Liontamer

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/megaman1.zip - "Elec Man Stage" (Track Disliked the mechanical piano intro, but the atmosphere was good, including some solid string work in the background that didn't sound exposed alongside some pads to further fill things out. The piano was too plunky, but the intro was a good homage to the original before retaining the background instrumentation and transitioning into some beats at :41. Hit a fairly good electronica progression at :54 though the soundfield felt empty until 1:07 when the supporting instrumentation came back. Gotta be bleh on the mechanical way the piano was used again, but it nonetheless was in the forefront of some good original composition that worked seamlessly with the style of the source material. Nice subtle idea at 1:34 to quietly bring in that pad playing a piece of the Elec Man melody. Over halfway through and still waiting for the meat of the mix to develop, but this slow build was working out really nicely. The synth lead at 2:12 referenced other parts of the theme in an understated but recognizable way. Nice effects on the lead from 2:48-2:51 for the transition point. Really smart arrangement ideas this time around. It's nothing like that older Chrono Cross sub that got rejected. The arrangement was verbatim from 2:51-onward, which was a creative disappointment, and would have put the mix down if it weren't for the previous interpretive ideas, but the overall package was good, which is the most important thing. I already knew MaJIN could bring it, so congratulations to Ambient for collabbing on a track that displayed a lot more structure and focus than his previous work, and also tomatsu for what I'm sure was a critical role in the track as well. I hope that all of you keep developing so that your solo work is just as strong and well-put together. Majin in particular had some whiny/ROFL words for me when he and Ambient's Chrono Cross sub was rejected last time around: First off, I'm gonna ask that the letter be left right here in its entirety, even with all that childish shit in there. It's important to see & understand how pissed off some people get when genuinely subpar material they've made is rejected. That's how some artists feel. So on account of Majin being pissed off about "TimeLords" being rejected, he conclusively thinks there's all this political game going on with how material is judged. ambient as well. Having listened to works of theirs and given honest 1-on-1 feedback and criticism for both, and played material by both of them on my radio show, it's disappointing that when they hear something they don't like such as a NO vote, it's immediately rationalized as hating and politicking. Stop acting like babies and continue to make good submissions like this, and you won't have any reason to complain. The improvement compared to "TimeLords" was good with some stronger-sounding synths (particularly the lead), the supporting beats/elements locking together much more tightly, as well as some creative arrangement ideas most of the way through, everything that "TimeLords" should have been. You've got it all wrong, bros. Don't play politics with me. YES

Cool, a PSP submission. Too bad the source isn't available then, though I don't need it for this. Not a bad track, but definitely a good example of generic FL stuff. Pretty basic patterns & effects and a sparse atmosphere, it's nonetheless a lot more capably put together than some of the crudulence we've gotten in the past. The groove is even pretty decent. Conceptually, I agree with you that it fits well for something like a strategy/puzzle game where the music changes based on your actions. Overly repetitive, but cool stuff. Relaxing on some level; nice and downbeat. The cymbal shots were probably the biggest offender as they sounded REALLY pasted on top. Other than that, the sounds here were generic but not unpleasent, for what it's worth. Nice experiment with FL, but it's nonetheless too basic in its composition and construction to have a feasible chance at passing, and that's without even factoring in how much of arrangement this may or may not be. DarkeSword in particular may be able to give you some basic tips & tricks to mess around with for future works, but stick around and hang in the ReMixing forum to learn more about FruityLoops so you can improve your skills and try new things, Adam. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/castle~1.zip - Track 2 ("Bloody Tears") Not a terrible intro, though it's made up of generic sounds admist one other more interesting synth. Ah man, it's got the tacky overused cymbal shots. Bah. Then we get the oom-tss showcase at :38. Sorry, but as an electronica cover, this is just generic and plain in every way. At least the chorus at 1:33 was cool with that single lead on it's own briefly, but really, who gets the credit for that? Club Kukeiha does. Could have been cool based on the source tune alone, but "Bloody Shame" is more like it. Short, generic for the genre, and uncreative & undeveloped arrangement. NO

