Liontamer

As promised for this week, we have 2 project shows for the people. Pick 'em up while you can! Duck Hunt: Repercussions of Fowl Lamentation - Wikipedia entry VG Frequency #55 MP3 (188MB/4hr23min) VG Frequency #55 Playlist: http://oc.ormgas.com/forum_viewtopic.php?18.10742 VG Frequency #55 Chat Transcript BONUS: Repercussions of Fowl Lamentation: Plutonium Edition RAR Bound Together - Wikipedia entry VG Frequency #68 MP3 (164MB/3hr59min) VG Frequency #68 Playlist: http://oc.ormgas.com/forum_viewtopic.php?18.12794 VG Frequency #68 Chat Transcript

I never said it wasn't. My point is, if one wishes to present the site as professional, then keep it that way. Mixing in unnecessary personal comments can cause problems. Believe me, I know. This is an amateur site. And when you run the site, you run it the way you want. Sticking with the mix itself, I was looking forward to it since Jordan let me check out one of the VERY early WIPs. I was really impressed buy the arrangement here, which sounded so natural here and downplays some nice liberties taken with the original melody. Great energy per the usual, and a great addition to an otherwise strong project. Looking forward to White Skies later for the huge smash! Judges hate club music!

Golden Sun Anthology OSV - 81 "The Elemental Stars" I just contacted Phil about what Golden Sun material was referenced in this mix, since the VGMix description had that game listed alongside Zelda 3. I didn't remember that until recently and wanted to verify there would be 0 issues with the usage. It's the same source tune used in EgM's latest ReMix "Sol Sanctum Guitar", and Phil pointed out that he briefly referenced material from 1:00 of the original there. Everything checks out, so we're good to go. Congratulations on the debut, Phil!

Too bad I can't contribute in any meaningful fashion, but I can try to keep y'all ROFLed and motivated:

Aight, so it's up to me to make the tough choice on this one, since I had the idea of paneling this as a Halloween mix. I have to apologize to Lars because I felt this had a good chance, but it looks like I'm gonna have to be the bad guy. Personally, I really like the mix. It's certainly a highlight for a lot of people on The Dark Side of Phobos. It functions admirably in an expansive sense, primarily through Elsa's lyrics. Plus in the second half, Lars does some alterations of the source tune's rhythm with the synth guitar that are worthwhile, but the arrangement ultimately could be better. The instrumentation ultimately isn't much different from the source in the first half and could take more liberties with things; again, it's expanded well, but still very similar. I think the guitar synth at 2:49 for the second half of the track needs to be heavier to match the rough vibe you're going for. The supporting guitars are awesome and are a lot meatier than the lead, but that in turn also makes the lead look weak. Right now it's being overshadowed a bit, unfortunately, and is also fairly robotic sounding, so it needs a more nuanced, human sound if possible. The instrumentation is generally good, but the tempo is still basically the same, which makes it seem like too straightforward of an upgrade. The arrangement needs to do more with the melody to distinguish itself from the source as a stand-alone piece, which I'd love to see through a collaboration with someone else, or simply more ideas added to the picture, particularly the second half. Sorry, Lars. I'm sure I got your hopes up with this idea, which is my fault, but I have to vote honestly at all times, and this is ultimately no exception. :'-( NO (resubmit)

It's completely sequenced by hand actually. Good stuff, eh?

