Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Link to remix (direct download): REMIXER NAME: RockyRan REAL NAME: Raniero L.G. E-MAIL ADDRESS: ranierolg@gmail.com (this one) GAME ARRANGED: Mega Man 5 INDIVIDUAL SONG ARRANGED: Gravity Man's Stage RANDOM NOTES: This is my very first (and hopefully not last) remix that I've made. This track has always been my favorite in the original Mega Man series, and I tried to make a "livelier" (word?) remix that brings the song to a more dance/techno approach. ---------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/nsf/megaman5.zip - Track 1 You're going in the right direction in terms of trying to add your own style to the sounds and adding some new sounds & effects, even though the overall structure of the track is the same as the original song. The beat structure never changing also became very static and repetitive. Overall, the textures weren't particularly well-mixed, sophisticated or complex though. When you tried to get more freestylish in the handling of the melody (e.g. 2:34-3:02), you ended up with some bad notes, so writing cohesive original melodies and/or melodic interpretations is something you need to train your ear for. Tons to work on and improve at. Use the ReMixing and Works forum to learn more about your current setup as well as solicit fan feedback. NO

Contact Information: ReMixer Name: swarmer Real Name: Terence Lee email Address: ncswarmer@gmail.com userid: 15693 Submission Information: Name of Games Arranged: Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 7 Name of Songs Arranged: Sealed Door and Prelude Comments: An older version of this song was submitted for the Nobou Uematsu Arrangement Competition at SquareSound. It placed 9th. I was not completely satisfied with it when I submitted it; I was under a big time constraint: I finished the song and sent the email out at exactly 12:00am, the time it was due. I knew there were production problems, but I admittedly do not have much experience so I was happy to learn that judging reports with comments would be available. Larry, one of the judges, had some very helpful advice, which was that the drums were largely under par and the vox could have been better quality. So upon reading all that today, I hurriedly went to go fix it, and here it is. I'm really bad at mastering so my 10-minute-mastering done at 11:45pm for the competition didn't work so well, so I spent most of today redoing that. The drums are the same instrument but I tried to fix the sound quality of it, and tried a bit riskier approach to making it not sound too out of place. I hope it worked! As for the inspiration, I reallllllly like Chrono Trigger and its music, and was happy to learn that one of my favorite songs, Sealed Door, was a Uematsu song, and therefore I could use it for the competition. I began to notice that it had a lot of structural similarities with the Prelude from Final Fantasy. Specifically, the melody was almost the same (if you looked at it correctly), and the harmony had a lot of similarities. The big difference, however, is that one is minor and one is major. I tried to explore different ways to transit from one to another, and I hope you find them effective. Side note: I'm really unsure about the mastering; it sounds fine on my desktop but not so great on my laptop, and I can't seem to find a happy medium. I hope my desktop happens to sound exactly like the rest of the world! Thanks. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Let's see what I wrote before: While the submitted version for SquareSound's Nobuo Uematsu arrangement competition was promising, it still had those issues that held it back from being in the highest places. http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ct - "Sealed Door" (ct-307.spc) http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 101 "The Prelude" Aight, so as a listener and wallowing in the source tune love, I was certainly feeling the old version of the track. Comparing it to the sources as a judge, I was put off a little by how the instrumentation and rhythms for "Sealed Door" were kept intact, but the addition of the piano and guitar gave followed by the beats at :23 and Prelude piano backing at :31 gave the theme a different enough feel compared to the original. The drums I criticized were definitely improved nicely. Good dropoff at :53 going back to the style of the intro and going even more minimalist with a dropoff of the dropoff around 1:09. Ha! Pretty creative, and a solid transition into "The Prelude" at 1:31. The syntheticness of the guitars and bowed strings was a lot more exposed there, but the sequencing and production was still pretty strong, so I wasn't bothered by it. Though still somewhat fake-sounding, the vox at 2:02 was also improved compared to the competition version, also very good to hear. I thought the beats joining back in at 2:26 sounded really awkward and made for a weird texture, but it left as quickly as it arrived, so that was good. I would have gone for a different drum tone there for a better fit. Beautiful stuff with the piano once it demanded most of the attention at 2:56. The beats returning at 3:19 felt awkward again, but better couched in the soundscape. Good close with "Sealed Door" on its own at 3:48 for the finish. I thought the dynamics throughout the piece were pulled off nicely, and the mastering definitely sounded good to me. My only major crit was how effectively the new drums clicked with the other instrumentation, but it was still solid enough on that level. The two themes were combined pretty expertly, adding a nice new dimension to both. I'm definitely glad, Terence, that my criticisms helped you improve the piece and feel more satisfied with it from a creative standpoint. Even for the harshest criticism (saved for people who got more wrong than right), it's all about pushing people to realize the potential of their ideas. Good luck with the rest of the vote, and hopefully we'll be hearing more from you! YES

