Liontamer

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/ninja_ga.zip - Track 9 [NES version] http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ngt.rsn - "Mine" (ngt-120.spc) [sNES version] Good stuff with this one. Played it back on VGF59, and knew it would be here relatively soon. Some of the steel-string guitar plucks really get up there in volume. Scale it back. Bah. Anyway, Don had another nice mix, this time a bit more conservative but certainly not without its personal flair and charm, and plenty of expanded instrumentation ideas. Everything was stylish and varied as far as the arrangement went, and there's not really any question about that. Dunno if DarkeSword will feel that this mix was also plagued with the punchiness of "Flurry of Frozen Fury", but in any case I had no doubts that I liked this, though the production work wasn't as solid as it was in Flurry. The mixing became an issue during some of the fuller parts, most notably the last little bit from 3:49-4:04; the volume was excessive and the sounds cluttered together a bit. Something to work on in the future. Keep 'em coming! YES

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Chrono_Cross_psf.rar - 113 "Leaving the Body" I liked how you toned down the volume a little bit and eliminated some of the needlessly loud high frequencies from last time, like the cymbal activity. But aside from that, there really wasn't much difference in the production here as compared to your last version, which I kept because I liked it a hell of a lot. I see that you added panning on those synths from :40-:54 & 2:06-2:20, and I liked the idea there, but that was the only significant panning idea involved in the whole track. Nonetheless, those sounds were very clear. Same goes for that saw-like synth you added in from 1:25-1:52. You should pull back the volume on that particular synth, but that sounded clear and crisp as well. Any idea how to get the rest of your track sounding like that? The track did sound noticeably cleaner than before, but it still sounds too distant and muffled. Check it out on some good headphones. I'm glad you didn't change the arrangement though. No need to touch that gold. Sorry my man, but there's still a lot of work to be done with the mixing on this track. It really needs to be overhauled from the ground up. Really get things sounding awesome before you try resubmitting it again. Also, PM a judge to check it out for a resubmission instead of submitting through djpretzel a second time. You could have saved yourself a lot of wait time. NO (resubmit)

Hahaha, so fucking dope! Though the instrumentation obviously doesn't sound human, this was some stylish stuff, and I thought it the MGS2 Main Theme was excellently arranged for salsa. I loved simple but effective ideas like using the piano on support to play chords from the original. The movements on the intro strings strained for credibility and realism, leaving me underwhelmed, but once things kicked in at :31 things were a lot more positive. The lead horn could use some more work, but the effort there along with the effort in the rest of the instrumentation was commendable overall. Loved the baseline, shakers, and percussion. Great stuff. The sudden-stop ending left me muy triste because this could have wrapped up more strongly and creatively, but otherwise, this was some nice shit. If anyone rejects on the grounds of "make it longer" or "make a better ending", I don't have a problem with that, but I myself felt the rest of the track made up for those issues. Nicely done, Jorge. I look forward to hearing you develop and improve with future work. YES

http://www.zophar.net/usf/pdusf.rar - 26b "Air Force One: Anti-Terrorism" Not a bad original intro here for the first 40 seconds or so. The soundfield was cluttered and the mixing lacked any polish, but the groove was decent. The lead synth entering at :43 finally brought the source's melody into play. The arrangement mostly proceeded with additive ideas gradually coming into play until 1:36 removed some ideas, which didn't really retain my interest in this case. I thought the structure was too repetitive. Nothing melodic changed until 2:28, which was just over halfway through the track. At that point, there were nothing in the background driving the track along, since the bassline had been removed, but some cymbal work finally filled things out a bit around 3:03. Even just going into 3:30, the track really dragged along with further repetition. Either trim the repetitive fat off this or provide some more variation in the arrangement. Also, find out what you can do to achieve a better speration of sounds here, as well as perhaps add some other support instrumentation to give this track some drive and direction. Good stuff for a first sub; you had some good ideas and as well as the potential to make some powerful sounding stuff in the future. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/mpnt.rsn - Creative Exercise (mpnt-09.spc) I ended up not feeling anything I've heard from the happy hardcore genre so far, but I think that's because I haven't anything awesome from the genre yet. Palpable's take on it certainly has a lot of potential, but I don't think it lives up to his previous tracks just yet. Not a fan of the keyboard being so exposed like that from :12-:33 & 1:59-2:10; just sounded really tacky and default-ish. The lead coming in at :35 did a nice job of relegating it to being the support instrumentation. When the keyboard was prominent and exposed it sounded awful, but in the back it added to the track nicely. The chorus from :58-1:08 would be all kosher with me if the volume didn't get so loud the and soundfield wasn't so swamped. The texture of the synths, keyboard, claps, orchestral stabs, beats, etc, felt awfully thin to me, and I felt the arrangement should have done something more with the theme from 2:22 until the end, rather than retread what you already laid down before. Good stuff so far, but I feel as if it could be more in regards to the instrumentation, as well as the arrangement in the second half. NO (resubmit)

