Liontamer

http://vgmusic.com/music/console/sega/genesis/jp_youlose.mid http://vgmusic.com/music/console/sega/genesis/jp_grantstory.mid http://vgmusic.com/music/console/sega/genesis/jp_mapmusic.mid http://vgmusic.com/music/console/sega/genesis/jp_pstation.mid I somewhat agree with Koelsch that this is the best he can get it to sound, but it's still a NO go. Higher frequencies are still gone and the atmosphere now sounds incredibly dry, especially detrimental to the sampled instrumentation. There's still light but noticeable hiss here on my headphones. Couldn't you have de-essed the first version or something? (Prot: "Learn to de-ess.") Your initial setup being so bad in the first place ultimately messed this up. Sorry man, it's certainly not for a lack of liking the arrangement.

Still playing catch up on some back episodes. Feel free to pick 'em up as I wait to start the show again around January 22nd. Thanks for listening: VG Frequency #64 MP3 (249MB) VG Frequency #64 Playlist: http://oc.ormgas.com/forum_viewtopic.php?18.12265 VG Frequency #64 Chat Transcript VG Frequency #66 MP3 (125MB) VG Frequency #66 Playlist: http://oc.ormgas.com/forum_viewtopic.php?18.12550 VG Frequency #66 Chat Transcript

Best best is to mail Susie and find out if she has anything, as in general we really don't have many fans writing sheet music or tabs for work that isn't theirs. But AFAIK what's on her site is the only material that's available. With that said, let's please not treat the thread as a sort of request thread. But I'll be glad if it serves as an impetous though for others like chthonic to start proving tabs and the like for their own music. Thanks to everyone who has provided material so far, it's greatly appreciated.

Yeah, that's no issue at all. Irregardless of its relation to the game, as long as the SFX usage is tasteful and well-integrated into the track, it's fine.

Dunno any of the particulars, Mike, but why not take the opportunity now to PM a bio StarZander; I'm sure he'd replace the bootleg one with that.

To clarify, my vote on Fröhn 'Remastered Gabber Mix' cited both the arrangement and sounds as lacking. I felt the arrangement was too straightforward to pass regardless of sound choices. I'm really not concerned what the industry currently or retrospectively thinks of the 2A03 chip. Some like it, some hold it in no regard. I'm just saying that IMO, the arrangement sounds pleasing and well-written in spite of the "primitive" sound choices and more importantly pushes the limitations of the sound format. I do not hold the 2A03 format itself or its limitations as inherently a violation of guidelines or below standards provided the arrangement is comprehensive and the soundscape/atmosphere is solidly constructed, which both need to be the case for my YES. Ultimately I feel that is the situation here.

ATTENTION - If you are here to comment on the Chrono Symphonic: Regular Edition album, please direct your comments to the Chrono Symphonic Comments/Feedback thread. This thread is exclusively for the continued development of Chrono Symphonic: Special Edition. Any and all comments/feedback merely on the currently released album will be mercilessly deleted as we have no way to move them. Please enjoy the album and post in the correct thread.

VGF75 will have it if the Chrono Symphonic Special Edition isn't out by then. Otherwise VGF76 and probably a couple of episodes after that if I don't catch or don't have time for everything.

There aren't many 2A03/4-channel chiptunes working within the limits with as much compositional complexity as "Figaro Chiptune". Not so much in the beginning, this nonetheless has enough polyphony/activity going to be engaging in my opinion. Gray saying that the NSF synths are too "cheap and inferior" compared to soundfonts and General MIDI is merely an opinion that I don't agree with, the same way he doesn't agree with mine. While soundfonts are better, I don't think NSF is inferior to General MIDI, which is why, despite NSF being a basic sound format, I don't think you can merely take the above Submission Standards quotation and shoehorn NSF into it. The sounds involved don't sound ugly to me, and the fact that they don't have any added effects/processing doesn't amount to a violation. Depending on how you interpret the above guidelines, feel free to NO it sure, but even there I don't feel the sound format, synths, or lack of post-production processing are a dealbreaker. Like anything that has good composition and weaker production, it's a balance issue, which is partially how Gray sees it. Personally, I didn't have any significant production issues. The sounds are distinct and layer well. To me, it's all about proficiency of usage. The main concern for me regarding a chiptune is whether it creates a full enough atmosphere. NSFs ultimately sound too sparse if not pushed to their limits. Due to the 4-channel limit, the constant polyphony involved here is a direct reflection of substantive compositional choices. The sound is full and developed enough despite itself and its limitations. Literally if one doesn't think NSFs sound "ugly and inferior" in this context, then they're simply not gonna look at it the same way as Gray does. I certainly don't. I don't think this a particularly different situation from Final Fantasy 8 "Moontang", where arrangement was able to compensate for inferior samples. Basically what it boils down to on Gray's side is that NSF samples are inherently poor and displeasing in this context, which I don't agree with. Provided the complexity in arrangement and channel usage is there, and the sounds are distinct, there's nothing precluding a limited-format chiptune from passing. My vote is firmly with YES. For the record, I have no problem with a rejection for Gray's reasons or a veto from djp. If this is rejected, I think the precedent it sets is that limited channel chiptunes like NSFs or SIDs aren't passable, which I don't agree with but don't have a huge issue with. More importantly, it doesn't preclude anyone from making an NSF that doesn't hold to the 2A03's 4/5 channel limit, i.e. FDS, FME-07, MMC5, M106, VRC6, or VRC7 expansion channels.

