Liontamer

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/dkc.rsn - "Gang-Plank Galleon" (dkc-21.spc) Really good stuff from Andy, solid guitar work, nice production, solid arrangement. I've enjoyed this one for a while for all of those qualities. Nothing to hate on here, and not really much else to say there. Also, Andy thinks I'm a dumbass. There's NO better reason I can think of to say YES.

Yep.

If I can get the damn webstream working, which currently I cannot, tonight's gonna be a special edition of VGF, featuring the full PLUTONIUM EDITION fo da BASS cut of Duck Hunt: Repercussions of Fowl Lamentation! Don't hold your breath though.

http://www.zophar.net/gym/ps2.rar - "Mystery" I felt this was a tough one to vote on. The final mixdown was too low in volume overall. Make it louder, bro. It lost something being this muted, and for some reason "Slick Uniforms" was louder in volume. Quinn's gonna hate all of the comparisons with Slick Uniforms, as I admitted that I liked that one much better, but the dynamics and contrast here seemed a lot flatter, while the sounds themselves (particularly the drums) also seemed not as sharp, despite the claim that Boss sounds cleaner. I heard more reverb here, but the sound wasn't cleaner than Slick. I think in going for a more melancholy direction here as compared to Slick, a lot of the cooler textures such as the very cool ambient, swirling pads you used, and the bassline you used didn't come through enough to really bolster the track. The production & mixdown took a big hit compared to Slick but remains strong enough to pass. The percussion was very relaxed but could have used some more variation. And while I'm not a mixer and am admittedly ignorant of most default loop/sample usage, I easily recognized the Reason GetaRide drumloop from BenCousins' Metal Gear Solid 2 "Big Shell West Bristol". I'm not as "WTF, BOLD CAPS" as Prot was about that, as I've heard default drumloops used well before, but there's definitely got to be more effort thrown into the percussion work to express your personal flair here instead of working with more default level stuff. From 1:41-2:02, when the chorus was much more upbeat, that was certainly an opportunity to get a bit more expressive and creative with the percussion work, and then go laid back once that was over. Default samples & drumloop stuff aren't necessarily NO-able on their own but belie a lack of creativity which certainly drives a submission more towards NO territory. I'm interested in hearing others' takes on this. Judges come down on that kind of stuff in order to encourage more thorough ideas that typically lead to a stronger product. Excellent way to come out at 2:02 by placing the synth of the source tune's countermelody in a more prominent position relative to the piano handling the melody. Very nice change there that kept things from getting repetitive on that level of the arrangement. Good close with the two light pianos from 2:43 onward towards the finish. The lone 3 piano notes from 3:24-3:27 felt really extraneous. I'd rather they weren't added on like that compared to Slick, but it wasn't much of an issue. The level of sharpness and clarity of the production was lacking compared to Quinn's other posted mixes as there was too much reverb here, and I would have preferred the percussion to have more creatvity considering the default drumloop issues Prot had. Overall, I really enjoyed the arrangement, though personally I'm a fan of Slick Uniforms more, since the transposing of the track downward made this not as upbeat. I'll have the same issue if and when CastleVania 2 "Modern Problems" & NiGHTS "Something Beautiful" come over here, since I admittedly didn't like how the transposing changed the feel in each of those tracks from their WIP counterparts. In the future, the volume levels for future submissions need to be much louder, and the mixdown needs to have more attention paid to it in order to hit the direct post route so we don't have to bother listening to it. Frankly, it took more thought that I felt it should have to pass this. Like Prot said though, I'm a big fan as well. That didn't affect my vote, but like I've told you in the past, Quinn, if I actually had to pick a favorite mixer, you'd be it. I think this needed a bit more time put into it, but the end result here was over the bar. YES

Alright, not a problem. When I recalled criticizing Ari's glib YES vote in #judges, he insisted that he knew the source material involved, and I mistakenly remembered that as him confirming that he was familiar with the Arkanoid source along with Epic. Unlike Ari, I don't have a problem admitting I misrepresented what someone else said, and apologize. Like I said earlier, I don't like glib votes when more needs to be said but will stick by them while hoping for more substance. But asking for more substance was Makke's request, not mine. And me quoting you, Binnie, was more to question how you'd apply your stance on using commercial material in a remix when you had a low figure such as your stated "10%" as a reason you'd advocate NO Override in general. We already have mixes like that OneUp SMW one and Emperor's Batman one that you could NO Override on those grounds, but I don't agree with that stance, and it looks like you're applying it to anything with direct commercial homage, no matter how LOW the percentage. Anyway, that kind of thing can be a Lockdown 2 issue if you want.

