Liontamer

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/smb1.zip - Track 2 ("Underground BGM") I'll give you props for actually having a beefy intro here. Nice loud synths along with a nice pad underneath. The Mario sound effects get annoying/tacky as you kept using them. Things really kicked in at 1:00, and I'm not really a fan of the clutter. Though loud, it sounds resonably acceptable here, so that's nothing that affects my judgement. The source theme arrangement was staying too simple, but 1:44 at least changed up the ideas with an original section. 2:06 then started referencing the source very subtlely. By 2:28 the arrangement is retreading itself. There also wasn't much of an ending at 2:51. Sounded very "I give up"-ish. Write an ending to give the track some actual resolution for the finish. It's certainly alright for a trance track, but you've really gotta think of ways to rearrange the source tune further besides transposing the melody to the trance genre. Play around with the rhythms and weave original composition ideas into the "Underground BGM" melody; provide more ideas in general within your 3 minutes. The SFX gives the track a bit more material to fill things out, but don't use them so much, especially since it's just the same few effects repeated ad nauseum. Sounds too gimmicky and too much like a crutch for a lack of arrangement ideas, so perhaps scale that back. Keep working on it; lots of potential, Daniel. NO (resubmit)

Contacted Christian about revising the name, and he got back to me really quickly: Excellent choice, sir. We deliver for you! [/Postal Service]

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Wind Scene" (ct-1-09.spc) Yeah, I checked out kLuTz's take on the theme. I'd say it was valid to check that and compare with it, but I didn't have any problems with this. Frankly, this was more interpretive. Christian's piano arrangements are always kind of strange to me, since he frequently goes the dissonant route. What the hell happened at :13 or 2:26 for example? Anyway, the first minute or so was pretty straightforward, though I liked the supporting material as well, which really added to the piece. After 1:20, we had some decent original stuff until 1:45 really kicked in the arrangement. Nice tempo and style changes. Good stuff at 2:48 going for the delicate last section. Resolution could have been cooler, but hey. The piano sounds nice and rich the whole way through. Glad to hear a piano track with some nice body to it that sounds full and not a victim of too much sustain pedal. Solid work, Christian. YES

LT: Only a 7 week FT, but the submission info from July 5th checks out. djp let Disposer know it was over the size limit, so this is the sub letter now with the <6MB encoding. From: Frank van 't Ende ( DiggiDis.com ) Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2005 4:27 PM To: submissions@overclocked.org Subject: Sonic 1 - 2 - 3 Medley Whepa .. Sonic Medley from Sonic 1 2 and 3 .. Hopefully you will enjoy ..

Shaddapz, smelly whitey! Black pow4r! http://www.zophar.net/gbs/tetris.zip - Tracks 3 & 2 Despite being obviously sequenced, there's a lot to love here. Keeping it short and sweet, the arrangement was excellent. A lot of people don't get creative with the arrangement with these Tetris themes. They just keep it conservative and never take any risks or liberties. This did a good job of introducing a lot of original passages and playing around with the various melodies. Cool orchestration. Interested in whether Dan and Jared like it. Anything that's inspired by Russian music gets a free YES! ВОДКА ПЕЙ! ДА!

The production was kind of dull-sounding and needed some higher frequency presence, and the keyboard sounded mechanical when exposed, but the arrangement was awesome. Once I compared this to the original, I was blown away by how comprehensive the arrangement was. Very chill. Glad to see you back after so long, José!

http://www.doom2.net/~doomdepot/music/doom%201%20&%202%20midis.zip - "E2M6 - Halls of the Damned" Man that source tune sucks. It just drones on and on and on. Meh. Anyway, I heard this mix a while back when Chris was using sequenced female vox, and that was already in the near-passable category, so it'll be interesting to see how Jill's involvement played a part now. Nice string opening. Wow, Jill coming in at :08 is near-exactly like the vox Chris had in play before, except providing the human touches. Props to Chris for sequencing it so nicely last time and Jill for mimicking it while giving the vocals that quality nudge. Oh this is gonna be good. Still waiting for the source tune to get involved here after the intro, and there we are at :47, though that first string there made some sort of glitchy noise. While I thought the volume was alright, DS's other minor issue were spot on regarding the strings sounding fake in contrast with Jill vocals (though still functioning nicely). There were initially a lot of spots I didn't recognize as being arranged from the source though. :47-1:17, I recognized, and 1:46-2:16 messed around with the notes but was recognizable. The vocals from 3:08-3:23 were obvious as well. Not even half the mix. 2:16-3:07 was way too liberal for me with those strings, and those should have been more prominent behind Jill from 2:47-3:07. The arrangement of the source for that area is just not a focal point. I'd willing to give you the nudge, but I'd need a fellow J to clarify how the source usage is overtly apparent in some of the section of the mix I didn't mention. Otherwise, my gut says borderline-NO for being too liberal. Well done, but right now I'm on the bubble. Abstain

