Liontamer

I let Grayson know about the J's feedback, and he took a look at things, but wasn't sure the end result would be better. Here's his response from 5/3: "Happy Wednesday! I made a brief 1-hour attempt at remixing, but I don't think I made an actual improvement, lol. I just tacked on new EQs and made cuts, but I think stacking EQs ended up causing some weird artifacting that I don't like? I'm not sure. I'm having a hard time trusting my ears lately. Mixing is hard with lack of sleep, lol. I can send it to you if you like, but otherwise I think the original mix will do." I said "no worries", so we'll post what we've passed as is. :-)

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What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

We're sad to share that ReMixer Daniel "PirateCrab" Woodyer passed away yesterday, Apr. 26th, at only 30 years old, surrounded by his family. He would have turned 31 next month. Daniel was one of the BEST metal performers in the game music arrangement scene. He contributed 10 pieces to OC ReMix since his first from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 nearly a decade ago, and participated in several community efforts including Pixel Mixers, Shinesparkers, one collaborative performance for Dwelling of Duels, and a pair of OCR albums: Castlevania tribute Vampire Variations III as well as Jet Force Gemini: Mizar Attacks! He will be missed and will live on through his music. Rest in Power, Daniel. ? * https://ocremix.org/artist/12706/piratecrab

Opens up very prominsingly; I love the initial instrumentation, so I'm wondering how this could start out with a NO. The fakey-piano at :25 was not a great sign, but it was a stylistic thing and seemed fine in the grand scheme of things -- certainly not an out-of-the-ordinary sound for this genre. Track then escalates with saws at :42. Something was sounding too abrasive, buzzy, and muddy with the saws as they rose in volume, around :54 or so. As soon as the beats arrived at :59, the soundscape was sounding very lossy; the "tss" beats (not the big kicks) were getting swallowed up and were barely audible, and the additional tick-a-tick-a stuff added in at 1:12 (and again at 2:43) was audible but still significantly muffled and obscured. Right now, all the space is taken up by the saw and beats until 1:55, and you don't hear any significant part-writing underneath the melody to add some depth to the composition, so it feels very simplistic (i.e. melody + beats). I overall liked the transition into the chippy palette at 1:55; it's abrupt, but OK. The textures gradually build up, but ultimately felt barren for too long, but things picked back up by 2:30, so I'll get over that. That said, when things filled out more for the 2:30 section, the beat-writing was super plain and droning, with the beats mixed in too loudly over everything else, and the textures feeling too simplistic & basic, which left the final minute sounding underdeveloped and underwhelming. The original writing with sprinkles of the source motifs from 2:30-2:57 was OK, just too quietly mixed. The mixing most of the way could be tweaked for clarity and to allow some additonal part-writing to be better heard, which would make the track more texturally interesting and varied. Like MindWanderer said, there's much to be done, but there's a decent base there for sure. NO (resubmit)

Definitely opens as just a chip of a chip but it was a very brief bookend type of opening reference (i.e. no issue here!), and quickly shifted into the full-on orchestration at :19. I also wasn't bothered by the structuring of the seperate pieces; even if this hadn't been the order they were used in the game, things flowed reasonably smoothly like different brief movements of the overall piece. The mixing of the orchestration's definitely muddy, which was unfortunate. The samples were given some body, but stuff like the brass sounded super fake (e.g. :58) and has no real resonance, which needs to be achieved with more realistic-sounding samples or room ambiance effects. Whoa, some piercing stuff going on from 1:30-1:46 in the morass of the chiptune/orchestration layering that definitely doesn't work. Pretty much the whole way, any time the track got dense, it was a cluttered mess. I liked the varied instrumentation of the title theme at 1:48, which was the highlight of the piece, and easily made it a solid pass for me on the arrangement level. Arrangement-wise, I'm on board. Production-wise, it's needs some spring cleaning; you've got piercing highs, and you've got messy textures when things are sounding their fullest. I'd recommend getting Workshop feedback, especially if you haven't yet already, Nicholas, to determine how you can properly mix and balance these parts and get them sounding their best. The written base is here, and aside from some weaker samples in the brass, you've got strong instrumentation as well, so I'd love to see this posted in some form. Now you need some careful fine-tuning and polishing re: the sound quality; eliminate the piercing moments and achieve a sharper, more balanced sound through selective EQing. Loads of potential here, and you're certainly a name to watch out for! NO (resubmit)

