Liontamer

Street Fighter Alpha 2 OST - "Dan Stage" The intro was thin and I didn't like the looped nature of it. Some nice Rhodes chords came in at :18 for a smooth flavor, though they sounded a little buzzy. The "Dan Stage" melody came in at :36, and I'll admit I didn't care for how mechanical the piano sounded on its own. The doubling of the piano with the string/pluck sounds from :54-1:10 did a good job of masking that and providing a little more depth. The chorus at 1:11 was nice, with Posu then taking the foreground, and seguing into the solo at 1:30, which I thought was really stylish even before I saw djp's comment up top about it. The beats felt a little too loud compared to the piano/violin combo. Another iteration of the chorus at 1:48 before going to Josh's solo at 2:06. The writing was good, but there wasn't enough realism in the sound of the performance. Most of the note-to-note movement was very robotic-sounding especially with such fast playing, so while stylish it certainly wasn't smooth. 2:25 has some nice rearrangement going on before another verse of the source tune at 2:42. I wish there was some more overt variation from one iteration of the melody to the next, but the arrangement was pretty good and was able to carry the track fairly well. 3:19 focused on the Rhodes while gradually working toward the end of the track with a steady groove. Would have liked for some more ideas to be thrown on top of the groove for maybe 20-30 seconds before going for the fadeout, just to keep that beat from dragging too long, or otherwise go for a more truncated ending. Track abruptly cuts out at 4:13 during what would have been the last few seconds of the fadeout. Needs to be fixed before it's posted. The loops here run pretty long and barely deviate from their patterns, but the overall flow of the track is good the whole way through. Without disturbing the pacing or energy of the track, I still think more could have been done with the beats/foundation of the track. But after several full listens, I feel it's getting the job done. Nothing astonishing on that level, but capable nonetheless, and luckily compensated for by the foreground material. The genre adaptation and creative solos are well-done here, so while I have some reservations on it, I'm willing to go with the borderline YES.

http://www.zophar.net/usf/pdusf.rar - 20b "Chicago: Stealth" Oh, good stuff with the source. Remember from way back when Danny B made "Silent Ascent". Back then we didn't have the priviledge of having USF files to compare with, so I had to appreciate Dan's mix on it's own. The original though is nice and chill N64 stuff that works well as in-game music and of course has that GoldenEye feel due to Kirkhope's composition and samples. The lead synth was kind of plain, but I actually liked the idea for the intro and like all of the widely panned effects. The beats at :12 didn't really seem to fit, but they were decent. Whatever effect was added in at :25 and used repeatedly didn't work, so I'm glad it stopped at :35. The sound balance gets a little sloppy as more and more elements were being added. :48 went for a weird break section before bringing in a synth playing the "Chicago: Stealth" melody at :59. Right now, the lead synth is very plain, and the various beats and effects going on have nothing to do with the track in any rearrangement sense. If you remove the lead, you can't find anything accompanying or rearranging the source melody, so there's really not a lot of substance vis-a-vis the Chicago theme. 1:35-1:59 had some sampled effects I recognize from tons of other tracks, including (very gratuitously in) most of the Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact soundtrack. The beats and effects are actually louder than the lead synth. As far as OCR goes, the focus seems to be on the added content, and not the source tune, so already I'm not for this one. Nonetheless, I really did like some actual rearrangement of the source when you changed the rhythms of the melody with the synth lead at 1:59. Though it was pretty liberal, That was at least something. That ended at 2:56, and the remaining minute focused on the beats and effects doing various stuff. I liked the last section from 3:24 until the end, even though that was wholly original. On some level, I agree with Vigilante about the track seeming disjointed, but I thought the structure was fine overall and held up ok after several listens. The production was a little rough and imbalanced, but you could get something like this passed if you worked with the melody in more of a rearrangement sense. The Chicago melody was basically converted into a trance lead carried by one lone-sounding synth, but none of the other instrumentation was inspired by the original. Work more towards reinterpreting the melodic content of the source material and making that the focus of the track. Cool stuff so far. NO (resubmit)

You're the man, Kwed! Everyone fight!!

