Liontamer

Hahaha! I miss the classic Vig Overrides. So glib, so right. Like he said, we don't want a MIDI rip + beats. Anyway, since the submitter had NO clue about the standards, I link to them and quote a portion for his benefit. Read the whole thing before you try to submit again.

Well, that's certainly true, but it's also about what one can do with their existing stuff. Anyone else have an opinion on how well these particular sounds can be used?

It's abrupt in the sense that the bell fades out too quickly/unnaturally at 6:52, and should be fixed. Otherwise, it seems fine.

I dunno. I think I'm sticking with instrumental. It's better if the stages are all that way. It would be weird to have only 2 like that. You've never played Marvel vs. Capcom 2 or the Capcom vs. SNK series? Lyrics have been in fighting game stages for a while. The trick in this case would be to have them at a low enough level so that they didn't run over the character voices and making extending the track with some instrumental portions so that it doesn't get too repetitive.

Change it to JustChris. That'll be my new handle. CC Ricers is better.

Uhhhhhhh....

It's certainly there. You just have to be able to find it.

Here ya go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_on_the_Asphalt

Well, it's got a beat structure. But yeah, this mix is jiggy, fly, and awesome. Nice work, Don!

Hahahaha! Stinga!

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=fz - "Big Blue" (fz-02.spc) You were hesitant on submitting this? You crazy ass foo. Hey, what are you doing at :32? You got up and started plucking the piano strings or something? Whatever it was, I wish it was louder. Cool idea; too bad boosting it up would have probably made the hiss too loud, but I like it. Source tune kicked in at :54 with a nice piano adaptation of the source, holding to a pretty conservative but personalized, flamboyant-sounding and nicely expanded arrangement. You notice a nice increase in energy and additive parts/embellishments at 2:10. Chorus at 2:36 felt pretty smooth except for what sounded like a slightly sour chord at 2:45. The 3:09-4:11 section dragged a bit, especially the left-hand, but once Jon moved away from that into another delicate variation of the source at 4:12 to finally break that up I was feeling it again. There's a pop at 3:38 that needs to be fixed. Nice segue into original material at 4:43; pretty smooth change there that positioned things towards the finish. That ending at 5:18... "Pff?" Thump and then...it's over? :'-( And that last chord at 5:14 was fading down so nicely. It doesn't hurt the song overall here, but it did kill off the potential strength of the ending. There's also a little noise at 5:19 that should probably be shaved off. The performance does feel a little rough, but it doesn't substantially undermine the strong arrangement ideas and overall solid execution. Yeah, we DO need more pieces like this. Where are the live piano guys to KEEP IT REAL??? YES

Gonna have to get the pimpage/plugs out of the way before I discuss Martin's mix. We have a project going on for VGM composer Tim Follin, who announced a few months ago that he was quitting the video games industry since he can no longer make a steady living off of it. How this man can't make a steady living off his skills, I don't understand. Regardless, myself, Kaleb Grace & CHz have banded together to organize an OC ReMix Site Project dedicated to Follin's work to show our appreciation. When complete, it will be the first non-commericial VGM arrangement project dedicated to a composer rather than a company, game, or game series, eventually located at http://follin.ocremix.org. The project, "Dirge for the Follin" was named by Dwelling of Duels co-creator, Crimson, and will feature tracks from across the game arrangement community. So far, we have completed tracks from Ryan8bit (Solstice), Xoc (Magic Johnson's Fast Break & Super Off-Road), Binster (Ghouls'n Ghosts), Romeo Knight (Bionic Commando), and Makke (Qix). We're looking for anyone else interested in honoring Tim Follin to join the project. ------------------------------------------------------ http://www.exotica.org.uk/tunes/archive/C64Music/Follin_Tim/Ghouls_n_Ghosts.sid - Subtune 10/11 This is the third completed track for "Dirge for the Follin", and it's already been very well received by the Commodore arrangement community, reaching #2 on Remix64's All-Time charts. The arrangement is pretty conservative in terms of altering the structure of the original. Where the track really excels is the personalization and creavity put forth in expanding the source material, much like bLiNd, McVaffe and Mark Vera have done in the past. Short and sweet, I thought the production was excellent the whole way through and that the arrangement displayed great dynamics to retain the listener's interest. Martin not only worked towards creating his own interesting sounds and textures, but substantially built upon the framework of the original with his own additional writing to fill this out and ratchet up the energy level. It's a genuine pleasure to have this track representing "Dirge for the Follin" and I'm sure those in the community will feel the same way. YES