Opened with some MIDI-grade instrumentation with the strings; very artificial sounding. The wind stuff was a bit better, and the vox was average. Not many elements were in play here at any give time, using reverb/delay on the vox to fill up the soundfield instead. Not a bad tempo change around the two minute mark. That hand percussion stuff that came in at that time was too loud/prominent over the top of the other sounds. Finally some meat to the arrangement with some brass at 2:57, though for me that's too little too later. The soundfield was pretty swamped from that point onward. Not bad, but nothing that varied much in the arrangement or stood out as interesting. Keep at it, bro. Definitely not bad at all for a first mix. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FFX_psf2.rar - 405 "People of the Far North" The opening piano sounds too synthetic and unnatural and just doesn't work in this context. Vary up the velocities and add the human touch to it. The production is awfully mediocre and lo-fi for some reason. The percussion is flat, and Jill's voice sounds poorly recorded and lacks clarity. During the busier sections, her voice needs to be brought up in volume. On top of that, I felt the arrangement was way too liberal and doesn't sound a thing like "People of the Far North". Dan & Jill both make good work, but the mixing needs to be reworked from the ground up. As for the arrangement itself, I dunno if anyone else will agree with me after listening to the source, but I can't pass the arrangement in its current form. I'd certainly give it another shot if it was resubmitted. NO (resubmit) EDIT: Arrangement not an issue, plus the production has been subtantially overhauled by Gray. The revised vote's at the bottom.

http://www.zophar.net/gym/SK+SONIC3.RAR - 07 "Hydrocity Zone 2" Waiting for something to happen with the source material. Atmosphere lacks clarity. The arranged strings at :21 and the low pad played strikingly different notes from the original melodic progression, so that threw me off a but. New stuff at :46 with the lead that made a nice connection with the source. The horns first used at 1:05 sounded very fake. 1:30 briefly shifted to the Hydrocity Zone melody. Aside from the supporting synth, the arranged material from 1:45-1:59 sounded nothing like the source. Not really gonna comment on any other specific section, because the whole way through I was just getting a lot of brief verbatim source tune sections surrounded by beatwork and then original/overly liberal sections that are inspired by Hydrocity Zone. Needs to have more melodic interpretation of the source material, rather than use this current approach. Production also needs to be sharper and livelier, because a lot of the instrumentation felt flat to me, but it's better than most subs we get. I liked the string-based ending, but I'm not sure why that gunshot ending was in there. NO (resubmit)

No offense, bro, the arrangement is ok, but I'm not gonna deeply analyze the arrangement and see how that is until we get a sub that's not ridiculously lo-fi. I dunno what you were using to listen to this, but there's absolutely no clarity here at all. The sampled instruments sound decent but need more realism. Get more feedback and advice from the WIP and ReMixing forums. If you really love this 12-minute version, VGMix is certainly a good option for it, so encode it at a higher bitrate and showcase it there. I can't speak for the the others, but I wouldn't accept anything under 96kbps unless the encoding was in VBR and had top-flight sound quality for its bitrate. Pretty much any track over 8 minutes has a near-zero shot of passing as it is. NO

I'm overly familiar with the source material, as GGX has some great music. The GGXX version of "Writhe in Pain" was slightly remixed, but, for all intents and purposes, the same as the GGX version. Thanks for providing a copy of the GGXX source tune. I definitely heard the source tune used in here, but this was still an awfully liberal mix, with a host of original ideas that had nothing to do with the source, so overall I felt you didn't use the original enough. The opening woodwind opened with a meloody similar to the source, then went into some original material at :13. I heard motifs gleaned/inspired from from the original, but the connection doesn't seem to be overt enough. I appreciate the attempt to give the instrumentation some natural-sounding performance dynamics, but the samples used here all sounded fairly flat to me. The percussion was incredibly random and stuck out like a sore thumb; didn't mesh well with the piece at all, and the constant drum hits from 2:22-2:50 were tacky and egregious. The section starting at 3:08 was average; still pretty much the same problems - flat instrumentation, overbearing drumwork, and overly liberal arrangement that I couldn't tie to the original. I'll pass on it. NO

Oh please, this is excellent. Very catchy/engaging stuff.

