Liontamer

Yo! Yet again you read my submission letter. Isn't it funny? So here comes CHEETAHMEN 2 - LIVIN LARGE! Now, prepare yourself for EXTENSIVE INFORMATION: Contact Info * Remixer name: Another Soundscape * Real name: Mattias Häggström Gerdt * E-mail: anothersoundscape@gmail.com * Website CHANGED: http://www.soundscape.escariot.net * UserID: 12912 [ edit ] ReMix Info * Name of game(s) ReMixed: Cheetamen 2 * Name of individual song(s) ReMixed: Song 2 (unnamed) - "Final Fantasy IX - You're not alone" as an additional source. For great justice. * Additional information about game, if it has not yet been added to the site, including composer, system, etc: (source, wikipedia) System - NES, Year - copyrighted 1992, found in 1997, Developer - Active Enterprises, Composer - Unknown from what I know. * Link to the original soundtrack, if it is not one of the sound archives already available on the site: http://akumunsf.good-evil.net/C/Cheetah%20Men%202.nsf * Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc. As always, I love this part. Buckle your seat belts people! So here it is. The first Cheetahmen II submission to reach OverClocked ReMix (I hope, or something is terribly wrong). When Larry showed me the youtube vid with the song I wasn't that interested. It was simple and the game was so bad I couldn't really enjoy it. After he offered anyone who finished and submitted a passable remix of the theme a free OCR-shirt though, I felt I wanted to at least try. He actually offered this to Fishy but I raced him and since I had a lot of free-time finished before him. Doesn't matter though because he's getting the shirt anyway, I've got two already. Anyway, when I started to remix this tune it really started to grow on me. It's simply but man is it catchy. Since Fishy also did this I expected a heavy rock version. I could see why, this remix screams "rock out" but I wanted to do things differently. I tend to do that. I started by laying down the intro strings and bubbly synth texture for a straight electronic remix but as always, it got out of hand. While browsing potential sounds I took a trip through the AMAZING Electro Mechanical ReFill (free for registered owners of Reason 3+) and started jamming with a Clav. My hands went like crazy and I had to do this funk-style. So it was late and I recorded a LOT of licks. Took the best ones and started re-recording. Improvised an organ solo and started to touch everything up. I was actually amazed what I did in two days and honestly, I don't think I could've done this any better. Everything in this remix is played by me on the keyboard except the tam, the shaker and some ghost-note programming. Everything was done in Reason 4. A big thanks goes out to Larry for really sticking by me with this, providing constant feedback and helpful tips. He actually recorded himsle sining a part he thought I should use as outro, which I did. Also I'd like to give JJT some creds, he gave me some great feedback and helped me with some minor issues. Much love guys. Kind Regards, Mattias Häggström Gerdt (Another Soundscape) (thanks to Escariot, as always, for hosting) MUCH LOVE! ---------------------------------------------------------------- Aight, let's lay out the story of Larry and the Cheetahmen. On October 29th, forum-goer Kenobio posted a thread about Brian Ashcraft's Kotaku article on Cheetahmen II (and its Japanese internet meme) put up 4 hours earlier. A nice piece of reading, but something I would have been done with quickly if it hadn't have been for one fan of the site, Happywulf, making a comment: "This is totally awesome. Do the guys at OC-Remix know about this gold yet?" That sounded like a request! I immediately blogged about it on VG Frequency. On my first listen to the music, via the YouTube video in the Kotaku article, I didn't think it was anything special. The in-game sound effects messing up the playback of the music (due to the bugginess of the game) didn't help. Once I listened to some of the crappy Japanese MIDI rips though, I heard some potential of the track and gave it another chance. Subsequent listens had me realizing the song actually DID kick some ass, with me saying "The melody is deceivingly good." In #ocremix that day, I already offered a bounty of an OCR t-shirt, bought and paid with free shipping personally sent by me, to the ReMixer who gets the first passed Cheetahmen II mix on OCR. Some interaction during the day with judges I showed the video to included zircon saying the track was "boring and lame" and this memorable exchange: The next day, AkumuHau, maintainer of the authoritative NSF archive messaged me on Facebook and let me know he had heard of the Cheetahmen II deal through my noise and had obtained a copy of the NSF!The following day after that, I saved the information on the Cheetahmen and Cheetahmen II from being deleted from Wikipedia by merging the information with the game's developer Active Enterprises. Mattias, having started this track after I first pimped the game on the 29th, finished up this piece and submitted it on Halloween night. He named the track after this piece of work from the overly ambitious Cheetahmen comic, shamelessly ripping off the Ninja Turtles: And here we be. http://akumunsf.good-evil.net/C/Cheetah%20Men%202.nsf - Track 2 http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF9_psf.rar - 409 "You're Not Alone!" The strings in particular really opened the piece in a strong way. Good funky writing at :13, before introducing the drums at :26 and seguing to the meat of the arrangement at :33. Some people are gonna complain about the synth lead being grating, but I've learned to stop worrying and love the bomb. The opening in particular was pretty liberal but still derived from the source. Cool mallet percussion at 1:01 to keep the source grounded in the track while the djp-esque funk soloing kicked in. 1:29-1:56 brought in the chorus of FFIX's "You're Not Alone!" (from 1:07-1:34 of that source) in the background during an otherwise original section. Good sneak, then dropping it out to give some dynamic contrast to the eventual move back into the source verse at 2:10. Liked the tense strings in the background from 2:10-2:23 for a slightly ominous feel. Having loved the strings in the intro, I was disappointed when the near-final WIP had nothing else like it in the song and also ended fairly abruptly. With Mattias fielding comments, I suggested he extend the end of the track a few bars to both pimp those lush strings and allude to the :51 section of the source tune again. Like Mattias mentioned, I even fired up Cool Edit Pro and mocked-up the string and lead writing I thought of for the ending, with Mattias modifying it to suit his needs. All in all, glad to help on a small level. I thought it closed the track out well and enhanced the replayability, but I'll let listeners decide. A pretty syrupy arrangement, but fuck it. Being both creative and interpretive, I was having a lot of fun listening to this. You punks out there should too. Sure, the piece could be fine-tuned or improved in various ways, but what's here is a fun, funky, fresh, cheetahrific piece o' ReMix goodness. Hercules, Aries and Apollo would be proud. YES

