Liontamer

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

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