Original Decision: http://www.ocremix.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=65727 Source MIDIs are still available in the original decision. The hiss is still getting on me because it's still significantly there, but it's been cut down dramatically. There are some good spots where there's periodically no hiss, but then hissing'll fade in or jump in, and I'm put off by it. On that level, a lot of the quieter/delicate parts are disrupted. It looks whatever was even left of the higher frequencies got cut in order to make the fix. (Side note, VERY light/non-impactful audio deformation at 3:41.) I'm gonna be the jerk and hold onto a NO borderline, but I can easily see this passing and won't have any issues there. The fixes here were good though I feel the sound quality is still lacking. Very distant and lo-fi. Anyone else that could offer further practical suggestions on eliminating the hiss would be appreciated. Nonetheless, focusing on the arrangement, this was nothing but stylish and well-crafted. Gotta give the props there, and I definitely wish you best of luck on the rest of the vote, bro. I think this has the strength to finally be your debut here.

Recuit Smoke to do a Megaman bio and Zeality for any CT bios.

Street Fighter EX OST - "Strange Sunset" Thanks for providing us the original. Man, it kicks some serious ass too. Not really the kind of thing I'd imagine as a Guile theme, but I was loving the jazzyness, especially the more freestylish stuff I heard. Great job by Ayako Saso. I'm a big fan of catchy but lengthy tracks that don't repeat themselves too often, as there's just so much creativity involved. I'll really have to check the soundtrack out. I'm very interested in hearing the remix approach here. Synth pad opens things up. Synth pad was kind of lo-fi and inferior to the original, but I love the xylo (Xylo? Ah shaddap, Gray.) stuff at :15. Really sticking closely with the original for the intro to start things off. Yeesh, LOUD sax at :30. Sounds like frequencies got cut off too. The production on this is pretty shoddy, honestly, and really doesn't present this properly. Whatever modulating noise came in at :45 is too loud and needs to be more of a background element. Get that bassline and piano sounding more in the forefront. Guitar came in at 1:01. At that point, I'm also low on the cymbals too. The performance there is good, but the cymbal activity is too quiet. Chorus at 1:30 and the performance is decent but the sound balance is just ALL over the place and needs work to save this. Brass is loud loud loud, drums are loud loud loud, everything else is just shunted WAY in the back. Otherwise sweet electric guitar work at 1:47 just bleeds and smooshes into the other instruments. Then the guitar solo is decent but sounds all muffly, and you can't hear the xlyo-ish stuff enough. Shot of trumpets at 2:07 are pretty dry; piano solo at 2:20 sounds just as lacking in the high end for clarity's sake. Horn action at 2:32 is cool but too loud. Synth on support at 2:48 is cool but too quiet. Just all these glaring and negatively impactful production issues all over the place. Audio deformation at 2:24. Just continuing to listen on, all of the stuff is fairly capably performed, and the transposing of the piece to the live fusion style is really effective on the performance side. It's just absolutely difficult to listen to because the production is bad. I hope you'd be able to do some major work on cleaning this up. Gray, analoq, Harmony, ANYONE that can give a good breakdown of some basic ideas to balance this track out like Vig mentioned, dear God, help these guys out. By the way Matt, at least credit your co-contributors in the submission letter so that they get some props too. Also, don't give your mix the exact same title as the source tune. Give it something different. I dunno, "The Sun Sets in the East." Who cares, just something different. Too bad we can't pass this. Very stylish cover that needs some serious post-production lovin'. NO (resubmit)

