Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Featured this one way back on VGF45. What a gem. Awesome opening with all of the percussion involved. It created a very unique texture. The source tune came in on strings at :28, followed by some male choir vox at :42. I'm really loving the simple yet liberal arrangement here already provided by the xylo lead and strings from :57-1:34. The arrangement became more conservative/overt (albeit what's conservative for Mike is way more interpretive than most ReMixers get) with the xylo lead from 1:35-1:55. More overt source usage from 2:15-2:55 and onward from there as more ornamentation was added at 2:55. Loved the xylo really bringing home the source material at 3:15, and building the track exactly as Mike mentioned: alluding to the theme gradually over time and slowly introducing it more prominently as the track progressed. Great stuff at 4:17 also, as the track wound down. The subtle but well-done dynamics throughout the piece was a treat, and the changing time signatures evolved very naturally within the piece as well. Being the non-musician, I'm not gonna try to name all of the instruments in play as I don't formally know what they are, but all of the percussion was solid, and the strings and vox were haunting the whole way through. The combination of sounds was put together with expertise and an understated but notable flair, not requiring an insanely dense soundfield to nonetheless sound rich and full. One of the things that really impressed me the most was Mike's "real-world" assertion of the premise of the game, and how that actually does a great job of legitimizing the feel of this mix. Indeed, running around trapped in a maze with ghosts constantly chasing you is actually eerie stuff, much like Shael Riley's more grim and realistic take on Super Mario Bros., "I, Mario." Very intelligent imagery for those seeking underlying creative depth in their music. I nagged Izz to sub this for a while after first seeing in on VGMix but couldn't make any headway. Despite Mike not liking the thought of subbing older material, I really didn't think the age factor was a big issue here. This stuff still sounds great. Maybe could use a little nudge with the higher frequencies, but it still sounds golden overall. I'm glad I kept making this mix a sticking point as something that needed to be subbed. If we never hear the absolute gold that is Super Mario 64 "Onyx Lips and Cheese Nips" on OCR, then I'm certainly proud that I could get this one brought our way by bugging Gray. You're the man, Mike! YES

Gray is a smelly liar, with an odor of old cheese.

Avien passed away in September of last year. More information (including the ability to go to Chris's guestbook to leave condolences) is available in the writeup of "Club Del Toro."

No problem, thanks for the heads-up. It's been fixed. Cool stuff, BTW. Though an older piece, it's definitely consistent with some of Posu's other laid-back pieces like Axelay "Citylights." He be chillin' it good.

Still on vacation, but I think the mix is fine. We already have a unreleased/cancelled game (Sonic Crackers) that has a mix posted. It's still an homage to original game music. More later, if needed...

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Chrono_Cross_psf.rar - 107 "Dream of the Shore Bordering Another World" Nice cymbal fade-in to start things off. Liking the lead and the pads involved. The bassline and percussion work are cool, but the sum total is bare. Can't put my finger on why, but I'll certainly try. Offhand I do feel the kicks and other percussion are too loud over the other sounds, but I know they're supposed to be somewhat of a selling point here and I'm not necessarily saying that should go. But adjusting the sound balance a bit may be what this needs. Bringing out the bassline more during some of the bass's quieter moments would help provided you doesn't clutter things when you did it. The freestyle-ish section from 1:36-2:16 basically meandered around and felt like a freestyle/break section being there for the sake of having one. It feels pasted in rather than well-written, and I know it's been an issue since the WIP stages of the track, so I'd really like to see something better there. Also, watch all of the sounds cutting out at 1:57. Don't completely drop the volume out like that during the transition. In any case, the section after 1:57 was the one that most underscored the issues I had with the mix, where it sounded bare and the percussion (particularly the kicks) sounded too loud and dry. Adding a different type of pad in the back of that section for example could help fill things out. In any case, the rest of the arrangement was conservative but the rhythmical alterations were good, there were some good moments that showed dynamics, and the production was crisp & clean. I even liked the weird ending. But the track felt bare as if there was a spot that needed to be filled out. On that level, it was a similar problem that I believe djp was able to give suggestions on for "Chauffage au Gaz," and it's still an issue here that we've talked about before. Also, the percussion patterns got recycled too much. Consider varying the patterns from 3:14-3:53 so they aren't exactly the same as :02-:22 & 1:16-1:26. That pattern ran way too long that last time and felt like a lazy retread. I might end up being the only NO, but believe me when I say I ain't no hater, Navid. Would love to see this be your second posted ReMix down the line, but I feel it's got potential and isn't there yet. Good luck with the rest of the vote. NO (resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/kirbys~1.zip - Track 28 & 29 I remember hearing the WIP of this a long while back as Ty was getting back into the game and feeling out ideas for his Kirby project contribution. The volume was overly loud, but I generally liked where this went. Nice loose guitar with the power for the intro, along with some piano taking over the lead at :23. Too bad the bassline wasn't more pronounced. It doesn't engage my blackness, you white devil! Good stuff with the percussion until :45 oversimplied things there without the cymbals being used prominently. Too plain-jane but somewhat tolerable. Loved the synth lead at 1:07 for the faux-analoq feel followed by the guitar at 1:19 and the piano at 1:29. Great tradeoffs there for the melodic instrumentation. Things focused more tightly on the synth again at 1:52, but that lazy drumbeat returned. Could have at least gone for some mildly creative fills and whatnot. Almost a nice fadeout of the synth at 2:13, but you shouldn't have let it completely cut out at 2:18 to transition to the string pads, since it left the track feeling completely empty for that fraction of a second. The string pads at 2:18 were rather iffy and too bright/loud compared to the guitar work, so the idea was good but the pads were invasive within the final section. Nonetheless, it was a nice idea for the close and the arrangement was solid in my opinion. Wouldn't mind this getting tweaked a bit further with these levels or the occasionally sparse percussion, but otherwise it's all systems go. Good contribution for Rise of the Star and nice work, Ty! YES

