Liontamer

I had Skryp send me a revised version of the "compare.mp3" he made as he first attempted to tweak the track; an easy reference - LT Original Decision: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=8900 Sounds slightly different, melody changed and title changed --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I definitely liked the older mix title a lot more, but that's not the most important thing here. http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=smr - "Sad Song" (smr-125.spc) Excepting arrangement, the only other minor differences I heard were the effects on the intro sample and the sampled dialogue being dropped way down from 2:17-2:51, which I thought was a shame. The dialogue was cool to pay attention to during the dropoff section and gave you something to tune into, but now it just feels too empty for too long. Whatchagonnado? I definitely heard all of the connections last time around but felt it added up to being borderline too liberal. With some simple melodic adjustments by Andy, the connections to the "Sad Song" melody are significantly more direct, even though most of the arrangement remains unchanged. And, thus a NO has nudged into a YES. Thanks very much Andy for being willing to revisit this one and making the minor tweaks needed to get the arrangement more solid. This is a very unique and creative addition to OCR, and your skills have come a long way. YES

I do. http://www.ocremix.org/info/ReMix_Changelog#Pre-OCR01500_Removal_Process_.28Lockdown_2.29 For the record, a good deal of people hated that track, but I was a fan.

Remixer/real name: Steve Pordon email: music3@neutronstar.org URL: http://neutronstar.org/music UserID: 11 Game: Oblivion Song: Title Screen This is my remix of the title screen, named "Cursed Earth" because I can't come up with anything better at the moment. I love the original orchestration but I wanted something a little more metal for the game. -steve ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pretty impressive source tune. Great enegy on that bitch. Sounds familiar, so I guess it's from Morrowind as well. I'm just not familiar with the soundtracks like that. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Special Edition Soundtrack - 01 "Reign of the Septims" Cool intro. A little on the empty side. The plucked lead at :13 feels rather out of place with the rest of the instrumentation, plus the sequencing sounds a bit mechanical. The melody also repeats a little too much. At :42, I wondered why we needed even more of it, when you could have done something to vary up the delivery. Changing up the percussion is a good idea, but the arrangement needs more than that. Some soloing from 1:27-1:57. Meanwhile the background stuff kept looping from :57-2:09. Some minor grace notes in the melody at 2:29. The foundation here is good, but the arrangement needs to be more comprehensive. At almost any time, the melody and/or the background repeats pretty often, with very minor variation or development. Even when one aspect changes, the other essentially holds steady, and the arrangement ends up sounding really repetitive and underdeveloped. NO (resubmit)

It was declined due to clipping and distortion. I believe I have solved those problems with the help from some lovely folks in the forums. Also I changed the name. It was originally Ortus Deus, and is now God's Birth. Remixer name: Kain Vinosec Real name: Robert Smith (please do not use) Email: kainvinosec@aol.com Website: www.embracingfate.com User ID: 21094 (I think. This is the only number I could find after I signed up. The name is kainvinosec though if that's the wrong number.) Remix Info Song's name - God's Birth Game(s) - Final Fantasy VII Song(s) - Birth Of A God, One Winged Angel Genre - Instrumental metal (E.g. The Black Mages, Dream Theater, etc. etc...) Comments: This is my first Uematsu cover that I actually spent any relevant time on. It was a request from a friend of mine (just to do Birth Of A God) and he seemed satisfied with the overall result of the song. I use midi sequencing to do the drums and then change the color using soundfonts. The rest of the instruments are all recorded live. This is the first song I've released since changing my overall sound after releasing my first original, full-length album; The Nightmare Battles (which is free to download on my website). Many, many thanks to Tensei-San, Nutritious, and everyone else that helped me with mastering techniques in the forums here. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To some, these sources are burned into the brain. Not I! Besides, a refresher is always good, even when you've heard a song a billion times. These are long-as-hell sources anyway, so there's lots of material to pluck from. http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 416 "One-Winged Angel" & 415 "The Birth of God" Opens up with some OWA on ze pianer. Started rather abruptly. The compression or whatever was wrong with it was toned WAY down from the previous submission I heard, but this still sounds pretty bad from a production standpoint. Everything sounds like a cluttery mess. I not sure how this was achieved, but I'd appreciate another J giving their educated guess. On the arrangement side, things sounds decent, but the drums are lazy, and the textures aren't very complex. Right now, the volume and distortion is what's filling the track out, not the instrumentation itself. It's rather difficult to make specific suggestions on the arrangement, when it's impossible to pick things out. The crossfade into the piano at 3:57 for the ending was a decent idea in thought, but poorly executed. You need someone to look at the individual tracks and really clean this up. You got some decent production advice from our forums, but this needed an overhaul, not a touchup. NO

