Liontamer

Original Decision: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=11479 Avaris Shaun Wallace 15843 Final Fantasy XII Hitoshi Sakimoto Square Enix Game Over Found a couple things drastically wrong with the mastering in the previous version. Fixed those and replaced one of the drum samples. Thanks for listening. ~Shaun

Over the filesize limit; would need a J to properly downsample this if it passed - LT * Your ReMixer name - Kidd Cabbage * Your real name - Jonathan Peros (or Jon... God, I can't remember which I put with my last submission!) * Your email address - jdperos@hotmail.com * Your website - http://kiddcabbage.scott-bloom.com * Your userid (number, not name) on our forums - 21995 * Name of game(s) arranged - Super Castlevania IV * Name of individual song(s) arranged - Theme of Simon, The Entrance Hall, Into The Castle, Chandeliers * Remix name - Death Stroke * Link to mix: http://kiddcabbage.scott-bloom.com/music/Kidd_Cabbage_-_Death_Stroke.mp3 Hey, I'm back. This song is a real heavy, energetic mix from Super Castlevania IV. It's about half-based on the Theme of Simon, the song from the first level, and the rest of the songs remixed are pretty butchered up. The intro to the Theme of Simon has always struck a huge resemblence with Mozart's 25th Symphony to me, so I made a very small reference to it in the remix. A downright heavy mix with a lot of synth-basings. I really love this lead synth setting I found, so I exploited it a lot. I arranged this game and trashed the arrangement and started from scratch about a dozen times to come to what I've got here. I hope you guys enjoy the mix. Another thing - the song is just barely over the submission limit at 6.06mb. I hope that's ok. I recently lost my projects folder, and all of my music in it, including this song, so I can't really go back and export it at a lower samplerate. Hopefully what I've got can slide, being that this is the only surviving copy of the mix since... the accident. If this song still doesn't fit the submission standards, though, I ask that you leave the mix link up for everyone else, since I can't really resubmit at this point. Enjoy! ---------------------------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=scv4 - "Theme of Simon" (scv4-04.spc), "Entrance Hall" (scv4-12a.spc), "In the Castle" (scv4-11.spc) & "Chandeliers" (scv4-12b.spc) I'm just listing the sources you gave; all I really made any connection with was "Theme of Simon" and "Chandeliers". "Entrance Hall" felt too liberal offhand, and I just wasn't hearing "In the Castle". Not a big deal though; there was more than enough of the material I recognized in there. The production was the low point here, IMO. I don't mind a grungy soundscape, but there was too much compression here resulting in a very cluttered end result. Sucks that the project files for this are gone. I'd definitely prefer to get a better separated mixing of this. On the plus side, the arrangement was felt nicely expansive via the new supporting writing, particularly the percussion writing, which had some great energy and didn't play the lazy time keeping role, with even the more basic patterns lending movement and direction. The medley structure flowed pretty well, everything piecing together nicely. Not feeling the production at all, but by the third listen you get more accustomed to it. That's about all praise I can give there, as the compression went overboard. The arrangement was an easy YES to me. Listening to this when it came out for DoD's Castlevania month, I remembered being low on the sound quality when SnappleMan and I shot the shit over the results. I can understand how the production cost it a few points in the voting: I think it's pretty clear I enjoyed this track. It should be anyway. My heart says YES borderline, but, when I'm honest with myself, I wouldn't let this level of production slide otherwise, so I'm gonna have to be a dick and go NO (borderline). I could see this passing, albeit because the arrangement is too strong and the production isn't enough to drag it down, so good luck with the rest of the vote, Jon.

