Liontamer

Contact Info: ReMixer name: Jett Swole Real name: Nikki [prefer not to post my last name for privacy reasons] E-Mail: Website: https://jettswole.bandcamp.com/ UserID: 36756 Submission Info: Games arranged: -Guilty Gear (Year: 1998, Console: Playstation, Developer: Arc System Works, Composer: Daisuke Ishiwatari) -Tales of Symphonia -Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time -Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (Year: 1997, Console: Nintendo 64, Developer: Konami, Composers: Shigeru Araki, Kato Yusuke, Saiko Miki, Yasumasa Kitagawa) -Ninja Gaiden [NES] -The Ninja Warriors (Year: 1987, Console: Arcade, Developer: Taito, Composer: Hisayoshi Ogura) Name of Arrangement: "Run Like a Ninja" Individual songs arranged: -"Shihna" (from Tales of Symphonia) -"Suck a Sage (Chipp's Theme)" (from Guilty Gear) -"Going Up" (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time) -"Star Base: Where No Turtle Has Gone Before" (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time) -"I Am Impact" (from Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon) -"Ryu's Determination" (from Ninja Gaiden) -"Daddy Mulk" (from The Ninja Warriors) -"Requiem" (from Ninja Gaiden) OST Listings (for games new to OCR listings): -Guilty Gear: https://vgmdb.net/album/117454 -The Ninja Warriors: https://vgmdb.net/album/36566 -Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon: https://vgmdb.net/album/2779 Song Download Link (Google Drive): Comments: This was something I originally made in August 2021 as a Dwelling of Duels Free Month entry, but I was particularly proud of this one, so I thought I'd submit it to OCR as well. The idea started out as just some guitar noodling on "Suck a Sage" from Guilty Gear, but I ended up building on it with parts from other ninja-themed vgm, and before I knew it, I had this big, epic tribute to everything I find inherently cool about video games with ninjas. Also, I had just got done binge watching Naruto at the time, and it had me extra hyped to work on this (to the point I threw in some small cameos of the anime OST). That's all I have to say about this, I guess, but I hope you enjoy hearing it as much as I enjoyed making it!

ReMixer & real name: Eino Keskitalo e-mail: Names of games arranged: Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (Master System) Name of Arrangement: Bitter Sweets Names of individual songs arranged: Dessert Factory Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EOrkDm1xdc MP3 link: Another old compo tune of mine that I've finally finished to submission state. This one debuted in People's Remixing Competition round 210 - over 10 years ago! How amazing is it that PRC is still going? I've thrown in some jazz samples since then and like to think I've channeled some early spirit of the Finnish ambient/jazz classic Rinneradio into the tune ... Castle of Illusion for Master System (or Game Gear) is a pretty cool game. It's not a downgraded version of the Mega Drive original, but a well thought-out 8-bit reimagining, ending up a very polished and playable platformer. Great animation - and great music. The 8-bit version has some bespoke tunes, though this one is not one of them, appearing also in the 16-bit version. I had all sorts of thoughts of extending this one with additional source tunes and whatnot, until I finally decided it was actually already ok, just needing a little bit of polish. So it's short but hopefully sweet. While I was balancing the mix I got some nice feedback from Sega-fan djp on the forums, nice! I worked most of that in, for example I turned down an arp figure in the mix quite a bit, which in my mind had a big impact on the whole. Funny how that works. I got some more nice feedback on the Workshop channel in Discord, but I decided it's now time to let this go or I'll keep working on it for another 10 years.. Thanks to Pleiade who helped with mixing for the compo version back in the day; also shout out to Dj Mokram, another Castle of Illusion fan! Perhaps we will collab on some Castle of Illusion stuff one day. cheers --Eino

