Liontamer

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FFXI_psf2.rar - 111 "Rolanberry Fields" Played this one back on VGF60, so I've been looking forward to critiquing it. The opening was pretty conservative with the steel-stringed guitar. Mostly heard additive elements here as opposed to any liberal rearrangement, but this was a nice conservative approach with some personal flair. Some other synth strings came in at :42 but sound very muted and muffly. They're supposed to sound lo-fi but the loud, trebly beatwork was just obscuring everything, so the sound balance needs to be adjusted. The whole track lacks sharpness and clarity, so you better get tips from the ReMixing forum or the VGMix Conservatory on what to do about that. Nothing wrong with the bird SFX, though it ain't birdcussion and it's a bit too loud without serving much of a purpose; sounds like something that should be a lot less prominent. 1:12 reached the chorus and had some decent genre adaptation work. Some trumpet stabs or whatever you would call those were brought in from 1:28-2:10. A bit gratuitous there at points, I think those should have been used more judiciously. The soft pizzicato strings starting at 1:49 didn't always seem to be playing the right notes. By 2:00, the arrangement of the chorus was really dragging. Trim the fat there. The following section at 2:32 with strings had some serious problems once it reached 2:53 as the pizzicato strings, twinkly notes and bassline did NOT harmonize properly up until 3:14. Need a theory guy to help clarify the issue there. Good ideas for rearranging the chorus at 3:36, though the guitar notes generally had the same intensity from note-to-note, which doesn't sound realistic at all. Humanize the performance there. Things got a little too busy at 3:57, bringing in those poorly harmonizing elements on top and around your strings until 4:18. Position the strings more in the forefront and pull the supporting elements back a little there. I really liked the stuttering and fadeout of that synth from 4:17-4:49; perhaps use a similar idea like that earlier on. Reminded me of Fatty Acid's style; maybe y'all should collab sometime. Good ending as well, though fade it out more cleanly, since it doesn't even fade out all the way. You could really trim the fat off some of this, Paul, cuz the arrangement was too long and couldn't support 5:25. Refine or remove some of the needlessly crowded sections (i.e. 2:53-3:14 & 3:57-4:18). Tone the trebly percussion down a bit, and figure out how to get a cleaner atmosphere here and fix the sound balance among your instruments. I kind of joke to myself that Paul sure has the ReMix titling schema down pat, but just needs to the get the rest above the bar. This guy's one to watch though. Once he refines his composition and learns more about production, he has the potential to be a solid contributor. Keep working at it, bro. NO (rework/resubmit)

