Liontamer

Never any rush from me. Tis upcoming, and that's good enough for me. The only person I put on deadlines is myself.

I've just posted regarding another interview from Tales of Shadows, this time putting the questions to Sephfire. If you can be persuaded, leave comments. They are currently my lifeblood. Meanwhile, the content flows like wine over at VGF thanks to efforts of beautiful people like The Lady (who likes "Cerebral Rose Jam") as well as the smelly likes of no-good miscreants such as CHz and Dhsu (who, for the sake of being contrary, likely spit upon "Cerebral Rose Jam"). Keep an eye on the next few days for more from the latter two. Dhsu recently discovered his own tribute that he's gonna share some comments on at my behest. And why not? It isn't often that you get that kind of fan recognition. Like I warned David though, it also means there's yet another rival AZN PIANO PLAYER!~ for him to be aware of. Just when he thought all he had to do was kidnap the Video Game Pianist...

Keep an open mind; it's a doozy - LT ReMix: Escalloniaceae (version)+ Link: http://www.duke.edu/~jfw7/DemanusFlint-_Escalloniaceae_(version)+.mp3 ReMixer name: DemanusFlint Real name: Jonathan Wall E-mail address: jfw7@duke.edu Website: http://www.duke.edu/~jfw7 Userid: 2200 Name of game ReMixed: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island Name of individual song ReMixed: Yoshi's Island (Title Screen) I request that the link to this file remains if the ReMix is rejected. Comments: Well, after five or six years of reading and listening to OCReMix I finally decided to submit something. While there have been tons of examples of really interesting dance or techno music, plenty of neat rock tracks, some well-done orchestral pieces, and some swingin' jazz tunes, I still feel like there is a lot of musical territory that OCR has (as yet) left alone. This piece is an attempt to branch out into genres that have never been explored by many other ReMixes. This piece is, at heart, lo-fi organic drone, inspired by artists such as Fursaxa, Organ Eye, and Avarus. The mbira has a Yuka & Yoshimi influence. A lot of the field recordings and loop-based composition have their roots in Noah Lennox, Eric Copeland, and David Portner, and the distortion is inspired by Daniel Higgs. Basically, without that gratuitous name-dropping, this piece represents a lot of what I listen to. Nearly every track in this piece was recorded by me, whether I performed them live or created field recordings. The bass and toms are synthesized, but every other track is as purely organic as I could make it. While it has been confirmed that other people enjoy this piece, I do understand that it may not follow the standards that OCR has already established. It's simply my wish to see a great site with plenty of great songs grow into what I consider great genres of music. Let me know what you think, and if you think it can be salvaged be sure to point out how! Thanks so much! --Jonathan --------------------------------------------------------------- The part of the source first used starts at :24. http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=yi - "Yoshi's Island" (yi-03.spc) Now to me, this is a bunch of noise. And I don't mean to sound close-minded on it, because I'm not. I can roll with this approach, and realize that it's a purposeful one. Yet the way everything's put together, it's difficult to pick out any one part vs. all of the others. Keep in mind, this stuff would be less of a factor in the face of a kick-ass interpretation of the source material. But... Aside from the source melody though, there's nothing else with arrangement value in terms of interpreting the source. On top of that, the few parts you have playing the source melody and percussion essentially do so verbatim compared with the original. The percussion might as well be direct sampling with how close it sounds. There's very little interpretive substance here besides adding all the various loops on top; if you mentally peel them away, you're left with very little substance in terms of your interpretation of the source. Whatever little arrangement value may have been present from 3:26 until the end was lost among a lot of noise. If you're going to go this route where you go for more of a wall of noise, I think it's still necessary to produce so that it doesn't attack the ears. It seems to me from your WIP thread though, that this came out how you want it, so, on that level, more power to you. But if you'd like to provide more interpretive substance with the actual source tune and not hinge nearly everything on the surrounding sounds, then tone down the ear-breakage portions also and try again. This is something different and that's cool, but there's gotta be that balance between honoring the framework of the chosen genre and effectively interpreting the original VGM material. NO

More background information please.

Good job, y'all. Be sure to read http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6716 once you visit that area of the forums.

Excellent. The track's already come a long way in just PRC99, so I'm looking forward to seeing how else you spruce it up. Definitely keep us informed of your progress and welcome aboard.

The complete version is now available here and any further reviews can be posted here.

Props on getting the pass for this one, Ryan.

The complete version is now available here and any further reviews can be posted here.

The complete version is now available here and any further reviews can be posted here.

The complete version is now available here and any further reviews can be posted here.

The complete version is now available here and any further reviews can be posted here.

The complete version is now available here and any further reviews can be posted here.

Late in arriving to this one, but I like to seal the deal on passed mixes. The complete version is now available here and any further reviews can be posted here.

Nice work on this one. The ending needs to be fixed, but definitely a really smooth track in terms of blending the various themes together. Great job there, Niels.

Nice work, Rich, thanks a lot for sending this!

This is now our current oldest submission. Guys, keep it moving.

You should post those in the respective Review threads just in case this thread gets pruned down the line. I'd do it, but you had the scoop, Noah.

This is our new oldest track. Let's please continue the vote on this.