Could have given the form letter, but I let it slide; maybe y'all can offer some advice - LT Hi, I would like to submit the following remix for consideration: Remixer name: Notofficial Real name: Gareth M Williams Email Address: Gazz@Notofficial.co.uk Website: http://www.notofficial.co.uk OCRemix User ID: 22260 Name of Game arranged: R-Type (Commodore 64) Name of Individual Song Arranged: Title Theme Name of Original Composer: Chris Hülsbeck Name of System: Commodore 64 Link to Original: http://hafnium.prg.dtu.dk/~theis/stil/html/text/Huelsbeck_Chris.htm Comments: I know I am not the only person to have fallen in love with the visceral electro hook of the title music, only found on the c64 version of R-Type; although some remixes already exist for this track, none of them seem to capture the visceral energy of the original. This remix attempts to deliver the power of the original track whilst staying largely faithful to the arrangement and thematic content. Kind regards, Notofficial --------------------------------------------------------------- Pretty cool source tune choice. It's about 2 minutes long, and full of SID-groove bias. "This remix attempts to deliver the power of the original track whilst staying largely faithful to the arrangement and thematic content." I've seen both good and bad mixes of that description. http://www.exotica.org.uk/tunes/archive/C64Music/MUSICIANS/H/Huelsbeck_Chris/R-Type.sid - Subtune 1 Cool voice sample opening. Opens with the direct sampled SID at :07 with some channels dropped and some new beats added at :11. Not boding well at the outset, but things changed up. Moved over into some drumloops and some cheap-sounding piano sequencing from :26-:42 before awkwardly transitioning back to the sampled SID at :46. Cool sweeps first used at :52 & 1:00. So far, literally nothing but the sampled SID being used with some new beats until 1:32, so definitely over 1/4th of the track. Then even MORE drumloops at 1:39 and the cheap-sounding piano sequencing again from 1:47-2:02, before transitioning FINALLY to some real arrangement of the SID at 2:06. The treatment of the melody was interesting with the processing, but the other sounds and beats used were flimsy and didn't adequately fill out the texture enough. Back to the direct sampled SID with (good) muffled effects from 2:37-2:50, then dropping it in the background at 2:53-3:23 in a purely supplementary role that was ok. Just a weak transition at 3:23, the sections have no flow to them in this track. The crappy sequenced piano and drumloops AGAIN at 3:31 & 3:38. Why do you keep going back to those rubbish loops? Back to direct sampling the SIDtune at 4:02 to close out the track. There's just way too much direct sampling of the original game audio and way too much loop usage, both of which are heavily discouraged here and simply not what we're about if you read our Submission Standards for arrangement. That's not "staying faithful" to the original, just direct-sampling the SIDtune. Aside from some minor production variations, the arrangement was repetitive. The structure of the track wasn't cohesive at all, and the R-Type melody's given no meaningful interpretation or expansion. This would be more at home at Remix.Kwed.Org, but even there I can't imagine it getting beyond average marks. NO

