Liontamer

Tales of Symphonia Original Soundtrack - (221) "Fatalize" Ah, a submission with a female. Automatic YES, isn't that how it goes? The track is imbalanced towards the right channel and could use some less distinct panning. The drum writing was ok, though the tone didn't quite gel with the guitar work for parts of the first 1:30 or so. Once the speed picked up, the percussion was fast, driving, and IMO more complimentary. I wish the bass presence was louder, as it didn't play much a factor until the (excellent) bridge section. Short and sweet, this was a nicely personalized and interpretive arrangement, with plainly observable energy. Can't ask for more than that, and it's great to see LuIzA finally make her OCR debut. Listening to her previous submissions and her material from Dwelling of Duels over the past year, she's come a long way with her work. Certainly hope to see both Christophe and Luiza both submit some solo material in the future. Of course, strong synergistic collabs like these are also welcome. Solid work y'all, and a good representative of KyleJCrb's Summoning of Spirits. Looking forward to hearing more from the project. YES

Just quoting Stephen's link here, since we can't leave up illegal MP3 links in the Decisions.

Status? I can't speak for DarkeSword, but I'd gather this is getting close to being bumped off Site Projects at this rate.

No problem, sorry for interpreting the letter hastily. Checking the original soundtrack from my usual sources, I couldn't find anything like the submission, but I'll hit up Kaleb Grace & CHz and see if they can provide any insight (perhaps along with a source track). EDIT (6/28): Looked long and hard for this one, but don't have a physical copy of anything just yet. I'll let you know if I come up with anything later. Kaleb confirmed it's indeed from some sort of in-game jingle. What it sounds like, I've got no idea, so I'm just gonna have to stick to judging on quality. For the record, the jingle is "D-A-A#-G-C#", confirmed by CHz. In the future, please provide audio of the source material, so we can compare it to the submission. Some of us "not be havin' da music theory skillz." Onto the actual submission... Interesting intro, with some decent effects, though the sirens were a bit too loud (and potentially tacky). Still cool for being something different. I'm guessing the arrangement is based off the first few notes at :41. Everything sounds too swamped, though I see what you're going for there in terms of the atmosphere. Could afford to be less buzzy. Switches to a somewhat rigid-sounding piano at 1:08, along with a woodwind joining in upfront at 1:22. Fairly straightforward at first, but at least decent expansionist of the brief original. Track sounds rather buzzy and loud from around 1:40-2:06. Nice to see you switch to some different instrumentation ideas at 2:04 for the variation, though everything has way too much reverb and still sounds swamped. Same at 3:05 with another variation, though the stuff from 3:45-4:41 was nothing we didn't hear before for a long while (2:37-3:05), so it simply made the song drag and feel repetitive. After 4:41, it was just some modulation effects or whatever for the eerie-style close; not a bad idea, though it could have been more effective. You have decent arrangement ideas in place here, but the production drags this way down. The swamped atmosphere covers up the fact that there's actually not too much going on at once in terms of the instrumentation and texture. Need some more knowledgeable comments on what could be done to alleviate the problems here. As for the arrangement, you've gotten some decent mileage out of the source material via variation, but it still managed to drag, especially thanks to the 3:45-4:41 section. You need to either cut the fat ot continue to provide more variations if you want to prevent an arrangement of a 5-note phrase from wearing thin. If you cut down on the gross amount of reverb, refine the production, add a bit more depth to the orchestration with some more instruments/elements for the background, and keep the writing well varied, you'd be in much better shape. Good ideas so far, and sorry for reaching a hasty conclusion to your submission based off of the submission letter. If you have the patience to learn more about ReMixing, you should continue to work on this. Otherwise apply the general points to your next arrangement. NO

