Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

I don't crib much from other judges, but I couldn't have said it better myself. And yes, just to say it again, the drumbeats are completely pointless. If you scrapped them, and simply tried to flesh out this piece without beatkeeping percussion, this could be more interesting. The interpretation factor isn't into rip territory, but still too cover-ish. Strip out the beats, and it's easier to tell how conservative things are. Work more original ideas into the picture beyond merely changing up the instrumentation; you did that a little bit, but need to do more to personalize the arrangement approach. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/megaman2.zip - Track 10 ("Crash Man Stage") I liked the sparker noises and the blowtorch being lit up during the intro. Too bad that bassline was lame, as the sound effects didn't really gel with it. I would have just introed with the SFX and then used some effects on it, but ah well. Beats were OK, though too dry. The changes to the melody sounded off, but you get used to them. The lead is way too thin, and the supporting instrumentation definitely isn't making up for it. The melody isn't even in the forefront of the track, as you have the supporting synth and beats completely drowning it back. 1:23 goes for another iteration of the arrangement, which is pretty boring/uncreative. 1:48 switches it up to some sluggish but otherwise cool e-piano stuff, along with a thin bassline and the same ole' plodding beats. The energy level here could be so much better just by fleshing out the sounds and not putting the beat patterns on cruise control. Gotta agree with Vigilante, that previous original section had jack shit to do with arranging Crash Man's theme, and didn't even thematically connect with the rest of the arrangement. You need to seamlessly fuse those original ideas within the arrangement. 2:47 switches back to the plodding Crash Man arrangement, only with a few more sound effects added in the background, then the guitar-like synth at 3:24. The whole thing just drags, due to repetition and the fact that the texture is sparse. Keep in mind, you have a lot of reverb and whatnot, but everything still sounds pretty empty; those effects only compensate so much. You have some cool ideas in place, and I liked some of the sounds in play, but you really need to create a more comprehensive, varied arrangement. Focus on these aforementioned criticisms and keep trying your hand at this. NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=sm - "Brinstar Red Soil Swampy Area" (sm-20.spc) Decent intro up until that one synth came in at :06. Anyway, decent ideas although the texture was actually pretty empty despite the effects. Melody comes in at :38 with some dissonance that sounds awful. Then some weird roaring synth came in at :50 with slightly off timing. The way the sounds drop in and out is so awful, because it doesn't create anything in terms of dynamics; when stuffs drops out, you just get a more barren mix. 1:26 was a good example of that. The synths used on lead are typically too thin, and nothing's going on in the background to compensate. Beats at 1:48 are weak in terms of the energy, have little processing and don't even gel with the melody or drive the track along. The structure here doesn't flow at all. 2:27 goes to some really low-energy, generic electronica arrangement for the melody. Yeah, the way everything's put together isn't particularly cohesive, musical or possessing of purpose. You gotta get better at writing (leads and supporting instrumentation), and learn how to create textures from sounds that in fact work together. Then we'll talk about you're production. In any case, use the ReMixing forum to learn more about music-making with FL Studio, then post your material to the Works forum for some initial feedback from the peeps. NO

His ReMixer name IS "Unknown".

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes OST - 52 "VS Quadraxis (Long)" No wonder this sounds so lossy, you encoded at 96kbps. And this is after he encoded at 112kbps last time. You need to go VBR at least to try and mitigate the loss. I'm still of the same mind with many of the issues I had when I heard the older version months ago, but this was improved a fair deal. Sample quality is still fairly bleh, although the reverb used here on some of the parts at least tries to mask the thinness of the samples. Still, much of the sequencing sounds really rigid. Really cool drums at 1:12-1:19, nice writing bro. Source tune finally kicks in pretty overtly at 2:32. I wasn't really feeling the atmosphere here like TO did. I felt it sounded rather cheap. TO pointed out to me that the drums didn't have the huge reverb that nearly everything else had, but I thought there was too much of a disparity with the effects on some sounds vs. others. The drumkit and claps sounded REALLY thin and and could have used some selective reverb, whereas the vox, strings and bell didn't need nearly the amount of reverb they had. You gotta more selectively apply your effects. Though some of the instrumentation continued to sound thin and low-quality/MIDI-grade, I did like the effort to switch up the instrumentation style at 3:52, which was an admirable idea. The string writing was pretty solid, and the more involved parts of the drumwork stood out well. The textures aren't quite hot (the washed out low vox at 5:46 was a definite low point), but didn't sound terrible. As you continue to learn more and get a better ear for things, you have the potential to come up with some really good ideas. Section at 6:17 rehashes 2:47's section only with some subtle supporting instrumentation added underneath. You really should try to refrain from cutting and pasting previous sections wholesale. Tweak the pervious patterns and instrumentation more substantially so that you have something that's more somewhat different and/or evolved from the prior material. Ending section at 7:10 was a decent idea but the lead there almost sounded too "happy" to work write there. Something a bit more sinister would work better. Anyway, this still needs some work, but you're headed in the right direction. Perhaps keep working on this, perhaps not. Honestly, I don't think you'd be able to get this at an acceptable level with your current experience, but you sincerely show a lot of promise, and I look forward to seeing your work become more sophisticated in the future. Keep at it in the community. NO

