Liontamer

Hey OCR- This was my contribution to the Bad Dudes EP, a remix of "Fuse" from Xenogears, and probably one of my favorite Yasunori Mitsuda pieces. I've always wanted to do a mix of this, but had never gotten around to it although I've done my fair share of Mitsuda mixes. This is definitely a fun song to perform and I had a good time playing it. I found myself looking for an excuse to rewind and replay the parts, so most of this is live takes of the respective instruments. By the end of the song I was literally banging on my synths, squeezing out every last drop of velocity and expression data. I tried to have some restraint and leave out the piano comping that I love to do, but I couldn't resist - so if you listen carefully to the last half, you can hear me happily comping along. I called this mix "On a Short Fuse Lately" anyway, good times. Thanks, Dale North dale@dalenorth.com ---------------------------------------------------- http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Xenogears_psf.rar - 109 "Shattering Egg of Dreams" & 114 "Fuse" Nice opening and close referencing "Shattering Egg of Dreams"; I love how it bookends the track. The thin percussion at :25 didn't mesh as well with the beefy orchestration as compared to "Fuse" and some of the swells felt too loud. The tone of the new drums settling in at 1:50 didn't sound good when it was doing its beatkeeping stuff; it meshed better with the rest of the instrumentation during the (awesome) fills. Minor criticisms in the bigger picture. The kicker for me was the arrangement being too conservative, not feeling markedly different than the original aside from more powerful instrumentation and the key change. The structure, tempo, and instrumental textures don't stand apart enough from the source tune. As a known proponent of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", I can't knock it that you like the original that much, but it needs more substantial interpretation as far as OCR goes. NO

Original Decision: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=4451 Shaun Wallace avaris.studios@gmail.com avaris Metroid Prime 2: Echoes Intro Theme 88369 Midi: http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/gamecube/index-gr.html Remix: Well here's the resub on my Metroid Prime 2 mix. I almost sent it back late last November, but luckily some people gave me some really good critiques and encouragement. (James George, Splunkle, BGC) So I stepped back from the mix for awhile and came back to it. Compared to the last submission, there have been some major changes. I got the echo on the piano in the first section using Spektral Delay to put delay on only certain frequencies. Also pretty much 75% of the instruments have been changed. Alot of people have asked me what i used for the sustained airy like synth in the breakout section. It's actually a shakugachi flute soundfont that I processed out the yang. Besides that I used Absynth and Sytrus for everything except the piano. Anyways hope you guys n gal enjoy. ~Shaun

Sounds rippish to start, but some new ideas were definitely observed later - LT Contact Info: ReMixer Name: ylwsub68 Real Name: Jon Nelson Email: ylwsub68@gmail.com ReMix Info: ReMixed Game: Super Metroid ReMixed Song: Maridia Rocky Underwater Area ReMix Name: Super Metroid Classical Maridia OC ReMix Comments: A classical rearrangement of the original, even sadder and more depressing. Link: ------------------------------------------------ Heh. What kind of mixer name is that? j00 makin' no sense! http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=sm - "Maridia Rocky Underwater Area" (sm-24.spc) Well, the arrangement is rather conservative and doesn't stand apart from the original enough in terms of the tone or structure. It's denser, sure, and I like your choice of instrumentation, but overall that's about it so far. As I alluded to in my off-the-cuff comment up top, it might as well be a MIDI rip with how verbatim the delivery was. However, you came back from the brink and steadily kept moving upward. Some simple but good countermelodic stuff on the low strings came in at 1:19. Again, aside from that, the structure was still the same. Some good new writing at 2:13. Initially returned to the structure of the original at 2:53 with some noticeably thin strings, going in a new direction however with some nice lil' string runs derived from the source. Great idea there. Nice idea at 3:50 for the accompanying strings under the melody. The ending at 3:56 was a letdown and not a strong resolution. The overall production was good with me. The roominess and density a piece like this needed were there. I gotta say though Jon, after a shaky start on the arrangement/interpretation front, you introduced and successfully weaved a lot of subtle but original new ideas with the source material. I dunno how you're gonna fare with the rest of the panel, but I feel like you ultimately took the source, kept the mood intact, but added enough original ideas and personalization in the arrangement to carry it home. Not many tracks that hit the panel cause such a swing in my perception from start to finish. Good luck on the rest of the vote. YES

