Liontamer

Guild Wars is used in the first half, and World of Warcraft in the second half. The database only has the capability of associating a ReMix with one specific game.

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/sd2.rsn - "Give Love Its Rightful Time" (sd2-34.spc) Intro synth had a somewhat creepy feel, while the piano sounded mechanical but had that downplayed with some effective reverb and delay. Some very basic and rigid-sounding beats came in at :45 and the way you timed the hat pattern made it sound off every time it loops, due to the intensity being the same on every hit. The drums meanwhile sounded too basic, as well as dry and out of place contrasted with the airy piano. I was glad when they exited at 1:40 to make way for a quieter section. The synth bassline coming in at 2:01 didn't really fit the texture here either in my opinion. Drums and hats returned at 2:37 sounding lo-fi for some reason. The patterns were really repetitive and boring and could use variation to spice it up, not to mention more attention made to make the performance sound human. With the foundations of the track sequenced so rigidly, there's no feeling here and it just drags down the other elements. Synth crept in at 3:01 with some original writing heading toward the finish. I didn't feel the sound choice there fit the track either. Weird overall, considering you felt this came out the way you wanted it to, as I really didn't think the sounds created a smooth flow or pleasing texture. Arrangement was pretty simple and didn't really explore the source material beyond slowing it down and appyling some ethereal effects. As such, it felt melodically underdeveloped and could use more ideas. Applying more complexity and creativity to your supporting instrumentation will only help you. This isn't terrible, Matt, but needs a ton of work. I'd work on this futher not even to try and get it passed here, but to push yourself into realizing more of your concept's potential. Keep improving, bro. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/femblem.zip - Track 3 Not a bad sounding arrangement of the source material transposed to piano and small orchestration, but it sounds awfully cookie cutter with the sounds. Probably just a result of hearing these samples too many times, as they were perfectly reasonable albeit noticeably synthetic-sounding, but I'd be lying if I said this sounded special. A second iteration of the source melody came at 1:24 with some minor instrumentation changes, most notably the brass synth on support. Not sure what was up with 1:46 as the transition to the chorus was beyond bad and really hurt the flow of the track. Chorus again at 1:48 with more stuff in play, but the overall feel here is too samey, making the arrangement sound underdeveloped. And there was still 1 minute left, so not a good sign. Pretty much went "verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse" with little meaningful deviation from the formula. I appreciate the subtle changes in the instrumentation from verse to verse, but that wasn't enough. Finally got more personal flair with the melody at 2:11, though it was relatively brief and minor. Play around with things a bit more. The effort is there and the results are alright. The arrangement is just underdeveloped, and, like you said in your e-mail, simple. To me it's too simple, as the piano and pizz strings don't different themselves enough from the feel of the NSF. I felt like this was clearly in the right direction in an expansionist sense, but needs more personalization if the arrangement is going to be this straightforward. You'd be better served developing more ideas for this track. Promising start, Steve. I look forward to hearing future works. NO

You'd only recommend? Asking permission is more of a MUST. Even if you're the administrator of a network of computers you absolutely should ask whoever owns those boxen for permission. Ask them in person. And get the consent written, signed, and dated on paper and file it in a safe place. Seriously. I recall a story about an administrator getting sued and/or fired for installing SETI@Home on several computers he administered without proof of permission to do so. The statement (understandably) looks unclear, but he's not using the word recommend in the loose sense you're implying. He really meant it as "I'd recommend asking permission in order to install the program in screensaver mode on a workplace network and have it process WU's for Team OCREMIX."

