Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Commenting on V's WIP: Nice delicate sound here. Piano sounds fairly well-performed albeit noticeably mechanical. Fairly straightforward but decent effects to fill out the soundfield, although things did feel sprase nonetheless. Strings come in at :51 and sound REALLY lossy, the way a low-quality audio stream warbles. It really drags the whole things down whenever it's in play. Left-hand piano part from :51-1:02 sounds a bit too rigid and looped. Audio skip at 1:15; could be my file, who knows. Woodwind synth joins in at 1:27. The synth sounds decent, but rather plain-jane. The overall effects meant to thicken the instruments are ok, but the track still manages to sound somewhat thin, like the reverb's simply there to overcome any shortcomings with the texture. More bass string writing in here might help fill it out. 2:16 rehashes the string writing from earlier (:54), which felt too samey since the texture and number of instruments in play isn't too much different than before. Harp brought in at 2:49 sounds a bit mechanically sequenced, but the writing is ok. Ending is rather sudden and anti-climactic. I see how you were trying to wind things down, but I don't feel it resolved very strongly. Good ideas in place so far, and this is without comparing this to the original. It could simply be a matter of the samples chosen, but most of them sound pretty generic, and the processing involved doesn't really do anything to change the tones and create something that sounds more unique. Tempo and style felt like an issue. If you're gonna have the tempo the same the whole way, the piece may need to evolve and change more drastically over the 3 3/4 minutes. Right now, the arrangement is promising, but it kind of drags. You should really get some feedback from another available J just to get another perspective. I'll give some more comments once I have time to compare with the SPC.

It's actually an official but alternate cover. But yeah, I found all that rather funny myself. I think two of analoq's tracks were right on the previous version. 8th is Next My Generation from Metropolis Zone, and 19th is Sonik Caves from Mystic Cave Race. Or did he change the names after?? I had it all sorted out. The mix on OCR now has the original and correct name, i.e. "sonik metro". The Mystic Cave Zone 2-Player mix is "Next My Generation (sonik caves)". analoq titled it "sonik caves" as a WIP but changed it to "Next My Generation" since he felt like ending his streak of tracks with names of "sonik something". Perhaps Aaron can submit the real "Next My Generation" down the road.

Boo-urns, fo' sho. But in all honesty, I'd rather have the fix, even if it takes a while to wait for one. I'm a patient man.

http://www.zophar.net/gsf/goldensun2.rar - 124 "Aqua Rock" It would have helped immensely to provide some info as to what was being mixed, especially with a 100-song soundtrack. The information might have been in your original submission letter, but if you fall it through you've gotta at least let a judge know what you're arranging. Luckily for me, it wasn't too far into the soundtrack to cause me to give up. Opening piano sounds ultra-fake and rigid, and needs more body to it. Beats are limp and the bassline is thin, quiet and bleh. The looped rain SFX is the best thing you've got going on in here. Lead synth brought in at :50 on top of the piano sounds too generic/out-of-the-box and needs more effects to stand out as unique. It's a nice synth that's capable of much more. Rinse and repeat the arrangement verbatim from :07 at 1:33, SFX and all until 2:37. Are you kidding me? The arrangement at least changed up the rhythms and feel of the original a little bit, but it's not that good that you can just loop it for 2 1/2 turns. Boo-urns on this. The last section from 2:37 to the end just kept slowly dropping out instruments, which isn't a good idea when things sound so empty for the finish. You need to learn how to actually give the sounds enough meat on them so that a minimalist approach doesn't sound like you have practically nothing filling up the soundfield. Cuts out at 3:01 with 6 seconds of silence left at the end. This was entirely too underdeveloped on both arrangement and production, and ultimately resulted in something that has potential but clearly sounds beginner-ish. I completely agreed with Malc upon reading his vote afterward. Good first effort, but you've got a long way to go. Spend time learning how to better your skills at the ReMixing forum, then post your Works for people to comment on before you submit again in the future. NO

Nah, I think you're right, and I agree with you. The writing though is really cool. No luck on any game rip of the source material, though I will keep looking. The style is otherwise excellent, but I need to see a bit more development as well as have a copy of the original to confirm the depth of the arrangement. If the structure had more variation and development (zirc had some good tips about varying the percussion later on, for example), I wouldn't have reservations on it beyond confirming the source. Definitely tweak this one and resubmit, akumabito. This is icy hot so far. NO (borderline/resubmit)

Wait, what did I do?