Dave had been thinking about a DP, and the conflict with the panel over it made it get lost in the shuffle. Don wrote to me asking about the status of this MM6 mix a week or two ago, and I let him know how several on the panel had not been hot on the relative conservativeness of the arrangement as well as the EQ work. He also felt the EQ work wasn't his best once he relistened to it and let me know he would tinker with it, plus he redid some of the concluding guitar work (3:18-onward) presumably to help drive down arrangement concerns. Now that the revisions are done, I promised Don he could have a Fall-Through. The current version is 4:00-long. The old one is 4:01-long. ------------------------------------------------------ http://www.zophar.net/nsf/megaman6.zip - Track 8 ("Knight Man Stage") As per the previous version, the arrangement starts off pretty conservative, basically a souped up cover of the original. The soundfield was still swamped sometimes (e.g. 1:07-1:17), but never for any long periods of time. From 1:28-onward, the arrangement proceeded to get more liberal and interpretive. Don showed off again how he's one of the most effective in the community at sequenced guitar part. When he went back to the more straightforward rendition of the Knight Man melody at 2:38 he made sure to push up the guitar part so that it was more audible, which stressed the interpretive embellishment on it moreso than the old version. Since the volume on it was raised, it sounded like the guitar flubbed at 3:05 moving into the source's bridge as the guitar note cut off loudly and abruptly; maybe we can get that fixed? One particular example of the old version feeling swamped was from 3:12-3:29 during the big finish where the guitar, vox, bells, and (especially) strings all mushed together indistinctly. The new version rebalances everything so that there's a clearer foreground and background. Dunno why that wasn't done with the 1:07-1:17 section, but it wasn't a big deal. I just commented on some various points in the track just to share some thoughts on it. Overall, the approach started out very conservatively (albeit very personalized), but eventually moved over into some more interpretive material. A bit on the loud side, but fairly well produced with good energy, and the instrumentation choices gelled together nicely. Nice work. YES

http://www.snesmusic.org/v2/wiki.php?iRequest=wiki/ViewPage&iPage=Undumpable There's no SPC pack of this game's soundtrack so if anything ever passed from this game, we'd have to track down the soundtrack. After that seemingly low quality intro for the first few seconds (which literally made me "WTF?"), things really picked up. Why is this so short? It sounds like a 1970s cartoon or action series intro, straight up. Grove-biased [sic] and hawtz. But it needs more everything at this stage. If this was something in the 2:30 range by, say, Binster, the piece would always evolve and develop. Here, you intro, then hit the main verse, then repeat that verse, go for a (very nice) break section, then simply repeat the main verse again with a key change for the finish. In terms of the track, it's short and the structure is very formulaic, and may need further development IMO, but the instrumentation is swanky. The beats are strong, the sounds are fairly balanced, and everything pieces together very well. As far as the arrangement, the soundtrack is too rare for me to snag a copy, so you need to give us a copy of the original or point us in direction of obtaining it. I've got my channels, but throw a guy some help. I wouldn't have the slightest idea how conservative or interpretive the arrangement is. Perhaps add in some more substance, variation and development within the track, perhaps enough to extend it by a minute. And see what you can do about obtaining a copy of the source material. Great stuff so far, it's a keeper and very much a throwback. I'm giving fair warning to y'all that you will be groove-biased to this. Once I get a copy of the original, I can give a full assessment. It repeats a lot, but if the main verse is already really substantially arranged, then perhaps this has what it takes to pass. Will vote later. EDIT (6/13): And for some reason last night, I had a dream that this was the theme for "All in the Family" where Edith Bunker had already died, and Archie was left raising 3 ghetto youths. I woke up going, "where did that theme music come from?" then I remembered this. That's NOT what I had in mind with the 70s reference. I was thinking more about some sort of Hong Kong Phooey knockoff.

