Liontamer

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "The Brink of Time" (ct-2-13.spc), "Kaeru's Theme" (ct-1-19.spc), "Wind Scene" (ct-1-09.spc) & "Peaceful Day" (ct-1-04.spc) Going for the quick pimpage. Some of the string work on the intro until :33 was a bit...odd. Didn't like how it sounded like there was some crowding in the low-end frequencies from 1:11-1:28. Less so with the "Peaceful Day" reference from 2:15-2:23, but I felt it was still noticeable. Some of the transitions, like before "Frog's Theme" and then into "Wind Scene" and "Peaceful Day" seemed too abrupt, but worked in the big picture. Beautiful stuff at 3:00 with, as Blake dubbed it, the happy rendition of "The Brink of Time", but then I felt there was some bad note selection from 3:59-4:02, which resulted in some clashing notes at the end of that reference like zirc mentioned. Good stuff overall though, as I appreciated the way had the references to the other arranged material and wrapped them up with "The Brink of Time." The structure offered up a lot of abrupt changes that nonetheless worked well in the medley sense here. I didn't really get the medleyitis vibe; it sounded really logical that a small orchestra could/would play something structured like this. Bueno. YES

Just noting, make sure your submission isn't just your artist name. Give it an actual title next time. Good stuff introing with "Stalker" and changing up the rhythms. This took a "Kick Your A" approach by placing the arranged source tune in the back while using a lead that was wholly original. The synth lead itself (:17-1:03) was very simple but VERY catchy, but you need to make the source tune usage more noticeable and integral to the track, by punching it up a little and letting it show through more. Indeed, the usage of "Gotham" from 1:04-1:35 was really nice as well, though that Duke Nukem sample at 1:34 was REALLY tacky. Sounds like you just pasted it on top, so next time use some effects to just help it sit in more comfortably in the track. Right off the bat, the track was lacking on the production. The trebly highs often got blisteringly loud, and the sounds just mushed together during the louder section, crowding out a lot of the source material usage, as Shna mentioned. 1:06-1:30 was a lot more acceptable when things were clearer. The composition also got boring. 1:46 added some other new instrument to the picture for another verse, and I also liked the combination of the source themes at 2:09, but other than that, the soundfield was ridiculously crowded and the arrangement after 1:46 was on cruise control. This had some good moments in here, but Shna hit a lot of these issues. Needs a lot more ideas in here and better sound separation. Hope you keep working on it. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/metroid.zip - Track 1 Cool stuff, notwithstanding Vig's hard-on for all things decent that are Metroid. Track lacks some serious polish on the production. Just seems like a lot or ALL of the higher frequencies got cut, making everything sound dull. In any case, the arrangement was actually pretty damn interesting. Nothing interpretive with the melody, but there were a lot of bells and whistles thrown in here to lightly ornament the track, which is good. Some weird harmonics in here like at 1:26 with those supporting strings that are gonna get Shnabubula wondering what you're doing. Watch those clashing notes. Whatever instrument came in at 1:40 lent a nasty, low buzzing texture to the track that needs to be fixed. Cool shit, but DEVELOP THE THEME MORE, and indeed make this longer. Not making the track longer seems to be a key reason why this sounds so underdeveloped. If you actually played around with the melodic content substantially, you could get away with a 2:20-long mix. Needs a lot of work, but if you're game... Try to name your material something more creative in the future as well. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Alundra_psf.rar - 126 "Reflecting" Really cool stuff. I liked how this was creatively similar to Sam's concept with his Landstalker mix. Though the genres weren't the same, he was again able to extend a relatively brief source tune into a much longer piece. Very beautiful & flowy winds carried the piece with some light brass on support. Glad to hear some strings arrive at 1:20 to change the texture, and I liked the strings and tempo increase both arriving around the 1:30-1:40 area to provide some increased depth and dynamics. Beyond the 2-minute mark, things got a lot more pronounced and powerful with the louder lead and the drums arriving. Just a great sense of build here. Slowing things with the harp at 3:03, dropping out the percussion and revisiting the more gentle instrumentation was another nice change of pace. And after 3:30, the the speed and intensity tradeoffs between sections became a lot more frequent. And the trademark lil' flurry ending from Shna? Dat be good. Suffice to say, I hated it! Sam fulfills a much-needed niche in the community, tackling a lot of material that otherwise gets little-to-no coverage. Really anticipating what could be coming next, as he's got a few composers left in his favorites list that he still hasn't tackled. YES