http://exotica.fix.no/tunes/archive/C64Music/Gilmore_Adam/Trolls.sid - Subtune 1 Oooh, X-formZ! After seeing them around R:K:O and then VGMix, I'm glad to see Dimmignatt & Floaf finally have something on the panel. I think they still have a ways to go with their sequenced material to make it sound great. Hearing the intro I was scared that this was gonna be reliant on the original as the background, which is exactly what's going on unfortunately. From :52-1:13, you could argue that the SID was in the background and wasn't the foundation of the track as some original material was used. At 1:23 the guitar work finally offered up it own cover of the original on top of the SID. There's no sharpness in the track. I suppose that's a lack of higher frequencies to give the track some clarity. The drums really could use more power and variation as well, and the guitar levels are too quiet. The source melody (starting at 1:12 of the SID) finally kicks in at 1:54. The mixing is sloppy for this section. A lot of the supporting sounds under the guitar just mud together until 2:33. Same with 2:45 until the end. This is a decent cover-style mix on top of the SID, but I'm not gonna accept any mix where the sampled original itself is the focal point of the track. Same with your Giana Sister's mix. As far as this site goes, your own additions should be the focal point of the track when all is said and done. The best example of this I can point out that you guys would be familiar with is Juha "sumppi" Kaunisto's Zoids mix "Zoids Revisited" where he uses the SID to anchor parts of the track, but his own instrumentation is MUCH louder and more central to the mix. The SID is used throughout a fair portion of his track, but isn't the thing tying it all together. Guys like Shawn Phase hate to hear that kind of rule around here, as there are good tracks that use the original itself as the base of the mix, but I feel it's an important rule that ensures the artists don't use sampled originals as a crutch and that their own personal additions are the most relevant aspect of the track. That's what we stress here. Sorry, bros. Hope you'll keep submitting and also take in some of the criticisms about how this was produced, which was just as important a reason as to why this wouldn't pass. Vig or zyko in particular could give more tips on how to make the guitar work stand out more and give the whole piece more power. You guys have some promising sequenced material as well like Ghost Battle "The Haunted" and the older Turrican 2 "The Great Bath" so improve on that front as well to get those tracks sounding more humanized. Look forward to having you guys improve and submit more material in the future, Ola & Fredrik! NO

Don't have the original, but didn't need it at all. Arrangement doesn't seem too liberal off-hand, just from hearing the melodies used here, plus the track was short, but I'd appreciate someone digging up the source if possible. The intro wasn't bad as all. Some decent breakbeats and dance kick type dealies. Sounded thin, but it could have then evolved into something nice. That electro-organ type sound at :15 was very mechanical sounding. But the real drawback was that sax sample introduced at :30 which sounded too synthetic and robotic to carry any believability. And adding a second sax for harmonization was terrible. DarkeSword in particular could give you some tips there. There were many point where it was just a sax alongside the beats you set up, which sounded sparse and beginner-ish. The mix overall was very short and poorly developed. The whole thing was decidedly weak, and these flimsy beats were probably the worst I've heard from you. That's not to shit on all of your work either, since I've heard some decent material from you on the panel, but this here was awful. I've heard way better efforts from you that show a lot more meat on the bones and powerful sounds. I'm surprised you couldn't at least make this as impactful as some of your dnB submissions. I wish you'd revisit some of the pieces we've previously passed on in order to see if you could improve those. Right now, I'm convinced you're not trying to use the ReMixing or Works forum to improve your arrangement and production skills and get more feedback. Please focus on improving your material. NO

Ain't it the truth.