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/dq1.zip - Track 5 The intro's not too bad. Oh jeez, what a bootleg-sounding cutoff at :19 moving into the next section. Goes from hiss to silence; no good. Anyway we get into the meat of the arrangement at :20 with some overly sparse and default-y instrumentation. :42 brings the vocals back in (along with the lite hiss). Man, these vocals are so naked initially. It's not until 1:03 that you employed some delay. Hahaha, the Ari Asulin-grade slap bass sample of death and despair comes in at 1:46 sounding completely devoid of body and realism. Again, the instrumentation is the obvious weak point. Can't understand how you thought this empty stuff was enough. 5:25-long of this drags on quite badly, as the sounds are thin and plain, and the track plods and plods as the structure is repetitive and boring in the long-run. The verses you have need to have something to do with the source tune, as your instrumentation is 4 or 5 basic-as-hell synths that don't fill out the soundfield whatsoever. It's what, an e-piano, pizz strings, snapping beat, slap bass, and that toybox sound? As a mere listener, I don't expect to identify them correctly, but the fact that someone else could possibly count the number of sounds/ideas in play on one hand generally doesn't speak well for the track. The point is they collectively sound way too beginner-ish, and hardly adequate in terms of arranging the source material, which is too simple and straightforward. During the verses, Dragon Warrior's music feels like an afterthought, as you could take out the e-piano and, *poof*, no remix. Looking at something comparably paced the same way as your track, listen and compare to how many ideas are in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 "Memories Frozen in Time" and how it sounds fuller and more developed even with simple instrumentation. At least during the chorus you harmonized the vocals for some more meat to them, and they're also synched up pretty nicely. Your singing voice isn't strong in any way. It's obviously to the detriment of the track, as with such simple sounds everyone's gonna hone in on the vocals instead. Improving your vocals only comes with practice and training so please keep at it so your performance matches your ambition. To sum it up, you need to add more instrumentation (and instrumentation that actually has body and can form a nice texture), actually rearrange the source material, improve your vocal delivery, and give your vocals more depth via more effects to downplay any weaknesses in the delivery. Use the ReMixing forum to find some better sounds for yourself and inquire about producing vocal tracks, and use the Works forum for feedback from fans who can point out issues before you submit more material. NO

Despite its noteriety, I couldn't find any game music format rips or MIDIs for this and haven't played the game, so I'm running without the sources. I'm assuming they're "Super Stripe" & "Final Take Off". Someone may be able to link to them, and I'm fairly sure someone else will recognize them anyway. Intro was nice and beefy. It would work pretty nicely provided the track developed well. Melody kicked in at :55, but the lead was too airy and obscured by the beats. Literally adding the lead on top of the exisiting instrumentation sounded pretty bootleg. Nice idea with the driving percussion dropped out at 1:36, although again, still not getting much direction. Wait, what the hell...? The section faded out abruptly at 1:50 and just started a new source tune. No sense of connection at all, it was only jarring and disjointed as far as the listening experience. Moving on, you had a nice idea fadin up the new source melody starting at 1:51. But when it peaked at 2:18 the whole thing sounded tremendously flooded and indistinct. Bringing the beats back in at 2:32, the whole thing sounded like a mess. Dunno if that was overcompression or what, but everything sounded terrible. You could barely hear anything besides that swamped lead until 3:26, and then it moved back to the first source tune at 3:28 with no transition AGAIN. Man, what was the hell was up with that? Anyway, I liked the pads or whatever those were forming the support playing from 3:28-3:56, but again, the melody came in and now those supporting pads were hard to distinguish underneath. Anyway, the pads dropped out at 4:23 and left the source the repeat a bit more for the finish. Just based on the lack variation, the arrangement was awfully repetitive and underdeveloped, as well as disjointed which some awful psuedo transitions, and the production was a mess with absolutely 0 polish. At some point, use some headphones to check on your material while you're mixing it. This flat-out doesn't have the creativity of your past OC ReMixes, which makes this all the more disappointing. Very hastily and sloppily put together. NO