I'm sorry to Erik for ethering his track in the unending void of nothingness that is "What the fuck do we do with this?" as I know he was justifiably mad about this never going up, he likely assumed this was rejected after the fact, and I'm sure he's long since moved past enjoying this dozen-year-old piece; the disrespect he felt in how this was handled, without any urgency or communication, is 100% exclusively my fault. I'm listening through again a dozen years later, surprised that no fan or community ever had the piece of the puzzle on who actually made the "fairuzonss" arrangement this was based off of, and believe me, I definitely tried. My best guess is that it's a doujin scene piece that was lifted, but maybe a true Kirby music diehard has information that I couldn't find. Typically, when an artist bases their work off of another fan arrangement (in the case of this, the tempo, some of the dynamics & structure, some core beat-writing), it of course needs to stand apart enough from that initial rendition (which this version does), and we'd also like to obtain an OK from that other arranger and formally co-credit them, especially in this case where significant enough aspects of the initial arrangement were retained. But unless someone IDs who really made quote-unquote "fairuzonss' The Revenge of Zero Two", we just can't 100% close the loop on it, and the initial arrangement is still mainly known from its dishonest artist credit and title. (If the initial arrangement's true artist is uncovered one day, we'll reach out to that person and credit them accordingly.) Age notwithstanding, Erik's arrangement of an arrangement passed the bar at the time, and after unintentionally punishing him over a technicality that wasn't his choosing, we'll post it, and maybe we'll subsequently have the luck of also unearthing who was behind the original arrangement.

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Thanks to Lucas for the source usage breakdown, which I appreciate. I pitched shifted this track to be twice as fast, I also slowed down the source to half-speed to focus on just the source's leads as suggested. All that said, I'd still argue that the transformation's not particularly recognizable, and that's gonna make this DOA. I'll come back to it as well though. ? EDIT (5/14): Sorry to Lucas, Tim, Ian, Chris, and Nautilus; I WANT to hear the source melody and be able to get behind this, and -- being 100% clear -- the OCR bar isn't about "would a casual listener be able to recognize the source?", but the judges do need to be able to do so when they compare things. Reharmonizing it, AND slowing it down, AND changing the rhythms... yeah, I'm in a similar boat to MindWanderer. I'm trying to recognize the source, but I'm only partially there and the breakdown still doesn't do enough to make me feel like I'm hearing the source melodies clearly when I compare things. As I said earlier, I even sped the track up to 2X speed so that the tempo would be closer to the original, hoping the speed would be the main confounding factor, but that unfortunately wasn't the case. Cerebral arrangements are just fine (we've got plenty), but I've tried to make the connections, and I definitely can't. NO

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Very tepid beat at :12. By :25, the flimsiness of the beats was wearing thin already. I like the arrangement concepts, but the instrumentation's very underwhelming, and it doesn't ever turn the corner, IMO. This would have been a pass in the early days of the site for sure, but the bar for sound quality's risen since then. The bassline from :50-1:14 seems out of tune at points (most audibly from 1:00-1:02), and it's a really thin sample. And by a minute in, it's clear the snare shots are in metronome territory, so this, in tandem with the basic bassline, really plods. There's more activity and creativity in the hat writing, but it's mixed so quietly that it barely registers. I'm surprised at these YESs; this isn't anywhere near what I'd pass re: sound quality. This sounds like a WIP where the foundation is in place and the production polish will come next. The sound design needs that extra level of polish, instead of leaving dry and exposed parts like the keys at 2:32 & 3:44. I liked the airy line from 2:48-2:55, nice touch, and the transition into 3:44 section sounded more well-rounded before the keys arrived. Whatever can be done to humanize and bolster the instrumentation, Eric, would be welcome. The arrangement's fun, but the drum writing's too simplistic and there's a clear quality disparity between the arrangement and the production due to all of the thin & exposed samples. NO (resubmit)