http://www.zophar.net/usf/sf64usf.rar - 15 "Sector X" Yeah, I remembered this theme from a little while ago, since TO's also mixed it, albeit with more Starship Troopers samples in there. I liked vibraphone used in the intro, displaying a similarity to the instrumentation of the original. Picks up at :34 with a fairly straightforward arrangement of the original. Samples aren't that hot or realistic, but they're put together reasonably well. 1:15 brought something new and more interpretive on the arrangement side, though the effects on the vibraphone are mudding up the track. Moved over into some strings handling the arranged melody. Don't really like the brass at 2:21 sounding relatively dry compared to the nice delay on the others instruments, as it made them seem like they weren't in the same spacey atmosphere. The brass at the foundation of the 2:49-3:21 section REALLY sounded like it needed more body/richness, and didn't fill out the track adequately. The writing tries to sound powerful, but the brass doesn't have the processing on it to get the job done and have it translate to the listener. Better stuff back to the vibraphone lead at 3:22-3:39. Adan pulls off a fairly simplistic soundscape well, not leaving things bone dry and empty, but at the same time allowing the simpler construction here to provide genuine contrast with other sections of the arrangement. That's the right way to go about it. 3:39-4:53 had several short sections, featuring some good periodic instrument changes to keep things interesting before amping things up for the closing section at 4:57. Ending cuts off suddenly at 5:25, so we need a fix on that. Much like Adan's first mix here, the samples and production leave something to be desired in terms of realism. A richer feel for some of the more synthetic-sounding instruments could have been cool. There are any times here where a denser soundscape would have been more appealing, and dare I say substantive, but the minimalist instrumentation approach here was handled pretty well regardless. The arrangement here was pretty sharp, doing a lot of creative, interpretive things with the "Sector X" variations, making use of a lot of good instrument combinations, and developing well over its 5+ minutes. On that level, this piece gets the job done. It sizzles, but it doesn't suck. YES

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/StarOceanSS_psf.rar - 134 "KA.MI.KA.ZE" I remember the old PRC WIP for this one way back, so I knew this would be solid once Blake finished it up. Certainly glad he got this one fully realized. Brass in the intro was a little fakey (aren't they all) but used well, alongside the other instruments coming together for the solemn-sounding intro. After consulting with Blizi about the pops from :41-:49 (and 3:43), he was able to mitigate the problem a bit, but you can still hear them. Might have to work more to fix that issue, but it's minor. DarkeSword had to fix the same issue for his recent Grandia mix, so he'd have the best info on how to fix it. The intensity picked up dramatically at :54 and set a nice tempo. The writing was nice and intricate and really personalized the arrangement approach despite a relatively conservative handling of the melody to start off. There's tons of great support work and ornamentation to bolster the source arrangement here, and of course Blake did a nice job of seamlessly weaving his other wholly original writing ideas with the source material. Good transition at 2:13 to the next section, though the fadeout of the cymbal crash at 2:14 (or whatever percussion that was) cut out abruptly at 2:19. Booooo! Despite that flaw, everything else was solid. Wonderful changes in the instrumentation in the following section kept the listener guessing with some vox, harp, and even a lone xylo note (or whatever it was, redux) supplementing the nice strings and woodwind work from around 2:40 to 3:10. Very nice variation on the source melody at 3:10 for a quiet but serious take on it, before gradually building it up to some more intricate instrumentation at 3:46. I was just impressed by how the piece continued to develop and evolve very naturally and sensibly. Practically nothing felt forced here. Soundfield got really cluttered from 4:53-onward though. NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Well the next section at 5:32 got rid of that, but still felt a little swamped at times up until 6:24. The very ending felt a little too quick and didn't really end the track memorably; adding more meat to that thin bell sample would have made it sound better. But overall everything here was excellent. Some tweaks would be needed to fix the lil' flubs in here like the popping or that one instrument fadeout that cut off, and I thought 4:53-5:32 was entirely too loud. But even then, this was still a very creative, personalized, dynamic and vibrant arrangement. Great use of the sounds, great textures, great writing, it gets the job done. YESs all over this. You should subtitle it "Kamikaze Variation." Strong work, Blake!