http://www.zophar.net/usf/pdusf.rar - 20b "Chicago: Stealth" Not a bad opening, but everything was really imbalanced. The guitar coming in at :07 should have been in the forefront for sure. Cool synth in there at :20, but way too loud, which took the focus away from the arrangement and merely drowned out the actual arrangement content. About a minute in and things were chill, but the beats were needlessly bland and repetitive and the sounds were completely imbalanced like TO mentioned. Xylo/vibe-like deal coming in at 1:15 was in the foreground, but WAY too loud. The warbling effects and reverb were too pronounced, making everything sound too washed out at times. Sounded like everything is clipping in that section, and after the section dragged a bit by the 2-minute mark, it finally changed (via subtraction of that lead) at 2:10. Track plodded along, but there seemed to be a cool idea to fade out the beats, only they didn't fade out all the way and simply came back to the same volume by 2:32. What was the point of that? It could have been a nice way to change the feel of the track entirely. Guitar joined in at 3:03 along with the xylo-like lead. The guitar and drums here were so bland and weak, both the patterns/writing and processing. The added guitar and drums sounded so rigidly performed and pasted on top, it didn't gel with the other sounds in play at all. The abrupt cutoffs of the cymbal fade at 4:07 and the guitar fade at 4:08 sounded really cheap and beginner-ish. Some decent ideas here in terms of the genre and the atmosphere, Stewart, but the execution lacked on all sorts of levels. You really gotta spend time stepping up that game on your production and writing. NO

http://66.49.226.244/digital/quest/genmidi/lsl3gm.zip - It's somewhere in there [/shrug] Provide some details on the source next time. Not gonna look though an 80-minute MIDI for the original. At 2:32-long, you're gonna have to add more ideas and variation to this arrangement. Right now, it's too underdeveloped. Sax work is pretty cool, but the backing instrumentation is too simple, quiet and sparse aside from that bass, which is too resonant. The production is lossy as hell. You know better than all this, bro, but you keep limiting yourself because you don't do anything to get better at producing. Loads of potential based off the sax work, but most of the other instrumentation is bleh, and the sound quality doesn't help. NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ct - "Memories of Green" (ct-1-05.spc) Yeah, pretty cool chill track. TO will have the best idea on how well you've pulled this off, but the foundation here is pretty cool. The basic beats didn't change up at all, which is OK when you have a really extended piece that possesses some eventual changes, but just sounds like a lack of ideas at barely above 4 minutes. Maybe it's just me not being as familiar as I should be with the Z64 and FF7 soundtracks, but whatever was in here besides "Chrono Trigger" seemed negligible. It helps us judges to elaborate on what themes you're mixing from what games, especially when they have large soundtracks. I'm guessing that section at 1:41 was something from another game, but dunno for sure, so you're inevitably not gonna get all the credit you deserve for the arrangement. Nonetheless, this had a fairly smooth (albeit undeveloped) piecing together of the themes from what I could infer. 2:45 rehashes :26 verbatim. Boooooooo. Though you had some nice ideas in between, it's still lazy and lame to recycle sections wholesale. If it was more creative, interpretive, and better produced, maybe you could get away with it. Section just plods along until the trite resolution at 4:00, which was a really weak ending. The percussion and structure need more subtle variation for something so relatively short, and the arrangement simply needs to be developed further. In terms of dealing with the actual melodic content of the source tunes, even just from Chrono Trigger that I recognize, you haven't done much. Good base though, keep working on it. NO

What the hell are you talking about?

