Liontamer

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff6.rsn - "The Phantom Train" (ff6-116.spc), "The Decisive Battle" (ff6-124.spc) & "The Fierce Battle" (ff6-303.spc) Sure, on some level I agree that "The Decisive Battle" is overdone, but you know...meh. Up until 1:33, it's basically a cover to start, but we've had great "conservative" remixes in the past like CarboHydroM's first OC ReMix, FF7 "Still More Fighting" where the underlying/support instrumentation is sometimes the most significant change, which is what I felt was the case with the cover-style sections here. In Carbo's case as well as House's, just listening to the track casually it's easy to feel it doesn't take enough creative liberty or interpretation, but when you take a closer look, I think it does more than enough to get the job done even when not straying far from the melody itself. Good drumwork and orchestration additions really helped put the expansive touches here, and I've got nothing wrong with that from a standards context as long as the changes are thorough/developed enough within the context of the rest of the piece. Good fusion of styles, I felt. The slowed down section from 4:50-5:15 was pimp. The arranged sections were excellent the whole way through. The original and arranged material from 1:33-2:50 were nothing short of skilled. I first noticed Alex from the word of mouth created from his Dwelling of Duels Clockwork entry "La Hora es Tarde", so it's great to see him submitting material. After having his brother Dan's DoD winner Ninja Gaiden 2 "Ninjascape" passed by the panel, I'm glad I could call it the same way for Alex. Ashane & House are two guys to be aware of when visiting TheShizz.org & DoD. Some of the haters say the guitar guys are all the same, but I think they're just another example of the depth which the community as a whole possesses. No qualms on this one at all. YES

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/dkq.rsn - "Kannon's Klaim" (dkq-s-01.spc) I remember talking to Pavo briefly in #ormgas about this one being submitted, though I hadn't had a chance to check it out thoroughly until now. In any case, the production should have been a bit cleaner. Everything had an overall dullness to it. 1:25 is a pretty much a muffled sounding cover with different instruments and some minor additions. Dunno why you thought this would pass as is. I didn't hear anything from 1:25-3:16 that was substantially interpretive at all. Shouldn't be this easy to NO something so "acclaimed" but we're looking for a lot more here. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gym/ps4.rar - 18 "Pain" You made a mix in an hour and expected it to pass. Not in this universe, bro. First 56 seconds are a rip of the source. Some original beats and crud after that, then just the ripped original with lousy beats underneath it. I'm not gonna dignify the rest of this with a review. Just weird crud at 2:09; don't really care if you arranged anything at this point. Should have gotten the form. Don't waste our time with thrown together garbage. You can do better. If you want a nicer review, Harmony's above is a great place to start though. I bleh on this. If you stick with this and get a lot better, you'll have a good laugh and be kicking yourself thinking you could send this one off and get it posted. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/dizzy.zip - Track 1 Quality straightforward expansion versus the sounds of the original, along with a nicely done 50s-style genre adaptation with the faster tempo. Played it back on VGF56 and liked hearing something this unique. The vocals were fairly well-done for the most part - harmony was good and the lyrical deivery was pretty good, while the lyrics were pretty creative. Kinda fell apart at 2:00 as you split the vocals into the left and right channels; the lead vocals/speaking from then until the end sounded like they could have used a couple more takes. Nice stuff; short and sweet, but nicely done by Marcus per his usual. It's kind of odd that I don't even think of Makke as a vocalist mixer despite how many vocal mixes he's done. Don't miss out on his other material on R:K:O on his own or with The C64 Mafia tackling the Commodore 64 mixing scene. This will get hated on by a lot of people. Not saying it's superlative, but that's why I generally say, "F the people." YES

Fun piece, and of course I like the theme, but the performance is too sloppy and needs to be tightened up on the timing; some of the transitions (e.g. 1:33) were very poorly executed. The lyrics need to be more prominent and could also have slightly stronger delivery. The arrangement is also pretty short and underdeveloped; it was going fine until you retread the arrangement ideas at 1:34. If you're gonna do a piece this short instended for here, you shouldn't retrace your steps. Cool source tune, and a fun premise for the mix here, but more can be done with this. NO