ReMixer & real name: Eino Keskitalo e-mail: Names of games arranged: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (Nintendo DS) Name of Arrangement: Sieluraiteet Names of individual songs arranged: Realm Overworld Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W_bFLwB0WY MP3 link: I'm continuing my journey through my old compo tunes and polishing them up for submission. This one comes from People's Remixing Competition round 247 (https://compo.thasauce.net/rounds/view/PRC247), from 2013, so this track is soon 10 years old originally! The overly busy compo piece has been chiseled out to have some dynamics in it. Also I've replaced some of the high-pitched instrumentation with a bit more middle-focused stuff. I'm pretty pleased with the outcome! Big thanks to few people for feedback, which helped tremendously with the final 5% of polish: * HenkkaStorm on the OCR forums * Hemophiliac and adrian (gravitygauntlet) and possibly others on #workshop in OCR Discord * Drai (https://www.youtube.com/user/jnalanko/videos) and kraphik3d (https://www.youtube.com/@digitalbeat666/featured) on Skrolli magazine's Discord It was a really fun feedback loop over a few days where people suggested small, easily actionable improvements to mixing etc that made the end result that much better. Thanks to everyone! cheers --Eino

Your ReMixer name: Pixel Pirates Your real name: Tobaunta Torkelsson & Fredrik Vinterstjärna Your email address: Your website: pixelpirates.nu Your userid: 37469 Name of game(s) arranged: The Secret of Monkey Island Name of arrangement: The Pixels of Monkey Island Name of individual song(s) arranged: Main Theme

Link: Contact Information Your ReMixer name: Hy Bound Your real name: Tyler Carson Your email address: Your website(s): https://soundcloud.com/hybound Your userid (number, not name) on our forums, found by viewing your forum profile: 8646 Submission Information Name of game(s) arranged: Final Fantasy 7 Name of arrangement: A Secret, Submerged Name of individual song(s) arranged: A Secret Under the Sea Additional information about game including composer, system, etc. (if it has not yet been added to the site): This game is a lovely game and is on the PS1. Nobuo Uematsu is a master. Link to the original soundtrack (if it is not one of the sound archives already available on the site): 'Tis Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc. Long time no see! Excited to finally get a chance to send in a song again. This is a love letter to Vangelis and (ironically) my OB-6 which makes up about 80% of the synth sounds. While I haven't released much lately, I'm hoping to change that; starting with this chill, evolving take on A Secret Under the Sea. Hope y'all enjoy it!

You're correct on both counts. We do have stuff that extensively uses sampled lyrics from original songs, but those are grandfathered in and wouldn't be allowed these days. Let's find you a vocalist, Robbie!

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I appreciated the concept here. Slowing down the original a bit and giving it an orchestral sound was a great idea. The drumwork that came in around 1:41 was a mistake, kind of like putting a hat on a hat; it wasn't necessary and didn't make sense with the initial arrangement concept. More subdued percussion could have achieved something more intriguing and complimentary with the orchestration.

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Some quick source usage timestamping for myself showed me the source tune was in play for well over half the duration of the arrangement, so we're in business there. 2:44-3:39 & 3:53-4:07 was just a bunch of noise; the machine gun drums steamrolled all of the other parts, and nearly everything sounded distant and lossy. Even from 4:07-4:27 without the busy drums, the guitar chugs just created white noise until 4:34. 5:22-6:23 was crowded as well, but tolerable. The soundscape at 6:23 for a brief time was a nice exception, and most of the final few minutes was a lot less difficult to distinguish the various parts. Maybe the wall of noise is supposed to make the semi-wall of noise stuff sound better by comparison. 2:44-3:39 & 3:53-4:07 were dealbreakers for me; it's just too much when it comes to mixing that hampers the track, intentional or not. I appreciate the track otherwise, even if the mixing hinders the listening experience for too long. If it could be adjusted, great. NO (resubmit)