The time signature change throws me off, but the source usage is there from the melody coming in at 1:01 with only some brief breaks, then used as an anchor undearth most of the noodling at the end, so it's there. Opens with an EDM groove with a good gradual build; bit of a generic sound, but nice phasing line at :07, and more transition SFX at :15 with twinking stuff afterward and a sustained synth line until :40, brought back at :45. All good building blocks to lead to the melody at 1:01. Melody comes in at 1:01 with some pretty generic synths, and there's not enough difference in the tone of the one handling the melody vs. the ornamentation. They're not pleaseantly mixed either. Notionally, I can hear how the interplay's supposed to work, but it's not fully clicking because of how the lines are mixed; maybe some selective EQing would help them compliment one another rather than compete. At 1:31, the energy initially feels great, and the bassline thumps before things get messy with the textures again. It was brief, but I liked the percussion thrown into the background at 1:30 (first used at :06), but the soundscape is so washed out though that that percussion part barely registers at all, so when it's used more, it all just gets swallowed up in mud until 1:46. It might even still be going on later, but instead of contributing its unique sound to the texture, it's steamrolled. Even the bassline, which I can hear throughout, is obscured more than it needs to be. Kick beat brought in at 1:47 sounded flimsy. The leads continue bleeding/mudding with the ornamentation from 1:47-on (but particularly 2:10-2:25); there's too much mud from 1:58-on, getting even more swamped at 2:10, it all sounds too loud and too busy, and it's difficult to orient until the other line is reintroduced at 2:26. The sound design does have strong moments, for example, the transition at 2:24 was very, very cool; great drum writing for a smooth transition into the new pattern, very cool and bold sweeping SFX, and the bassline comes through way more (until the scoundscape fills back up around 2:41 and it's then lost). From 2:56 until the end, the lead writing sounds like it's noodling with no clear direction; it's not melodious or pleasant, unfortunately, it's just unfocused. I do hear the source tune adapted quitely underneath, but it's definitely not guiding the way melodically, so you'll have to figure out how you want to refocus this. Maybe you stay more grounded with the source melody taking the lead again, though it certainly doesn't have to be that. I definitely like having this flush with swirling pads, delays, and lush effects, so you don't have to aggressively go the other way and dry it out, but this does need some mud traded for clarity. The noodling's gotta be rewritten to be melodious or least given more of direction with proper resolution, and the soundscape has to be tamed and rebalanced so that parts occupy the proper space. Looking forward to some more production-minded suggestions on how to tighten this up, but loads of positives and potential here, Austin, and a solid base! NO (resubmit)

Hell of a source tune, Navi; this is probably my favorite Lena Raine compositionthat I've now heard. I love it and would love to hear it live in concert. This definitely could have been direct posted for sure, as it's referencing the source practically all the time either with the melody or supporting writing. Nice job giving this theme an otherworldly sound for quite a cool transformation. The geetars by Ryan first brought in at :30 were silky smoove while also effected. Holy shit, what a groove too, with vocal beats stacked on top of the kicks. At 1:28, everything dropped off, left with a lone pan flute-type thing with effects, then rebuilt with other lines gradually fading in. Then fuckin' warbles at 2:02, man, what??? Hahaha, I'm just loving this ride! It feels like this track's a living, breathing organism. I have no idea what lead to the sound design choices here, or what to call this genre, but it's super-creative and on point; you literally want to swim in this. At any point, this could have went super bombastic and it WOULD have made sense, yet Navi exercised restraint instead. Wow, awesome stuff, and a hell of a return here, in a remarkable collab with Ryan and Klopfenpop. Never be ashamed, stay proud of your old gold too; look at where it's lead you, with a track in the here and now that you can sincerely point to as legendary. May you continue to grow musically and feel creatively satisfied yet thirsty to explore. I genuinely cannot wait to hear what else you've got cookin', and I'm just extremely proud of you. This is pro work. YES

I was definitely unsure of employing the same sounds and timbre of the "Title" theme to start, but then heard how the "Stage 1" theme was adapted into that soundset, so I then understood the approach more and didn't have any interpretation concerns. At 1:08, some synths creeped in and got louder to reveal almost a Streets of Rage Remake-type feel. If it weren't for the slower tempo, I'd think this was SoR material. 1:59 added more writing into the background to escalate things; crowded but effective overall, then a pretty omimous dropoff of the saws at 2:23, followed by a downright scary rise in volume of the noise peaking at 2:48. The music ended at 3:00 and things capped off with an SFX-based finish. From a personal standpoint, I don't love the sound palette, but I damn sure respect and fear it. Aggressive and intense, nice job, Parker! YES

