Liontamer

The point is that this mix doesn't represent a violation of the technical standards of OCR. You just don't like the choices that have been made.Nobody's talking about "violations". Violations are things that automatically disqualify a submission, e.g. MIDI ripping, going over the size/bitrate limit, mixing non-game music. This is a production decision that I feel negatively impacts the mix in a significant enough way to not warrant posting vs. the other material we choose to post. You should be focusing on the "standards" aspect more. Things like low volume or a cutoff ending or whathaveyou are not violations of anything, as we've accepted tracks like that. Obviously there are non-standard things that are acceptable to some but not all, i.e. nearly any mix that hasn't gone to a unanimous vote on the panel. Right here, some of the choices aren't up to my standard of a ReMix. The drums don't have to clip to sound too loud, abrasive, distorted, and indistinct. There's more to any production choice being acceptable to most of the panel than literally not clipping. Alongside my view that AB actually pulled off the technique better earlier in the track, I don't see any reason to approve the mix based on the sections I had issue with. Don't like what seems too subjective? Tough, because this scenario isn't any different than anything else that's split the panel before. I've been on both the YES and NO sides of other mixes like this, and the feeling that the other side is off-base isn't anything new. But to say that the NOs (or YESs for that matter) are voting without trying to reconcile the submission with site standards is misguided at best, and poor form no matter what the situation. If you really think people are voting out of pure bias/personal preference, it's best to address those issues privately and not inadvertently damage the panel's credibility. If you levy these kind of claims against someone, there's nothing stopping anyone else (especially in the public sphere) from using the same claims against you, regarding any of your votes and any of your reasoning.

First off, there will be no show this coming Saturday, December 17th. Winter break is here and I don't plan to be on a regular schedule at the station until January 15th. Anything we have until then should, frankly, be considered a bonus. The date of VGF75 depends on my own schedule alongside that of Chrono Symphonic. We are possibly shooting for Thursday, December 29th at 10PM, as I may be away until then. Things are relatively up in the air at this point, but I'll let you know what I can as soon as possible. In the meantime: VG Frequency #63 MP3 (239MB/5hr47min) VG Frequency #63 Playlist: http://oc.ormgas.com/forum_viewtopic.php?18.12198 VG Frequency #63 Chat Transcript

http://www.mirsoft.info/wogm_download.php?data=YTozOntpOjA7czo0OiIxODUwIjtpOjE7aToxMTM0NTk5NjkxO2k6MjtpOjM7fQ== - 07 - Guilty.MID The source tune is just one variation of many. Check out 03 & 06 for others. Production is a little flat and very muddy on this. The bass is pretty thick, which is pimp. Some loud beats kicked in at 1:25 which I was liking though again the whole things seems to lack sharpness. Meanwhile there were some piercing frequencies all over this (3:31, among many other examples all around the track), and a lot of the instrumentation mudded together. The samples themselves aren't particularly strong, but were used very well, in my opinion. I also felt the writing/arrangement was handled excellently. On little things, I really liked whatever sound effect was used to start and end the track. With the bigger picture, I thought the arrangement developed excellently. Man, if you could separate the sounds and get them sounding more distinct and sharp, AND get rid of some of these piercing frequencies, I'd be all over this. The arrangement itself is a YES, and I'm keeping the track. Unfortunately, the production is drastically holding this one back, which is a shame. I hope the language barrier doesn't prevent Nurykabe from being able to work on cleaning this up and resubmitting it. NO (refine/resubmit)

Depends. It's purposeful, but "technically" I don't think those spots sound good at all.

