Liontamer

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 122 "Crazy Motorcycle" Good intro. The atmosphere for some reason sounds rather distant and lossy, not at all like the first version. During fuller section like 1:15, the textures actually seemed surprisingly thin and hollow despite trying to sound beefy. The claps/beats were pretty flimsy in particular. Not sure what happened on the production side, but I didn't recall having any concerns like that on the previous version, yet here they are for this one. Throughout most of the track to boot. In any case, much like last time, I liked the arrangement. With even more connection to the original than before, I liked all the ways you reworked "Crazy Motorcycle" here. On the whole though, the arrangement dragged a bit and felt rather samey, as it kind of cycled through the same maybe 3 textures over the course of the track. You'll probably get some criticisms on that level from panelists and fans, but looking beneath the surface, there was a subtle sense of dynamic changes from section to section that made this ok. You did more than enough to pass in my book on the arrangement side, but this could have been markedly better. I'm a bit underwhelmed due the the issues I had, but I'm still gonna go borderline YES. Nonetheless, this needs to be spruced up if it's posted. As it, it sounds way too lossy. The repetitiveness of the various textures from section to section was a negative, but not a dealbreaker in light of how substantive and interpretive the arrangement approach was.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff6 - "Kids Run Through the City" (ff6-120.spc) Nice music box-style intro. Shifts over at :31 with some 16-bit style sounds before throwing it for a loop with the corn cob geetar or whatever that is at :36. I liked the strumming on support to fill out the track, as that wasn't in the original. Variations coninuted with a woodwind at 1:02 which was pretty shrill. The bassline behind that was all new. Switched over into acoustic guitar and tambourine at 1:30 with a relatively good crossfade. Loved the constant harmonization of the melody here. Ugh, the soundfield sure got crowded from once things got really busy from 2:01-2:28. Harmonica was there for all of a couple seconds from 2:16-2:19 and 3:01-3:03 which made little sense. The production's a bit imbalanced, but there's nothing so wrong with it as to dramatically hurt the presentation. There's nothing wrong in principle with a fadeout. Despite keeping the melody the same, guy never once used the same supporting writing as the original, instead choosing to rearrange that while arranging the melody for the respective instruments used. The track has a very personalized performance despite the cover arrangement of the melody, the textures constantly evolved, and there's plenty of subtle additions, rhythmic variations and rearrangement ideas based off the supporting parts of the source tune in the back. Hey, this is pretty pimp. Perhaps I just don't mind tuning as much, I dunno, but I didn't here anything bad in here in terms of the performance. As far as the arrangement goes, you look beneath the surface and there's a lot of good things to be found. He changed the genre, he made new countermelodies, he altered the instrumentation and dynamics. We have plenty of other cover-ish mixes that employ the same techniques. The overall presentation is definitely a creative and unique take on the source material to me. Best of luck on the rest of the vote. YES

Haha, here's the best part; my most recent submission was rejected by a vote of 3 No, 0 Yes. Guess which three judges? We didn't plan that, but that IS pretty LOAL~!

This is awesome. End.

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/tmnt3.zip - Track 1 ("Let's Go Turtles") Recording quality still sounds pretty hissy, but that wouldn't stop a killer arrangement and performance. Drums at :38 definitely sounded like they were in a completely different place, plus the tone IMO didn't gel with the sax. Bass work seemed pretty cool, but was drowned out a bit, partly because the hizz covered it up. The sax harmonization was still a bit shaky/raw in terms of the timing, and the performance probably should have been smoother and less dry, but it's a legit step up from the previous version. From 3:04-4:36, the electric guitar work and bass was a lot more audible and contributed well to the freestyling going on. There's just something though about the sax and weed's guitar not sounding right as tandem leads. Hate to seem like I'm putting it all on Koelsch, but it's his sax that's squeaky and dry here. Arrangement is solid, but the sax needs to be modified to better mesh with the other instrumentation both on the performance and production side. If you also adjust the sound balance and effects so that the various parts sound like they're all in the same room (as none of the 3 players sound together IMO), this would be golden. Perhaps have another mixer take a look at the separate recordings/files and give you their input. NO (borderline/resubmit)

