, since it seems a little lossy-sounding. Seems like 3:39 completely retread :44, which was weak in the overall picture, but was ultimately fine. There was a pad added into the second iteration that beefed it up and added some subtle baseline intensity. The grooves were well-constructed; how can you hate. The arrangement was personalized and substantially interpretive. By paying subtle attention to dynamics (e.g. 2:55, 3:28) and countermelodies (e.g. 2:19-2:55, repeated from 5:15-5:50) to spice up a relatively straightforward DNB piece, we had a good example of a genre adaptation that actively rose above a boilerplate approach and was instead something substantive. It's not gonna win a prize for most melodically interpretive approach, but the personalization was there. We'll see how the others feel. YES EDIT (9/9): On second thought, the NOs are right. Listening a few more times, I thought the arrangement ideas, while conservative were still well adapted. But 3:39-onward really needed to do something more with the piece and not feel so retread-ish. Given a closer look, this IS substantive, but the ideas got beat into the ground and reused too much. As is, the piece is too long to repeat this much and not come off underdeveloped. Swapping out some of the more verbatim supporting writing with new ideas, and developing & personalizing this more beyond this good genre adaptation would take this to another level and not squander the goodwill built up in the first few minutes. NO (resubmit)

Mike, I'm not sure what prompted djp's reply, but it looks like he read into the mention of Web 2.0 as the addition of bloated features, plus it was mostly theoretical with no mention of code or programs, which doesn't help Dave as much he'd want. Also, I could see how he read into your post as "that sucks, so do this now," since you used the words "hate" and "obnoxious," but reading between the lines, your idea was presented fine and was respectful. Your idea regarding the submissions process was substantive, and I understand what you're talking about with your ideas for streamlining it. Something like that would be very cool (with pretty much all of the features you suggested) as long as it was stable and thought out well. There would need to be a way to confirm that a submission was from who it said it was from (perhaps emailing the submitting artist based on whatever required email address they use to submit with the form, as well as how to deal with hosting subs, but the overall idea could be doable. Dave would just need to have the time to code it and integrate it into the site, and that seems like something he doesn't have time for in the foreseeable future. It's definitely not that no one would want to implement to idea. In fact, it's something that's been proposed in depth before. But the list of other tasks to do would have to be cleared off before that idea could become a priority, plus the current music selection system isn't broken despite being slow. Again, that's not saying it's great in terms of speed, because it sure as hell isn't. It's just saying that because the submissions process is still doing a good job of actually selecting the ReMixes (i.e. YES or NO), increasing the overall speed of the process is not as critical as some of the other stuff we're working on right now.

Definitely a relaxing listen. Welcome aboard, Justin! Hope to hear more from you!

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Yeah, thanks for the save w/time specifics. Even though that's taken from "Succession," it still pieced together poorly with the rest of the track, IMO. It's still about "The woodwinds didn't really seem like they were in the same key as the groove, so there was no cohesion." The groove just didn't click with the strings, woodwind and e-piano to me. "I just wasn't feeling :43-1:11 at all. For an only 2:19-long track, everything's gotta be clicking on all cylinders. I'd say refine that portion in the middle so the track pieces together strongly the whole way and this would be set." Yeah, still the same issue for me. Definitely a well put together track, and I'm the minority on how much that issue seems to mess up the flow of the track, but I'll stick with the borderline NO. If it had been an issue of using the source enough, then it'd be a different story. Even though Heath inherited that section I had issue with from the source, to me it worked in "Succession" yet didn't click here. If the track were longer, and marginalized that more, I'd go YES.