The submitting artists actually sent two letters after the first one didn't get the auto-confirmation. I've taken artistic license and cut/pasted both letters into one mega-letter; I know how you guys love mega-letters! - LT Contact Info: Remixer name: TomThamuz Real name: Tom Coglianese Email address: tomcoglianese@hotmail.com Website: N/A UserID: 20124 Remix Info: Link to song: Game: Starfox Name of song: Corneria Game info: Composer: Hajime Hirasawa System: SNES Publisher/Copyright: Nintendo Comments: I remembered the first time I played Starfox, it made a huge impression on me and the rest of the gaming industry with it's polygon graphics, which would later take over gaming as we know it. It was a cutting edge game at the time, and the soundtrack perfectly fit the theme of the game. Hats off to Hajime Hirasawa for the score, this is a tribute to how it sounded to me when I first played it. After playing Starfox a few weeks ago after so many years, I pulled out the guitar and ended up figuring out the main little theme to the first Corneria level by mistake. I showed a friend of mine and he suggested that I attempt to recreate the song with tools much more powerful than the SNES had. I had some time to kill so I went ahead and did it. Then he suggested that I post it on OCReMix - you guys will probably say no, but that's okay either way. I just did it to try something new. I thought it would be an interesting project worth spending some time on. I spent about a week from start to finish. Now he wants me to redo the rest of the game. I'm not sure if my guitar-driven background would fit it at this point, only time will tell. Anyways, this is a tribute to how it sounded to me so many moons ago. The main guitar line I set with a stereo panning chorus when I recorded it to make it sound less organic and more digitally hard-edged to fit with the original song. I used the same approach on most of the MIDI instrument tracks I used - I wanted it to feel like a modern take on it, but keep it faithful to the original. The first guitar solo I am still half tempted to pull, as it was improvised on the spot for filler space and to differentiate the second half of the song. I decided to remake the intro "SCRAMBLE" sequence by hand (yes, the static is intentional) with actual sirens instead of the SNES frequency sliding they used in the original, and the "Emergency!" portion I decided to use a text-to-speech tool to emphasize it as being futuristic (besides, without a ROM debugger I'd have never been able to cleanly pull the originals). Every remix of this particular track I've heard have been straight electronica or trance without so much as a trace of the guitar-driven tempo they used in the game, so here's hoping that I pulled it off somehow (and that you all enjoy it). Thanks for listening! ---TomThamuz PS: Yes, the static is intentional. ------------------------------------------------------------ http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=sf - "Corneria" (sf-09.spc) Cool rock cover approach. I'll admit, it helped that your source tune was great for a rock mix. It wasn't hugely interpretive, but the writing was certainly expanded a bit and there was a noticeable degree of personalizing the performance via the electric guitar with note embellishments and some brief freestyling. Ultimately, it wasn't enough from the arrangement perspective, but it could be worked on. The only times I ever heard your bass were when the electric guitars cleared out (e.g. 2:32-2:34, 2:42). All other times, it was, for all intents and purposes, barely audible and didn't contribute anything significant. Too bad, because it could have played a valuable role here. Expanding on that, the production wasn't that hot. It's not terrible, but there was a lot of mud and lossiness to the sounds. It was a decent grungy feel, but on the cluttered side. Try and better separate the parts with some selective EQing. You do have a 6MB filesize ceiling as well and may want to bump up the encoding quality. The sequenced drumwork left a lot to be desired. It was pretty flimsy and didn't mesh well with the other sounds. The percussion writing was on the plain side, but you varied up the patterns well enough. Figure out ways to add some more meat to the drums. Good use of sound effects though. The air raid sirens (1:44) were a bit over the top, but everything else was cool. Cool ending as well focused on that aspect. With better attention paid to the production, Tom, I'd be comfortable giving this a go. Very cool. Keep working on this one and send it back; I like the potential of what you've got in place so far. NO (resubmit)

Praise the Lord!