Larry has been bugging me to submit this remix for some time and even though Navid said he would take care of it Larry ordered me to do it now. Something to do with Halloween, I dunno (crazy americans)... I cc'ed this mail to him at his request... Contact Info ReMixer name: Larsec, Elsa Persson Real name: Lars Erhardt Christensen, Elsa Persson E-mail address: Larsec@mail.dk Website: http://larsec.net , http://www.livet.se/visa Forum userid: 4104 (Larsec) ReMix Info Game ReMixed: Doom System: PC Tune: d_victory.mid (Text Music) I did this arrangment or the DooM Remix Project (Dark Side of Phobos). I almost didn't make this mix in the first place. I really really wanted to do it but something weird happened on the meassageboard so my post claiming the track "vanished" somehow and it seemed no one was really sure what track was what, and which had been taken. I started working on Slough of Despair instead (which I later had to drop due to lack of time). I decided to pick up the d_victory as well. I was told that if several mixes were made of the same file the "best" one would be used. The ideas for the d_victory midi came in fast so I decided to just go with it and see what happened. My first impression of the track was that it was an "ending credits" track, meant to play as a movie had faded to black (in this case seeing the game as having been a movie). The idea of having actual lyrics sung to the track came rather quickly and I discussed the idea with Mythril Nazgul (Leader of DooM Remix Project). He was easily sold and I started to plan it out. Having the themes played twice, once softly and then once hard. Having the piano play the parts it does seemed rather obvious to me; it fit perfectly. Strings usually go well with piano for these kind of tracks, then just a little percussion and there you go; Part one done. I was very fond of doing metal and metal-ish tracks at the time (still am, I guess). The track also seemed to be good material for this style. I had some farily good guitar samples to use in Rex2 format (from a Clawfinger track made in Reason), good bass samples (also from the Clawfinger track, multisampled), nice drums (Drumkit from Hell). The lead guitar was a multisampled guitar soundfont; Some rythmic work on the guitar, a little bass, a beat for the drums, fills and variation, some detail work on the lead guitar, variation, and then the second half was done. Next thing to do was to write the lyrics. Writing the lyrics was a somewhat tough job. English is not my first language and I am kind of picky when it comes to making lyrics; it has to "flow", the words need to have "magic". It's hard to explain. I go to great lengths to get all the details right (I am a detail freak). The idea was to tell a story and with this being Doom the story had to be dark and disturbing. The story evolves. It starts out kind of general dark and then grows more specific and more dark throughout. By the time the line "Through the flames I see them coming" is sung, the listener learns that the woman telling the story is actually a part of this very story. She tells of creatures that comes to kill everything. Then the listner learns that he/she, too, is part of the story, and just as all hope seems to be gone the storyteller promises to save the listener... But once the listener is within reach of the woman she reveals herself to one of the creatures of Darkness and there is nothing but Doom and death left for the listener... That was the idea, anyway... How it turned out is up to you Next, I needed to find a singer, preferably female. I knew that a couple of the girls from the vocal group Visa Rösta had done some singing for a couple of Commodore 64 remixes (besides their singing in Visa Rösta), so I contacted Pex Mahoney and he arranged for Elsa to sing the lyric (her voice was perfect for this project). After the recording had been done he did a fast mixdown and the result was great indeed. He additionally recorded some choir voices for the background. It was beautiful:) I then recieved all the wav files and did a lot of sorting and cutting and pasting and mixing and what have we... I added some "spooky" effects to make things even more disturbing and clear to the story. I am happy with the result. Things and ideas changed along the way to fit new things and ideas and it all came together great I think... So enjoy it all you can and go crazy Oh, and the "DOOM I'M BRINGING!!!" that is yelled as the last thing lyrical in the song is actually me shouting through a bullhorn --- There we go, I think that's it... Hope you enjoy... /Larsec