http://www.dongrays.com/midi/archive/game/d2/d2map09.mid - "Into Sandy's City" Aight, so we have a trance thing going on with some stock sounds. Not particularly groundbreaking, but let's see where it goes. :46 had a decent original rhythm preparing the listener for what I assume is gonna be the intro of the source tune soon. Really not liking the choice for the lead from :46-1:38, as it was in my face 'n shit, but that's generi-trance for ya. 1:13 had some claps enter the background along with some subtle strings. The buildup was quite long for this 4-minute piece but finally the melody arrived at 1:39. Unfortunately, some muddy vox managed to crowd up the soundfield and actually muffle the melody. Those hats gradually getting louder starting at 2:06 were really annoying. Very generic sounds still by 2:35. Nothing very interesting. Sounds like something a beginner Commodore scene arranger could think of, in that this was just a straightforward trance adaptation of the original. Adapted capably, sure, but not very innovative or even interpretive. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Chrono_Cross_psf.rar - 104 "Time's Grasslands - Home World" The opening synth was a bit shrill, but was an acquired taste. Some weak drums entered in at :19 while the stuttering sound supporting the lead synth took over. Very boring transition section from :20-:42. You gotta cut the fat out of this mix and scrap that kind of stuff. At :43 the melody kicked in. The bassline was alright, but the beatwork here was a bit spartan. The beatwork changed at 1:01 into some snares, but they were too simplistic to drive the mix along. There were some good phasing/buzzing sounds in there though to fill up the space a bit more. There was that grating synth on support at 1:22. The instrumentation was still pretty sparse and weak, though I'm glad some effects were present throughout the mix in the attempt the thicken up the atmosphere. Not enough mind you, but certainly a step in the right direction. The chorus arrived at 1:40 and more of these beats and snare shots surrounded the music but didn't gel with it, preventing them from adding anything meaningful to the arrangement composition itself. The really flat transition at 2:21 detrimentally dropped the energy level. Guess it went into a minor key. Change that into something new, please. Nah. Definitely a NO-go. The sounds were thin, and the beatwork here had no texture or power. The arrangement of the actual melody was pretty simplified and conservative. The ending section at 3:28 was a weak way to abruptly end the piece (mostly the fault of that awful synth at 3:40). There weren't many instruments or sounds in play at any given time, leaving the soundfield pretty empty most of the way through. The sound combinations here took some getting used to, but after a few listens the supporting elements in particular sounded a lot more structured and less haphazard, so don't listen to this only once and get thrown off. Truly, it takes a special mix to sound thin but still feel cluttered. Reminds me of the Robo theme mix ambient made a while back that had similar problems. If Majin'll be pissed, he'll just look back on this one way later and wonder why he thought this would genuinely make it as is. You're cool with me of course, Majin, but after getting shit from you about the site recently posting several "shitty" mixes (Shael/Mythril/Fat Man/OverCoat/DCT), I'm surprised you and ambient subbed something that's clearly lacking in a lot of areas and doesn't even compare to the material you yourself criticized. That attitude contrasted with this submission is laughable. All talk if you guys can't bring your A-game. For Majin especially, whom I've heard some excellently made music from and played on my show, I'm kinda surprised considering what he's capable of. Y'all both keep working on your material, though I'd call this a done deal and move onto something else. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/battle~1.zip - Track 20 Some truly ugly, grating synths introing things. They were pretty abrasive, but things finally got underway at :43. Nothing particularly melodic or interesting happening aside from that damn annoying effect that's supposed to be going past some save point or something in the race. Jeez, I'm starting to sound surly as hell now, but this is just getting to me, sorry. Arrangement's basically the same as the source so far. Finally at 1:31 we got something new, but immediately it starts repeating too much instead of developing into anything. [shakes head]. I know the source tune is like that, but geez. Then we sped up at 2:35, and there's still nothing melodic happening. At 3:26 we got some drums and that recurring note pattern. Still nothing major. There weren't enough interpretive ideas here, and the original was way less annoying. Instead of relying on the groove of the original, please interpret the material further next time instead of basically covering it with this downgrade. I give you points for TRYING to interpret the original, but it's not many points. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/tg.rsn - "Title" (tg-1.spc), "Bordeaux" (tg-4.spc) & "Las Vegas" (tg-2.spc) The arrangement was too conservative for me overall, so make it more interpretive and less sickly with medley-itis. Anyway, we're gonna gloss over that and just assess the presentation. Not a bad electric guitar vibe going on here for the first 23 seconds, but the generic, tepid sounds came in soon enough I'm afraid. Oooh, whatever quasi-bass synth that was at :56 really hurt the piece, and when the guitar attempted to do some involved licks, it just sounded very fake on account of it being drowned out. The levels were all over the place at 1:59, but at least the track was louder as a whole. Oy, just some ugly sounds here; the hats were way too loud, there's no solid background instrumentation, and the guitar sounded bad. Decent SFX usage at 2:28 with the car crash though. We aimed to get more intense with "Bordeaux" at 2:37, but the execution was so quiet and weak the whole way through. At least the arrangement was a bit riskier. Bah, again with those crazy hi-hats. Then at 3:10, the drums were way louder & cleaner than the guitar; again the sound balance among your instruments makes no sense. Same with 4:12, what are you doing there? Decent stuff with "Las Vegas" starting at 4:24, but that was partially my love for the theme. The claps in there were so out of place. I liked the guitar there though; it had its genuinely promising moments with that coverage. Considering how bad it was for "Bordeaux", that's saying something. Man, with the guitar being real, you could have fooled me with how poorly this was put together. Head over to the ReMixing & WIP forums and get some serious help dissecting this one. NO

