Liontamer

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 415 "The Birth of God" Testify, bro. I definitely like the arrangement, but the performance is very unnatural sounding. Also hearing a lot of light static-y hissing. I've heard that in a lot of tracks, and was just interested in knowing what caused it. I'll scour around the ReMixing forum to find out. I suggest you do the same. It's a minor thing, but the hissing drags down the track on headphones. But yeah, the standard for solo piano performances, both sequenced and real, are high. Not every piece is going to be lauded at the second coming of compositional creativity. But most of the sequenced ones on the site, especially as of late, sound reasonably realistic sounding. Resub it if you can get this sounding livelier, Steven. The arrangement was where it needed to be. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff6.rsn - "Tina" (ff6-201.spc) I'll sum it up in 3 parts: 1. Needlessly loud 2. Melody obscured from 1:07-1:30 & 2:16-2:39 by the rhythm guitar 3. Cover track with some additional rhythm sections This was some nicely done guitar muzak, but a cover. Good stuff, but not under the guidelines we go by. Though it's too loud, people would enjoy this. Post it to VGMix. Good rhythm section work, certainly. Your skills are easily observed, Michael. Once you add your own compositional & rearrangement ideas into the picture to more substantially personalize the work, you'll be posted. Hope to hear more from you. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff6.rsn - "The Decisive Battle" (ff6-124.spc) Hate to shit on the effort here, but I'll be perfectly frank with you. At times, this only reminded me of "Retentions of Conflict" thanks to your choice for the lead. The synth choices here were grating and awful. Also, overusing the cymbals doesn't work. Some of the percussion work had a surprising amount of power behind it. Very beginner stuff, but not bad. The harmonization at 2:03...didn't work. Anyway, there are a laundry list of problems here. The other Js can earn their salaries by elborating on some. God bless ya bro, only a n00b would think that a tacky cymbal shot ending like that was cool. You hang around both OCR & VGMix, so use all of the resources at both sites (WIP boards, ReMixing forum, Conservatory forum) in order to study the programs you use and up your game. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/battle~1.zip - Track 1 "Drum track composed in Modplug Tracker". How 'bout that cymbal. I really hate it when rock tracks don't throw any creativity into the percussion. The stark contrast always looks bad. The guitar work was plain and unexpressive and stuff like the freestyle sections were just off-key at times. The production was muddy, sloppy, and likely non-existent. Pretty cool idea for a (mostly) live track, but the performance was poor and the arrangement ideas weren't anything notable. Keep at it though. Your music needs a lot of work but I heard unfulfilled potential. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/bubbob.zip - Track 1 Unfortunately, you're right Tim. It really isn't different enough from the source tune. The original section from 1:01-1:25 is about as basic as it gets. And while it's good that you sequenced the Bubble Bobble theme by ear, you might as well have ripped it. Still basically verbatim and unexpansive. I'd say "check the other Bubble Bobble tracks on the site to get an idea of how to arrange this theme", but don't. (We'll get rid of those damn NSF rips someday, believe me.) OMG ur dayz r numb3red DjArcas!?! NO

Thanks for providing the original, Chris. Too conservative than what I'm used to, to be honest. The original though is incredibly sparse, and this does a good job of filling it out, particularly with the new percussion work. Good sounds; this mix was almost thunderous until things picked up at 1:09. Cool break section from 1:47-2:07, before moving back into the source melody. Cuts off abruptly during the fade at 3:23, bah. Conservative work, but very expansive in terms of sound quality and support additions, which is all I need from sparse source tune arrangements covering most SIDs, MODs and so forth. Though he likes Mazedude, Ari's probably groaning that it's a rip. YES

