Liontamer

Heh. Pretty simple source tune. Sounds like it'll require a lot of creative interpretation or expansion to pass at a mere 2:36. Great strides you've made in your sounds since your Final Fight CD mix from way back when. Nice opening guitar riffs, though the supporting chords starting at :06 tend to just bleed together. Some really simplistic, repetitive and generic-sounding drums plopped in at :32. They sound rather weak and undermined the energy level; you need something more organic-sounding (and creative from a writing standpoint) to get a more cohesive result. Can't just plop in a basic pattern and consider it done. Decent, somewhat intense guitar work from :44-:57, but not feeling too much from an interpretation level. Still, it's at least a sincere attempt at personalizing a conservative arrangement. Similar stuff as :32-:44 from :57-1:10, before simplifying it with some decent stuff from 1:10-1:18, then adding original material on top of that until 1:36. Back to the intense chorus (like :44) at 1:37 with some new original stuff added on top yet again. Good stereo manipulation at 2:01, indeed. The escalation of the track in the second half with these new parts added in is rather simple. None of the sections are really interpreted or expanded significantly, even for a short time. Decent personalization of the theme which I'm liking, but you've gotta develop the arrangement further, especially manipulating/interpreting the main riff into something more rearranged and unique. Don't forget to work on that percussion also. Hey, good to hear another track from you bro. Stick around more and see what the ReMixing and Works forums can do for you as you continue to improve your stuff. NO

What part of "whip up in a few minutes" don't you understand, boy?!?!?!?! You stirrin' up shit! I kill!

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 122 "Crazy Motorcycle" Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children OST - 103 "Beyond the Wasteland" <zircon> Direct sampling of 0:00 in the source is present from 0:00 in the mix too, the little "blip" synth pattern <zircon> At :13 in the ReMix you're hearing the riff from 2:28/2:31 in BtW <zircon> Lots of arrangement in the ReMix is based on :35-:45 in the original track <zircon> 1:41 and 3:59 in the ReMix are possibly connected to 1:47 in BtW... I'm thinking yes Sorry about neglecting to fallthrough this last month. No excuse, but shit has been hectic. Cool mix, but... Notwithstanding the direct sampling of a part from "Crazy Motorcycle" for a significant enough portion of the mix (already a negative), the fact that much of the arrangement is based on the non-VGM tune "Beyond the Wasteland" from FF7: Advent Children makes it a loss already to me from a standards perspective. We're definitely in that 15-25% area. There's not enough singular focus on "Crazy Motorcycle" (i.e. the VGM-inspired portion of the arrangement) to give it a pass. Sorry, Dan. You really did a great job on production relative to your earlier work and are definitely coming into your own on that level. Looking forward to your next submission, bro. NO

Fate has been cruel, and I've switched my vote up top. Be sure, Trevor, to work on this a bit and send this back. We clearly feel the potential here.

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/castlev3.zip - Track 7 ("Dead Beat") Might as well post the Zophar's link, since our hosted link looks all funky and won't link properly. Ironically enough, as much as I like the CV3 soundtrack, this source tune is not one of my favorites from the game. There's much better stuff out there for my personal taste like "Rising", "Stream" or especially "Demon Seed". Damn, that's some loud stuff to start off with; pretty intense rendition of the source. Didn't like whatever e-piano-ish dealie squeaked in the left channel from :20-:26, but it was brief. Swanky changeup in the rhythm from :33-:36 & :39-:42; very smoothly done, I'm jealous. Little plainer stuff from :46-:58 that felt a little aimless, but got back to speed afterward. Weird synth-driven segue from 1:04-1:08 that didn't flow right into the more interpretive/embellished playthrough of the source by Chris. I can see what he was trying to do, but felt like the timing should have been different. Oh man, 1:32 is pure rock. Absolutely sweet solo on top of the supporting chords of the original from 1:46-1:59. Wow, beautiful concept at 2:05; had me screaming out "OH SHIT!". Loving these glassy, delayed chords, and the drumwork was well-written. Brief piano solo from 2:31-2:43 sounded really, really rigidly sequenced; I agreed with zircon that this was the weakest point of the whole thing, but we all feel it was really minor in the face of the overall execution. Loved all the tangents you went off on with the arrangement. 2:44-onward kept things strong for the rest of the track. Nice subtle speeding up of the tempo for the end, including some nice shredding seguing into the organ-driven finish. Organ was a little too rigidly sequenced as well, but again the overall skill is just too strong. Chris had several unique variations on the source and so many adept transitions where nearly everything flowed well from one concept to the next. I hate to say this is better than the original, as it might offend goat's own reasons for tributing the soundtrack. But on an individual level, I didn't care for the source tune, yet the arrangement generated an interest and respect for what could be done with it. Around here, that's when you know it's a job well done. Keep 'em coming, Chris. YES