Track's only 1:45-long (aside from the stingers at the start and finish, which make great loop points when the track's put on repeat), so there's almost no way this could pass from a development standpoint; you need some more time here to flesh out the ideas. Sounds ultra-dry and empty as far as the sounds, but I love the energy of the writing. The orch stabs, geetar synths, thick beats, and various SFX are sounding good. I liked the subtle doubling of the melody from :47-1:00 Watch the core beat at :13; this pattern is super plodding and boring, . Literally copying this advice from another track wth the same issue: You've gotta keep in mind that no matter what other percussion is going on in your textures, if there's one element that's way louder and it's also super metronome-y (i.e. that kick), then the whole thing sounds thin, empty, and droning. The perc writing ultimately comes off lonely and barren there. The comping-style lead writing from 1:11-1:36 over the top of the source is completely the kind of creative original additive writing that meaningfully personalizes an interpretive arrangement, so that's well in the right direction. Aside from the beats being too loud with basic writing that caused a plodding feel, structurally, Michael, you have a solid arrangement concept. It's got a swift tempo and reasonable dynamic constrast throughout (again, undermined by the beats). It's really too bad that it's so short and that the instrumentation and production aren't dense enough, because these raw materials are fun. 1:01-1:10 was arguably the only brief moment where this soundscape felt adequately filled; you'll have to bring that level of density to other areas of the track. If you can build this composition/arrangement out further (about another 30-60 seconds somehow, without just doing cut-and-paste stuff) and employ effects to give your soundscape a fuller feel, you'd be flying high. NO (resubmit)

Is that what happened?? Because it doesn't look like that's what happened. I'm sincerely kidding around, I'm just trolling for more opinions. These judges... stinky slow.

Whoa, definitely a very hidden away unlock for me; haven't heard this theme in over 30 years, yet here we are. Thanks for turning over this nostalgia stone I forgot I had! Sounds at :06 seemed very muddy and abrasive in the build to the melody arriving. It almost sounded like rapid-fire punch SFX in the right channel at :07, it didn't make sense. Small thing, but an example of detail work being missed; the tick-a-tick-a hat writing at from :08-:19 was too loud, then when it dropped out, you hear how a bunch of corresponding sizzly noise abruptly drops out, leaving the soundscape super empty. I also hear what prophetik's saying about the imbalance between the parts. The beats shouldn't be what's cutting through into the foreground, relative to the melody and countermelody. The textures did grate when it happened, so watch it, but I really, really liked the layering/chorusing of the melody around :53 & :57-1:00, which also allowed for a melodic variation. Oof, VERY vanilla and plodding beats from 1:11-1:23; that was already a problem the entire way, just exacerbated in that section. You've gotta keep in mind that no matter what other percussion is going on in your textures, if there's one element that's way louder and it's also super metronome-y (i.e. that kick), then the whole thing sounds thin, empty, and droning. The perc writing ultimately comes off lonely and barren there. Dropoff and changeup into some brief Manheim Steamroller-esque stuff from 1:32-1:55; though it felt non sequitur, there was nothing wrong with it and the transitions were fine; I dug it. Though some piercing higher frequencies were there until 2:06, I liked the instrumentation ideas at 1:54 and 2:07; why that was all saved for just the last few seconds, I have no idea. Nice ideas for contrast, as well as a way to play with the textures and (for the latter) the tempo. Interesting finish at least, even if it seemed premature for the length of the track. Needs more appropriate mixing/balancing of the parts. Not sure what setup you have that's allowing you to overlook grating and piercing sounds, but it's hampering things. The drum writing has to become more sophisticated and cohesive; again, even if you have creative writing for some parts, a vanilla, plain core beat will sound boring and stagnant if all the other percussive elements aren't mixed properly and aren't reasonably audible. If you're able to rebalance this and make it sound cohesive, you could likely keep the length the same, but I think it would be a slog. As I've said before, I'm jealous of your ability to make music and hope you continue down your path. This isn't close to passing in this form, but your arrangement ideas are creative, so continue working on cohesive percussion/beat writing & mixing so that your track's foundations are stronger. NO (resubmit)

I don't inherently mind the droning pad, though I'll argue that the line in the source tune had a softer sound, so you don't get tilted by it, whereas I can understand it eventually feeling grating here. Definitely in agreement with the others that the arrangement isn't transformative enough. Static energy and instrumentation; it sounds like it should be a base for a much lengthier piece. LOAL at the overwrought fade-out, as the pad devolved into what sounded like a fly buzzing in the room and fading away. Not a knock on it, just a fun observation. Even if you kept the overall energy level like this, there are so many additive and subtractive ways to employ subtle variation; right now, what I mainly hear is the background line slowly getting louder and some light whoosing/warbling SFX creeping up, which is not nothing, but the sum total of that is not nearly enough evolution or dynamic contrast. A nice cover, no doubt, Shea, but we're looking for more aspects of interpretation and personalizing the theme to stand apart from the original source tune. NO