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FFX_psf2.rar - 319 "Time of Judgement" (:00-:22), 418 "Decisive Battle" (:23-1:15, 1:41-end/3:51), 318 "Song of Prayer ~ Bahamut" (:33-1:08), 417 "Aeon Battle" (1:16-1:41), 406 "Song of Prayer ~ Ronzo Tribe" (1:16-1:55), 120 "Song of Prayer" (2:02-2:36), etc, etc. Just some source tunes combined with various Song of Prayer vox along with some beats and effects. In all honestly the first minute or so was pretty hot, but that's because I like the music you used. Production was eh, but that's the sacrifice you make in order to combine the stuff. I'll be keeping it. (One of the perks of the job, folks.) Nonetheless, read our guidelines some time. Anyway, Jeff, I'll close this out by telling you something my daddy told me once... NO OVERRIDE

http://www.ocremix.org/detailmix.php?mixid=OCR00791 - "Fragments of Gold" Wow. You are an incredibly stupid person. Don't take a ReMix on this site and add some half-assed effects to it. READ OUR RULES. NO OVERRIDE

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FFX_psf2.rar - 119 "The Sight of Spira" Very stylish cover. About the only thing that was purely original though was the little break from 2:01-2:04. I'll be keeping this, but we go for rearrangements, not covers. Especially considering that the source tune is in acoustic guitar itself, this doesn't expand on the ideas of the original at all. [kicks Dave in the junk] NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Chrono Trigger" (ct-1-02a.spc & ct-1-02b.spc) Good feel here, though I also felt the melodic instruments should have been a bit more prominent relative to the percussion and so-forth. I don't care for Chrono's Theme myself, and I've personally heard more engaging remixes of the theme, but the arrangement was nice. Nice work on the expanding the feel of the more cover-style sections as well as the more liberal material, Ty. Not much else to say here, so Dave will do the work! Sorry about it falling through. 4:20? Are you stealing ideas from weed? YES

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/sf2.rsn - "Sagat Stage" (sf2-21.spc) The overall vibe here was excellent. Malc did a nice job on the harmonization for the vocals. Considering I've never heard Stephen sing before this one, I was envisioning having to say something like "Hey, this isn't TOO bad," so I was pleseantly surprised. It certainly doesn't sound like the talents of a someone merely signing for the first time. I liked how subtle inflections were used for the vocals from verse to verse so that delivery wasn't always the same. Good job by Vega the Matador on providing interesting lyrics where the cadence changed up a little bit. Aside from some light reverb, no other aids such as auto-tuning were used, so Stephen's vocals were au natural. Good shit. This was some relaxed hip-hop material. I could have went for some meatier bass activity, but I'm all about the "one more time fo da bass" so that's just some personal bias. The samples used for the beats were fairly simple, but excellently sequenced, filling the frequency range nicely, along with the belltones playing the Sagat theme melody and subtle scratch effects way in the back. Good separation of sounds; everything was sounding nice and clean. I thought portions of the final break sections felt empty just resting on the distorted synth (3:12-3:17 & 3:22-3:27), and that Malc could made his vocals sound a little bit airy-er, since they were a little dry and basically unprocessed. Minor stuff in the big picture. Upon the first listen, the song seems rather dry on account of the beats, but over time the feel is better. The arrangement was excellent, the lyrics, both content & performance, were well done, and the production was crisp. Excellent work bringing more hip-hop stuff to the community. If y'all out there are interested in more hip-hop, R&B, and rap material like this, check out DCT's newly formed music collective & label, Urbanizm Music, featuring Malcos along with other prominent members of the game music remix community like fellow judge zyko, Dale North, Mythril Nazgul, Joshua Morse, and Disposer, along with other quality names like Skrybe and Tony Montana. "Throw Me a Tiger Uppercut" would certainly make a great fit there as well, but it'll be good to see another track like this hit OC and further fill out the underrepresented urban genres. YES

