Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

For Christ's sake, not again please: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showpost.php?p=177159&postcount=11

Space Cadet Pinball OSV - Pinball.mid Yeah, I gotta apologize too, I didn't have time to comment on this privately either when requested. The changes are relatively minor, like you said, so many of the issues that were there last time are still around. Opening piano is still too mechanical, as well as the guitar-synth sequencing. The drums are indeed too dry and plodding like BGC mentioned, thus not fleshing out the track as much as you need them to. I appreciated the attempt the change things up on the arrangement side at 1:45 for this version, but felt like the new interpretive writing ideas here weren't very cohesive, IMO. 2:13-2:33's section felt pretty weak. Sounds like you were trying to come up with something different for the sake of not being too repetitive, but the new writing wasn't melodically strong. Returned to some of the previous ideas at 2:34, heading back into the chorus at 2:52 with some additional writing put on top. Decent ideas here to create a semblance of contrast from the pervious iteration of the material, though it still felt a bit too similar. Ending at 4:10 probably should have trailed off longer; felt too abrupt IMO. I don't feel I gave the arrangement side enough credit last time around as far as personalization goes. You need to finesse the performance side of it a bit more so it doesn't sound so static, plus follow BGC's detailed criticisms on the drumwork. Definitely worth another try, and sorry again for not being more attentive to the PM box. Try to contact me or other judges on IRC for more realtime feedback if you need it, Brendan, in the event that you plan to work on it further. NO (resubmit)

Cave Story OSV - (30) "Zombie", (15) "Run!", (31) "The Last Battle", (22) "Quiet", & (35) "The Way Back Home" Cool stuff to start off with. The percussion writing's plodding in places (e.g. the sections with non-stop cymbal work and the boring snare shot repeating ad nauseum). And without a substantial bass presence, the track's incredibly empty. Definitely revisit the mixing of this one. Like zyko also mentioned, the tone is incredibly lacking, which undermines the energy level your writing is going for. Dunno why, but the lead guitar performance tends to sound stiff in some places. Not too many comments on specific areas of the track as the arrangement was generally good. Cool changeup at 3:36. Wasn't a fan of the changeup at 5:57 to "The Way Back Home" on any level, as it abruptly got really syrupy sweet and didn't fit thematically with any of the preceeding material; possibly a jarring key change, I wouldn't know. The arrangement of the various themes is aight, though I thought the overall dynamics were pretty poor. Aside from the source tunes changing, the track chugs and chugs away for 7:23 without enough significant changes in the instrumentation combinations or energy/intensity level to keep things interesting, especially in the latter half of the piece. I'm gonna leave the sub comments on the encoding quality up because there's nothing to be self-conscious about, Kris. The current encoding quality on this sub may be a bit lossy, but sounds perfectly reasonable for the site standards, BTW. LAME VBR is recommended by many for encoding purposes, so perhaps give that a shot. Try a few different VBR encodings with different bitrate ranges and see what gets the closest to the 6MB threshold. Revisit the mixing (more lows and highs) and provide stronger dynamics, and this would be in much stronger shape. NO (resubmit)

The full version was uploaded before OCR01500. There was never any announcement, I just noticed (while going through lockdown stuff) that the previous version had cut off and checked Benedikt's homepage to see if the mix was indeed only 2:16 long.

Hate to cut ya short, but unfortunately "nah". http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2360

1) Nah, there's nothing like that (personal descriptions) available, though it's an interesting idea. Basically, the most the public knows about the various judges are from the tracks they've submitted to the site. 2) Not quite sure what you mean there. We download the songs, and we listen to 'em. If you're talking about the criteria we use for judging, then What qualifies as a 'ReMix' and How are submissions judged? are the principles and guidelines we keep in mind when evaluating submissions.