ROFL. Why I would listen to a troll like you after all your negative reviews, I wouldn't know. Frankly, I thought some of the string parts, starting at 1:16, did indeed sound too rigidly sequenced. Perhaps they were too dry, or it might have been a consequence of giving the synth strings more volume over the one's Jason was playing, I couldn't say for sure. Nonetheless, to say that the arrangement was generic, when when we have nothing like it on OCR or in the community-at-large fusing rock elements with strings and piano specifically in a British rock style, is stupid. There's not a song or artist's arrangement approach in this community that sounds like this genre of music. No one's required to like it, but when you start leaping towards baseless, flippant comments like "generic", you just look close-minded. God forbid "DJJudges" accept creative stuff on the site like this. Let's go back to the 2/3rds-techno days.

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/loz3.rsn - "Princess Zelda's Rescue" (loz3-22.spc) Opens up with some pretty standard technoz flava, though a bit sparse. Good kicks though, and an otherwise decent though formulaic buildup. Elements of arrangement started fading up very gradually at :28, and took a while to build up. Melody kicked in on vox at :58 in a really unexpected twist, so that was a nice touch. The backing chords seemed a little odd/off, but the overall idea was ok. Vox dropped out at 1:28 for more of a trancey take on the theme, which was too generic/bland with the approach. The melody itself seemed too subdued, plus there's not much more creativity going on beyond the genre adaptation and some straightforward gating-style effects. The claps holding the foundation of the track are too thin and need some effects to beef 'em up and fill out the background, otherwise this will remain sounding empty. Arrangement kind of plodded along until the chorus at 2:40 at least changed things up (though the arrangement approach was all the same). 2:54 went with some basic beats and out-of-the-box electrosynths for the close. The foundation is decent, but the actual melodic content could be more interpretive beyond converting it to a trance-style structure. The production here was also lacking, as the track felt pretty empty. Use some selective delay or other processing to help thicken some of the supporting sounds. The claps in particular, you should try layering more of them together and toying with the way they sound. zircon will have some good basic tips for you if he votes on this one, but otherwise look around the ReMixing forum to help improve under your current software. Decent foundation here, but it needs a lot more work. NO

Someday I'll release that one. I think I'm dubbing it VGF32.5, since the week after VGF32. It felt good winging it though. I'd never be able to have a detailed playlist on that one though; I forget what gold I had on that show.

I literally don't care about a status report or need one as long as stuff is moving forward. I'm a patient man. Plus, I've never cared about people asking when it comes out. This one has most of the material done, so there's nothing to worry about. When a project's done, it's done. Occupy your time some other way.

From an arrangement standpoint, this is probably one of the most impressive things I've heard from my time on the panel, and it grew on me as I listened to it more after my vote. It really helps to be familiar with the original. I still think the production could have been tweaked on this to really make the whole package stronger, but I'd still throw it in my top 5 mixes for sure. It's quite a unique piece of work compared to everything else hosted at OCR. Nice work.

Melody sounds pretty defined to me.

A track needs 4 YESs, not 3. There are 5 YESs, because 5 of us wanted to comment on it.

Metal Gear Solid Original Game Soundtrack - (01) "Metal Gear Solid Main Theme" Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty Original Soundtrack - (01) "'Metal Gear Solid' Main Theme" Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater Original Soundtrack - (01) "'METAL GEAR SOLID' Main Theme (METAL GEAR SOLID 3 version)" Well, I was gonna NO it just to counter your YES, but then you actually predicted my vote, so I pull da reverse pyschology now. I go YEZ. I don't not have to explain myself. [sic]