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff6.rsn - "Dancing Mad (part 3)" (ff6-314c.spc) Personally, I thought this sounded way too lossy/lo-fi, less than the 128kbps CBR would imply. Gotta go VBR and bump up the average bitrate as well. As zircon mentioned in his comments in your Works thread, the instruments sounds a bit cramped and tend to mush together. Boost up some higher frequencies to try and sharpen this up a bit, as right now it sorely lacks polish. Pretty swanky shit, all things considered. Yeah, this has a lot of Sam's style and pulls off most of it, only with the percussion being nicely groove oriented during the intro. I think you and Shnabubula could put out very good collaborative material. Almost negligible, but the strings seemingly faded down too quickly at :19 (and didn't at :23 when you repeated the part). :41 gets the melody in gear. Nice original synth section at 1:04 that ran a few bars too long. You could shave 8 seconds off right there, IMO. Make the transition quicker. But otherwise was a nice way to keep things moving. Was a little disappointed with 1:20 simply repeating the section at :41; could have sprinkled in some subtle variations or additions there. Nice idea at 1:52 for some more variations, but I really would not have used the same synths for the melody at 2:08, as the track was feeling too samey and stagnant as a result. zircon was right about the emptiness from 2:26-2:49. The percussion patterns and synths alone sounded too sparse. Give it a little something extra without losing the nice dynamic contrast you employed moving into 2:26. 3:03-3:15 onward did seem rather empty-sounding, and 3:15-3:25 could use some more meat on those chords playing the source. Going back to the melody section from :41 at 3:40 was kind of a downer in that I felt like I had now heard it too many times and that you needed to do something different to close it strongly. Also, the sudden finish at 3:52 did not work at all. It (arguably) worked as a transition at 2:20, but did not resolve the mix nicely at all, IMO. This is really promising stuff, Casey, and I hope you keep working on the arrangement further to eliminate some of the more empty and stagnant areas and keep it engaging for the entire 4:01, like zircon alluded to. I also think the whole things needs to sound more crisp and sharp on the production, but worry about that secondly. Very nice stuff in place so far. This has the potential to be passed with more work. NO (rework/resubmit)

1) It's already mentioned directly in the writeup. 2) The song is associated with this ReMix already, i.e. http://www.ocremix.org/detailsong.php?songid=859. That song is an arrangement of the GnG original, http://www.ocremix.org/detailsong.php?songid=831.

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 306 "The Nightmare's Beginning" & 403 "The Highwind Takes to the Skies" Thanks to TO for identifying "The Nightmare's Beginning" here, as when I very briefly listened to it, I didn't hear the connection. Not a bad intro using "The Nightmare's Beginning"; fairly muddy, but I was feeling the texture overall up until the percussion came in at :44. Melody doubled up at :59. "The Highwind Takes to the Skies" arranged melody was added on top at 1:28 with a noticeable key change. The texture at that point was pretty thin, as the instrumentation was very simplistic. Drums needed to be more varied, and the bassline could stand to be given a richer sound. The drums and bassline need to form a nice solid foundation, which they don't. Stuff sounded like it was clashing from 2:38-2:56. Transition at 2:56 was non-existent. Lame ass exposed hat-pattern came in at 3:11, along with the drums and kicks by 3:26. I wouldn't built to 3:26 with the gradual addition method, as the exposed sounds were weak. Basically chugged along repeating stuff until the fadeout ended too quickly at 4:23 and left 7 seconds of silence at the end. Arrangement effort was there but too simplistic in the big picture, though it was in the right direction as the feel was very different from the source tunes. It just felt that once you get through a couple of minutes here, your ideas and sounds didn't vary and were on cruise control. The relative sparseness and blandness of the instrumentation didn't help either. Work on more creative synth design, more complex percussion writing, and more complex textures. Not bad for a beginner submission. Try and get more feedback from our unwashed masses as well. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/dslayer4.zip - Track 2 Part of the track could use more sharpness with some higher frequencies, as it sounded a bit dull. Particularly noticeable on the synth strings first used at :13 that were playing the source melody. Synth design is nothing but plain, and needs something to stand out as unique. Man those vocals (:32-:51) were incredibly tacky. The whole thing after :52 was just this merely mildly energetic generitechno with a gated synth handling the melody. Ah man, vocals were reused from 2:04-2:22. Bad beginner-ish decay on the cymbal shot used to close the track out at 3:28. Just plain-sounding and un-innovative. Just sounds like you need the nerve to try and expand your horizons and more experience under your belt. NO