NOTE: Encoding has been fixed. ReMixer Name: Matt Maiorano Real Name: Matt Maiorano Game Remixed: Chrono Trigger Song Remixed: Schala's Theme This song was actually created back in 2004, but I never considered submitting it until now. I also never even played Chrono Trigger until I was a freshman in college. The game was an incredible experience for me, but when I first heard Schala's Theme I was hooked on the song itself. I had even created a separate save file on the emulator where I could hear this song and just listen to it. At that point in time, I had been dabbling in all kinds of trance and techno music and it wasn't until a year later that I actually attempted to remix the song. I took away the main melody, save for a few bits you can still hear with the strings, and focused on the chord structure giving it a more resonating and deeper tone. This allowed me to fit in a heavier beat and bass. Interestingly enough, the program I was using would only allow me to use loops that had already existed in the program itself, so I ended up taking each instrument's loop and broke it up into a single "hit" that I would play over and over again, changing the pitch every time. This allowed me to actually "compose" the music rather than "do absolutely nothing at all". The beats were a little easier, as there were no pitch shifts with the percussion. In the end, I'm very satisfied with my rendition of Schala's Theme, and I still consider it to be one of my greatest works. --------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Sara's Theme" (ct-3-06.spc) Glad to get a new version with the encoding bumped up. 80kbps/22kHz was no fun. The production on this one was a little too murky, IMO. Part of the problem with the production ending up so muddy was that the subtle parts were near-inaudible, such as the string pad at 1:09 that was arranging the source (1:18-1:21 was the direct connection). You also coast entirely too much with the percussion groove you established at 1:09, making the track seem repetitive and dynamically flat with the exception of a brief break from 1:44-2:19. From 3:11 until the end, there was essentially nothing new in terms of the interpretive ideas. In the event that you're still willing to work on an older piece such as this, develop the arrangement further, establish more dynamic contrast (doesn't have to be drastic), and clean up the production some to get this in better shape. No matter what, good luck on your current musical efforts. NO

Way higher than the filesize limit, but we'll take a look at it - LT hey, im stephen (kholdPhuzion) and i am an absolute video game freak. I hope you like this attachment, and would mean alot for it to be on your site. I love nintendo with a great passion, and i hope this qualifies. thx. name- 'The Legend Begins' Actual song- The legend of zelda opening (from the NES) --- I have always been a zelda freak, and i love creating pieces of art from it...i even made majoras mask in ceramics...its huge..haha. Im tired of people looking at video games as a waste, and people believing there is no talent in them. Video games are an incredible interactive art. They have everything an artists needs for a piece to be believed as art...a story line, music, graphics, etc. I make my music because i love it, and i want people to realize how intricate the pieces really are, and especially for its time, when they just had a tny soundcard to work off of. It amazes me how they created such masterpieces off of that. but thanks for giving this a chance, and i hope it qualifies. i have more if your interested. And all instruments are me. ^.^ ------------------------------------------------------------------ Please keep submissions at or under the 192kbps bitrate and 6MB filesize limits. http://www.zophar.net/nsf/zelda.zip - Track 1 Even though the overall sound isn't unique, there's some good effort toward personalizing the performance, interpreting the arrangement, and adding original passages. But the production is too rough, and the execution leaves a lot be desired in terms of cohesiveness. Everything, the guitar playing especially, needs to be a lot tighter, and the sound balance needs to be reworked, in particular to let the lead guitar cut through. I feel like when you perform live or mostly live, there's a little more leeway involved with timing and execution, but right now this is too sloppily put together. Looking forward to hearing more music from you though. NO

I'd say based on Yamaoka's Wikipedia entry that the soundtracks check out. They're all originally created for the games, so they're viable arrangement material. Looking forward to hearing your interpretations.

Hey Amy, good to see you around here! I actually wasn't aware that there was any ambiguity on whether some tracks from the Silent Hill series weren't originally created for the game. As far as I know, they're all good, but someone with more info would be appreciated.

Courtesy of the VG Frequency blog, I've posted some comments on NPR's story on the Washington, DC Video Games Live event. Good times were had by me during the penning of my thoughts. Enjoy.

Remixer: Palpable Game: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island Song remixed: Castle BGM So here's the thing: I started with this grand idea in my head of remixing the Underground BGM with a stiff beat. I was really excited about it until I went to the site and saw that McVaffe had already done an incredible remix of that song, not too far off what I was intending. So instead I chose another great song from the game that somehow hadn't been remixed yet, and made it fit the same 4/4 beat in my head (which gave it a nice twist, since it's originally in 3/4). I think my ambitions probably exceed my talent on this one, but I'm still mostly happy with the result. Vinnie ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=yi - "Castle & Fortress" (yi-10.spc) The arrangement was good, though I wish it relied less on that minimal yet repetitive groove from :55-3:20. Some more bells and whistles to fill out the soundfield would have been nice, but given the minimalist, it would have been killer to have the drum groove evolving more, even if the sparseness of it remained the same. The writing at the forefront of the arrangement helped carry things though, so I felt there was enough substance. Meanwhile, on headphones, the volume gets pretty piercing with those lead synths, and the overall soundscape felt cluttered when the synth lead was in play, so I'd like to see some tweaking done there for a bit more clarity and a bit less ear-hurt. Excellent change in the dynamics at 3:21, keeping things pretty chill until the big break section at 4:05, with another good dynamic build at 3:54 leading up to it. I'd want the volume and production to be refined before I felt 100% comfortable with this going up for the long haul, but what's here is solid. Cool interpretation, Vinnie. YES