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=top - "Mint" (top-111.spc) For some lesser crits, :17-:22 sounded a bit barren now. There was also droning buzziness in the low-end, which was definitely bothersome, starting around :28 and lasting until around :50 before coming back a few other times. Still, some decent tweaking of the sound balance there. Nice job adding some strings to back the guitar, with some good ideas there to fill things out; you really hear some beautiful harmonization from 2:40-2:50, for example. The way the woodwind stopped at 3:41 felt a little abrupt. I would have done some effects to have it taper off a bit more gradually, but ah well. Chris did a solid job revising this and adding a bit more complexity while basically keeping everything else intact. While understanding the criticisms from last time, I was firmly on YES before. Everything positive I said last time around applies here. And with a stronger package now, there's no reason for me to change my mind. Nice work by Chris in touching this up. Now you just gotta get a solo piece up; good luck, bro! YES

Y'all mind fashioning a real ending? It would be for everyone's benefit, frankly.

Andy wins the "McVaffe" pronunciation contest.

Your first post was nothing like this one. Moved to ReMixing where it belongs. Not a bad idea here, but it's impractical to some extent. Hopefully someone can get it done. I don't like how the post implies that stuff the community here is doing currently sounds like robotic FL-n00bery with generic sounds and textures, but it wouldn't be the first sweeping generalization of the material here and it won't be the last.

Witold, PM me your latest copy of the WIP you wanted me to critique. It fell through the cracks a while back, but I liked what you had in place at that point and wanted to comment further.

Cool piano-based intro. Percussion coming in at :10 sounded a bit too loud. The way the beats combined with the piano, they sounded a bit pasted on top, rather than "in the same room/area" as the piano. I think the combination sounded a lot more seamless in "Tears of Contention". The beats dropping out at :41 merely to come right back in at :43 felt awkward. The progression :54-1:01 also felt slightly off. The somewhat exposed bass synth at :59-1:01 didn't sound particularly strong either. Would have preferred the guitar from 1:22-1:42 to be more prominent, rather than at similar levels to the beats and piano. Same at 2:04 when Phil broke out some grungier stuff, so perhaps revisit the sound balance for something less distinct. The guitar just cuts out abruptly at 2:23, with an awkward pause/transition that I felt didn't quite work. Y'all could have stretched out the pause longer with a pad fading up or the last guitar note hanging on its own for a while. Decent ideas for the finish at 2:26 (and I was glad to hear the guitar placed more in the forefront for once, if only for 20 seconds), though I felt like this section didn't possess any direction or bring the arrangement to any sort of resolution. The ending faded out too suddenly at 2:50, I think everyone else who voted agrees on the track simply petering out. Either fashion an ending or go for the gradual fadeout, but do one or the other. The last section was the kicker that helped me decide which way to call this. As is, everything here is creative and promising but can and should be more cohesively put together. Very close here, but it honestly doesn't quite feel up there with the most recently passed material. NO (refine/resubmit)

Tales of Symphonia Original Soundtrack - (221) "Fatalize" Ah, a submission with a female. Automatic YES, isn't that how it goes? The track is imbalanced towards the right channel and could use some less distinct panning. The drum writing was ok, though the tone didn't quite gel with the guitar work for parts of the first 1:30 or so. Once the speed picked up, the percussion was fast, driving, and IMO more complimentary. I wish the bass presence was louder, as it didn't play much a factor until the (excellent) bridge section. Short and sweet, this was a nicely personalized and interpretive arrangement, with plainly observable energy. Can't ask for more than that, and it's great to see LuIzA finally make her OCR debut. Listening to her previous submissions and her material from Dwelling of Duels over the past year, she's come a long way with her work. Certainly hope to see both Christophe and Luiza both submit some solo material in the future. Of course, strong synergistic collabs like these are also welcome. Solid work y'all, and a good representative of KyleJCrb's Summoning of Spirits. Looking forward to hearing more from the project. YES

Just quoting Stephen's link here, since we can't leave up illegal MP3 links in the Decisions.

Status? I can't speak for DarkeSword, but I'd gather this is getting close to being bumped off Site Projects at this rate.