http://www.mirsoft.info/wogm_download.php?data=YTozOntpOjA7czo1OiIxMzM3MSI7aToxO2k6MTEyODM4NTQ3MDtpOjI7aTozO30= - Meeting.mid The game here is 1993's Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold. The additions here were minor at best, but I liked them nonetheless. The strings were repetitive, but I liked them. The lil' guitar riffy riffs were cool. Liked adding more delay at 1:05 and adding some woodwinds as well. Cool cover of a very catchy Bobby Prince original. NO Override material for just being a decent sounding MIDI rip? I won't N.O. it just because I likez it, but you need more going on in with expansionist ideas if you're going for a cover mix. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gym/sonic.rar - "Marble Zone" Nice, Orson Wells sounds like Robbie from Jazz Jackrabbit "Have You Ever? (Down in Medivo)". The tapering-off SFX cuts out abrupty in the right channel at :07. I liked the idea of the samples myself. The piano was delayed but kind of sparse, so I was glad to hear some pad-like stuff help fill things out at :29. The beats there were flat/plain, so I was still waiting for something good to take hold. Melody came in at :55, but the drums and beatwork is still rather plodding. The melody could be louder, but it's still pretty audible and has a good ethereal quality to it. Later though, the melody really beefs up nicely at 1:51, though the beatwork is still the same and really needs more going on with it to retain my attention. The soundfield also started getting a bit cluttered underneath the melody. Wing's right though about some of the synths occasionally being shrill/grating in this section (e.g. 1:55, 2:05-2:13, 2:18-2:23, 2:32-2:36). It's not awful, but it is all detrimental, IMO, and I'd like to hear better separation of sounds and sound balance from then until 2:46. 2:45 dropped out the beats and featured the chorus with some nice supporting instrumentation ideas. One thing I didn't like there was that stuttering transition at 2:58, since it rather Fs around with the flow and seems like a one-off idea, but oh well. Regardless, I liked the FL Slayer-like synth under the chorus, as well as the second, quieter piano providing additional accompaniment. The boring beats returned at 3:00. I go bleh on the same patterns being stuck to so doggedly. Needs some subtle changes to keep the foundation interesting. Wasn't liking the way the melody was arranged from 3:00-3:07 for some reason. Just sounds like it doesn't fit well. The soundfield was cluttered again from 3:00-3:44, so I wouldn't mind another J explaning what the situation was there. Last section at 3:42 was decent, but still the same tempo and basic structure for the whole 4+ minutes. Track dragged along without changing the flow much. Vig's right in that the track really needs dynamics. Work on varying the beat patterns ever-so-often and seeing what else can be done to prevent the track from dragging so much. It's already decent, and I understand the attempt at dramatic chillout, but this needs a bit of refinement for me to pass it. I'm always a fan, Robbie, so definitely work on this one further. Should be a genuinely easy resubmission for you if this doesn't make it. NO (resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/gym/ps4.rar - 28 "Take Off! Landeel" Phantasy Star IV stuff, and neither Gray nor zircon have commented yet??? OMG, y U so sl0\/\/, niggas?!??? The organ-like opening with pads seemed pretty good, then these weak bass kicks and percussion came in at :14 and didn't present a cohesive texture, IMO. Nonetheless, I can understand how you went in this direction to provide your own spin on the structure and the style of the original, so I appreciate that. I just don't think it was quite pulled off. Considering this was only a 3-minute mix, I felt the nearly minute-long intro was too long; get to the heart of the track faster or extend the track. The synth line added at :57 would have been better served in the background. I also disliked the synth melody at 1:17 as it was very flat-sounding. From 1:31 until 2:14, a lot of stuff was sharing the same frequency range, resulting in a lot of clutter which you need to clean up. As Vig mentioned, the arrangement is pretty short, repetitive and underdeveloped. Not even any usage of the actual source tune melody from :13-:33 of the original? Without anything like that to actually direct the piece, I don't see any practical appeal here, because the original material you placed on top of the source tune's foundation wasn't written well. Reference the source tune more. Stick around here and use the ReMixing and Works forums to your advantage. NO

Uhhh...how about 45TB?