I'd call that a bassline rather than a melody, and it is has been perfectly preserved by the "hopscotch" route/7th pattern in the ReMix. The phrasing has been altered but the notes are there consistently from beginning to end while the rhythms have been taken up by other instruments playing different notes. Still doesn't seem too liberal to me. Sweet, thanks for the new perspective. Yeah, I hear the melody from the MIDI used as the bassline of the mix here most of the way through. The biggest aspect of the source arrangement basically consists of the bassline of this mix, which is confined way in the back. The portamento melody of the mix sounds too liberal/original compared to the source and is the focus of the track rather than the arrangement of the source. And there you have it. (Gonna keep saying that.)

It may be pretty basic but it kicks in at :27 of the MIDI. And there you have it.

http://www.doom2.net/~doomdepot/music/doom%201%20&%202%20midis.zip - "E1M2 - Nuclear Plant" Decent intro. Good job even making that ambiance a rearrangement of the original. The vox was a bit too artificial sounding, as well as the strings. Nice atmosphere though. The drums seemed a bit too loud, but s'alright. Some electronic stuff kicked in at :50. A little cluttered and drowning out the melodic lead, but the production is good for the most part. Just bring that lead out. The melodies here really aren't very melodic at all throughout the whole piece. Just seems like randomly phrased stuff the whole way through that doesn't sound much like the source tune to me at all. And prior to judging this, I looped the source tune for hours to get very familiar with it. I obviously hear how you changed the rhythms up, but beyond 1:59 it started going far off the beaten path as far as I could hear. For anyone who complained that some of the material was too liberal, I'd say this was a good example. Make the melody more overt here. That means not obscuring it with all of the other synths and effects in play, making the arranged melody sound more easily identifiable with the source material, and making the arranged melody sound more melodic in general. Don't get me wrong, David, on the whole this sounds good, but it doesn't sound at all like the theme you tackled. I'm certainly willing to relisten if anyone else strongly disagrees. NO (resubmit)

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/loz3.rsn - "Credits" (loz3-31.spc) Yeah, this was actually a mix of the Credits theme. The Ending theme (loz3-30.spc) is actually totally different, so I just wanted to clear up any confusion. I know Shna really liked your mixing name, so good stuff with that, Poptart and Crackho! This was some decently sequenced stuff. The piano here has the delicate touch, but sounds awfully mechanical regardless. Good idea for the addition of whatever that was at 1:14. Beyond 1:42, some of the other additional instrumentation you added also sounded a bit too synthetic, but overall it didn't negatively impact the piece in any major way. More panning would be nice. In any case, this was definitely a case of the arrangement being too conservative. Think of ways to involve more melodic interpretation and strengthen the samples you're using. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/SaGa_Frontier_psf.rar - 216 "Alone" The intro was a little thin-sounding, but the samples are used decently. The percussion coming in at :36 doesn't mesh well with what you have in my opinion, but it's ok. The guitar melody at 1:09 sounded very mechanical, which was one of the larger drawbacks here. Over time, the structure of the percussion drags on as well. Think of ways to change not just the patterns, but the overall feel in order to keep the piece fresh. Just as I said that, you changed it up at 2:49, which was good, but the track could use the change a lot earlier on. Also, the new snare pattern there until 3:22 was really plain and needs to be spiced up. The arrangement was still conservative, but much more creative as a more straightforward genre transposition than your previous take on "Alone." There was never really any significant change in the feel of the track, which was an important issue for me. This is pretty good downbeat material, much like "Moon Dust" but needs a little more work to keep the track engaging throughout the 4 minutes. Repeating myself from earlier, change the feel up with some more changes in the instrumentation or different effects. Nonetheless, with a bit more work this could be your third posted mix, and I'd love to see this worked on further. I'd appreciate any other Js to give specifics on how this could be brought to that next level, especially because I felt the production was a bit dull-sounding as well. Nice work so far, Damon, I sincerely hope you don't drop this one. NO (resubmit)

