Liontamer

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/megaman3.zip - "Top Man Stage" (Track 6) I liked the intro here; decent feel there, even though the writing was a bit odd. Plain drums entered at :17, and I wasn't liking where it was potentially going, but oh well. Melody entered in at :25, joined by the bleh drums at :31. The cymbal writing was fine, it's mostly that snare pattern that dragged it down. Anyway, not much there besides a plain-jane cover of the melody by some synths + the drums. The texture was really empty. Picked up more at 1:19 with some synth soloing. Then another iteration of the melody at 1:33 with some more ideas added for support, followed by more oddly-written original material working in tandem with the Top Man theme starting at 1:55. One last iteration of the melody at 2:29 with some different sounds; still pretty empty and conservative, but again with some new ideas with the writing on the supporting instrumentation. It's all rather beginner-ish and uncohesive, but at least you have somewhat of the right idea on the approach to arrangement. Get more interpretive on the actual melodic material (not just the support work), vary up your percussion more, and work on creating more complex textures. Stop by the ReMixing forum to get started on that. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/faxanadu.zip - Track 6 Damn, way too much hiss bro. Considering there's not much else to focus on besides the two guitars (and bass later), the whole thing should be produced well. Perhaps the ReMixing forum can help you learn to reduce that hiss in future recordings. The multitracking was pretty good, BTW. One note felt wonky at :43; perhaps a sour chord, I wouldn't know. Arrangement was ultra conservative. Instead of simply doing three iterations of the melody, personalize the arrangement more and throw in some of your own ideas to play around with the melody. Listen to the recent material here and compared with the source material to get an idea of what we're talking about. You gotta go beyond (and offer more than) a straightforward cover. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/dkc.rsn - "Jungle Groove" (dkc-05.spc) Bassline reminded me of something that I can't put my finger on. Maniac Mansion or something; dunno off the top of my head. Pretty basic opening with some (non-dNb) drum and bass along with a synth on arranged melody at :30. Not particularly interesting, but it would work well as long as it's building to something. Somewhat old-school OCR-ish in the approach. Organ also arranged the theme from 1:20-1:37 with some good ideas, but the texture was still lacking. Picked up at 1:43 with a more ideas for the melody followed by some good keyboard soloing, but the drums were still boring. Fairly weak/boring first 2:26 considering what you COULD have done with it. We hit some silence as a transition for another arrangement of "Jungle Groove" at 2:30 complete with drum intro. Bassline was pretty good, but the brass sample was poor and the piano sounded very mechanical during its solo at 3:23. Too bad though, when I was far away and heard the solo coming from my headphones, the writing was really energetic and creative. Too bad the execution with your sounds didn't do it justice. If you can't do more with the first half to give it some substance, scrap the first half and focus on polishing up the second half. NO

Would be a violation. BTW, I like the second version he did of that, but merely slicing and cutting up the source material itself is not acceptable. Your question throws some ambiguities into the picture, but if you're doing a legitimate rearrangement that happens to have some cut up sampling, that's ok. It's all about using the directly sampled original in a tasteful manner. If you removed direct sampling from a song and the arrangement couldn't stand on it's own, that's a good indication that it's a violation.

http://www.zophar.net/usf/MarioKart64_usf.rar - 28 "Victory Lap" Dunno why you said this was a mix of Rainbow Road in the submission letter, but oh well. Rearrangement was nearly non-existent, as this was structured exactly like the original. Basically an electronic genre conversion. The beats were basic and almost never changed up. The atmosphere was incredibly murky. Nice for a beginner, but this lack of creativity is everything we don't want. Get more interpretive, and hit the ReMixing forum to learn how to get your material to sound cleaner while going for a loud dance techno sound. Then get some feedback from the unwashed masses in the Works forum to see where else they feel you need to improve.