New Poll! Who thinks Compyfox's controller is bigger than Bladiators? The lady is full of good ideas. (see above)

http://www.zophar.net/gym/SK+SONIC3.RAR - 43 "Azure Lake" The notes on the pads at the outset sounded too ethereal and unfocused. By :32, the timing of the beatwork is a bit strange. The synths chosen for the source tune at :37 were obscured by the beatwork, hand drums and supporting synths. Then at 1:09, the lead changed to some generic electrosynth. The arranged melody became very random-sounding and unfocused at 1:26; it was like the notes were changed around for the sake of doing something different with the source material simply because you're required to. 1:42-2:48 was really boring with no melody to latch onto for so long, though the strings added in at 2:07 were actually a very nice touch, and were something I'd have loved to hear you build off of more and tie it into the "Azure Lake" arrangement. Still disliking the arranged melody from 3:04-3:21. The key change at 3:21 needed a lot more substantial of a transition than what you gave it, and the arrangement behind final section from 3:29 until the end was plodding and dragged out too long. I heard the effort at arrangement, but nothing was cohesive as far as a melody went, with the brief exceptions of when the "Azure Lake" theme was used verbatim. Sorry Ross, I feel bad that I can't offer much in the way of suggestions on how to rework this. Frankly, the melody was minimized an awful lot and there wasn't enough substance in either the structure or the direction of the track. I'd rather you called this one a done deal and moved onto the next project. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ed.rsn - "The Battle of the Island in the Void" (ed-02.spc) & "Last Battle" (ed-03.spc) Played this one on VGF45, and I'm actually surprised we didn't get this sooner, now that Mike brings up how he lost the submission letter he thought he sent. And indeed, if I had remembered this more vividly, I would have nagged Mike about it as well. Thanks to Mike for providing us the breakdown of how the arrangement went, though I didn't need it myself. I'm a big fan of the Lufia source material ever since hearing Arkimedes tackle the Lufia 2 version of the last battle theme. The performance here was excellent; full of beautiful, emotive energy and delicate dynamics. I liked the changes in the playing style late in the track after the arrangement hit another iteration at 1:57, though I could have gone for more variation instead. Thus for me the feel was a bit repetitive, but this was still an engaging fusion of the two source themes here. Now you've just gotta get your orchestration up there, but like I've said before, I feel you'll be able to in due time and be able to bring it on a consistent basis. For those of you out there not familiar with Darangen's original or remixed piano material, this serves as a excellent indicator of range you may not have known he had. Nice work. YES

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF9_psf.rar - 210 "Freya's Theme" The production work on this was pretty bad. The guitars were just too loud and cluttered, plus (while a good cover of a cool theme) the arrangement was too conservative in my opinion. The rain sound effect running throughout the background was serviceable, but if you presented some cleaner sounding guitar work the rain SFX would have sounded too lo-fi. The guitar guys among the group can give some insightful feedback on the strength of the performance itself. I genuinely enjoyed the rendention you had here, Evan, including the original material from 2:01-2:40, but otherwise there's gotta be interpretation and rearrangement here. Play around more with this theme. Also, head over to the ReMixing forum to research what you can do to achieve better recordings with the resources at your disposal, and get fan feedback from the WIP forum for future submissions. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/sf2.rsn - "Ryu" (sf2-05.spc) & "Ryu's Ending" (sf2-23.spc) Aside from rhythmic alterations, the :25-:52 was pretty conservative, but I liked the beats you wrapped around the theme, and the rearrangement effort here was noticeable. Not sure why this was made so quietly; kinda sapped the energy out of this. And indeed, like you said in your submission letter, you mixed this too low. Beef the volume up. Ryu's ending theme showed up briefly at :51, then some drumloops were there at :57. The ideas are switching too quickly without providing enough substance. The arrangement ideas on each section have to be well-written and well-executed in order to pull something risky like that off. The "Hadoken", "Fight!" and death scream samples from 1:25-1:34 were really tacky. Crazy hat activity from 1:35-1:48. Some of the genre ideas were genuinely interesting, but the structure is awfully haphazard like Shna alluded to. That honestly downplays how much I liked the ideas here. This was actually pretty ambitious, and I'm a sucker for a pimp bassline. Stick around and read up on ways to improve your structure, instrumentation and production in the ReMixing forum here and/or the VGMix Conservatory and post to the WIP forum here to get more feedback before future submissions. Keep at it, bro. Dan might have some Ryu/Ryu Ending material in the works, so I'm looking forward to his possible opinion on how you treated the source material. NO (resubmit)