ftp://ftp.modland.com/pub/modules/impulsetracker/michiel%20van%20den%20bos/unreal%20tournament%20-%20foregone%20destruction.it - "Foregone Destruction" The same goes for IT files as well, obviously. This wasn't much of a remix or enhancement, and just coasts on the instrumentation and structure of the original. Not surprised this sub had the same name as the original. Not what we do here. NO Override This NO Override has been brought to you thanks to F4T4L_3RR0R. Here's how it unfolded: <F4T4L> I wonder if it's at modarchive.com <Liontamer> looks like nothing, but I'm still looking <F4T4L> hey I like... found it * F4T4L unzips his pants. "HOW BAD DO YOU WANT IT?!" <F4T4L> HEY LARRY <F4T4L> LARRY <Liontamer> yo <F4T4L> ftp://ftp.modland.com/pub/modules/impulsetracker/michiel%20van%20den%20bos/unreal%20tournament%20-%20foregone%20destruction.it <F4T4L> YOU CAN THANK ME LATER <F4T4L> just be sure to say that I am the sole hierarchy of awesomeness <Liontamer> I tried that link though <Liontamer> it didn't work before <Liontamer> That was at the Nectarine page I linked to <F4T4L> the link on the page was gayed up <F4T4L> I dug down the root and found it manually <F4T4L> I went through EACH FOLDER <F4T4L> because I am that awesome <Liontamer> NICE <Liontamer> YAY! * Liontamer *kiss* * F4T4L bows <F4T4L> if it's on the net, I'm the man to find it. <F4T4L> because I DON'T GIVE UP! lol <F4T4L> okay now I can resume downloading my NSF's. enjoy! <Liontamer> Once I get this, you will indeed get the pimpage All hail F4T4L_3RR0R, the pimp of pimps and the sole hierarchy of awesomeness!~~

Thanks for providing the source tune, Collin. I can definitely say this sub was much better than the source tune, which I just hated. Too frantic and cutesy, but I imagine it works well for the game. In any case, good ideas hear in terms of simply slowing the tempo down for this remix. It allows the melody to be appreciated more. Can't articulate the issues as well as I'd like to, but I think zircon would be able to break this down the best. The arrangement is alright. Potentially a bit repetitive, but not hugely. The problems are much more with what sounds you've been using and how they're being put together. Not feeling the intro here. The lead really doesn't combine well with the strings backing it up, but :19 has some better stuff with a piano. The piano has some nice effects on it, but the beats are too loud and don't sound like they're in the same place. We get some Rhodes-like freestyling at :38 that's fairly stylish. Just continuing to listen but it just seems like the sounds don't really combine well or mesh together. The accordian/piano combo at 2:38 is probably the best combination out of everything you had, and the strings weren't bad, but other samples involved sounded very low-quality. Nice piano & Rhodes ending, for sure. See what you can do to spruce this up. Genuinely glad to see you submit some material, Collin. NO

