Liontamer

Uh...yeah. That certainly sounds like an obscure game I'm not gonna be able to find. Without listening to it, I can already tell you that a 1:54-long arrangement is almost assuredly too short and underdeveloped as a concept to have any chance of passing. Piano used here is VERY mechanically sequenced and sounds really lo-fi compared to the other sounds. Drums and beats are really rigidly sequenced as well. Lead synth on melody at :33 is really generic and doesn't cut through the drums like it should. The combination of sounds here doesn't manage to fill out the soundfield well. You might wanna harmonize some more stuff with the melody and beef up that bassline to give the track some more meat. Really, really beginner-ish stuff in terms of how it's put together. The timing sounds robotic and devoid of feeling, the instruments don't fill out the soundfield and the arrangement is repetitive and undeveloped. NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=smw - "Koopa Junior BGM" (smw-20.spc) Who cares what I think about it? Oh, wait... Too underdeveloped. Yeesh that first synth at :02 hurts me with its defautly-ness. Seems like you're going for the "nigga crazy" approach, where you have to be an idiot savant to get this. Kinda like Shna's stuff, only this doesn't have much sophistication, especially in the supporting instrumentation. Sounds like an adapted MIDI rip to me most of the way. Texture was always pretty thin and things felt pretty sparse, but there were some shining moments in there. 1:06-1:14 had some Shna-ish moments in there where you had some decent textures going with these low-quality samples. Same with 1:28-1:58. If you learn how to fill out the soundfield, get more creative with your synth design and provide more direction and flow to the arrangement, you'd be in better shape. Right now, this mostly sounds like an undeveloped, incohesive mess. [reads submission letter in full] Oh, it's for OverLooked? Well, good job then. NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff4 - "Main Theme" (ff4-07.spc) Jesus n' shit, tone down those goddamn drums. Snappin' all up in a nigga's face! Anyway, lead sounds pretty pimped out, good bassline stuffs as well for that funk 'n pr0n style. 1:16 iterates the theme but didn't really change the delivery or arrangement for the second go-around, which was disappointing. So you basically looped it. Bleh. 2:21 goes for the light ending, which was a decent idea. Decent stuff with a good framework in place, though the soundfield felt a bit empty overall (sans drums). Just needs a bit more filling out. Aside from that, you gotta actually develop the arrangement the whole way through, not lazily loop the first minute's worth of material. Think of more ways to interpret the source tune and work it into the picture. You could easily get over 4 minutes worth of ideas from this. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/zelda.zip - Track 1 Merely 1:51-long? This better be the most interpretive, unique, creative arrangement ever. Only it's not. It's Zelda...orchestrated. Actually, the energy is pretty good, and you've expanded the theme nicely in terms of adding a lot of new supporting instrumentation. Some gimmer of hope with some slightly interpretive stuff from 1:14-1:22 instead of just expanding the parts, but that part didn't develop into anything more than a brief transition. Ending was all sorts of anti-climactic, abrupt and lazy. You clearly show skill and promise that isn't being fully realized. 1. Give your arrangement a legitimately creative, unique title. 2. Give your arrangement a legitimately creative, interpretive arrangement approach. 3. Give your arrangement a legitimately creative, developed >3 minutes, rather than an undeveloped <2 minutes. Stir, encode, submit. Once you do those things, you'll be in better shape and possess something of more substance. Looking forward to hearing more from you. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 110 "Fighting" Decent stuff, just needlessly loud and underdeveloped. Too much grungy mud in the midrange. Don't really have any comments on the production other to stop trying to break my ears. 1:40-long? Cool approach, but it ended before it started and didn't bother touching most of the theme. Make it 3 times as long and develop the arrangement further. How about a remix title that isn't cornball and indicative of the n00b as well? NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/punchout.zip - Tracks 23 & 22 ROOOOOFL at these crappy beats up to :39. Put some effort into them, even if you're going for some contrast with the rock. It IS filling up 1/3rd of the track. Percussion patterns after that were nice and beefy, but somewhat boring. Production doesn't have to sound pristine and antiseptic and all that, but it sounds a bit rough. Those obviously minor issues all mean more when you have such a short track. Cool cover, but no meaningful interpretation to speak of besides adapting the tune to the genre. 2:19-long? Didn't even develop the theme into anything, and when it ends, it's simply because y'all stopped playing, not because you wrote a meaningful ending. Rock covers are cool, especially if you don't want the theme interpreted (OMG liek dont tuch it!), but you gotta go beyond that if you wanna throw it up onto here. The mix title doesn't even have a creative name. Interpret the material more and add some original ideas here to personalize your approach further. NO