http://exotica.fix.no/tunes/archive/C64Music/Tel_Jeroen/Myth_PSID.sid - Subtune 1/3 http://exotica.fix.no/tunes/archive/C64Music/Tel_Jeroen/Myth_Mix.sid - Suntune 1/1 You have to listen beyond 3 minutes of the PSID to finally get all of the sections used in this arrangement. I dunno why you said you had no idea where to get the original from, cuz you had to have gotten it from somewhere. No way you could have recreated the original like that from memory. You even sampled Subtune 2 of the PSID for the female saying "Welcome to Myth". You think we were born yesterday? Don't feel like getting into the details, but the rearranged parts where the melody was different than the original weren't particularly creative, and much of the piece was the original with lo-fi, generic FL stuff over it. If you're truly going for the default sound vibe, this better be the most impressive arrangement ever. I don't mean to be glib as a means of crapping on the piece, but I felt that the FL default stuff didn't work in tandem with SIDtune material and that the arrangement needed to be more interpretive without relying on the foundation of the verbatim original most of the way. Nothing quite overrideable in my opinion, because some additive arrangement ideas were there beyond the simple FL stuff, and some sections of the original were left out, but I could see why someone else would NO Override. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gym/SK+SONIC3.RAR - 19 Flying Battery Zone 2 Oh ho! A theme I really like. Got some "Flying Battery bias" here. Didn't like the strings used at :07. The note-to-note movements sounded pretty fake; felt like each note had the same intensity. Otherwise, the first 40 seconds or so were hot. About 1:00 in and the source wasn't being used overtly enough. I could hear it being used VERY quietly with a xylophone-style instrument from :47-1:20. The source tune references were way, way too subtle/understated here. The chorus was used really quietly at 1:46. Some winds came in at 1:57 and the mixing was a bit poor as the chorus by the wind instrument was really obscured by the vox. At 2:13 a little piece from the intro was used briefly again followed by a retread of the material from :47 with the vox underneath it now. The composition felt a little repetitive and directionless from 2:13-2:53, so change things up a bit compared to the first iteration at :47. The beats dropped out again at 2:54 to focus on the vox and ambiance, but this approach throughout the track basically removed most of the arrangement substance as a focus. Use the arranged source tune more prominently please. You don't have to crank it up, but make it a bit more overtly audible. The only other minor issue I had was that some of the sound choices were a bit weak, like the brush taps/hats/whatever those were at 1:58. More important there were the drums entering at 2:54, which, basically used on their own, I felt was a poor way to close the track. Bring some power/texture to them to fill the space more so they don't hurt your ending. Other Js may have some more specific tips/criticisms in mind to add a little bit more texture to the sounds. Aside from some of the mixing/production issues, this was so, so promising arrangement-wise. But you've just gotta hit me with Flying Battery a bit louder so that trying to hear it in this arrangement doesn't leave too many people scratching their heads. NO (borderline/resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/megaman2.zip - Quite a few You go to Stanford, eh? Heard of these guys? http://www.institutefunk.com Well, the first thing that you notice is the the production is muffled and down in the dumps. Second thing you notice is that it's General MIDI. I think if you listen to most of the music on the site, you'd realize that this doesn't compare favorably to what we have at all. If you wanna figure out how to get a much better render of your MIDI to MP3, I'd say head over to VGMusic's forums and see what info you can find. Head over to the ReMixing forum here to figure out where to go beyond General MIDI. There are lots of good, free options. Actually a pretty fun medley/arrangement at times, but you need to step up that game, miss. (Ice Cube: "I got ALL the game!" [/Friday]) NO

Gonna run without the source but hope the arrangement criteria is covered. Someone feel free to check that out. Fake sounding strings opened things up. The piano had no performance dynamics at all, and neither did the strings. The tambourine was a bit too loud, so you may want to pull that back. Cool idea to change the flow at :56. The string composition felt pretty aimless from around 1:11-1:23, and that was a bit of a problem throughout most of the piece, as most of the supporting elements felt pretty scattershot. From 1:17 you had some swelling that just managed to drown the other instruments out. Another interesting changeup at 1:39 which I liked though. I liked the piano activity there, but wish all the notes weren't at the same velocity. Alright samples here, but they were used in a lazy manner. This was decent work but was lacking in performance dynamics the whole way and compositional direction for parts of the piece. You did have some good compositional dynamic work with some of the stylistic changes, but that was the main positive I had. Keep working on it, bro. NO

