Liontamer

A well-worded point, and one that wasn't actually in the Review guidelines. I very shamelessly cribbed it (point #4). Thanks, Dan! I also added a point that people should realize it's ok to post a review for a mix that hasn't received one in a while. Checking through 'em all (evil mod purposes), frequently enough I see older thread bumped by n00bs going "I don't know if I'm allowed to post on something older, but..." As far as my style of reviewing goes, it's almost never after the first or first couple of listens. On that level, it's pretty much like my judging, i.e. loads of listens and direct comparisons with the source material. If I'm judging, I keep OCR's standards and guidelines in mind. If not, it's just a personal opinion. As for the "right time" to make a review, there really is no right time as opposed to a wrong time. Reviews after initial listens provide a raw reaction at the expense of some or all important qualifiers like familiarity with the track, the source material, and/or the ReMixer's other works. Reviews long after the initial listens provide a familiar reaction and potentially more insight at the expense of one's raw reaction, but allow the comparison of one's familiar reaction to one's raw reaction. Either time is perfectly fine, IMO. I've certainly made comments in both situations. People that have significant changes in opinion long after first hearing a mix can (and do) post another review comment down the line if they want to. The important part about reviewing as far as OCR's concerned is to review often.

So, back to the original point... What mixes are we talking about? Stuff that got rejected. Stuff that got passed, but criticized on some level? Tends to go back to the whole "are they biased?" argument, but I've been there long enough to see that that's not happening to any significant extent. Of course, since I am a theory major myself, I may just be missing something. I do inherently want all submissions to sound like my material. Less musical openness, more judgehate.

Up here on account of competent performance more than anything else - LT Hello- Here's a new submission for you! I haven't submitted before so I hope this is all the info you need. Remixer Name: Nintendopella Real Name: Matt Lemcke Website: www.nintendopella.com Game: Ocarina of Time Name of Song: Market Music Our Name of Song: Shoppe Theme Comments: We here at Nintendopella have been long time fans of OCRemix and figured it was high time to submit and get some new critiques. I (Matt) figured it we would start with the more mellow theme from Ocarina of Time's "Market Music." While not our most popular remixes this is definitely one of our favorites. It was a lot of fun to arrange. Scott and I worked a few hours off of the original midi, mostly making the voice leading a little more appropriate for the human voice. Scott added several juicy harmony notes including our favorite, the sustain at :49. I laid down some bass jug and shaker egg, while Scott did harmony and the "bongos." Peter (our mixer) filled in melody and alternate harmonies. Nick did a few notes in the more choral sections. Interestingly enough this is one of the few songs that does not include all the members, but I think we still got a full sound out of it. ---------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozusf.rar - 10 "Shop" Conceptually, I'm feelin' this. Problem is, this is just a cover arrangement. It's cool for what it is, but a 1:08-long cover arrangement will never get on here. Ever. We don't want covers, we want interpretations of the source material that honor yet stand apart from the original work. Make the track longer, and make it more interpretive, and you guys would be in a much better position to get something posted. Keep doing what you're doing, bros; we need more unique groups like y'all within the community. NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=dkc - "Aquatic Ambiance" (dkc-08.spc) Yeah, for the most part, there's little interpretation of the "Aquatic Ambiance" melody in the picture. There's some good concepts in terms of adding some new parts to interact with the source, but there's not enough of that by a long shot, plus that doesn't excuse a lack of interpretation there without some really personalized/unique sound and production choices. Aside from the production issues Vigilante had, the drums at 2:27 were ultra flimsy, the tone of the kit not seeming to fit the overall mood and texture. Tough break with this theme, as everyone tends to really love keeping it pretty similar, both melodically and sonically, to the original. A glimmer of hope at 4:22 with less than a minute to go via the new piano chords underneath the melody, but it never developed into anything, instead REALLY abruptly petering out at 4:54. Nah, you gotta have something more substantial than that ending. Needs more melodic interpretation, additional support instrumentation ideas, more complex textures from 2:27-3:43, cleaner production, and a stronger more satisfying resolve of an ending. Not bad for a first sub. It at least shows that you do have some ability to rearrange a piece; you just need to do more of it in order to have a better shot in the future. NO