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF8_minipsf.rar - 901 "The Landing (Alternate)" Thanks to TO for hooking me up with the right source track, since I'm pretty unfamiliar with the soundtrack. I don' pl4y dese geek gamez 'n stuffz. Yeah, these samples are used decently, but they still sound pretty weak; you need to be really skilled at production to make those really work for you. The track did seem to hit one speed and never really change up much, but there were a few changeups in the instrumentation to at least provide some dynamic contrast. Work on providing some more of that to keep things fresh. The bass synth opening things up was really mechanically sequenced, as well as the guitar synth. Drum pattern were too basic and mechanically sequenced as well, and the piano coming in at :33 sounded extremely synthetic, thin, and rigidly performed with the notes having too similar velocities. Besides the piano, there's actually some effort put into having the sounds work well together. Decent stuttering effects in use at 1:43. Nice idea for that pad-like sound brought into the background at 1:31 to subtlely help fill things out; just be sure to vary up that effect so it doesn't get stale later on. Decent stuff for a beginner, but you've gotta learn how to use your software more powerfully. The sequencing is too rigid to make the performance on any of the instruments sound flowing and human, and learning more about production will help you flesh out the track better. Hang around the ReMixing forum more and check out the FL101 help thread. Keep at it. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 102 "Opening ~ Bombing Mission" Odd sounds coming in at :08; can't even tell what they were. The instruments didn't really combine very well, leaving this rather cacophonous at times. After :48, I agreed with the reverb issues; everything's way to flooded; you need to get things sounding much more balanced. Most times, there doesn't sound like there's any melody in the foreground. All of the your supporting instrumentation is upfront, and makes the track sound meandering and directionless. Is that supposed to be a brass synth at 1:24, I just can't tell because it doesn't sound very good. Anyway, the rest of the track basically has the same problems the whole way through. Couple of sour samples in there, sure, but the main thing that throws this mix off is the poor sound balance. The various parts don't sound like they're working together; you need to rethink what goes where and produce the track accordingly. There's at least a decent base here underneath the muck. NO

Tomb Raider - "Main Theme" Oh plz. I don't need to play a game with a big-boobed chick. I DO NOT KNOW THE THEME!!! I checked it out though. Pretty cool stuff; definitely glad I had to listen to it, so thanks for providing the source. Interesting intro for the arrangement. The instrumentation isn't too bad, but the harp on support is louder than the woodwind lead. Actually, everything seems to be a lot louder than the woodwind lead. Then it just swtiches to a lone string at 1:11 that sounds too synthetic and barren. It really should be more resonant to fill up the space a bit more. The bow movements at 1:43 sounded very off. Anyway, moving on without going into play-by-play, I agree with TO that the arrangement feels a bit disjointed; not terrible, but some of the transitions were jarring. The instrumentation is too synthetic-sounding and needs more work put into making the performance dynamics more realistic. For a small orchestra, the whole thing still sounds very sparse and vacant, so you do need to flesh it out more, either with more parts or denser sounds for your existing samples. And, like TO implied, it doesn't mean flooding it with reverb, but you should selectively use some. This is a decent base, but needs a lot of TLC (and further experience) to get it sounding its best. Keep working on it. Looking forward to hearing a revision of this, or other future submissions. Stick around and read up on how to improve at the ReMixing forum, then post your work form people to comment on at the Works forum. NO

