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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!

OC ReMix & GearCrave team up for Soul Calibur IV giveaway!!! ***PLEASE NOTE: The Soul Calibur IV giveaway is open to U.S. residents only. GearCrave Editor-in-Chief Mike Payne recently interviewed djpretzel and Larry "Liontamer" Oji about OC ReMix and and Capcom's Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix: http://www.gearcrave.com/buyers-guide/features/interviews/interview-david-w-lloyd-and-larry-oji-of-ocremixorg/ Now, OCR is teaming up with both GearCrave, the Men's Buying and Lifestyle Guide, and Namco to hook up GearCrave & OC ReMix fans with 5 FREE copies of Namco's Soul Calibur IV!!! Besides covering the hottest technology and lifestyle trends, GearCrave gives you opportunities every week to win the latest gadgets and gear, with recent GearCrave Giveaways including Vestal watches, Dexter: The Second Season on DVD, and huge gift certificates to MollaSpace.com, KarmaLoop.com, and ThinkGeek.com. Here's GearCrave's Mike Payne below with details on how to quickly & easily sign up and enter the contest to win one of 5 FREE copies of Soul Calibur IV for the Xbox 360 OR PlayStation 3!!! You heard Mike! Don't hesitate to join this exciting contest for the chance to walk away with Namco's Soul Calibur IV!!! Thanks, as always, for being a fan of OC ReMix! -Larry "Liontamer" Oji Assistant Soundtrack Director, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Head Submissions Evaluator, OverClocked ReMix Creator, VG Frequency http://www.ocremix.org http://www.vgfrequency.com

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.

Except that you missed http://digg.com/xbox/OverClocked_ReMix_talk_Super_Streetfighter_II_Turbo

Here you go: http://vgmdb.net/album/10224

No need to get emo.

Yeah, that's right. As for getting Dave's attention by saying the music is soulless and no fun, that's definitely a great way to do it. I could see how he felt insulted by that. Now when you say the site isn't the same as when you found it, that's true. But I don't see why that's automatically a negative thing. Lots of old schoolers dropped out, but new people have come in. And when you broadstroke that it was only "fun and had heart" when it was about Ailsean, McVaffe & JAXX, you're just out of touch with stuff from AnSo, Sixto, Shnabubula and zircon, the new regulars. I need to remind that the interweb is a poor conduit of emotion, so I'm definitely not mad or upset or anything like that. But we didn't get old & busted at OCR because you don't follow it closely anymore and don't connect readily with what's here now. We're doin' fine. Now I agree with you on the broad point that less music "stands out." But I only agree with that because the better creativity and quality consistency from track to track means you don't have an Ailsean or AmIEviL standing out from a crowd of "FL teknoz" like back in the old days. So instead of A-grade stuff shining from a crowd of Cs and even Ds, it's all As and Bs. There's no hate on the older stuff, but the bar's been raised. Not even just by the judges. The community collectively getting better made the bar go higher. But yeah, you're entitled to the opinion, and I'm sure some people agree. On the internet, the shelf life of a website only lasts so long for some people. But when anything's been around for a while and becomes an institution, that's bound to happen. I think we're in good company. I'm sure FARK.com, Homestar Runner, Slashdot, etc. get the same rap from some old schoolers. If you evolve, you're bound to have some old schoolers feel things somehow went to shit. In 5 years, that'll probably be Angry Video Game Nerd, Zero Punctuation and Destructoid: "Old & busted," yet still popular and as good as ever, if not better. Just be sure to read more closely next time. A vocal minority was critical of the album's approach in the first few posts, but it doesn't represent OR typify the community's response, just like Joe Cam's "What happened to the magic? We used to cuddle!" complaint about OCR is a minority opinion. The thing that would be the most annoying is that, despite the staff and several other ReMixers and community looking forward to Retro Remix Revue, a couple of people said "meh" and that somehow becomes "how all of OCR feels about the album." It's not.

I don't agree at all, Joe, and it's not because I spend most of my time on this side of the fence. I judge stuff, my time is supersaturated with these mixes and I still enjoy what the community here puts out. I can see why people miss the old days of 2-3 mixes a day and overall rougher sounding stuff, but if you've been here for years and years and you don't think OCR has that spark, that's fine. Anything that's not shiny and new, including concepts, can seem like it got old. But there are thousands of people, including newcomers, who come here every day, download the latest music and they definitely think it has that spark. The music here generally has equal parts soul, creativity and polish.