Yeah, thanks for providing the original, but even just being familiar with the original myself, this was basically the original adapted to new instruments. Nothing bad, but overly plain and repetitive when it comes to interpreting the compostion. The sounds/instrument samples were alright, though they sounded pretty stock. Sound balance wasn't bad or anything like that. Keep at it, but throw more interpretation into your arrangement. Some other Js might have further ideas on that as well as ways to improve your composition choice. Make use of the ReMixing forum and WIP forum to hone your skills. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/contra.zip - Track 4 Jack allowed me the pleasure of debuting this one on VGF50, and all was right with the world. Very skilled take on the theme in the now-trademark tefnek style much like previous OC ReMixes like Streets of Rage "Drop and Roll" and Raiden 2 "Airborne", and one which I felt delivered a little bit more on developing original sections as well. There wasn't too much length in the source material (:34 long), so I definitely recognize that Jack did a great job slowing down, yet expanding, the track and fitting it to the big beat style we all know and love. tefnek - "Can't stop. Won't stop." /groovebias YES

Aight, I got 5 shows to do in a day and some change. Currently recording #52, featuring Sonic 2 "Hedgehog Heaven", as I'm posting. Y'all can hang in #VGF at any time for the follies. Links and stuff are on page 1 of the thread. We'll be going for #s 52, 53, 57, 58 & 60.99/Finale if I have time. Wish me the luck, and happy radio to all. [/Engrish]

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Guardia Millenial Fair" (ct-1-06.spc) Not bad bro. The mastering was a bit distant sounding and could afford to be sharpened up. I'm eagerly awaiting, and I don't mean this sarcastically, for the day when The Anti-Jazz here makes the most out of a sparsely constructed track and the ideas completely click together. Here, I felt like K1 was on the reasonably right track. I don't mind the drumwork being minimal, but oftentimes it did a poor job of flowing along with the material here to drive it along. There were some points where (timing issues aside) the minimalist drumkit worked better in conjunction with the rest of the material (e.g. :21-1:01, 2:24-3:26) and other times where the beats were too plain, lazily plodded along and didn't gel well with the rest of the music (e.g. 1:03-1:19, 1:46-1:56). 2:07-2:25 brought out the unique Koelsch freestyle stuff, and again I've gotta bring up the complaints on the lack of coherent phrasing that Jesse always has, since they're a very legit criticism. Wow, that fadeout was the epitome of bootleg. Sounds like you took the track, threw it in an free MP3 editor and told it to tack on a 3-second fadeout. Gimme a break, bro, don't make it sound so cheap. Lemme copy Harmony's suggestion - I loved it: e x t e n d i t. If the mastering were a bit sharper, the sax work had more energy and power behind it, and the blander drum sections could be livened up while retaining the fairly minimalist approach you went for here, I could see this having a legit shot. The piano in particular sounded inhuman at times, but otherwise did a great job of accenting the piece when it was in play. Aside from that brief freestyle not clicking, I liked the concept of your arrangement a lot and thought it was very well thought out. Why not try for a resub? I thought there was promise here. I'll be keeping this one. Wish you could find a way to resub Valkyrie Profile "Blind Eternity" as well. Keep at it. NO (rework/resubmit)

Pure bueno.

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ki.rsn - "Main Theme" (ki-01.spc) Yeah, this was a fairly vanilla and very synthetic orchestral take on the source material. The string samples were aight, but the way they were used was lacking, with the note-to-note movement sounding unnatural. 1:45 finally started some genuine rearrangement. I liked the idea of the woodwind sample being placed in there, though once it swelled a bit louder along with some other brass samples, the samples were all too loud and exposed. Things need to blend together more naturally. The triggering on one note at 2:40 was very flubbed. There was a cymbal swell at 2:50 that decayed way too quickly as well. By around 3:15 the arrangement was getting pretty boring as I wanted for something to happen. The source returned at 3:25 for the last section, lasting all the way until 4:53. Not too much in the way of dynamic contrast or build, and the source melody wasn't developed much. Like Jesse said, the strings during the runthroughs of the main theme were slightly off with their timing. The arrangement needs more creativity beyond playing the original with strings for most of the time. Interpret the source material instead of copying it. Head over to the ReMixing forum for tips on how to improve your sound balance so that things here don't sound too muddy and you can get some ideas on how to strengthen dynamics. You can also look for information on timing and making the performance sound more natural. Post any works-in-progress to the WIP forum to get more feedback as well. NO

Nah. Should have Saved As...

Bah. Lost the first 80 minutes of the show thanks to Cool Edit's very impractical Paste function, which just pastes a copied section at the beginning of the file, replacing the length of the clip with what you paste, instead of pasting it to replace what you actually highlight. If Roland's got it, I can bootleg a stream recording and connect what I've got. Also, Kyle, I'm gonna need a copy of your first call. My sincere apologies, bros y sis'es.