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/crystals.zip - Track 20 Thanks for providing a source MIDI as well. While the arrangement didn't sound like a MIDI-rip, the sound quality was hovering at that level. Didn't like how the piano was panned hard left for the intro. Be merciful to my ear(s). Sample quality on the piano at :09 was uh...not that good. Heard a bunch of light clicks and pops during the run from :16-:37, then a bunch of individual notes cutting out with no release from :38-:42. Man, everything is so fake and plainly exposed. There's no care put into the details. Some synth harmonizes a bit with the piano at :46, but the track just sounded barren. This section here has basically 3 instruments working in tandem, but all of them are very thin & artificial sounding and don't fill out the soundfield. The arrangement ideas try to be interpretive, but the execution is just hollow and ugly-sounding. 1:56 builds back to a retread of the run at :16, with the same clicks, pops and flubbed releases as last time around. Why end it on that note??? Wish I could be more supportive of this one, but I wasn't feeling it. Keep at it with the WIP forum, but you gotta tackle that ReMixing forum and learn how to flesh out your current sounds to maximize the quality. The soundfield needs more depth, so think about what you can do to not only bolden your existing parts, but create additional ones for more depth and complexity. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/olympus.zip - Track 1 The intro sounds weird/awkward on the first listen, but you get used to it. Performance doesn't flow, the way the samples are used and the processing on them are both low-quality, leaving the track sounding relatively sparse and unpolished. Was glad the arrangement didn't simply repeat at 1:16. Decent variations there and also at 2:00 with the source melody again. Arrangement could/should still go in more places. Cool ideas in terms of the genre but the execution falls flat. Keep at it. Any tips from other Js on how to get this sounding stronger would be appreciated. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gbs/sml1.zip - Track 3 The scream SFX at :49 was a decent idea, but felt a little out of place. I liked the echo effect though. You kind of learn to put up with it after a while; probably just personal taste. Too bad those beats brought in at :49 were so flimsy, because everything else seemed pretty solid. Fairly straightforward but good bassline writing which probably should have been boosted up during the fuller parts so it wasn't lost in the shuffle. Synth guitar at 1:22 was a bit grating, but was working surprisingly well. Dunno how Vig would feel about it. They weren't OMG, but I was still surprised that it was sequenced this strongly. Nice delay effects were in place throughout the song to help fill things out; production was fairly sharp. The arrangement and sounds possess a lot of the charm of OCR's older material. I wish the synth guitar had some support or something so it didn't feel like it was practically on its own in the soundfield. Good ideas at from 2:29-3:00 on that level with some belltone-type stuff and pads to flesh out the soundfield more. Arrangement was pretty good, but the flimsy beats didn't quite fit and made the track seem like it was missing some meat. Too bad, for example, that there weren't any lyrics/vocals in here. The beat pattern was cool, especially the off-beats, but the variation on them was ultimately lacking and made things drag a little. No problems with a borderline pass from the panel here, but I need beats that vary and sound a little less simplistic/straightforward, plus some more support for the electric guitar synth so that it doesn't practically feel like it's the only thing in play from 1:22-2:27. The source files are kaput? Damn. :'-( We need another SML mix. If you can do anything to obtain a backup or whatnot, work on this further. Good luck with the rest of the vote, Pat. NO (refine/resubmit)

One Must Fall 2097 - 03 "Main Menu" Simple but cool pad-based intro to open things up. Some beats came in at :41 while the source melody was referenced. Source melody came in at :56 pretty conservatively, going so far as to use the same synth lead as the original at 1:09. Mixed feelings about that, but we'll see where the rest of the track goes. The supporting material initially wasn't filling up the space well; some hard beats to anchor the track would have helped. 1:26 somewhat fixed that with thicker drums being brought in, but the beats and tambourine were too timekeeping, repetitive, and uncreative. I don't think they ever changed up once they were introduced. You could click at any point after 1:26 and the track basically sounded the same as a result. 2:36 starts arranging the source material with some really interpretive stuff only to bring in the verbatim source progression on top at 2:51. Still not liking the melodic material being so close to the original at times. There's some interpretation via new sounds and rhythms being built around the melody, but I felt the verbatim parts of the melody being used so many times for long periods of time were a hinderance. I'd like to see the melody reworked so that half of it doesn't sound like it was taken wholesale from the original's sound. The other half sounds like a simple instrument swap. All the arrangement goodness here seems to be found outside of the lead instrumentation. Also, the percussion patterns need variation and the tone should gel better with the other sounds. You have a good base so far; work on things further. NO (rework/resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/usf/sm64usf.rar - 15 "Piranha Plant's Lullaby" I agree with Vigilante that it's cool to hear someone actually try to arrange this piece. I don't believe I've ever seen anyone in the community express any interest in the original before. The rendered performance sounds thin, even MIDIish at times; more could be done to get the piano sample to sound richer. Performance also felt a little sluggish from 2:34-3:07, not simply on account of the tempo but because the timing felt rigid. Note progression at 3:47 sounded odd; 3:50-4:07 arguably didn't quite seem to fit the prior mood of the piece, but I see how you were trying to move toward the finish. Yeah, some decent ideas so far, but the arrangement was fairly simplistic/straightforward. It's simply up to you to go for something more complicated (and thereby interpretive) than what you have in place now. NO

It's not a bad track all things considered. Needs more polish, but a promising track for a first sub as far as the execution. Hate to be glib, but NO Override. This approach doesn't justify it as a ReMix. A ReMix has to be a video game music arrangement specifically derived from in-game music, not an original piece inspired by a concept from a video game. The Submission Instructions & Standards elaborate on that further. Submit an actual game music arrangement next time.