Hey Judges of OCR, Let’s try this again shall we? Info: Remixer name: NeoS Game remixed: Final Fantasy IX E-mail: mail.neos@gmail.com song title: You’re not alone in the club style: dance/trance After browsing the requests forum someone requested a FF9 remix of “you are not alone”. So I took the challenge and created this remix. The person requested it was very enthausiastic about it, so I guess i’ll just send it in. If you need more info, please contact me via MSN or e-mail, since i don’t browse to forums as much as i used to. Here’s the link to the remix: Thanks for reviewing. NeoS. --------------------------------------------------------- Listening to "You're Not Alone". WTF is that grating synth? God, the sequencing sucks balls. Oh well, more good than bad with the writing. djp certainly did a good job arranging this one. Let's see what we got here. http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF9_psf.rar - 409 "You're Not Alone!" Open up with some sounds that felt a bit on the cheap-sounding side. Melody came in at :13 with some IMO weak, plodding beats, with the string pad sequencing not sounding very realistic/smooth or doing a good job filling out the space enough. Really gradual fade-in of the trance elements around :46, building to the transition at 1:08 which was pulled off ok. Moved over into some stock sounds and dry production that felt too empty, though the overall groove was pretty authentic and capable, including the additional buildup at 1:35. Dry as a bone, unfortunately, but otherwise capable. The return of the source melody at 2:03 was weak though. I didn't feel the syrupy synth integrated with the trance groove at all, and didn't seem to match styles. The melody just felt slapped on top with little regard to the overall texture. The countermelody brought in at 2:31 was too loud, IMO. It should have been more subdued, and, as is, steamrolls right over the groove; not the right kind of balance here. Not only does the countermelody need to supplement the lead, it needs to mesh comfortably with the groove. That's just my opinion, so we'll see what other say. Still nothing particularly creative with the melody going on at all beyond using it near verbatim in this genre. The chorus at 3:11 was also by-the-numbers with an arpeggiated lead playing a basically verbatim chorus, though the electrosynth on countermelody from 3:25-3:39 & 3:52-4:06 was a good minor touch to at least build something else off the melody. The original writing from 4:10-4:51 was actually more interesting than the entirely of the arrangement work, IMO. The lead certainly fit in a lot more with the genre than the arranged melody. Just decent. Production-wise, the core sounds were good for the genre, though should have been given more body and depth. Arrangement-wise, it doesn't get much plainer and relatively uncreative. You really gotta do more with the melodies to really put your own spin on this and really add some unique ideas in adapting this to trance. This is a good base, but ultimately nothing feels interpretive, but rather just transposed to the genre. NO

Don't worry, he was wrong. A vampire was indeed being killed by a vampire killer's Vampire Killer.

No offense, but have you ever actually taken a few minutes to browse through what's available? We've got more obscure stuff than that. Telefang is fine: http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/gbcolor/data/578714.html Never hurts to provide us with the original to compare with. Everyone should always read http://www.ocremix.org/info/Submission_Standards_and_Instructions, now easier to understand than ever.