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ed2.rsn - "Final Battle" (ed2-207.spc) & "The Prophet" (ed2-114.spc) Right from the get-go, the track already sounded muffled and very very distant, and the piano sample sounded very thin and artificial. The atmosphere could have been purposeful, so I waited to see what was gonna happen, but at :21, when more elements came in, I knew the production was gonna be lacking the whole way through. There's a lot of clutter in the low-end and no sharpness to this track whatsoever. The piano really needs to sound richer and as the melodic lead should have stood out more versus the strings, which sounded better. The treatment of "Final Battle" got a bit more epic-sounding at :40 when a drum pattern came in. The lead was still competing for prominence against the supporting elements. Liked the ideas starting at 1:00 with the change in style, though the change might have been too abrupt. Still had the piano on lead just smooshing together with the supporting instrumentation during the coverage of "The Prophet" from 1:18-1:42. Really, really gotta work on the sound balance. Strings took over the lead role at 2:10 with the melody on support, but they sounded strong & driving; purposeful reasons to be loud. 2:28 went for a more somber take on Final Battle that was a nice idea in principle. Again with the instruments jumbling together; meh. Beautiful touch with the piano notes at 3:03 for the finish. Richer-sounding piano (and perhaps richer-sounding instrumentation) is needed, less reverb, the presence of high-end frequencies, the presence of panning, better sound balance among the instruments, and sharper production in general is needed. Please continue to hang out at the venerable "OC Postproduction and Mastering Thang" and get diligent on getting all that down with practice. The arrangement is alright, but I'll admit I can't pay as much attention to the content when the track is so messy like this, so someone else is gonna have to get critical on that. NO (resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/faxanadu.zip - Track 10 Kinda weird, the plucked string in the first 3 seconds seemed like a mistake. The samples are still very GMish and thin-sounding. The choir still sounds very unnatural in its usage. Not sure why all of the sounds are so thin. The soundfield is at least a lot less barren. On the other hand, it now sounds pretty cluttered and it doesn't sound like much panning or EQing was used to separate the sounds out. The arrangement just wasn't retaining my interest, especially for being 4:47-long. There were a lot of expansive ideas added at least, but again, everything sound MIDIish and cluttered, so all of the additions didn't really help this out in the end. Some of the non-verbatim sections (e.g. 3:27-4:15) didn't really sound creative or extensively thought-out. Just sounds like you need a lot more experience under your belt. Keep working on more music and using the ReMixing & WIP forums, but consider this a finished project and move on. NO

That's called an homage.

http://exotica.fix.no/tunes/archive/C64Music/Galway_Martin/Comic_Bakery.sid - Subtune 1/14 Covered this one for VGF in early May: Good freestyle stuff from Nina for the intro for the first minute. Kind of thrown off by the key change with the music coming in at :49, but I gotta run with it like Lars alluded to. I like most of what's in place, as the first half was awesome for me. The blips and beeps were hot hot. But this could be stronger after 3:26, which was really lacking to me. The vocals are awesome (the whole way through), but the music/instrumentation isn't very energetic there. When talking to Lars over my issues, I mentioned that, and he said he finds the instrumentation "sexy, dirty and funky. :)" I like the approach, but the delivery is flat and volume of the music is low. At that point, the instrumentation suffers from being all low-end and no high-end. The drums there sounded very static and the synth electric guitar didn't sound very strong or realistic. Really needs more bite/power to it. The arrangement is stylish and intelligent, and I think the first half was well-handled. I'd just like to see the instrumentation from 3:26 revamped badly. Nonetheless, this might be able to pass as is, so best of luck Lars! NO (resubmit)

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.