http://www.exotica.org.uk/tunes/archive/Authors/Game/Freitas_Jean-Francois/Another_World.lha - Another World end (Anothw2.mod) Interesting intro. Some bass and groove bias beetz came in at :17, somewhat exposing the low quality of the encoding, as I heard some fuzz/artifacts, though they were drowned out a bit once the strings kicked in at :35. Some (ultra fakey) plucked strings faded in around :49, while a modulating synth joined in around :57. Though the groove bias is there, it's certainly good to here the track possess some build. Decent dropoff at 1:10 focusing on the modulating synth before bringing in arpeggiated-style (I take a wild guess!) stuff at 1:28. Bowed and (ultra fakey) plucked string synth joined back in at 2:03. Sloppy transition at 2:20 to finally change the mood here, but it didn't work very well. Same with 3:48 to go back to the more upbeat style. Everything has decent buildups and dropoffs, but the grooves here just carry on and on without actually exploring the source tune enough. Based on the sub letter, this "open minded renovation" seemed to be a liberal arrangement of the ending theme, but this certainly doesn't sound much like it. Doesn't sound like the intro theme either (apparently the only other track in the game). In case I'm mistaken, I'll be more than glad to reevaluate this. The construction is promising; a couple of the sounds are used in a beginner-ish way and the production could be more polished, but the overall result is ok to listen to. Good grooves and fairly chill, but too far off from any of the game's music. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/kidicar.zip - Tracks 1, 2, 3 & 10 The track is slightly over the size limit [6MB (6,291,456 bytes)], and sounds fairly lossy regardless. Encode it in VBR to get more bang for the the buck (or I guess more mojo for the meg...or something). I'm certainly glad to see James back in the community again after not hearing from him in a long while, basically since I started getting serious about the community. This definitely sounds better than the WIP version, which was really thin, though the reverb is over the top and makes everything sound too muddy. I feel it can be more tastefully done, as this affects most of the track. Can't help but feel that the stereo in the intro felt too imbalanced toward the left channel, since the support work was much quieter on the right side; nothing major. Keeping in mind that the reverb/processing here really needs to be redone... Good transition to a subtler approach at :38 taking on another section of the first source. The transition at 1:42 was jumpy and non-existent; definitely a poor way to segue to the next movement. It sounded like the instrumentation simply skipped in at full volume. The tone of the drums at 2:07 sounded completely out of place, IMO. Transition at 2:24 was also strange in that the mood changed without much buildup or connection to the prior stuff. The drums at 2:54 again felt completely out of place in this setting, not to mention mechanically sequenced. 3:18's transition worked better, I felt. The sounds for the 3:18-3:47 section didn't quite capture the intense energy of the writing. The transition at 3:52, on the other hand, felt like you didn't know how to move from the previous section to the next with that horn letting out some sort of death squawk, then just pausing and moving to the new section. There are so many points where the transitions either aren't smooth or simply don't connect the sections effectively, creating that medleyitis I was talking about in the WIP thread, i.e. making a larger arrangement simply by covering several themes in a row with little to no connections between the themes. That wasn't the case the whole way through here. The last few minutes were alright (even though the final note cut off). The small orchestra work here is decent. You had some fairly good ideas for covering the original material, but then expanding the instrumentation/parts to give things some additional depth. Nonetheless you need to more judiciously use reverb and figure out how to flesh out the soundfield without swamping it, you need to build better transitions that don't make the tone change in such jarring ways, and also need to change most of the percussion sounds (i.e. that drumkit) to something that gels with the orchestration. You certainly have a good base in place; keep at it on this one, bro (and go for a more creative title for the arrangement). NO (rework/resubmit)

Why'd you keep saying "Ah-bey" for Abe's Oddyssey? NOT EVERYTHING'S IN JAPANESE, GIRL!!!! HAI!