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/ed2.rsn - "The Prophet" (ed2-114.spc) There's something about Ravi and him being unable to produce something with a cohesive, balanced texture. The snappy percussion was thin, loud and very exposed. The beatwork as a whole was boring, though the hand drums were a decent change of pace (though the pattern repeats too much). The piano on background used in the intro was OK, but sounded too rigid and synthetic. Piano on lead at :34 could have stood out a bit more. The synth acoustic guitar was too quiet (though making it too loud would further expose its needless repetition). Checking out the sound in the right and left channels alone, it sounds like little if any panning was ever employed here. Even if there's a little, the soundfield feels too centered. I'm rather convinced Ravi has no concept of what panning is, and doesn't feel particularly inclined to find out. The arrangement certainly takes the original in a new direction, but once the basic ideas are laid out on piano, the melodic content was basically on cruise control and failed to retain interest. I respect the instrumental variation present throughout the mix, but most of the patterns you used dragged on for too long and got stale: the beats, the hand drums, the acoustic guitar, and most importantly the piano on melody. The whole thing felt rather plodding and unfocused. NO

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/mo2.rsn - "Hospital" (mo2-025.spc) Played this on VGF73, so, while I liked it, I've heard it early enough to express some concerns. I'm feeling the guitar work here, but something about the percussion didn't create the right texture and sounded out of place to me. Despite the attempt at a subdued feel for the track, the percussion actually sounded too thick here. It was only during part of the track (e.g. :22-:41, 1:06-1:20, 1:49-2:17) but the heavier-sounding drums patterns didn't seem to gel with the rest of the track. They stuck out enough where they were too exposed as really basic and repetitive. The softer sounding percussion (e.g. :00-:21, :42-1:06, 1:24-1:48) sounded basic as well but didn't draw too much attention to itself. Overall, the drum patterns themselves were also a bit sparse, with the lyrics and other instrumentation unable to compensate and fill out the soundfield. Perhaps someone could better articulate why things weren't necessarily clicking here. Even if there were 0 arrangement concerns, the background instrumentation isn't getting the job done. Considering it's supposed to be the foundation, it's a weak foundation. But more important to me, besides the keyboard playing the backing of the source, I wasn't hearing much overt arrangement of "Hospital". I'll be glad to reevaluate this after talking to weed and/or reading other votes, but aside from opening and the keyboard here, I'm not hearing much of "Hospital" in this very liberal spin of the source. The lyrics and the bassline all seem to be doing their own thing most of the time. "Hospital" may lack a prominent melody, but IMO there's a enough material in it [including a reference to "The Metropolis of Fourside" (mo2-083.spc)] to base a full-fledged arrangement off of it. If that's not the case, perhaps integrate more arrangement of Fourside into the instrumentation ideas. Sorry bro. Lyrically, this a is a great song that I find myself singing, but goes to far off the beaten path. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/donkey1.zip - Track 4 A shame, as you did an admirable job expanding upon a VERY minimal source tune. I had to make sure you didn't swipe the expanded instrumentation and original writing ideas from some other Donkey Kong game in the series. Skeptical still, as I didn't bother to check VGMusic or anything, but it's a moot point anyway. Sample quality hurts this and the production lacks sharpness/clarity via a lack of treble frequencies. Track repeats :28's section at 1:03. Gotta extend the track significantly, as 1:43-long with some sections repeating wholesale is not a significant enough arrangement effort to pass. Decent sketch of an arrangement if anything. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/Startropics.zip - Track 3 The percussion pattern was very plain and drags the track back; let's get something more creative there bro. Same goes for the bassline you swiped from the source tune. Play around with the progression there and fashion something unique and varied. The sounds you got from Hammersound are pretty good (and recognizable in a good way), though they're not used to their best. Everything needs better articulation/realism. The execution wasn't solid at all, but was alright for a beginner. Only 2:10-long, the arrangement was very underdeveloped, with the fadeout ending doing nothing to discredit that assessment. Use the ReMixing forum here to learn how to achieve a more nuanced sound with your samples and get commentary from the unwashed masses at the Works forum. Work toward really developing the arrangement concepts you had into a lengthier, more meaningful arrangement, Rob. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gbs/btoads.zip - Track 3 Melody at :35 sounds like it's warping a bit in the low-end; dunno what you specifically call that, but it didn't sound good. The melody is certainly arranged more than Zelig's very old/dated take on the theme. The supporting instrumentation is way too repetitive. Not too much beyond some bass rhythms, basic beats and synths, and flat instrumentation with poor texture and no energy. The mood here is not dark or hard, it's plain. Very beginner-ish, you at least have some ideas right on how to personalize your arrangement. Explore the ReMixing forum to look into better sounds and work on production techniques, then use the Works forum to obtain fan feedback before any other future submissions. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/punchout.zip - Tracks 20 & 23 Intro sounds rather nasty on the first listen. Melody kicked in at :35 and the soundfield is just swamped with a very low-quality mush of instrumentation. The only things I could even distinguish up to 1:21 were drums and guitar. Solo guitar riffing starts at 1:21 and the lame, plain-jane drums are wearing thin. It sounds like someone playing this through huge speakers covered up with thick blankets. The arrangement, though cover-ish, is somewhat alright as a lot of new writing was evident in the supporting instrumentation. Nonetheless, the percussion needs to be given some creativity and the production here needs major help. A very disappointing mess, Janne, one would hope the raw recordings resulted in something that can even be salvaged. You're capable of stuff that sounds much more competent. NO