http://www.zophar.net/gym/sonic2.rar - Boss (Robotnik Theme.gym) Played this on VGF64 to help open things up. The piano intro is good, but muddy in the low end and very mechanical-sounding. Cool stuff at :29 warming up to the source material. Cool stuff with the organ, which sounded nice and flowy. The percussion was a little overbearing and low-energy considering how relatively sparse the atmosphere was. Some very GMish sounding stuff on support that I could hear the most at :57, 1:20, 1:28 etc. More good stuff at 1:45 with the bass along with the record player SFX along with the sax axxtion from Brad at 1:57, though the sequenced and MIDI keyboard stuff doesn't sound as good as it could and only gets maybe halfway there at having some very infectious energy. The arrangement is where it needs to be, and Brad performance is a good contribution. The soundfield needs a bit more depth to it, and the instrumentation needs more realism and polish. I'd love to see some good tips from other Js on that level. I know this has been a long time in the making, Matt, but I'd like to see this worked on further for the YES. NO (resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozmmusf.rar - 124 "Final Hours", 230 "Evan's Piano Solo" & 253 "Staff Roll" Thanks for laying out the source tunes in my style. Things opened up arranging "Final Hours" though I didn't really make the connection until :39. Immediately starting out, the atmosphere was somewhat dull and lo-fi; the sounds tended to mud together in the low-end, and the lead string was somewhat flat, IMO. Production issues aside, I liked the buildup from :59-1:02. 1:02-1:07 was a non sequitur transition idea. Not that you should scrap it, I just couldn't tell what it was supposed to be. I loved the vibe at 1:16; the writing was really cool and has some good energy in principle, even though the instrumentation was flat once again. Again though, everything's still bleeding into each other in the soundfield. Some odd stuff though after 1:49, seemed like a whole host of notes were wrong, and the timing was getting sloppy from 2:02-2:13. Yeesh, this track fell apart pretty fucking fast. Ugliness continues all the way until 2:53 switches the genre entirely to some loud beats and a generic electrosynth. Strange move to be sure. Some lame beats joined in at 3:29, and I can hear a very light e-piano until 3:42 where the notes were all wrong as well, and didn't work in conjunction with the lead. Finally switched to a new section at 4:07 that's decidedly more coherent, though the instrumentation was all very basic and didn't have a good texture at all. Pretty disappointed in this. It went from at least decent/promising orchestration ideas to haphazard orchestration, followed by this very barebones and basic electronic stuff. The presentation overall was very incoherent and disjointed and had a lot of problematic writing. The atmosphere was exceedingly dull, which limited any enjoyment. Needs a ton of work, bro. I'd suggest scrapping it and moving onto the next work. Keep practicing and making substantial use of the ReMixing and Works forums to keep improving and get more feedback. NO

Time changes always happen on 2AM of the designated day.

OZ Original Soundtrack - 201 "Overcoming Sadness ~Beginning the Journey~" Bleh. First off, this is way too conservative. There is near-0 meaningful interpretation of the material here, IMO. While it didn't strike me quite as a rip, the original is basically left as is and the instruments are more defaulty electronic-sounding. If it's NO Override, someone else can get rid of it. Not to mention this is a downgrade in sound quality and design compared to the original as soon as things get going at :08. There was some terrible, flat brass in the background from 1:05-1:18 that was all wrong notes and didn't complement the melody correctly. The groove continued ad nauseum throughout the track, never providing any contrast/dynamics to keep things interesting. That's not to shit on this entirely. Despite the cluttered sound and occasionally abrasive instrumentation, this already sounds better than most submissions we get, so you obviously have some degree of skill at this. Hang at the ReMixing forum here to learn how to work with your sounds better and further develop those skills, and get fan feedback for future submissions at the Works forum. The is predominantly a rearrangement site, so go for much more interpretation please. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/kage.zip - Tracks 7 & 4 On man, this soundtrack is sweet. These guys wrote the Shatterhand soundtrack later on as well. I keep saying, I LOVE the '90s NES stuff that really took advantage of the system's capabilites to produce some very polished chiptunes with a lot of layers and density. This soundtrack joins the ranks of other gold like Treasure Master, Shatterhand, and Megaman VI. Played this on VGF65 when I had the lady, ThatPaige, as my guest host. She hates rock & metal, so I made sure to turn this up in the studio for some extra beefy ear assault. That'll teach her, you know what I'm sayin'? Good expansive cover-style arrangement with tons of personal flair and expansion. I'm generally pretty short on words with Marcos's stuff, because he never leaves any doubt as to whether there's creativity and interpretation brought to the table. Great power, great energy. If you like it loud... YES

