Liontamer

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

Nope. It was never an official bumper, so I never hosted it. I lost that one when my old computer died, so hopefully someone else has it.

I think I summed up why this passed in spite of the conservative arrangement. Obviously Vig read what I wrote, but my quote underscores why this passed for any curious community members. In some rare situations, ReMixers use an original's melody/melodies near-verbatim and put most of the focus on the supporting material, which is why we collectively look beyond just the melody. Sixto Sounds' Castlevania "Wicked Six" was another good example of this kind of approach. The fact that the lead in this one was a live performance also helped compensate for the conservative arrangement of the source melodies, as it takes skill to learn the parts as well as perform them with a personalized style, as well as write new parts to fill out the rest of the track. That's why MIDI rips have 0 shot, yet cover bands/performers don't get shut down here. There was a lot more done here creatively beyond merely transposing the various source tunes to guitar, and that's ultimately why you see this up here.

http://project2612.org/download.php?id=61 - "IceCap Zone 1" Decent intro though that string pad was too muddy. Other sounds were pretty decent, except for those lame drums at :43. The pattern was repetitive yet decent, but the drum tone had no power. The overall texture wasn't very full of complex despite the number of elements in play. Piano was pretty sparse and mechanically sequenced. Song got brighter at 1:57 but the arrangement was basically the same only with some added countermelodic writing. Drums kept dragging on. Decent idea to change the dynamics, but the string pad, piano and drums all sounded way too inhuman. Nothing new going on with the changeup at 3:10. Decent base, but repetitive and underdeveloped arrangement as well as average with the production. NO

You can't even trust these fages to vote fair since they're on the project. Mike and them probably worked out some sort of side deal. A lil' cash for pirated samples. You know the seedy dealings here. You gotta grease the pockets to get a mix posted. Lemme vote fairly, to counterweight this corruption. http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 321 "The Great Northern Cave" Weird intro, but I mean that in a good way. Very creative sounds and texture there. Drums y geetars pop in at :57 for a nice change in intensity. For me though, there's something about the texture of :57-1:09 that really didn't work at all, IMO. From :57-1:09, but also through the rest of the track, the overall volume and tone of the drumkit just doesn't seem to be on the same page with the wailing energy of the guitar or the oddness of the background synths. It undercuts the whole melancholy (pixietricks: "brooding/period") vibe. The writing on the percussion is solid though, but the sound doesn't gel at all. In any case, everything else is on point. If the drums took more of a background role here in terms of the placement, the overall balance would have been better, IMO. Props for taking a really bland theme and giving it a lot more energy and memorability. YES

Metal Gear Solid Original Game Soundtrack - (01) "Metal Gear Solid Main Theme" Some big beat style; don't hear that too much, so it's a welcome change of pace vs. the usual orchestrated MGS theme arrangements. Good potential. However... The beatwork at 1:32 sounded a bit basic for the genre and didn't really work alongside the melody. Not only did it just sounded pasted underneath and didn't integrate with the other material, but the beats repeated over and over and over again. The arrangement of the source was just the usual conservative orchestral take I've heard many a time before. Finally (I mean finally), the arrangement changed over into something different at 3:58 with a more genteel flavor...before going right back into the cut-and-paste big beats at 4:28. Lame. Gotta put way more effort into this. Conservative orchestral arrangement + beats underneath ain't cuttin' it. NO

http://www.doom2.net/~doomdepot/music/doom%201%20&%202%20midis.zip - Doom 2: Map09, Doom: E1M5 & E1M7 The drumwork in particular had some decent basic effects on it, but barely changed up, plus stuff like the strings samples sounded very synthetic and jerky with the note movements. The overall atmosphere was too muddy and indistinct; the strings on support got buried as soon as the lower strings entered in. The arrangement is pretty simplistic, undeveloped and repetitive with the Doom 2 portion as the foundation. The other source melodies were basically pasted on top of the Doom 2 cover, E1M7 at :53 and E1M5 at 1:47. Decent first go, but nothing substantive yet. NO

Hehehe, you got 0 new feedback! YES (I'll add some later...) EDIT: Alright, I'll be fair and bite. The revisions for this new version with Jill's vocals did a nice job fixing up most of the minor issues here by adjusting the sound balance or elements in play, and creating more dynamic contrast from section to section. The abrupt return of the drums at :43 was instead bolstered by a nice reverse cymabl crash, and Phil's guitar work managed to stand out a bit more versus the already swanky beats. Jill's vocal additions here were pretty damn solid; that girl can hold her notes. Electric guitar faded out entirely, then reappearing with effects at 2:25 was awkward; wouldn't have faded the guitar out entirely there, but otherwise things were cool. Wish the fadeout didn't cut off at 3:14, but it was a very minor issue, easily missed if listening with crossfade on. Clearly this mix is on undebateably solid ground now. I loved the interplay between the wailing electric guitar, the beautiful piano, the driving beatwork, and the melancholy vocals from 2:28-3:14. I really felt a sense of synergy between everyone's contributions that left me a greatly satisfied customer. Everything was loud and powerful, but nicely balanced to allow the listener to pick up every part; very impressive. Phil, Lee & Jill did a great job lending a much more energetic, emotive spin to "Path of Repentance" that I otherwise thought wasn't possible.