You hear where most of the arrangement comes from if you fast forward to 1:18 of the source, by the way. Phat beats here. Very nice bass action. The melody is unbelieveably low and obscured. You're gonna have to bring it up, as it's drowned out at all times. I was waiting for some new melodic stuff to come in prominently to make up for this, but it never happened. In those respects, things become a bit better at 2:17 when you have the vox come in, but that's too low in volume most of the time as well. Same with the melody at 2:59. You can hear differences in the composition beyond the 3-minute mark, but everything's feeling way too unstructured. The arrangement kind of treads water, especially with no prominent melody there. These cute little belltone synths are always too low, but then again aren't exactly what should be carrying a melody. Nonetheless, it would help to hear one. 3:53-4:20 (and argueably earlier as well) comes off as aimless as a result. It literally feels like it has nothing in particular to express. Hot idea for the vox doing the countdown at 4:20. Panning the countdown hard left & hard right each time was cool, but bring up the volume on them a bit. Really wanted to YES this one, but you're gonna have to work for it a little bit more. The messed up sound balance is killing this one. If the sound combinations had a proper balance, this wouldn't sound directionless a lot of the time, since the track is dominated the by basslines, drums & strings. Please post this one in the WIP forum and get more feedback. Don't do it for me, anyway. Do it for Maddox. He's wanted an Ikaruga remix here for a while, I'm sure. I'll be keeping this one. NO (rework/resubmit)

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/top.rsn - "Fighting of the Spirit" (top-221.spc) http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/ToP_psf.rar - 221 "Fighting of the Spirit" I've got a copy of the source tune as it appears in Tales of Symphonia, and it you judged it on that, the arrangement was alright. Listening to the Tales of Phantasia versions of the source tune, especially the PSX one, I felt like the arrangement was too conservative, but it's still ok by me I suppose. There are some good things going on there. I've got good memories of the source tune from John Dough's phone call from VGF22! But anyway, (while I didn't mind the snare drum shots) everything DarkSword pointed out is true. Hit up the ReMixing & WIP forums and get some tips on how to get the sound balance where it needs to be. It sounds really cluttered and muddy at the moment, but can be hooked up with some more work. NO (rework/resubmit)

Thanks a lot to Kaleb Grace as usual, for his help on obtaining the source tune. Offbeat, but it grew on me and it's very well produced. I've played some Katamari Damacy material on VGF after hearing it from Song of the Week, so y'all out there need to check the soundtrack out. You Js dig around the source track; pieces are used from different points of the source. It's no coincidence that people have already started mixing from this game with a lot of enthusiasm. Katamari Damacy is quickly being known for it's kick ass in-game music and "WTF is that?" gameplay. Weird puzzle games are where it's at apparently. Corey vs. Corey have been getting some good pimpage on the internet with this one. It's fairly decent. I'm not expecting something needlessly professional sounding, but production's a big hit on this one (regardless of the genre). If you look at the EQing on it, it's basically some low end, a huge low mid-range, no high mid-range, and no high end; the whole upper half of frequencies is practically absent. Get the rest of the mid-range in the picture. Y'all need to create some discernible separation of sounds here through EQing work as well as panning. All the music just muds together with no level of clarity, and the vocals are really low compared the music, so they don't stand out at all. I liked how you guys used the "Chu chu churu" part from the source tune to open this up; it's definitely a hot idea, but as soon as most of the music came in at :11 and then the lead vocals at :22, you couldn't hear them anymore. The delivery on the melodic vocals (:22-:43 & 1:06-1:27) sounds pretty unenergetic, so that needs some more put into 'em in my opinion, but I liked the choruses (:45-1:07 & 1:30-1:48) a hell of a lot. For some parts, I kinda wonder if you guys are singing the actual lyrics or if you're singing what you THINK are the lyrics, which is pretty funny. Fairly good genre adaptation stuff here. Some other Js will have more specific advice for hooking the production up, as well criticism for the instrumentation. I also gotta stress that the bitrate limit for any submission is 192kbps. I realize that the track is relatively short, but this 194VBR encoding is too large nonetheless. Besides, if the production is better, it'll sound fine no matter what the bitrate, even 128kbps. Y'all should resubmit, boys. I really liked this one a lot, and think you can nudge it over the bar with some good post-production work. I'll be keeping my eye on your material! NO (touch it up/resubmit)

Now no offense, but seriously, who the hell does that? ... Don't do that. If you only made the music for getting it posted to OCR, and now see no point in keeping it, that's a stupid reason to delete it. Have confidence in your work. We get enough scrubs & MIDI rippers having overconfidence. We don't need the good people dumping their work.