Checked out the C64/SID version of the soundtrack (by the same composer) but for some reason none of the subtunes sounded at all like this. Oh well. Decent but plain beats to intro stuff here. I liked the vox used in there at :16; it managed to sound cool on account of being so robotic. The apparent source tune melody kicked in at :40. The whole atmosphere was sparse. Just a bad idea with the loud drum beats at :56; they were very overbearing, and the idea was just lazy-sounding. 1:11 in, and this continued to have problems establishing a solid groove. The supporting instrumentation was plain and too sparse to fill out the soundfield. The melody was back at 1:28 via some mechanical-sounding plucked string type sample. I heard something fill out the soundfield VERY quietly and subtlely from 1:46-1:58, initially like the sound of a racecar. You need to be emphasizing ideas like that to fill things out. The next section at 2:00 sounded noticeably spartan by comparison. There was some bassline action going on at 2:16 where the notes didn't quite seem to agree with the rest of the track, but it was brief. The looped beatwork was just dragging on by the 3 minute mark. Basically the arrangement at this point involved lots of permutations of the melody by changing up the instruments occasionally and using some effects. Nothing bad, but nothing particularly strong here. The arrangement could be about 60-90 seconds shorter and still say the same message so-to-speak. So again, while I appreciate the change in the lead instrumentation and the infrequent but observable counterpoint involved as well, the sounds aren't strong, the arrangement drags on, and the soundfield is bare for the majority of the track. Decent effort though. There were interesting melodies here that make me want to check out the source tune, but this mix needs a lot of work regardless. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF8_minipsf.rar - 119 "The Man With the Machine Gun" Basic techno coverage of the source tune to start with. Nothing really creative here. The melody comes in at :59, and this needs some beats or something to anchor the piece and fill it out, since it just sounds empty bare. 1:47 finally brings something in to that effect. At that point, it becomes obvious as to how poorly balanced the sounds are. We get some slightly different percussion around 2:00 and then the melody just retreads itself at 2:16. Gotta present something that's actually creative and interpretive with the source material which this simply isn't. Finally get to the chorus at 2:56. Still just verbatim with the source and not much going on. Reatreading the intro at 3:25, and there's the melody again at 3:35. Alright, I'm gonna listen just to make sure nothing different gets introduced here. ... ... Nah. 5:37-long, too conservative, poorly mixed, underdeveloped and dragged out. This never even GOT in the game. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 319 "Aeris' Theme" Opening up, the percussion is really flat. The patterns aren't bad, but they don’t mesh well with the guitar lead to me. Some fakey-sounding strings arrived at :35. Very thin and sparse sound on those. Doesn't really make sense that the strings are being overpowered by the bassline. Just sounds like the volume on the strings was turned down as opposed to a human player playing softly; I’d argue that you should punch that supporting bit up. Rock style stuff at 1:58. The percussion still doesn't sit well in the track at all. It’s louder than your guitar lead and the sound disparity on everything doesn't help; the drums sound clean while the guitar's a bit muffled and muted. All just strange choices in combination. Some MIDI-thingamabob string instrument joined in from 2:21-2:48. That’s just gotta go. It’s so mechanically programmed and GM-ish, it just cheapens the whole thing. At 2:48, it’s back into the chorus, and the arrangement feels like it’s not going anywhere interesting after all this time. You gotta cut the fat. I appreciate the effort given to the supporting instrumentation, but the arrangement is just too straightforward most of the time. Doesn't help that MENBAH! already made this style of mix and did a better job of it. Some people bitch about comparisons, but the fact of the matter is that this idea has essentially been tread before. That being said, this isn't passable even if FF7 'Prayer' didn't exist. Finally something new at 3:32. You could just start there and fashion a more creative arrangement based off this idea. Some of the string chord in the background are clashing with the guitar plucks though. Anyway, the melody comes in again at 4:11, this time on a Casio-like keyboard with some effects. Sounds more gentle and unique than the guitar arrangement. The vocals at 4:39 are very untrained, sound exposed, and the delay/echo effect on them makes them sound worse as they layer together poorly and the timing is slightly off. Some reverb on ‘em at 5:11 was good but it was way too late, so perhaps use it earlier. Suggestions would be that the melodic arrangement needs to be creative and interpretive, not cover-ish, get the percussion work to sit well in the track, get better samples and get them sounding humanized, and tighten up the whole performance. But honestly, I’d just say move onto the next project and chock this one up as experience as you strive to improve. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Chrono Trigger" (ct-1-02a.spc & ct-1-02b.spc) & "Memories of Green" (ct-1-05.spc) The looped nature of all the guitar work makes everything sound rigid and mechanical. The melody finally comes in at :40 along with a loud oboe at :46. Hearing a lot of rythmical ideas dealing with the source theme, but then you just go off onto some random tangents than have next-to-nothing to do with the source material arrangement except for the harp WAY in the back. Stuff's pretty liberal from 1:01-1:36, but we finally get more overt arrangement from 1:36-1:58, then MORE original material until 2:19 that has nothing to do with Chrono Trigger except a lone guitar in the back referencing the source. It felt like the arrangement of Chrono Trigger took a back seat to the original material here. Sure the tradeoffs between source material and original material are there, but there was too much use of original material while the actual source tune played a very low-volume supporting role. You'll riff on it for like 10-30 seconds, then push it to the background and play all original material on top instead. The source material is obviously there but oftentimes doesn't even feel like the focus of this track. Maybe others will feel differently. Nice stuff for a first sub, and I'm keeping it myself, but my main issue aside from the source material not being the focus of this track was with humanizing your instrumentation. The guitars' sound too robotic, the piano sounds mechanical and so does the harp. Just work on humanizing all that and stop by the ReMixing forum for some tips. NO (resubmit)