http://vgmusic.com/music/console/sega/genesis/jp_youlose.mid http://vgmusic.com/music/console/sega/genesis/jp_grantstory.mid http://vgmusic.com/music/console/sega/genesis/jp_mapmusic.mid http://vgmusic.com/music/console/sega/genesis/jp_pstation.mid You mixed with headphones, praise the Jesus. I'll still say, the performance sounds pretty good. Production-wise, there were still some hits: audible hiss in places (better than before though, and likely unavoidable at this point), and a fairly dulled atmosphere that lacks polish. This is definitely better than before, but if it were a "recording" of a live performance, it would only sound like a decent recording and too lossy, IMO. If this was a few years ago, I'd honestly say YES, but at this point I'd like to see if someone else in the community could take a look at the source files and give this the extra push it needs with an assist. With this version sounding much improved though, it's gonna come down to whether this arrangement trumps the production. If the two were a bit more balanced, I could YES. NO-borderline Nonetheless, you've got TO & Vig pulling for this, and the improvements are clearly there, so this version might be enough to sway some borderline votes. I genuinely wish you the best of luck, bro. This is at least what your first resub should have sounded like.

http://www.zophar.net/gbs/tetris.zip - Track 2 ("Korobushka") Unfortunately not really enough substance to this; just a genre conversion with some generic-level eJay beats 'n boom-tss changing here and there. There's some original sections, but they're very brief and just used as transitions. Melody's not interpreted in any meaningful way. The production was also pretty muddy. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gym/sonicspn_fixed.rar - "Toxic Caves" Pretty good jazzy-type stuff. The arrangement is pretty cool like djp mentioned, but some of the samples are fairly weak, or at least not used to their best. The drumming sounds fairly good, and the sequenced piano performance was definitely above average though it needs to sound more fluid. The overly synthetic sax sample was a weak link here. The sound of it has no body to it. Same with your bass. There's gotta be better free stuff available. If you can make the piano more fluid for some sections (e.g. :15-:30, where it sound really mechanical), and get the sax and bass sounding good, this would be in much better shape. Nice work so far. NO (rework/resubmit)

All votes are finally in for the close. If another RESUB ever materializes, perhaps consult the non-borderline NOs directly for feedback before another resubmission. In any case, you certainly get props for the improvement the piece has shown over time. Don't be discouraged, Alex, as you continue to move in the right direction.

As I understand it, we're gonna have a Site Project subforum specifically for this project once we do the vB switch. I believe that would ential creating threads for each character, allowing for better organization. So keep working on this stuff, as you'll be in a position to make even more significant progress in the coming months.

Check http://speeddemosarchive.com/Solstice.html; it has a 100% room run in fifteen minutes. Yeah, I just watched Lucid's speed run independent of this, and all I could think was "What the hell is going on with this game?" The gameplay never made any sense the whole way through. But yeah, the mix is still good, but be sure to check out the source material. Personally, I was already open-minded to this without it. But for a lot of n00bs like MrBogus above it's just like EarthBound where, if you've never heard the source material, some of the weirder mixes apparently sound like dogshit.

Aside from the fact that the game was very unfamiliar, I never understood why no one bothered to review this. Back in mid-'02, this was one of the few mixes from a game I'd never heard of that caught my attention. Pretty catchy stuff from Rayza, and a good upgrade to the original track. Definitely deserving of more than 2 other reviews.

Was just watching an NES time attack of this game. Damn those are some lanky characters. The guy who made the the time attack made an analogy to the Ku Klux Klan to describe the enemy aliens here, which was so good. They're hilarious when a level is beaten and they punch the air. Anyway, the "Main Theme" source material is actually disjointed in that the intro only lasts a few second before changing into something else entirely. Weird, but at the same time good to hear it reflected here. The mix is certainly dated, but I liked the arrangement approach here. The second part of the source is so minimal that it really offers a lot of creative freedom to expand upon it and write new material, which djp handled nicely here going for that salsa flavor. Even way back, he had the right idea on how to really personalize an arrangement. Cool old stuff. I also bumped this from the very, VERY bottom of ReMix ReViews, where it sat at the bottom of page 29. Space Harrier 'Spaced' can now enjoy it's shiny new spot at the bottom.

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I was randomly listening to this, and the melody instantly reminded me of Comic Bakery. Nice to see I'm not the only one who thought that. It's not really a mere reminder; Dunn clearly cribbed part of the source tune from Comic Bakery. Good stuff on his part with that homage though. I should have commented on this one 3 years ago when I first heard it, as this was one of those mixes that showed me there were other gems in the scene from games I'd never played. Nice work by Posu slowing this down and making it pretty chill. I wonder if he knew of the Comic Bakery connection himself. This should inadventantly appeal to fans of the Commodore scene as well.