In my opinion that's called not using the sources enough. I'm a big fan of both source tunes, especially "Boss (Titania)" which is some great stuff. This was some creative stuff, and I liked how both source tunes were transposed into this setting. Reminds me of one of Shna's original tracks "Symbiote Funk", which changes the instrumentation of the verses on each iteration. Good morphing ideas in places, but compositionally it does sound too random and lacking forethought. Sounds like you just threw ideas to the wall and tried to see what could stick. Wish there were some melodic interpretation done with the source material and more direction in the composition. I like the concepts and hope Anthony can get something passed, but more interpretation and cohesion under the chaos is needed. Cool stuff though. I keeps it. NO

I contact Sixto about renaming the mix and offered "Wicked Six" as a suggestion. Sixto hit me right back with a PM: Nah, nothin' to be sheepish about. Glad my suggestion worked for ya though, and I hope the people dig your quality OCR debut. I've seen your name a lot of time posting stuff in the WIP forum, so I hope at least one of those projects leads to a great follow-up mix, Sixto! Keep it up.

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF8_minipsf.rar - 103 "Blue Fields" Aight, I'm gonna have to be a hardass. The arrangement is great to listen to. The piano is awesome. The sax on the other hand is weak. Despite the fact that it's real, because it sounds so flat and dry with the peformance, it borders on sounding synthetic. The sax performance just isn't smooth and despite being the lead, it didn't stand out at all in the mix versus the piano. After 1:57, the sax work at least sounded louder & livelier, but dropped back at 3:02 repeating the prior issue I had. The ending was too abrupt, but that was a very minor point in the big picture and doesn't affect my decision. I've gotta go ultra-borderline NO with the begging for a resubmission, but that genuinely isn't the verdict I'd hope to render for such an otherwise engaging composition. The sax was holding it back. Nonetheless, I wouldn't be totally surprised if I was the sole dissenter, because I thought this was still good stuff. Best of luck with the rest of the vote, Pat.

Richter isn't mirroring... SPEAKING OF SOMEONE I SHOULD CONTACT FOR MIRRORS!! Oooh, y'all better think of something quick. Beg John Romero & Bobby Prince to mirror!

The piano was fairly fakey, but fine for what it was. The composition there was decent and the rain SFX was used spaciously. I disagree that the piano sounded poorly played, but at the same time, it definitely was too long and didn't have any sense of direction. I was waiting for what sounded purely like an extended intro to change the pace, and there it was at 1:21 with some electric guitars and some strings. 1:42 did have some pretty sloppy guitar playing come in. As Vig mentioned, there's no low-end or high-end frequencies anywhere. The patterns from the drumkit coming in at 2:17 were bare & lazily written and the percussion needlessly dominated over the guitar work, making that bareness more apparent. As soon as the melody came in at 2:51, the slopppy performance of the harmonizing guitars was only more apparent. The performance wasn't in the dumps, but the whole thing did sound very sluggish, with some problems keeping things in time. Good freestyling ideas from that one guitar underneath the melody from 4:00 until the end, which really brought some intriguing creativity to the picture and at least showcased some potential. Also do wanna point out that while the rain SFX sounds good with the piano intro, it just a wimpy sound effect to use that during the actual rock portion of the track (not to mention you could barely hear it). Perhaps find something more intense to use during the louder portions. I'd myself suggest shortening the intro a bit, involving the whole frequency spectrum in the track instead of making it all mid-range (ReMixing forum), tightening up the guitar performance, and creating more involved percussion work. Needs some work, but I hope you guys keep at it and improve in the future. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gym/SK+SONIC3.RAR - 18 "Flying Battery Zone 1" The track was pretty sharp from the outset, but that doesn't mean it didn't have any problems. I felt the track was too loud and cluttered in places. Particularly at :42-1:11, you can't really distinguish the melody very well. We finally got into the meat here at 1:27 with some overt rearrangement of the theme. I don't feel instrumentation of the melody possessed enough distinction from the other sounds in play, but it gets better for my ear over repeated listens. The sounds choices were too samey and the sounds themselves smooshed together from :42-1:11 & 1:28-1:55, but the chorus at 1:55 fixed that up and brought the melodic content into focus. Nice beats at 2:25; that's bound to be a hit-or-miss idea. Continuing onto 2:39, we're getting a lot of original freestyle stuff. The saw wave deal is the most prominent sound, but I was disappointed in the supporting synths playing Flying Battery being so shunted to the back and not really playing a significant part from 2:40-3:07. Oooh, nice stuff with a new synth finally getting in there at 3:22 and throwing some personal flair in the source tune, that's what I'm talking about. The melody sounds kind of on it's own and the supporting synths and beats don't seem to really gel with the lead; maybe some of the rest of you will feel what I'm hearing there. The ending also seemed to kind of run out of steam after 4:18, going for a few more bars of beats before the last (NON-tacky!) cymbal shot with some nice effects at 4:33. Ultimately, I'm slightly borderline but can safely go YES, because this definitely plays around with the source material well, and the premise of alternating sections with some original ideas was good. The arrangement was solid stuff and makes a good companion piece to "Deep Damp Sandcastle." Some of the mixing choices here may simply be what my personal preference is going against, like with Dain's most recent DDR mix, because I'm not a fan of sounds overly bleeding together when in my opinion they detract from the listening experience. Works in more ambient material, but doesn't seem to work here where it tends to simply sound messy. Luckily that doesn't hurt the mix too substantially for my ear. Glad to still see you in the game, Dain! Keep 'em coming!