As in, played on an acoustic piano, as opposed to a digital one.

All post-concert/meetup discussion has been moved to the related Announcements thread. http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=10465 Thanks again to all who came out to enjoy the meetup and concert!

Grooooooooooooooovetactular. The purposeful dissonant areas hit me wrong, but this one is definitely infectious. Been idly thinking about the groove on this one for days.

For the sheer hell of it (hey, I love the album), I posted a review of Quinn Fox's late 2005 album "Fitz Warine II". It's a good intro into Quinn's original material for those that aren't familiar with it. Enjoy.

"2nd exodus?" Did all the Jews leave that time?

That heavy reverb gave the track a lot more body and made it sound like it was played directly on a piano. I wouldn't have cut the reverb down this much. Now it doesn't sound roomy and organic anymore. If it were mine, I would have just raised the overall levels around 5.5db and made sure it didn't clip. Nevertheless, this is still more than fine for OC ReMix, so if you wanted to leave it like this, that's fine.

Of course, new avatars are continually being accepted as they come in. Thanks to interweb cousins Solo & Polo for the Punch-Out avatars, which now have their own category. I also spent the weekend updating all the avatar labels with more details (along with catching up on the judges queue). Basically, the labels are only as detailed as the various filenames are. Stuff like anime, I've got no clue on. It's not a big deal if no one helps, as this isn't a necessary project, and I couldn't care less if I get no additional details. BUT...if you'd like to help by identifying chracters/pictures that have generic labels, please feel free. Thanks to everyone for all of the contributions so far!

Untrue. You've had to be warned about unconstructive bashing reviews. I've seen your edits. Plus, I read each and every Review daily as they come in. Here's a typical negative review of yours: "man this one is [genre]. why?!? this is 2 terrible, unlike [other ReMix]. this one made me [die/sleep/comatose].:oops:" [other source tune] is the best one anyway.

That's a Google Pages error that's plagued a lot of the Google-hosted submissions in the past couple of weeks. I think GP fixed the problem, but any corrupted files would need to be reuploaded.

ReMixer Name: Here in the Rain Real Name: Dustin Albright E-Mail Address: oceanxkc@gmail.com Website: http://www.myspace.com/hereintherain userid: 21091 (I think?) Game ReMixed: Final Fantasy 6 Song Title: Terra Additional info: Composer: Nobuo Uematsu; System: SNES; Company: Squaresoft, 1994 MP3 Link URL: Comments: Alongside composing my own prog instrumental works, there is a lot of inspiration I find from listening to different Acoustic, and Piano Arrangements from different OST's from games I adore. I've thought of the idea of doing an entire album arrangement for a particular game, or just pick and choose from the entire FF series - but arrange and perform it around the same fashion of other music I write. There haven't been a plethora of Prog/Rock style arrangements for a lot of these games that have soundtracks I enjoy listening to, so I figured I will take my first stab at doing one and see how well it is received, depending on that, chances are that more arrangements will be done in the future, and eventually an entire CD, as mentioned before. I started with "Terra" from Final Fantasy 6 because the music in it was composed in a way that would translate well for the style I'm doing, not to mention the composition itself is spectacular and is a long time personal favorite. Thanks to the OC/OC ReMix team for the many years of providing a community for folks to submit great arrangements of even greater VG songs. -------------------------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff6 - "Tina" (ff6-201.spc) The drum tone has no meat on it to match the intensity of the guitars; dunno why the drums sound so soft. Hell, gentle. They're also extremely plodding and repetitive, not helped by the fact that they're so audible. The fills, few and far between, were cool though. The production's not bad. There's a nice slimy, grungy feel to the whole thing, yet you can still pick apart the individual instruments amongst the full texture. The arrangement of the melody is adapted to the genre, starting at :51, but wasn't very interpretive to start. There's still a lot of time left to build things up. 1:19 brought back the limp-wristed drums again; definitely a weak spot in terms of moving the track along. Moves over into a cover of the second half of the source from 2:12-2:47, but again, not much interpretation. Back to the first half of the theme, there was some creative freestyling combined with the straightforward melody. Points for the freestyle, but the melody could use interpretation and development as well. Back to the second half of the source at 4:08, but then some freestyling was on top of THAT. Alright, so the formula seems essentially clear: Part 1 cover, part 2 cover, part 1 cover + solo on top, part 2 cover + solo on top. And that's a fine tribute, but it doesn't do much to take ownership of the theme and put a decidedly creative, interpretive spin on it, which is what the standards call for. If and when you go more along that route, please submit something in the future. You sound like you have an overall good handle on putting your material together, and it would work well with more a interpretive arrangement just as well as it would a cover. NO