I don't particularly care about whatever technique was employed to make the drums sound that way, so while I appreciate the terminology correction (not being facetious about it), it still sounds crappy to me. The fact that it's intentional, which I knew in the first place, makes 0 difference to me. Vote stays the same, but toning down the compression in those spots would get an easy YES. I liked Jesse's take on the nature of the drums, as he mentioned in #judges: I agree there that it's a more subjective issue, as we were comparing it to the situation a few months ago with Mazedude's Doom II sub that was narrowly rejected. So again, while I like the arrangement, and I think AB pulled off some good chaotic sounds and textures from :35-1:12, I felt the other areas pointed out all went into the realm of not sounding good at all. I think the chaotic feel wouldn't be sacrificed there if the compression was toned down. Them's the breaks, but good luck with the rest of the vote. I'd encourage those slight tweaks, if it's a 3Y/4N vote, as I'd be glad to switch my NO to a YES.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=mm7 - Shademan (mm7-14a.spc) & Shademan (Alternate) [mm7-14c.spc] I'm unabashadly going the more subjective route here. There are some decent ideas, but I didn't like most of this track, either the writing or the execution. The results don't sound cohesive or polished like other mixes we've passed. If I could better articulate those issues, I would, but I'll do what I can to elaborate. Cool chiptune intro. Bassline at :06 is almost too low, but it's aight. Sounded as if the bitrate was low for a few seconds around :12, as I heard some artifacts. Can't say I like those bombastic strings being quieter than the drumwork. Doesn't make much sense to me. Lead synth is pretty grating at :33, but it's an acquired taste. The percussion there was very plain and didn't adequately fill the background. Phatty drums at :46 seemed too reverbed which I wouldn't have minded if it didn't just clutter the soundfield. The texture with that percussion, the lead, and the bassline wasn't clicking. Frankly, I don't think the combinations sounds ever clicked here in the first place. I liked the break at 1:20, but the lack of a snare there from 1:33-1:47 couldn't drive the track along. That constant drum beat starting at 1:47 really dragged out when you retained in at 2:27 into another section. Thank God it finally ended at 2:39, because it was getting monotonous. I didn't like the medleyitis writing of 1:46-2:06, but the use of the alternate Shademan theme from G'nG was good, as some of the Shademan theme was woven in very subtlely. Drumwork from 2:47-3:07 was too plain/timekeeping. This actually felt too bombastic with no sense of judiciousness. Despite sounds being changed over the course of the 4 minutes (which I feel wasn't even pulled off very well in the first place, going back to the texture being weak), there wasn't much in the way of dynamics. The scope of the melodic arrangement felt too limited, and the whole thing doesn't flow at all. He ended with the SMB game over theme, so what? That ending is the least of the track's problems. The whole THING sound disjointed. Sorry John, as mich as I like your stuff, the whole thing sounds haphazard. Too bad you're not willing to revisit this, as I think you could do a much better job with this now. NO

This is fucking awesome. Exeunt.

I'm expecting The Wingless to fashion a song out of Jill's "Do See Do yo' partner" (2:52-2:53). I ALSO liked how Jill said "JigginJonT" with that "I have no idea who the hell that is" tone of voice. ROFLarious! Perhaps you need to start that over? (15:55)

http://www.zophar.net/gym/sor2.rar - 15 "Under Logic" Played this on VGF67, so I was already familiar with the grooviness. Some of the production here resulted in some pretty abrasive areas. :07 was already getting there a bit, from :15-:23, that was just no good; stuff was definitely piercing. Some more variations on the source theme from 1:03-1:19, though here the drum writing seemed weak from 1:11-1:19. Lead synth at 1:20 sounds pretty plain-jane and naked, and didn't really do much with the melody. Really could use some melodic interpretation here for the chorus. Lead synth at 2:07-2:24 doesn't really stand out vs. the harmonizing elements there. By 2:23, the repeating of the chorus was wearing thin on me a bit. I feel like there not enough interesting writing going on here to justify 4 minutes, let alone the issue of my ears being assaulted by constantly loud volume. Some new sounds at 2:40 which were also too loud/piercing in the mid-range. Didn't like whatever synth came into the background starting at 3:12, but that's a nitpick. I like the idea of the ending, but it came about too suddenly, which felt like a copout. Keep the idea, just build towards it. While I liked the new rhythms involved, zircon was right in that they're simplistic. You've heard it once, you've heard most of the song. I also felt the beatwork patterns dragged out for too long and needed to change up more substantially. Much of the time, the melodic lead wasn't standing out enough from the beatwork and supporting sounds; I think you need a take a look at scaling some of the supporting instrumentation volume back. And work on eliminating those piercing frequencies during the sections mentioned. Good foundation here, IMO. If you feel you've got more creativity to offer here, Chris, keep working on this. NO (rework/resubmit)