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/loz3.rsn - "Title" (loz3-01.spc) [:01-:28], "Opening Demo" (loz3-02.spc) [:29-1:43], "Sanctuary Dungeon" (loz3-15.spc) [1:44-2:47], "Ganon's Message" (loz3-27.spc) [2:48-3:06], "Princess Zelda's Rescue" (loz3-22.spc) [3:22-4:25] & "Overworld" (loz3-04.spc) [4:44-5:07] Well, well, well, sounds like a pretty sweet solo piano medley. Thanks for listing off all of the source tunes you used, by the way. The adaptation to solo piano was fairly straightforward but undeniably stylish, and the transitions were short but at the same time not rushed or sloppy-sounding. Delicate, flowy, and all that beautiful stuff. The volume could have used a boost. I have to say that the transition at 2:42 from "Sanctuary Dungeon" to "Ganon's Message" was great. Out of the bevy of source tunes involved, I was particularly impressed by the arrangement of "Princess Zelda's Rescue" into a subtle, melancholy feel. The whole package was well put together and set a good mood. And, as our community is full of overly enthusiastic fans, I expect someone in the ReView thread to note how they cried to this. Great work, John, I'm definitely looking forward to whatever else you've got on the plate. YES

Hahaha! Sometimes Ormgas has a glitch where the song listed and the song currently playing don't quite match up, so that's where the mix up came from. Neon oughta get the track himeslf and edit in a real review.

Um...yeah. No fair, apparently.

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Xenogears_psf.rar - 103 "Bonds of Sea & Fire" Some basic sounds are in play here, but produced well they can still work. Those repetitive, plain jane beats starting at :17 REALLY have to go. Do something more creative with them than the occasional offbeat, because they do a bad job of filling out the track and driving it forward. Rhodes stuff at 1:24, yes? Finally something changes with the beatwork at 1:42 as we get into a faster-paced section. BAH, the new pattern just starting repeating too much TOO. Then the same old cruddy pattern returned at 2:01. Break section at 2:18; drum pattern returns and retreads itself at 2:35. Listening though the rest of the track, nothing particulalrly interesting was going on. Ironically enough, there were much of the same issues here as in the Battle of Olympus mix I just judged. You have a track with a monophonic lead that's just not getting any support due to sparse and repetitive support instrumentation. I appreciate the attempt at making something that's supposed to have a dope groove, but you didn't actually supply the dope groove, leaving the track as just plodding. The arrangement was ok, but you need more going on. Fill out the track with fuller sounds or more instruments, put more creativity into the percussion, and bring dynamics into the picture through any number of variation-providing ideas. Get more ideas and criticisms for your work via the ReMixing and Works forums here, and try to improve. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/olympus.zip - Track 14 When I heard the intro, I initially thought "Sweeeet!" Sounds sampled/influenced from track 21 of the NSF. After that we opened up with an NES-esque lead with the harp at :03. Beats faded in starting at :21. Aight, I'm feeling the intro. Maybe this is going somewhere good... [waits] OK, so the good part didn't actually happen. The potential for goodness was indeed there, until those very tame beats and bassline came in at :38, along with those boring hi-hats. The piano and the harp were mechanically sequenced, but decent. The energy level was so low thanks to these repetitive and unenergetic support instrumentation ideas. Ultimately, the depth of sound that's needed for something like this just isn't there. You need to beef up your other sounds and have more going on in general in order to properly complement this monophonic lead. On top of that, the arrangement itself needs to be a lot more unique and inspired. Basically just heard a slowing of the tempo and a key change. Not an awful track though. Get more creative with the melodic content. Hang in the ReMixing & Works forums to develop your skills and get a better idea of how to make a solid track. NO