http://www.rareware.com/extra/downloads/tooie/glitter_gulch_mine.mp3 - "Glitter Gulch Mine" The opened up with some pretty plain and generic sounds that didn't do a good job of filling up the soundfield, though that was finally fixed up at :41 with a swirly pad joining in. The note patterns of the backing synths here weren't very melodic or dare I say musical. Man, just some ugly stuff at 1:01. Very poorly put together, unfortunately. The arranged source tune, finally arriving at 1:08, wasn't engaging and the synth choices were grating and subpar. You could barely recognize it as an arrangement of the source material anyway. Already by 1:30, the composition was feeling too repetitive melodically though some little changes here and there were happening. Finally reached the source tune being used overtly at 1:56, but that was poorly executed as well. Not to be mean, but the original's way catchier and sounds way better than this, which dragged on considerably. I'd really hit the ReMixing forum to improve your synth work and post your material to the WIP forum before you submit again. Needs better sounds, more variation, and dynamic contrast; the basics. Gotta crawl before you can walk, bro. NO

word.

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ts.rsn - "Hometown" (ts-03.spc) Quite a ponderous mix, one that I had to let marinate for a few weeks, so I don't think one could really make a fair call on this quickly. The first few minutes didn't use the familiar Crysta melody, but rather rearranged the theme by messing around with the motifs of the backing strings & harmonizing winds from the original. Took me a while to really get a grasp on it, but I was impressed when I finally made sense of it. The source melody wasn't even invoked (briefly) until 1:44, which I don't mean to sound negative. I thought it was actually intriguing that the source material could be rearranged this much without using the most prominent part of it. The woodwind made a bad-sounding note transition at 2:27; very flat and unrealistic. Performance realism in the sounds may get criticized more harshly by the others. Nice job not even bringing in the source tune's familiar melody until 3:30. The strings sounded fine on the whole but struggled with realism in some of the note movements. They were serviceable in my opinion. The mix definitely started dragging and sounding too samey beyond the 5-minute mark toward the finish, so you could have afforded to take things in a slightly different direction to keep things from becoming monotonous. The abrupt decay of the string samples at 5:48 exposed the samples. I’ve been hearing too many people in this batch slacking the little details at the very end. BAH. The approach of the arrangement came across to me as divisive, but I'm feeling the unorthodox approach from Alex, primarily rearranging the supporting elements of the source material. Some will bitch about the melody being brought in so late, but I bleh on them. As long as the original was genuinely and recognizably interpreted, which I felt it was, I've got no issue. Though it seemed like I was mostly pointing out flaws, I thought the arrangement & production were solid. I originally thought I would have to compare this with mv's "Aquamarine" but the approaches weren't similar enough in my eyes to merit a side-by-side comparison. Good work, Alex. Best of luck on the rest of the vote. YES

/listens to Unreal - Fifth (Hub5), courtesy of Harmony I knew it. For real, bro, READ THE SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: WE DON"T WANT UR MIDI RIPS N SHIT. THIS SOUNDS X-ZACTLY LIEK THE ORIGINAL! NO Override, BOY-EE ----------------------------------------------------- LT: Glad you understood the reasoning for the NO Override. "MIDI rip" isn't used as a literal term in some cases, as it doesn't really matter what the original sound format was. It could be an IT, a MIDI, an NSF, an SPC, a WAV, anything. In short, if you transcribe the original note-for-note with the same timing, instrumentation, etc., you might as well be copying it outright, as it achieves the same result. Hope to see something more interpretive from you down the line.