For DarkSim, this is just considered an arrangement of the DKC track, but we have a parent-child relationship in the database for the DK arcade theme and the DKC expansion of it. Super mechanical piano to open up and a muddy soundscape, neither of which bode well. The noise in the background until :41 just sounds like fuzz rather than anything purposeful, not even like ocean waves or rain, just white noise, which I didn't understand the point of. The saw lead fading in at :14 was pretty weak as well, as it didn't sound melodius and with timing that feels too locked to grid, plus the mixing needed to be sharper, IMO. When the beat came in at :41, I had to put on a control track just to ensure my audio wasn't messed up, because the piece sounded very distant. The saw lead is just so plain and the whole groove feels very static and plodding despite some overall good energy. Totally agreed that the gated saw action quickly got old and overused; just subtle tweaks there could spice up the presentation and keep it from dragging. The dropoff of the saws at 1:22 was good... a jarring change in the clarity with this dropoff though, wow.... dunno why it couldn't be that clean overall; you can still get dense and grimy with instrumentation, but not turn things into mud, yet the saws came back at 2:17 and that's what things turned into. I liked the piano line's mixing, though that was also rigid and too fake-sounding as well. I dug the bongos from :18-:41 & 1:36-1:49, mixing critiques notwithstanding. The saws came back at 2:17, and I looked up to see that the track was practically over. The way the ending unceremoniously cut off would certainly need to be fixed as well, if possible. Definitely an underdeveloped concept, but without some more appropriate mixing, less rigidly timed instrumentation, and further variation and ideas in the writing, this isn't ready for primetime. The other Js are much better at production critique, so take stock of everything they mentioned and see what you can agree with. It's a fun foundation though, so if the source files are still available, I'd see what else could be done with it. NO (resubmit)

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Sounds like a pure cover to start, but when you side-by-side it with the source, you hear how the supporting instrumentation writing's not copied over, so that's where the personalization comes from. The levels of the leads compared to other parts didn't bother me, but I understand why MindWanderer & prophetik pointed it out. Interesting that lots of stuff is played in live according to Logan, because some of the parts felt stilted, industrial style notwithstanding. For example, when the "BRRR" pattern from :00 is doubled by an electic guitar synth around :41, that part sounded too stiff. And I definitely was not a fan of the thin & exposed claps, but they at least fit in better within the first half (:00-2:23) while not at all during the transition into the second half (2:24-2:56) -- which was the track's weakest portion -- and again from 3:13-3:28. Also, the way the lead articulates from 2:56-3:13 & 3:59-4:17 was stilted, but the keyboard and comping stuff in between was strong. The first half's stronger on production and less on the arrangement, then the second half's stronger on arrangement and less on the production, so there's unrealized potential all across the board and it prevents me from immersing myself in this. I'd argue that the first half was produced in a more cohesive-sounding way, while 2:24-on had portions that felt more WIP like, mainly because of that flimsy clap. Would love this tightened up more (claps & electronic leads in the second half, and also tweaking the balance between the parts), but even if the level of polish was inconsistant, what's there gets it done and has "official arrange album" vibes all over it. YES (borderline)

Thanks for describing how the arrangement pieced together between the usage of the two themes. Once I read through, I was able to follow how you used each of them. I haven't read a single vote, yet I know these NOs are gonna be about the production, because this is muddy. There are some brighter elements, yet this feels like every higher frequency got cut -- there's no sharpness to this whatsoever. There's a padded line way in the back that does add some color, almost sounds like cymbals getting hit and purposefully muddied, or it's just a more ethereal, washed out kind of thing; sounds cool, though impossible to tell what it is. 2:24 was a pure cut-and-paste from :39; it was repeating a good arrangement idea in the first place, so I could see others not minding it (nor had anyone pointed out before me, after finally reading the votes), but to me, this was too much recycling despite the snazzy groove, so I'd love to hear what else could be done there to vary it up. Clean up the mixing some, and see what else can be done to vary up the presentation from 2:24 until the end and it's solid. This definitely should be posted in some form, and I hope to see it here, even if it's not this version. Very enjoyable, I'm just feeling like there needs to be another pass on the mixing at least, and some further variance for the last third would be more in the nice-to-have column. NO (resubmit)