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/soe.rsn - "Introduction" (soe-02.spc) Basic piano coverage of the original. The piano sounds too lo-fi thanks to the effects you're using on it. Electrosynth comes in at :36 and the synth is too loud; the combination of lo-fi piano and that synth just isn't working. It makes it seem like there's a sound quality disparity. Some sparse beatwork joined in at 1:51, but didn't really anything meaningful to the picture. There are some other synths in play attempting to do some weird modulation effects around the 2 minute mark, but you can't really hear them well. Decent change in the feel at 2:29 by dropping out the beats and adding some other weird synths on top. Beats returned at 3:07 with a different pattern. The track really has some disparity in the sound quality and texture of the piano vs. the synths. When the track is particularly busy, a lot of the sounds just smoosh together, making things fairly indistinguishable. 3:45 had some cooler stuff going, dropping down the piano and focusing on the electronic sounding stuff. I liked the ideas in that last section more. Still though, the arrangement has a lot of fat. You've got some good ideas for the source tune, but the track just drags on for too long, and really does need more dynamic contrast like Vig mentioned. This turned out better than many tracks we receive on the panel, but this would need a ton of work to pass, Zane, so I'd suggest moving onto new things. Check out the ReMixing forum for help with your overall production, and be sure to use the Works forum to get fan feedback before future submissions. NO

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/bmg.rsn - "Church" (bmg-06.spc) Liking the fade-in idea. Some decent stuff on the lead sound from :12-:27, but I really felt the lead for the melody at :30 was a weak sound choice. TO's right that the beats and rhythm stuff are way too loud. All that drops out at :56 to change the feel. Some of the electrosynths in here are nothing but generic and sound lame. Gonna take a Herculean effort to get all this stuff resulting in a good texture, because I though the sound combinations didn't click at all, like Vig and TO mentioned. While there were some other decent sounds in play, some sound choices were bland, and the sound balance was way off. Percussion added at 1:48 was way too loud again for no real reason. I liked the syncopation at 1:32, if that means anything. There's the attempt the change up the feel here with some sounds dropping out on occasion (e.g. :56, 2:11), but overall, the arrangement was pretty straightforward. Gotta agree with TO that nothing grabbed the attention of the listener here. The melody's not particularly good, though you certainly tried to play around with things. Hate to say it, David, but just not an interesting or cohesive track. Hopefully your future stuff will be stronger. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gsf/cvaos_gsf.rar - 08 "Inner Quarters" Sounds like a straightforward orchestrated cover with some mechanical-sounding strings, very ill-fitting/pasted-on percussion, and some occasional non sequitur scratching effects. Sounds like a track with an identity crisis, particularly with these beats just slapped on. Not even named differently than the source tune. Beyond :37, the effort was phoned in, just repeating everything all over again several times. It's boring as hell in the long-run just looping the track exactly like the original did. Nothing particularly creative. Weak take on otherwise cool source material. NO

http://www.zophar.net/zsnes/spc/coolspot.rar - "Bonus Levels" Weak synth guitar in here at :04. Yeah, tons of distortion going on due to sloppy/inexperienced mixing. Not sure how any objective ear wouldn't have a problem with how crunchy this is. Worse still at :20 once things got fuller and started clipping. Same issues at :45. Even worse at 2:20 near the finish. Arrangement was pretty straightforward, going for the expansionist route, but the additions wouldn't be creative enough to sustain this, even if the production was great. The drum writing was pretty uninspired. I did appreciate the way you altered the rhythms of the source melody a little bit from 1:15-1:31 though. Listening through until the end, still not much going on. The was Luxury Crunchy minus the luxury. Visit the ReMixing forum for production advice and the Works forum for fan feedback to help get other opinions on issues you need to work on. Chock it up to gaining some experience and move on to the next project. NO