Remixer Name: Sixto Sounds & Zircon Real Name: Juan P. Medrano & Andrew Aversa Email: forgotten_imp@yahoo.com Website: http://tadakichi.baka.us/Sixto_Sounds/ UserID: I can't find this thing ANYWHERE Game Remixed: TMNT4: Turtles in Time! Song Remixed: Sewer Surfin' When I was a kid and got my very own Super NES system one Christmas, my dad would take us down to the movie rental place every weekend. We would each pick one game. My sister always wanted to get Super Mario All-Stars. For me, it was usually one of two games; Street Fighter II or Turtles in Muthafuckin' Time. Awesome game. JAWESOME. Listening to the soundtrack now takes me back to those good ol' days. Days without worries or responsibilities. Just us kids being kids. *sigh* Anyway, the soundtrack is pretty much rocked out as it is. I just had to do the typical Sixto thing and rock it out a little more. I wanted to go all 80's hair metal on this and use some vintage guitar rock tones and synths. The guitar tones were no problem, but the synths were pretty generic. I'm no good with synths. At all. So, at the very last minute, Zircon begged me to let him into the remix, so I obliged. He used his tehcno wizardry to conjure up some phat synths and whatnot. Really helped the mix, I think. Enjoy! --------------------------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=tit - "Sewer Surfin'" (tit-06.spc) Probably a tough job, but I felt like the overall sound could have been a bit cleaner, as some areas felt lossy or cramped out (e.g. the drums), but it wasn't a significant enough problem. More on the cover-ish side overall, but a very personalized arrangement with solid interpretation and swanky soloing. The composition of the big dropoff and subsequent rebuilding from 2:55-3:37 was my personal highlight. Easy call. YES

Happy birthday, David! Great work. Like I told you before (and you've heard already), Fran Healy of Travis. You're the second coming. Submit "Over Oceans Blue!"

It was truly over after the first post. SomeCrazyGuy, I'm not sure what else you can reasonably expect without implying that people should be insincere in order to provide the reactions you want.

You need to look harder. We need a version under 6MB in order to post it. PM me with a new encoding when you have a chance.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=top - "Freeze" (top-109.spc) Aight, opens up pretty gentile. The higher string work in particular sounds decent but sloppy in terms of some of the sequencing/attacks being jerky and unrealistic when they're more exposed in the beginning (:23-1:23). Agreed with DS on the piano velocities needing to be refined as well. Still seems pretty aimless, composition-wise. I just don't care if it's a byproduct of the genre; if you're working with melodious music and someone you end up with melodic wanderlust, in most cases it's because something's not clicking. What the hell? Ok, so the whole track is quiet as a mouse, then these comparatively loud as hell beats come in, completely out of left field, at 2:31. Reread DarkeSword's crits there; these drums definitely aren't working as is. The arrangement also feels too liberal, which I should have come down harder on. I mean, I see the resemblance, but from :30-on, it feels too inspired by the source and not explicitly derived from it. Didn't get anything explicit until the chorus at 1:23, which was still pretty liberal before playing it straighter from 1:48-2:11. Most of the time though I'm getting the "inspired by" vibe from this piece rather than explicit derivation. I'd appreciate a breakdown next time if this was resubbed, just to understand the source usage better. Honestly, I would have put more work into focusing the composition, so I don't agree with DS's praise there. There's too little direction, undermining the effectiveness of the dynamic changes in the composition. (And a look back on my previous vote shows that exact same criticism in the conclusion last time.) Unfortunate, because you seem to be retaining the overall structure of the original, at least as best as I can tell. In any case, this still needs more focus, as well as keeping all of the instrumentation criticisms DS mentioned in mind if you wanted to resubmit this. I don't mean to sound harsh, but I don't see how the changes here make this any sort of improvement over the previous version. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gsf/fireemblem_gsf.rar - "The Archsage Athos", "Silent Ground" & "A Knight's Oath" Interesting opening. Didn't feel like the percussion here worked at all, the sounds chosen or the delay effect on them. Whoa, not very melodic at all at :45. Barely anything is harmonizing properly here whatsoever. You really need to develop an ear for piecing together music at the most basic level. Even the melodies don't work here. I totally feel what DarkeSword is saying about there being no hook to this piece. There's no hook and no direction. "I tried to make a sort of epic lullaby. Relaxing yet epic at the same time." You could not be any further from the truth if you tried. On the arrangement side, there's just not too much to say. The attempt is there to get interpretive and change the mood of the sources, primarily "The Archsage Athos", but there's not even a coherent melody. So at that level, there's not much else to analyze or praise about what was modified without the caveat of "but it was poorly written and not musical." I need to add poor composition to the list of form rejection bullet points. It's actually not on there. It's just we get so few of these, i.e. no sense of musicality, but half-decent sounds/production. Beyond salvageable. I don't WANT to just give you a hardcore negative vote; I'd honestly love to give you constructive criticism, and I usually find at least a few things to praise in any given sub. But as far as this track goes, there's practically nothing to work with aside from the sound quality not being terrible out of the box. Don't give up on music, but do go back to the drawing board. NO