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/starfox.rsn - "Corneria" (sf-09.spc) Cool opening sound until :12. I didn't like the faux electric guitar type lead synth entering in at :13 at all though. Also, though that lead was the most prominent instrument, it still couldn't cut through the mass of other sounds going on. Otherwise, I felt the structure here was aight. Surprisingly solid. Everything on the production side lacked clarity and separation. The organ at :36 was being obscured by the bass and all of the beatwork going on. Yeah, I liked the big-beat type approach, but the melodic content was too obscured pretty much the entire time. The low synth arriving at 1:21 didn't mesh well with the other sounds, and IMO could have been pulled back a bit. Finally at 1:51 we get something at least reminiscent of the Wingless with some piano work, though the piano work sounded flooded. I was actually feeling the most of the crazy ideas here, but the production was definitely weak. Indeed, everything sounds even more rough and indistinct at 2:27 and moreso at 2:50. I've gotta give Ravi serious props in that I actually liked most of the arrangement ideas and he managed to present them in a much more coherent manner than I've heard in all of his previous subs. But if you're having SGX master your material (and Danny's stuff typically sounds awesome), then have him tell you what you can do to sharpen the sounds a bit in the mixing phase, bring more separation and clarity to the picture and achieve a more fitting sound balance amongst your instruments. Otherwise, the ReMixing forum is the place to go. Cool shit, nonetheless. Is John's vote in the bag? NO (resubmit)

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ed2.rsn - "Battle #2" (ed2-113.spc) Bah, I've hit "great source tune bias!" But in all seriousness, I was really disappointed by this one for simply playing it straight most of the way through and not taking any liberties with the original material. Seemed like this might be remixing an entirely different theme until the familiar intro from the source showed up at :17. The source tune was kept verbatim, the instrumentation was sparse, and the beats were too bland & repetitive. Track looped for another go at 1:29. All of these conditions result in making me a sad judge. Changing things up at 2:34, especially into such a simplistic groove at 2:56, was way too little too late. :'-( NO

as you know, submitted song somewhere between the end of may and the beginning of april. The song remixed is: Vents of Medusa From: Ecco 2 The Tides of Time to avoid the confusion of last time... IT IS FROM THE SOUNDTRACK ON THE SEGA GAME GEAR VERSION! The original song in .vgz format is HERE! My remix of it can be found here: As you already know, i have a remix of the same song on the site already. So having to be very different with it is what i have done. uhmm thats all i got if you need more info..which i doubt, let me know bye -------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/vgm/ecco2.zip - "Vents of Medusa" http://www.ocremix.org/detailmix.php?mixid=OCR01018 - "Madusa Mix" Since Allen has already mixed the same source material before for OCR, it's linked here to make the comparison over whether this sub is different enough. Though the electrosynths and claps were pretty standard, Allen made this arrangement work. I liked the layering of his melodic lines, i.e. the belltone-type synth and electrosynth (e.g. :07-:14), and the subsequent harmonizing going on (e.g. :14-:42). The volume's a little bit much for me, but it's nothing I take off points for, as the mixing is OK. Even for having the same basic groove for the first minute, things were energetic and arranged simplistically but nicely. Good thick bass shot at 1:27 that made a nice transition point to some more arrangement that didn't have to rely on beats to fill out the space until those came back at 2:02. The only thing holding me back on this is that from 2:07 until the end at 3:07, the groove and the arrangement were basically just retreading themselves. I liked some of the more subtle changes, like the lower electrosynth from 2:43-2:49, but those alterations were too little to keep things progressive and developing towards the end. Not that you can't ever repeat anything ever in the track, but at least provide something more or different with the last minute for some variation. This was, mind you, a relatively short mix, and comparing to the even shorter Medusa Mix that mix had more variation going on. As long as the last minute is worked on a bit, I'm there with a solid YES, but I've gotta ask for a resubmission. NO (definitely resubmit)