http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozmmusf.rar - 224 "Pirate Fortress" Man, the MIDI-ish soundset for this soundtrack is so shitty. This particular theme isn't a good example (as I don't care for it at all), but the Zelda 64 series soundtracks are a good example of the writing really being impressive to overshadow the weak sounds. The SNES had better sounds. Dunno how a 6-minute-long arrangement of a source like this could turn out, but you've piqued my interest. Intro felt like a mere sound upgrade, with too similar instrumentation and the arrangement structure basically being the same as the source, except adding those backing strings to fill it out. Like Malcos said, nothing unexpected given the sub letter. Soundfield got really buzzy, cramped and indistinct from 1:12-1:26. Moved over into 1:43 with the piano section. The way the instruments dropped out so fast moving into that section was jarring, again agree with Malc. Still, I see the potential in the just by making the transition a bit more gradual. Piano solo definitely sounded mechanical, but props on at least throwing in some decent effects to try and give the piano some body; now you've gotta work on getting the notes themselves to sound more humanized in the performance. Brass synth coming in at 2:37 sounded excessively dry and fake, not meshing well with the other instrumentation at all. Arrangement-wise, I won't lie in that I wasn't really picking up how you based that section off of the source. Violin at 2:53 was definitely really dry, and the entire third section was sparse. The brass returning at 3:16 with the source melody also sounded very dry once again, with even the brief layering of a second brass synth not adding much meat to things. 3:44-4:03 was even more barren. The drums are supposed to sound thick, but they don't really fill out the stereo field; it's worse after 4:03 where they possess no depth (best example, 4:36-4:37). On the plus side, the arrangement ideas were definitely worthwhile, as you got a lot more interpretive with the usage of the source tune. Scrapping that crappy brass lead for a more substantial change in the tone compared to the first section would also help. Good call by Malc with the transition at 4:06; you had a great opportunity to create some dynamics and make that transition more distinct and effective. Interesting writing, but the atmosphere still needs a lot more fleshing out; still too sparse here. Indeed, although the soundfield got swamped again briefly, that was a great transition back into the source arrangement at 5:17 for the finale. Malcos really broke it down and had loads of criticisms that were on point. A lot of what I had to say was merely echoing his call on this. He summed things up so well, I have to crib from him: "There were some very good parts of this mix, and I think it was arranged well, with original parts integrated nicely with original material. However, there were lots of issues to do with dynamics, volume and texture. I don't think this is up to the bar just yet, but I would like to see a resubmission of this." Stick around the community, use the ReMixing & Works forums here like mad to learn more about Reason and obtain feedback for your future work. NO (resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozmmusf.rar - 253 "Staff Roll" Before the more festive parts about 2+ minutes in, the original sounded like something straight out of Leisure Suit Larry. Anyway, French horn synth at :35 is pretty phoney and could use a bit more body, but decently sequenced. Soundfield felt too empty until the woodwind joined at 1:00. Yeah, that audio deformation from 1:24-1:25 is unacceptable. The most familiar part of the source kicked in at 1:33 with some decent orchestration, but I didn't like how similar the feel was to the original. Track felt a little empty, but there was some thick drum stuff at 2:14 to at least help fill things out a bit. 2:23 featured the main theme, which is also arranged in this style as part of the same Staff Roll source tune. 2:45 went for another iteration of the main source melody with some different instrumentation to very things up. Stylish arrangement work at 3:29-3:45 to add a dash of flair before combining the main melody and Zelda theme for a stronger, more energetic finish. Like weed said, "the arrangement is surprisingly fresh considering the main groove is very similar to the original", which was surprising once I reached the end of the track. Without reading his vote first, that had been the same conclusion I had drawn. Definitely a track carried by the arrangement, but a nice job on the sequencing for a fairly natural track from a "performance" standpoint. I though the production was decent enough, but ultimately the samples here still sound a bit bland and synthetic in a negative way. It's not until 2:05 where you finally get something filling out the background so the track didn't sound so empty. Some production tips on how to flesh out the sounds a bit more would be appreciated, since we can't post this track as is anyway (with that bad audio glitch). The production quality's nagging on me and when compared with the arrangement, there's a bit too much of an imbalance for me. Always the stickler... NO (refine/resubmit)