No problem, sorry for interpreting the letter hastily. Checking the original soundtrack from my usual sources, I couldn't find anything like the submission, but I'll hit up Kaleb Grace & CHz and see if they can provide any insight (perhaps along with a source track). EDIT (6/28): Looked long and hard for this one, but don't have a physical copy of anything just yet. I'll let you know if I come up with anything later. Kaleb confirmed it's indeed from some sort of in-game jingle. What it sounds like, I've got no idea, so I'm just gonna have to stick to judging on quality. For the record, the jingle is "D-A-A#-G-C#", confirmed by CHz. In the future, please provide audio of the source material, so we can compare it to the submission. Some of us "not be havin' da music theory skillz." Onto the actual submission... Interesting intro, with some decent effects, though the sirens were a bit too loud (and potentially tacky). Still cool for being something different. I'm guessing the arrangement is based off the first few notes at :41. Everything sounds too swamped, though I see what you're going for there in terms of the atmosphere. Could afford to be less buzzy. Switches to a somewhat rigid-sounding piano at 1:08, along with a woodwind joining in upfront at 1:22. Fairly straightforward at first, but at least decent expansionist of the brief original. Track sounds rather buzzy and loud from around 1:40-2:06. Nice to see you switch to some different instrumentation ideas at 2:04 for the variation, though everything has way too much reverb and still sounds swamped. Same at 3:05 with another variation, though the stuff from 3:45-4:41 was nothing we didn't hear before for a long while (2:37-3:05), so it simply made the song drag and feel repetitive. After 4:41, it was just some modulation effects or whatever for the eerie-style close; not a bad idea, though it could have been more effective. You have decent arrangement ideas in place here, but the production drags this way down. The swamped atmosphere covers up the fact that there's actually not too much going on at once in terms of the instrumentation and texture. Need some more knowledgeable comments on what could be done to alleviate the problems here. As for the arrangement, you've gotten some decent mileage out of the source material via variation, but it still managed to drag, especially thanks to the 3:45-4:41 section. You need to either cut the fat ot continue to provide more variations if you want to prevent an arrangement of a 5-note phrase from wearing thin. If you cut down on the gross amount of reverb, refine the production, add a bit more depth to the orchestration with some more instruments/elements for the background, and keep the writing well varied, you'd be in much better shape. Good ideas so far, and sorry for reaching a hasty conclusion to your submission based off of the submission letter. If you have the patience to learn more about ReMixing, you should continue to work on this. Otherwise apply the general points to your next arrangement. NO

Dave had been thinking about a DP, and the conflict with the panel over it made it get lost in the shuffle. Don wrote to me asking about the status of this MM6 mix a week or two ago, and I let him know how several on the panel had not been hot on the relative conservativeness of the arrangement as well as the EQ work. He also felt the EQ work wasn't his best once he relistened to it and let me know he would tinker with it, plus he redid some of the concluding guitar work (3:18-onward) presumably to help drive down arrangement concerns. Now that the revisions are done, I promised Don he could have a Fall-Through. The current version is 4:00-long. The old one is 4:01-long. ------------------------------------------------------ http://www.zophar.net/nsf/megaman6.zip - Track 8 ("Knight Man Stage") As per the previous version, the arrangement starts off pretty conservative, basically a souped up cover of the original. The soundfield was still swamped sometimes (e.g. 1:07-1:17), but never for any long periods of time. From 1:28-onward, the arrangement proceeded to get more liberal and interpretive. Don showed off again how he's one of the most effective in the community at sequenced guitar part. When he went back to the more straightforward rendition of the Knight Man melody at 2:38 he made sure to push up the guitar part so that it was more audible, which stressed the interpretive embellishment on it moreso than the old version. Since the volume on it was raised, it sounded like the guitar flubbed at 3:05 moving into the source's bridge as the guitar note cut off loudly and abruptly; maybe we can get that fixed? One particular example of the old version feeling swamped was from 3:12-3:29 during the big finish where the guitar, vox, bells, and (especially) strings all mushed together indistinctly. The new version rebalances everything so that there's a clearer foreground and background. Dunno why that wasn't done with the 1:07-1:17 section, but it wasn't a big deal. I just commented on some various points in the track just to share some thoughts on it. Overall, the approach started out very conservatively (albeit very personalized), but eventually moved over into some more interpretive material. A bit on the loud side, but fairly well produced with good energy, and the instrumentation choices gelled together nicely. Nice work. YES

