Liontamer

Dance Dance Revolution 8th Mix -Extreme- - "sync(EXTREME version)" 2:09-long means this has to be REALLY good. Just an aside, the last submission we got arranging this track was horrible, BTW. This felt like a cover-ish style arrangement of the original, only with somewhat weaker synth quality and in a slightly different electronic subgenre, whatever that may be. The attempt is there to personalize the approach through these new sounds, but this isn't enough, and the execution is merely OK as is. Some of the denser parts were just loud and cluttered, but others may disagree. In any case, this ended before it started. That works in DDR, it doesn't work here. Lots of wasted potential here in terms of developing new and interpretive ideas with the source material. As implied in the sub letter, it's more a remix than a ReMix, i.e. rearrangement. NO

Game's only been out for a few months (in Japan), and less than a month here, so there's no way I could find a source. Don't really need it though. Basic construction here. The production's not bad, but the overall execution here is still fairly vanilla. The groove just repeats ad nauseum. Some additional strings come in and out of the piece to provide some lush stuff, but overall there wasn't really much going on here. All of the strings and synth work placed on top of the groove at various times should have been more prominent in the foreground. 1:27, the halfway point, literally was a rinse and repeat. A 30 second fadeout when you're just repeating the same stuff over and over again? Take it off cruise control next time, partner. NO

http://www.vgmusic.com/music/other/miscellaneous/arcade/TJO_ST2.mid - "I Defend STM" The time matching up with the MIDI scared me at first, but thank God that wasn't the case. Basic beats started things off. Grainy lead came in at :29. Melody got into gear at 1:00 with a straightforward genre adaptation of the original. The beats rather dragged on after a while, the construction is rather simplistic and sparse, and the piece could have used further processing and effects for a more unique sounding presentation. This was competent, but this was relying on some serious groove bias. Fine for ye olden days, but not cutting it now. Good base so far. You've gotta take the arrangement and instrumentation ideas to the next level. Dunno what was up the track suddenly ending, but the encoding does seem kind of messed up. Just fix it later and provide a real ending if you continue to work on it. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gbs/ffa.zip - Tracks 18 & 21 Dunno what the third theme here is, but it doesn't really matter. I mean, this is a decent piano & woodwind-based cover, even if it doesn't sound realistically sequenced in the slightest. But while the energy's decent, there's not enough interpretation here IMO. Switches to the second theme at 1:14 with no real transition, and the performance just sounds thin. Same at 2:12, no transition again, and this was going for the close which just sounds awkward and devoid of purpose. So yes, this arrangement needs a lot more creativity that what you gave it. 2:31-long of almost anything isn't gonna cut it here, especially when the interpretation factor is low like this. Beyond that, tighten up the sequencing and flesh out the sounds. NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ct - "Memories of Green" (ct-1-05.spc), "The Brink of Time" (ct-2-13.spc) & "Underground Sewer" (ct-2-16.spc) Heh. Yeah, as much as I love Nigel's work, I agree with Vigilante. I'm a little surprised as I felt the orchestration was also too thin/sparse at times, even for a small, more intimate setting. Didn't feel up to par with his other work to be honest. The interpretation factor, yeah, that's hurting me too. Though the effort at personalization and expansion is clearly there, this just felt too straightforward for an orchestral adaptation with weak/non-existent transitions that prevented the segments from logically piecing together. Sometimes, instantaneous transitions work, but this wasn't the case here. The lack of transition at 1:31 into "The Brink of Time" was rather disappointing. Same with the simplistic transition to "Underground Sewer" at 3:04, which was at least a little better, but still felt pasted together. The 5:12-5:40 section had some interpretation in terms of trying to weave bits of "The Brink of Time" with "Underground Sewer", but the transition into the fadeout ending featuring Brink of Time was also jerky. The ending was anti-climactic. Add more interpretation & personalization, throw a little more meat on the bones for some parts, and tighten up the screws here with execution. NO