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/ctow.rsn - "Don't Cry, Jennifer" (ctow-09.spc), "Dark Premonition" (ctow-03.spc), "I'm Looking For Mary" (ctow-05.spc), "Satanic Place Of Worship" (ctow-15.spc), "Karosene" (ctow-16.spc), "Death In The Elevator" (ctow-18.spc), "The Nightmare Is Finally Over..." (ctow-21.spc), etc. I wasn't really feeling the vox in the intro. Decent coverage of the melody at :11. The bassline is a bit too synthetic, IMO, but I liked the belltones a lot. Strings at :22 were too synthethic sounding and thin; no texture there. Electric guitar synth at :33 had 0 power and meat to it. The drums sounded REALLY cheap. Personally, I didn't think the melodic content was that hot, but I see how nespus did meaningful things on the arrangement side. Pretty much just a lot of weak sounds in play unfortunately; the samples really weren't used to the best of their ability. Pretty cluttered from 1:19-1:53 when things sounded full. Not too much so, but at the same time, the vox and guitar, the 2 most central sounds, don't cut through to the forefront at all. Work on the sound balance there. Most fake-sounding strings at 1:55, though those were better than at :22. Guitar was still very thin. Last section at 2:20 was repetitive and anti-climactic. Ending at 2:42 was too sudden, almost "Ok, I give up"-ish. Develop the ideas more. Decent effort here, as at least some good things were going on, and there was some potential. At the same time though, it needs a lot more work to get it to a passable level. NO

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/yoshi.rsn - "Castle & Fortress" (yi-10.spc) Been a little while since I closed a vote. Nice change of pace. Ironically just talked with Bev about this piece being on the panel last night. Heard this as part of PRC48, but otherwise hadn't analyzed it. First thing I'm hit with is some nice volume. Swirly pad action going on at :32 that I'm also liking. Tracks lacks clarity from the get-go, so I disagree on the production being solid. Everything sounds muffly and indistinct. Sounds way better on my laptop speakers than my headphones, but on my headphones it's a huge problem. Cool break at :57 with the vox SFX. Really feeling the beats coming in at 1:11 to add some power and drive to the track. You simply mentally remove the reverb here though, and I gotta agree with the others that the texture is lacking. Weird, I'm liking this a lot more than the others, at least on paper, though I'm still put off by the lack of clarity and separation of the sounds. Too dull and muddy. I think you can clean it up and still retain a powerful sound. "Chekan Winter" did a better job on that level. I like the vox at 2:51, but it needs to cut through more. Sounds like Bev given some processing, but I honestly have no idea what it is. Anyway, the woodwind lead handling the source tune arrangement is absolutely buried in the other sounds and doesn't stand out in any way, so that needs to be fixed. Overall, whether it's vox or woodwind, the source melody has a very hard time taking its rightful place in the foreground, so clarity and sound balance both need to be worked on. By 4:03, the track starts dragging. The groove is decent, but variation in the style or beat patterns at some point is necessary to keep things interesting. Like Gray said, for a mix this long, it's pretty weak to just retread the past ideas for such a lengthy period of time without more overt development and evolution. Good stuff in place so far, Bev & Jason, but it needs further work to pass. This one was groove-biasing me nicely though, so I hope you don't call this a done deal. NO (resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/gym/sor2.rar - "Expander" (StreetsOfRage2-19.gym) Larry judges in realtime: <Liontamer> 1:13 into this SoR2 mix, and still no source tune <Liontamer> 1:30 now <Liontamer> 1:45 <Liontamer> getting dangerous here <Liontamer> 2:00 <Liontamer> what the fuck is this, anyway? <Liontamer> 2:15, still nothing <Liontamer> 2:30 <Liontamer> I'm serious <Liontamer> kind of alluding to something now <Liontamer> 3:00, still nothing overt <Liontamer> hahaha, wtf <Liontamer> 3:15 <Liontamer> I haven't heard shit from Expander yet <Liontamer> 3:30 <Liontamer> hahaha; 3:41, finally something I recognize, but he still hasn't used the melody <Liontamer> 4:00 <Liontamer> This is like remixing a track on fumes <Liontamer> Nothing even remotely Streets of Rage about this <Liontamer> 4:45 <Liontamer> ROFL; a change up at 5:03, about 7 years too late <Liontamer> Doesn't help that I played this game a lot growing up <Liontamer> Very disappointing <Liontamer> NO NO Override