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ewj - "Buttville ~ The Descent" (ewj-07.spc) Ain't that a bitch. Once this started, I could tell which source it was and was already feeling the arrangement creativity. Nice job layering the guitars at :24, before adding some swirly effects to pad the piece out at :34 and switching over to piano from :45-:55. The switchover to the piano came about very abruptly, and the piano sounded very robotically sequenced. I liked the stuttering percussion, but the beats had no meat on 'em. Hahahahaha, holy shit, that was a cool concept stuttering the guitar like that the first time from 1:17-1:28. Didn't work out quite as smoothly as one could have hoped, but the execution was pretty good. Though I understand how the tone of the beatwork is inspired by the original, the the simplistic beatwork patterns definitely dragged on though. The strings you're using to pad the track out don't fill ot the track nearly enough. Piano coming back at 2:25 is pretty fake, though decently produced. In tandem with the strings though (2:35), everything sounds too synthetic, and the mechanical sequencing of the piano close was a weak way to end things. Good arrangement concepts so far, Chris. On that level, you don't seem to have many problems on the creativity side. There's loads of good ideas here, the acoustic guitar and stuttering effects featuring pretty strong execution, but the rest not being executed nearly as well. You gotta refine the sequencing and production on your synthetic elements to get something that both flows more smoothly and also fills out the soundfield; the performance of those parts right now sounds too jerky and inhuman. Looking forward to a resub of this one, as well as any other future work. Too bad about your guitar pickup, but you showed promise attempting to turn lemons into lemonade. NO (resubmit)

Pulled a Wingless right there! Go bro!

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/zelda2.zip - Track 8 Cool swirly stuff for the intro, though those strummed strings sounded way too fake and robotically sequenced. Decent rise in intensity at 1:32 moving into the source melody, though aside from all the crazy effects, you weren't doing much creatively with the actual source tune. There was a pretty simple countermelody, but that was about it. Those beats were really flimsy as well. Source chorus at 2:30 also sounded really spartan and the contribution of the layering at 2:43 with the guitar synth was negligible to building up the piece. All your leads were too quiet vs. the swirly soundscape, plus the arrangement factor was so minimal. Good stuff with the belltones at 3:35 to provide more countermelodic ideas, but the development of the source material remained near verbatim. Decent closing section at 4:03. The interpretation of the actual source material was very minor, with only some sparse countermelodic ideas occasionally added in there. There's never any fleshed out combination of melody, harmony, and or countermelody at any time, plus your sound balance downplayed the lead instrumentation in favor of the swirly pads and limp beats. You relied too much on the background textures here to give personality to the piece, so IMO you focused on the wrong aspects of working with the original music in terms of the standards here. Keep interpreting the source in your mind first. NO

Don't use temporary upload sites in the future. Especially in the case of you wanting others to hear it after the decision, that Megaupload link will eventually die off. Google Pages would at least offer something more permanent, yet flexible. http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF9_psf.rar - 305 "Black Mage's Village" Yeah, the intro is pretty abrupt, though I didn't think that was a huge hit against it. Still, some buildup would be more logical. Once you hear how the ending was as abrupt as intro, the criticism multiplies. Now it just implies you didn't know how to write an introduction or ending. Good writing idea with the pizz strings at :28, though they sound like mud in the background. The bowed strings sounded a bit jerky with the note-to-note movements, but effort was put into the sequencing and production to downplay the syntheticness, which was good. I agree with weed though that there's a fairly inhuman/static feel to the whole thing though. The overall production on this was fairly full, but really muddy and lo-fi. Despite the valid complaints about the violin lead being too dominant, I liked how the supporting instrumentation varied up over the course of the 2 3/4 minutes. Dynamically however, the energy is the same level for most of the mix. See what you can do to change that through some added transitions that slow the mix down and/or change the texture more substantially (e.g. changing leads or the tone of the existing lead more often). Promising work so far, but it needs a lot of polish to excel. NO (resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/usf/MarioKart64_usf.rar - 28 "Victory Lap" It's cool that you were inspired by a Mariah Carey pop style. In essence, I can see what you were going for. However the end result isn't particularly strong. Intro was WAY too quiet. The drum tone starting at :33 was really out of place here, not to mention that it didn't fill up the space well. Then again, NOTHING filled up the space well here. Things were pretty empty and flat most of the whole way through. Especially for the beginning, you gotta properly flesh out these sounds with processing/effects and more parts so things aren't so barren. Your pads and strings have no meat on 'em at all; it's unfortunate hearing something like 1:11-1:33, which sounds very Carey-ish in the writing, have 0 power behind it. The tempo change at 2:08 was subtle, but really abrupt and awkward to me; would perhaps flow better if you bridged the two tempos with something brief. The arrangement ultimately didn't have enough time to develop given the time alloted. And, unfortunately for you, Vigilante's observation of "literally 30 seconds after the track starts to escalate, it's over," was all too true. With that cruddy percussion especially, if you're trying to emulate another style, it's important to emulate it fairly faithfully. You need to listen to more of Carey's work and compare the percussion sounds being used. Cool concept, but lacking in execution. Keep striving for experience and improvement, Jaycee.