Metal Gear Solid Original Game Soundtrack - (03) "Discovery" Yeah, so TO was mentioning how he wasn't feeling the connections to the source tune in the arrangement, and after more consideration, I'm agreeing with him. The source tune is pretty minimal, but there's more substance to it than what's being arranged here.The strings at 1:11 are a really liberal take on the strings from :55 of the original, only Heath's had a progression, rather than basically playing the same note over and over again. That's a connection that I heard, but that is in fact too liberal to be of much consequence in the big picture. At 2:47, you do some straightforward trance-style adaptation of the source melody, but it only lasts until 4:10 and it's not particularly interpretive. 4:10-5:31 just plays off the string similarity again, and the overall approach just doesn't take the content of the original and work with it enough. You've got the production down, but the arrangement substance is ultimately lacking when I take another look. Develop the arrangement of the source material further so it doesn't feel like an afterthought in this piece. NO (rework/resubmit) ------------------------------------------------- EDIT (7/15): Aight, so seeing Dhsu point out the interval similarity with the string work from "Discovery", as well as how central the arranged strings of Heath's are to the foundation of the track, I'm willing to go back to YES on it and admit I was wrong on how substantive that connection was. Thanks to David for the heads-up, as Heath's strings weren't new writing liberally based off of one note, but rather an arrangement playing off of a two-note interval. Also, the progression of the writing first used from :30-:37, while not something that was really arranging Discovery directly, worked specifically with the strings coming in at 1:11. I think that confirms what Heath was saying in his complaint post: "With this song, one of the only reasonable things to do in a trance format is to reinterpret the chords into a sublead and play around with some little melodies using those chords while you build towards a breakdown where you introduce the main melody." Somewhat contrary to how Vigilante and DarkeSword asessed the track, that's indeed what Heath was doing here, so I defer back to my prior judgment. I think they should reevaluate the track, but at the same time I can see where they're currently coming from. That's the nature of a debatable mix. I think the whole business of saying "trance is unacceptable at OCR", "remove it from the list of acceptable genres" is stupid and too far-reaching when the point with the judges going NO was that they weren't hearing all of the connections to the source tune overtly (which is what ambient basically mentioned as the real problem in his own comments on the situation; props, Alex, for not handling it like a baby like NeoS or realpolitik). This case had nothing to do with whatever genre the track was, and it's foolish to attribute a NO decision here to genre bias. In this case the source material was minimal, but I better understand how Heath was meaningfully integrating the two primary elements of the source enough to carry the arrangement portion of the track. It may still feel too liberal for some of the other Js, and I don't disagree with how The Orichalcon presented his case, but I feel Heath handled the dicey question of arrangement fine. When you're working with something minimal, it's important to have the source material tangibly involved throughout the majority of the track, and I can't deny that's the case now. I certainly didn't mind revisiting this to fix my vote.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ed2 - "Battle #2" (ed2-113.spc) Love the source tune; it's been a favorite of mine. The strings opening things up sound too thin and synthetic; harmonizing them at :23 helped mask those issues. Same problem with the piano at :12, which is coincidentally reffering to the :27 section of the original. Guitar wanks in at :32 but sounds too lo-fi. Until :57, the background elements were way too quiet compared to the guitar; fix the sound balance, please. :56 launches into the familiar source melody. The drums lack power and the patterns are really boring. Hate the rapid-fire drum pattern at 1:18, as it's meant to drive the track along but just sounds like a car is running/knocking in the background. More of the same problems the whole way through past 1:40 with thin, overly synthetic samples, poor sound balance and drums that don't gel with the rest of the instrumentation. Decent arrangement potential hampered by this subpar execution. Listen to zircon; he's giving a lot of good criticism that you can practically apply to this track as well as future works. NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=sm - "Theme of Super Metroid" (sm-16.spc) "Brinstar Philharmonic Orchestra", what a pretentious name. Not to simply insult anyone, but if you're gonna name yourself that, your stuff better sound GOOOOOD. The drums alone in this one are ridiculously fake. Every drumbeat comes in at the same intensity. The samples here are all high-pitched and overly synthetic. The arrangement is hardly interpretive enough to be interesting. Hell, look at the mix title. This basically keeps the structure of the original, as stated in the submission letter, albeit more filled out. Rehash of :08's section at 1:25. Man, you're repeating the first section wholesale. You're maybe the 4th newbie person tonight I've voted on that simply took the first section of their arrangement, which was about 1 minute long, and simply looped it rather than make anything different for the second go-around. Finally at 2:37, you go for another iteration of the source, only an ultra-fake and shrill woodwind synth is thrown in there (and buried in the background). You can understand when I tell you that that's not enough to be a meaningful difference. Decent stuff for a beginner, so stick around here and make use of the ReMixing forum to learn more about what you can do with FL Studio and post any future mixes in the Works forum to get feedback on them before you submit again. NO

http://project2612.org/download.php?id=61 - "Lava Reef Zone 2" Opens up with some pads before bringing in the source tune at :21. Beats brought in at :40 are thick, but are too loud IMO. Electrosynth comes in at 1:19 with some verbatim treatment of the source melody, before switching off to a VERY mechanical piano synth lasting until 2:16. Malcos is right that the piano sample sounds really dry and messes up the feel; beyond that, you have to adjust the timing and velocities so that it doesn't sound like a robot is playing. Same at 2:55. The drum kicks and hats are loud enough that they take the focus off of the piano and electrosynths involved, so you need to pull the beats back and let the real foreground material take center stage. Besides, after a while the beat patterns become repetitive and boring; you need to play around with the patterns more and change them up so they don't get stale. The ending section at 3:52 is rather uninspired as well and doesn't resolve the track nicely. Make sure the melodic material is in the foreground, change up the beat patterns, get the piano performance sounding more humanized, and put more work into developing the melodic interpretation. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gsf/awars.rar - ? Checked the GBA version, since I've got nothing to get a source from for the DS version. Looks like nothing matches up (though I didn't look very closely anyway). Soundfield sounds really loud and swamped. The melody at :17 barely sounds out versus all of the other stuff; the sound balance here is awful. Rinse and repeat the stuff from :02 at 1:06 until the end/2:16. Two loops? Next. 2:16-long does not cut it. Merely looping the first section because you're lazy doesn't cut it. Please listen to the recently posted stuff here and get a better a idea about how the arrangements typically develop and evolve over time so you can apply those concepts to your own material in the future. NO