Liontamer

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/mo2.rsn - "Battle Against a Weird Opponent" (mo2-029.spc) Cover-ish stuff with some oomp-tss and other simple stuff on top until :37-1:14 introduced some new melodic content as the lead, and went back to the cover formula. Pretty sparsely constructed, too conservative in the effort to expand the original, and not developed into anything meaningful. NO

Heh. That's a pretty naive request.

Fixed.

So aside from the most important stuff like the job/career hunt and working during early evenings, I've been busy with using my free time doing OCR related stuff like judging dem mixes, writing reviews (gotta catch up) and working on updating the site's database with many new source tunes (in-progress). But I'm proud to say that my life's goal of getting a remix past the judges panel has truly arrived. That's right, the fine judging lads over at OverLooked ReMiX have enthusiastically passed the superlative Gran Turismo (Japanese Soundtrack) mix "Toyota Disco", and I encourage you, the unwashed masses, to register there and VOTE Toyota Disco to da top o' da OverLooked ReMiX charts! I count on your support to put money in my mouth and food in my wallet! So vote early and vote OFTEN (i.e. once)!

Ohhh shit! For real? Any way I can check that out? (Wish I knew if they re-ran that stuff).

Swedish you fool! SWEDISH!

Yeesh, had to move my vote to a new post just to separate from the bible of information about it. The time breakdown though from ktrition was much appreciated. This was pretty catchy stuff, and I liked it as a casual listener. I thought the production could have sounded sharper and more lively, plus I don't understand why this was presented so quietly. Had to raise the Winamp preEQ 6db just to hear things. Also need to obtain a <6MB copy of the mix. I was pretty borderline on the track. Not that this has to echo a more active, progressive approach the whole way through, 'cuz the rather minimalistic instrumentation approach for the first few minutes works for the most part, but the track felt too empty at points. The first minute or so was excellent, but when Christian entered in with the bass at 1:25, it sounded like it was just drums, perc and the harp there and things felt sparse to me. Once you hit 1:56, the organ on lead plus just the bass and drums felt a bit too empty in tandem, though I liked the harp-style activity. Nice fluttery sound at 2:26 for the ear candy. I wish Christian's bass work was a little more pronounced here, especially since there weren't too many things going on yet. The section starting from 3:47-4:02 and then 4:02-4:22 with all the SFX was a pretty WTF transition. The static was fine, but some of the other soundclips came across as cheesy/unnecessary beyond the static itself. Call me a wet blanket, but I don't really see the point of that part at all. Nonetheless, we got some of the good stuff at 4:22 and things picked up nicely and filled up the soundfield with some laid back, but strongly performed material. This is more of the vibe I was anticipating from the get-go. Nice transition at 5:17 into some nice hand-drum & piano stuff, but then at 5:35 some odd-sounding notes came in. I wasn't really phased by it too badly, but 5:50-6:10 was just...what's going on there? I was feeling the material after 6:10 though, and I liked the static coming back in for the finish. EDIT: I may sound close-minded, but I really initially thought the ideas from 3:47-4:22 & 5:50-6:10 threw monkeywrenches in an otherwise solid arrangement. They didn't impact me enough to NO, even though I initially disliked the specific ideas there, and felt they disrupted things. Otherwise, the arrangement was fine, and didn't suffer from straight medley-itis the way mixes with this many source tunes are prone to do. I'm fairly sure some will dislike how certain sections transitioned though, but over time, those sections worked fine on an artistic level as well as for switching up the flow here. And, no, that's not a free pass for anyone trying to do something strange. Not really gonna try to dissect this with so many source tunes though, so thanks to Kunal for breaking it down for us. I'd really prefer the levels raised up a bit without clipping, and those (in my opinion) out-of-place sections refined a little bit, but otherwise have a YES, with the arrangement carrying my vote.

HAHAHAHA! Awesome.

Bah. No need to hate on the old school stuff, even if it's FL-default or whatever the case may be. It's an weird piece, has some odd harmonies in spots, and the last section was bad, but I thought this was actually pretty catchy in places, and I enjoyed some parts of it 3 years ago when I first heard it.

"What seems to be the problem, sir?"

GOOD LUCK, HOMEY! JUDGEZ ON STRIKE 0R SOMETHIN'! Seriously though, apologies to Mike for this being held over so long waiting for votes that frankly just aren't gonna show up. The panel has made a decisive conclusion and, as there have not been further votes recently, the voting is closed. I hope the already provided criticisms and suggestions are beneficial, and encourage a possible resubmission down the line.

My ears have always been the greatest. But then again "that's a slap bass" and "those strings are fake". Hahaha, that TGIF commment is so true now that I think about it! Nice analogy, Blacky McBlackerton.

BAH, U THINK I'M NOT WATCHING U! GRRRRR! Karl with a K, I'm watching u. U2, Bev with a B.

Guy apparently wants more Zelda mixes from you instead.