Blue Dragon Original Soundtrack - 103 "The Land Shark is Coming!" & 101 "Waterside" Nice source tune choices, particularly "Waterside". Onto the track, the tone on the snare didn't fit the track, and the part was also somehow buried in the back of the track. The clipping was definitely noticeable. The guitars sounded decent when harmonized, but using a single guitar, the performance could have been smoother and the sound itself was very flimsy even when beefed up by the rhythm guitar, especially during the "Waterside" section when the drums did nothing to actually fill out the background. Your production needs a ton of work, but the other Js have given some good insight on what could be touched up. You should try entering Dwelling of Duels sometime, Jordan; you'd learn a lot from The Shizz community as well. Use the ReMixing and Works forums here to get production advice as well as solicit fan feedback for future submissions. Keep at it. NO

Visible changes or it didn't happen!

How was it rushed?

Nice work. I totally cribbed this for the intro! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There's too much assumption on the form discouraging positive feedback. We're specifically saying everyone should provide it. But if someone is to also improve areas that are lacking, it's important to place the emphasis on those issues. If a listener doesn't have the common sense to understand that potential good traits of a song are based on the opposites of things listed on the form (e.g. realistic sequencing, creative sound choices, energetic drums, tight timing with the performances, coherent structure, etc.), that's more an indictment on the person than any failing with the list. We can't hold everyone's hand and bloat the list up with what are essentially redundancies on the assumption that people are incapable of knowing what good things are and giving positive criticism. Just extrapolate what the good traits are from the bad ones listed. If someone gives unconstructive or stupid criticism, slap 'em down. That the same as always, and this form doesn't change that. It's up to the staff and community-at-large to encourage an overall positive environment for critiquing music. But to think that people will interpret the form as "I shouldn't [or can't] say anything positive" is selling everyone short and needlessly pessimistic.

I understand what you're getting at, Rozo, and in a perfect, ideal world, the judges could comment on everything to give feedback to everyone. But this is not going to be happening. Everything we do as judges is voluntary and depends on interest, availability and familiarity with the source material, just like the panel. None of us have the interest and availability to regularly review WIPs and judge submissions at the same time. We're not gonna make judges divide their time on voting on submissions and commenting on WIPs, and we're never going to appoint separate WIP judges. The form itself pretty much lists everything negative that can ever happen with a submission. Those elaborate almost fully on the OCR standards. It's a great way to get the listeners who are interested and have the potential aptitude to give good feedback thinking more critically and training their ear as to what makes for a cohesive work of music.

No, because we'd rather be able to receive tracks that are longer than 6 minutes even though we have the filesize limit in place.

Way to not put your birthday in your profile, n00b! (The things I do for you kids.) Have a cake, Blake!

When Jimmy offered me the opportunity to help on the track with some voice work, we initially had some sort of spoken word-style lyrics in mind, but I'm a lot happier with how the track turned out using the Yoshinori Kitase quote. The awesomeness of the effects was all Jimmy's doing, and made me sound like a million bucks. Hopefully people appreciate the quote as well for the purpose of tying the arrangement even closer to the game and its creative direction. Original lyrics would have been cool, but I thought it was a great way to give Kitase a well-deserved tribute. Having helped a lil' on the side with arrangement choices thanks to Jimmy asking me for feedback, it's certainly a nice honor to have a good hand in this one and become an official OC ReMixer in the process!