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/sm.rsn - "Opening ~ Destruction of the Space Colony" (sm-15.spc), "Samus Aran's Appearance Fanfare" (sm-30.spc) [1:05-1:21], "Item Room" (sm-s-03.spc) [1:54-3:15] The primary source tune's melody (which you all know as Kraid from the original Metroid) was pretty low in volume relative to the rest of the music for the first section, about the first 2 minutes or so. The sounds are full, the beats are hot, the production is nice as hell with a good separation of sounds. Very very liberal but nice reference to the Samus fanfare with your bassline notes from 1:05-1:21. That was an excellent idea for a brief changeup in the action. The transition to the Item Room portion of the arrangement at 1:54 was sudden, so that may be a negative for some though it didn't bother me. The momentum of the first section easily carried over here, so this section wasn't too uncomfortable, per se. Yeah, just listening this long, I've gotta say good shit on the distorted bassline. Marcus told me it was the 'gangsta bass' from the Motif with some EQing. Very nice sounds, once again. Interesting sudden use of the strings at 3:00. You get used to them over time. So, while they were jarring initially, I liked how chaotic and somewhat suspenseful they sounded. Marc mentioned that the source melody in the first part was supposed to be subtle, but didn't know if it came off well. On the first listen, it made the track seem reliant on the beats and not the arrangement; of course the later stuff disproves that, but that's just something I initially saw. The chimes handling the Kraid melody were almost too subtle, but worked better around 3:30 when the arpeggiated synth was actually the lead and the other stuff functioned as light embellishment in the background. I would have recommended bringing the levels up on those little chime dealies in the first 2 minutes, but then having them scaled back in the next section like you had at the halfway point. The only other thing I would have looked into revising myself, but again it's just my subjective opinion, is the section from 4:37-5:09. It dropped the energy level down a bit and was kinda plain compared to what else you had. The break section ending at 5:08 went back into the same beat I heard before, so on that level, the arrangement can get repetitive for some. Luckily though, you brought those hand drums back in, and subsequently changed it up a bit as you faded the beats and percussion work out by 5:45 to move to the finish. Hopefully no one will feel the track went long without having enough development. The more distorted type sections worked for me. Being that track's called "Dirty Sam", you were going for a rougher vibe for some of the track and I'm feelin' that; no complaints there. I liked the percussion activity in particular, as it always kept things fresh; not a key player in the mix, but something my ear particularly picked up on along with the phatty bassline work. It was a cool idea introing with the ambiance and hand drums, then bringing in the big beats and synth stuff, while for the end, you slowly phased the ambiance, hand drums & big beats out, going for an electro-centric finish. Good contrast of styles for the intro & close. Overall this was some very nice arrangement that could have used something a bit more engaging for the end. Other than some minor little things there, I liked everything I heard. Great stuff, Marc, and good to see you still in action. Looking forward to more stuff from you, bro. YES

We don't bias our votes, and you sure as hell don't have idea what you're talking about regarding site policy, submissions guidelines, quality standards, lockdown policy, or the general goings-on here, which is the usual when I see you complain. The song was judged on all relevant areas, and weaknesses were pointed out along with the strengths. Judges have been rejected before while being on the panel, and past & future judges have all been rejected. The fact that you don't like the song doesn't mean bias was involved in passing it.

Nice, straightforward mix; the intro & outro are pretty nostalgic as well. I was doing some database work though, and, in my searching, came up with SpookyBlue's other site. http://www.painteddogs.com That's pretty cool. Our community is made up of a very diverse group, I'll say that!