Yeah, I remember this one from VGF59, since it won PRCv2-14. Very cool track, and I had no particular problem with the way the track was produced. The panning was pretty distinct, which I liked, although I felt this could have sounded crisper/sharper without undermining the piece. Also remember, we have a 192kbps encoding limit. In any case, the first 32 seconds featured some arranged CV material, mostly heard in the plucked strings. :33-:51 went into full MIB remixing mode. :54 seemed wholly original; couldn't tell ya where it's from. Then 1:14-1:38 went into some other section that I vaguely recognize, but I don't believe that's CastleVania; maybe it's another section of MIB score material? I definitely recognize the source tune being arranged at 1:39, and it's even more recognizable from 1:51-2:03, but then you just went back into the MIB material at 2:03 and closed with that. Why would you submit this here expecting it to pass OCR? Start up "Moo-vee ReMix" and submit it there. WAY more Men in Black score used here than Aria of Sorrow, and I didn't even recognize all the parts you used. Cool stuff for Mother Russia, but no dice. Thanks go out to Shnabubula for providing the clip of the MIB score to check out as well. NO Just a side thought, Dmitry, but have you ever tried to do a Tetris mix? I'd really like to see you submit one here, so I could show my mother some Russian folk music remixed by a fellow Russian!

I PMed Kunal over at the OneUp Studios' forums to find out more about the source material, and he got back to me in just a couple of hours. Don't worry about it. Part of the reason I did the mix is so that people check the soundtrack out. I personally adore it, but it was such a poor game that relatively no one noticed the kickass celtic soundtrack behind it

Didn't someone already say that about me and Rayza, for which there is none? Hey lets not jump to conclusions here.. HAHAHAHAHAHA! Toronto HEAT!

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/scv4.rsn - "Dracula's Theme" (scv4-02.spc) I checked this one out in late May for VGF, so I check back on what I had to say. I thought the arrangement of the source material was pretty good which is why I genuinely felt the job done here was solid, although being perfectly honest I didn't find the track too engaging myself. I felt the lead strings in the first third of Nix's mix up until 1:12 were smartly arranged from the strings appearing from :58-onward of the source tune. Still, the first half of the track until 1:46 dragged after a while. The familiar melody was used with some more active work from 1:47-2:10. Pretty brief, all things considered. The strings and brass at 2:10 were at a pretty low volume and sounded incredibly muddy, and there was an annoying low droning sound that ended up cluttering the low-end. I may take a hit for my other issue being a personal preference thing, but I'm not a fan of overly muddy or washed-out sounding pieces and I felt this wasn't an exception. Pretty much the whole time, the soundscape was very muffly and the track lacked a great degree of clarity due to a lack of higher frequencies. Especially encoded at 160kbps, to me this just came across as sounding dull, hastily-made, and lossy. I'm really lukewarm on the piece as a personal perference (outside of my vote), and I think a lot of people would actually end up disliking this, despite me liking the rather unorthodox compositional approach. In any case, I felt the arrangement was there in spades. However, the production choices were a huge negative to me. And I apologize for not being able to articulate it better, but I also felt that the performance aspects of this synth orchestration were lacking on some level. Gray or Dan may completely disagree; frankly I don't know if they would, but I felt some of the note-to-note movements with the strings and vox were just nagging at me by not sounding as believeable and human as they should have. Damn, I said pretty recently that I don't feel I'd have to suggest to Nicolas anything on how to make his mixes work, but I gotta say I was really underwhelmed here. I really think this could be re-EQed to provide more clarity and not subsequently undermine the texture of the piece, which is the only major thing I'd say really needed adjusting in order to get a pass from me. NO (resubmit)