Original Decision: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=11351 Your ReMixer name: Joren de Bruin Your real name: Joren de Bruin Your email address: ayato_kamina1@hotmail.com Your website: - Your userid: Can't find this, forumname= Tensei-San Name of game(s) arranged: Castlevania II and a bit of III Name of individual song(s) arranged: Bloody Tears and Beginning Remix Name: Roar! O, Mighty Vampire Killer! Link to Remix: http://www.tindeck.com/audio/my/kmsz/Roar--O--Mighty-Vampire-Killer- Well I've said pretty much everything you need to know about this in the initial submission, so I'll just point out the differences with that one: I did all the mixing and mastering myself this time, and IMO it worked out decently. One big complaint was the general lo-fi feeling caused by a narrow stereo FX, but I'm pretty sure that's more than fixed now. Apart from that I upgraded several of the cheaper sounding components (Most notably the drums and strings), and tried to make the weaker aspects of the mix (bass, kick drum) more audible. Anyway, I hope you like it Joren -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/nsf/castle~1.zip - Track 2 http://www.zophar.net/nsf/castlev3.zip - Track 1 Some side comments first. The timing of the piano intro was awkward; mechanically sequenced yet off-time. The piano chords from :37-:43 still sound wrong. I was a big fan of the drum programming here; nice and varied as well to drive the track forward, evolving alongside the general dynamic of the track. Most people who submit apparently think this is the least important thing in the world. The only thing I wasn't feeling there were the machine guns drums from 3:13-3:39; they sounded like they were distorting. The ending also cut off abruptly. Now it could be my download, or it could be the Tindeck upload; but no matter what, I hate cut-off endings. If this was from your side, you should have tested your track to make sure it uploaded properly. I'm feeling you on these instrument improvements, they're definitely noticeable. The overall mixing is still pretty bad on this one though, which is something I'm confident you'll pick up properly in time with advice and trial & error. But right now, this isn't getting the job done. Lots of the highs are blistering, and there's poor separation of parts during the fullest sections. I'll leave specific recommendations to the music Js. So in short, the arrangement to me was on pretty solid ground. Don't be discouraged, I remember when SnappleMan was at this same point in his early material on OCR with "Killer Dokko", i.e. solid arrangement ideas, weak production. This isn't terrible, but hopefully some other Js can dig deeper on why the soundscape sounds so off. I don't think this is on a nitpick level though. NO (refine/resubmit)

Yeah, we'll see what to do about potential Wiki accounts, though I may end up adding everything. I'd rather 2 or 3 of y'all worked in tandem. Getting this moving is added onto my to-do list.

The judges decision can help you with that.

Yeah, I remember when the list wasn't alphabetical and Makke asked if we started from the top and worked down the list. Why would we do that? And why would we judge alphabetically? When you look in Decisions, does that look like we're judging alphabetically? Maybe we should vote alphabetically by judge handle as well. Big Giant Circles, CHz and DarkeSword have to vote first, in that order. Think it through, y'all. Don't worry Heath, we just rejected your mix.

This isn't to put you down or anything, but at the skill level you're currently at, I wouldn't resubmit this without solid WIP feedback of the revisions from notable names and/or some direct feedback from a judge on how strong the revisions are. You wanna really spruce this up before attempting the resub.

Remixer name: Vidilian Real name: Vidal Spaine Email: vspaine14@hotmail.co.uk Game: Fire Emblem 7 Songs: Athos' theme, Silent ground and Knight's Oath Composer: Yuka Tsujiyoko System: Gameboy Advance Fire Emblem games definitley have underated soundtracks imo. Probably because the games aren't that popular. I love them though and wanted to do a remix of songs from the first game of the series that I played, 7. I tried to make a sort of epic lullaby. Relaxing yet epic at the same time. All done with a PSR1500 keyboard so I'm sample quality of some of the intruments and the choir is good enough. My second attempt at getting a mix on the site. I've improved quite a bit since the last mix I feel, but we'll see.