Contact Information ReMixer Name: Wynd Balduram Real Name: Alex Huff E-Mail: WyndBalduram@comcast.net Website: http://www.phoenix-rock.com ReMix Information Game: Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest Song Remixed: Battle Theme Link: I actually did my "first remix" of this song a few years ago, when I was just learning how to play guitar and record songs on my computer. Needless to say, the first few versions didn't sound all that great, but they were definitely useful learning experiences, as was this one. After about 3 years of trial and error, recording songs for my band, and reading what materials I could concerning amatuer music production, I got better at recording and mixing. So, I finally decided to record a more polished version of the song I loved to play, to see if I couldn't add my own song to the collection of OC ReMixes I knew and loved. I used Fl Studio and FXPansion's BFD to lay down the drum track and mixed it down to a Wav file. I imported the drums into Ableton Live to record the live instruments, dry. Afterwards, I imported the dry instruments back into FL Studio to do the mixing. I ran the most of the instruments through Line 6's Gear Box Plug-in to get more authentic guitar tone, and, after several unsuccessful attempts to get everything to mix together and sound decent, I took a break. I came back to it again, about three days later, and, taking a fresh approach, finally got it to sound the way I wanted it to. My main inspiration for the arrangement of the song spawns from, of course, playing the game for the first time when I was very young. It was one of the first RPGs I ever played, and led me to play most of the other great platform RPGs, such as FF4, FF6, FF7, Chrono Trigger, Lunar, Grandia... The list goes on... But I've babbled enough. I hope you enjoy the ReMix. Alex Huff

For Viggy!~ - LT HI! CONTACT INFO ReMixer Name: ElVale Real name: Jose Granados Email address: josedgv@yahoo.com Website: none Userid: 19420 REMIX INFO: Name of the game: Skyblazer Name of the original song: Tower of the Tarolisk Name of the remix: Tower of Joselisk Additional info about the game: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/g/super_nintendo/skyblazer/overview.php Additional screenshots: http://www.juegomania.org/snes/1816 System: SNES Composer: Harumi Fujita Link to soundtrack: http://www.zophar.net/zsnes/spc/skyblaze.rar (spc format) Comments: This is my first submission to OcRemix. After long being a videogame music fan and after following the site for several months I decided to take a saturday afternoon to make my first remix and here it is. Instead of going for something famous, I decided to go for something less known. This game haunted me when I was a kid and this is my tribute to it. Many elements from the original composition were preserved but also there are many original arragements as well. Thanks!

Contact Info - Remixer Name: MasterCactaur Real Name: Sean Moore Since this is my first submission, I'll apologize right now for any mistakes I might make during the process. This mix is based on the Bonus Level music from the SNES platformer, Cool Spot. I always thought that the game had a few nifty tracks that would sound great if someone took the time to rework them into a more accessible format. When I was recently given a copy of Reason to tinker with, this was the first song I wanted to try out. If anything sounds out of place in the mix (like the bass guitar), it's probably because I'm fairly new to the program. After I finished engineering all the synth tracks and drums, I had my friend Grahame come in and record electric guitar for the second half of the song. Overall, it was an enjoyable experience and the song shaped itself quite well as I went along. --------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=cspot - "Bonus Level" (cspot-09.spc) Haven't heard that source tune in quite a while. I like the energy and feel of the intro. Bassline joins in at :45 arranging the source, though that and the organ at :52 are kind of stiff. Hard to make an organ sound stiff AND flat, but you did. I liked what was going on, then BLAH, a generic dance-trance lead comes in at 1:15 with some run-of-the-mill effects on it. Aw, nah. :'-( Then the lead has no meat on it working alone at 1:30. Some drums were brought in at 1:38; the writing on 'em was good, but the tone was very weak. The melody also was switched to an electric guitar-type lead, but it was way too quiet and got buried under the other instrumentation; adjust the sound balance there. Switched the lead again at 2:00, and I was really liking the potential of the textures there thanks to that lead; the background really needs filling out with additional instrumentation, but I can't put my finger on what would help it click together. Moved over into some really awful cluttered stuff at 2:29. The countermelodic stuff on electric guitar (and on I what I guess sounds like light piano chords) had tons of clashing notes with the melody. The guitar upfront at 2:43 was OK, but could have used more power behind it. Nice idea at 2:58 for the guitar and drums with those last trailing blips, for a strong ending at least. The concept is admirable, but the execution is all over the place. On the arrangement side, more interpretation would be good. Right now, this thing is a conservative but personalized approach; still, more overall interpretation would be beneficial. So repeating myself in short, this needs better balance among the parts, fleshed out textures, strong drums, and no clashing crud. Lots of work needed. NO

I can't tell if that's sarcasm or not. :'-( (i.e. everyone make Pictionary mixes, dammit)