http://project2612.org/download.php?id=37 - 12 "Metropolis Zone" Guitar performance is REALLY rough and sounds off the entire way. Percussion patterns are boring as hell, and the various Sonic SFX taken from the game sound tacky. Sound balance and production are really unpolished. Repeating the same arrangement ideas at 1:25 and simply fading out for the finish. You could have taken the arrangement in a new direction. 2:05-long? People need to learn this short undeveloped stuff doesn't cut it. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/guardian.zip - Track 21 (also 22) Very muddy and lossy atmosphere, everything sounds too wet. There's some light warbling in there and there ain't much treble going on. Doesn't even sound like it's in stereo, but it doesn't particularly matter. For a 192kbps encoding, this sounds more like 80kbps. Arrangement evolves a bit, but the texture is very simplistic. Decent effort at personalizing the arrangement, but it's really repetitive and boring. You change the feel and tempo around a bit during the two minutes, and have some original writing via the vox and strings supporting the piano melody, which is good. But you're arranging the same few bars of the source tune over and over again. There's more to that song than that, so incorporate some of it into the mix. 2 minutes will almost never cut it here anymore. Develop the ideas further, and learn more about production techniques via the ReMixing forum. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/madcity.zip - Track 2 Too fucking loud. Too. Fucking. Loud. Moving on, this is a nice lil' dance conversion. Care to reign in this volume and substantially interpret the source material? It's somewhat personalized, but still not much more than a glorified MIDI rip with beefy sounds. Read the submissions guidelines next time. Connservative and under 2 minutes will almost never cut it. Would have kept this if it didn't break my ears. NO

http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozmmusf.rar - 111 "Milk Bar" "You can tell this is gonna be a good song." Rightz. Decent stuff, just doesn't fill out the soundfield enough, the synth design is weak, and the drumloops are even weaker. The original's arguably more catchy, and the arrangement isn't particularly creative. Needs more everything. Everything needs more. NO

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/loz3.rsn - "Dark Mountain" (loz3-13.spc) Grove bias. Very bleh synth design, very stock, uncreative beats with plain-jane patterns and a lack of interesting processing. The arrangement does try to do something interpretive in terms of the overall feel, but you're basically just following the structure of the original with a poor dance/trance genre conversion. Some interesting stuff at least at 2:26-2:40 for that break section. Last part at 3:20 for the finish is a lame, barren way to close out the track. And don't throw in a tacky cymbal shot at the end. It's like branding yourself right on the ass like a cow and screaming out "I am new! Please don't hurt!" Keep at it, and read up on the ReMixing forum to learn how to use your existing software more effectively, then post the material to the Works forum to have the punwashed masses gauge your results. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/ff1.zip - Track 1 http://www.noderunner.net/~llin/psf/packs/FFX-2_psf2.rar - 101 "Eternity ~Memory of Lightwaves~" Uh, this sounds nice and all, but isn't very heavily interpretive, and isn't expansive enough to pass on that level. You just faded out the Prelude at 1:26 then faded in Eternity at 1:30? C'mon, write a transition or something. You didn't even develop or interpret the Prelude theme before moving on. Eternity is a least a bit different in terms of the instrumentation style, but the composition is basically the same. If you don't mean to interpret the material greatly, it has to be very creatively expanded, which this isn't. The song just cut out abruptly at 3:56, which may have just been a foul-up with my download, but nonetheless, I've really heard all there is to hear. Most of the arrangement deals with Eternity. Why even bother tacking on the Prelude like that for barely a minute? Not gonna say much else. NO