Well, I thought there were some decent ideas here in terms of the instrumentation and trying to expand the original, enough so that I wouldn't have overriden it. But basically covering the Prelude with new instruments plus some simple beats/drumloops doesn't really cut it, so I'll vouch for it. You've gotta present something more interpretive and personalized, not a ~2:30-long cover. If it's going more of the cover route, you have to get more creative with expanding the instrumentation involved and writing new parts.

http://www.zophar.net/gsf/mmzero_gsf.rar - 19 "Neo Arcadia" The fourth 6-minute-long mix I've heard in this batch; they're really getting no better. The other 3 haven't been creative enough to sustain the time, so hopefully this'll be different. My hopes...are not high. Ah man, so tacky. I mean, the generic-sounding trance instrumentation notwithstanding, this had to bring in the cheesy, teenager voice work that tries to sound deep but only sounds ridiculous. At least hook your voice up with some effects/processing. Is that a MIDI piano at 1:34? It's thin, quiet and in there for all of 12 seconds. What's the point? 2 minutes in, I'm expecting some new ideas to keep things moving, but it's not happening. I must say though, as generic as this sounds, the soundscape at least sounds fairly clean, so you get props for that. Some drumloops & FL Slayer geetar came in at 2:42 to change the feel a bit, but not by much. Beats aren't changing up much either. Things became crowded at 3:07; watch what you're doing there trying to cram so many sounds in there at once. Instrumentation changes up at 3:36 with some VERY sparse, beginner-ish beats, leaving the track sounding empty. Goes back to the trancy stuff at 4:00, now with some layered claps, finally building back into the same basic groove from before at 4:18. I feel like it rendered the 3:36-4:00 useless. Wish this track did more to interpret the theme. Basically a genre adaptation with a few changes in instrumentation and effects over time, but not really anything significant. Needs more work here to sound like a unique and comprehensive arrangement approach. Keep at it as far as making mixes, Josh. You show some talent and seem to have a grasp at the basics, but now need to continue improving your game. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/tmnt3.zip - Track 1 ("Let's Go Turtles") Yeah, I remember deciding not to play this of VGF back in the day. Drums are boring, robotic, and placeholder-ish, plus their tone doesn't fit the piece. I'm sure weed just had them in for a quick placeholder, but these shizzles clearly don't get the job done in any way. Lost the source files, eh? Well, we can't look forward to inserting some substantive drum writing in the future. Beyond that, there's not much beyond the guitar work buried in the back while this sluggish doubled sax work crowds everything else out upfront. On that level, I'm just not feeling the mixing at all. Guitar noodling at 4:15 is pushed up to the front to harmonize with the sax, but they just mush together, plus it drops out just as quick at 4:37. What's the point of that? OK, now it's back at 4:54. These things need better separation so they feel like they're working in tandem. They're absolutely no synergy here at all from you two guys collabbing. Good freestyle stuff from weed's guitar from 5:15 until the finish. Very stylish. Too bad it was over these bleh drums. But yeah, since this is a done deal, I'm not really gonna give any tips. It's just rather a waste of time subbing a very WIP-level mix where the sounds are imbalanced and the drums aren't even done. NO

http://www.exotica.org.uk/tunes/archive/Authors/Game/Leitch_Barry/Lotus_2.lha - mod.bootup Yeah, I recognize the source on this one, as Cyborg Jeff arranged this in the past. Plain/simplistic texture. This actually has less texture and energy than the original. Not really much interpretation of the original either. Read the submissions standards and guidelines, please. This is too straightforward and just a boring-as-hell cover. Well...I suppose that was easy. NO

http://project2612.org/download.php?id=36 - "Special Stage" & "Green Hill Zone" 2:28-long, eh? With a :58-long introduction? Better be packed for such a short arrangement. Yeah, beyond the intro the woodwind lead is ALL OVER DA PLACE. Give it some focus, sir. Piano sounds ok, but the tone sounds a bit thin. Very cool idea for the instrumentation of Green Hill Zone at 1:11; the bassline writing was also pretty cool, but the sample sounded too thin, plus the beats didn't even sound like they fit here. The lead on the Special Stage arrangement was merely noodling around with no direction at 1:50 up until the end. Too bad you don't have a cohesive texture or direction here or this could be pretty tight. Track is short, but could be ok IMO is the texture was fuller and the arrangement was more structured/organized. Keep working on this one, Jredd; you at least show some improvement versus your previous submissions. NO