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/loz3.rsn - "Overworld" (loz3-04.spc), "Dark World" (loz3-12.spc), "The Goddess Appears" (loz3-24.spc) [also as OoT "Great Fairy's Fountain"], "Title" (loz3-01.spc) http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozusf.rar - 35 "Lost Woods", 40 "Great Fairy's Fountain" [also as LttP "The Goddess Appears"], 57 "Windmill Hut", 03 "Deku Tree" Frankly, I felt this was a relatively tough call, as I can't judge this piece independantly of other orchestrated Zelda pieces. I'll be straight up with you when I say I feel the bar for those type of pieces is really high. Right now, I thought the arrangement was pretty good; it manages to have many good parts where themes are given some good interpretation and even areas where two source tunes combine into one via melody/counterpoint (most noticeable, for example, at 1:53). One thing that's generally unavoidable given this track's format, was that drasted medleyitis, which was here in pretty full force. If you encoded this in a VBR format averaged at around 100kbps, you'd be able to actually add up to a minute and a half of material and flesh out your arrangements of the source tunes a bit further. While I felt the various tunes were ultimately underdevelop as a whole, this was decidedly more interpretive than the major majority of huge medleys we get, so it could feasibly gain some backing on that level. Though I felt the performance aspect of the sounds was fairly realistically handled, another issue I had was with the instrumentation not being quite expressive enough. It's not bad at all, and I'd defer to the opinions of our experienced orchestrators on that issue, but personally, I thought there was a little room for improvement. That doesn't mean you need der ubersamples or even different samples at all, IMO. Frankly, this sub already shows off the great results that can be gained from exclusively using free samples, which so many haters nonetheless insist is a bane of the panel. There were also some areas where I felt sounds clashed, most notably at 2:36 when the Fairy theme is supplemented by some oddly written strings. Then around 3:06, the crossfade used in order to shift from 4/4 to 3/4 was REALLY awkward and disjointed. The strings brought in at 3:47 under the Windmill Hut/Song of Storms theme also weren't in the same key, so the gradual transition from major to minor by 4:24 also felt poorly done. Other Js' comments on those areas, and whether or not they actually function properly, would be informative for both myself and the submitter. Overall, a cool, but slightly underdeveloped medley that I feel could use a bit of polish. Addressing some of the seemingly glaring issues in the previous paragraph might iron out some of the more overt/rougher kinks that are holding me back from the YES. I think this needs a bit more, but congratulate you on a very good first submission, Paul. Best of luck on the rest of the vote, bro. NO (refine/resubmit)

Warcraft II ~ Tides Of Darkness & B.Net Edition (Game Rip) - 16 "Orc 02" http://www.mirsoft.info/wogm_download.php?data=YTozOntpOjA7czo0OiIyODI0IjtpOjE7aToxMTMwNDU1MDg1O2k6MjtpOjM7fQ== - Orc2gm.mid Listened to both the original version and the MIDI because I can. This didn't seem very hot at all to me. Maybe some potential was there, but I didn't hear it. Fairly plodding and boring. The instrumentation certainly attempts to put a different spin on the source tune with the electronic style, but sounds like a total downgrade in sound quality, and the arrangement as compared to the original doesn't have much going for it. Nothing particularly interpretive that I heard. The instrumentation is all dry and flat and the texture is poor. No N-R-G, homey. The inclusion of the marching drums from 1:53-2:21 was a low point, as adding something that's meant to sound rich and real in concept doesn't work when it sounds so robotic and synthetic. You should definitely take zircon's advice in terms of exploring new, free sounds and refining your synth design techniques, but at the same time, I wouldn't waste the effort on that to specifically work further on this. Better to move on to fresh ideas, or at the least apply more substantial interpretation here. NO

Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga - 01 "Main Theme" Covered this as part of May's material for VG Frequency, so I'm glad to see it here: Like Christian mentioned, this was also part of Splendid Performance: On the Keys, and was pretty cool stuff. The original had the whole epic/cinematic thing going for it, but the style was a bit generic to me, so I'm interested in making the comparison now and seeing what CPac managed to do with it. He immediately opens the arrangement, going for the riffs from :10 of the source. Piece sounds rather quiet from the outset, so I was hoping for some more volume to at least indicate this was more purposeful. I don't think the realism in the sampling is up there with Chrono Trigger "Memories from the Wind Scene", so I'd be interested in some suggestions on that. Sounded somewhat mechanical but was ultimately alright as the performance dynamics were otherwise pretty good. Melody hit another iteration at 1:46, and the volume picked up nicely at 2:15 for some good contrast. Some slight distortion at 2:20 and a little bit after that during the louder spots. Nice idea with 2:43-3:08, starting off quietly once again and building the volume up while also increasing the tension, though it could have been a little better there, as it sounded like the volume was simply fading up, rather than the "player" pressing down more strongly on the keys. Having heard this now, a few month down the line from the summer, I think this one is on the lower end of CP's own works in terms of sound quality. Again, it's not bad, just not QUITE as polished. On the arrangement front, this obviously had the goods to spare, and was a good listen. While providing good contrast from section to section, it generally gave off a more gentle, contemplative atmosphere than the original. Perfect for murdering people, yes? YES

http://exotica.fix.no/tunes/archive/C64Music/Hatlelid_Kris/Test_Drive_2_The_Duel_PSID.sid DeliPlayer wouldn't play the .kh MOD file, and the SID file was a bust as well, so it was the PSID to the rescue, which I've linked to here. Fine SFX for the intro here. Source fades in right at :11 while some additional SFX supplements things. Synth design is pretty weak as the lead is rather plain-jane, along with the beats/percussion coming in at :44. Some quasi-electric guitar synth had the same lacking feel at 1:03. Melody comes in at 1:30 for the basic coverage. Whole thing sounds pretty dry, as TO alluded to. Fakey strings anchored the next section at 2:48 but didn't fill up the sonic space well. Some decent original writing to build off of the style of the source tune. Good use of the NES/chiptune-style sounds at 3:23, along with the SFX. Guitar returns at 3:46 and still has no edge and no power to it; it's a pretty lacking sample choice. Track drives along a bit better at 4:03, even though the arrangement is pretty repetitive. The instrumentation is still so dry, dull, and lifeless that it makes the encoding sound more like 80kbps CBR rather than 131kbps VBR. zircon would have some good tips to improve a track like this. More arrangement ideas and better production are needed to have a shot. NO

http://exotica.fix.no/tunes/archive/C64Music/Hubbard_Rob/Sanxion.sid - Subtune 1 ("Thalamusik") Glad you weren't intimidated by the material here; we welcome most submissions, so thanks for sending it in! Starts off with some rain SFX and then some very dull-sounding synths; sounds like there's not much high-end here. Lasts for a while until 1:03 kicks in some other content. Pretty standard dance groove comes in at 1:12 with the source melody arriving at 1:26 with some pretty standard coverage. Takes a break at 2:07, but immediately goes for another iteration of the source at 2:11. Some better stuff at 2:35 before going back to those screechy sounds at 2:42 that, IMO, don't do anything to enhance the track. Still getting a distinct dull sound from this track; there's no sharpness anywhere. 2:35-section is referenced again at 3:30. Another section of the source at 3:58 with some very mechanical-sounding and low-quality strings. More of the source from 1:26 again at 5:08. Basically just looking for more rearrangement/interpretation of the source beyond the dance-style genre conversion. The foundation is decent, but the sounds are dull and the groove gets a bit lazy after a while. Some fat could be trimmed off, or you could have gone for more variation throughout the course of the track via more subtleties from section to section when using the same melodies. Cool stuff, but not up the bar unfortunately. I don't believe I've seen your name around at Remix.Kwed.Org, Gordon, so I particuarly encourage you to submit this mix there as well! Looking forward to future submissions. NO

You're Seattle UnderCoat.