'scuse me Paige, but this sounded simply... er... wrong. uhm... yeah. Oh, COME ON NOW!

Hahahaha. What do you think I'm gonna do?

One suggestion I'd like to give to people is to, beyond the SSF2 SPCs, also check out the full Super Street Fighter II Turbo soundtrack. All of the themes have been beefed up with additional support instrumentation, and honing in the patterns on those instruments could easily give you ideas on variations you could do in the background of your mixes in order to fill them out further. I'll try and snag the soundtrack and temporarily host it for y'all so that someone else can mirror it for project purposes.

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/iog.rsn - "Town" (iog-10.spc) Wow, this is some old stuff; played this all the way back on VGF23 right after Chris released it. I know Jesse was pretty glib right there, but he's right per his usual, so I follow suit. It's a fairly good upgrade but unfortunately not hugely interpretive. The instrumentation was interesting, but didn't really alter/hugely expand the feel of things with this conservative take unlike, say, "Tuatara Swamp Jam". Things were more upbeat here compared to the source, but the mood was essentially the same. Perhaps some people are gonna harp on the sound choices or production, but I thought everything was put together reasonably well. I did like the original section from 1:34-2:25; it fit in very well thematically, but consequently, I also felt the source material itself was fairly unexplored. Reminds me of why I should have voted NO on Mid Night. I really liked the bird sfx as well as Amanda's guest vocals, but would have loved to see you branch out into some more interpretive ideas on the melody itself during the more straightforward sections to put a more personalized spin on things. Looking into the Illusion of Gaia soundtrack SPCs, I'd really be interested in your approach on either "Time" or "Drifting". Hope a NO isn't discouraging. Frankly, I'm kind of surprised I ended up going this way. I liked the original sections, and the cover-style material is actually expanded fairly well, but this just needs a few more ideas in expanding the instrumentation and providing variations on the melody to supplement what's already there, IMO. I'd love to see this one come our way again if possible. NO (borderline)

Still too conservative a take on the source material. I could have sworn the standard was fairly uniform on "if it's not created for a game, then NO" besides Tetris, but if that's the way it's gonna be, that's fine. Personally, I don't think we should consider it. In any case, I'll do a formal, non-N.O. vote. The percussion work was really plodding and repetitive, and the low bassline type lead from 1:31-2:21 was way too low. The track isn't bad, but the arrangement is basically just some playthroughs of the source with different sounds each time. Gotta be more bro. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/ddragon3.zip - Track 5 Yeah, I remember the source tune. When Bladiator couldn't come up with a source tune choice for PRC24, I offered this up as a choice and Karl was down with it. Catchy shit, IMO. Hooked it up with J! Groove a while back on VGF33. The keyboard solo from 2:27-2:54 was about the only thing that wasn't basically a straightforward cover (though it had the occasional odd spots), and then 3:07-3:39 featured some more prominently placed support additions as well to expand things a bit. Really liked the Tecmo Bowl clips I heard in there. HUTT! The percussion was pretty basic and a bit plodding and didn't really sit well in the track to me. I wouldn't lower the volume on them or that would weaken them too much, but at the same time I'd like to hear the percussion sound less pasted on top. I really liked the subtle additions supporting the melody that you wrote in; hell, some of them, like the bassline, the pads underneath the chorus or the acoustic guitar underneath the chorus were almost too subtle to be heard. Bring some stuff up some it can accentuate the melody more and be appreciated. The source melody was generally handled without enough interpretation, IMO. If some of the support instrumentation I mentioned had been brought up, this might have had a chance as a simply expansive arrangement. The conservative take here doesn't stop me from liking the track, but at the same time I can't reconcile it with the standards. That's not to say a track like this is bad for sticking closely to the source, but I thought "Where Destiny Meets" & "Frappe Cafe Vibe" were a lot more interpretive with the source material you chose. With Frappe in particular, you stuck close to the source material most of the way, but played around with the chords, used a lot of nice embellishments with the melody, used the new support instrumentation you wrote much more prominently, and brought in original & heavily rearranged sections earlier on and more frequently. I think the same could be done with this if you wanted to resub it, or simply use more of that type of approach in your next sub. I liked most of the elements in play; you definitely had a nice hybrid of Eastern strings, pizzicato strings and porn groove/wah stuff. Work on this one if you're interested, but even if that's not in the cards, keep em' coming I say! Keep Morse-in' 'em, bro! Frankly, I think my NO severely downplays how much I liked the track. NO EDIT: Oh shit, I voted on the older version already on my computer. Sorry about that. Josh really enhanced this compared to the first version, and there's nothing here holding it back from a YES