Hey guys, Thought I'd toss this remix your way all though it may be a bit too cheesy for your site. There is a small site by the name of Vs compo where (among other things) us crazy remixers do one on one battles with one another. We pick a game, a song, and the time to do it in. I posted an introduction to myself there saying that I couldn't think of who to challenge or what game to try so I invited them to come to me instead with an idea. Little did I know that a certain someone by the name of KungFuFurby would accept my proposition and hit me with remixing something from the SNES version of RevolutionX. But hey, I wanted a challenge right? His explanation was basically that he wanted to see if we could make something good out of a game and soundtrack generally regarded as horrible . How could I not at least try? Yes, I am aware that half of the soundtrack consists of lo-fi Areo Smith songs and the other half is pretty awful. In case you haven't figured it out by now I am obviously nuts . Also, I am pretty sure that the way in which I used in-game sound fx and voice clips will have some of you cringing or at least wondering "What the hell man!?!" My reply to you is simply this. They were there for me to use, and given the oddity of the game in question how could I not? I think it's pretty cool and hilarious at the same time, but I am no OC judge and there is probably good reason for that . In any case, I mixed 2 songs together. "Inside Club X" and "Outside club X" and threw in some original improvisations all over the place. I really added a ton here. I hope you at least enjoy it! Oh, and if you're having trouble locating the SNES source that's no problem . http://mystro88.googlepages.com/revx.rsn Well, I look forward to comments from you guys on this one. If you "no" this I guess I could see why. I think "De- De-De De-De D-D-D Destroy!" could be insanely catchy. The title of this one is called "Music is a weapon" for obvious reasons. Well, I guess that's it then. Man, it'd be rad to see this posted but somehow I sort of doubt it . Oh well, thanks for taking the time to listen and give feedback. Take it easy, Jredd-

Original Decision: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=7741 Sup OG, So, in the time since I last subbed this particular track, I've tweaked it quite a bit. It's for the Tales project, so, on the off chance it gets accepted, it needs to be on lockdown. Here's the link & info! Remxer: The Joker Name: David L. Puga Email: Jtown_music(at)yahoo.com Website: www.myspace.com/davidlpuga Forum#:8669 (I think) Track: Cold Memory Game: Tales of Phantasia Song: Freeze Additonal: Summoning of Spirits Project track. Comments: Since the last time I submitted, I tweaked the arrangement considerably. Not so much in the first half, just added some string lines & tweaked arrangement. Though, the second half is almost completely new. Not so sure I did a good job on the new age-ish drums, but, I dig'em. What else... this is really the last & final version I'm gonna do of this track, so hopefully it'll pass. Hope you guys dig it! Later lates, David

I just want to leave a side note that you don't necessarily need to get overzealous with adding new things in a vertical way, but more varying things horizontally. The source tune should not get completely lost in any revision of the arrangement. As I mentioned, it would be nice to get a little bit more of the source in the foreground aside from the intro and ending.

I've been voting on everything for 3 1/2 years. "I'm a legend, bitch! I'm a legend!" P.S. Watch us fall behind again.

Still dislike that organ intro. YES-able, but the sax performance lacks a lot of polish for the first verse. Things feels a lot smoother on that level later on. 2:51 was just sour though. I hope zircon gave you notes or a breakdown on what he did Brad, so you can apply that knowledge to future work. This is definitely a lot more balanced, with the other instrumentation locking together nicely, and the individual parts being very distinguishable. Nice rebalancing of the whole thing to let Brad's solid, creative composition shine through properly.

Original Decision: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=12914 worked on it like hell... hope this one qualifies. Remixer Nick - Lep666 Real Name - Shai Buskila Game - Raptor: Call Of The Shadows Original Track Name - Level 6 Remix Name - Eclipse -------------------------------------------------------------- Raptor: Call of the Shadows - Level 6 The intro still sounded pretty good. The string attacks at :31 were more serviceable, along with some decent brass support, although the soundscape was still to swamped up during those fuller section. The percussion at 1:07 was ok, but still felt a bit out of place. The new string work from 1:33 was ok. The volume effects from 1:38-1:43, didn't make much sense, with the last string writing from 1:41-1:42 sounding awkward. The brass samples first used at 1:43 sounded a bit flat. The strings at 2:24 were a bit jerky with the attacks but were serviceable. The acoustic guitar awkwardly cut out at 2:50. Well, they say fools rush in, and I feel like you resubmitted too fast given the vast amount of criticisms last time. Use those forums like I mentioned last time, get feedback before you rush into hitting us with it again. You're still moving in the right direction, but the polish isn't quite there yet. NO (resubmit)