http://www.rareware.com/extra/downloads/bfd/bats.mp3 - "Batula's Theme" http://www.rareware.com/extra/downloads/bfd/conker_the_king.mp3 - "Conker the King" I disliked the drum flurry and the bell that intro the track, mainly because it sounds like no effort was made there to sound better than MIDI grade. The woodwinds at :06 were very mechanical sounding and the light vox/pad in the back was a non-factor. Still, fairly good intro. Again at :38 with the fade-in of the drums and the bell, those sounded very MIDI-grade. The sample quality was fairly weak; the light hats and cymbal activity starting at 1:29 felt out of place, and whatever woodwind came in from 1:48-1:57 was VERY robotic and MIDI-quality. Overall though, the orchestration was still pretty decent, and the melody did sound nice. Nonetheless, I had a huge problem here because the arrangement isn't creative at all. This first section sounded like only a SLIGHT sound upgrade to "Bats" and didn't change or expand the composition in any substantial way. I'm really tempted to NO Override, but I'd feel more comfortable letting Jesse, Dan, Shariq or Gray make that call on this particular mix if that was the case, plus there was a little bit going on in adding some new supporting instrumentation anyway. But already it's an easy NO. Things carried on that way until 2:38 went for a sparser approach. Woodwind from 3:15-3:22 again was a low point. The xylo at 3:24 was a very nice idea... Actually, I'm not gonna review this anymore. I'm not trying to sound pretentious, but all of the ideas here until 3:52 are basically lifted verbatim from the first 3:05 of Batula's Theme, and it's just kind of a waste if you're not gonna intrepret anything and even keep the genre the same. I listened but didn't actively compare anything from 3:52-onward with the source material. If anyone wants to offer suggestions or praise for that stuff being somewhat interpretive of creative, that's fine, but I think the creativity should have been there from the get-go. The guidelines here encourage interpretation, Ryan.

Yeah, I don't mind the minimalist approach here, but the instrumentation, particularly the woodwind lead, doesn't sound realistically sequenced at all. The arrangement wasn't particularly interesting for me, but could be improved by more natural timing and interplay with the instruments so everything would click strongly. Decent initial ideas though, and I wouldn't mind hearing this come our way again. NO (resub)

Yeah, I wish things were more interpretive, but I felt the arrangement was decent. Not quite passable, but some very applaudable stylistic interpretation was there, especially for Call at a Port like Shan mentioned. Light Side Field is one of my favorite tracks by the way, but the rendition of that in particular was thin. The performance is alright, but sounds a bit too synthetic and thin for how it was presented. The performance needs to be tighter, that was my main concern really. Hit the ReMixing forum for tips on getting the acoustic guitar synths sounding more natural, and get more WIP forum feedback. As long as the stylistic interpretation remains on this level, it has a shot at least. Worth keeping for me. Looking forward to another stab at this one on the panel. NO (resubmit)

I think it's sadder that he thought it would be a good idea to save that as a GIF. The bigger travesty? Smoke hasn't sent us Americans any Dutch marijuana. Not that I even want any, but it would be a kind gesture to be sure.