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=dkq - "In a Snow-Bound Land" (dkq-25.spc) Why do the solitary portions of the vocals remind me of old Michael Jackson stuff? Weird. In any case, this was fairly close last time, and I felt the revisions here were enough to make this click more than enough for the pass. A little rough around the edges, but a solid end-result. Thanks for tweaking the production on that plucked string synth at :10. It has more body to it and sits much better in the soundfield, complimenting the rest of the instrumentation more effectively the entire way. Good job removing those low vocals in the bridge (e.g. :55 & 2:35, "All the feeling's gone"/"Can you hear the song") that seemed out of your range. Thanks a lot for reexamining the balance and synchronization of the chorus's harmonized lines. I hope it didn't seem like a creative sacrifice, because the end result is defintely a more solid-sounding delivery. The track ended fine, but there was no clean fadeout, with the track cutting off a bit abruptly at 4:30; not a big deal, but a fadeout fix would be nice. Great production tweaks here to give this track the TLC it needed. Mike continues with his ambitious vocal tracks with another strong effort. Glad this was resubbed. YES

http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozmmusf.rar - 244 "Stone Tower Temple (Illusion)" Like I alluded to in my off-the-cuff comment in the sub letter, the groove was aight, but the countermelodic writing that's part of it didn't seem to mesh with the arranged melody well. The beats from 1:54-2:01 were pretty flimsy, but brief; not a huge deal. Something about the production was really murky and rough and undermined the tracks dynamics. Perhaps overcompression, I wouldn't know for sure. Everything sounded lossy AND seemed too sizzly/trebly with those "tss" sounds. TO thought things were fine overall for the genre, but to me the issues added up to "no good". At 2:33, you rehashed 1:30's section verbatim rather than developing something new or different. Not a big deal given the overall variation of the arrangement, but some tweaks to make 2:33 feel different somehow could have helped. With the dynamics lacking though, repeating a section wholesale made the groove feel like it was dragging on. The arrangement itself was decent, but arguably didn't seem to have much direction. Tightening up the writing of your groove will help remedy that. Refine the groove and overhaul the production, and this would at least be in better shape. NO (rework/resubmit)

It was a stolen track, so it was deleted.

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FFX_psf2.rar - 102 "In Zanarkand" The tense opening certainly caught my ear. The samples were pretty serviceable, though the articulations on everything need work. Piano takes center stage at :53 with some beautiful, delicate stuff; performance sounds a little rigid, but the textures are pretty good regardless. 1:45 goes for some liberal arrangement of the source before going to the melody proper at 2:03. Didn't recognize anything from the source until 2:03, though the key change compared to the original seemed kind of pointless. In terms of dynamic contrast, the piece started coming up empty around 2:23 when, no matter what the instrumentation changes were, the intensity felt the same (the brass from 2:51-2:59 being the only exception, and even then, the samples sounded pretty thin). Brass at 3:52 was a pretty bad offender, the tone sounded more like an e-violin for whatever reason; do I have my signals crossed? I agreed with Jesse about the arrangement meandering around too much. The writing definitely needs more direction and better dynamic contrast built in. Closing section at 4:54 was pretty lacking, given how thin and mechanical the piano sounded. This a great base, but the "performance" need to be humanized more effectively, the samples need more meat on 'em, and the arrangement needs more substance both in terms of dynamics and direction. Definitely keep working on this one though, Uub. NO (rework/resubmit)

Great stuff, this mix. Short, but definitely very personalized in the performance. Someone on DeviantArt did a simple but cute flash animation of Bloopers with a loop of this mix running. Check it out: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/47678621/

