Liontamer

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)

Y'all listening on headphones or...?

Ah, almost a sort of double entendre. Cool. I'll make sure it finally get updated in the next few months.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=mo2 - "A Bad Dream" (mo2-041.spc) & "Eight Melodies" (mo2-111.spc) In my opinion, the arrangement is excellent. The pace is slow, which may bore some, but deliberate given the creative theme and thereby doesn't detract from the substance. (I see what you did there.) The performance aspect of needs some finesse. Within various phrases of notes, especially the stronger ones, the velocites sound the same, making things seem needlessly robotic (e.g. :42-:47). Overall, the performance also feels too rigidly performed at times. Could be quantized too much. After a reasonably flowy part such as 1:39-1:52, the melodic part sounds more robotic. Then you get later sections, such as 3:02-3:50 where the rhythm hand is so mechanical, that the track tends to drag on that level. The note-to-note dynamics seem decent overall, but they need more work. Someone else will have to confirm or deny. The atmosphere feels a bit thin. Might need more sustain effects to fill out the soundfield a bit more, but it could also just be a taste thing. Some better performance dynamics alone would be enough to push the piece up in my estimation. The ending is also too abrupt. Create a little more build towards the notion that the piece is about to wrap up, then let the last note at 3:50 trail off longer. Good stuff so far, Charles; I'll be keeping it. Hope you continue to work on this further, and I'm looking forward to your next submission. NO (resubmit)

did you take my ones then or should I fix something? Your resizes don't look that good, bro. But perhaps try some other colors. Maybe Coop and Evilhead can also give it a try and y'all can get more of the characters from those links I gave earlier. Can anyone do some nice resizes of the Phantasy Star peeps in this animated GIF?

Agreed (i.e. y'all need something for Ken). Even if stuff takes a long time, when it's done, it's done. I'd rather feel entirely satisfied with the output than wrap it up early.

Dammit, Dj Redlight is male. He is not female. Call him Ash instead.

I subscribe to the Vigilante doctrine. If patently unremarkable, then that's not a pass.

If Matt's working on a website, wouldn't that give some people a little elbow room to finish something quickly?

I love how I completely disagreed with that back when I first heard the mix. I thought Will took a completely bleh, unmemorable original and turned in into something good. Too quiet, but otherwise a solid track.

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/wizwar2.zip - Track 6 Pretty empty track to start off. Lead synth is really defaulty. So are most of the other sounds too. There also aren't really any effects used here to personalize the sounds or fill out the soundfield beyond that overused "BOOM" sound first used at :50. Texture is pretty plain as a result. Feel finally changed up at 1:35 with the introduction of some new sounds, but the texture is still relatively sparse. Sound balance could be improved too, especially after 2:04 as most of the synths just mush together indiscriminantly once you added some new stuff into the picture and started filling out the soundfield more. The track does develop over time, but the samples are weak and there's no finesse on the production side to make up for it. You've given it some good effort to personalize your arrangement approach though. You've gotta go for less defaulty, richer sounds and learn how to balance them properly to give your arrangement ideas the best treatment. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/quat-3.zip - Track 4 Word, thanks a lot for the source link, Allen. The stuff in place is ok, but I wasn't impressed with this as is and don't understand a YES. The groove is so plain and uninteresting, both in the sounds/synths chosen and the ho-hum beat patterns. Everything sounds pretty vanilla and also cookie-cutter for Allen's style. 1:11-1:39 rehashes the arrangement with some overly mechanical piano underneath. Finally something different with the lead synths at 1:39 to change up the feel, at least a little bit. Very phat & beefy "BOOM" transition at 1:56 though to the next section. Lead and supporting instrumentation shifts focus briefly from 2:05-2:43 before going back into the more saw-style lead until 3:34, and then heading for the finish. Bleh. Dynamics barely ever changed the entire time. The arrangement had a decent degree of variation, but with the saw-type lead and looped percussion patterns being used most of the way and never changing, everything dragged and sounded too samey over the long haul. Even on the arrangement side, some iterations of the stuff could either be cut out or you could have worked to change the tone of the synths you were using to provide some style changes. If you're going to keep the structure intact, then at least change up the instrumentation style so that this doesn't get boring. For that matter, work on something more sophisticated than these overly simplistic, and ultimately boring grooves. You've got good stuff in place, bro, and this sounds like you can work further on it to get it to that higher level. NO (resubmit)

Yeah, it's definitely fine with me. I defer to the "pants-crapping good" analogy that the Pretz of yore has made in the past.

http://project2612.org/download.php?id=95 - 01 "Magical Sound Shower" From now on, nearly all Genesis soundtracks will be linked from Project 2612. Use the VGM input plug-in with Winamp to listen. Much better than using GYMs/YMs. The source tune was surprising in that at the 2 minute mark there was a ton of additional comping-style ideas in there that I didn't know were coming. If I hadn't have known better, I might have attributed that kind of stuff to someone else's ideas, rather than the original composers. Whole tune is 3:32-long. Shows you just how much OutRun I played as a kid. Opening sounds like some ultra-tame DDR intro only to settle into a barren playthrough of the source material by a delayed keyboard. Beats FINALLY kicked in at :40 to start filling out the soundfield, but everything sounds muddy and lacks punch. The bassline of the mix is pretty obscured by the beatwork, and the piano even struggles to establish itself as the primary foreground player. Eeeeew, some HORRIBLE sample for the sampled steel pan at 1:44; sounds absolutely awful and clearly wasn't meant to be sequenced with these ugly machine-gun style attacks. Some other scratching thing (I guess the braking noise sampled from the game) briefly made an appearance at 2:38. What was the point? 2:50 goes right back into the same stuff at the intro, except it says "Checkpoint!" instead of "Get Ready!". Lame recycling of the previous material to drag the song out. 3:24 adds some sort of poor woodwind sample (or whatever it was) as an additional layer on top of the recycled arrangement from the beginning to provide the most minor of minor instances of dynamics and development. I get to 4:26 with a little less than a minute left wondering if it's literally gonna keep plodding along with the theme, and it sure does. Start at ReMixing and learn more about the programs and sounds involved in the hobby, ask people for feedback at Works: OCR (they're always willing to help a lady), and continue working from there. This suffers from poor sounds, poorly-USED sounds, and a boring, repetitive, and needlessly drawn-out arrangement. That's about as basic as I can put it. NO