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ct - "Tyran Castle" (ct-3-02.spc) Not a fan of the source tune; only the chorus was solid to me. Anyway, opened with some cheap dinosaur SFX. Moved over into some sequenced strings and vox at :11, all sounding pretty rigidly sequenced, like the others have readily pointed out. Beats from :45-:53 were completely out of place, followed by a complete change in the piece's tone which made 0 sense. Yeah, I'm gonna take the quickest exit out. Everything's really empty, mechanically sequenced and unrealistic sounding, plus the arrangement is on crack. It has no flow to it whatsoever; pretty much every transition was ridiculously jarring, plus the instrumental textures didn't piece together well at all. Ambitious, but ultimately very poorly executed. I'm more disappointed in the lack of musicality with the various instrument choices than the arrangement being so haphazard. NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=mpnt - "Mario Paint" (mpnt-01a.spc) Yeah, pretty cool choice of theme. Disappointing name for the arrangement though. zircon covered all the cons of the looped drum sample, which I won't repeat (except to say that he's right). Sax introing in at :08 sounds too synthetic and thin, but I appreciate the effort. Wow, that bassline at :40 is definitely distorting a hell of a lot. Piano actually sounds fairly ok; a bit fakey but it's being buried by that clippy bass so it's harder to tell what's up. Sax gets more freestylin' at 1:13, but at the expense of GREATLY exposing the sample. Piano comping at 1:30 was also a great concept that sounded fairly decent for being sequenced but, again, still greatly exposed the realism limitations of the sample. Ha, nice fuckup at 1:40 as the whole performance gradually broke down at 1:47; more people need to be daring like that and throw in an artistically creative flub like banging on the keys for some dissonance. God way to turn a potential negative (messing up the solo) into a positive. I actually feel it worked well, all things considered. Same issues coming back into a last iteration of the arrangement at 1:56; clipping bass, thin-sounding sax. But do try and very up the arrangement there for that last iteration of the arrangement. No good repeating it verbatim when you have a 3-minute mix. Ending merely exposed the sax sample badly again and didn't sound like as much of a happy accident at the piano breaking down earlier. Gotta tighten that up. Great potential, Max. Take zirc's criticisms into account, eliminate the clipping, work on varying the arrangement for that last section with some further interpretation or instrumentation changes, and refine the sample usage to flow more realistically in the performance and sound more realisitc with the tone. NO (rework/resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/usf/sm64usf.rar - 14 "Cave Dungeon" Hate to glib you when you have an otherwise cool track where you tried to personalize the approach and use some different sounds, but the arrangement is basically the same as the N64 version, like Vigilante said. Creatively, it really doesn't stand apart from the original except for having more driving beatwork. The bassline sounds like an upgrade of the original, as well as the piano at 1:41. The in-game SFX usage at 2:54 was cheesy, and not enough of a factor to merit being used for all of about 3 seconds. You have the potential to really go off into some creative, personalized interpretation of the source here if you can think of further ways to have it not sound so much like the N64 version. Look forward to hearing more from you in the future, Mike; I like your style so far. Stick around here and make use of the ReMixing and Works forums if you aren't doing so already. NO