http://www.snesmusic.org/v2/wiki.php?iRequest=wiki/ViewPage&iPage=Undumpable There's no SPC pack of this game's soundtrack so if anything ever passed from this game, we'd have to track down the soundtrack. After that seemingly low quality intro for the first few seconds (which literally made me "WTF?"), things really picked up. Why is this so short? It sounds like a 1970s cartoon or action series intro, straight up. Grove-biased [sic] and hawtz. But it needs more everything at this stage. If this was something in the 2:30 range by, say, Binster, the piece would always evolve and develop. Here, you intro, then hit the main verse, then repeat that verse, go for a (very nice) break section, then simply repeat the main verse again with a key change for the finish. In terms of the track, it's short and the structure is very formulaic, and may need further development IMO, but the instrumentation is swanky. The beats are strong, the sounds are fairly balanced, and everything pieces together very well. As far as the arrangement, the soundtrack is too rare for me to snag a copy, so you need to give us a copy of the original or point us in direction of obtaining it. I've got my channels, but throw a guy some help. I wouldn't have the slightest idea how conservative or interpretive the arrangement is. Perhaps add in some more substance, variation and development within the track, perhaps enough to extend it by a minute. And see what you can do about obtaining a copy of the source material. Great stuff so far, it's a keeper and very much a throwback. I'm giving fair warning to y'all that you will be groove-biased to this. Once I get a copy of the original, I can give a full assessment. It repeats a lot, but if the main verse is already really substantially arranged, then perhaps this has what it takes to pass. Will vote later. EDIT (6/13): And for some reason last night, I had a dream that this was the theme for "All in the Family" where Edith Bunker had already died, and Archie was left raising 3 ghetto youths. I woke up going, "where did that theme music come from?" then I remembered this. That's NOT what I had in mind with the 70s reference. I was thinking more about some sort of Hong Kong Phooey knockoff.

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/crystals.zip - Track 20 Thanks for providing a source MIDI as well. While the arrangement didn't sound like a MIDI-rip, the sound quality was hovering at that level. Didn't like how the piano was panned hard left for the intro. Be merciful to my ear(s). Sample quality on the piano at :09 was uh...not that good. Heard a bunch of light clicks and pops during the run from :16-:37, then a bunch of individual notes cutting out with no release from :38-:42. Man, everything is so fake and plainly exposed. There's no care put into the details. Some synth harmonizes a bit with the piano at :46, but the track just sounded barren. This section here has basically 3 instruments working in tandem, but all of them are very thin & artificial sounding and don't fill out the soundfield. The arrangement ideas try to be interpretive, but the execution is just hollow and ugly-sounding. 1:56 builds back to a retread of the run at :16, with the same clicks, pops and flubbed releases as last time around. Why end it on that note??? Wish I could be more supportive of this one, but I wasn't feeling it. Keep at it with the WIP forum, but you gotta tackle that ReMixing forum and learn how to flesh out your current sounds to maximize the quality. The soundfield needs more depth, so think about what you can do to not only bolden your existing parts, but create additional ones for more depth and complexity. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/olympus.zip - Track 1 The intro sounds weird/awkward on the first listen, but you get used to it. Performance doesn't flow, the way the samples are used and the processing on them are both low-quality, leaving the track sounding relatively sparse and unpolished. Was glad the arrangement didn't simply repeat at 1:16. Decent variations there and also at 2:00 with the source melody again. Arrangement could/should still go in more places. Cool ideas in terms of the genre but the execution falls flat. Keep at it. Any tips from other Js on how to get this sounding stronger would be appreciated. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gbs/sml1.zip - Track 3 The scream SFX at :49 was a decent idea, but felt a little out of place. I liked the echo effect though. You kind of learn to put up with it after a while; probably just personal taste. Too bad those beats brought in at :49 were so flimsy, because everything else seemed pretty solid. Fairly straightforward but good bassline writing which probably should have been boosted up during the fuller parts so it wasn't lost in the shuffle. Synth guitar at 1:22 was a bit grating, but was working surprisingly well. Dunno how Vig would feel about it. They weren't OMG, but I was still surprised that it was sequenced this strongly. Nice delay effects were in place throughout the song to help fill things out; production was fairly sharp. The arrangement and sounds possess a lot of the charm of OCR's older material. I wish the synth guitar had some support or something so it didn't feel like it was practically on its own in the soundfield. Good ideas at from 2:29-3:00 on that level with some belltone-type stuff and pads to flesh out the soundfield more. Arrangement was pretty good, but the flimsy beats didn't quite fit and made the track seem like it was missing some meat. Too bad, for example, that there weren't any lyrics/vocals in here. The beat pattern was cool, especially the off-beats, but the variation on them was ultimately lacking and made things drag a little. No problems with a borderline pass from the panel here, but I need beats that vary and sound a little less simplistic/straightforward, plus some more support for the electric guitar synth so that it doesn't practically feel like it's the only thing in play from 1:22-2:27. The source files are kaput? Damn. :'-( We need another SML mix. If you can do anything to obtain a backup or whatnot, work on this further. Good luck with the rest of the vote, Pat. NO (refine/resubmit)