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/dkq.rsn - "Hot-Head Bop" (dkq-14.spc) http://www.zophar.net/usf/sm64usf.rar - 09 "Dire, Dire Docks" Heh. Interesting choice of synths for the opening. Everything sounds very lo-fi and the sounds lack texture. The "Hot-Head Bop" melody coming in at :52 is panned a little too widely. Changeup at 1:04 brings the sound quality down like it's at 64kbps, the production here is so muddy and dull. By 1:30 the beat pattern was dragging on; work on writing something more varied and interesting there. 1:46 brought in some ridiculously crunchy synth guitar riffing that buried every other sound. The mixing was way too messy. You can just tell when people don't use any headphones to mix. The reviews for this on VGMix simply weren't criticial enough, and border on unconstructive. I appreciate how you've been constantly changing the instrumentation around to create some variation on that level. Token reference to "Dire, Dire Docks" from 2:40 until the end. The potential for improvement is there for future works, but this just sounded poorly put together to me. Needs improvement everywhere. NO

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Kaeru's Theme" (ct-1-19.spc) Immediately hit with straight out of the box beats, the track went on without touching upon Frog's Theme until 1:05. Even then, the usage there really felt like an afterthought, though it's pretty overtly used here in the big picture. Things picked up a little more at 1:33, but the lead synths are thin and all clash together indistinctly. The beats are also way too basic and repetitive. 2:53 at least had you do something with the theme in a much more upfront manner. With some more body on that lead, it could sound pretty cool. As soon as the beats came back in at 3:20, they dominated over the top of the melody, which was poor form, IMO. Everything with regards to the arrangement after that point was fairly repetitive up until 4:42 which had some better presented ideas now that you changed up some of the sounds. Anyway, the sounds were pretty thin, the beats/foundation didn't have much variation, the rearrangement attempt was there but rather simplistic, the soundfield was cluttered, and there was a lot of fat that needed to be cut off. Not terrible, but not particularly successful either. Keep working for improvement in future projects, bro. NO

They're $60, so die, you dirty rat!