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF8_minipsf.rar - 307 "Fisherman's Horizon" Cool, the intro is nice. YOU BE GUITAR BIASING ME! ... Ah man. Some REALLY weak strings entered in the background at :19. They're too quiet and way too synthetic and just don't mesh well with the piece. Another guitar and some bass entered in at 1:04 and the production was a total mess all over. Nothing has much clarity as all of the instruments mudded together. Some electric guitar cut through at 1:47, but it had no power behind it and was obscured by the other elements. Some disappointing and excessively lazy drumwork also entered in at that time. By 3:00, the arrangement had been dragging on too long already and nothing's been changing significantly or developinging. With a relatively conservative take like this, you can't be repeating the melody ad nausuem like this. Things settled down a bit at 3:33 and that section seemed to have a bit more focus. There was a sudden burst o' rock at 3:57, but it was plagued with many of the same problems as before at 1:47. At least at this section though, the electric guitars were prominently positioned and cut through the rest of the mud. Decent close at 4:40, but even that offered nothing new from a compositional standpoint. Frankly, I don't think this can be brought to a passable level without a total overhaul. The sampled instruments all sounded fake: strings were inhuman sounding, the drum patterns were robotic and the hits always had the same intensity, etc. The production needs a shitload of work, so please use the ReMixing & Work-in-Progress forums to get more knowledge and feedback on how to make this work. This definitely couldn't support 5:08, so trim off some of the repetitive sections. In any case, I'd love to hear a resubmission of this, but I would probably call it a done deal and move onto the next project. Decent ideas, but the execution ain't there at all. Damn, what a shame, seriously. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Xenogears_psf.rar - 207 "Gathering Stars in the Night Sky" I had some comments on this one from late May for VGF: Mix was 4:08 long, so lemme try and invoke Ari's 50% guideline and see if I think it denies the track here. (train of thought...) Solo piano opened with Desperado until :15. :15-1:00 used the Gathering melody right there. The section at 1:00 sounded derived from :58 of the Xenogears source tune. May have had some Desperado in there, I dunno, but it seemed cool to me. 1:32-2:14 had another nice iteration of the source melody. 2:14 had the transition right from :58 of the source again, then the same part arranged again at 2:33 followed by some original riffing. 2:48-3:18 pretty overtly arranged Desperado, before moving back into Xenogears at 3:18 until about 3:49 before wrapping things up. I don't feel this had an issue of not being mostly an arrangement of VGM source material. Onto some other things, the recording was really rough. The hiss during the solo piano was easily noticed during the first :14 and I would have preferred to have had that hiss fixed or cut down a bit. I don't mean to come down on these bros when I say they sound like a rougher version of the OneUps. I'm along the lines of Vig's thoughts where I felt some of the sax work could have flowed a little bit smoother, and I also felt it sounded a bit dry. Crappy, exposed-sounding last few seconds at 3:57, but that and the hissy intro aren't enough to make me NO. The rest sounded fine by me. Production was the biggest hit here, so I really wouldn't mind the input of some other Js on how to really get at this and sharpen it up, since a lot of the higher frequencies are AWOL. I'm sure the OneUp peeps have offered some suggestions on that over at the OUS forums. In any case, I felt Gathering Stars was well-woven with Desperado, and that these bros ultimately brought some good stuff to the table. Could be more refined, sure, but this wasn't sloppy, and the arrangement was there. Good job, y'all. YES

Short and sweet. I liked what's been done with the mix so far, in terms of giving it some basic but decent beatwork, as well as an ambient feel, though I felt the track was too trebly. Too much high-end and not enough midrange. I liked the sound of the lead introing in at 1:26. 2:14-2:33 had some average stuff going on with another brief section of the material, and was repeated at 3:12-3:31. By about 2:30 the beatwork was getting too repetitive, and should have offered a bit of variation so the approach didn't sound a bit lazy. The rest of the song after 3:31 progressed ok, and had some little touches added here and there that picked things up at the end. But at the same time, this could be a more. A bit more balance EQing, less repetition of the beats, and a bit more meat on the arrangement. NO

Of course, I thought revamping it was all good. Here's Joel with the final scorecard on what got tweaked and improved: Now you're jivin' with power! Very solid upgrade here that's all about the YES now.

Damn, another one I never paid enough attention to from the Phantasy Star series. Back when I first listened to all of the OC ReMixes in 2002, stuff from unfamiliar soundtracks had a more difficult time retaining my attention. I was actually just looking to check what source tune this had, and I was surprised this had the same one as Quinn Fox's "Mamabrain" mix. The stuff from 3:18-4:13 was swanky as hell. Stylish shit all around, much like Dave's Socket mix, and this one's at 6:03 no less, which is decidedly not pop-length. Don't let this quality stuff fall under your radar like it did on mine. Really looking forward to Dave tackling an obscure game remix in the future, since PS2 isn't quite there and "Trip the Light Fantastic" was a while back. "Burnt Mota" though, wow, nice work. Great way for me to celebrate 3 years on the boards here. It's been a great time here.

Yeah, this may be an older piece, but it holds up very nicely. Nice work in particular using the arranged source tune on the backing strings while the original melody you made was in play. I didn't feel the source tune was difficult to pick out at all, but I could understand how the interpretation here could initially throw some people off. Definitely an overlooked mix y'all should be checking out. Show you're lady you have a heart, fellas. Let djp get you some.

http://www.dongrays.com/midi/archive/game/d2/d2map10.mid - "The Demon's Dead" Pretty conservative-but-decent buildup for the first minute or so. A little bit slow as far as getting into the meat of the track. 1:10 featured some beefy guitar work entering in to keep up with the additive feel of the arrangement. Slightly unorthodox approach doing the shredding much louder and over the top of the melody. There were some points like 1:50-2:30, where the melody was too obscured thanks to the guitar work being too prominent. Also, from 2:10-2:30, the melody was so obscured that it seemed as if the guitar work wasn't accentuating anything, but simply original material dominating over the top of the source material. Same sound balance issues from 2:49-3:29, which really was a shame. The mid-range was really cluttered and loud, so please do whatever you can via more judicious EQing to keep the energy good but separate some of the sounds a bit. I'd really like to see the source material from 1:50-onward given a more prominent position, as well as have the source be further rearranged instead of being so straightforward. I really wouldn't mind if the source melody was simply given more of a supporting role, because the guitar work was fairly good, but too much of the track involved the source itself being flat-out buried in the track as if you didn't want it to be heard. To me, it prevented the various sounds from effectively harmonizing together. NO (rework/resubmit)