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ewj2.rsn - "Lorenzen's Soil" (ewj2-03.spc) Decent stuff, but extremely reliant on the source material for the structure. Short and sweet, the sounds were basic/generic and lacking any punch, and the production was flat. Track repeats itself at 3:11; might as well have cut the track length in half. Lazy, uncreative arrangement. On this level, it's just a weak techno arrangement with some light piano and strings, and some gerenic beats. Dan's a bigger fan and more familiar with the source material thanks to "Invertebrate Retreat", so he'll have more thorough insight as to how you handled the arrangement, but I didn't hear anything hugely interpretive hear that put a notably creative spin on the source material. NO

Need someone to obtain the source material themselves, but I'm in agreement with DarkeSword all the way. The sounds are decent but basic, and could have been used more effectively. The whole thing is sloppily put together re: the sound balance, like DS also mentioned, and it just drags for 6 minutes. If anyone knows what sounds like bad FruityLoops work, it's DS due to his extensive knowledge of the programm. The song was decent and there were some decent sounds behind the muck, but the track was weak on all levels. No way around that. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/smb1.zip - Track 4 ("Castle BGM") I wanna firstly stress that the arrangement is great overall. There were some really great ideas going on here. But the execution and proudction is below the bar compared to any material we've accepted in the past 2 years, and this shouldn't be getting any YESs, it should be getting all NO-resubmit. I'd urge the YESs to reconsider their votes on the grounds of the production alone, which is way below bar. The mix is overly quiet, which wouldn't in and of itself be a problem, but the volume disparity at any time between the lead instrumentation and the supporting instrumentation is too much. Make the supporting instrumentation sound more prominent instead of ridiculously far away. The brass right at the intro sounds alright but needs a louder, richer sound. The beats coming in at :53 have some worthwhile patterns involved but sound flat and mechanical. That's because you made those too loud and exposed them. More brass at 1:09 sounds flat and muted. Same problem with the strings at 1:25. Everything here the whole way through sounds thin and weak rather than full. I liked the arrangement more and more as I listened to it. Some of the transitions were undeveloped, but I feel like they worked regardless. The vox at 2:47 was a very nice touch as well. The ending here at 3:56 was a poor resolution to the piece,like zyko said. Sounds like you ran of of ideas. Other than that, I had no huge qualms with some of the original section, because I feel as if the source material was used substantially. You really have some good ideas with the way you're combining/layering your elements, but they're hurt on account of this very subpar production. All of the higher frequencies are absent here, resulting in the track sounding dull. Only reading zircon and Harmony's votes just, I see we had a lot of the same issues regarding the production. You need to take their advice and fix it up, Adam. Watch some of the clashing chords that were pointed out as well, please. Good work so far, but it's not even close to done yet. Use the ReMixing & Works/WIP forums to your advantage. It could pass with significant work. NO (resubmit)

Heh. Kind of hard to tackle a theme like this. Four notes isn't always enough to work with, but some people have made arrangements in the same vein work. You can tell this is kind of old just from the sounds, like Alex mentioned. OHHHHHH, there's some nasty distortion from :48-onward. Everything's way up there in volume and cluttered. 1:06 brings in drumwork and it's nothing but der uber-distortion showcase. No offense, but I can't really imagine anyone feeling this for the whole crunchiness factor. The way everything smooshes together, it made it harder to distinguish the arrangement. Too bad. Liked some of the ideas here. Cool piano at 2:34, for example, and I liked whatever airy sound you brought in earlier at 2:22. Uh oh, here comes the quasi-random phrasing at 2:52 with the piano. It just doesn't sound very melodic. The arrangement really doesn't need to be close to 5:00-long. Arrangement was decent. Somewhere deep down under the volume, I could hear the source used, though there were some overly liberal parts too. Couldn't even properly assess it, frankly. Puts too much of a strain on my poor Yankee ears to try to listen to this and mentally pull apart the various sounds. Can't believe no one told you to pull the volume back before this got added to the project. I know this is an older mix, but c'mon, stop with the needless volume issues. There's nothing borderline about this ear-breakage. You're definitely better than this, Alex, I can say that. NO