Uh, I never call? Man, I dunno wut your talking about, but I don't swing that way...uh... Mr. Weird Man. http://www.doom2.net/~doomdepot/music/doom%201%20&%202%20midis.zip - "E2M4 - Deimos Lab" Thank God it's a Doom mix where I can easily recognize the arrangement of the original. I've literally been plagued with too many liberal Doom tracks lately. Nice intro; I love the crispy SFX in there. All spooky stuff while waiting for something to kick in, but 5 minutes gives it a lot of time. Ah, here we go with the vox tackling the theme at :56. The male vox on support doesn't sound as good as the female vox, but it's very minor. The pizz strings at 1:08 are a lil' fakey, but nothing I mind; definitely a nice touch having them there. Things became dull-sounding on the EQing as soon as the drums were worked in at 1:23. And for some reason, the metal-hand-percussion-dealies (LOL! I try, folks...) you used here hit some really bright spots where they're too loud. Same at 1:49 with whatever new shaker you added there. Way too loud and overbearing. Things calmed down at 2:15 with some cool organic instrumentation along with a xylo (Xylo? Ah, shut up, Gray!). Goes on for a while as I wait for the source tune to come back in. Nice quick reference to the source from 2:57-3:11. In any case, quite the interesting section. Some may have some qualms with it, but it was carried out VERY well IMO. Very unique vs. other stuff we have on the site, the percussion-driven work here was awesome, and the pads and other light instrumentation filling it out were exactly what it needed to not sound barren. Back to the vox at 3:38 as things picked back up. The vox sounded a little muffled now, and again from 4:08-4:31 the soundfield sounded dull when everything kicked in. Fix 'er up...er. Hot close as well. The crackly almost Morse code/telegraph style SFX from the intro makes an odd but interesting close that compliments the strange atmosphere of the rest of the track. I'd really like to see some production tweaks on the sections I mentioned before this is posted. Gray could really help isolate some of the problem areas and offer tips. But other than that, this was gold and some exemplary material from the The Dark Side of Phobos. While the EQing needs some work in places, I felt this was your most impressive arrangement material yet, Navid. Nice work, bro. YES

http://www.zophar.net/gym/herzogzw.rar - "A Breach of Contract" & "A Full Retreat" Oooh, Herzog Zwei! If I'm not feeling this, you'll know it, cuz I love this soundtrack immensely. Wow, pretty beginner-ish. Sounds are very sloppy, and the arrangement isn't very creative. Original sections like 1:08-1:35 and 2:03-2:17 were filler. "A Breach of Contract" was used verbatim and "A Full Retreat" was actually simplified here. Mix with generic techno riffs and dance kicks and that's basically it. It's a shame too, because with themes like these (particularly Breach) I can fully understand how people get trapped in the whole "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality and don't take any risks or creative liberties with the source material. Gotta be a lot more though, Caleb. Keep practicing and improving through help from the ReMixing & Works forums. NO

http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/sega/segacd/XJ220-Indego.mid - "Indego" Thanks for providing the source information. That original sounds pretty cool, even in MIDI form. Racing games tend to have some good stuff. So to be honest, I'm letting you know we're coasting with a solid NO already. But it's on the panel, so let's check out the arrangement content and see if you had anything going on. Seems like from your letter, you're saying you wanted to arrange the material after 2:52 of the MIDI. Well, to put it short and sweet, I liked some parts of the arrangement. It sounds like the piano chords you used were just taken from the original and beefed up a little bit. Doesn't help that you're still working in General MIDI, so the sound quality is still the same. The piano is kind of piercing at times. Also, if you already knew the bass & snare were quiet compared to the hihat, I dunno why you didn't address the problem, though I suppose for practicality's sake I should assume you tried. Rather short remix. It's certainly interpretive while keeping in the spirit of the original, and I don't mean sound quality, but rather staying in the same genre. It's a cool MIDI remix, but you'd be better off submitting it as a remix to VGMusic.