Nah, first come, first serve. Have some cake, Kenobio!!!

remixer name: Mo-tech real name: Stephen Moroz website: http://mo-tech.newgrounds.com/ user id #: 23466 Name of Game: KLAX for the NES Name of Song remixed: Dance of the Fairies Name of Remix: Out of Orbit Link to Remix: I'm also including an mp3 of the original tune and a screenshot of the KLAX title screen. -------- Well, this is my first OC Remix, and there are a half dozen more in the oven. I've been wanting to submit a tune to the site for a long time, (almost a decade!) but I never seem to meet my own exacting standards. I can't help it. I'm a perfectionist and my own worst critic. My philosophy when it comes to videogame remixes is that the new tune has to be instantly recognizable to those who have played the game, but yet acceptable by those who aren't impressed by the novelty of videogame remixes. It's a tough line to walk, but I think this remix does it pretty well. Thanks for listening! Mo -------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/nsf/klax.zip - Track 4 Opens up with some interesting beats and processing, with the sample NSF melody coming in from :26-1:06. Afterwards, this moved over into some cool ambiance, thought the melody got buried underneath the swirly pad-style sounds. For that genteel of a melody, you need to mix it so that it takes the foreground. From around 1:55-2:55, you couldn't even significantly hear the melody. Considering the original had nothing but the melody and some sparse beats, you have to have the source melody very audible at all times in order to keep the connection to the original strong and not marginalize it the way you did here. Also, the production here was pretty muddy; hopefully some other Js can give specific criticisms/advice on what can be done to get a better more balanced soundscape while not changing the writing you had in place. Went back to the NSF sampling briefly from 2:56-2:59 to transition into a trance-like arrangement until 4:46. A solid enough adaptation, there, but it dragged because it didn't have any evolution or development for that whole 1 3/4 minutes. I can click anywhere in that section and it just sounds the same. I didn't have a problem with the return of the NSF sampling from 4:50-5:16, as the glassy lead also played the melody at a slower pace alongside the sampling. Because the NSF sampling wasn't used as a crutch to provide the actual usage of the source tune, I was ultimately ok with it, but that's just my single opinion; we'll see how the other Js feel. 5:43-5:56 had the NSF sampling gated for the finish. Again, make sure the melody stays in the foreground the whole way from 1:06-2:55, and throw some sort of variation/further interpretation in the the 3:00-4:46 section. You don't have to do anything drastic for the latter, but there's gotta be something substantive. Play with the rhythms of the melody; for example, like you did for 5:43-5:56, but not with the NSF sampling. Conceptually, you've already got the right idea. Given how spartan the original was, you've definitely enhanced it with added writing ideas and presented something fairly interpretive ideas. Now you need to polish up the production and sound balance, and strengthen some of the arrangement ideas for a more cohesive package. You should definitely throw some more time into this one, use the ReMixing and Works forums here for any questions you may have, and send this back. I'd love to see some form of this mix up on the front page, Stephen. NO (resubmit)

Happy birthday as well to debeerguy007, Kevin "Lorenzo" Sisk! He occupies a permanent spot in my VGM fandom heart with his Terminator 2 ReMix, 'CSM 101 Level One' [sic], a Tim Follin mix! Here's hoping Kevin continues pursuing voice acting and otherwise going after the cool stuff in life that we all wanna do, but aren't ballsy enough to go for. Keep up the good work, Kevin!

That was a good example of a djp Override.

Coop, you also need to make "Nice Wedding" and "Nice Baby" variants. One for every occasion!

He's one crazy cracka! (He's gotta be if he's gonna get married!) For the creator of Bound Together, which single-handedly lifted EarthBound's profile in the community, and SPLUNK!, which did nothing to raise Spelunker's profile, I wish you the happiest of birthdays! Happy 27th!

I'm not a machine. I'll go back to the other questions and answer 'em when I have the time. Nah, anything posted before that rule went into effect will be kept as is, much like how we haven't asked for re-encodings of anything over 6MB.

It's a great resource; looking good. Now everyone who wants to collaborate with me can find my information easily. I have all skills and play all instruments! Just look me up!

I gotta agree, that question isn't clear at all. I think the core of what you're saying is "can you get a mix passed without manipulating the melody, structure and mood of the source material?" That answer is no.

Nice work, Brian!