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/dkq.rsn - "Stickerbush Symphony" (dkq-17.spc) Decent idea for the spooky-ish intro; melody comes in shortly after at :21. Pretty straightforward usage; track's sizing up to be pretty simple and inoffensive right now. Some FL-ish gated synth came in at 1:01 and aside from the genre adaptation, the melody's being clung to like so many monkeys in the trees. The instrumentation is pretty basic. It's complementary to the melody but doesn't seem to really gel with it. The energy level is decidedly low, IMO. Some breakbeat loops came in at 1:57, but didn't seem to fit the overall idea here, though I'm giving them a chance. Finally, some significant reinterpretation from 2:36-3:21, before going back to one more iteration of the source to close. I think the track sounds decent, but the interpretation plays it too safe and the sounds are flat. If you're gonna go for a breakbeat mix, you gotta spice it up. NO

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/kss.rsn - "Dynablade Area 2" (kss-17.spc) Been a fan of this source tune every since randomly listening to the Kirby Superstar soundtrack. Stuff that translates well to the downtempo format. Cool e-piano intro. Nice light cymbals come in at :10 along with more perc at :21, and tastefully used Kirby SFX at :26 that'll make DarkeSword proud. Some of the phrasing once the melody came in at :32 was really off. I see how you were trying to transpose the source tune here, but it isn't quite handled correctly at :40, 1:02 or elsewhere where it's used. Maybe I'm offbase, so we'll let the theory guys handle that one. Good way to drop the beats out at 1:13. The cymbals were still pretty busy there and kind of drag the section out a bit, but you had much needed variation on the instrumentation at 1:35 with the more oraganic percussion being brought in. The distortion brought in at 1:57 doesn't sound very good. Gray might have some issues with how well this software-created distortion was pulled off. Personally I don't think it clicks here as it's also too subdued-sounding (making it seem unpurposeful to a casual listener) and interferes a bit with the other sounds. The steel drum stuff from 2:08-2:18 sounds a bit too artificial as well as subdued; the tail end of that part could be written a bit better as well, as 2:15-2:19 doesn't seem to contrast well with the e-piano. 2:40 moves over to some more breakbeat style stuff, keeping the distortion and e-piano. Admittedly glad the distortion dropped out at 3:01 for the last section. The strings from 3:01 until the end seemed to clash with things as well. The last few notes of the e-piano are a little exposed, but that's minor. Anyway, this was decent all around, just lacking a certain energy, even for downtempo. I don't necessarily think more instrumentation or volume is needed, as that could ruin an otherwise good thing so far, though those methods could hook this up if treated right. Straight up though, this feels flat overall. Where's the processing? Where's the N-R-G 'n shizz? Unfortunately, I have to hope another J will be able to articulate these issues better than I. With some of the off/conflicting writing fixed, some sort of change regarding the involvement of the distortion, as well as a bit more energy this would be a solid YES. It's your most promising work yet on the panel. Keep working on it, Paul. NO (resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/gsf/hod_gsf.rar - 10 "Chapel of Dissonance" Ooh, whatever that lead is to start off with, pretty nice. We get some piano at :16 followed by some mangled up SFX at :25 that initially didn't sound like voices. Cooler still from :33-:52; hard concept to get a grip on but that's why it works. The SFX does a nice job of filling out the arrangement, and I love the beefing up of the percussion at 1:15 for the next iteration of the source melody that begins at 1:07. The whole feel is VERY We Love Katamari style, majestic in some ways, surreal and conflicted in others. Artsy-fartsy articulation of my stream of consciousness or not, plainly-spoken this is memorable stuff. Good acceleration at 2:15 with the piano and synth runs, the glassy-type sounds, and crazy percussion. Even moreso from 3:06-3:23, which was a little cluttered IMO, but had that same energy to it before going back to the more regal instrumentation from 3:42-4:16. A bit dense, a bit shrill, but nearly all beautiful. Though I thought the very ending from 4:58-5:22 wasn't the strongest way to end things, good near-ending from 4:33 until the end to cyclically tie things back to the feel of the beginning. Arrangement is all sorts of bueno, and if you check the source tune, you really see how it fits in Sam's style already. It actually sounds like something he could write if he was a composer for Game Boy Advance material, so this mix was a pleasing upgrade of sounds and extension of the compositional ideas of Hokkai's original. Can't really ask for more than that around here. YES