Congrats to Chrono Symphonic finally being released. It's been a long time coming since the vote here closed.

Yeah, this is styled like SETI@Home, only for (IMO) a much more practical and legitimate purpose. I'm only running on dial-up, but I'll see if I can be of any use in the next few days.

Kyle. You made them, you fix them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Project_Chaos

Well, considering that Kyle made a Wikipedia article for the project (in haste, IMO), I'd recommend anyone else do what they can to contribute content regarding the project to prevent the article from being deleted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Project_Chaos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chaos In the future, I'd say wait until a project is wrapped up/about to be released before doing a page on it. Otherwise, people get the wrong idea that it's meant to be some sort of advertisement.

Well, considering that Kyle made a Wikipedia article for the project (in haste, IMO), I'd recommend anyone else do what they can to contribute content regarding the project to prevent the article from being deleted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Milkyway_Wishes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milkyway_Wishes In the future, I'd say wait until a project is wrapped up/about to be released before doing a page on it. Otherwise, people get the wrong idea that it's meant to be some sort of advertisement.

Well, considering that Kyle made a Wikipedia article for the project (in haste, IMO), I'd recommend anyone else do what they can to contribute content regarding the project to prevent the article from being deleted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Around_the_World_%28Super_Dodge_Ball_album%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_World_%28Super_Dodge_Ball_album%29 In the future, I'd say wait until a project is wrapped up/about to be released before doing a page on it. Otherwise, people get the wrong idea that it's meant to be some sort of advertisement.

Steben mentioned kLuTz. Greg's friend Nana transcribed "600 A.D. in Piano", available in 7 pages: http://klutz.vgmidi.com/music.php. MIDIs of CT "Peaceful Days", FF7 "A World in Piano" & FF4 "Tale in Piano" are also available. lightwarmth posted the MIDI and Sibelus Scorch sheet music for FF9 "Messenger in the Key of Black" over at SquareSound. A PDF of Bladiator's Kirby's Dreamland mix, "Chopinesque Kirby" is being hosted by Less Ashamed of Self. BogusRed hosts MIDIs of both Zelda 3 "Into the Golden Sunset" & FF7 "Beyond Midgar"

Dammit, I celebrate teh goddamn Christmas, kill u.

http://www.ocremix.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1784269#1784269

We don't accept anything over 6MB, so watch that filesize, please: http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Chrono_Cross_psf.rar - 306 "The Star-Stealing Girl" http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Memories of Green" (ct-1-05.spc) If anyone else has significant qualms on the complexity/depth of the writing, I definitely understand. Though that wasn't as much of an issue for me here, the bar is pretty high on piano pieces and this didn't compare on that level. Not saying you need to speed it up or flood it with more material, but more could have been done here. The performance is ok, though potentially too simplistic, but the main problem is the sound doesn't have the body and realism of a live piano performance even though it's played on a Motif. Motifs offer a lot more than this low-quality sound. There's some sustain on here, but the overall sound is pretty barren and exposed. It's particularly glaring when you're playing any type of chords (e.g. 3:16-3:23, but practically anywhere); there's just no meat on 'em. The performance obviously is human and performed live, but the sound quality merely says keyboard. Dunno what kind of piano soundfont/sample was applied to this, let alone what you did in terms of fine-tuning the sound, but you've gotta work on filling the track out and having it sound less synthethic, Dan. The post-production is no good. NO