Under team 1, the mix would pass. Under team 2, the decision isn't unaminous and would still remain open. The other judges would eventually end up voting on it and it would pass, as there's no judge remaining that would give it a 4th NO. So yeah, our existing system has mechanisms to prevent a minority decision from winning out most of the time. It can happen, but votes generally don't come fast enough. Anyway, we've revised the rules about email hosting and using temporary file hosts. If you don't have hosting, it's better to use an e-mail attachment rather than a temporary filehost. Please don't use any temporary file hosts.

http://www.zophar.net/gsf/mmzero3_gsf.rar - 37 "Cannon Ball" Not gonna waste my time with you when this is a 1-for-1 cover/MIDI rip of the original. Don't waste your time with these. Submit something more interpretive and developed instead. NO Override

Track Name: Harmony of Destruction. Your ReMixer name: Ellywu2 Your real name: Chris Elliott Your email address: ellywu2@hotmail.com Name of game(s) ReMixed: Final Fantasy 7, Super Metroid Name of individual song(s) ReMixed: Those chosen by the planet, Lower Norfair. This is an orchestral remix of the two themes, done in the style of Hans Zimmer (a thousand composers and remixers just cried out in terror!), which means brass, drums etc. Basically these two themes are by far the most badass evil themes in videogame history, and i wanted to combine them. I hope you enjoy and thanks in advance!. -Ellywu2

Hey Dave, It's been a while since I've submitted, mainly because I've been in the moving process the last few months and all my gear was stored away. But I'm back in business now and hopefully you'll see more of me. This one is from the Voices of the Lifestream project. It's a remix of "The Great Northern Cave", the music that plays on the overworld after meteor has been summoned. It's fairly liberal, I understand, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of the judges don't like it. URL: Game: Final Fantasy 7 Song: The Great Northern Cave Hope you enjoy it. -Darangen

Hey peeps, Got a submission for ya. Contact Info: Blue Magic (Damon Campbell) e-mail: website: http://www.angelfire.com/blues2/bluemagic/ ReMix Info: Donkey Kong Country 2 "Stickerbrush Symphony" & "Hot-Head Bop" Here, I am attempting to combine both the "Stickerbush" and "HotHead Bop" themes, but in order to do that, I had to make quite a few note and key changes to the original melodies. Also, I was also trying to do this mix only from what I could remember from playing the game years ago, so I didn't listen to the originals while making this mix. With that said, I hope none of you are turned off by the fact that it will be a little inaccurate. I really wanted to simulate the feeling of pure amazement that I had when I first played this game and heard its soundtrack, and I'm hoping everyone that hears my little remix will fill the same way. You'll find the link to my mix on the website posted above. Enjoy.

Alright, so here I am with my 4th submission (though my first as "Chavous"). With this mix I tried to go with a Mariah Carey-like feel thing, which took off into a 25 track mix. Personally, I've never used more than 10 tracks, aside from this song. Game Name: Super Mario 64 Mixer Name: Jaycee Appi (Chavous) Name of Mix: The Sweet Taste of Victory Email: dj_notte@yahoo.com http://www.soundclick.com/util/downloadSong.cfm?ID=4184356&key=0AA2A589-B (In event of rejection, please keep the link)