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff4.rsn - "The Lunarians" (ff4-41.spc) Some wind SFX to kick it off, followed by piano with residual effects at :10. Piano's pretty similar to the style of the original. Melody kicked in at :29, following the original in a fairly straightforward manner. Melody and countermelody are used verbatim, so I'm hoping to hear something more interpretive develop. Some harp in there at :59, though the ambiance until 1:34 sounds extremely lo-fi and panned too hard to the left. Some major jumpiness done with the volume (forgot what you call that) starting at 1:42. I see what you were going for, but felt the effect was used a bit too extremely. Last section at 2:53 goes minimalist with the piano & wind. Overall, the source really isn't being interpreted much, as you said in your submission letter. It's just the original with better samples and wind ambiance underneath. IMO, it's not even much of an enhancement. It takes a lot more expansion than that for this site. Make something more unique and don't follow the structure and tempo of the original so rigidly. Not gonna NO Override, because you tried to do your thing with it, but it's nowhere near the interpretation that's generally accepted. I'd be interested in hearing your future work though. NO

Commenting on V's WIP: Nice delicate sound here. Piano sounds fairly well-performed albeit noticeably mechanical. Fairly straightforward but decent effects to fill out the soundfield, although things did feel sprase nonetheless. Strings come in at :51 and sound REALLY lossy, the way a low-quality audio stream warbles. It really drags the whole things down whenever it's in play. Left-hand piano part from :51-1:02 sounds a bit too rigid and looped. Audio skip at 1:15; could be my file, who knows. Woodwind synth joins in at 1:27. The synth sounds decent, but rather plain-jane. The overall effects meant to thicken the instruments are ok, but the track still manages to sound somewhat thin, like the reverb's simply there to overcome any shortcomings with the texture. More bass string writing in here might help fill it out. 2:16 rehashes the string writing from earlier (:54), which felt too samey since the texture and number of instruments in play isn't too much different than before. Harp brought in at 2:49 sounds a bit mechanically sequenced, but the writing is ok. Ending is rather sudden and anti-climactic. I see how you were trying to wind things down, but I don't feel it resolved very strongly. Good ideas in place so far, and this is without comparing this to the original. It could simply be a matter of the samples chosen, but most of them sound pretty generic, and the processing involved doesn't really do anything to change the tones and create something that sounds more unique. Tempo and style felt like an issue. If you're gonna have the tempo the same the whole way, the piece may need to evolve and change more drastically over the 3 3/4 minutes. Right now, the arrangement is promising, but it kind of drags. You should really get some feedback from another available J just to get another perspective. I'll give some more comments once I have time to compare with the SPC.

It's actually an official but alternate cover. But yeah, I found all that rather funny myself. I think two of analoq's tracks were right on the previous version. 8th is Next My Generation from Metropolis Zone, and 19th is Sonik Caves from Mystic Cave Race. Or did he change the names after?? I had it all sorted out. The mix on OCR now has the original and correct name, i.e. "sonik metro". The Mystic Cave Zone 2-Player mix is "Next My Generation (sonik caves)". analoq titled it "sonik caves" as a WIP but changed it to "Next My Generation" since he felt like ending his streak of tracks with names of "sonik something". Perhaps Aaron can submit the real "Next My Generation" down the road.

Boo-urns, fo' sho. But in all honesty, I'd rather have the fix, even if it takes a while to wait for one. I'm a patient man.

http://www.zophar.net/gsf/goldensun2.rar - 124 "Aqua Rock" It would have helped immensely to provide some info as to what was being mixed, especially with a 100-song soundtrack. The information might have been in your original submission letter, but if you fall it through you've gotta at least let a judge know what you're arranging. Luckily for me, it wasn't too far into the soundtrack to cause me to give up. Opening piano sounds ultra-fake and rigid, and needs more body to it. Beats are limp and the bassline is thin, quiet and bleh. The looped rain SFX is the best thing you've got going on in here. Lead synth brought in at :50 on top of the piano sounds too generic/out-of-the-box and needs more effects to stand out as unique. It's a nice synth that's capable of much more. Rinse and repeat the arrangement verbatim from :07 at 1:33, SFX and all until 2:37. Are you kidding me? The arrangement at least changed up the rhythms and feel of the original a little bit, but it's not that good that you can just loop it for 2 1/2 turns. Boo-urns on this. The last section from 2:37 to the end just kept slowly dropping out instruments, which isn't a good idea when things sound so empty for the finish. You need to learn how to actually give the sounds enough meat on them so that a minimalist approach doesn't sound like you have practically nothing filling up the soundfield. Cuts out at 3:01 with 6 seconds of silence left at the end. This was entirely too underdeveloped on both arrangement and production, and ultimately resulted in something that has potential but clearly sounds beginner-ish. I completely agreed with Malc upon reading his vote afterward. Good first effort, but you've got a long way to go. Spend time learning how to better your skills at the ReMixing forum, then post your Works for people to comment on before you submit again in the future. NO