Greetings djp/judges, Here's my take on the brief (but catchy) "File Select" tune from Mario 64. It started out as a slow, relaxed groove in the original key, but I wasn't making much progress on the arrangement. After flipping it to the minor key and adding the transition to the double-time percussion, the rest fit pretty well (I think). The bass is mixed fairly loud, and the cymbals are intentionally over-compressed for extra crunchiness. I think the balance works, but I hope it doesn't come off as too "harsh"-sounding. Track info: Original track...: "File Select" from Super Mario 64 Remix title......: Spinlock Remixer..........: aluminum File.............: MP3 192kbps CBR, 5.10MB, 3m42s Links: Here's a reference to the original: http://www.digitalscourge.com/Super_Mario_64_File_Select.mp3 Thanks! -- aluminum --------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/usf/sm64usf.rar - 18 "File Select" Indeed, the production's a bit loud and grating, but nothing beyond reasonable. Melody finally arrived at :54, and I liked the change done to it. Changing the original into a minor key really fucked with its recognizability on the first listens. The people out there who don't like liberal arrangements will have a fit, but as long as I can make the connections to the original (which I can), "McDonald's, I'm lovin' it." Definitely had to revisit the all too familiar source tune just to hear it again. Really intelligent interpretation. The dynamics with the supporting instrumentation REALLY drove the piece along (e.g. escalation at 1:07, stuttering at 1:14, breakbeats at 1:22), keeping the track moving. And major props on the bassline work, which will under-appreciated by way too many people. That's some really smart stuff. Got pretty worried once the 1:32 iteration of the melody spiraled off into something barely connected to the source, but it didn't last too long, going back to the melody at 1:57. You hear the writing seemingly spin off completely only to work its way back to a source reference (e.g. 1:44-1:46, 2:05-2:07, 2:12-2:13). Transition at 2:17 was a bit abrupt, and the fakey quality of the piano at 2:20 didn't really help. Timing was too rigid and didn't sound good, but the addition of the string pads at 2:34 helped fill out the soundfield and not keep the piano so exposed. Strings were too loud and the soundfield tip-toed on sounding flooded IMO, but again nothing dealbreaking. Piano returned to the source melody at 3:01, doubled by a flowy synth, before abruptly ending at 3:28. That was it for the ending??? Bah, c'mon Zac, where was the steam? Felt like you started super hot, then didn't finish the piece off strongly. That last section of the arrangement seemed like it was offering yet another new direction, then...poof. Untapped potential, but nothing I had a problem with beyond an artistic choice. For me it starts off stronger than it ends, arrangement and production-wise, but everything's more than solid to me. Initially, I would have liked the arrangement to feel more anchored to the source rather that taking it in such a liberal direction. But the connections were still readily observable for me and, on that level, I really appreciated the very interpretive spin put into this one. Once you get more familiar with the arrangement choices, you feel a lot less hesitant about letting go and really getting into this one. YES

Original Decision: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=5126 ReMixer: Nordin Real Name: Jeffrey Nordin Email: remix@jsquaredproductions.com Website: www.nordin1.com/ Game: Quake 2 Songs: Quad Machine, Operation Overlord, Rage, Kill Ratio, and Decent into Cerberon Add. Info: Quake 2 was, of course, Id software's glorious FPS from wayback in 1997. The music was done by Sonic Mayhem and was quite good, hence the compulsion to honor it in ReMix form. Misc.: Here's is the new and improved version of Stroggicide. The last submission was rejected because it was too similar to the original material. Fair enough. That's what was intended although not the goal of OCRemix. Nonetheless, I was inspired to redo the song in my normal composing style - Progressive Metal! This verison of Stroggicide has a lot more going on in terms of arrangement and instrumentation. I'm playing the drums, strings, synth, and piano parts. The string, synth and piano are all new to this mix. The piano is of course a real piano, which always sounds nice while the strings and synth are courtesy of my wonderful Korg. My brother is playing the rhythm guitar and bass and contributed (among other things) the kick ass bass line underneath the "chorus" at 2:51 and again at 6:22. On lead guitar, as well as mixing and recording, is my dad who contributed the frosting on the cake at 6:59 until the end. The piano interlude at 4:30 is a very liberal interpretation of the Operation Overlord theme that unintentionally sounds just like Dream Theater's (my largest inspiration musically along with Nobuo, Mitsuda, and Yamaoka) Trial of Tears. Not to say it's not a fantastic song to allude to, but the effect was initially coincidental. The guitar solo in this section is also an interpretation of the Operation Overlord theme which is stated literally by the piano in the following section. Some of the extra parts added include compressing some of the themes together, for instance the rhythm parts from Rage now serve as backgrounds for the piano melody taken from the middle of Quad Machine (at 1:24). Twice in the song (at 2:00 and 7:18) I quote the first bit from Doom's famous E3M1 melody (which itself was "borrowed" from Pantera's Mouth for War except Bobby Prince's is much better), because we wouldn't have Quake without Doom. As a final note, this song is heavy and loud and full of bass. Turn the volume up, and feel the Prog.