It's a good-natured parody. I'd also say that if OverLooked ReMiX had an area specifically for terribly written song reviews, yours would be right up there.

I can Digg it.

In terms of the NO votes centering on arrangement value (pixie/zircon/TO), I can't glean how substantially you guys actually managed to familiarize yourselves with the originals, but I'll be upfront and hazard that it wasn't substantially enough. I understand how these pieces, the 2 originals & the arrangement, sound similar on a very basic level. But the arrangement is nuanced enough where structural changes and more pronounced dynamic shifts are definitely there to be found, especially in the latter half. While I'd like to give y'all the benefit of the doubt, in particular I definitely don't understand how 3:03-onward arranging "music3" comes across as too similar in terms of instrumentation and mood. I can understand the criticisms more for the first half of the mix seeming similar to the mood of the original, "music0", in terms of a more initial-level response, but even then I don't agree at all when actually comparing the structures of the original and the arrangement side-by-side. Just strange reading such a dichotomy of votes regarding arrangement. Given how strong those NOs were on the arrangement, and how serious a concern that is, I felt it was important to go relisten to this one and give it a fair shake. At the end of the day though, I've gotta reaffirm that I had no issues with the arrangement, only with the production/sample usage. No qualms at all standing behind it as a more dynamic and very viable arrangement in the same genre as the originals.

It would kill me (kill!) if you didn't resub, Andy. But like pretty much everyone has said no matter the vote, this was an awesome track from a listening standpoint. I hope you give this one another go, but it's already one to be proud of.

Remixer name: D-Ciduous Real name: Jayson Leeman E-mail: Dragonninjaakira@hotmail.com Game: Final Fantasy VII Song: Main Theme I know that this is a cliched game and song to remix but I think I have a pretty original take on the theme. I hope you guys enjoy it. And please, if it gets rejected, let me know where I was short in the remix so I can compensate in later remixes. Thanks. ---------------------------------------------------------- http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 201 "Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII" The sounds in the intro up to :55 were pretty weak; it's a decent premise, but the textures ended up pretty flimsy. The sequenced piano in particular was too mechanical-sounding. That's always a bigger negative impact when using an instrument that's supposed to sound organic. The changeup to the more beat-driven material at 1:51 was very awkward, IMO. The textures were decent, but still need more substance. The beats established at 2:15 were pretty boring, and the gated synth on lead arranging the melody was plodding. The keyboard-ish sound at 2:59 lightly in the background sounded pasted in the background and seemingly clashed with the melodic material. Wasn't a good idea to then push it up into the front at 4:08 going towards the finish. Arrangement-wise, there wasn't much direction, development or momentum to the piece. From 2:15 until the end, it dragged its knuckles on the ground, unfortunately. This needs lots of work on both the arrangement and production sides, so if you're not currently using the Works or ReMixing forums for feedback and advice, respectively, then you need to get started. NO