http://www.noderunner.net/~llin/psf/packs/FFX-2_psf2.rar - 101 "Eternity ~Memory of Lightwaves~" Man, this job is tough. I've gotta say though that I was borderline-YES last time and this unfortunately is a NO. I felt the arrangement ideas were good, but the production was actually a LOT muddier this time around and the sounds weren't significantly refined or improved compared to last time despite that list of changes up there that would indicate otherwise. Like Wing pointed out, the sounds were basically the same throughout the whole 5:45 and you need to change up the sounds and the flow more. Things definitely dragged out, I'm afraid, so figure out how to add substantial dynamic contrast in more points. The new breakdown section at 2:37 was alright, and I appreciated some of the new ideas like the new supporting synth at 4:00, but overall the composition was way too repetitive, something that wasn't helped by making the piece longer. Didn't like the new section at 4:25-4:51 either I'm afraid, as the xylo note patterns you made didn't really work. You may wanna just move onto the next piece with this one, Andrew, but don't be discouraged, bro. zircon had a shitload of rejections (a ton of 'em) before he got posted so don't worry about that. I still think you're heading in the right direction overall and hope that you improve your work. Figure out how to clean up the sound on this one substantially and bring some clarity to the piece and provide more variation. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/top.rsn] - "Good-by Friends" (top-228.spc) [sNES Version] http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/ToP_psf.rar - 228 "Good-bye Friends" [PSX Version] Tales of Symphonia - 424 "Revival" The sound was noticeably washed out and the strings joining in as the lead at :30 only confirmed it. Bring in the higher frequencies for some clarity. There were some very poor sounding note-to-note movements with the strings (e.g. 1:01-1:15). I think the idea will be hit or miss with the group, but I really liked the potential behind the electric guitar being brought in from 1:30-1:58. It initially sounded like a high-pitched string which was a nice touch, though that last note at 1:57 was a sour ending for that section. Cool tambourine stuff throughout the track by the way, but that was a BAD string swell from 2:25-2:28. Bah, more jerky-sounding string movements were there from 2:57-3:12. Cool idea for the piano as the close, though it was a bit abrupt. That's more a subjective thing, so I'm not taking off any points for that. But what I AM taking off points for is subbing this glorified rip for the first 2:25 of the track. It was nearly the same tempo as the SPC, only the instruments were changed, some sections were shifted a little, and some relatively minor embellishments were added. It was basically the same genre and feel as the original. Lame. Dunno why you cited "Revival" as an influence aside from it being more orchestral sounding. Obviously, you need to provide something much more interpretive next time. Work on getting better with using your samples as well by chillin' in the ReMixing forum and continue using the WIP forum for feedback, so someone there can tell you not to submit a near-violation next time. NO

Had a hard time reconciling this with the source tune that you thought it was from, cuz the source itself was so unmemorable (not to mention the fact that you're not quite sure what you actually chose to mix), but that's alright. "Black Rose" is definitely what you decided to mix. The arrangement was too conservative, in my opinion. Sparse but decent opening for the first 55 seconds, though I felt it was a bit too long for a 2:56-long mix. Some of the note movements of the strings were iffy, but didn't quite set off a red flag until the track picked up at :55. Oooh, those were some very unnatural-sounding strings. A downright flimsy and pasted-on beat showed up at 1:15. :'-( The piano breakdown at 1:35 was decent until some poorly used vox abruptly cut in at 1:45. A somewhat cool whistle-like thingamabobber (bah, sue me) arrived at 2:00, but that crappy beat came back as well. I liked the ethnic percussion, on the plus side. I noticed your bassline was too subtle, so punch it up a bit and make it more noticeable. And a show of hands for whoever agrees with me, but there was this shift to acoustic guitar at 2:40 and that was the most interesting thing in the entire mix. WHY did you wait that long to bring it in??? And just to CLOSE the song? What??? Frankly, I'm not The Wingless, so I can't get away with saying this stuff without looking like either an asshole or a weirdo, but that string close was the ultimate cocktease. That was probably the most interesting idea in the whole damn thing and you didn't pimp it out at all. Loads of potential and actually not a bad texture, but that needed to be a bit fuller as well. This was hampered by some poor sample usage for some of the sounds, the orchestral strings, the vox, and that weak-sounding beat in particular. Cruise on over to the ReMixing forum to look into how to improve the performance, then showcase what you've got in the WIP forum and see what kind of feedback the people give ya. Try to do more with the composition side of the arrangement as well. At times, it seemed as if you just took various sections from the original and replaced the instruments with weaker sounds. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/dkc.rsn - "Aquatic Ambiance" (dkc-08.spc) Short and sweet, because, no offense, I'm not gonna use much time on a subpar Aquatic Ambiance sub. Everyone loves the theme and never changes it. The only reason it worked in the older days of the site was because people were producing some stylish conservative takes of the theme back in the day. This wasn't it. Just monotonous as anything using just the first few bars from the original as the foundation here, the sounds were thin as well as the subsequent texture, and the arrangement had nothing to speak of. I apologize for being rude or glib, but for all 5:43 of it there was nothing redeeming. NO