Cave Story (Game Rip) - 24 "Moonsong" & 28 "Balcony" First few minutes were pretty cover-ish but had a fair amount of interpretation with the supporting work. Good stuff. 1:04-1:16 felt a bit empty in the background though. The tone of the drums was lacking, IMO, though the percussion writing was good. To me, they sounded thin and flat, undermining the energy level. Beautiful stuff at 1:34 with "Balcony", dropping out the percussion and giving a more genteel and organic rendition of "Moonsong" with a very personalized flavor at 1:48. That's awesome. Weakest point in the track was from 2:19-2:49 where the drums really stuck out as thin. Really need to see that improved so there's less of a sound quality disparity. I see where Vig's coming from, but the drums have no meat on 'em and don't quite gel with the rest of the instrumentation to me, leaving the background rather thin and tepid. Once that's improved, then I'd be solid on it. Then all of a sudden a great crescendo at 2:50-3:06; came in a bit too loud, maybe, but the performance was awesome. I wouldn't even touch the volume there; it's like a punch to the face that you find yourself liking. Arrangement was still pretty solid afterward, with lots of great comping and riffing off of the structure of the source from 3:06-3:20, followed by another straightforward iteration of the source with the supporting work carrying the brunt of the interpretation. Drums are still a weak point, sounding well written but too synthetic. Ending at 4:43 was rather abrupt and I-give-up-ish. Also seemed like it came in a few beats too fast almost to be a smooth transition. Play with it a little bit; perhaps allow it to fadeout at a slower pace and a bit more completely before using that last sound at 4:50. Awesome arrangement, but those drums sound thin, generic and bland, and are undermining the listening experience. Tweak 'em for the win. If rejected, use this as an opportunity to also work on the ending. NO (refine/resubmit) I must say though, Doug, I never heard a thing primarily from you before this, but I can't wait to see what's next. Weird to say this, but...get your mom further involved in a future arrangement to snag her some legit co-credit. Just don't saddle her with the handle "MomUltimA". Let's not go too far.

ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOFL at that stinger. R O F L ! [end transmission]

http://www.zophar.net/gbs/tetris.zip - Track 2 Had this mostly done by the time JJT posted, so I might as well post it. I recognized some of the drum style from Ubik's Adventure Island mix, "Tribal Warfare". You did try to adapt the melody to the genre, moreso during the chorus (1:42-2:08) and during 2:14-3:05 where you adapted the source's bassline, but the source usage was that basically that one lead synth and the interpretation factor was low. You really shouldn't have a track that would sound fairly complete without the lead synth; it really did make the Tetris usage feel like an afterthought. Go for something like 3:18 where you did some observable interpretation of the melody and also had some supporting synths also arrange the source while interplaying with the melody; you need to be more in that direction from the get-go. Wish the production was a bit more balanced; zirc covered all the major issues there. NO

Thank God. Not that no one has said they liked it (far from it), but there were enough genre haters in the ReView thread to the point where I'm certainly glad someone really really enjoyed the mix, and that fact that it's here.

No one ever disses Brian for having a hand in this. Just weed.

Yeah, way to look at the date of creation.

I'm sure it takes some effort to make the beats phat. Dunno how short TO was selling it. http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Chrono_Cross_psf.rar - 216 "People Seized with Life" I just don't get why the mix title is the same as the original. Everything here could be phatter, but the groove seems decent enough. The electrosynths are somewhat generic, so you need to employ the various effects and processing at your disposal in order to create more unique textures. Stuttering melody at 2:19 is pretty standard for the genre. The genre adaptation of the arrangement is ok; It's done reasonaly well, but you're still basically using the melody, nearly untouched, only fitted to the genre. I'd love to hear some original sections or original composition ideas woven into the melody to make things more personalized. The production's not half-bad, but the track is still noticeably empty; like TO said, the beats are trying to overcompensate for the relative emptyness and dryness of the track. You've gotta flesh this out with denser sounds and a more complete soundfield to have a better shot. And give the arrangement its own name, yes? Nonetheless, you're noticeably improving and shouldn't be discouraged at continuing in the community. NO (resubmit)

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ct - "Ruined World" (ct-2-01.spc) & "At the Bottom of Night" (ct-3-03.spc) Not bad for a first sub. Interesting intro. zyko would find it interesting. "Ruined World" arrangement kicks in at :23. Definitely some cool textures; a bit simplistic, but interpretive. That modulated synth DOES tend to get annoying after a while. Would rather hear you vary up the extras to create a nice evolving, morphing arrangement. Vox comes in at 2:03 functioning more like a pad, so it but it strains for credibility with the way the notes are held since it still sounds like voices. 3:30 in, and the arrangement and instrumentation of "Ruined World" hasn't changed a bit since it started at :23, so we're already cruising at a solid NO. Things finally changed at 3:42 with some bubbly synths and swirly pads before, indeed like TO said, lazily pasting "At the Bottom of Night" right on top of the pads with 0 cohesiveness whatsoever. Those two portions of the track didn't fit together in the slightest, plus there was no ending. Started off decent enough before hitting cruise control, while then proceeding to swerve off the road entirely and come to a sudden stop.