Yeah, I can see. Uh, I'll tell you want, lemme format these tags consistently, just to make sure everything is set. The URLs should have the project homepage, not just "www.ocremix.org." If there isn't a project URL already settled for (I didn't check, so just let me know) then I'll find out what djp will do and tag it up with that info. Plus there are a ton of minor inconsistencies, lemme just do it up tonight and host a copy for someone to grab and provide to the mirrors. Also, is there a track order, or it's just gonna go alphabetically? Right now, nothing's named or tagged with track #s, so I'm just asking. Also, Shael, what's up with "Blood on the Asphalt: a tribute to Street Fighter 2?" The A is capitalized, because the colon is separating two formal titles, i.e. the title and the subtitle. Whatever the first word is after the colon, even if it was "A," "An," or "The" after the colon, you capitalize it.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=mo2 - "The Floating Kingdom of Dalaam" (mo2-093.spc) Played this back on VGF68 for the Joe Camera, so I know it all too well. Well, to be honest the very intro doesn't give great first impressions, but it's only a brief thing. The beginning, around :05-:09, is kind of rigid, and the release on one of the notes at :08 seemed awkward. The way the track faded down at 4:12 also felt abrupt, like the last notes should have wound down longer. It's certainly a lot better than the original rendering of "Nayru's Lullaby/Love", which was just sloppy. Anyway, other than those minor things, it was smooth sailing. WHY? I will tell you why. Source tune drops in right at the very tail end of :39 after some very nice, delicate-sounding runs. The arrangement was pretty solid for solo piano, with some good supporting writing to compliment the arranged melody, plus the wholly original sections were woven seamlessly with the EarthBound arranged ones. All very solid stuff. The motifs here were repeated several times, but David took care to build more and more underneath his melodies with each iteration and present something dynamic and evolving the whole way through. That's just smart, sophisticated writing. Very relaxing work. YES

Someone PM me a copy to the project so I can also double-check the tagging. I'd also really rather prefer there aren't any inconsistancies. If not, Matt, just make sure you check through it like a hawk.

No issue if this passes, BTW. I do feel the source material & arrangement are not fully explored due to the length, but agree with all of Jesse's other points. This is done well for (arguably) what little is there.

Ultima Online: Renaissance - "Tavern04" Thanks for providing the original. Seems like a decent expansionist attempt. Sequencing sounds a little rigid, but not in a significantly impactful way, at least to me. Samples are fine, but seem a little vanilla. Instruments seems slightly imbalanced at times (e.g. :48-1:08). The tambourine seems to be on nearly the same volume as the acoustic strings and woodwind, so when all of those things are in place, there doesn't seem to be a distinct separation enough of foreground and background. But those are all rather minor criticisms on my side, so we'll see how the others feel. The expansion ideas are pretty good, but there's still not too much complexity relatively speaking. Add more arrangement ideas to bring further interpretation to the table and extend the creativity beyond a mere 1:54-long. This is a good base Elan, but at the same time more can be done with it. I feel it ends before it truly gets off the ground. NO (resubmit)

Halo Original Soundtrack - (26) "Halo" & (14) "Covenant Dance" MIDIs: http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/microsoft/xbox/CovenantDance.mid http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/microsoft/xbox/halo_theme_v2.mid Both sources are at least somewhat similar, as "Covenant Dance" is structured a bit like the main theme "Halo." Sequencing on the "Halo" MIDI is bleh, but I don't feel like getting the MP3 copies of the sources. Onto the mix, the opening was fairly decent. Not very different from the original, but personalized to some extent anyway. The brief piano in there felt mechanical and MIDI-grade. The hand drums were a nice idea for a more organic feel though. A little rigid and loopy, but they were OK, so no big deal; the piano was definitely worse. Some weak/flat beats and a low quality bassline came in at 1:11 along with some MIDI-grade bells or xylo at 1:19. The low-end sounded a little muddy once things picked up. And still, the energy level was decidedly flat. There were decent/basic effects on the piano along with at least some degree of thought put into velocities, but the sequencing was very rigid so the performance didn't sound the least bit natural. Things briefly slowed down at 2:00 only for it to pick back up at 2:15 with more very rigid piano work, before seguing to some very flat, indistinct guitar work at 2:38. Tone had no meat on it at all for any of the guitars, plus the mixing on them was pretty bad. The lead guitar didn't stand out very far from the others, and everything else was mushing together. The beats once again were very tame and unprocessed, hampering the intended energy level. The concepts were decent. The source material still wasn't interpreted very creatively, IMO; the arrangement could stand to be more liberal and personalized, rather than what basically amounts to a cover. The samples were pretty weak, and the sequencing was too rigid to allow the performance to flow nicely or compensate for the sample quality. The live guitar stuff had no bite to it either. Really needs a lot of work on the fundamentals and further fan feedback to at least address some of the more obvious basic problems. Needs a lot of work as is. NO