Contact info Mike Dissonent Mike Isel rockfreakmike@yahoo.com Remix info Donkey Kong Country Aquatic Ambience The mix is called "Depths Unchained".

I'll pester djpretzel to get your solo mix up today. Any friend of Russians is a friend of mine, old man.

The timestamps mentioned here could be slightly/very off. The encoding of the MP3 was pretty wonky on Winamp. http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 221 "Sandy Badlands" Opening was pretty odd. The stereo effects were a little disorienting, but it was at least nice to hear such attention paid to playing around within the field. Yeah, offhand, the melodic arrangement wasn't too much besides the synth gating. Nonetheless, you were clearly using several originally written supporting parts (e.g. 2nd electrosynth, bass synth, belltones) to combine with the melody; nice work there from a creative standpoint. On the minus side, the lead synth on melody was pretty generic and grating. Treble was definitely too much, but it didn't bother me as much. Reasonable original section at 1:24 very liberally inspired by the source, though the addition of the robovoice stuff at 1:41 was tacky as hell. A breathy voice recording saying the same words would mesh better. You have some nice beef on those bass kicks, but otherwise the beatwork was pretty sparse in this section despite the overall clean production. The sheer volume didn't compensate for the relative spareness of your textures; too bad though, as you obviously put some work into filling things out, for example from :42-1:26. Still, you need something steady like a variety of pad sounds to help anchor things. And think of a less plodding pattern for the drum kick in that section while you're at it; Lasts all the way until around 2:34. 2:20 retread the previous stuff with some additional harmony on top until 2:59. Oooh, I liked the section from 3:07-3:41, arranged from later on in the source; you missed the boat on using those passages more throughout the track to spice it up. Interesting ending with the organ; not using it beforehand in some manner was a missed opportunity to add more dynamic contrast to the piece. Among other criticisms mentioned before, work on refining those generic sounding electrosynths as well as the mixing and sound balance to get some stronger textures, and break up the monotony of that middle section at 1:24. This was actually a pretty good base and showed some promise. NO

For all the talk about how mediocre this arrangement was at Remix64, I thought this track was pretty solid and I'm glad it's up here. Considering how "ho-hum" most of the Euro scene was on this one, I wish the Commodore arrangement scene sent more goodness our way. I'm (a little) more familiar with R:K:O and AMIGAremix's stuff, and people around here don't know what kind of goodness they're missing over there.

Interesting, at least.

Songs and associations from ReMixes to songs are all handled by me and djp. I periodically send him a batch of SQL queries, and he manually runs them to add the information to the database. I just haven't sent djp the info in a while. EDIT: Should be cool now. Added songs for Punch-Out!! as well.

You could just wait for their proposed merger to go through (or not, we'll see) and save yourself the trouble for a bit.

Original Decision: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6933 I hope this works for you, Yep, it's still the same link, and the bitrate is also fixed.. <== Original --------------------------------------------------------- Lunar Silver Star Story Complete Music Soundtrack - (23) "Luna's Boat Song" Short and sweet. The vocal treatment is definitely better overall. Good job giving more density to the vocals, along with subtle but strong layering touches like at :27, :36, and :58. For what I'd tweak, the vocals should cut through more. Their now-lower volume makes the soundscape noticeably murkier than last time. Also, with the vocals lower, the snare is now too loud & upfront and makes its pattern seem too boring. Kind of weird hearing the drums so much louder than the guitar work, as the guitar is pushed back as well in this version. You hooked up the main issue, though some of the sound balance suffered a little. Maybe you'd be willing to fiddle with it some more, after the vote. In any case, it was an understandably delicate balance to work with, and the minor issues of the new end result were certainly not enough to hold this back now, IMO. With some quick touches, DA's vocals carry more weight and set into the track more. Good deal. Nice work, Majin & DA, and thanks for such a quick resub. Good luck with the rest of the vote. YES