My initial feeling as well is that this is simply too liberal. The melody here sounds nothing like the intro buildup at :27, the six-note melodies at :45 (main verse) or 1:06 (chorus), the guitar work at 2:13, or the string samples at 3:20. Melodically, those are basically the only places he could have gone. Let's see what's up now that zircon made some mock-ups to make the comparison easier. Command & Conquer Red Alert 2: The Soundtrack - (01) "HM2" Production-wise this is crowded but seems fine. No problems for me there. Way better than Star Fox "Barrel Roll," which was extremely generic for the genre. But the overall treatment feels too liberal. The best we get at staying overtly to the opening 4 note "main riff" from :27-:28 in the source is from 3:20-3:31 with the supporting guitar. Otherwise, I hear how you're also using that main riff first from :12-:16 in the mix. And I'm not saying I'm automatically put off by rhythm changes, but to me the sum total of the changes sounds too different from the original and obscures the connection too much. As for the "second melody" first used from :46-:51 in the source, I also didn't pick that up in the areas you timestamped. I can't run with it. To me, the changes to the source melodies at the core of the arrangement ensure that the whole arrangement sounds similar the source but could pass as "inspired by" and a wholly original track. Otherwise, this is a good track and well put together, IMO. A reluctant NO

Here's to more and more success in the industry for you, Haroon! Happy B-Day!

Loved it. Just a really solid, well-executed piece, so I'm glad I tugged on zyko's arm to get this submitted as part of the Bad Dudes/Halloween festivites. The sound quality of the dog growls was weak, but that was about it. djp's comments about time slipping by as you listen to this were definitely accurate for me. I'd argue this is weed's best work yet. Really glad to see this up here, hopefully lots of others will enjoy it.

After initially taking issue with pixie's reasoning, comparing the intros of both tracks more closely only makes one see how the take in the arrangement is too far off from the original. Compare :00-:05 of "Corneria" with :14-:20 of the mix and you see how it's been altered where it sounds Star Fox-esque, but is not really from the "Corneria" intro melody anymore. With that said, once you don't count that progression, I'm only hearing :55-2:13, 4:09-4:23, 4:40-5:37 as being directly arranged from the original, or about 2:29's-worth of a 6:16-long arrangement (39.63%) being arranged from the Star Fox source, with the rest being original material that does thematically connect well with the arranged portions. So basically, do as I say, not as I do. Because I also gave the arrangement connections more credit than I should have, even though there were enough other issues where I voted NO regardless. Looking at what's happened with both this mix and the Red Alert 2 submission, Jon, be careful though not to swing to the other extreme (pure covers with little-no-interpretive merit) in the hope not to encounter these types of situations again.

Silent Hill 3 Original Soundtracks - (01) Lost Carol & (14) Never Forgive Me, Never Forget Me Silent Hill 4: The Room Original Soundtracks - (101) Tender Sugar Silent Hill 2 Original Soundtracks - (06) Promise (Reprise) Thanks to Kunal for getting back to me quickly and giving his take on the arrangement. I didn't have any performance issues, BTW. I thought everything was performed well, sounded polished and was at a pretty high level of quality. The intro (:00-:18) is indeed based off of :01-:22 of "Lost Carol". The :22-:45 area based on "Tender Sugar" (and used much later as well), I'm not seeing any explicit derivation anywhere from that source (great source, BTW). Well, as you said, "based loosely." Gotta treat it as original. Yep, the only part that really clicked with "Tender Sugar" were the guitar riff first used from 2:05-2:10, used 4 times until 2:27, derived from 1:37-1:44 of the source's chorus. Can't really hear anything else that may be overtly and explicity derived from the orignals, leaving this pretty far off from the 50% source usage mark I would need to feel comfortable passing this. Even if a track didn't click with the standards, there's never anything wrong with writing it the way you prefer it. With that said, I would treat this a lot more as inspired by than directly arranging the source material. It's unfortunate I can't pass it, but it's definitely a keeper of a track and a very good reason to check out the Zombies Rocked My Neighbors EP. NO

I can get annoyed, but I still like when David does that; nothing wrong with keeping us in line. I could be wrong on the track implied, but we'll see. For the 1500 lockdown though, we voted on "Prayer" and let it stay due to having some interpretive merit, but myself and the panel at the time came to the consensus that we wouldn't have passed it in the first place had it went on the panel.

He's saying "Prayer" by pixietricks.

I have pimped the rebroadcast! Everyone really should tune in.

I'm not sure which source he meant: Red Alert 2 - "HM2" (aka Hell March 2) or Red Alert - "Hell March" I'm guessing the first one. Will update when I know more.