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The track was 3:03-long, so I needed to make out the source tune being invoked for at least 91.5 seconds in the arrangement for the source material to be dominant. Mostly voice references (:00-37 of source) - :18.5-:24, :25.5-:35.5, :36.5-:42.5, :43.75-:55.75, 1:29.75-1:57.5, 1:58.5-2:02, 2:06.5-2:15 = 75.25 seconds 4-note harp pattern (:18-:22 of source), .75 sec per instance - :07 6-note harp pattern (:01-:08 of source), .75 sec per instance - :09, :13, :15, :17 = 3.75 seconds 6-note pattern (:36-:44 of source), but different rhythm - 1:14.75-1:18.5, 1:22.5-1:24, 1:25.25-1:26, 2:29.5-2:33.5, 2:37.5-2:39, 2:44.75-2:48.5, 2:52.5-2:54, 2:55.25-2:56 = 17.5 seconds Total: 96.5 seconds or 53.72% overt source usage This was more liberal that I liked, at least in terms of me being able to readily ID the connections, but I broke the summamabitch down enough to where adding up all these tiny bits and pieces of recognizable source tune added up to more than 50% overt source usage, so I stoppppppped. Love all the sound design here. Creative stuff, but liberal AF. YES

Heavy kicks at :40; interesting combination there along with the arranged melody. Boom-tss arrived at 1:06, and in my opinion, it was mixed too loud over the arranged melody. To some extent, I can live it with a personal issue, but then more original techno writing was added over the to at 2:01, and the balance wasn't making sense. I also felt the textures were too basic, so when elements finally started dropping out at 2:41, 2:47, and 2:53, it was a very welcome change in terms of the dynamics. More overly loud kicks at 3:08; I'm put off by how simplistic and empty these textures are, for example from 3:07-3:34, where it just feels like whole parts of the "real" track have mysteriously been muted out, if anyone gets what I mean there. Texturally, this didn't feel sophisticated enough. From 2:55-on, the next 3 minutes were iterations of a liberal treatment of :57's section of the source, varying up the leads every so often. Then good dynamic contrast in changing the mood, as 5:53-on was inspired by the drum writing from the very start of the source, partially employing the same rhythms, then changing others. I'm not enjoying all of the choices here, because, while this piece was loud and attempting to fill out the soundscape, I felt the sections with thinner textures still sounded too empty (especially 3:07-3:34), and I was never of a fan of the kicks and trance groove being louder than the arranged melody. I would love this being given another mixing/producton pass, but I'll not make the perfect the enemy of the good. The arrangement's interpretive, and production's decent enough. Though this did drag out sometimes, in the big picture there's enough variation in the writing that it wasn't a huge problem. Nice to have you back, WhoAmI? WhoAreYou though? YES (borderline)

Bizarre in a good way. Rather than just going in a linear fashion, I really enjoyed how different segments of the source tune would drop in and out with different instrumentation styles. Very creative approach! YES

Maybe it's just me failing to wrap my head around this theme, so I was coming up source-light. :11-:35, :43-1:03, 1:54.5-2:26, 2:41.75-3:01, 3:05.5-3:11 = 100.25 seconds Can someone point out other areas of the source usage I'm overlooking? ? EDIT (8/16): MW changed his vote on account of my initial timestamps, but I went "?" rather than "NO"; I wasn't saying my counts were definitive, just that I had questions. This is a very long source tune, so I really needed more time to get familiar with it or hear other perspectives on what I could have missed. I was overlooking some connective tissue segments of the source that Peter was clearly using; for example, 2:34-2:41.75 was from 3:37-3:44 of the source and 3:01-3:05.5 was from :27-:30 of the source. I've got a better handle on it now, so I'm sorry that my inability to make all of the connections held this up. The track was 4:01-long, so I needed to make out the source tune being invoked for at least 120.5 seconds of the arrangement for the source tune to be considered dominant. :07.5-:08.5, :10.5-:35, :39-1:03, 1:54.5-3:13.5 = 128.5 seconds or 53.31% overt source usage Good to go! Loved the arrangement. Strong instrumentation with loads of dynamics. A very spirited fleshing out of this theme, Peter, welcome aboard! YES