http://s87139486.onlinehome.us/sc2mods/Ur-quan.mod - "Ur-quan" Hahaha! Not the most musical chorus to a source tune that I've ever heard. I had to pull the MOD up in DeliPlayer just to make sure the file wasn't corrupt. Cool intro though the organ-like lead was pretty flat. Good spacey effects to set up a minimal atmosphere that would eventually fill up, as evidenced by the fade in of your starting at :34. :59 seemed like you were trying to really amp up the energy level, but none of the sounds had any meat on 'em besides the ambient sounds/effects padding things out. You need more substance in terms of the lead, countermelodic and harmony parts, as there's really not much going on here. I agreed with zirc that the drums were patently out of place here. They did nothing to ground the track and focus it in any direction. It's not necessary to make good music, but the jist of the site is to take game melodies and work with though, so having some sort of direction with your own song structure is key no matter what. Hate to merely echo, but I also agreed with zirc's comments regarding the shortcomings of the overall structure. There's too much intro/outro material, and barely enough focus on arranging the source in the middle. Decent potential, but I'd scrap this one and see what other ideas are brewing as you look to gain more experience. Right now, the foundation here doesn't seem strong enough to rework without a huge chunk of time. It may be better spent experimenting new ideas and techniques. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FFX_psf2.rar - 102 "In Zanarkand" I'll be upfront that I was bothered by the lack of realism in the sample usage. Right in the beginning, that exposed string sounds so thin and inhuman. The note-to-note movement sounds decent but still jerky and mechanical. The sequencing is decent overall if you're not demanding (aside from that very impossible run at :05), but I thought the layering and effects sounded very simplistic and didn't create enough depth to the sounds, thereby not working enough to compensate for the tone of the string samples. The samples making this one up got a bit more exposed (i.e. worse) once the brass and drum samples worked their way upfront at 2:16. The change in the supporting instrumentation at 3:15 further exposed the brass pretty badly. Again, nothing meaningful done on the production side to compensate for the crummy samples. Also nothing done on the articulation side to at least give off a realistic performance to the pieces. Everything sounds so thin, jerky, and robotic. Yeah, though a "relatively" conservative arrangement, you did a good job adapting the time signature and personalizing the approach. I don't even think you need better samples. I just believe you need to use your exisiting ones a lot more effectively. Flesh out the sounds more and refine the note-to-note movements and you could pass this with these existing sounds, Brad. I'll take some work, not simply for this mix but for the future, but you've gotten this far. You're capable of even more. NO (resubmit)

y'all smell like poo. vote on other shit.

Ohshi, TRANCE! Get away! Get away! Get away! NO Wait, resist bias clearly inherent in the panel against trance! [rethinks...] Ohshi, TRANCE! I be movin'! I be groovin'! YES Wait, resist bias clearly inherent in the panel towards trance! ... ... ... http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Chrono_Cross_psf.rar - 216 "People Seized with Life" Aight, so I thought the synths and some of the processing ideas were a bit bland. I'm admittedly a bit more of a fan of edgier and unique-sounding techniques from the heavy-hitting electronic guys like SGX, but, shit, check out the arrangement on this one. Without even substantially referring to the most familiar verse of the source melody, Alex built a pretty strong, interpretive trance arrangement. Focused a lot on interpreting first verse of the original, which was a pretty interesting approach; I'm sure some people familiar with the source will be disappointed that the chorus from the original didn't factor into this much. The effect on the string-like synth filling out 1:32-1:50 sounded a bit low-quality, but it's a minor issue. Section from 2:39-3:17 felt notably cramped and the melodic content of the arpeggiated synths simply cluttered together with the bassline and beats. Pretty messy and grating, IMO. Some effect that you stopped at 3:17 seemed to remedy the issue. Ending at 3:42 cut out a bit abruptly there. The constant buildups and breakdowns ambient employed kept the energy and interest level high throughout the course of the piece. Solid arrangement that goes into very interpretive and evolving territory without ever losing sight of the original. Looking forward to more, Alex, very impressive. YES