Alright, so I'm gonna break Bev's heart again and jerk this mix around. I've been listening to it and the issues I've had with it have been nagging on me for a couple of weeks. Talking with fellow Js after the other votes came in really crystallized a lot of the issues here. A big problem I had reading other votes here was that analoq, zircon, and The wingless were all in the same boat as me where we all liked the arrangement but felt that something was lacking in the performance. The fact that 3 other judges after me had lukewarm feelings about the performance and/or dynamics not really drawing interest should have set off a flag with me earlier, and the mix did merit re-evaluation. This didn't stir up much of a reaction upon listening, so while the arrangement is definitely above bar, the plunkiness of the performance, the sparseness of the soundfield, and admittedly robotic quantizing of the notes in places were all limiting the performance from being truly stirring and emotive. If this were posted as is, I think there would be a lot of people criticizing the mix on that level. I believe Bev exceeded her own standards here, but not OC's. The performance and her own post-production efforts have become better like I mentioned in my previous comments, but this can be improved and I feel some of the top piano sequencers in the community could provide insight to help her really trick this out and have it captivate and deeply involve the listener. Right now, the arrangement is solid, but this is admittedly too dry and mechanical for me to comfortably remain YES. NO (PLEASE resubmit)

Bleh. Like Jesse said, it's in mono, the arrangement is repetitive & underdeveloped, and it sounds terrible. Dunno the technical differences between General MIDI and, say, Modplug, but well-made tracker stuff doesn't sound this bad, so you get the links to the help areas as well as the "NO MIDIs" portion of the submission guidelines. ReMixing forum Work-in-Progress forum

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff6.rsn - "Tina" (ff6-201.spc) Alright, plunky fakey keyboard, fakey strings, fakey brass, hilariously bad "NEWS" sample. Terra shows up in :40, and we keep groovin' and so forth and some such. Nice brass at 1:04...definitely. Steel stringed guitar at 1:09 was probably the highlight, and MORE brass at 1:21. Hahaha, awesomez! OverLooked ReMix is that way, 'Ili. http://www.olremix.org NO on paper, but YES in my heart

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/metroid.zip - Track 5 ("Kraid's Chamber") Yep, the source tune didn't come in until :47, and even here it was just the verbatim melody with the loops/beats on top. Production was cruddy cruds with a distinct lack of higher frequencies and cluttered, dull sounds. 2:04 had some slight rearrangement ideas, but nothing solid. Lazy ending. Form letter quality. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/riverc~1.zip - Track 2 Watching Tuesday Night Fights on ESPN and I'm reviewing during a commercial. Very bland MIDI-grade sounds and relatively bland arrangement. Too many uncreative/boring sections where you just copied the melody verbatim. Very sparse; not much in the way of polyphony. The arrangement at least picked up in creativity from 1:21-1:53 & 2:18-2:49. Form letter material. Help comes in the form of the ReMixing y WIP forums. NO

I wrote Mick just a few hours ago and it only took him 2 hours to hit me back with the cleaner version! Awesome! Nah, no problems at all. Everything sounds cleaner and more powerful. Props again on this one, and thanks for getting back to us so quickly!