Hello OCRemix, I am Cyril, a new face around here (to the degree that this is the first tune I have had the balls to submit to OCR) and have finally decided to submit a remix to (hopefully) get added to the OCRemix archives. I would first like to thank the judges for taking the time to listen to my remix, you all will either give me good suggestions or accept this as you have with other potential remixes. The song that was remixed was from a game for the Gameboy Advanced called Megaman Battle Network (Rockman.EXE in Japan) which I noticed had not recevied any love in either your current submissions or your archive. The song in particular is called Net Battle. It can be found at Atomic Fire (www.atomic-fire.com), where you (incidentally) can find all sorts of Rockman music. Anyway, because this game has not even graced OCR, I have the extra burden of giving information about this game. I do believe that this song itself was composed by Akari Kaida, but I do also know that Capcom likes to sic teams of composers on their games. That said, I cannot say for all certainty that this song was indeed composed by Akari Kaida. Normally I would have checked the credits of the game, but I lost my copy ages ago. I have been wanting to make this mix since Rockman.EXE was released in America around 2002. I was not as into metal at the time, however when reflecting upon this song recently (about a month ago) I realized that it would really translate well into the metal genre. Two problems were faced, the first was that I am not supremely talented at guitar, if you give me a pick, I have absolutely no rhythm. The second one was, similar: what was I going to do to extend this and make it my own? After some research (and that means checking out some MIDI's and the original) I determined that the intro could be lengthened a tad to give the bass a bit more of an introduction and give it a bit more of a "epic" feel. Traditionally in an instrumental (well, from what I have heard from Rush) is that the main theme is stated, then it is stated again differently, this is followed by a guitar solo or breakdown section, then it restates the main theme with a bit more "oomph" and it ends somehow. This in mind, after I recorded the first two choruses (for ease's sake) I just started messing around with that riff that is repeated throughout the song. After much time and string breaking, I settled upon the riff and transition that happens at ~1:27. Here comes the difficult part for me: I would love a guitar solo here, however I am not very good at playing guitar melodically, and certaintly couldn't shred it. I did learn some tremolo picking, and after attempting to solo over it on my bass many times, I decided that I would just try it on guitar. Two takes later, I produced that guitar solo, with minimal editing. The last problem was how to get to the last and biggest restate of the main theme. It was then that I remembered Rule #1 for the recording of live tracks in a studio that I go to with my band: "Always allow for natural fadeout at the end of a song." I decided to just do a natural fadout and then decide what to do. Well, one cliche guitar lick and dramatic-type transition later, sure enough there we were! The only other problem was what to play for on the melody. I was going to try and have guitar through the whole thing, but I thought that splitting the "chorus" into two sections would be wise, so thusly we have the "guitar melody" section and the "brass melody" section. I attmpted to play the melody on my guitar, but as I said, I am horribly inept at melodic (and sometimes even rhythmic) guitar playing, so I plugged up my bass into my BNX4 processor (which was used for all the guitars, for the record) and played with the Pitch Shifter feature to get my bass to sing at two octaves above it's normal range, even then, I still had to emply an auto-tuner as the notes were consistantly flat. Finally I was able to get to the part that probably took the longest, which is (of course) production. I had to have released 8 versions of this to get it to sound right. I am still very much a beginner at production so I took all the advice I could get my hands on. I am sure that it still needs work, but I am quite proud of this achievement... although I was proud of the first 8 as well. XD My email is cyril@acelie.com and my website is: www.acelie.com/cyril Myspace: www.myspace.com/cpelkey Pure Volume: www.purevolume.com/connorpelkey I am quite sure you could reject me with a solid statement of "Say less you moron" or "K.I.S.S.: Keep it Simple Stupid." However, if you didn't want something such as this, you should only suggest the minimum! XD I hope that you will consider this for acceptance. www.acelie.com/cyril/temp/rockwithyournavi.mp3 There, that be it. Sincerely, Connor Pelkey (Cyril) -------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/gsf/mmbn_gsf.rar - 17 "Net Battle" I'm liking the foundation of the track featuring that grungier guitar, as that was pretty nice. Drums are noticeably tame here. Lead guitar (first used at :11) merely sounded shrill and has no meat on it, plus it's pretty buried in the track. Brass synths from :36-:48 were also pretty dry and underwhelming, though I appreciate the J-rock kind of feel, even if it wasn't totally well-executed. Arrangement repeated until 1:26. Fairly good energy throughout the mix, with some decent shredding from 1:46-2:11. Good original writing from 2:11-2:30 before transitioning back to the ideas you opened up with. Repeats the stuff from the beginning at 2:45. Weird how two of the synths didn't properly fadeout at 3:26, affecting the smoothness of the ending. Though you had some brief original writing, the arrangement of the actual melodic content was pretty conservative. You have some decent expansive ideas, but need to bring in more interpretive ideas to the plate as well. Yeah, if you practiced more, you'd be able to get more comfortable and expressive with your playing, particularly the guitar melody section. You gotta adjust the sound balance so the melodic portions stand out more. Right now, they're swallowed up. After examining the sound balance, you also gotta get the brass section sounding beefier; selectively doing the same for the drums wouldn't hurt either. Good potential here, Connor, especially for a first sub. NO (resubmit)

Remixers: Sixto, Geoffrey Taucer Game Remixed: Chrono Trigger I started this track with Tauce almost a year ago and now it's FINALLY finished. It's gone through a lot of changes over the months and I think it's for the best that it took so long. Tauce provided the acoustic guitar and most of the composition while I filled in the rest. It's been great collaborating with Taucer on this. He's a great guy and a very talented musician. From Geoffrey Taucer: I actually arranged this at least a year and a half ago, back before I even submitted "A Star Freezes Over." It sorta sat idle on my hard drive for awhile, and eventually I decided I wanted to get it off the ground, so I sent it to Sixto. I gotta say, when he isn't having his fingers crushed or getting run over by forklifts, sixto has an amazing talent for taking what's in my head and making it happen. And then making it 39487593847593457 times better. Also, Mitsuda pwns you. ----------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ct - "Robo's Theme" (ct-2-09.spc) Chrono Cross Original Soundtrack - 315 "Radical Dreamers -Without Taking the Jewel-" The drums are extremely placeholder-ish and bland, IMO. They do nothing interesting to help move the song along and merely drag it down. Do something more creative with the snare; F with the timing, the intensity, anything to lend to the energy apparent in the rest of the piece. The other instrumentation sounded pretty solid, except for those really fake-sounding string cameos. The guitar wank from Juan at 1:55 was excellently performed, but those lame, simplistic drums didn't integrate with the rest of the elements in play. Ending at 3:17 was, IMO, too sudden/I-give-up ish and offered no satisfying resolution. All in all, good straightforward but personalized arrangement ideas, but I know where I consider the weak link in the chain here. Spruce dem drums, create some synergy please. NO (resubmit)