I definitely can't tell what's going on here, the second sub like this in as many weeks; what did I do to deserve this?!? (Kidding) Have contacted the submitting artist for a breakdown - LT Greetings again from PrototypeRaptor, aka Jonathan Paulsen. I have a remix here of Red Alert 2's Hell March (one of my most favorite video games/music sources of all time) by the amazing Frank Klepacki. I've always thought that the theme could pack more "punch" and just blow the listener away; this is what I've tried to accomplish. It's a hardcore DnB remix (no big beat or anything like that) - which I haven't really heard too many of here on the site. (probably arrangement concerns) So I've tried to add new harmonies, new parts, vary the drums, and add differing sections to make it more "OCRemix friendly." Sorry, I have no source here, just a mp3 I ripped from the game. I hope you enjoy my remix - I'd hate to have butchered such a great song. link: (On a different note, I don't know if I'm allowed to have two mixes on the panel at the same time (StarFox Barrel Roll)...it's been a couple of months since I submitted that I believe and the submission instructions only indicate 3 weeks in between mixes - just wondering. Thanks) LT Edit (10/30): Whoa, that's a lot of timestamps. See below:

Akumu just made my day by obtaining the NSF rip today! http://akumunsf.good-evil.net/ !

Hahaha. JJT, ever the spokesman. I dunno if we could endorse anything per se. We've never done it before, and djp would be in charge of that. If like some hardcore CT guys like Claddou Shou and maybe DarkeSword loved the novel, maybe there'd be more of a chance.

You really need to be asking here instead: http://www.vgmix.com/vg25/viewtopic.php?id=2422

As long as you follow the Content Policy's Terms of Use (section B in particular), you're fine.

You couldn't be more wrong! You couldn't be more right!

It's in the game data. That's "used in the game," just not during the gameplay.

In #ocremix, I have already offered a bounty of an OCR t-shirt, bought and paid with free shipping personally sent by me, to the ReMixer who gets the first passed Cheetahmen II mix on OCR. This song is pretty sweet. zircon called it QUOTE "boring and lame". We'll show him!

Hello, submitting a track. Remixer: Zoned Game: Final Fantasy (IX) Song: Prelude User number on forums: 22150 (Themaister). Zoned is my artist name. ------------------------------------------------------------------ http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF9_psf.rar - 423 "Prelude" Nothing awful production-wise, but still poor IMO. The synth design was generic and the sound quality was too lossy. You need to do a VBR encoding for something this long in order to mitigate lossiness. I felt some of the core patterns within the track were very bland as well, and dragged the piece down somewhat. While there were some decent supportive writing ideas interpreted from the original, the source melody (and countermelody from 5:06-5:48) was basically just used from "The Prelude" with little-to-no interpretation, which was boring. Could have been more interesting integrating the original section at 6:07 that ended the piece within other areas of the arrangement. I didn't feel any of the original ideas here compensated for the shortcomings of the arrangement, and what we ended up with was a relatively paint-by-numbers genre piece. Solid beginner-level sub though. Hopefully you'll tap into more creativity with other ideas you'll have as you gain more experience. NO

The arrangement, which was dicey on interpretive-ness before, was made only more solid through the additions and improvements here. All of my criticisms are more on production and execution. I thought the bowed strings from 1:22-1:41 and 3:36-3:54 were a good idea in concept but should have sounded more human. 1:22-1:41 also should have been more in synch with the other instruments, a bit more an issue than the criticism of the brass afterward. Don't remember why it didn't stick out in the previous version, but the hip-hop groove and sampled finger snaps sounded out of place to me the whole time orchestral elements were in play. I would have pulled back the volume on that stuff during the busier sections, and altered the pattern and/or production on those to make the texture more cohesive. Even a smaller detail like the finger snaps, the sample there could have been varied to not make the sample sound so cheap and repetitive, especially because it was used so loudly. For 3:36-3:46 & 3:57-4:17, I would have swapped out the hip-hop groove, as it didn't mesh well with the handdrums or big drums & tambourine IMO. Though I didn't have a big problem up until the end, I'm not sure the squeaky clean and upfront vocals worked well for the final, extra busy section; they just felt too dry and pasted on top rather than being couched in the soundscape. A lot of good new ideas were introduced, but they could be more cohesively put together. Still very close, but I'm unfortunately not quite sold yet on the sum total of the instrumental execution. Ultimately going to stick with my NO (refine/resubmit) vote.

HA! I thought the music was catchy, but only after you heard some of the "better" (I use the term loosely) sound upgrade mixes. I've written all about it this morning. The melody is deceivingly good.