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 204 "On That Day, 5 Years Ago" Final Fantasy X Original Soundtrack - 321 "Suteki Da Ne" (see: 119 "The Sight of Spira") Well, you made the female go YES, YES, YES!!! I dunno how the hell my vote is supposed to top that. Indeed, the recording quality could be better, but this is certainly strong enough. Good intro from :00-:34 based off "On That Day...", which I could already see connecting very seamlessly to "Suteki Da Ne". For a solo guitar piece, the atmosphere was a little too empty for my personal taste, but I like how you really changed the tone of the original. Sounded like a flub at 2:02; pretty jarring to me. Slightly less jarring buzziness at 2:13. Minor stuff. Things started dragging a bit on the arrangement, but you wisely varied things up at 2:39 & 2:50 by accelerating and decelerating the tempo. Last section at 3:00 probably could have used a more dynamically contrasting finish for something arguably more interesting, but particularly effective harmonizing of the two guitars for the close. The resolution was admittedly a little ho-hum to me, but overall I can't hate on this "simplistic" but solid arrangement. It's not gonna punch you in the face, but clearly would rather intend to wisk you away to sleep. Decidedly understated. Nice debut, Mike. Keep 'em coming, bro. YES

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 305 "Those Chosen by the Planet" http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=sm - "Norfair Ancient Ruins Area" (sm-26.spc) Interesting intro, pretty good energy. Liked the brief reference to "Those Chosen..." from :10-:15. Loving the tension with the drums, brass and strings although the strings at :32 sounded a little too close for my tastes. Nothing that negatively impacts a vote or anything, just personal taste. Dunno what that percussion-style instrumentation at 1:06 was, but it sounded pretty nice. Still not really getting much of a connection to either source here. Not really sure what's being arranged at all here though up until 2:10 overtly references "Norfair Ancient Ruins Area". Strings upfront at :32 sound like nothing being arranged (except very far in the back on support doing "Those Chosen"); same with the brass at :42, the percussion at 1:06 and the strings/brass at 1:25. If you're referring to either source tune, it's unfortunately far from overt. Pretty decent genre adaptation of "Norfair Ancient Ruins Area" from 2:10-2:52 with some alteration of the rhythms and other orchestral seasonings, but the theme hardly got any really interpretive treatment. Transitions fairly naturally over into an adaptation of "Those Chosen by the Planet" from 3:04-3:46, which IMO had more personalization and interpretation than the rendition of Norfair. Nice segue back into Norfair with the glassy percussion lead from 3:46-4:29. A bit of a shame that it went back into the more straightforward Norfair arrangement from 4:29-5:11; could have been a good chance to at least expand on that aspect on those idea more rather than do nearly the same thing again. Still, some better ideas from 5:11 until the end at 5:42 to close it out with some more interpretive stuff, though that was pretty fleeting. I agree with Vigilante on the composition ultimately feeling underdeveloped. I thought you were heading in the right direction with some of the more interpretive sections I heard, but much of the arranged sections were fairly straightforward and concise. I see you're trying to intelligently write supporting instrumentation that's original yet compliments the melody, but it's not adequately filling the song out. Related to that, the samples seemed pretty good, though I thought the soundscape sounded a bit too clean and upfront. Almost every instrument sounded like it was right next to me, rather than being affected by any acoustics (the bell being a notable exception). The overall placement of stuff like the brass and strings doesn't sound very natural. It doesn't affect my vote strongly, but perhaps try for a denser sound on them that reverberates more. Right now, things sound fairly full given all the sounds in play, but the atmosphere actually didn't sound very spacious. The sum total of the arrangement and production issues I had ultimately pushes me to go NO(resubmit). The production quality is ultimately a touch too unrealistic, but passable in the big scheme of things provided the arrangement is strong. On the arrangement side, I would integrate usage of the sources into more of the liberal first half and work on revamping the writing of the supporting instrumentation to add more complexity and interpretation value to the more conservative sections of the arrangement. Keep up the progress, Chris.

Ironically enough, I was about to move this to GD, then saw your name. I only checked just to see if, say, you had agreed to take it over. In any case, the thread will be moved to GD for one week to see if anyone's interested. After that point, it will be moved to Works: OC ReMix. If no interest is there, the thread will end up being pruned later on.

Not getting any younger.

Well, THAT was unexpected. Look, all I know is that to me this is substantially above bar with the arrangement, and I thought the soundscape was well-done. I'm clearly not a guitarist, but everything sounded fine on that level to me regardless of what was out of tune; sounded more than competantly musical to me. Like BGC's vote, I'm not against voting NO on a sub when everything's good except one glaringly weak problem; I've certainly done that before and haven't had any qualms after the fact. But I didn't feel that was the case with this particular sub. Perhaps in my case, it's me simply being more familiar with weed's style and not being put off by an untuned string. And of course while I didn't have any significant issue with the flute, I can understand why it was criticized. In any case, Jon T, who's away for the week, was going to YES this, so I'm calling for this to go for a full vote. Obviously weed can't vote YES on his own sub; it's not ethical, so we've never allowed a judge to do it. And ultimately a judge can NO their own submission (it has happened it the past). But to me it seems more like weed giving out an emotional reaction to the NO votes, throwing his hands up in the air. On that level, I'm not gonna count his vote. For weed regarding his frustration here, beyond the 3 NOs all saying the arrangement is solid, there are also 3 unreserved YES votes. Let's all keep that in mind and see what the others have to say.