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/metlgear.zip - Track 2 Oh ho, I remember where I first heard this source tune. weed dropped some DOPE rhymes over the first few bars of the NSF in his collab with po!, "Venom", which y'all rap fans need to check out. As far as this one goes, had this one on tap for VGF52. Malc was right in that the strings sounded unrealistic at points, and the light opening vox was strained a little bit as well. Nothing major for me right there, but noticeable. The track built up for the first 30 seconds or so. Very good arrangement ideas going on up until the source melody arrived at :31. On the production side, I felt like the brass lead was mudding together with the strings on support. Meanwhile the beats and lil' clangy noises were prominent over the top of your brass & strings. The sound balance amongst the various elements in play really needs to be worked on the whole way through. Strings sound decent though a bit unnatural during their solo section from 2:08-2:23, but when the note-to-note movement became faster from 2:24-2:55 and you later used some higher notes from 3:12-3:28, the sample was really exposed. Same with the string/wind combo from 3:28-3:41; very unnatural note movements and decays. By 4:00, when the woodwind came in on the melody, I felt the track was dragging a little bit and could have used something a bit different compositionally to change the feel a bit. The brass samples at 4:31-4:47 sounded a bit too fakey as well, like something out of the GoldenEye soundtrack. Some judges may talk about the beat getting boring because it repeated ad nauseum throughout the entire 5 minutes. Normally, I'd be in that camp when something happens like that, except that Jason dropped a hot beat here that never got tired for me. I'm expressing my beat bias in favor of deez b33tz. Nonetheless, you'll probably want to experiment with altering the thumping patterns involved in the beatwork to create a mild level of variation there. Create several more subtle variations so the beat doesn't potentially stagnate. Personally, I don't care either way but we'll see what the other Js have to say. I thought this was an extremely promising track. I liked the arrangement more, though there could have been some more compositional twists and turns. Heard quite of number of sections just get repeated with different samples plugged in, which was alright, but might not fly with more demanding critics. Work on the production to achieve better sound balance and clarity for the piece. You want the leads to be the most prominent sounding instruments. Perhaps look into some more active panning for the mix as well. Also work a little bit on performance dynamics so the various orchestral instruments function a bit more realistically on the performance. Definitely a great effort so far, and one I'd truly like to hear a resubmission on, Jase. In my estimation, it's a very nice fusion so far of beatwork and orchestration, and I hope the track doesn't come across as having an identity crisis for others. I don't think this needs drastic alteration in any way. This needs more attention paid to the finer details, bro. Keep on this one, please. NO (resubmit)

