Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Hey Judges! Here is all of the pertinent info! ReMixer Name: siven7 Real Name: Kenley Kristofferson Email: kenleykristofferson@hotmail.com Website: http://www.intothescore.com Forum ID: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/member.php?u=16878 Name of Game ReMixed: Uncharted Waters: New Horizons Name of Individual Song: "Close to Home" Add. Info: The game was released in 1994 for the SNES console by Koei. The game is based in the 16th century and allows the player to assume six different roles where their destiny forces them to a life on the high seas of exploration and (often) piracy! The score is written by Yoko Kanno and is composed as though it were to be performed, having lots of effects (delay/reverb mostly) on instruments and scored in very playable ways (unlike an impossible mallet part from... say... "Main Theme" from FFIV... for example). I have a podcast called "Into the Score", which focuses on the academic study of video game music - studying Uematsu and Kondo like one would study Mahler and Beethoven! UW:NH is Episode 8 of the podcast, if you want to check it out! Right now there are some server issues, but I'm hoping that they get resolved in the next few days! Link to the OST: http://snesmusic.org/v2/profile.php?profile=set&selected=3146 Comments... This game is definitely a diamond in the rough... one of those soundtracks that has the best OST that you've never heard, you know? In which case, the ending theme of the game is a work called "Close to Home" and it is one of my favorite video game music tracks of all time. It was arranged for performers and recorded (as well as other UW:NH tracks) on a compilation called "Uncharted Waters: Special Edition," which is when the score hooked me. I submitted a remix of "Close to Home" earlier in the year called "Sunset on the Horizon" and it was for strings and woodwinds - it got 3 No's and 2 Resubmits. While different judges had different opinions about what was good and bad with it, I reflected on it some more and realized that it hadn't strayed far enough from the arrangement - I simply hadn't pushed the envelope far enough. With that, I re-imagined the potential of the work and started making something a bit darker with a stronger focus on ostinato and really filling out the texture, rather than having it really thin... almost like an impending storm. If was going to push myself compositionally, this was the time The first section establishes a foreboding and dark feel, setting a really strong groove right out of the gate (something my last arrangement was lacking) with cellos/double basses, acoustic bass and highhat. The groove is solidified with the marimba and congas setting the groove. The flute hints at the melody, as though trying to say a phrase in a crowd of talking people. The melody shows up in full with singing bowls and a santoor, in minor. There is a break in the darkness at 1:16 where harp and guitar are playing a repeating 3-note pattern (in major, which is also the first notes of the next section/the A section of the original melody), only to be discarded by the dark groove from before. The piece mounts in tension from 1:40-2:05 as though the clouds are dark and the storm is going to escalate to a hurricane, wanting to reach a climax. However, a ray of sun cuts through the clouds and the dark and endless stormy horizon is wounded at 2:05. The ray of sun is in the harp, repeating the 3-note pattern and setting up the B-section, which the flutes will start at 2:10. The key moves to the relative major with a melody in the flute and a new piano and string accompaniment. This section reaches its height at 2:35 with a modulation from F major to Ab major (I know, it's crazy) and a nice big open major chord. This section only gets bigger as it progresses, as thought the ray of sunshine is expanding and disbanding the intricate weaving of storm clouds. Again, the transition point is with that 3-note repeating pattern, this time in the harp and santoor. It sets up a return to the A section, but this time in a warm, major sound rather than a dark and ominous minor mode. This goes to show that the worst is over and the sky can reassure the land and the sea that everything is going to be okay... like a lullaby. The melody is in the flute (like the hopeful flute in the middle section) and the texture is full and rich until 2:38, where the instrumentation begins to thin out, allowing the work to have a natural feel of winding down. The work ends with a three-note motive, now seeming very comforting and supportive - the world will continue, the nightmare is over, and again... hope prevails. "Everything is always okay in the end; if it's not okay, then it's not the end." ============ Thank you for the consideration of my work! Most sincerely, Kenley Kristofferson, siven7 Kenley Kristofferson Into the Score http://www.intothescore.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=uw2 - "Close to Home" (uw2-24.spc) Arrangement-wise, you definitely did more to put your own spin on the source this time around. Why is this so quiet? I had to put on a litmus test track just to make sure the issue wasn't my fault. Nah, you gotta bump the overall levels up. You can't really hear the reverb on stuff like the mallet percussion without turning it way up. It looks like you didn't because the track may be peaking with some of the instrumentation, but other Js will be able to offer substantial analysis. Much like the previous sub of yours from this game, the samples aren't quite used to their best, perhaps less effectively here, though the low volume makes it sound worse than it is. Still, a lot of things sound pretty mechanical and exposed, most strikingly the higher bowed strings (worst offender 1:52-2:04), some of the woodwind attacks. The plucked strings at :52 probably could have been pushed up until 1:04 since nothing else was carrying the forefront briefly, but that could be more of a personal taste issue. I liked things such as the changeup in the percussion at 2:10. Was glad that core mallet percussion pattern at 2:52 finally changed, as it was getting annoying hearing the same thing from it every time it was in play. The dynamics are...subtle, but alright. The changes could probably be a little bit more defined. For example, 2:52 seems like the power should have been gradually increasing leading to a crescendo of sorts with 3:04's section, then making the dropoff at 3:28 more dramatic. I don't know if you feel that sounds cliche in practice, but it seemed like the writing implied that kind of structure but didn't actually follow through with it. More finesse with the sample usage is critical. Some of the more exposed areas of syntheticness hurt the piece significantly, IMO. If any other Js have their own observations on the dynamics here, that'd be appreciated. To me, everything feels like it's around 75% of the way there, but doesn't have the writing and production polish to put it over the top. Keep working on this one, Kenley, it's very promising so far. NO (refine/resubmit)