http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozusf.rar - 68 "Gerudo Valley" Yeah, that piano sounds terrible. Semi-decent tone, but the performance is really doing the robot. Same with the strings. Arrangement isn't really interpretive, but the genre adaptation is actually pretty tight. The string writing shows a lot of promise and needs refinement on the production to better realize the potential there. Some low strings took over the melodic stuff at 2:26, but everything was too quiet. The piano's been repeating ad nasuem (boring), so you need to figure out how to change up the patterns and keep things interesting with this background material. Don't just treat it as filler. You really need to beef the piano chords up and also push up the volume on those low strings up until you bring in the other strings at 2:44. Meh, arrangement's basically repeating the same ideas at 3:02. This is the third mix I've heard in the 6-minute range where people are just recycling their ideas halfway through with only minor changes. There's no point in saying in 6 minutes what you can say in 3. Listening to the piano at 4:16, exposed and on its own, barely filling up any space while plodding away is exceedingly boring. Don't wait until 4:55 to bring back the melody on a second piano and bore the listener. In any case, decent ideas, but the arrangement draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaags. Don't put the arrangement in cruise control after a certain point, especially for something this long. Cut out the fat, and keep thinking of more ideas here to provide dynamic contrast and fresh instrumentation ideas. Learn how to properly fill up the soundscape, because the way you're using your sounds right now isn't cutting it, and learn how to give more realism to the "performance" of your sequenced sounds. The ReMixing forum should be of particular importance to you. Keep at it in the community. NO

Dunno the source, but don't care to look through a 70-track soundtrack if you can't more specifically indentify the source. Opening beats are incredibly robotic. Same with the drums at :09. Lead at :16 was so thin. Piano at :32 sounded too rigidly sequenced and flimsy, almost MIDI-grade at times. Textures here were very poor and, dare I say, unmusical. There's not really much care given to how these sounds piece together. Grungy faux guitar at 1:56 only sealed the deal. Much like girls when I was 6 years old, I would describe this as yucky. Hate to be discouraging, but this isn't particularly solid or promising on any level. But use the ReMixing forum like mad in order to learn how to apply some level of finesse and sophistication in picking your sounds, sequencing them, and achieveing a listenable texture. Basics, really. Sorry bro. NO

http://project2612.org/download.php?id=149 - 04 "Lathesis (BGM 2)" Decent ideas for the melodic instrumentation. The piano had a bit too much delay, not to mention the other stuff. Busier sections like 1:58-2:27 sounded absolutely swamped and indistinct once you added vox into the picture. The flimsy-sounding, uncreative, repetitive beats don't fit well with the other sounds and only make the track sound too beginner-ish, but you're new and you'll be learning how to create more interesting drum writing in the future I hope. Some iffy piano stuff going on at 3:22 as well, but that was taken right from the source. Ah well. Damn, the arrangement repeated verbatim at 3:30, only with the vox being used more, which is boring. Your arrangement ideas, though not hugely interpretive, were decent. But you have to take the arrangement in other inventive, creative directions if you're going to go for a 6:23-long mix. Everything sounded way too samey over time, and there wasn't enough in the way of dynamics or instrumental variation to keep the piece interesting. Hang around the community and read the ReMixing forum to research and get more familiar with the tools you're using, then stop by the Works forum to post your work and get more feedback from the community before you submit more material. Decent ideas for a first mix, but you have a long way to go. Keep at it. NO