As much as I'd love to be able to judge this with the original in tow, I'm coming up empty. I did listen to Orkybash's take on the source material in the attempt to at least get a feel for another interpretation on it. In any case, this seemed to have potential. Certainly was an interesting beat-oriented track, and I was feelin' the groove for the most part. Some decent breaks were in there, but once it found its pattern it didn't deviate much. The production was very muffled and distant, so bring up the clarity in there with some sharper-sounding EQing; the higher frequency range was completely absent. I liked when the piano arrived at 2:05. Pretty straightforward stuff that could have used a bit more activity in there. I liked what I heard so far here, but it was a pretty simplistic, groove-based offering with little on the way of significant compositional variation, so in that sense you could tell that there was a limited amount of interpretation of the source material. The track cut out abruptly at 3:57; for shame, bro. Catchy little thing there, and I'm keeping it to feed my groove bias, but it needs more depth and creativity. Keep improving yourself by exploring the ReMixing forum for program, sample & production advice, and use the WIP forum for more feedback before you submit future material. Nothing great, but certainly not bad, Tyler. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/gradius1.zip - NSF Track 3 Definitely not bad for a two-hour effort, Lee, but this one could be fleshed out further. The source melody is hugely altered when it comes in at :22, to the point where it's rendered nearly unrecognizable. The beatwork was very basic-sounding and plodding, and didn't really gel with the rest of the instrumentation or move the track along. Nothing against the tempo, mind you. Also, the soundscape was relatively sparse despite the reverbed strings/ambiance. Could have been purposeful given the nature of the source material and its relation to the artistic vision here, but I felt like more could be done here to fill things out. 1:30-1:52 & the section repeated with strings at 1:53-2:15 sounded derived from the chorus of the original (:12-:20 of the NSF), but again you could barely make any overt connection. I hit 3:23 with the last section and it just seemed that while things somewhat changed up, the overall groove is the same throughout, and the composition didn't have much dynamic contrast throughout. The plodding beats and so forth at 4:10 just seemed to retread what came along earlier. Fill things out a bit more, get the percussion a bit more varied and settled into the rest of the track, and make the arrangement more recognizable instead of venturing into extremely liberal territory. Would have never believed this was the source tune if you hadn't actually linked to the MIDI here. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF8_minipsf.rar - 409 "The Extreme", 408 "Maybe I'm a Lion" & 407 "The Legendary Beast" Heard this one back on VGF51. Borderline on this I'm afraid. I realize the mix has a lot of room to build, but the arrangement was already dragging out before 1:45, and felt as if it could have been a bit more creative for the first few minutes. I'm not looking for orchestral perfection, but felt that the strings from 2:23-2:56, especially when they made some very fast note movements, were lacking in realism. Nothing I haven't heard Gray try before in the context of a different mix though. The use of the FLWV chant vox was a bit cheesy, but you get used to it. 4:14 onward had some percussion heavily panned left for some unknown reason. Still not looking for orchestral perfection, but felt that the brass (starting at 3:58) sounded a bit too artificially sequenced (and flat) as well. Overall feel was very odd; sounded pretty distant and lacked a degree of clarity, so I agreed with Gray's call on the muddiness. I don't know the minutia of Gray's reference to the seating positions that the instruments had, but the panning and placement decisions here put me off a bit, so I can relate a bit to where he was coming from. The arrangement felt infected by medleyitis to be sure. The strange production decisions didn't help, and while I liked how some of the sections were tied together, some of the arrangement was pretty conservative, like "The Legendary Beast" being used from 2:23-3:00. Also sounded like the thick percussion was slightly clipping at times - just too messy sounding. I don't think this would be a (huge) problem on the arrangement side. In all honesty, this sounds like a great professional FF8 AST track aside from the production, but it would be the one I end up skipping most of the time, as the drawn-out orchestral battle theme typically ain't my thing. That doesn't affect my vote, that's just a personal preference thing. It's capable work that the unwashed masses would love and the extremely scrutanizing could pan. The original/rearranged sections are pretty interesting, but with fairly lacking production & some performance/sample issues to a much lesser extent, I've unfortunately gotta push to for a borderline NO. No qualms if it passes; it's really a good piece, and I would have went b-YES, but I feel I'd be doing a disservice to YES something with production this messy.

If you know the correct track order, convert the NSF you found to NSFe and reorder/name the tracks

Got a little bit more info out of Pascal as to certain times when stuff was used here in the medley, since the usage of the source tunes were a bit hard to grasp when I was listening: Arrangement checks out. Played this one back on VGF54 and was impressed with it considering I wasn't as hot on "Bowser is Pissed". Good opening with the sample of the female crying. Nice and unique idea to open a track up. At :23, the first in-game voice clip you used cut out abruptly: "relinquish your pain...[pop]...unto me". Good drum work for a laid back, yet slightly driving feel. Liked the vox introing in at :56 doing a rendition of "Beach of Nothingness", and the layering of a second vox line at 1:18 was also well done. The panning of the various little effects was a plus. Somewhat sparse if you're really scrutinzing things, but I don't think it was a very empty mix. I liked the atmosphere. Bass shot at 2:07 shouldn't have clipped like that - seemed kind of odd. I would say though that the solo from 2:18-3:00 felt kind of empty with just the minimal beatwork functioning as most of the background. Didn't sound like a dealbreaker relative to the rest of the mix here, but I felt that should have been filled out a bit more. Nice stuff at 3:00 with the heavier guitar work, percussion and vox. Voice sample at 3:58 was muddy and obscured - probably would have been a better idea to cut that out. Things slowed down at 4:26 into a short piano and woodwind ending. Thanks for creating a reasonably well-done transition there, by the way. Some would call the ending unsatisfying, but I liked the artistic vision behind it. Solid work, Pascal, on what I would also call tough material to tackle. Looking forward to more, bro! YES