I PMd Claudo about this and it still hasn't been changed. Anyone else I should talk to? Message StarZander, since he's the webmaster.

http://www.ocremix.org/detailmix.php?mixid=OCR01266 Bottom of the page, n00b.

http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozusf.rar - 68 "Gerudo Valley" Not a bad intro, all things considered; it was at least different. The plain, boring beats were the first major issue I had here though, as they dragged the mix down. Work at writing more thorough and varied percussion parts. The arrangement was too straightforward/basic/safe/uncreative/simplified/uninterpretive (ha, 6!) for the first few minutes, basically following the original progressions verbatim with different sounds. You guys finally did something wholly original from 1:34-1:58, but it was short-lived. 1:58 had some decidedly more energetic/rock-based arrangement, where you guys had some good personal flair in the guitar work (even if it sounded terrible). Unfortunately, once the Gerudo melody came back again at 2:37, it was back to the same old, same old Gerudo melody + beats. Blatty brass came in at 3:08 for the close. Can't you at least use a different style of instrumentation rather than the original's for that? Eww, the horns abruptly cut out at 3:28 and followed up with the cymbal shot for the beginner-ish finish. Production was "OK" but pretty messy, but I'll leave that to someone else to highlight, as I've already said enough on this mix to last me a while. Not bad for a first submission, AZN homies, but your arrangement is gonna have to get more interpretive with the melody here, not just sandwich some brief rearrangement or original inside a "disco/rock" cover of Gerudo Valley. Y'all have the right idea though, as some of the guitar synth ideas with the source tune around the 2 1/2 minute mark were very creative. You guys certainly have some potential. Stick around the community and strive for improvement. NO

http://www.zophar.net/usf/MarioKart64_usf.rar - 18 "Rainbow Road" The synths are terribly used, IMO. The track is amazingly grating and clippy. Amazingly. The arrangement is basically a mere cover and does nothing substantial with personalizing the arrangement. Might as well be a rip. Read the site guidelines that we have regarding arrangements more thoroughly at some point. At least you did some small stuff with the arrangement at 2:11 and in the track's intro, but it was ultimately meaningless in the long run. Try mixing with headphones next time. And use the ReMixing & Works forum to avoid submitting something so problematic in the future. NO

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/ewj.rsn - "New Junk City" (ewj-01.spc) Man the timing on this was so off the whole way through. Sounds very sloppy. Beats were rather simple and lazy. Instrumentation was relatively generic and sparse and resulted in a plain-jane result. After a sloppy transition section from 1:41-2:04, it briefly switched to some rock-based stuff until 2:38. Same problems, different sounds as far as I'm concerned. I go blehz on this. Not bad for a beginner's effort, but decidedly uncohesive and apparently proud of it. If you're not proud of it being like this, then bury your nose in the ReMixing and Works forums to learn more and allow people to criticize your material. I saw you look down on overly "meticulous" critique here, but it's clear you're in dire need of some. Especially as a n00b, you need to be receptive to criticism, especially detailed criticism. Keep at it, Kiefo. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/castlev3.zip - Tracks 1 ("Beginning") & 11 ["Deja Vu (Vampire Killer)"] Decent a capella stuff. Ultimately the synching of the tracks is too loose. It may be difficult for you, but there are nonetheless a lot of rough spots where the collective timing sounds too shaky. Gotta get it sounding more cohesive and in time. Also, the structure of the beats and harmonization still leaves the track sounding very empty. It isn't until 1:36 that you had some basic but nice effects on your backing tracks that really attempted to fill out the background. Use those types of effects and techniques appropriately to beef up the rest of the voices, or work on adding more supporting vocal tracks. You also may want to double your lead the entire time, just to give it more body. Just some ideas, which you're free to take or leave. Arrangement was alright. I'd be interested in hearing a college a capella group give this arrangement a whirl with a lot more people involved. OL ReMiX could use this. Cool shit, Tom. If you really wanted to fill this track out further and get the timing down with everything, this could be something really solid. As is though, it sounds too rough in the execution. NO (rework/resubmit)