Luigi's Mansion "Once Upon a Nightmare" did not hit the panel. That sub was received on 1/13 and the form letter was sent on 1/20 to the dragonballzim address. http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=smw - "Underground BGM" (smw-12a.spc) I liked the ethnic feel of the first few seconds. As the orchestration kicked in, the samples definitely didn't sound like the real thing, but the articulations are pretty decent to me, attack complaints noted. All your sounds need more depth and power though to fulfill the intentions of the writing. Yeah, there's some audio glitch/skip around :53 that needs to be fixed. No big deal. 1:06, that mallet percussion or whatever just sounds way too spartan. Aside from the writing changing awkwardly (boo!), the reason that transition doesn't work better IMO is because the dynamic contrast in the mix is pretty weak. You textures aren't very thick to begin with, so the contrast goes from "pretty empty to very empty" rather than "full to empty". Mix picked up a bit at 1:46 before going for a more militaristic finish with some Eastern spices for the last few seconds. Pretty interesting mish-mash of sounds there, Clay. If you can flesh out the sounds more and, like Vigilante mentioned, develop the arrangement further (it needs more ideas, length and reinterpretation), then this arrangement could be pretty badass. Good base so far. It would need a fair amount of work to get it above the bar, but it's definitely worth a legit shot. NO (resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/usf/ge64usf.rar - 118 "Antenna Cradle" To clarify (as a source tune like this that integrates mainstream music can seem pretty dicey), this has no chance of being posted if a significant part of the mix arranges the James Bond theme.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ct - "Secret of the Forest" (ct-1-11.spc) CC Ricers was definitely a better name, for the record. JustChris = n00b. Doesn't affect the decision, but there you go. That intro is sweeeeeet. Love those swirly sounds. Gave way to some overly loud instrumentation at :10. Damn yo, scale it back. Some of the sounds are kind of lackluster on their own (Vig nailed it with that flute), but the textures are good and things are produced to have a thick soundscape. Things are just too loud and compressed. Worst example of it was when 1:38-2:39 was distorting and clipping to a disgusting degree. Not in a "I spit on this way", just a "DAYUM, wtf???" way. Guys, what are you listening to this on? You guys didn't pick up on any of this before sending it in? Check it on some headphones. On the arrangement side, things were good on the whole, though conservative. Can't tell if those breakbeats are loops, but they get old after a while, plus they're not properly positioned in the track like Vigilante alluded to. Didn't like whatever the lead was at 3:29, too rigidly sequenced. Once the beats picked up again at 3:41, the distortion was absurd again. :'-( Good job so far bros, but take Vigilante's advice, SERIOUSLY rethink the production and send it back. NO (resubmit)

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=mo2 - "Choose a File" (mo2-004.spc) http://www.zophar.net/gbs/gbcam.zip - Track 3 Played this on VGF68 for the Bound Together special. It's an awesome track, based more off the Game Boy Camera theme (which was cribbed and expanded from this EarthBound source tune, as y'all can hear). Also gotta say though, Shael, I thought the production was excellent as well. Unfortunately, I gotta agree with Vigilante that the arrangement is too underdeveloped. Especially now that I hear how a lot of the "new" writing ideas are from the Game Boy Camera track. You didn't crib 'em wholesale, but the overall interpretation was pretty conservative. I loved what you've done with this, and the performance aspect is unique and tightly produced, but further length and interpretation would be needed to get it over the bar here. It's great for what it is, and I don't meant to take away from that. I'd love to hear an extended cut, but it may be unlikely for something that was dusted off the shelf. Still though, I can't wait to hear what other mixes might be coming our way from ye elder Riley. NO (resubmit)

Yep. That's what I was gonna say.

PMed Heath about the nature of the decision and the offer to tweak the production before posting. Provided him a copy of the vote to see what the criticisms were firsthand, so I imagine we'll hear back in a couple of days on how he feels. If Siamey's content to let this one go as is, then it'll be posted in its current form.

That's correct. He revealed that on VG Frequency #21, ironically while it was playing in the background I believe. I appreciate, in its own ironic way, how Ari eventually vehemently turned against drumloop usage. He helped up the standard here by encouraging people to write original drum parts, which forced other artists to become more creative and thorough in their own work. I still think this particular mix is great for its time. Despite Prot's own issues with it, it had effective sounds and textures, and the arrangement was developed very well. I never saw the shame in that.

Yeah, the intro definitely caught my ear back in the day. Out of all the Arkanoid mixes I heard back in '02 when I listened to all the OCRs, this was the most interesting one. This is some seriously good dub, and I always respect the mixes that work the most creatively and interpretively with the source material. Well arranged, well produced, this would easily pass today's standards. Always a favorite.

Conservative, but well personalized arrangement. Loved the dashes of chiptune spices thrown in there. Too bad we haven't heard from DJComet again. I would have liked to observe how he's improved his game.

Classic VG arrangement goodness, and an old favorite. Even just from a historic sense, it's a must download.

Wow, those are some authentic dance/trance synths. Too bad the production behind 'em is so poor. Everything's just really flimsy here unfortunately. There's tons of room for expansion and power here; nothing fills the song out or drives it along. Definitely on the low end of what's available here, can't say it any other way.

I'm a big fan of the source tune, which has a simple but great hook. Like Andrew mentioned above me, this arrangement really does play to the original's strengths. Good fusion of synthwork, beats and chiptune, and a very loopable track. Look for more of Zyron's stuff in the Commodore arrangement scene.

After having becoming more familiar with the Speedball soundtrack (credit goes to Marsland Brotherhood), I definitely had more of an appreciation for Alex's own arrangement here. Very chill. There are a lot of "oldbies" that are no longer regulars in this scene, but hearing mixes like these I think of mutagene and go "Now THAT's someone I'd like to hear another ReMix from again."