Particularly impressive work here; I genuinely loved it. It's one of my few 5s over at Ormgas.com, which make up only about 40 tracks out of the near-1300 mixes. And again, if you aren't feeling the structure initially, just give yourself a few listens to acclimate yourself to the cadance of the track. Loop it, familiarize yourself with it and enjoy. In any case, this was indeed superlative work, and I really enjoyed djp's write-up on the mix, which spelled out all the great things about it. His comments on the hypnotizing percussion, insectile arpeggios, and the opium-like daze of sounds, for example, articulated the strengths of the track and do their part to enhance the experience. Great job on the balance of authenthic and synthetic sounding textures, absolutely. Though you frequently hear those two sonic styles combined within the electronic/orchestral hybrid tracks at OCR, you're not going to find anything else at OC that works quite like this that isn't in fact Israfel's. Excellent shit, once again Michael. You guys out there be sure to follow my sage advice in the mix writeup, by the way. My bro, BGC knows what the deal is. Would I really lead y'all wrong? Of course not. Don't make me spell it out for you.

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/ff2.zip - Track 12 At the outset, I was enjoying things. No complaints on the samples, but I'm not the guy to talk to about those. The arrangement was pretty good to open up with. We finally got some additional stuff coming in at :51, though the tempo remained fairly slow. By 1:15 though, the arrangement was getting plodding and homogeneous despite the light additions here. The louder, more active pizzicato string work starting at 1:37 was a decent addition, but didn't sound realistic when it was very active and only added something minimal to what was now proving to be a very repetitive arrangement. Just hearing all this pizz activity, the reverb was an issue. The whole track really shouldn't be this significantly reverbed. It just doesn't work. Moving into 2:41 especially, I was saying, "Alright, tone it down in some places to provide some measure of contrast," but of course, it could have done without this level of 'verb earlier on. We hit an interesting little breakdown from 2:58-3:16 that featured some good escalation. Nice, but why wasn't this introduced a lot sooner? As an ending, it doesn't work. As a transition point building up to something, it would in my opinion. As it stands, the ending was pretty unsatisfying and abruptly structured. On the arrangement side, since I'm judging it, the mix had some good ideas to start off, but then hit cruise control and just repeated itself. For the casual listener, there was nothing particularly melodic to grasp. Offhand, I could envision most people saying the structure was pretty much random and unengaging. You're gonna have to substantially reassess the gameplan here if you want to stick with this one, bro. You're certainly improving though, and I like that. NO

Y'all are obviously "NO (resubmit)" as well. We might as well just close the decision and wait for the resub, especially since it may not come immediately.

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/dkc.rsn - "Bad Boss Boogie" (dkc-10.spc) Especially clocking in at 1:48, even Ari himself has been against submitting mixes this short, so I could easily envision him saying "make the track twice as long". The arrangement is nice and expansive in style compared to the original but loops back to the beginning at 1:09 before going for the ending at 1:35. If the track featured more thematic permutations (like Shnabubula's Guardian Legend mix "Red Spiders") and thereby remained new the whole way through, I'd be inclined to YES despite the length. Don't get me wrong. The track is high octane, and I loved Ryan's non-standard time signature work (which, though borrowed here, he personally employs in a large number of his pieces) along with Ari's synths & well-varied kick-yo-mouf percussion, which added a lot of power and depth to Ryan's solo version of the track. Go for an extended version and play around with more ideas, if you're up for it, Ryan. NO