Yeah, I remember blowing shit up with Duke Nukem 64 when I first got the Nintendo 64. Always a good time and some scary shit. I remember this guy's name submitting some really short stuff a couple of months ago. This sub's got a bunch more substance than that last one, but as with any <2:30-long sub, as I learned from Protricity, you better be bringing it on every level if you want a YES. Overall, this was pretty conservative but you added your own personal flair to the arrangement. To me, it should have been even more interpretive, as I heard the main melody used 4 times, which is basically ad nauseum for an only 1:59-long piece. Basically a stylized cover without enough interpretation or variation, and vastly underveloped. Production was pretty good, though a little cluttered. Expand the idea considerably Matthias, get more interpretive, and try your hand again. NO

Don't have the source, but the vibe certainly conjures up images of FPS games where you have to kill a bunch of your friends and you bitch about your network connection lagging and the other players cheating all day. Don't like the name of the mix because submissions with names like this tend to imply that there's not much interpretation of the original. In any case, I'mma have to fly without the source here. The groove is certainly alright, so you're doing a decent job of biasing me. The sounds are fairly default-ish, but are used moderately well. However, the texture is very thin and doesn't fill up the space very much, so you should do something to thicken up the soundfield. The pizzicato strings at 2:13 sounded WAY too synthetic and exposed, and the same went for the vox arriving at 2:23 with some very robotic note-to-note movements there. The groove retread itself at 2:42 with the vox, some light SFX and some synth guitar (boooo) on top. It's hard to find an example of synth guitar done well. Hang in the ReMixing forum and research how to achieve a more realistic sound for synth guitar. Decent fade-out ending; nothing wrong there to me. Wish I had the original to compare to (i.e. gimme gimme, other judges), but making the call without it, I'd say work towards a fuller texture by thickening up and or replacing some of the synths, and fix up some of the more minor details pointed out above. Right now, the track just kinda plods along with its groove and isn't too interesting, so anything you can do beyond 2:42 to not retread the opening so much would be helpful in preventing things from becoming monotonous. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/tombsa~1.zip - Track 17 LOVE this soundtrack, so GET IT! I like the ambient feel and this could work decently as an in-game track. The track sounds a bit washed out and needs more clarity. But let's talk specifically about why this can't pass as is. Now, you remixed a 15-second theme with this source material. Why are you just adapting it to this Middle Eastern style and that's it? The mix just repeats itself every 27 seconds. So already, that's all I need to hear. Little things creeped in here and there, like some faint clicking noise at :55, gradually turning up the ambient pad-type sounds as the track progressed, and the guitar work fading in around 1:36. The changeup at 3:39 was interesting, but too little too late. For the genre here, your gradual building method was pretty effective and I respect that. But as it relates to the site here, we've gotta get a lot more melodic rearrangement here as well; get interpretive with the actual source tune's composition rather than just adding effects here and there over the 4 minutes. One of the perks of the job is that I get to keep this. Keep at it, bro. Get more interpretive with things next time around, and perhaps visit the ReMixing forum to learn how to clear up this production a bit. You can achieve this airy ambient feel while bringing about more clarity. NO