It's mentioned in the writeup as encouragement for any women who think there are no females out there in this community who aren't primarily vocalists. Attempting to draw in more talented female arrangers isn't "unnecessary" to me, and the reasoning is spelled out pretty clearly in the writeup.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=dkq - "Stickerbush Symphony" (dkq-17.spc) & "Hot-Head Bop" (dkq-14.spc) Interesting opening, even if I didn't like the opening synth there; it creates a genuinely interesting texture though, so I'm not simply hating. Strange choice to have the synth at :23, seemingly handling a melodic part, positioned so quietly in the track, but I waited to see how things developed. Once things picked up at 1:06, the texture seemed a little uncohesive. Though you're going for an ambient-type background, the strings you're using as pads sound really muddy and didn't really work. Bassline had no meat on it to begin with, but then you amped it up nicely at 2:00 to prove a hater like me wrong. Despite everything going on though, the overall texture didn't seem very full until 1:27's addition of several elements added a lot more busyness (and, I could argue, clutter). Maybe it's just me, but it sounded like there were too many sounds upfront. Regardless, I actually liked the pattern at 2:00 and though it fit ok. I think the piano and guitar parts sounding so inorganic hurt the piece more. Piano at 2:21 sounded REALLY mechanical due to the note velocities being so similar from note-to-note. The sequenced guitar at 2:39 didn't sound realistic, but the better variation of note strengths helped mitigate those issues and place the listener's focus on the strength of the writing, unlike the piano. I thought the arrangement itself was pretty solid, with some good usage of the two themes, especially the combination concept of 2:21-3:05. I don't think that needs much work, if any, but then again I don't harp on fadeouts as much. A very interesting spin on the originals with this decidedly chiller approach. Follow whatever's practical/useful to you from zirc's production advice to spruce this up, Damon; re-examining the sound balance among the various parts as well as beefing up the overall atmosphere and fine tuning some of the more mechanical-sounding sequenced parts would hook this up. NO

If Ten Too Many did an actual video game music arrangement, I'm pretty sure it'd go over well, Eliot. As for this original stuff inspired by a love for games, I'd post a link to it in Works: Other forum and see if anyone bites. No need to be pessimistic about it. I listened to "Princess Mario" off TTM's MySpace, and it's a well put together track. I loved "Mullet Man" in particular.

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/metroid.zip - Track 5 ("Kraid") Intro was weak, with just the direct sampled original plus some flimsy, mechanical drumwork on top, but you at least segued out of it with your own version of the source tune from :38-1:04. Vox used in there also sounded pretty cheap. Well, the original's direct sampled, sure, but there's at least more material developed without the direct sampling to not harp on it completely. Unfortunately though, the arrangement was pretty limited in how it worked with the theme. The supporting writing was different from the original, but didn't fill out the track well anyway, and stuff like 2:47 was empty and simplistic with both the writing and production. The defaulty FL Slayer-style guitar sample at 3:27 was definitely a weaker instrumentation idea. The arrangement basically dragged on until the end, just altering the instrumentation every verse but not fleshing the soundfield out or developing the arrangement/writing any further, going into very repetitive territory. Definitely could cut out 2 or more minutes of this and still deliver the same message. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 403 "The Highwind Takes to the Skies" I hate to crib zirc's vote like that, but I couldn't really add anything more to this that he didn't cover. Read everything he said all over again. You REALLY gotta pay more attention to your sound balance and overall production. Everything's indeed very cluttered together, and the arrangement isn't very interpretive overall compared to the original. Everything's at the same tempo with similar instrumentation ideas, though I liked the persoanlization of the guitar writing in there and the few glimmers of originality in there. Drum tone was really flimsy and the performance sounded really mechanically timed, e.g. 1:53-2:45; some of the drum rolls really exposed the sample. If you're gonna keep the tempo and instrumentation similar to the original, you definitely have to alter the rhythms and style a lot more than what you've offered here. Keep at it, bro. You show promise with these subs, but still need to keep working at it. NO