Once shirts are available, I'm sure a mass e-mail will be sent in order to let everyone know that they're available. You'll all be made aware as soon as possible.

http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozusf.rar - 26 "Zelda's Theme" Yeah, I was also feeling the pizz strings at the outset here. Things picked up at :12, but the sequencing on a lot of the supporting instrumentation was too rigid/mechanical, the keyboard in the background being the worst offender. Fairly decent string and woodwind sequencing, just not on the piano and especially not the brass. Weird changeup at 1:36; the writing didn't really click either by itself or as part of the bigger picture. The soundfield was rather swamped; a LOT of supporting elements bled together in a pretty thick murk where nothing really stood out. Textures here weren't cohesive as a result, and relied a bit on reverb/effects to fill the track out. Fadeout ending here unfortunately didn't work well here. Good concept, yes, but it needs a lot of work with the details. NO

DDRMAX Dance Dance Revolution 6th Mix Original Soundtrack - (143) "Max 300" Thanks for providing the original. The album has two versions of the track, but Fernando of course provided us the DDRMAX version. Even the original sounded overcompressed; not my style, but a cool original. Pay attention to :13-:26 of the original, as SymBiotiX basically arranges that as his melody and then uses several instrumental variations of it. Pretty liberal arrangement of that portion from the original, IMO. Intro opens up for the first 6 seconds with some direct sampling of the original, before playing some crud at :06 and proceeding to purposefully destroy it with some effects. Picks back up at :25 with a different style of synths, though I didn't like that lead melodic synth, which was very generic. Good changeup in the focus of the track at :54 to a new variation of that source riff, before referring to the arranged melody from 1:12-1:25 and then going to more of an organ/e-piano-ish deal. Following that up with another variation of that liberally arranged source riff at 1:37. Despite not liking some of the sound/production choices, the track developed well indeed. Soundfield was rather gritty, but decently produced; there's not too many things going on at once, but the soundscape seems filled up most of the time. Gonna sound like a jerk, but that dnb percussion sample at 1:01 sounded way too generic, since I've heard it a billion times before. It's also (arguably) too loud at the expense of hearing everything else, which didn't help. To me, it's a negative. Perhaps just for me, the track can either be really gritty and compressed or have a supporting element loudly dominate over the other parts, but I'd honestly prefer only one or the other going on at the same time. I'm not trying to say that you can't send in stuff in this style, I just don't think you pulled it off quite well. The track's a bit too overcompressed-sounding. zircon had some good insights when I ran the track his way, so I hope to hear his full POV. You'll need to correct me if I'm wrong Fernando, and point out the specifics of how you directly arranged the parts of the original; the arrangement seems a bit liberal. As far as I can tell, you're arranging :13-:26 of the original in a very liberal way, doing several (good) instrumental variations of that riff and that's basically it. The arrangement of that riff is good, but I think the connection's a bit too tenuous. You already greatly overhauled that melody to the point where you need some other direct/overt references to the original to reign it back in. Solid dynamics and instrumental variation to keep the track fresh most of the way. Good writing. Perhaps tinker with some of the more generic sounding instruments (lead synth at :25, dnb drums at 1:01). Work on making the arrangement less liberal while also looking at the production and sound balance a bit. You're easily on the right track, and I like seeing how you've improved, Fernando. Keep working on this one and send it back. NO (rework/resubmit)

http://project2612.org/download.php?id=61 - "IceCap Zone 1" He's right the entire way. Go back and read his POV again. Purposeful as it is, the track is too sparse and the sound choices & arrangement ideas are too plain. The instrumentation is very defaulty, and stuff that should have sounded organic like the piano sounded way too synthethic with the tone and performance. The writing of nearly all of the parts was way too simplistic. I liked the writing ideas of the supporting synths/parts, except for the drums/kicks, which were boring, and most of the rhythm changes were generic. The melody's not meaningfully interpreted at at all, and with only 2:27's worth of time to work with, you certainly didn't give yourself enough time to develop the arrangement. If you don't put more substance and uniqueness into these submissions, you're gonna get the same result every time. NO