One Must Fall 2097 OSV - "Main Menu" I heard the original a few months ago when voting at Song of the Week, and it was easily the best track that week for me, gr00ve-biasing me with the goodness. It managed to get 3rd place for Week #37. When I finally recognized the source here at :51, I was pretty surprised (even though it obviously came in earlier when listening to it again). Aside from the guitar, the overall texture felt a bit generic, but I may be harder against this than the others. ("Judgez h8 tekno" and all that.) Can't say I'm a fan of some of the sounds in use, as this music isn't my thing, but it's all in what you do with your tools. Although I felt this could have sounded more unique for the genre, the arrangement of the theme seemed fairly well done in terms of the genre adaptation along with, IMO, lots of personalization. The feel is definitely changed enough for me, but could feel too conservative for others. While there were some subtle changes in the percussion patterns, I felt the beatwork that started at :51 was too simple and repetitive overall. It lacked edge. Spice them up to provide some variation and power to drive the track forward. As is, they barely change up and unfortunately drag the whole arrangement down as a result. The piano starting at 1:44 was too loud and the guitar was quiet enough when it didn't seem to be a strong factor when in play (but it's not fake like I thought, thank you Vig). Minor issues, and I nonetheless liked the ideas there. The atmosphere felt a bit dull, though the writing obviously has a lot of energy. But there was seemingly not quite enough energy in the instrumentation and production, which undermined things. This isn't bad at all, and may be fine for others, but to me the sound choices seemed to limit the expressiveness and energy of the arrangement. That's something that separates this from something like Rayza's material, where the use of some conventional sounds is greatly enhanced by effects/processing/etc. The track could use a little sweetening in the higher frequencies. For example, just throwing up the 14K preamp up higher in Winamp, the track sounded clearer and more vibrant as a result. I think DarkeSword and zircon would have the most relevant insight here as to what's working here and what's not. Overall this was alright, but needs more creativity in some of the writing (the beats) & sound choices, as well as attention to the production to enhance the energy level rather than dampen it. Good stuff so far, Genesis. Kind of surprised to see you submit something without collabbing with Nemesis, but it's cool to see you branching out. I've never seen either of you guys resubmit here, but I think you should go for it in this case as this mix has the potential to make it with some quick refinement. Could snag some YESs, so good luck with the rest of the vote! NO (borderline/resubmit)

You definitely deserved it, Mike. The improvement over the previous Z64 sub was remarkable. Great work, keep it up!

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff4.rsn - "Land of Dwarves" (ff4-34.spc) [:00-1:47], "The Airship" (ff4-29.spc) [1:47-2:13], "Chocobo Forest" (ff4-s-01.spc) [2:14-2:32], "Chocobo ~ Chocobo" (ff4-11.spc) [2:32-3:24] & "Main Theme" (ff4-07.spc) [3:27-4:51] While this was denser/richer than your previous submission, Long, I felt like a lot of criticisms from the last time around are still there in this new submission. I'm mainly talking about the lack of realism in the way the samples are used (which is less of an issue this time around, but still sounds cheaply orchestrated) and the potential medleyitis approach of the arrangement. Browse the ReMixing forum and look for info on how to give your orchestrations more body, find other free samples to work with, as well as create much better humanization in the performance (which this completely lacks). Frankly, there's no reason to point at minutia here when this is such a broad problem. It's unfortunate these issues are present, as they undermine some otherwise very spirited writing that has the potential to sound great and would fit well on an FFIV arrange album. As for the medleyitis, that's not quite a killer for me, as I felt that 1) you worked hard to try and personalize an otherwise conservative set of arangements, and 2) abrupt transitions in orchestrated music can work well enough. Others may take bigger issue here, and I can see why for some of these transitions. The ending as well was very poor, and didn't resolve the track in a satisfactory way, IMO. Looking forward to GrayLightning's opinion on this, as he could give more detail on how to improve it. The way you handle production really needs to be reasessed from the ground up, or your material is always going to sound lacking. NO