Ha! Just BARELY over the size limit (6,295,424 bytes), I think this is the closest I've seen someone get over exactly 6MB (6,291,456 bytes). http://www.zophar.net/nsf/kidicar.zip - Tracks 1, 2, 3 & 10 Yeah, I remember this arrangement from last time around. To me, this was a marked improvement, but not on solid enough ground yet. It's definitely too quiet to start. Even with an orchestral dynamic in mind, the intensity of the performance during the intro make this volume level sound unnatural. Nothing a volume raise on my site couldn't fix, but this should still be looked into. The full-stop transition at 1:43 wasn't a big deal as a 1-time thing. I've eased off of coming down as hard on medley-itis since the last time around on this, in that, if the arrangement is substantive enough, I'm not bothered by abrupt-level changes as long as the overall presentation feels like a cohesive-enough unit. Generally, I got the sense of that here, though even 2:39's transition was too abrupt. The soundfield definitely felt cluttered from 2:11-2:27. Definitely agreed with zircon re: the drums at 2:57 not contributing much due to their volume. All the drumwork still felt out of place to me, though less so than last time. As to many of the technical aspects zircon cited, I wouldn't be able to ID most of those things if I tried. Those didn't affect my vote, but it sounded like good insight and production advice at a deeper level that could be useful. The sample quality sticks out, mainly the brass. The string work and woodwinds were handled better, though I heard some mechanical sequencing with the woodwinds in particular. Though I wasn't as bothered by the lack of realism as zircon, it's nonetheless still a significant issue that affects the listen. For something where brass is so integral, the quality there in both sequencing and tone needs to be stepped up. But really, much of the instrumentation sounded thin and inhuman, undermining the strengths of the composition. Those are unfortunately still the dealbeakers on this one. Wish this could be refurbished with more realistic sequencing and some stronger sounds, but even if not, James, I'm looking forward to your next works, no matter what they are. NO (resubmit)

Your ReMixer name – Navij11 Your real name – Jacob Naviasky Your email address – jnav@nycap.rr.com Your website – http://navij11.com/ Your userid – 20089 Name of game(s) arranged – Kirby and the Amazing Mirror Name of individual song(s) arranged – Opening Theme Additional information about game including composer, system, etc. – System was the GameBoy Advance, I could not find the composer. Link to the original soundtrack (if it is not one of the sound archives already available on the site) - Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc. – This time I took a very cautious approach, unlike usual. I asked about the song on the forums, and they offered helpful tips on how to improve. This was meant to be a stylized piece, modeled after intelligent drum and bass from the mid to late 1990s, and I was attempting to emulate the well known artist Omni Trio. I think it came out well. This track is deceptively repetitive, and if you think that this song is too repetitive, then you are not listening right. To listen to this song: Get a comfortable pair of headphones and sit in a nice chair. Close your eyes and drift away. I swear that this will make the song much more enjoyable then simply staring at the blank putfile screen for 3 minutes. Enjoy guys, I worked hard on this one J Link to song: -------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/gsf/KirbyTAM.rar - 02 "Legend of the Mirror World" Well, the source is definitely arranged and in here pretty much the whole time, but is plays more of a background role to the beats and original writing on top. Kind of Ninja Tune-ish in terms of style, if y'all have heard of that label, only this is a lot less coherent of an idea. Not really anything melodic going on. Sure I am. Pretty much all of your support elements are repeating ad infinitum, especially the percussion & bassline. It's mostly just minor additional and subtraction of elements giving the track its dynamic curve. I see what you're saying, and agree with you to some extent. From a vertical building standpoint, most of this arrangement doesn't have much to do with Kirby, but what's there is surprisingly interpretive given how simple the source is. It's hard to fully get behind this though when the source tune is given such a peripheral role. I'm probably a lot more enthusiastic about this sub than most. This is almost nailing that Ninja Tune style. I'll be keeping it. A little bit more development of the source tune, Jacob, including potentially giving it more of a foreground role somewhere would be good. This doesn't need an overhaul, and I'd like to think we're open enough to an unconventional arrangement approach like this. With that said, using the source as more of background role doesn't discount the overall expansive approach of the arrangement as being uninterpretive, but it does have the tendency to make the source inclusion seem more of an afterthought rather than the focus. Very close to YESing this. The addition/subtraction composition style did help, but ultimately the cruise control of the instrumentation pushed me just under the borderline. We'll see how the others feel. NO (borderline/refine/resubmit)

This more recent news piece gives more information on the victims and nature of the recovery of the five men, including Reuben: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/313696/1/.html

I was there!

Posted on VG Frequency, just a summation of the events via the articles we saw, but also includes links to Reuben's various locations on the internet if you want to see and hear more of his work.