Yeah, in late '04 we stopped updating vote counts on the actual queue thread, because the consensus was that it didn't offer any additonal insight and just got pending rejections upset. A better idea would be to just get more voting in. Of course, easier said than done. We judgefgts at OCR are living proof. Except me, of course. Perfection given judge form. Except for my many documented errors of fact. And opinion. And nigger.

It better have my tracks up on there.

Everything's still there, you idiot.

Solid stuff, once of the classics. More artists should be willing to use the "Game Over" theme like Game Over did here. There's lot of other cool little themes within the game.

Engaging intro here. Remember it from way back when, going through the first 700 mixes one by one. Nowadays, the beatwork here comes across as pretty cookie-cutter, but back then the groove was interesting and decidedly different in terms of the treatment of the theme. Good changeups in the instumentation at 2:30; I wish it stayed more like that instead of bringing back the beatwork at 2:42 to keep the feel different. Arrangement felt a bit repetitive after that, and the weird compression here wasn't doing any favors, but another changeup at 3:18 kept things fresh and inserted some new ideas into the picture before going back to the "Match BGM" arrangement for the last section. Interesting choice of textures, pulled off very well for the time. Cool example of old school stuff.

Heh. Dated, but definitely a quirky piece o' work. Short, but an interesting take on the theme.

We've got dedicated community peeps who are workin' on it. They're doing an excellent job so far. When it's eventually finished, it'll be more comprehensive and informative than you'd expect.

Name: Vitus Game Remixed: Gunsmoke Song: Title Theme: Remix Name: The Wild East Comments: The Gunsmoke theme run through some tribal drumming, chanting and electronic squelches. Enjoy.\ -------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/nsf/gunsmoke.zip - Track 1 Interesting approach. The soundscape was flooded and muddy, but I give you props for going crazy with it. Decent power to the beats, and some decent synth effects in there. Tribal chanting at :49 didn't come through clearly at all, and simply cluttered up the track; quite the sonic soup ya got here. Kept going for a while without referencing the Gun.Smoke source before bringing it back with an 8-bit lead at 1:59, complete with funky effects on the lead. Props for using effects to try and personalize the theme. Percussion changeup at 2:39 was really sloppy, and the textures got way worse, with shrill sustained synth leads that lasted long past their sell-by date until 3:00. 3:09 saw a shift to some new beatwork with the sampled tribal chanting returning. Wow, what a mess at 3:30 with all those sounds. They didn't harmonize well, and the production lead to yet another fugly, soupy mess until the end. You've got some of the right ideas in terms of trying to personalize the presentation. I thought you relied on the drum grooves and sampled chants too much to carry the brunt of the track. The melodic lead could have used some further fleshing out, either by layering it with more stuff or supplying some countermelodic writing; anything to give it some more meat. On the production side, you need to learn how to better separate your sounds so that they don't mush together to readily. Decent stuff, but it needs a lot more work. Make use of the ReMixing and Works forums here to learn more and obtain more feedback in the future. NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ffmq - "Battle 1" (ffmq-07.spc) Oh yeah, I know this source. One of the few good tracks from FFMQ in my opinion. Opening synths were pretty lame, but the guitar and drums entering at :11 were relatively good, especially with those synths toned down a bit by that point. The guitar tone felt a little bland once it took the lead at :26, and the drums definitely need more power to 'em, like zircon pointed out. There's definitely some sour notes going on with the guitar harmonization around :33-:34. The mixing was rough, and the lead guitar ends up bleeding together with the synths when they're together from :38-:48. Like zircon mentioned, the lead guitar needs to cut through more vs. the rest of the sounds. Now around :50, it's hard to hear much besides the guitars and drums. The bassline's pretty obscured. Doesn't sound like there's much other instrumentation here to pad the track; rather the whole track is produced so densely that the lack of other subtle anchoring parts isn't supposed to be so noticeable. That's why it has a loud, but relatively empty texture. Nothing awful here, but better separation of the sounds would let all the pieces of the puzzle be heard. 2:31 switched over to some better textures where the various parts at least stood apart to the ear more. The drumwork still felt a little simplistic, but the performance clicked together much better. Both the solo and the source melody under the solo were really cool, but need a warmer, more ethereal sound; it's too dry right now. Good last section for the close. The arrangement was fairly solid. Bit too by-the-numbers in terms of the genre adaptation to start, but you added a lot of embellishments and subtle changes to personalize things before getting into safer, more interpretive territory with the nice solo work at 1:52 and never looking back. See what revisions you can make in light of zirc's suggestions to get the overall package sounding stronger; he really broke it down well. Good luck on this, Alex; creatively, this is leaps and bounds ahead of your previous FFMQ final battle submission 2 years ago. NO (refine/resubmit)