Heh. Yeah, if you had told me you revised the track that you wanted to Fall-Through, I never would have posted the OLR version. Be sure to let us know next time, or just find some more reliable webspace. There are free places out there. Alright, what you did to try to do to spruce this up...? http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozusf.rar - 57 "Windmill Hut" (56 Ocarina ~Song Of Storms~) SFX to open things up along with the same intro as before. Everything still sounds very thin and synthy like last time, only with a bassline added. Some new instrumentation came in at :36, but the overall complaints are still the same, as most of the instrumentation was retained from last time around. Piano handled the melody this time at :51, which was fairly better than the live sax from last time, but the arrangement issues are still there. The performance is somewhat personalized, as some rhythms are played with, but overall this was very uninterpretive. Some new ideas brought in at 2:13 to at least change the feel of the track, but that was short-lived until 2:40. The sounds and ideas are still fairly beginner-ish and simple, even with these new parts. Like I said last time, really study what you can in the ReMixing forum to get better sounds and learn how to flesh them out. Do what you can to give the arrangement more direction and less monotony, and get more Works forum feedback. You could literally cut & paste my old vote and remove/change any mention of the saxophone where necessary. Not a good sign. This one sounds like a done deal, but keep at it as far as the community goes, Bobby. OLR is fine, certainly, but don't feel discouraged at trying to improve in regards to the OCR level. NO

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/ffmq.rsn - "City of Forest" (ffmq-09.spc) Frank let me get a first look at it a little while back, so I played this one on VGF73 a few weeks ago and knew it was coming our way. This is actually meant for an OverLooked ReMiX project. Sounds too good to qualify for OLR. Nice source tune, BTW. Fairly decent piano intro to start things off. Good fading in of the beats and other instrumentation at :21. The performance there seems a little loose and some of the notes here created by the supporting instrumentation seemed to clash (e.g. :44-1:06). 1:06 established a nice groove though with a fakey string sample that was quiet enough to contribute positively, rather than sound too exposed. Nice way to brings the drums/percussion back in at 1:26 as a transition point to a more upbeat section lasting until 1:50. Again, I was feeling some odd note combinations with the instruments from 1:50 until 2:11. The drum writing at 2:12 was rather plain and uninteresting compared to earlier (and later) in the track. I liked the idea of briefly changing the rhythm at 2:23 but dunno why you stopped there. Nice move into the section at 2:34 with the singing though "Fi-iiiine" didn't harmonize properly and sounded out of place as a result, both here and in the mix's close at 4:06. Second syllable should have went lower, not higher. Nice work throwing in "Music to Make Love To: www.DiggiDis.com", and beautiful transition from the lo-fi sound back to hi-fi from 2:55-2:56. Decent freestylish work from 2:56-3:18. The transition back into the simpler source arrangement at 3:18 could have been made more gradual, as the cymbal cutoff sounds too abrupt. Good stuff in the last section at 3:18, including bringing in the tambourine at 3:29. Loved the fairly simple but beautiful piano writing from 3:40-4:02; a great way to close it. Again, I would have liked the vocals right at the very end, if you change the note progression on "Fi-iiiine"; keep it in the same key as the music. There's a lot to love about the track. I'm interested in hearing Vigilante and JigginJonT's opinions on this, though they may and likely could be more critical of where the track seems lacking. Personally, I felt this was like 85% of the way there, but needs some slight tweaking to fix the issues I felt were there. I've never seen Frank actually resub anything, but it would be criminal if he didn't in the event that this didn't pass. I'm feeling the track here and I love the energy and ideas here, but it could use some more polish to really maximize the potential here. Best of luck with the rest of the vote, Frank, and I'll be hounding you like a dog on this one. Very nice so far. NO (refi-iiiine/resubmit) EDIT: Vote changed, read below for more information.

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff6.rsn - "Edgare and Mash" (ff6-107.spc) Personally, I didn't hear anything here to feel "skeptical" about. Part of getting an NES chiptune passed on OCR is being very creative despite working with channel limitations, which I think Sam did in spades here. There were several creative variations on the source melody, and plenty of good harmonization ideas. The percussion coming in at 1:15 was long overdue, as nothing was moving the track along, but waiting that long to bring things in provided some good contrast. All the while, there was plenty of phrasing ideas that sounded very obviously like Sam's prior work. My main issue was on the production side, as the volume was too loud and there were really nasty piercing frequencies in the low midrange. On my laptop's speakers, it wasn't a big deal, but on headphones it got to be a problem. Compared to an actual NSF, this didn't sound as clean. I don't quite see the volume issue as forcing me to switch my vote, as it seems easily remedied, but I'd prefer to have the volume adjusted about -4 or -5db before posting so the track isn't abrasive. I really don't think it should be posted as is with this volume. YES with volume adjustment