Thanks to Sam for hosting the original Landstalker material. "After Guardians" is probably one of the best-sounding examples of material that EVER came out of the Yamaha YM 2612 FM chip, it's that well-made. I'm definitely interested in hearing what else Motoaki Takenouchi came up with for the game. Moving onto the remix itself, after an intro that leaves one going "Whu?" for the first 3 seconds, the first minute or so was surprisingly cheerful-sounding & catchy. Really loved the changes in instrumentation throughout as well. 2:06 was a particularly memorable example. Most people just can't pull off style and tempo changes like Shna, so it's cool to hear material like this where ideas like that actually work. I felt this could have stood to be a little shorter, but nonetheless the variations on the source presented throughout here were excellently handled. This kind of stuff isn't for everybody...but it should be. Certainly glad to have Sam on board as the newest additional to the panel, but I would have been more disappointed if we never heard from him on the remix side again. Cool stuff, and a nice addition to the site from a very obscure Genesis title. Perhaps Sam hosting the soundtrack will lead to some more people in the community discovering what Landstalker had to offer??? YES

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/actr.rsn - "Birth of the People" (actr-15.spc) Heh. Interesting mix being made with mostly default-level sounds. I liked some of the altered rhythms here, but to me this was a glorfied cover. The intro had me thinking this might end up diffferent, but :39 sealed with me that it wouldn't. Changing some rhythms and some instruments and adding a dance kick isn't enough for me. I'm glad some new ideas were finally introduced from 1:49-2:14, but it was relatively short-lived. Genuinely cool ideas on the surface, but this could have been more. Props on creating something this good from default sounds, as I can certainly tell you're new at this. Rearrange the melodic content more substantially next time around, and head over to the ReMixing forum and learn to do even better things with what you have. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/dkq.rsn - Hot-Head Bop (dkq-14.spc) Liontamer: "Cool, original, eh Ari?" Protricity: "Yes, master." You know me, I'm not a big fan of the generitrance adaptations. Some quick references to the original were right there in the intro, but nothing really arrived melodically until :59. Beatwork changed up a little bit at 1:26. Pretty simple stuff still. I liked that synth sparingly used from 1:51-2:13. There was another change in the texture at 3:27, but nothing changed too significantly within the 4:42-long track. Overall, the groove was pretty basic & repetitive, the synths were generic, and nothing interesting was done with the melody. Ultimately that sells the mix short, because a modicum of effort was put forth here in terms of providing some relative level of variation that's not found in other trance/electronic subs we get. But that doesn't discount that fact that this was style over substance. Thinking of "progressive" material, much more creative and dynamic work comes to mind. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/megaman2.zip - Track 22 ("Ending") Covered this one in late May for VGF: Well, now that this has hit the panel, the assessment at how well the arrangement was pulled off is in fact mine to make. I would definitely hone in on all of Dan's criticisms, Alex, because they were spot-on. There really isn't much in the way of structure or order here, and the arrangement may alter the original, but doesn't do it very coherently in the big picture. I didn't have as much trouble hearing the source tune in play as Dan might have, but I see where he's coming from, as this took some very liberal turns most of the way. The repetitive percussion would need to be addressed, and the piece would need to be given more solid structure. It's a cool freeform-ish piece, but it definitely drags on and the lack of organization was a detriment. I didn't feel it was bad or I wouldn't have pimped it, and I actually encourage others to head to VGMix to check it out. Nonetheless, I agree with Dan that, unless this could be given quite the overhaul, you should call this one a day and move onto new work. Try for something around 3 minutes long, as you're prone to making pieces that have some good concepts but nonetheless overstay their welcome. Quality over quantity. Keep at it. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Chrono_Cross_psf.rar - A bunch of 'em Yeesh, hitting me with a severe case of medleyitis. Source tunes changed from one idea to the next with no effort put forth in making logical/flowing transitions. They weren't overly jarring, but they were lazy. The mixing/production was actually fairly good, but the instrumentation was deceivingly sparse. The woodwinds in particular needed more work to sound more realistic/human. Scope out the ReMixing forum and see what tips/advice you can find. Just a very scattershot approach with some duly-noted rearrangement, but nothing here was given enough time or development, even within nearly 4 minutes. Ambitious ideas, but not approached in a practical way. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/btbm.rsn - "Ragnarok Canyon" (btbm-03.spc) Cover with what I guess is poorly used FL Slayer geetar. The time of 4:24 is even the same as the SPC. Totally made the original tune worse. NO Override