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 319 "Aeris' Theme" I thought TO's POV was a bit dismissive. Sure the track's rough, but the concepts are alright. Decent intro joined at :07 by some distortion 'n beats. The arrangement needs to be more interpretive, as the melody's basically used verbatim whenever it's in play. Get more interpretive with the theme beyond the genre adaptation you're doing by using these sounds. Faux-guitar almost never sounds good in these arrangements, but it wasn't too bad in here, though the sequencing was pretty mechanical. Not sure what was up with 1:05's section playing the melody so strangely, but it became recognizable at 1:17. Went back to the faux-guitar at 1:25 for the last section. Ending at 2:08 was pretty "I give up"-ish. Make a real one. The textures were fairly simplistic and needed to be fuller, and the arrangement was limited due to the length. Sounds like a decent concept that doesn't have the polish or development needed to hang here. NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff5 - "Ahead On Our Way" (ff5-1-01.spc) Cool opening. A bit generic with the sounds, but some reasonably good effects/processing to make things sound more unique. Beefy drums came in at :30 with some cool writing. Ooooh, nice changeup at 1:04. Very nice. Cymbals got more active at 1:36, though the e-piano doesn't really seem to be going anywhere with the comping. Just personal taste, but one reason it felt that way was because the e-piano tended to bleed into the other sounds and not stand out. Drumwork and other rhythmic sounds dragged after 1:51, before moving back to :31's section with a guitar synth added and the original lead scaled back. Yeah, I think the composition could be improved a bit, but the production is where this needs help the most as your sounds tend to bleed together. Nice first sub. NO (rework/resubmit)

"Not a site project" means this goes here now.

MAGFest 5 was the most awesome community experience ever. Everyone was incredibly cool. I'm lucky this year, because I moved to DC and was only 45mins away, but I'd recommend to ANYONE who enjoys the game music arrangement community to somehow try and make it next year. Definitely the greatest meetup of all time.

"Relatively," meaning not enough. Oopz...I r ded.

Nothin' to see here.

Hiya DJP! Here's my first submission, Let me give you some info: ReMixer name: Another Soundscape Real name: Mattias Häggström Gerdt email: Failure_02@hotmail.com website: www.anothersoundscape.tk REMIX INFO: Game remixed: Final Fantasy 5 (the overlooked one) Song remixed: Ahead on our way (main theme) My own comments: I wanted this song to remind people of the feeling when they played the game. The title "Away In My Head" reflects just that. I wanted the track to be exciting, mellow and at the same time massive and heroic so that I got as many emotions I felt from the game into the track. At the time I'm writing this I think I succeeded. I hope other people will think so too. Note that I actually played all the drum parts right away on the keyboard with a small ammount of Quantizing. in the entire song I used ONE loop and that was the guitar playing powerchords during the Rhodes solo. Enjoy, and I hope you will submit it for other people to enjoy too. Cheers // Mattias

Original Decision: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=4589 Mixer Name: Bren Forum ID: Bren Game Remixed: Space Cadet Pinball Mix title: Braving Deep Space http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/bbennett/ocr/Space_Cadet_Pinball_Braving_Deep_Space_ReSubmission.mp3 Quite a few changes in this resub, including more arrangement, less clutter, better guitar lead, and a whole new section. Let me know what you all think. (any resemblance to other mixes is coincidental)

Aight, I'll further clarify with some slight changes. 1. For a mix that uses more than one source tune, but places the primary arrangement focus on one tune, the mix is classified by whatever game the primary source tune is from. 2. For a mix that uses two or more source tunes fairly equally, the mix is chosen to be classified under one game, usually the submitting artist's choice (e.g. World of Warcraft 'All Nations Rise'). 3. For a medley mix arranging several games from one series and with no primary arrangement focus on any one particular source tune tune in a medley, the mix is classified under the first game of the series.

NO WAY! LET"S DO DIS LIKE THE OLD WEST, NIGGA! FLIP FOR IT OR SHOOT SOMEONE OUT OF THEIR SADDLE OR DRINKZ 'EM UNDER THE SALOON TABLE or, get djp to decide.

"What the Funk?" was posted in 2001, long before an actual policy to classify medleys was in place. "Hot Ice" only has a cameo appearance of Lava Reef Zone. That's not a medley. A medley implies using more than two songs as source material, i.e. 3 or more. So for a mix that uses more than one source tune, but places the primary arrangement focus on one tune, the mix is classified by whatever game the primary source tune is from. For any mix that uses two source tunes fairly equally, the mix is chosen to be classified under one game, usually the submitting artist's choice (e.g. World of Warcraft 'All Nations Rise'). And when there's no focus on any one particular tune in a medley, then medley pieces across several games in a series are listed under the first game of the series. Hope that clarifies.

It's the Ending Theme (starting at 10:01 of that) with some Liberi Fatali during some parts of the background. The sounds are a bit flimsy, and it does sound better on headphones, but this was a good example of a conservative yet personalized arrangement approach that stands apart from the original.

Then why is it in the remixes for FF1? Medley pieces across several games in a series are listed under the first game of the series. Good arrangement ideas, but this piece definitely shows its age. Nothing against Graham, but it didn't hold up well for me.