I like the Retro Remix feature, and it's been something I'm surprised you never did on VGF (Oh burn!), but I don't see any point in spending two minutes reading through names and rolling a die. Why mention details of things you're not going to play? That time could be better spent going into more detail of the remix and remixer selected if so desired.Besides, my momma told me never to trust someone who smells Hahaha! Well, I never play the older stuff because I can always fill up 2+ hours of time with current stuff. My show is more of a "current music & events in the community" thing, so nah, I never feel compelled to play older stuff. Ever. Anyway, elaborating on why RRR is a good idea: John & Jill read off the various random stuff, for example... Perfect Dark 'Deploy' by Strike Final Fantasy 7 'Fluss der Liebe' by Israfel Last Ninja '8-Bit Kamikaze' by Gecko Yamori Bust a Groove 'Bust This Groove '81' by AkumajoBelmont Secret of Monkey Island 'Metal Monkey' by Ryan8bit Shenmue 'Ryos Renshuu' by mutagene Potential fans out there may go "Oh cool, they have Perfect Dark...hey that Final Fantasy 7 could be good...nice, they have Bust a Groove TOO!..." and so forth. They may hear one track directly on the podcast, but 2 or 3 others from the list might also make them seek out OCR itself to satisfy their newfound curiosity. So, yes, Russian ReMix Roulette is one of the better selling points of the site via VGDJ. In conclusion, Chris, you smell.

Uh, WTF on the Russian ReMix Roulette, Chris? It's a good feature that actually spotlights the older material, quickly and easily points out a set of games covered on the site, and mentions the names of a lot of past and present members of the scene. Personally, I skip right past the full playing of the mix, as I've heard them all already, but I can see the appeal for the n00bs. In short, don't bother listening to TCK. Listen to me. [/judge]

Ys VI THE ARK OF NAPISHTIM Original Sound Track - (105) "QUATERA WOODS" Yeah, I thought this needed a lot more polish, James. Though you tried to change the feel/tone here, the arrangement wasn't particularly interpretive. Nonetheless, good idea slightly changing the order of the sections. I just feel there was more you could have done to really personalize the arrangement approach, but admittedly a lot of that issue was also a result of the instrumentation being handled poorly. Right off the bat, the texture was sparse and thin. The production was pretty rough; things didn't sound clear/clean enough and stuff that could have helped the texture, like the violin samples, sounded obscured. The guitar playing was definitely not fluid at all unfortunately, leading to Vig's comment on how you're hitting your notes late. It's made the performance very rigid and plodding. Weak section at :52 with that robotic flute synth. The performance on it sounds really rigid as well, all the more glaring with barely anything to draw attention away from it. The area from 1:57-2:16 was REALLY empty thanks to those brief 'n sparse flute & violin solos. Better performance with the guitar in the forefront from 3:00-3:36, but still not fluid enough in the performance, even the meedley-mee stuff. That's simply a matter of practice and honing your technique. Everything here from the flute, the violins, and the piano sounded very mechanical, so you're gonna have to work on learning how to humanize the sounds. Especially listening to something like the strings in the original, your string work simply sounded inferior. Certainly don't mean to sound discouraging, but I'd likely call this a done deal and simply apply the general suggestions given to future works. Hope to hear more from you here soon though. NO

My sleepy side thanks me for the short shows. ZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZz....

Yep, everyone join the VG Frequency AIM chat room since ETG is a bust tonight. I'm gonna try to plug the URL command to launch the chat, but I dunno if it's any good, so use at your own risk, etc. -> aim:GoChat?RoomName=VG+Frequency