Not enough FF7 usage? - LT Ahoy Dave and Judges! Arrr this be another remix submission from Siamey. My forum # would be 971 My song is called Highwind Throwdown and its a remix of Cid's theme from ff7 (but also contains elements of "sending a dream into the universe") Yes, because it is trance, it "could very well be any melody", but rest assured that I toiled relentlessly on this song for months, knowing it was a cid remix, from start to finish. Thanks for your time, Hope you enjoy my song. -Heath ------------------------------------------------ http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 307 "Cid's Theme" & 409 "Sending a Dream Into the Universe" The transition from 1:38-1:52 was based on the intro of "Sending a Dream Into the Universe". As far as I could tell though, Cid's Theme wasn't touched until 1:52. After that though, things were recognizable on the arrangement side. The melodic treatment at 2:20 with the gated rhythms was cool at first. It's a good idea, but after a while, that was all the work put into altering the melody. I liked the countermelodic stuff (starting at 2:48) going on just behind the melody though, which was very well integrated with the melody. Melody was doubled by a more straightforward synth line at 3:16. I liked the bassline and beat programming, but again, after a while the ideas just felt repetitive and undeveloped. I don't mean to ignore all the work put into the different layers of the arrangement, as there were a lot of good supporting instrumentation ideas. Beyond the genre adaptation, the arrangement of the melody though was really by-the-numbers and could use a more creative, interpretive approach. 3:43 went back into the idea of the intro (again, seemingly all original material), gradually subtracting elements until the finish. Production here was impeccable, IMO. Pretty loud, but the whole track was clean, well-balanced and bringing the power. Everything was clicking on all cylinders there. As far as I'm aware though, the intro and outro were all original material not directly arranging's "Cid's Theme", leaving only 2:05's worth of arrangement material in a 5:17-long mix. My hard and fast rule is requiring over 50.00% of the arrangement being overtly tied to the original, which I'm not picking up here. I'll follow up with y'all to be sure, and could use additional input. If no other meaningful information results, I'll be going NO (resubmit).

* ReMixer name: Written Pages * Real name: Fred Epe * Email address: fred.epe@gmail.com * Website: (see below) * Original game/title/composer: Super Castlevania / Treasury Room / by Masanori Adachi, Sotaro Tojima Coming from a progressive rock/metal background and being a huge fan of your website for over two years now, I thought it was finally time to make a contribution myself. I am an engineer/composer from the Netherlands. Other than my main project - a rock opera with musicians from all over the world - I pretty much recently started recording my own little tributes to the world of game music. I have always been heavily influenced by 80's science fiction movies, the 8-/16-bit era and - ever since I discovered ocremix.org - lots of wonderful gaming remixes. Except for the drums, nothing on this remix was sequenced. I used a number of patches and recorded the instruments myself. After a couple of great remixes of well-known songs such as Bloody Tears, I thought a remix of Treasury Room would be a nice change for once. I remember getting "goosebumped" every time I played that stage on the SNES when I was 10 or so. Hope you like the song! Keep up the great work @ ocremix.org! Yours, Fred P.S.: Try to endure the first part of the piano intro -- -= www.unwrittenpages.com =- -= www.myspace.com/unwrittenpages =- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Try to endure the first part of the piano intro." Always encouraging. http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=scv4 - "Treasury Room" (scv4-16.spc) Man is that an interesting source. Some of that stuff sounds ripe for Shnabubula's style. Onto the mix, the piano intro was extra quiet and I'm not sure why. Didn't seem very different from the source. The dissonance didn't throw me off more than the volume. Things got louder at :32 with some additional instrumentation coming in, followed by a transition into some rock at :47. Really glad someone got the drums right for once, where they actually fit with the rest of the instrumentation. More activity in the percussion writing would have been better though. Cool changeup at 1:15 via the piano and strings, with a nice segue back into the woodwinds leading back into more rock. The drum writing at 1:29 was flimsy. The snare pattern is so boring and doesn't drive the track along. The tone is good, but the volume's too loud and makes the boring snare writing stick out like a sore thumb. Just pull 'em back or something. Then the pattern simply carries over into the e-piano solo at 2:02. C'mon, you've got literally everything else clicking, let's get those drums up to snuff. Even the percussion writing in the SPC is more creative. Work on this some more. I wanna see this up on the main page. Very cool first sub, Fred! I look forward to hearing more. NO (refine/resubmit)

Posting any time is fine. I tend to want at least 1 post per day from us collectively to keep things moving. Post any time.

Talking about music you like is fine. It's good for VGF to have information about material that OC ReMixers themselves like. Surprisingly, I think it's an angle that most people in the community are unaware of when it comes to their favorite ReMixers.