I can see why this split the panel at the time, though I probably would have leaned against it had I been on it. I liked a lot of the instrumentation ideas here, but felt they could have been pulled off more strongly, plus the arrangement being so conservative was the main kicker here. Still, for it's time, a very cool track and still a unique approach sonically.

I almost never buy things for myself, and never ask anyone else to give me things, so I finally bought my own shit this year. Absolute Batman: Hush Absolute DC: The New Frontier Absolute Sandman: Volume 1 Batman: Hush Returns Batman: Under the Hood, Vol. 1 Batman: Under the Hood, Vol. 2 Bone: One Volume Edition Making Comics (by Scott McCloud) Top 10: Smax Top 10: The Fourty-Niners Top 10: Beyond the Farthest Precinct Sandman: Endless Nights Sandman: The Dream Hunters Superman: Red Son Superman Confidential #1 Would have gotten New X-Men Omnibus, but the release date got pushed back. Otherwise though, a good score of comic book swag.

After Jeff clarified what he arranged and gave a time breakdown, I had no qualms about arrangement. I don't think you should have any concerns about that either, but that's not my call. I wanna stress that the "performance" aspect of the track held it back more than any other factors. From a casual fan's eyes, part of the "problem" of having this track on the project was that most people aren't familiar with the other two source tunes added to the arrangement (from Sonic 1 [Game Gear] and Sonic 3D Blast [Genesis]). So it just sounded like Jefferson was just doing his own original thing most of the time and also barely touching IceCap. And for parts of the IceCap arrangement itself, Jeff altered the rhythms enough where I definitely didn't place the connection strongly enough when I first heard it, so I understand how others didn't make that connection. Having said all that, I appreciate the mix more than the average listener/"overly liberal" critics, but that's because I'm privy to more information about the creative process and arrangement connections from Hetcenus himself. If someone had a problem with this track being on a Sonic 3 & Knuckles project, a more sensible argument would have been that material from the other two Sonic games shouldn't have been involved. I don't agree with that argument personally, but it's at least a more rational argument given the overall goal of the project (i.e. to tribute S3K, rather than other games).

Original Decision: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=4582 Remix: Syrup's Secret Stash Contact: ReMixer Name: Maxo Real Name: Max Coburn Email: maximum28@aol.com Website (haven't updated in a while): www.myspace.com/maxoelectronic Remix Info: GameL Wario Land II Song: Skull Castle Add. Info: By Kozue Ishikawa / System: Gameboy Link to gameboy version: Comments: Ok, so I finally resubmitted this (now that I have time over the break), and a changed some crucial elements. I made the drums a lot thicker and more lifelike, and added a bunch more beats in place of the old one. I also fattened the bass and played it through (didn't really loop anything). I fixed the general volume issues, and from what I can tell there's no clipping. It seems to have more energy, and variety then the old one. I'm pretty confident in this one, looking forward to what you have to say about it. Thanks again. -Maxo ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/gbs/wario2.zip - Track 51 (Skull Castle) Quoting myself from last time regarding the source: Man, that original is pretty bland during the intro, but it finally picks up at :47, then at :59 & 1:14-1:44 with some actual content, so be sure to check that out in order to make the comparisons. Pretty much all my positive comments in the first vote still apply here. There are so many resubs I wish we actually got, but the submitting artist decides never to come back to it. Glad this wasn't the case here. IMO, the volume's too loud, but it's nothing too off-putting. The sample quality for some parts is still pretty bleh, but the balance is better, and the track is fattened up where it counts. Still love that funky switchup/solo at 2:29, followed by those sick licks at 3:08. The drumwork felt too thin at 3:08, but picked up nicely at 3:28 just when the emptiness was wearing out its welcome. Still loving that effect from 3:38-3:47. Coming out of the softer portion of the track with the solo, I was disappointed that the intensity wasn't as ratcheted up as it was for the first section. The energy and volume level from 3:08 until the end seemed like it was a lot less compared to 1:12-2:29, which didn't make much sense, IMO. Still the arrangement was solid like the last time around. The sample quality was spotty in some places and the textures were a lil' rough around the edges, but the arrangement is gold and the sounds here were used pretty well. Still some things I'd touch up, sure, but this piece is on solid ground, baby. Really glad to receive a resub of this one, Max. The extra effort was well worth it, and I'm glad you took the criticism of the last sub in stride and came back with an even stronger result. Looking forward to more subs in the future, bro. YES

The initial evaluation screens violations out more easily when the soundtrack is popular. By leaving the thread with something more obscure like this sub, I'm willing to let it stand that I posted it to the panel on the initial evaluation, but only discovered the violation upon further examination of the track.