Plain synths, fake piano and bleh beats to intro things with. Sloppy, murky texture that makes it hard to hear what's really going on. Sound like you initially copied the SPC/MIDI note-for-note and then tried to add your own touches to it. Moved away from that lame cover-ish style at :41, but the arrangement sounds directionless until 1:22. Man these were some murky strings and piano. These beats don't even fit the soundscape right. Sloppy transition at 1:53 where all of a sudden everything sounded thinner (but still murky). The instrumentation was definitely no good the whole way through. Every time the source melody played, it sounded like it was lifted verbatim from the source. The production here has no sense of judiciousness, and the sound combinations were poorly chosen. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/castleva.zip - Tracks 4, 3 & 2 Dueling guitars with awful tone; repetitive sequenced drumkit that didn't even fit the guitar work; no meaningful texture; terrible transitions; completely cover-ish arrangement. Sloppy. Moves to the next source at 1:53. More of the same. Another source tune with an even more insignificant transition at 3:20. More of the same. Even the fadeout Fed up. Poor all around. NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=loz3 - "Dark World" (loz3-12.spc) Synths are pretty defaulty. No real texture save for that the soundscape is awash with delay and things are panned hard right for some reason. Sadder that I picked it up having worse hearing in that ear. Rinse and repeat at 1:16. 5:28-long? No way that's necessary; it really doesn't make the track any better. Rinse and repeat at 2:23 only now with some tame beats added. There's a lot of subtle build here as new elements would gradually be added into the picture, but nothing really fleshed out the soundfield. Rinse and repeat at 3:39. Went for some minimalism at 4:40, but everything just sounded really sparse and beginner-ish. Arrangement goes for some personalization in terms of the style/sounds, but otherwise isn't very interpretive or interesting, only repetitive. Not much in the way of build, dropoffs or any sort of dynamics either. ReMixing & Works are your friends to get more feedback and learn more about your tools. NO

Nurykabe, I'd recommending messaging either GrayLightning or zircon if you need any more specifics on the tips that they gave you. I think I speak for all of us when I say that we would be glad to have your arrangement once you get the track sounding more balanced, so definitely don't drop this now!

Seems like all 3 NOs are down with the arrangement/writing, but the production is just really subpar. If it was something that was "simpler" to fix up, I would have given this a conditional YES. But given Nukraybe's history of submissions where basically all of his songs have sounded similar to this in production, I'm just not sure if he's gonna be capable of getting this up to bar at his current skill level. That is, if we YESed it, could he even get it to sound good enough? Any recommendations on where to go from here?

http://www.doom2.net/~doomdepot/music/tnt/TNT07.mp3 - "Map07" A-ha! I've got my own inferior MIDI-grade copy of the source. Yeah, listen to Lee's OGG copy of it, which is much better. It was hard to point as where everything was specifically derived from. Beyond that (sweet) bassline, I initially had to do a lot of side-by-side comparison, as there wasn't much melodic material to latch onto and recognize right away. I just like to safely know the connections before approving anything. Thanks to Lee helping with a breakdown of some of the connections here, I can vouch for the level of arrangement here and don't need to elaborate on it. He also pointed out the well-executed 7/4 time signature when we were talking about the WIP of this a few days ago. The instrumentation and atmosphere sounded fairly polished and the groove was solid. At first I wasn't feeling the drum tone, as it potentially seems thin, but it manages to fit reasonably well here. The sequencing sounded a bit mechanical, but it didn't affect the flow of the piece in any negative way. It was more like a strange hybrid of robotic timing yet very flowy sound. The nice processing ideas here really gave a lot of character to the piece. I would have pushed the vox-style pad from 1:19-2:09 up a little bit to further round out the soundfield, but by keeping it low Lee didn't expose it, so I suppose I can't complain. The dynamic shifts here were understated but still noticeable. Good elimination of some parts at 1:52 to create that minimalist break before bringing the groove back at 2:31 and escalating to the climax of the piece starting at 2:48. Definitely no complaints about any of the stuff Lee pointed in the sub letter, like the opening Doom III sample or the stickhits; both were very solid ideas and were handled well. I wouldn't know where the hell the Spyro bit is in here, but I damn well know that doesn't belong in Final Doom. Nice touch. This had some nice arrangement ideas that played around with the source's structure and gave it a lot more substance than anything the original had. Fairly good sound choices and textures along with dat groove were nothing but a solid package. Nice work. I dare say, you might make a decent track or three someday. YES