My fault for not realizing this was on the panel or I would have voted as soon as I'd first heard the unmastered version of the album. Wonderful instrumental & vocal performances to vibrantly bring Guillaume's arrangement to life, encouraged by the helpful nudging of the album directors! YES

After this reconsideration, we've clearly concluded that we're not accepting this submission. In the thread thus far, prophetik said he agreed with MindWanderer that this didn't meet 4.3 of the Submissions Standards. DarkeSword was saying 4.3 didn't apply here, but DarkeSword & Gario said it failed 4.1. We then talked extensively in #judges about how to address this and came to a consensus. I'll do my best to summarize the conversation here with key excerpts (edited for clarity). Regarding section 4.1, we concluded that the format of story narration or audio book isn't accepted as a "genre of music" due to the focus of the experience not being its music: Regarding Section 4.3, and its purpose, “dominant” refers to the expectation that the arranged VGM is the “most important, powerful, or influential” component of the presentation; this would apply whether it's contrasting 1) the amount of arranged VGM vs. non-VGM composition or, in this case, 2) the arranged VGM vs. the non-musical story narration as the primary focus of the audio. With this piece, djp felt the approach did conflict with both mentioned parts of the existing arrangement standards -- primarily 4.1, and then 4.3 to a lesser extent -- then suggested added clarification to the Standards to address this: DarkeSword emphasized that the Standards issue here had nothing to do with acceptable source material (Section 3) but rather whether this arrangement format was permitted (Section 4): DarkeSword proposed an added clarification point excluding narration/voiceover-focused content by name as part of section 4.1, which djp and I edited. As this submission conflicted with two aspects of the current arrangement standards, this added point isn't a new exclusion, but now codifies the reasoning behind not accepting this type of presentation. I also added "rap" into 4.1's examples list of acceptable genres to make very clear that it remains an accepted music style. Usage of lyrics with rhythms and/or musicality (e.g. beat poetry) that integrate with the music is (and has always been) allowed. We then had the panel weigh in on the final wording, which was accepted by the entire group: The revision of section 4.1 is now live in the Submission Standards: 4. Arrangement 1. Arrangements in any genre of music (e.g. techno, jazz, rap, rock, classical) are acceptable, so long as the genre itself does not conflict with any other arrangement criteria. Submissions must have a primary focus on musical elements; this excludes extensive focus on narration/voiceover (e.g. audio drama, audio books).

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MindWanderer invoked this aspect in both of his votes (my underline added) - "The source material must be identifiable and dominant." So I'm going off of that. No one's saying the SMG music isn't used throughout. MW was saying the SMG arrangement was identifiable but was not the dominant component of the overall piece, i.e. met the first part of that clause but not the second. Afterward, no one challenged that line of reasoning, and, from what I can tell, it seems like other NOs are effectively hitching their POV to the same type of reasoning. If that's not true, you need to clarify it, because I had specifically asked if we needed to update the Submissions Standards language to reflect that we wouldn't accept submissions in this vein. With whatever discussion took place for that, no one advocated for changing our Standards, including djp, and this was referencing the line I quoted. If folks are saying they just don't want narration, but it otherwise doesn't violate our Submission Standards, then we need to address that in the actual Standards.

RESUB Decison Original Decision Provided I'm not misstating anything, the consensus was that, with non-musical narration/spoken word at the forefront, this is a Standards violation for "The source material must be identifiable and dominant." I gave additional thoughts to Joe at the end of the RESUB decision; after he read what i said, he's essentially looking for reconsideration, so I'm sharing his thoughts from the DoD Discord with all of you. My Qs: 1) Am I wrong in saying this is being treated as not fitting that sentence from the Arrangement section of the Standards, and thus a violation? *** In other words, is this style/genre inapplicable to begin with, or just the specific execution of this style/genre? 2) Does anything in Newmajoe's follow-up thoughts change your perspective and merit reconsideration? 3) Does your vote remain the same?