Hi. This is a slighlty dark, gothic mix of the Rainbow Road theme from Mario Kart 64, I realise there are quite a few mixes of this theme already, but, that doesnt matter What this mix offers is different from the submissions already on site, those submissions are calm... whereas this mix is compeltely the opposite, it starts with the actual theme, slighlty mixed, it then goes into an original melody, which then sneaks its way back into the theme. Its not perfect, but then nothing is, is it... I suppose the invention of soup... anyway yeah, enjoy Ps, I havent a clue what to write about it music wise, or what to name the song itself... I didnt put "OCreMix" at the end cause I didnt know if I should... But anyway yeah, please review and all that ---------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/usf/MarioKart64_usf.rar - 18 "Rainbow Road" Cool changes to the percussion to give it more of a breakbeat flavor, but that was about it in terms of effectively arranging the piece. I thought the original "dark, Gothic" section starting at :59 was completely out of place and didn't thematically connect with the "Rainbow Road" portion of the arrangement. Was it even in the same key? The stuff from 1:38 integrating SFX in the style of the original meshed better, but that was about it. Finally went back to the Rainbow Road stuff at 2:10. All of the usage of Rainbow Road kept the melody way too straight and uninterpretive. Melody dropped out, leaving the foundation of the original at 3:09, which, while a decent part of dynamic contrast, still sounds way too similar in structure and mood to the source tune. Would have been a perfect chance to integrate some original writing with the foundation of the source. So in short, the original sections don't piece together strongly enough, and the overall feel of the arrangement is the same as the source tune except different beats. Creatively, you need to make this a lot more unique and personalized. Decent first sub, and you seem to have the sound/production end of things going reasonably well. Keep at it. NO

Sounds great, but the string work seems so subtle, I just don't see how it would come out in an arena setting at all. That's more a byproduct of the arena setup than the composition, plus I'm sure you don't want the string section to be too prominent to the point of muddying up the soundscape, again keeping the arena sound system in mind. Hopefully it'll sound good. My blog post on it, already written, will go live tomorrow. Props, Greg. Congratulations!

I've already blogged about it. Y'all check it please. It's also got the trailer. Looks fun.

Hate to sound cliche, as it was the first stage, but I always thought Zone 0 was the best from that game. The game had some great music though. I'll have to fire up Zone J again and give it a listen, not that I make music.

Hmmmm. I dunno. I just don't see how Icecapella can go wrong.

God bless you Content Policy. Never have to type out an explanation on this again.

Does not compute...

Excellent. Great to see even more recognition for you. I'm definitely looking forward to the full album being completed with the original/new age material. Be sure to give the community a sample with a chill ReMix or we'll disown you!

Ha! Get out this thread, djp. You make it sound so mysterious. No, that was never on the site. To answer the original question, a friend referred me, so there wasn't one particular game. But prior to joining up, I was interested in the music from several games in the Street Fighter series. LET ME TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT>

Also, he's the Kingfish.