Someone hook me up with those Street Fighter one. But anyway, can we get better versions of these? (transparency fix) (transparency fix) (GIF, not PNG; GOOD resolution, plz, not this blurry crud)

Thanks to zircon for obtaining a copy of "Blood Tears" for us. I checked this out regarding the Blind Guardian riffs, and 1) they're sequenced (and subsequently arranged) by Stefan, not directly sampled from "Blood Tears", 2) they're used tastefully, i.e. don't dominate the mix in any way, 3) they merely decorate and supplement an otherwise viable arrangement of the Diablo source material. For example, at :58 AmIEviL's guitar segues from the Blood Tears riff into original stuff, then at 1:23 into arrangement of the supporting acoustic guitar work from 1:10 of Diablo's Tristam/town theme. From a standards/guidelines perspective, everything checks out here. For the person a few years ago that said AmIEviL was trying to take credit for those riffs (Andross), he wasn't. djpretzel's writeup doesn't explicitly mention the other homages/borrowed ideas by name, but djp says upfront that AmIEviL told him he used other sources beyond Diablo to help make this arrangement. There was nothing shady going on.

Yep, we encourage linking to game music format versions (NSF/SPC/PSF/MIDI/etc) of source tunes.

Not disarray; disagreement. Diction ftw. From my perspective people are confused as how to interpret djp's guideline - especially larry. Caught a lot of flak for holding to YES, because I'm purportedly disregarding the standards and guidelines. I'm aware of what the standards & guidelines say and am here to enforce them fairly. But at the same time, djp's own statement that there ARE cases where a chiptune (or other limited formats) could pass by compensating "HARDCORE" for production with arrangement clouds the issue of how we should deal with these specific cases. Him saying that specifically indicates that, while giving proper regard to the standards & guidelines, a chiptune can still fall within the realm of acceptability, i.e. not be an exception to the rules. Even with djp himself in disagreement about Figaro or Espergirl's potential approval (it would have to be because he didn't feel the arrangement was good enough, based on his quote), his past caveat clearly left the door open for judges YESing tracks such as this one; another case where 3 of the judges felt the arrangement was so unique, interpretive, and strong that it could trump the production limitation issues. I think it's both a mistake and unfair to chastise the judges who made their decisions based on the fact that, "subrule" or not, djp both DIDN'T close the door to accepting chiptunes and subsequently provided a guideline-level scenario where approving a chiptune WOULD be acceptable. This situation isn't any different than others where we've run into a new/infrequent type of situation and needed to craft a policy to address it. Streets of Rage 2 "Infectious Oldskool" (redoing a previous arrangement hoping to replace the old one) and Xenogears "A Star Freezes Over" (heavily integrating arrangement of a non-VGM source tune) both come to mind. Both mixes that were approved by the panel before we added a new policy and thereby overturned their YES decisions. Once those policies were made, it provided the panel an unambiguous course of action in terms of enforcing the standards & guidelines. So what I'm asking for from Pretz is something enumerated and definitive regarding chiptunes vis-a-vis the standards. Say what you will, but last time around we didn't get that, thus leading to a complete rehash of the issue. I'd rather have something that says "no authentic chiptunes - you'd have to enhance them somehow" in order to have an unambigious policy. If that means taking BACK the statement that there are some scenarios where authentic, limited chiptunes could still pass in light of the standards & guidelines, then so be it. I don't have a problem enforcing that stated policy. Just don't needlessly criticize me or the others for looking at the acceptance scenario djp presented and feeling that this mix fit that scenario.