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/dkq.rsn - "Forest Interlude" (dkq-10.spc) Really plain synth lead coming here; anemic and flat. The hand drums were alright, even though they sounded fairly unnatural. The synth coming in at :37 didn't sound very melodic at all, it sounded pretty flat, even when doubled. Already a minute in and I'm not really feeling it, but 1:16 changed the direction a little bit with some decent freestyle-ish material laid over the source. Nothing here's really establishing prominence over the other instruments, which is pretty critical for the melodic content. Sounds like the percussion and supporting synths are louder than the actual melody. [shrug] We finally tackle something from the source tune other than the intro at 2:13, but there's really no meat to the arrangement at all. Nice accenting provided by those strings showing up at 2:37. The arrangement meanders around at 2:52 with some poorly-written freestyle work that merely used motifs from "Forest Interlude." 3:31 dropped all of the elements out and basically retread the arrangement style except with strings now filling out the background to make things sound more ethereal during the fadeout ending. Aside from the use of the strings, the sounds never changed around much here with some effects or brought in any new ideas. Meh. Just never any real direction here with the arrangement; never goes anywhere at all. The lead needs more meat to it (I think it actually ruins the rest of the texture here), the sound balance among the instruments needs to place the lead in the forefront, and the phrasing during the freestyle-ish parts needs to sound coherent instead of random. The use of panning here was alright though, and you achieved some fairly clean sounds, which is commendable. Keep working at it, Ross. I'd actually say work on some original material for a little bit to refine your composition ideas so that your melodies sound more coherent. NO

OCR-Hosted NSF - Track 1 Yeah, Aaron's right. This was too plain and didn't bring the sheer power I expected from hard trance, though it was a decent effort. 3:07 had a synth come in that I thought would start off the source material, but didn't actually get into the second set of notes in the melody until 4:23. Those SFX clips were pretty lame at the outset, but used very quietly in the background during the Excitebike melody they had their place. The usage of actual Excitebike material was over at 5:14. The mix was too long with a whole bunch of meaningless (in the context of the guidelines) original material 7:18. Not even close to enough arrangement here. I was hoping that some of the synths involved here were meant to sound like when the player was riding the bike, but recalling the actual game, that's not true here. Glad you're still submitting Yuji, but I'd rather listen to something of yours that very expressly deals with the source material you chose, like the brilliant Zillion 'MelodicTrance'. NO

If anyone's got high expectations for a Street Fighter Alpha mix, it's me. Starting out, the track was already too muddy. Ryu's theme kicked it at :25 on bass, and the supporting elements totally washed the piece out. I heard some almost happy hardcore-ish percussion work in the background but it was very subdued. Not a fan of all the sounds bleeding into each other this way whatsoever. The spot at 1:44 where the bass was briefly loud made absolutely no sense cuz it was never used again. What was the point? Same with the lone SFX usage at 1:54. The arrangement was really dragging out by the 2-minute mark. Some tacky cymbals showed up at 2:06 and didn't leave until the very end. The melody on the bass guitar dropped down at 2:17 and just didn't work. The ending at 3:00 was pretty scattershot on the composition and just abrupt overall; there was no build or transition to it. Bleh, what a mess. NO

The track basically looped at 1:32 & 3:06. The woodwind first used at :51 sounded awfully fake when exposed, but the layering of them worked well. Cool instruments for an ethnic and organic feel, cool groove, nice panning and production. Keeping it. Too bad this never developed into anything instead of looping 2 1/2 times. From the looks of the sub letter, this may possibly not be interpretive enough to pass, but I leave it up to Gray or another Suikoden fan to verify that. If it's not a cover Kitsune (or I suppose even if it is), provide a lot more interpretation & variation and resubmit. NO

OCR Hosted NSF - Track 4 ("Wicked Child") Aight, we've got a live one. The track was a bit too loud and could have been pulled back a bit. Not overly interpretive for the first half or so, but there was good trade-off and interplay between various instruments and synths during each verse and chorus, and of course the expansiveness of this compared to the NES original was apparent. The drums could have used more variation, but didn't really get on me for essentially performing just a time-keeper role. Oooh, now we get into the goods at 2:44 with some good rearrangement featuring an organ synth. Notes were too fast to be realistic, but it was reasonably well sequenced. Then the SOLO is where it's at 3:20. The sound was too loud and there was a measurable degree of clutter most of the way through, but I think the overall package was solid and those issues weren't TOO detrimental in terms of listenability. If any Js wanna NO on production issues, I have no problem with that, and can agree on some level. Dizzamn, why haven't I heard of Sixto before though? Nice work. YES