2 BLACK, 2 STRONG 2 OLD?

I think the enthusiasts around the VGM community have a tiny bit more of a chance given the niche VGM has, but even then the odds don't become much stronger. The networking that goes on around here is at least more tangible. Great read. Tons of facts of a figures regarding the industry, which put things into a lot of perspective for artists trying to break through. Hopefully the article will be of great help to them. It was a very thorough piece.

I think he overhyped the hype about hyping overhype.

Still bummed I couldn't go (and turn it into a trip/homecoming to Atlanta). Everyone say hey to Carlson for us!

Now this is hardly an A-level article or anything like that, but I've spent much of the past day significantly beefing up Follin's Wikipedia entry. I combed through just about every meaningful interview I could find with Follin - text, video and audio. What a difference a day makes. Hopefully others will continue to work on the article with more information, as well as tightening up the formatting.

Read the judges decision. That what it's there for.

Your ReMixer name: 2Radical Your real name: Tim Schijf Your email address: tim_tim_tim_2hotmail.com Your website: n/a Your userid: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/member.php?u=16609 Name of game(s) ReMixed: Kingdom Hearts II Name of individual song(s) ReMixed: Sinister Sundown Your own comments about the mix: I just loved this track, and got bored of it, so I gave it my own twist, the original song was about 11 minutes , but after a hard time of scrapping some bars here and there I ended up with 7 mins, I used as many elements from the original as possible since all the scores just add alot to the song as a whole... some info on the games OST http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Kingdom_Hearts ---------------------------------------------------------------- Even taking down the arrangement from 11 to 7 minutes, the filesize is still too large. All subs should be exactly at or under 6MB in the future. Kingdom Hearts II Original Soundtrack - 105 "Sinister Sundown" Some of the panning during the first minute of the intro was way too extreme. Same around 3:15. The bowed string work ended up sounding really strangely placed in the stereo field, sounding warbly at times. Things picked up more at 2:11, though that mechanical piano in the background until 2:39 sounded pretty weak. It's such a defaulty sample sound, it can't help but sound worse when not used well. The pizzicato string stuff, first used at 2:57 and first used more prominently at 3:57, was really ultra cheap-sounding and tacky, even if it's meant to sound like a real instrument. Lasted all the way until 5:09. Sounded better at 6:08 when the sample wasn't placed in the foreground and could be surrounded by the other instrumentation. Bad exposure of the vox sample at 5:33 as it faded out. Ending just abruptly cuts off at 7:04, but it could have been my download (which everyone else will be going off of, so let's give the benefit of the doubt, Js). Though some brief sections were IMO too spartan, the groove was decent. The bowed string work compared favorably to the pizz strings, but those samples weren't used well enough, leaving the overall execution lackluster. It's not awful, Tim, but it's not there yet. Definitely keep working toward improvement, you show promise. NO

Contact Info: Remixer name: Soviet Power Real Name: Grisha Kuntukov Email: greg.steamroller@gmail.com Userid: 21705 Remix Info: Game Name: Diablo Song: Into to Town (Tristram) Comments: I think that Diablo soundtrack is among my favorites of all times. It fits the game so well. It is dark and creepy and nothing sets the mood better then the Tristram intro song. I only recently started composing and playing around with music. So as soon as I found your website and listened to some remixes, I wanted to try one of my own. Naturally I picked this song because I love the original so much. I can even play it on my guitar. When I first loaded the midi in FL Studio I wasn't sure what direction I was going to take it. I knew that I wanted it to be creepy and dark just like the original and I also wanted piano sound in it. So I split the first part of the song into arp like pattern and found a piano sound that I liked. Then I attached the bass and threw in some drum loops. It went from there. I think the hardest part was doing transitions. Original song transitions didn't fit well so I came up with some time stretching and full stop parts. I also found some creepy sounding stringy sound that worked so well. I am really novice at this whole digital music world and mastering for me is the hardest part. I tried to do my best and I am reasonably satisfied with it. I know that it will get most likely rejected, but you have to start somewhere. Regards, --------------------------------------------------------------- Diablo (Game Rip) - 02 "Town" Fairly well-produced sounding out of the box, but the textures for the 1:33-long intro didn't quite gel together. Shifted over into some vox-like synth and string driven stuff at 1:33, with some beats joining in at 2:11. The beats and bassline were ok, but they also didn't gel together with the melodic work, which felt somewhat obscured and sounded a lot murkier than the much cleaner drumwork. Also, while the percussion writing wasn't poor in-and-of-itself, it doesn't drive the song along. Piano sequencing at 3:57 was robotic with the timing, but the velocity variations sounded decent. The very ending was pretty abrupt at 4:44 and could have been drawn out further. The composition's missing something to give it more direction and some sort of hook to keep the listener interested; right now, it plods along too much. Not a bad first sub though, Greg, definitely keep at it and use the Works and ReMixing forums to gain fan feedback and takes steps toward learning more about your music setup. NO

Wow, who would enforce spoilers on a 10-year-old game? Hell, did you know the princess is in another castle?