Thanks to Harmony for the source tune on this one. The opening strings were alright. There was a slow build for the intro, but for a 7+min track it was fine. I heard a heartbeat thumping in the background starting at :48 but the timing didn't synch up with anything. What was up with that? Ooooooook then, everything abruptly changed over to some string runs at 1:22. So there was no point to that heartbeat? Well, WTF? Some percussion entered in at 1:49, but it sounded REALLY muffled and was dragging down the clarity of the whole piece. The same with the brass at 2:03; very muffled. Things were quickly dragging until another changeup at 2:30. The xylophone action at 2:30 was always welcome. At this point, there was still a very muffled/smothered atmosphere, so the production needs to be much sharper. The brass sample usage was still poor as well. There was lots of repetitive instrument usage here in order to fashion an ethnic style groove, but it wasn't interesting at all. Some instruments dropped out at 3:38 for some spooky stuff. There's the heartbeat again at 3:52. That works for the piece thematically, I'd say, but it's kind of awkward here anyway. More xylophone fun at 4:06. 4:22 ditched the ambiance and the abrupt decays of the xylo were exposed. There was a changeup at 4:40 to some ethnic drums. The string and brass playing the arranged melody returned at 5:08, and I'm just being bombarded with a shitload of different instruments repeating themselves ad nauseum within this very muffled setting. At least there was a decent lead at 5:35 that surfaced. Even that repeated too much, but it changed a little bit at 6:15. 6:30 moved towards the piano-centric close. The arrangement ideas were certainly alright, but trim the fat off this needlessly repetitive groove, and clean up the production. Needs a lot more variation before it even has a shot, IMO. NO

http://jadiepoo.com/stuff/Deus%20Ex%20-%20UNATCO.mp3 - UNATCO Ugly/abrasive/default-ish sounds, and a decent arrangement but still not hugely new or interpretive versus the original UNTACO until 2:24. Things sounded very sparse, and, like mentioned earlier by Vigilante, there was a lack of texture and depth to the piece. Even most older pieces on the site compare much more favorably to this in terms of texture. Though the sounds were poor, you sound like you have a degree of potential on the composition side. Stick around and use the ReMixing forum to learn how to improve how you're putting everything together and use the WIP forum for feedback before you submit future material. NO

Except for a last song at the end (if you want, but I wouldn't - I'd continue doing maybe an extended clip like with DCT's mix), don't pad the show by actually playing full mixes. Playing clips only is supposed to entice others into checking out OCR and exploring the site further, plus you want the show, in its 30min format, to be fairly content intensive. That's what I'd be going for if I had a 30 minute time limit. And keep in mind as you gain a listenership with the format that regardless, you need to record and talk about things as if you're talking to people very unfamiliar with the site so that you don't lose sight of who the podcast is meant to target. Great work on this, y'all. Keep it up!

http://www.zophar.net/gym/gunstar.rar - 89.gym (starts :12 in) Well, we'd have two Gunstar Heroes mixes if Quinn Fox would stop hating on his own material and submit "Redrun Green." Punk. Anyway, this'll be short and sweet. This was actually a decent use of some stock trance/electronica synths. Why does this abysmally fail then? Well, it reaches 2:09 and simply repeats. Then again at 4:29. Mix even cuts out abruptly at 5:07 and goes on for 13 seconds worth of silence. Did I mention this was just a genre adaptation mix that's structured the same as the original? These are the hallmarks of the beginner (i.e. n00b). More interpretation, foo'. More variation, foo'. This vote is done. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gbs/sml1.zip - Track 2 http://www.zophar.net/nsf/smb1.zip - Track 2 ("Underground BGM") Some generic sounds in there, like the pulsing effects, but some decent usage. Not much done to this one beyond adding some hip-hop instrumental style beats under the original melody. The synths were really thin and sparse-sounding on the whole. No meat to the mix at all (aside from the bass thumps) and that basically killed it coming out of the gate. I'm all for a good beat, but this needs a lot more effort put into it to give things some power. The clap/bass thump beat structure that came in at :30 reminded me of "Tipsy" by Jaekwon. Saw that guy roll up into a Waffle House I ate at in ATL a year ago. No lie. He and his entourage had a stretch Hummer with them and the chick on his arm had Chanel earrings on. Some peeps got all the luck. Then some SMB Underground BGM stuff was thrown in at 2:41 for good measure. That was actually better stuff than the Ruins material here. Stop overdoing the cymbals at 3:22; tacky. Don't mean to be a wet blanket on shit, but you need to beef shit up. You got some of the Dirty South style in you, Cedric, I can definitely here that. Do like Harmony says and swing by the ReMixing forums for info on how to make your programs work harder for you and the WIP forum for fan feedback. I'd say move to the next project and just treat this one as a learning experience, but feel free to work on this one further to see where else you can take it. NO