http://ocremix.org/forums/showpost.php?p=236100&postcount=13 /thread

Your ReMixer name: Meteo Xavier (Or Meteo X) Your real name: Jeff Lawhead Your email address: MeteoX9999@aol.com I have no website and no knowledge of my userid Name of game(s) ReMixed: Super Mario 64 Name of individual song(s) ReMixed: The File Selection Theme (I don't know the actual title) Your own comments etc. etc.: Good time of the day, I humbly wish to submit what I consider to be a "remix" for Super Mario 64's File Selection Theme. I wanted to originally submit this as part of the Super Mario remix project I saw last week but I failed to secure an opening. The song title is "Amateur Optimism", based on what I had as I remixed the song.The intended vision (for lack of a better word concerning a song) for this song was to be a mellow, warm, tribute to the introductionry theme, much as I remember Super Mario 64 being. The original piece was quite simple and small but delicious, like an M&M, quite good material to be remixed. The remix is intended to be something of an introduction itself - not a huge grand exploration into something so small. The song builds quite quickly which I believe gives it that intended effect. It continues the original motif through most of the song so as to keep it grounded in the original style and feel of the song. I will also say that while I feel I achieved my original goal, I do feel there are concerns with its construction. I had to drag out one note for another 8th to get the rhythm and grove working. The piano parts and drums do not variate much at all, they are mostly to create that mellow warm background accompanying the main motif, but I could see (or hear) how it might be distracting. I am also concerned about the sound quality of the flute I used, especially when it gets really high up. My final concern would be the ending chords which I feel sounds like it was slapped together. I did work on it for many hours trying to correct it as best I could, but in the end this is as good as I know how to get it. And so here is a modest remix for a modest song, I hope it is good enough for your website. My equipment: FruityLoops 4 Kompakt (Guitars, Piano, medium strings) Soundfonts: (Bass, Drums, High strings, french horn, flute) Cymbals were samples ----------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/usf/sm64usf.rar - 18 "File Select" No, I think it's safe to say it's not good enough. People say it's difficult to be objective about their art. I agree, but at the same time it's not that difficult to be MORE objective than usual about one's art when forced to. Downright default-grade/thin samples to open it up, sparse textures, REALLY rigid sequencing, 112kbps encoding for a sub-3min track... compare this with anything recently posted, bro. You can't believe this is anywhere near the bar. Indeed, "amateur optimism" rings true. Now that I've come across as a piece of shit, onto the meat of the criticisms. Although the melodic component of the mix was cribbed verbatim and not interpreted at all (and it screams MIDI-rip), you had some decent additive ideas, first the countermelodic piano at :31, then the woodwind at :53. Good original ideas, though I'm not hearing any meaningful interpretation of the actual source material. The game melody is just relegated to the background. The next original passage from 1:35-1:57 has nothing but the most tangential of tangential connections to the source tune, if any at all. 1:57 until the end goes back to the formula of "repetitive, verbatim source melody + original passages on top". You've got the right idea in terms of adding your own original writing, but you forgot to actually interpret the Super Mario 64 material. Don't lose site of what this site is supposed to be about. Your primary goal is to interpret the source material you chose, not merely build other stuff on top of an untouched game melody. Based off this sub though, you have the potential to improve once your energies are focused in the right direction. Scour the ReMixing forum to learn how to use your sounds better and get some better free soundfonts to use, and post your stuff in the Works forum if you aren't already doing so. You need more feedback before you submit in the future. NO