http://www.doom2.net/~doomdepot/music/doom%201%20&%202%20midis.zip - Story Music.mid Thanks a lot to Chris for providing the source MP3, as the source MIDI I was stuck with sounds kinda Yiddish. Especially at 1:23 when things start harmonizing. Wonder why that is? Maybe I'm the only one who feels that way. Cool intro, with the harpsichord though it all sounds kind of lo-fi. Melody coming in at :19 is big on the low frequencies and really buzzy. It's really hard to hear the piano in there proving some embellishments. Pretty much a cover with some organ in there until :58 brings in some industrial sounds. Track still sounds really crunchy and cluttered, as if the bitrate were a lot lower. Brief break from 1:52-2:19 before another iteration of the melody in a higher key. Just a mess of sounds cluttering and distorting together. I can see why Sean isn't co-credited, as it's hard to distinguish his work amongst all of the other sounds. Some synth solo action from 3:03-3:37 was a welcome change of pace and featured some additional creative arrangement ideas. The arrangement is cover-ish per Chris's style, but features enough nuanced additions and alterations to pass with no issues. More power to you for this passing, as I'm sure the production choices here are purposeful and other Js are certainly feeling it, but things just sound lo-fi like this was a 64kbps MP3 and terribly unbalanced to me. NO (resubmit)

http://exotica.fix.no/tunes/archive/C64Music/Cooksey_Mark/Paperboy.sid - Subtune 2/5 Played this on VGF63, but haven't had a chance to critically take a look at it. Ooh, some tense strings to open things. Ha, some cheesy robovoice to open things up. Can't understand a word it's saying. Oh shizzle, there's Navid coming in at :30. So I remember him asking me about the track, and I'm all like "WHERE"S THE BASSLINE?" The project file for this borked, so it wasn't a possibility, but this could have been infinitely pimper. In any case, good bell/percussion stuff at 1:30. Tempo fuckery at 2:00 before some new beats at 2:06. SFX-based breakdown from 2:36-2:46. Where's the source usage admist all that. Anyway, back to the same beats from the first part at 2:46. Where's the variation? The Dead Guys' "Peaperboyah" did a better job using all the parts of the source tune. I'm disappointed you couldn't think of some way to use :46-1:06 or 1:06-1:25 of the source tune anywhere in the entire track as a breakdown or anything like that. I like the lyrics though they make no sense (!) and should sit a bit better with the music. The delivery is fairly good, with the flow occasionally (but only very briefly) being not quite smooth, and the production is pretty nice. After 2:45, I felt like you could have done something to change up the beats rather than retreading them and then using the robovoice stuff too much, IMO. If you had varied the feel a little bit, I'd be more down. Project file may be broken, but I can't quite YES in good conscience, because, aside from the lyrics, it feels like you took 2 minutes worth of ideas and used them for 4 1/2 minutes. Rap mix or not, the repetition detracted from the level of source tune arrangement I felt was needed. Looks to be able to pass, so I don't have any qualms going NO-borderline. No issues with it passing, by the way. Best of luck with the rest of the vote, Navid.

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/metroid.zip - Track 5 ("Kraid") First off, I wanna sincerely complement you for altering the rhythms of the source material. Very groovy and funky and whatnot; I really enjoyed it. Wing pretty much hit it though as to what evil browns like me say. The mix is just too empty. The breakdown at 1:21 was a decent idea, but there was still not much going on, even after the beats came back in at 1:35. NES-style use of the melody at 1:50 was a decent change of pace, but a fairly simple case of swapping out another sound rather than continuing any innovative arrangement ideas. Nonetheless, I did like the way different sounds were used throughout the mix to at least provide some variety on that level, but see if you can involve some additional rearrangement ides for the Kraid melody. I'm down with what's in place so far. All of the sounds are too thin. Just gotta put some meat on the bones via more sounds or effects on the one you're already using. I hope some other Js give suggestions on that level. U so cold, Larry. NO (resubmit)