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/metroid.zip - Track 3 ("Brinstar") Good sounds/texture for the intro, though some are a bit fakey for the way they're being used (strings/vox). Takes a while to build up, but 1:17 introduces some melodic content. Very very subdued. The fact that there aren't more elements involved makes the fake nature of the samples stick out all the more. The guitar coming in at 2:01 is a huge victim of that, sounding exceedingly mechanical, but most of the samples suffered from that level of exposure as well. The arrangement seems to be relatively simple and could use more ideas. 2:50 starts upping the tension with some low strings and drums, followed by another crescendo at 3:15. We get more reliant on the drums at 3:17 and the pace quickened. Still very synthetic sounding the whole way though, plus the panning was strange to me up until 3:57 or so. Things slowed down again for the last minute or so going for the finish. The composition was decent, and was fairly limited on account of the samples/performance. Nonetheless, there were some good ideas here and some good uses of dynamics. Nothing superlative, but very noticeable and contributing to some nice points throughout the course of the track. Wish the arrangement was a bit more comprehensive, but it was alright. Head to the ReMixing forum to get down with humanizing your samples and working on the production so some of the sounds sit better in the track and don't sound so thin. Good first go here, Justin, but this needs a lot of works with the finer details. Hope you have more time to dedicate to this. NO

YAY! PaRappa! YAY! Aight, so we're into some speedy dNb. Where's the high-end for some clarity? Sounds like he just created some original beats with the sampled PaRappa voices. Wait a min... [reads sub letter...] HAHAHAHA! This was cool too! Damn, I wanted some PaRappa mixes! Where are you Shael??? Where are you Joe Cam??? At that same token, don't try to sub this as a PaRappa mix just because you used some "Prince Fleaswallow's RAP" PaRappa samples. Or more to the point: HWUT!!! I SPIT HOT FIRE! NO Override

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/smw.rsn - "Sub Castle BGM" (smw-15.spc) Very basic rock cover. The performance is decent enough where a typical fan would appreciate it, but the recording is of poor quality with noticeable hiss and an overall dull sound. The lead guitar has no power and the whole track sounds sluggish on the performance. The timing on everything needs to be tightened up. The sequenced drums were repetitive and had those lousy cliched cymbal shots in there. Make the percussion more creative. The arrangement was verbatim as well, though you tried to throw some personal flair in there via the performance style. Not enough though. If you're going for just a cover, expand the instrumentation substantially to even have a shot, but I'd advise you to throw your own compositional ideas in there as well. Get more fan feedback from the Works forum and find out how to improve everything about your performance and production from the ReMixing forum before you submit material in the future. zyko & Vig seriously need to give some tips here. Haven't seen you around Dwelling of Duels, but register at The Shizz and get some concentrated feedback there as well from other serious guitar enthusiasts in the scene. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/megaman3.zip - "Shadowman Stage" (Track 9) Weak synths, 4:25-long and repetitive, underdeveloped, unengaging, uncreative on the arrangement, and near verbatim with the original. Some VERY brief original ideas in here (3:28-3:42), but nothing significant or different enough to merit allowing a full vote. NO Override

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/sd3.rsn - "Religion Thunder" (sd3-3-11.spc) Cool ideas to start, though the drums are way too loud. Some FL Slayer geetar kicks in at :12 and it sounds way too fake. No body or power on it. Something else gets added at :25 to further clutter up the soundfield. From the get go, there was way too much reverb on everything. Except the drums, you can't hear any of the supporting instrumentation over the guitar lead. Too bad, there was some other good stuff going on beneath the muck. Nice ideas for the next section at 1:16. The principle is good, and I'm feeling the arrangement. BAH, it stopped at 1:46 to retread the first section. [/disappointment] I liked that part. Yeah, so the first part is just rehashed for the finish, which ends on the quick "that's it, we quit" quasi-ending at 2:23. Very brief and underdeveloped, which was a shame, because I liked the arrangement for the most part and the genre was good, albeit executed in a cluttered way. Gotta separate the sounds more so they don't bleed together so much. Let the other instruments and counterpoint ideas stand out. Don't let the last section simply repeat itself from the beginning. You're gonna have to create some new arrangement ideas or enhance the last section, otherwise repeating your ideas within a mere 2:29-long mix suggest you phoned in the effort. If you can get ideas on how to enhance that FL Sayer-style guitar lead from anyone in the ReMixing forum, then do it. Continue using the Works forum as well. Very promising ideas so far, Matt, so keep working on this. NO (resubmit)

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