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 201 "Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII", 301 "Cosmo Canyon", some others Instrumentation was indeed loud and harsh, and rigid in the performance. Coupled with the roboticness of the timing, the construction was relatively sparse leaving the track feeling empty and devoid of emotion most of the way. The arrangement isn't developed in any meaningful sense; the sub letter's misleading in that there's medleyitis going on. Nothing more to say other than to learn more and subsequently do more for future subs. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/metroid.zip - Track 1 I see the Busta Rhymes/C64 analogies thrown in here, certainly. But Vigilante sums it up short and sweet. The first half was creative at the very beginning, but then didn't develop the melodies into anything more. Beyond 1:36, I also didn't hear anything remotely connected to the source. Track also sounded pretty empty, for example during the section at 1:52. Really could use a pad or something in the background to fill things out. You show potential, but yes, the construction was interesting but ultimately sparse, and the arrangement was way too liberal of an approach. NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=dkc - "Aquatic Ambiance" (dkc-08.spc) Rather needlessly loud, so I wouldn't have minded it being toned down a bit. I don't really think the encoding was the primary thing holding this back on the production side, as everything sounds too swamped to begin with. The ideas for the intro were alright but not particularly engaging. But the song was already more than halfway and it didn't feel like anything substantial had happened. The fadeout at 2:54 was way too fast. The whole thing felt like an intro to a much longer, more potentially evolving piece. Certainly some melodic interpretation here, but the track was short and aimless. Where's the beef? NO

How about no?

Danke.

http://project2612.org/download.php?id=36 - "Green Hill Zone" Yeah, the melody is off-key at points. z & D basically called this out for what it was, so I've got nothing to add. Gotta agree with the other Js and wrap it up. Cold blooded, I knowz. NO

This is from a Japanese 1996 Taito arcade game, so I can't find the source from my usual places. Can't believe that the title is right though, yeesh. You've got a good groove going, but where was the rest? I'd like to say more, but you didn't really give us more to work with. Variation and creativity are your friends. Develop and personalize the material more. NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff6 - "Tina" (ff6-201.spc) Not exactly the most creative name for this track. Cool intro. Hahaha! The volume is definitely up there. Percussion sounds pretty loose. The piano sample sounds very artificial. The sound balance is pretty poor the whole way through; arguably, nothing is positioned in the soundfield where it should be. About 1:00-in, and I'm not feeling that any workable texture with the instrumentation or cohesive direction with the writing. It's sounds too haphazard and random. The track barely sounds like Terra until some slight connection are (finally) made from 1:41-1:54. 1:54 finally brings in the melody, but the same issues from before are here. Some decent arrangement ideas, certainly. Section at 3:47 sounds decidedly lo-fi, with audible hiss and just a generally low-quality recording. If this was cohesively performed with more sensible post-production, this could be really cool. NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff6 - "The Decisive Battle" (ff6-124.spc) 2:05-long? I must say, this decision is almost over before it's started, but we'll still see where this goes. Short and sweet, the atmosphere indeed sounds messed up at times. The arrangement was somewhat personalized, but short and repetitive. Basically 2 playthroughs of the melody, then...over. You've got to offer more than this. Listen to zircon's tips. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/ff1.zip - Track 1 Final Fantasy Vocal Collections I: Pray - (01) "The Prelude" Should encode this thing in VBR to get a better sound. Heh, that is an interesting opening. The vocals are directly sampled from the Risa Ooki track from the FF: Pray arrange album which to me is no good, but it at least wasn't used like a crutch. Too bad you didn't make those vocals yourself. Changes up at 1:56. Oh, wow, the quality just dropped SEVERELY. Wow. It's just, you had some decent textures going on in the intro, then you stopped and went into some really thinly-textured and generic-sounding trance. Everything sounds very unprocessed, the instrumentation choices are too generic, bland, corny, etc., and the track just sounds really empty until 2:48. 2:48 brings in the familiar Prelude melody on faux-plucked strings while a very robotically sequenced ethnic woodwind instrument doubles it. Another changeup at 3:34, with some decidedly more creative sound choices, but the soundfield still feels very empty. You need some pads or something to fill out the soundfield adequately so things don't sound so barren. Whatever you brought in at 4:23 in the background playing the source's supporting chords wasn't doing it. 4:44 starts fading in the sampled arrange album vocals for a decent touch. 5:09 goes back to the melody, but, much like before the writing, beatwork, and overall construction are too simplistic. Basically continued like that until the end. For a 7:17-long mix, the arrangement substance wasn't there, and everything was put together in a fairly beginner-ish way. Work on creating more complex and varied arrangement ideas along with more complex and varied textures; the basics. Obtain some feedback from the community first before you submit in the future. NO