A few weeks ago Gray took on a new job and moved to his new "Corn Crib", wherever that may be. As a career move, Gray didn't have time to continue evaluating tracks for the site, so he chose to step down a couple of weeks ago. zyko's come in again to help us out ("boom-diggity," he'd say), but my deepest respects go out to Gray for his 2+ years of dedicated work to the panel and OCR as a judge and moderator. I personally learned a lot from Gray about music as well as the community. His ability to interact with everyone and keep drama to a minimum helped us greatly, and I can't honestly think of anyone who hates the guy. I'm sure I speak for everyone on the panel when I wish him the best of luck with his career and hope that we seem him again soon. Thanks for everything you've done here, Gray. You smellzy punk.

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/pictionary.zip - Track 3 ("Let's Draw a Picture") So we were hanging in #judges, when I brought up the Tim Follin project I'm co-running. Now that TO got his setup working again, I asked Lee if he had the availability to see if he wanted to contribute. I showed him Follin's discography and asked him to check it out. "Got anything with a good bassline?" he says. Then he went "Pictionary?" sounding surprised that there had been a Nintendo game for it. He checked out the NSF and immediately found what he was looking for. For about a day's work, this was pretty awesome, and a great upgrade to the original. Once JJT had a chance to give the track some criticisms and I agreed, TO went back and touched things up for what we've got here. And now for something completely different with another 1/3rd of the "Dirge for the Follin" team: Poor Follin, frequently scoring games destined to have shitty gameplay.Crowd ambiance and some beats opened things up. The bassline at :10 sounded too synthetic & rigid and should be tweaked to sound more realistic. After what I felt sounded like a rather limp intro, he built things up nicely with the Rhodes at :30 (forcing that fakey bassline to the back where it wasn't exposed) as well as some particularly strong and creative drumwork. The familiar melody (hey, it's instantly catchy to me) came in at :51 on piano sounding pretty nice; very flowy, genteel and all that good stuff. The atmosphere also became nice and full and stayed like that the whole way through. How can you not love that piano run from 1:21-1:32? More iterations of the melody at 1:52 and 2:12, only this time around Lee went for more interpretation of the source to really personalize the track. Nice piano run from 2:26 until the end for more of that relaxing vibe; good use of panning and velocity variation to make sure the part didn't sound pasted on top. Beginners just tend not to think about those details. And of course, I'm always glad to hear a track where a fadeout is utilized properly. I know JiggyJon had some minor issues with the realism of the piano performance, but I hope I'm not stretching credibility when I say I believe he doesn't have a problem with it passing the bar. When Lee says "it's meant to be more of a platform-game piano that just sounds bright and happy, rather than realistic", he completely read my mind. IMO, I think the velocity work was excellent so that the performance didn't sound mechanical in a negatively impactful way. Rather, it reminded me a lot of the later soundtracks in the SimCity series. Just take out the crowd ambiance SFX, and this would be perfect Maxis-style music to build stuff to. Solid textures, great development, creative interpretation; the recipe for a YES. Thanks a lot for whipping this up and contributing it to Dirge for the Follin. Let's hope we continue to get more stuff this good.

We simply didn't have a standard for how Album Projects were laid out, including the torrent titling. I believe we're not changing anything because stats would be reset and links floating out in the wild encourage sharing of the torrents would 404. I believe we'll be going for something more uniform in the future though. Before Project Chaos and Summoning of Spirits come out, we'll try to have something more concrete figured out. Project writeups would take quite a while. I'd rather the project coordinators provided something like that. Very aware of it (it's really annoying). When we eventually switch to vBulletin, keycode image will indeed be a part of the signup process to eliminate bots. If I have the time, I'll be looking through the forum records trying to delete old spam accounts for a couple of days before the switchover.