Yeah, just watch. I'm gonna emulate Prot till the very end. I'll be fired by this time next year after insisting to djp that Rocky VI was awesome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_the_Tiger Eye of the Pwnt

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=loz3 - "Princess Zelda's Rescue" (loz3-22.spc) Nicolas will send stuff where he takes "risks" by going outside his familiar orchestral arrangements, but this stuff generally isn't strong, which is unfortunately similar to the Jaguar X220 mix he sent in from a few months ago. These other types of songs typically haven't had the complexity or depth of his other arrangements. For all the creativity, effort, and care put into the percussion and developing different sounds, the groove here is too subdued at times. Well-written (especially the drum patterns changing up so much), but IMO should sound denser. I feel the various pads & strings help, but they feel thin and sometimes the overall construction still seems simplistic. On the arrangement side, the source tune is essentially stripped down to just the melody, which is hardly interpreted. Beyond that, the source melody is not a meaningful presence in the scope of this arrangement. Some of the supporting instrumentation, like the pad at 1:36, finally does also attempt to provide additional arrangement of the source. But otherwise, most of the instrumentation doesn't play off of "Princess Zelda's Rescue" at all. At 1:06 (and again at 2:05) you get wholly original instrumentation with some purely stapled on tribal-style singing obtained from a sample CD. Despite whatever symbolism Nicolas feels this has to Zelda, it's unfortunately got nothing to do with it in terms of arranging the actual Zelda song involved. I'm not against adding material not derived from the source tune. But when there's arguably not enough substance to begin with, relying on these samples to fill the track out only hurts the track. From an OCR standards perspective, the vocal samples are stapled on and used as a crutch, and don't present any arrangement value versus the original. You take them out, and the song is too minimalist. Finally the source chorus gets referenced from 2:35-2:46, just before another original section before the finish. IMO, the concepts are decent, but the Zelda material that IS in here does nothing beyond paying lip service to the original. There needs to be more interpretation of the theme (besides using the lead) for a bigger share of the time. During the vocal parts, it can't be that hard to continue working elements of the source tune into the music. Like I said, the care and creativity was put into creating the sounds and some of the wholly original writing, but it wasn't put toward substantially arranging the source material which is important as far as the standards go. From my POV, it often loses site of the original more than it pays homage to it. It can be improved, but needs more direct connections to "Princess Zelda's Rescue". NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/tcsd.zip - Track 1 Wow, I actually played this game back in the day. Opening is a souped up version of the NSF, seguing into some terribly produced cover style arrangement; sounds terribly loud and distorted. The drumkit tone is dry as hell, and everything is just blistering and sizzling with this awful production. Arrangement needs to be more interpretive and needs to be more developed. 2:11 really doesn't cut it here with a mere cover tune like this. Christ, the production though... NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=zamn - "Curse of the Tongue" (zamn-07.spc) The original's strangely catchy. Kinda doesn't grab the interest at first, but it does have some cool ideas. Never really cared for the game itself, but who's counting? Felt the tone of the drumkit instruments could have fit better. It never really gelled with the stuff up front. Harpsichord-like deal from :19-:25 felt a little buried in the track by all the guitar work, but was a nice idea reminiscent of the feel of the original soundtrack. Listening to the guitar lead from :26-:49, I felt like playing could have been more expressive. Same with the grungier stuff from :49-:56 & 1:02-1:08, as well, it all felt a little flat. Some massive clutter at from 1:26-1:32. Not to rag on the performance here, but it's definitely not as on point as, say, goat. Nonetheless, Christian wouldn't claim he was on that level or anything, and continues to improve. Nice organ stuff at 1:49, very full and grandiose, and good stuff tying it into the guitar work for some rock opera style stuff as well. Disappointed that the redux of the first section at 2:28 didn't have anything new going on, and was feeling worried that the second half would just be a retread, but he changed it up with some nice guitar, bass, drumkit and smooth keyboards for a very stylish freestyle section. The lack of transition at 3:47 was awkward and probably should have been handled better, but Christian picked things up at 4:06 with some higher energy building toward the finish. A little swamped at 4:30 for the arrangement's last big section, including quite a long fadeout starting around 4:44 that felt a little unsatisfying. Something shorter probably would have worked just as well, but no big deal. For any gripes on wanting the performance to be more expressive in places and other criticisms, the arrangement was simply very stylish and ambitious. It's definitely a testament to Christian's creativity, and I love the goth rock style here. Cool stuff, and much love to a woefully underrated soundtrack like Zombies Ate My Neighbors. YES