The Legend of Zelda ~Takt of Wind~ Original Sound Tracks - 255 "Farewell Hyrule King" DarkeSword pointed out that the source is not much more than a piano version of "Hyrule Castle" from Zelda 3. I'd be a liar if I said I could have initially pieced together the connection. Luckily it all became clear once I was able to snag the source tune and listen more closely. Ballsy approach going for a piano arrangement of a piano original. I like the key change involved here, as well as the arrangement and the atmosphere. Right now the performance sounds empty at times. There were some more noticeably thin spots, e.g. :45, :53, and 1:20-1:36. But the main problem for me was that the timing of the "performance" was mechanical and sluggish the whole way through. I know you guys weren't going for a uniform tempo, but the timing was jerky as you attempted to produce a more human touch with some dynamics. It's gotta sound smoother, more flowy, more human. The effort put into making it sound like a live performance is admirable but unfortunately not there yet. Along with beefing up some of the thinner spots, refining the smoothness of the performance would give this a much better chance. I'd be interested in Christian Pacaud's opinion on this given his own sequenced piano mixes. In any case, I'll be keeping this, but hope to see it resubmitted. Nice first submission. NO (refine/resubmit)

As for anyone that subs over the size & bitrate limit (in this case, 220kbps VBR/7.03MB)... http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/BiohazardDC_psf.rar - 916 - Unknown.minipsf a.k.a. Biohazard 2 Complete Track - 129 "Wreakage of the mad experiment" Nice source tune. Not a bad trance type genre conversion, but the sounds/synths here are really basic and relatively flimsy. I like the kick, but other than that most of the sounds feel dry and defautly. Sounds particularly lacking in "fuller" sections like 1:37-1:52 where you're using the source melody and going for a dense sound. I feel like the dance kick and the sheer volume are carrying this too much in trying to create texture. Production overall though at least sounds clean. Voice clip at 2:18-2:23 is gonna be hit-or-miss, but I'm down. Kind of disappointed that you only focused on a few bars from the original and slightly altered the synths playing it from verse to verse, but at the same time, there's not too much to build off of here. 3:22 until the end is basically another loop of previously heard stuff. I'd be much more down with this if it had more a bit more development, as well as more creative synth design. Right now things sound competant, but bland and uninspired. I hollered at analoq for the expert opinion. Even though I didn't strike any deal to get Aaron's comments beyond simply asking, I have renamed "analoq" to "sexy analoq" to bestow upon him my gratitude. I have also renamed myself "Ladytamer" to reflect my sexual prowess in the eyes of the womenz: Well, you heard it from analoq. From his side as well, more tangible development and contrast within the track would help this out. Along with the synth design being so plain, I think this is a good candiate for a resub if you two are willing to keep working on it. NO (resubmit)

Nah, no problem at all. aubrey hooked up the replacement of the Supertux-hosted version very early this afternoon. Hope everyone enjoys.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ct - "At the Bottom of Night" (ct-3-03.spc) http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/ParasiteEve_psf.rar - 113 "Out of Phase" Good piano stuffs immediately starting things off; nice atmosphere, very engaging. :43 brings in the TO beats to drive things along. Good stuff at 1:07 with the quick reference to "Out of Phase". If it had stopped with that, I wouldn't have recognized that as an influence but later on it was confirmed. I think the percussion could have gelled a bit more tightly with the piano work, but overall the piece was clicking and the synergy was there. There's irony involved in that you both had stuff rejected recently, but subsequently team up for this new age gold. Man, this is groove-biasing me with the groovaliciousness. McDonalds, I'm lovin' it. Full on usage of "Out of Phase" at 2:30 along with that swanky string filling things out. That theme is the best one from Parasite Eve; been a fan of it since using it way back on VGF38, so when I asked Lee to find out from Karl if he'd heard of the theme, I wasn't surprised to find out it was an influence. Goddamn, I be feelin' this mix. The arrangement of "At the Bottom of Night" was very interpretive. 3:43-3:44 seemed like a little burp; notes felt kind of odd, but no big deal to me. Yeah, this was pimp. Don't need to say anything else. YES

John didn't change the arrangement or sounds here, he just raised the volume where needed. Since he let us know about that very soon after the mix was posted, we replaced the OCR version. The Supertux version will be replaced as soon as possible as well.

I think too much criticism is being levied toward the vocals. I don't like being indirectly cited with the implication that the whole track is a bust on account of the vocals, which I feel is far from the truth. Still, people are gonna have their opinions, which is ultimately fine by me. The main reason I'm responding is to debunk the whole "get someone else to sing it". I think Mike did a fine job on his own track, and like I said, the main objective is to improve, which he's done in spades. Like "Singing Pretzel", all lyricists have to start somewhere. Nice work, IMO.