One Must Fall 2097 - 03 "Main Menu" Simple but cool pad-based intro to open things up. Some beats came in at :41 while the source melody was referenced. Source melody came in at :56 pretty conservatively, going so far as to use the same synth lead as the original at 1:09. Mixed feelings about that, but we'll see where the rest of the track goes. The supporting material initially wasn't filling up the space well; some hard beats to anchor the track would have helped. 1:26 somewhat fixed that with thicker drums being brought in, but the beats and tambourine were too timekeeping, repetitive, and uncreative. I don't think they ever changed up once they were introduced. You could click at any point after 1:26 and the track basically sounded the same as a result. 2:36 starts arranging the source material with some really interpretive stuff only to bring in the verbatim source progression on top at 2:51. Still not liking the melodic material being so close to the original at times. There's some interpretation via new sounds and rhythms being built around the melody, but I felt the verbatim parts of the melody being used so many times for long periods of time were a hinderance. I'd like to see the melody reworked so that half of it doesn't sound like it was taken wholesale from the original's sound. The other half sounds like a simple instrument swap. All the arrangement goodness here seems to be found outside of the lead instrumentation. Also, the percussion patterns need variation and the tone should gel better with the other sounds. You have a good base so far; work on things further. NO (rework/resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/usf/sm64usf.rar - 15 "Piranha Plant's Lullaby" I agree with Vigilante that it's cool to hear someone actually try to arrange this piece. I don't believe I've ever seen anyone in the community express any interest in the original before. The rendered performance sounds thin, even MIDIish at times; more could be done to get the piano sample to sound richer. Performance also felt a little sluggish from 2:34-3:07, not simply on account of the tempo but because the timing felt rigid. Note progression at 3:47 sounded odd; 3:50-4:07 arguably didn't quite seem to fit the prior mood of the piece, but I see how you were trying to move toward the finish. Yeah, some decent ideas so far, but the arrangement was fairly simplistic/straightforward. It's simply up to you to go for something more complicated (and thereby interpretive) than what you have in place now. NO

It's not a bad track all things considered. Needs more polish, but a promising track for a first sub as far as the execution. Hate to be glib, but NO Override. This approach doesn't justify it as a ReMix. A ReMix has to be a video game music arrangement specifically derived from in-game music, not an original piece inspired by a concept from a video game. The Submission Instructions & Standards elaborate on that further. Submit an actual game music arrangement next time.

http://www.exotica.org.uk/tunes/archive/Authors/Game/Freitas_Jean-Francois/Another_World.lha - Another World end (Anothw2.mod) Interesting intro. Some bass and groove bias beetz came in at :17, somewhat exposing the low quality of the encoding, as I heard some fuzz/artifacts, though they were drowned out a bit once the strings kicked in at :35. Some (ultra fakey) plucked strings faded in around :49, while a modulating synth joined in around :57. Though the groove bias is there, it's certainly good to here the track possess some build. Decent dropoff at 1:10 focusing on the modulating synth before bringing in arpeggiated-style (I take a wild guess!) stuff at 1:28. Bowed and (ultra fakey) plucked string synth joined back in at 2:03. Sloppy transition at 2:20 to finally change the mood here, but it didn't work very well. Same with 3:48 to go back to the more upbeat style. Everything has decent buildups and dropoffs, but the grooves here just carry on and on without actually exploring the source tune enough. Based on the sub letter, this "open minded renovation" seemed to be a liberal arrangement of the ending theme, but this certainly doesn't sound much like it. Doesn't sound like the intro theme either (apparently the only other track in the game). In case I'm mistaken, I'll be more than glad to reevaluate this. The construction is promising; a couple of the sounds are used in a beginner-ish way and the production could be more polished, but the overall result is ok to listen to. Good grooves and fairly chill, but too far off from any of the game's music. NO