http://www.exotica.org.uk/tunes/archive/Authors/Game/Wright_Tim/Awesome.lha - mod.g1a Nice, this is the same guy who sent in that Pinball Dreams mix, which showed a lot of potential. Picked the game over theme from a game with an unlikely title, "Awesome". Yes, it exists. Pretty good original, all things considered. Nice intro with the strings & drums. Production sounds really lo-fi/muddy unfortunately. Melody comes in at :28, and at the same time the song sounded a little swamped with whatever string or vox ambiance you had going on. Great buildup from :55-1:05, and nice increase in the energy at 1:05 bringing in the punchy percussion, which could have used a denser/meatier sound to fill out the soundfield more, IMO. Just personal preference perhaps, but the tone sounded bland and didn't quite gel with the rest of the instrumentation choices. They sounded too upfront, but could use some delay or some other effects. The drum patterns here also sounds a bit too rigid/robotic. Minor point, but the pause at 1:55 didn't quite work to me. I wouldn't have completely faded the track out there. There was also a good point made by Gray that the sounds are a bit unbalanced. For example, at 1:56 you had some nice writing ideas on the support strings that got nearly completely buried. Nice freestylish/original stuff at 2:10 with the lead synth. It could have stuck out in the foreground a little more, but was ok where it was. It was shrill enough at times where raising the volume much would have been detrimental. Drums at 3:53 were a lot weaker and sounded ultra-flimsy. Didn't like the tone on them again. Nonetheless, the writing/concepts/arrangement were pretty solid. And it's good to hear a track that makes proper use of a fadeout ending. The EQing doesn't need as drastic work as the Pinball Dreams mix did, but it does need some more love on the high-end IMO. I know it's literally not that simple, but bumping up the 14K preamp by about +7.5db in Winamp gave a cleaner, clearer sound without ruining the song's atmosphere, so boosting the treble frequencies seems like the way to go. It still sounds kind of lo-fi that way, but not nearly as much. Though I had issue with the drums not meshing well enough, I really liked the arrangement ideas. The source is very creatively handled, and the original writing integrates seamlessly with the arranged sections. Once you get your production skills up, your material will sound that much stronger and polished. I can understand NOs, in that the production is lackluster as is, and the drums could sound less robotic and fit better. Despite the issues, I'm ok going conditional YES (very borderline) if/when the treble's boosted. Otherwise, it'll be NO (refine/resubmit). Don't really see the panel going for this, but who knows. I'm tentative enough where I can change my mind on it as well. I liked the arrangement ideas you had in the DKC arrangement on your site ("Schlong Aqua") once you started getting more interpretive, but that one had weak, boring (and repetitive) drums as well. So it's good to see that aspect of your work improve to some degree with your more recent tracks. Keep up the improvement, please.

Silent Hill 2 Original Soundtracks - (30) "Promise" Damn, the original is sweet. Just loved the entire feel of the song. Guitar-centric, eh? Wonder how this solo acoustic piece can match up. Certainly starts off aight. Little barren, but understandably so. Main melody starts at :43. Performance is pretty chill, but doesn't really do anything with the theme. Slight awkwardness at 1:37. Heard some brief buzziness at 1:55. Nothing major, just stuff I heard; Vigilante will have to break it down better on technique/performance. My bar's admittedly lower, but this should have been tighter performance-wise. The ending at 2:25 was really abrupt. It ALMOST sounded like the track had skipped, then it just ends with one last strum and a single note. There's some good ideas with personalization in adapting the original to solo guitar, but at only 2:30-long, the piece feels too undeveloped on the arrangement side. Go for maybe a minute or two more of further arrangement ideas, practice the track a little more to put down a tighter, more polished performance (it's already fairly good, all things considered), and fashion an actual ending for the piece and this'll be in great shape. Gray points out it's in mono :'-(, which I saw but didn't treat as an issue, as you're just one guy sitting in front of one mic with one instrument. Dunno if you have more than one microphone at your disposal, or if you're even going to bother using selective delay, reverb or whatever to create a stereo effect and make use of stereo placement, but Gray's right in that either of those options would only help the piece in terms of creating a spacious, 3-dimensional setting, especially listening on headphones. If I were listening to you play this where you actually were, sounds would bounce off walls and whatnot; certain frequencies would be more resonant. Duplicating those types of effects provides a much more authentic feel to the performance. I feel we need a nice, chill solo acoustic guitar piece such as this. Great source choice and good effort for a first submission, Michael. I look forward to hearing your future work. NO (resubmit)