Name: Gavin Hunter Remixer Name: Hip E E-mail: huntz_man@hotmail.com Remix Name: One for the brave souls Game Name: Soul Edge Original Track Name: Brave Folk Song (Cervantes' Theme) Link to MP3: Constructive criticism greatly appreciated. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Soul Blade (Game Rip) - 11a "Bravely Folk Song (Cervantes Stage - Original) & 11b "Bravely Folk Song (Cervantes Stage - Arranged) The sample quality was ok. Could have sounded more grandiose and realistic in light of the writing, as some of it felt a bit flat, but the execution was pretty good. Brass was on the rough side for realism, but that almost goes without saying. For a relatively intimate soundscape, this was good on many levels. Beyond slowing the original down though, the arrangement comes across as a by-the-numbers small orchestra adaptation. The melodic work has essentially no interpretation, and thereby doesn't feel different enough from the original on that level. I'm not trying to sell it short on the instrumentation changes and new part-writing done here, but the overall package doesn't feel interpretive enough. I'd go for more melodic interpretation to get this on solid ground. NO (resubmit)

ReMixer name: Gemini Black Real name: Dominic B. E-mail address: metaldivinity@gmail.com Website: http://www.projectithera.com/ User ID: 20258 ReMix info: Name of game ReMixed: Tales of Symphonia Name of song ReMixed: Shihna (Sheena's Theme song) Composers: Motoi Sakuraba, Shinji Tamura Platform: GCN Original soundtrack: Personal comments: What can I say? Tales of Symphonia is without a doubt my favourite RPG, I've played through it too many times for my own good. And while the game's entire soundtrack is fantastic, Sheena's theme song has always stuck out to me. I figured that I should try remixing this, why not, you know? I'm quite proud of this actually, since I tend to procrastinate on everything I do. This is the first remix that I've actually finished, while there's a tonne of other unfinished ones laying about. As well, as with all of my remixes, this came out nowhere near as how I had originally planned... but I like the changes made and how it's turned out better than what I had originally planned. But, I digress. Try to enjoy it, eh? -------------------------------------------------------------- Tales of Symphonia Original Soundtrack - 314 "Shihna" Sample quality definitely sticks out. The sample articulation for the piano sounded serviceable, but otherwise everything sounded pretty fake as well as rigidly sequenced. The drumming and string work in particular felt very robotic and hindered the piece. Beyond that, the drumwork was fairly repetitive, leaving the piece dynamically flat; there was no energy here. The arrangement's in the right direction, but the execution isn't there at all. If you haven't done so already, I'd post the piece to the Works forum and see what feedback you can obtain. Keep at it. NO

HullO! Name: Ryan Reilly Email: Rainman0034@yahoo.com Web: www.myspace.com/rainman7 Remix Info, 'Flying on Dry Land' (based upon 'Air Land' by Hitoshi Sakimoto) From: Tactics Ogre orchestral arrangement, with a few surprises including improvisation and drum and bass. Hope thats good! Bye! -Ryan Reilly -------------------------------------------------------------- Please note we have a 192kbps bitrate ceiling. We don't want anything at 320kbps. http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Tactics_Ogre_psf.rar - 24 "Air Land" The brass sequencing is ok, even though the sample sounds extra fake. It's not much of a step up from the original in those respects. The beatwork at 1:10 doesn't gel with the orchestration at all, IMO. Beyond that, the arrangement has some decent ideas, but feels underdeveloped at only 2:20-long. We have maybe two shorter submissions passed relatively recently, but I'd argue they said more despite less time. I did like the interpretation within the genre, as well as the variations from verse to verse, but the arrangement needs to be developed further. Right now it comes across as a run-through of two brief & fairly similar iterations, and then it's over. NO (rework/resubmit)

Smileys count as images.

This is cool. I said so, and that's what's most important!