I already told you yesterday evening on IRC that there was nothing to discuss about that and that we don't need any rule against that, for the same reasons DarkeSword said now. You can't force someone not to do multiple WIPs, and if they want to do that, that's their choice. That's not something that needs a policy. And the likelihood that people would post enough divergent WIPs is so low, it's a waste of time to even bring it up. Not that I'm mad, but even though I told you it was not worth discussing, you brought it up anyway. Why bother?

If you have any comments or questions related to the Works-in-Progress forum, let's focus them here. We do want to improve the visibility of the forums and ease for artists to receive feedback, keeping in mind that the judging staff doesn't have the free time to step in and do that directly. So let's see what we can come up with.

Awesome. I'm definitely listening right now. Great so far!

That was 6 years ago. As far as staff goes, there's been none of that, and I've never seen that on the boards or in IRC. Where are you getting that from?

Regardless of whether or not VGMix3 was coming tomorrow or later, norg just elaborated that VGMix2's code had a lot of vulnerabilities that were exploited. They're not going to keep using that code when they don't have the people they need to patch it up and make it stable & safe to use.

Sounds nice so far. It's definitely going to turn out well.

He was rebanned (along with Shnabubula and LongeBane) for identity theft from obtaining Dragon Army forum account passwords and logging into OCR & VGMix accounts. He made fake trolling posts over here (for the lulz), while he abused (and basically broke) VGMix's Jamroom system to the point where they turned off some user features and disabled new accounts to protect themselves.

Absolutely, it's about close-mindedness. Dave stresses we're not the be-all-end-all approach to VGM arrangement; interpretation is our way--one way--of tributing the music. So to see others crap on this album for being cover-ish seems pointless, when that was the intent of the artists. They wanted to play it fairly straight and then throw in some embellishments to sweeten the deal, and this is how they pay tribute. There's nothing wrong with this approach at all. Hell, I want that Gambit cover on my project! I oughta holler at them. OCR is really large within the VGM arrangement community, and obviously I think that's great. But who knows how the general public feels in the cover vs. interpretive debate. In terms of what would appeal more to the general public, conservative approaches may be more popular, but then again interpretive stuff wins a lot of people over as long as the source tune is paramount. I'd actually love to know more about what casual fans prefer. Mustin (Joe Cam too, if he's reading), you ever holler at Colin Sanders? One of his bands, Over the Map, had a great cover/conservative version of some Mother 3 tracks. It was too close to the style of their source track from the Mother 3i arrange album, so we had to reject it, but the song itself was pretty cool. They reminded me of The OneUps a little. Tell him I sent you his way if you message him. Well, that's certainly a compelling reason for you yourself not to be interested; I can't take that away from you. But in a vacuum, which is how a lot of casual fans will encounter this album if they promote it right, the variety is there and this is a nice spread of several top games. Sure, if they had a more eclectic tracklist, it might grab your attention, but the fact of the matter is that they're trying to sell this and Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog sell more than Elevator Action and Journey to Silius. Don't hate that player, hate the game.

We've been through this before on the forums. There's nothing wrong with OCR's purpose and mission of interpretive arrangements. The only reason some people feel it should broaden its scope is because it's the most visible/downloaded community of fan musicians, which creates some sort of obligation to spotlight any appealing arrangements. That would be a bad reason to abandon its mission. OCR's popularity is strong because it just features interpretive arrangements and not covers/conservative arrangements.

I was planning to post myself but was too busy adding the album to VGMdb: http://vgmdb.net/album/10191 I'm not trying to be holier than thou, but I just hope everything is licensed. Nothing really justifies stealing the album, but if it was licensed, I could see a handful of people deciding to plunk down the cash to do the right thing and formally support it. Nonetheless, lack of licensing hasn't stopped a lot of people from releasing pay albums, and most companies (if not all) and composers haven't felt compelled to take legal action over something that doesn't cut into their bottom line. (It may even help it, due to conjuring up good feelings about their companies, games and music, but that's mere speculation.) I thought the samples sounded pretty good. Pez, you're smoking something good if this is inhuman-sounding. This didn't have to be the second coming; these were some fine covers. I also don't see what's inherently wrong about doing covers, and I'm the biggest proponent of interpretive game arrangements besides djp. They're not just playing the stuff like robots, they had to learn the parts and perform everything cohesively. Besides, there's definitely some good soloing/new part-writing in the Super Mario World piece to add some more personal flair to the arrangement, so I'm sure that's the case for most of these. Jeez.

Haven't commented yet, so I'll just quickly note that this is niiiiiice. Amber from Nerve.com also agrees. You were able to withstand her vocal-hate!

Here you go, bro: http://vgmdb.net/album/10184