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/guardian.zip - Track 6 Cool jazzy stuff for the intro before the melody came in at :23. It was a little low in volume, but anything lourder could have turned annoying with the way the lead modulates; kinda piercing. Everything's very, very funky and groovy, and locks together well, despite the disjointed way the casual listeners may feel about Sam's stuff. Though I wish the sound was richer, I like how he manages to pull a good sound of out the faux slap-bass once again, moving to another groovier section at 1:37. Cool e-piano work at 2:16. I'm just really liking how Sam was able to get so much mileage out of the source material for a very admirable genre adaptation style arrangement. It's very synthetic per the usual for these "oddball" mixes of his, but well put-together. I liked the change in speed and style at 3:44 for a more laid-back last section. The general tempo here ensures that a lot of substance was crammed into the 4:47. The panel may not have worked out for you, but the music thing always does. Not quite as solid as some other stuff of yours like the original "Symbiotic Funk", as some of the sounds in the forefront are a little thin but an easy addition to my playlist. Now onto "Behold the Winged Cathedral"... YES

http://www.mirsoft.info/wogm_download.php?data=YToyOntpOjA7czo1OiIxMzIyNCI7aToxO2k6MTEzMDM3NjI1OTt9 - "Tyrian, The Level" & "Camanis" I didn't mind the piano intro. It's kind of thin and fakey, but at the same time, I think it fits the style. It could easily work in favor of the track. The bassline at :12 is awfully soft and flimsy. Things get going more at :25, but the texture is sparse as hell and the instrumentation is very basic/preset-ish. The percussion does nothing to fill out the track. Guitar at 1:16 was a decent idea, but of course it sounds too artifical in the performance and now the percussion seems out of place and just doesn't fit the style, and that was without reading the pervious votes beforehand. Some more piano runs added at 1:55, but the atmosphere is really cluttered. At the 3 minute mark, things finally changed around a bit with "Camanis" being brought in. The transition wasn't very thought out, so it would help to write one. I like the more string-based feel here, but as with everything else, it sounds very mechanical and doesn't flow well. Too long and not a very energetic track, unfortunately. Keep trying to improve, Bren! NO

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/sm.rsn - "Opening ~ Destruction of the Space Colony" (sm-15.spc), "Theme of Samus Aran ~ Galactic Warrior" (sm-22.spc) & "Theme of Super Metroid" (sm-16.spc) Pretty basic orchestration. The brass needs to sound richer and strings need to sound fuller. Right now, the volume is so low & subdued and the samples used so dryly that it all undermines whatever drama you're trying to create via dynamics and composition. The string movements at from :53-1:19 are pretty artificial-sounding; the bow movement sounds very synthetic. Plus you pull sounds out abruptly, like one fading string that was part of a doubled set at 1:13 and then the second at 1:19. All of the instrumentation is lifeless and devoid of emotion. The vox at 1:54 is a good example, but everything else you used qualified here as being flat as well. The arrangement has potential, but the use of your samples needs work. The foundations in place are good, but you need to know how to provide the nuances that give vibrancy and human-sounding performace. Camp out in the ReMixing forum to learn more. I'd say resubmit, Markus, but that's only if you improve drastically in 3 or 4 months. There's potential, but I'd likely call this a done deal and move on. Good first sub though; keep on trying to improve! NO

Thanks for providing the sources. I'm a big fan of Track 12 after first hearing it a few years ago from an old roommate of mine who pimped some of those tracks to me shortly after I found OCR and we got more into game music. Yeah, hate to be glib with a piggyback vote, but TO nailed all of the relevant issues. He's definitely right in that the two source tune piece together very comfortably. Unfortunately, the arrangement left all of the melodic content intact, swapped the samples, added some stock drums and added some fake, weak electric guitar. Even the intro is ripped straight from the original. Very sparse mix the whole way through. No sense of texture whatsoever. It really marginalizes and poorly minimizes some otherwise proimising material. The two source tunes are basically just glued together at the ends and don't connect in any way. By the 3 minute mark, this was dragging out horribly. Better luck with future works. NO