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF9_psf.rar - 101 "The Place I'll Return To Someday", 320 "Oeilvert" & 403 "Ipsen's Heritage" I'll be glad to revise/amend any opinions on this once I'm back to my usual setup, but ultimately did not want to either leave this hanging or have it closed without an opportunity to weigh in. Not quite the same animal here in terms of criticisms, but I felt this was along the lines of po!'s "rake dat snake", where there's some basic groove and notable arrangement going on, but ultimately not enough meat on the bones to really engage things. Unfortunately without my trusty headphones, can't verify any popping/artifacts. I suppose it's relatively light and everpresent. Didn't hear anything simply off my speakers, so I'd think that would indicate it wasn't a glaring issue, but certainly an inconvenient one that would have to be fixed. Definitely see where Vigilante is coming from re: the arrangement, as it feels like it doesn't really go many places. Still, I'm with Jon in that I felt there was more to like. I felt the overall groove carried out with the percussion, despite some slight variations, felt too tepid, simple and samey. Without implying that I need something bombastic here, I thought the organ sounded thin, most notably during 1:27-2:02 when it was basically filling out the track. Definitely agreed with Jon about 2:36 when another iteration of the source melody came in. Despite being a little more active than last time with some slight additions like the melody being doubled, it feels like a retread. The instrumentation is essentially the same, the beats are basically the same and on cruise control, the overall development feels very limited. As for the ending at 3:46, I think it's a fine idea but again suffers from the thin organ synth, plus not being, IMO, enough of a contrast with the part leading up to it. I like the idea of this mix with its almost low-key approach, but it needs a bit more substantial variation and development, as well as more fleshing out of the sounds. It needs some work, but sounds like it has the potential to pass given more work. NO (rework/resubmit)

Nah, this is terrible. The fact that it was named "Sand (Original Mix)" likely meant this wasn't an arrangement. And if it WAS intended as a Sandopolis arrangement, that only makes this track look worse.

Ranagazoo, let's have at you, And when I count three...

This one has enough votes to be closed up, but I'd like to say again that I hope you keep improving and submitting here. Hopefully you'll have some more recently made material coming our way, and don't forget to use the Work in Progress & ReMixing forums here to help improve that material.

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/megaman3.zip - Track 19 (starts at :41) Played this on VGF71; it's a perfectly fine cover-ish piece, but I almost don't know what to say as a judge. Right now I can't listen on any headphones, so I wish I could say some specific things about the production. But regardless, I have to invoke the Vigilante Doctrine where if something is competently performed but sounds generic and devoid of creativity, then I've got to NO. The arrangement is so straightforward, undeveloped, and safe that this literally did nothing for me as a listener. It's good, but there's just nothing special or personalized about either the arrangement or the performance here. Sorry, Jorge. All you'd have to do is actually get interpretive here and this could be a much more enjoyable arrangement, much like your creative ideas with "Salsa Snake".

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FFX_psf2.rar - 102 "In Zanarkand" I played this just recently on VGF73, but man, I'm admittedly disappointed that Karl's man-love for me didn't result in an unequivocably strong mix. 2nd place for Splendid Performance: Reborn Meaning? No way, I heard stronger material than this from several other participants. I agree with most everyone that the arrangement is pretty good. Clearly we've got the stylishness typical of Karl's works. But the production on this is definitely lacking and needs to be improved. Say what you will, but the balance between arrangement and production here is heavily skewed towards arrangement. Whereas I felt "Moontang" had a favorable balance and the fairly weak samples there were used well enough, this was not put together nearly as well. The sampled piano has no body to it, and the thin, robotic, almost MIDI-like strings push the boundaries of acceptability alone. Then there's that awful drum pattern, which was so plodding and plain that it hurt the track drastically. When I read Jon saying "metronome," that perfectly expressed my disappointment there. It almost doesn't get any simpler, and that's a shame. I think when it comes to pieces from Karl that aren't live piano, his stuff needs a lot of work on the production level to match the obvious quality of the arrangement. There really should be some improvement shown in those regards from submission to submission, and I'm not hearing it. This is as solid of a NO (resubmit) as I've ever heard. And that's no disrespect to either Karl or any of the YESs, but I feel this needs richer, more realistic sounds and better-written supporting instrumentation to compare favorably to any of the stuff recently posted here. Of course, you COULD argue that I'm pissed he stole my lady... :'-( Kik u, B-Unit.