Looks like getting a copy of the source tune isn't gonna happen, since even SlightlyDark.com is coming up empty, but I trust Mike, so I'll gladly give a review/vote out of support. For any of you who initially go "WTF, this track iz too weird! Where'z da sturcture at?" just give it several listens. You'll see what I mean. I'm not up on what to call every one of these instruments. Let's just say there's a lot of Middle Eastern flavor here and leave it at that. Just checking out the melody, there are so many variations on it, that you know the arrangement is good. Loved all the sounds here and, like Gray said, the piano was beautiful support work. Though there were never too many instruments or sounds in play at once, there was never a feeling of emptiness or a lack of activity here. Dunno how he pulls it off. Hot stuff with the fiddle as well as the vox. Who knew you could make a fiddle sexy? See, that last sentence doesn't even sound right, does it? If you're familiar with Mike's Donkey Kong Country mix "Godiva in the Desert" or his Chrono Trigger mix "Lesser Kerubic Patchwork", you'll recognize a number of the samples from there. Very nice, recognizable sounds from Michael that really brand his style of music, yet don't sound homogeneous in their usage from mix to mix. So I'm sure we'll all enjoy when Ari takes valuable time out to shit on it once it's posted. I also had to say that this track makes great makeout music. Cue it up in the background for your lady. Let give y'all a peek into the secret world of the judges for more comments: Binnie as well as the VGF people should love that. But in all seriousness, this track is excellent and offers more unique work from someone I was afraid we'd never hear from again. Especially given that he was MIA for a while and seemingly gone from the community, it's definitely been a privilege working with Mike on the panel. I'm glad "Cerebral Rose Jam" saw the light of day here, and I'm sure most of you will enjoy it as well. Great energy, very loopable, and very unique stuff for the community. YES

Really slow attack on the melodic strings. Definitely doesn't sound good, and someone else'll get you on that too. From :57-1:20, the support brass and drumwork absolutely snuffs out the melodic components. Adjust the sound balance there. :09-1:16 & 1:52-2:40 featured the same drum patterns over and over again. Gotta use some notable changes in the patterns, only more frequently. Some really unnatural note movements from 1:37-1:43. Even though there's some depth to the instruments, I see what Malc is saying about the emptiness, as soon as the louder strings drop out at 1:58. The lead instrument sample starting at 1:52 (sounds like some very flismy brass) is pretty artifical-sounding here. The percussion support from 3:00-3:10 really doesn't sit well with the brass/woodwind work. That woodwind at 3:33-3:36 sounds incredibly fake and decays too quickly, ruining the ending. When it was layered underneath the brass, it wasn't a problem, but alone it's pretty bad. Just get rid of that and let the brass take it home at 3:31 for its last note. To be honest, I felt like the arrangement never really went anywhere. Though there's substantial rearrangement, this mix doesn't run with the melodic motifs of the original particularly well. I'm not saying this is terrible or anything, but I'd just take in the EXP points from this effort or whatever y'all RPG players do and call this one finished. Keep at it & keep on learning, David. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Underground Sewer" (ct-2-16.spc) I'm "bleh" on most of the Chrono Trigger soundtrack. Probably just got too cliche for me. At least this tackles one of the Uemtasu tracks, I suppose. These opening beats sounds exactly like something TO would use [e.g. "Electrion (Guitar Mix)"] except with no energy. Then you have the NoppZ-style orchestral stabs starting at :24 with some very plain/flat drumwork. Though I can get past that as long as the arrangement itself is strong, everything sounds kind of tired on the delivery. Watch the way the strings suddenly stops at 1:10 & 1:23; sounds very unrealistic. Moving from note to note, it needs to sound a bit more natural. Moving into the slightly more energetic part from 1:59-2:48, everything's louder along with more instruments, but it's way more crowded. It just seems you just threw more stuff in to be louder and turned up the volume. Might wanna create some separation in the instruments by EQ-ing something to fill out the high end, or, like Dan mentioned, use some separate sections to highlight different sets of instruments. Just watch the clutter there. Pretty good piano ending from 3:12 onward though. Not really a fan of the extra note at 3:51, as it's rather late, but that's just a minor nitpick. The samples aren't the best, but I don't care about that as much as I care for them to be used at their best. Check out the ReMixing & WIP forums for any advice on how to get the strings & brass sounding more natural for some areas, and weigh in the VGMix reviews you receive as well. As long as you do anything you can to address what you yourself have observed as the weaker points of the track, you're likely good to go. The remix name is pretty "eh" to tell you the truth, but in all seriousness, you're basically there, Preston. Sorry for your mix falling through, but at least it sounds like an easy resubmission. NO (revise & resubmit)