Nah, I think you're right, and I agree with you. The writing though is really cool. No luck on any game rip of the source material, though I will keep looking. The style is otherwise excellent, but I need to see a bit more development as well as have a copy of the original to confirm the depth of the arrangement. If the structure had more variation and development (zirc had some good tips about varying the percussion later on, for example), I wouldn't have reservations on it beyond confirming the source. Definitely tweak this one and resubmit, akumabito. This is icy hot so far. NO (borderline/resubmit)

Wait, what did I do?

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=top - "Mint" (top-111.spc) For some lesser crits, :17-:22 sounded a bit barren now. There was also droning buzziness in the low-end, which was definitely bothersome, starting around :28 and lasting until around :50 before coming back a few other times. Still, some decent tweaking of the sound balance there. Nice job adding some strings to back the guitar, with some good ideas there to fill things out; you really hear some beautiful harmonization from 2:40-2:50, for example. The way the woodwind stopped at 3:41 felt a little abrupt. I would have done some effects to have it taper off a bit more gradually, but ah well. Chris did a solid job revising this and adding a bit more complexity while basically keeping everything else intact. While understanding the criticisms from last time, I was firmly on YES before. Everything positive I said last time around applies here. And with a stronger package now, there's no reason for me to change my mind. Nice work by Chris in touching this up. Now you just gotta get a solo piece up; good luck, bro! YES

Y'all mind fashioning a real ending? It would be for everyone's benefit, frankly.

Andy wins the "McVaffe" pronunciation contest.

Your first post was nothing like this one. Moved to ReMixing where it belongs. Not a bad idea here, but it's impractical to some extent. Hopefully someone can get it done. I don't like how the post implies that stuff the community here is doing currently sounds like robotic FL-n00bery with generic sounds and textures, but it wouldn't be the first sweeping generalization of the material here and it won't be the last.

Witold, PM me your latest copy of the WIP you wanted me to critique. It fell through the cracks a while back, but I liked what you had in place at that point and wanted to comment further.

Cool piano-based intro. Percussion coming in at :10 sounded a bit too loud. The way the beats combined with the piano, they sounded a bit pasted on top, rather than "in the same room/area" as the piano. I think the combination sounded a lot more seamless in "Tears of Contention". The beats dropping out at :41 merely to come right back in at :43 felt awkward. The progression :54-1:01 also felt slightly off. The somewhat exposed bass synth at :59-1:01 didn't sound particularly strong either. Would have preferred the guitar from 1:22-1:42 to be more prominent, rather than at similar levels to the beats and piano. Same at 2:04 when Phil broke out some grungier stuff, so perhaps revisit the sound balance for something less distinct. The guitar just cuts out abruptly at 2:23, with an awkward pause/transition that I felt didn't quite work. Y'all could have stretched out the pause longer with a pad fading up or the last guitar note hanging on its own for a while. Decent ideas for the finish at 2:26 (and I was glad to hear the guitar placed more in the forefront for once, if only for 20 seconds), though I felt like this section didn't possess any direction or bring the arrangement to any sort of resolution. The ending faded out too suddenly at 2:50, I think everyone else who voted agrees on the track simply petering out. Either fashion an ending or go for the gradual fadeout, but do one or the other. The last section was the kicker that helped me decide which way to call this. As is, everything here is creative and promising but can and should be more cohesively put together. Very close here, but it honestly doesn't quite feel up there with the most recently passed material. NO (refine/resubmit)