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/sd3.rsn - "Ordinary People" (sd3-1-03.spc) & "Can You Fly, Sister?" (sd3-3-01.spc) Short and sweet once again. I thought the orchestration of the two themes was handled pretty creatively here, much like Jeremy's previous Tetris mix. After staring with "Ordinary People", 2:16 transitioned quickly into "Can You Fly, Sister?" and worked with that for a while before going back into "Ordinary People" from 3:07 until the end. Personally, I thought the samples and overall texture could have sounded richer, but that doesn't impact my judgement. I'm impressed with the end result of these tools. The approach was more conservative to start, but certainly no issue in the big picture. Comparing this with the sources, I think Jeremy succeeded in keeping the themes recognizable, not straying too far off the beaten path, but still comprehesively interpreting the melodies from section to section. He had some pretty inspired melodic interpretations going on. Particularly with "Ordinary People", I liked hearing so many permutations of the same theme; it speaks well for the thought and effort put into the piece. As per the Tetris mix, I'm again interested in whether Danny B, Jared Hudson, and Shnabubula like this. And as per the Tetris mix, anything that's inspired by Russian music gets a free YES! ВОДКА ПЕЙ! ОПЯТЬ! ДА!

I reviewed an earlier version on the Works:OCR forum, so I'll use those comments and followup with changes I heard. http://www.zophar.net/gsf/mmzero3_gsf.rar - 26 "Trail on Powdery Snow" So since then, Colin has changed the synth lead a bit and worked on infusing some life into some of the boring percussion patterns, but I think the improvements were limited. The synth lead is still pretty grating and doesn't really fit the decidedly delicate atmosphere created by the rest of the instrumentation. A synth that doesn't sound like a saw could be better suited; just something with more subtlety. The louder snare shots during the melody need a more active sounding pattern, not the more plain-jane "THUMP *pause* THUMP" approach. Like I said, that pattern works better when the percussion instrumentation is light, not heavy. If you keep the percs patterns basically the same from section to section, it's also boring. For example, the patterns in the chorus from 2:15-2:38 are the same as from 2:38-3:00 during the piano-based section. Change up what you're doing there during the chorus to provide contrast. Aside from the synth sections, I still liked the conservative but still interpretive approach here, and I thought the other instrumentation was pulled off fairly well. The organ, piano, pads and lighter percussion were all working pretty well here, IMO, and I like the way you seem to be improving with each submission, Collin. I don't feel like you should obsess about tweaking this piece in order to somehow pass it. I think you should keep in on the shelf for a while and revisit it later while starting fresh so you don't get sick of it, but that's just my opinion. I think the other Js may have some good advice in terms of making this a more engaging listen. Keep at it, bro; on the whole, you're on the right track. NO (rework/resubmit)

http://exotica.fix.no/tunes/archive/C64Music/Galway_Martin/Athena.sid - Subtune 1/6 Ah, yeah, I didn't remember the source tune at all, but for some reason remembered subtune 2 from the NES version of the game. Played the VGMix version of this on VGF64, so I was glad to see this submitted as it's been a while from Wade. After not being hot on "Leanderesque", I'm glad he had something stronger. The track starts off with a sound upgrade of the original complete with pads to fill out the soundfield. Luckily, this track is 6:50 and has time to go places, but the conservative start scared me off for a little while in terms of voting on this. Cool use of "Athena" starting at :59; nice little touch. Things stayed like this in the pure upgrade/minor additions route until 1:56 when some belltones provided some more notable additions. Bells and SFX added on top of the track at 2:27, along with a lower synth at 2:35. I like all the bells and whistles added here, but I'm not seeing much done with this melodically until (finally) this takes a turn at 3:04 and more overtly at 3:15. The feel of the track changed at 3:45 with a quieter, minimalist section before fading in the melody with some effects on it at 3:56. This section basically changed some of the sounds around, but kept the source melody in part for the most part and built on top of it once again with various SFX and pad work. I'd be down with these additions more if they connected/interlinked with the source tune more strongly. If you took out the SID-like Athena melody, which is basically used verbatim, this would be a nearly wholly original track. Unlike some cover ReMixes we have, I don't feel like the additive components here make up for a lack of rearranging or expanding the source tune melody itself in a comprehesive way. I liked how the melody was played around with at 5:32, but there really wasn't much of that going on, unfortunately. Personally, I think it sucks to vote NO on this, as I like the track a lot and think it's a good remix, one that would especially be welcome at R:K:O. But I'm just not seeing it jiving with the standards as an acceptable ReMix. I feel there has to be more focus on interpretation or expansion of the melody, rather than unrelated original additions. Sorry bro, but good luck on the rest of the vote. If you're willing to resub this with a more interpretive approach, I'd be more than eager to hear it.

Just feels a bit dry and empty, but I hope it passes personally. I'll likely be an outlier here. And you smell. Of naked.