Happy 21st to Sebastian, one of OCR's beloved Swedes, who supplies us with crazier and crazier mixes. His Seiken Densetsu 3 mix might admittedly be too crazy! Please wish Sebastian the best, since his car was stolen recently. When recovered, a window was smashed and the radio was stolen. It could have been a lot worse! Hopefully every birthday after this one gets better and better!

Would need a <6MB version if this passes - LT Hey people in powa! Mix name: Kabuki Frogs Game name: Mystical Ninja Goemon’s Great Adventure Remixer name: RTF (former Red Tailed Fox, if it is ever possible to change the other name). Site: http://www.myspace.com/musikrtf I have a new mix for you guys, and it is from the fantastic Mystical Ninja series. I chose the game “Goemon’s Great Adventure” to pay my homage because that’s probably my favorite OST ever. So great, that I never actually got around to remixing one of the tunes without feeling completely unsatisfied in the end. The track is "Burning My Soul" (track 20). I used part 1 as my base of ideas, but if I remeber correctly, parts 2 and 3 are more like rearrangments then separated songs (I could be wrong tough). Anyways, stick with part 1. The purpose here was to capture the oriental-flavored homo-rocking goofy-funkness of the original songs and… just let it flow through my filter, really. There is not much I can add in terms of though: it was fun and there’s lotta solos. PS.: I’d like to thank very much both zircon and JJT for the help they gave me here, and Shnabubula for providing the web space. You all rock and I love you all. And everybody else. And Goemon. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/usf/ggausf.rar - 20 "Burning My Soul (Part 1)" Short theme, but surprisingly difficult to internalize, since the arrangement was so liberal. Wasn't easy picking up all of the connections. Would be interested in hearing Shna's take on this same theme, as it seems like it would suit his style. Not too much to say here. I thought the track felt a little thin in the back, but the textures were still very nice, and I was really feeling the interpretation when I heard it in play. Good idea interpreting the bassline of the original and making more of a focal point for the arrangement, Caio! Good stuff from 2:26 with the Goemon-style soloing. The fadeout ending worked pretty well. A very chill and relaxing listen. Need a source breakdown from someone else. Pretty liberal, but still connected enough that it's nearly at 50% source usage with the overt connections I heard (:08-1:09, 1:25-1:58, 2:00-2:12, 2:38-2:42, 3:24-3:51). Someone else let me know if I'm missing anything, and I'll be able to decide on a vote. Meanwhile, I'll ask Caio as well.

Whatever game the artist designates it as (as well as platform for a multiplatform release), that's the game the ReMix would most likely go under. If the artist gave no info on that, we pick the game it would go under, usually the first game the source tune was a part of.

Greetings to all who happen to read this text. I go under the name of Flexstyle, and I'm proud to submit my very first serious Game Remix to OCRemix! For this remix, I chose one of my favorite games--the original Rayman--and chose the theme of Betilla the Fairy, who gives Rayman his powers. I've created, with the guidance of the WIP-crew on the forums, a thumping-yet-dreamy Trance-ish mix of Betilla's theme. I called it "The Power to Heal" because that's basically what Betilla does. Gives powers and healing. Y'know? Anyways, enough about all that. Here's the important stuff: SOURCE MP3: REMIX MP3: REMIXER NAME: Flexstyle REAL NAME (sorta): Mike Hudson (Not my real last name, but it's the one I use on the internet--I'm a very cautious person) EMAIL: djflexstyle@hotmail.com, or djflexstyle@yahoo.com WEBSITE: www.acidplanet.com/flexstyle/songs, or www.myspace.com/flexstylemusic USERID#: 22246 GAME NAME: Rayman (since this was the first one, it had no subtitle or anything) SONG NAME: Betilla the Fairy GAME INFO: Listed under "Sound Effects and Music" in the credits are the following names: Stephane Bellanger, Didier Lord with Sylvain Brunet, Nathalie Drouet, Dominique Dumont, Kamel Feunas, Remy Gazel, Didier Leglise, Jean-Marc Lichtmann, Frederic Louvre, Oliver Mortier, Frederic Prados, Stephane Ronse, Rene De Wael, and Olaf Zalcman. The game publisher was UbiSoft, and the game systems released on included the PlayStation 1, PC, and Nintendo Gameboy Advance.

Yeah, some good stuff here. Doesn't seem to have logged into his MySpace in a while. Does he have any other web presence?