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/SaGa_Frontier_psf.rar - 216 "Alone" The backing strings are subtle but still sounded noticeably mechanical/synthy, not to mention thin. The acoustic guitar-style synth is really hit or miss here, with my opinion being miss. It's reasonably ok, but the performance needs more polish to sound somewhat more humanized. Inasmuch as I'm not expecting it to sound or function completely like a real acoustic, it's still too thin and mechanical in the performance, hurting the track because it's a focal point. The bassline here was pretty good. An electric guitar-esque synth joined in somewhat abruptly at 1:42. Can't really say that sound worked well in the texture, as you seemed to be going for fairly organic-sounding choices for the rest of the instrumentation. That's really underscored when it comes back in at 2:23 for a duet with the piano. The sound didn't fit at all, and, even if you chose something else, the part wasn't loud enough to really "duet"/interact with the piano. On the plus side, the piano sounded much better here, the bassline work here was understated but solid, and the percussion was fairy well executed. I thought the snappy perc stuff was a little too loud and out of place alongside the other sounds, but that was just personal taste and not a hit for the track. If you can work out the kinks on the acoustic guitar sample and that lone, odd electrosynth, this would be on solid ground. Any further resubs should probably be after consulting some Js to make sure there are no issues that would result in a rejection. If not though Damon, this was a great effort that really showed off marked development and improvement as an artist with each version, and you should be proud of that. NO (refine/resubmit)

Despite the title, a lot of this is typical Mazedude sounds and samples. Where'd you get the idea that this was severely limited on production grounds? The mere use of some dated SID sounds, despite this not being a chiptune and not being made with any soundchip limitations in mind? The Shnabubula/Figaro Chiptune "precedent" doesn't apply here. Chris's use of the sounds is decidedly better. If we reject this on those grounds, we're really getting into very bad, slippery slope territory here, where people can't even meaningfully incorporate chiptune-based or dated sounds into their material.

Yeah, send some more stuff from the American Album when you have the chance. Perhaps The 7th Guest "Microscopism" or Zombies Ate My Neighbors "Zombies Ate My Tracker"? Honestly, almost anything would be fair game and very welcome. http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/mo2.rsn - "Save the Miners!" (mo2-086.spc) Played this a while back on VGF68 for the Bound Together prerelease show. There's nothing like Mazedude plus the SID-style spices. Nice stuff with the intro; the very beginning there was a very authentic homage to classic Commodore loader tracks. I like how Chris took a very unmemorable track and hooked it up with a much more energetic feel. Check out the source and see how subdued the bassline there was; here, Chris did a great job using the original's bassline on support but making it much more attention-grabbing and integral to the track. The melody from 1:27-2:10 felt too quiet compared to the first part, but it at least created some contrast and put the focus on other sounds & ideas even if, IMO, the section wasn't particularly interesting. Luckily, everything afterwards until the end carried that previous energy level and stylishness. For some, this may drag, as the last 1 1/2 minutes (at least to me) weren't chock full of dynamic contrast or vastly different ideas. Once it got into its groove, it basically stayed there. Nonetheless, the tone of the arrangement compared to the original was a big plus; it's more melodic, more aggressive, more spirited. Once again, good job creating a much more upbeat, melodic mutation out of a very unassuming, purely BGM-level source tune. YES

So I'm dead tired and going on very little sleep. I'll be pushing back the show to Monday night in order to have some time to recover and be able to get the studio easily. This should hopefully be the last push-back of VGF79. I let Mustin know what the status was, so he'll hopefully be available for either tomorrow night, or simply next Saturday for VGF80. Either way, be sure to tune in. Good day, y'all. [/Jim Holland]

http://www.zophar.net/gym/sor1.rar - "Violent Breathing" (Round 7) Love the source tune. One of my favorites from a classic soundtrack. Nice subtle skipping effect during the intro. Percussion is really basic during the intro and the texture is really thin and simplistic, but it could grow into something more. ... Hmm, maybe not. Source came in via some crummy synth saxes at :43. They're too artificial-sounding and aren't really loud enough most of the time. Nonetheless, I did like what you were doing at 1:28 punching the saxes up, then going for the electrosynth stuff on lead. Disco strings were pretty sweet, like zircon mentioned, but yeah, the lack of variation with the percussion hurt the track. Good thing, you dropped that stuff out at 2:19, but that was shortlived, coming right back at 2:34. Otherwise, though you had some good arrangement ideas there to keep the groove going. You've gotta go for something more complex and varied with the percussion on support. Right now, these basic beats and claps are too plain-jane. Many of the other synths here lack realism as well, and the overall texture is relatively simplistic. I don't mind that only a portion of the source tune was arranged here. Given a good overhaul, this could groove bias me, but right now it's not nearly polished enough. NO