We just pointed out that Batman "Gotham Symphony" wasn't a violation even though it had some references to the Batman movie score. You can't just say "commercial song references = violation". Otherwise, remove injury's SMB "8-Bit Eighties" and the OneUp Mushrooms' SMW "Super Mario's Sleigh Ride" as commercial reference violations. Makke's last posted mix, Lost Patrol "In the Air Mix" wasn't a violation as the music/arrangement was from the Lost Patrol source tune, even though the lyrics on top were in the style of Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight". While the arrangement of SID No More also includes musical references to "Epic", Makke feels that there's enough Arkanoid arrangement as well. Again, for the mixer's benefit and at his direct request, not mine, elaborate your vote on how you believe the mix doesn't arrange Arkanoid enough, like Gray did. Even though I don't like Ari's incomplete-looking vote, he verified to us that he knows both source tunes and had them both in mind, so his vote counts. I'm hoping Vig has time to look at his vote as well.

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/sf2.rsn - Zangief (well, obviously) Little detail from the opening: I wasn't too sure on the downward note run on the bass from :15-:18, if that sounded right to me. Sounds more fitting after a few more listens. The piano got punched up compared to the first version, but was a bit too loud and mushed together with the synth guitar lead for the first phrase. Over a few listens it was less of a problem to me, and the piano got scaled back from 1:15 onward. The piano for the beginning would sound better if it had a sharper sound, but again, not too bad. I like how there was more thought and variation put into the percussion as well. Moving past 1:15, stuff is sounding good though the low-end could have been toned down a bit. I liked the swirling pad deal you had there as it filled up the space well. Nice transition into the more freestyle-ish section at 1:52. I liked 2:11-2:30 more than 1:55-2:11 for your freestyle section. Overall, the whole section tied a lot more closely to the source tune and kept the arrangement aspect I was looking for strong; much much better than what you had before. Not sure about the drop in scale of the notes from 2:06-2:11, but again, ear acclimation. I'd certainly like to hear what the others have to say about those little nitpicks I had. I honestly don't think they're off-notes, but y'all can tell me. Like I said, much better results with the freestyle work, and the transition back into the more straightforward arrangement at 2:30 flowed a lot better without the abrupt stop and slight tempo change you had before. 2:36 possessed some light, subtle piano support in the back to accentuate that iteration of the Zangief melody; nice touch. Loved the new/final section starting at 3:07. That teasing fadeout around 3:25 that leaves you wanting another 15 seconds of music. Not a bad thing to me actually, as I felt it was a very strong finish that ended on a good note. I still would have preferred if the piano sounded cleaner, but it wasn't a big issue. Good job keeping the double bass but toning it down a bit and not leaving it so loud and exposed like last time. These freestyle-type sections flow so much better now, bro. You got those to work a lot closer with the source material and thereby made the arrangement aspect of the mix that much more cohesive. So I had issue with a couple of those smaller things that I pointed out, and I think the piano was the biggest one for me, but those don't hold this back significantly compared with the arrangement. As you said, Stephen, this was a style that you've never tackled before, and it's not perfect because of that. But after taking several listens to look at the details and then broadly observing the bigger picture, I felt the overall delivery and especially the arrangement strength was now where it needed to be. Glad you resubbed this so quickly. Looking back at my old decision, I felt this would need a substantial amount of work to get over the bar, and was a little worried too many things needed to be worked on. Nonetheless, this literally tackled every concern and suggestion I had and did it well. One mo' time fo' da double bass! YES

The arrangement is certainly where it needs to be. Still needs to be work done on articulating and humanizing your samples well enough, though, as that was my primary problem with this. The string attacks are indeed too slow, and the abrupt ending really exposes your samples badly. The EQing on this is terribly lacking, unfortunately. I can't really put it any other way. Nothing sounds sharp at all which particularly affects an orchestral piece like this. I agree with Vigilante in that you desperately need to boost the low end, but the high end is also all but absent from this. Primarily though, get things sounding more natural and realistic to make the best of your samples, possibly via help from the ReMixing forum, and resubmit. It's unfortunate no one over at the Works forum pointed out the production issues in their comments when the mix was closer to completion as that could have helped as well. NO

As an aside, anyone that remixes something from EarthBound should feel obligated to provide the name of the source tune used. Give us some info; the soundtrack's got 170 tracks. http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/mo2.rsn - "The Power" (mo2-117.spc) The opening ambiance was too muffled and nothing ever sounded particularly sharp here on the production. The plodding drums seemed to interference with the atmosphere you were trying to create. The melody finally coming in at 1:11 was strange, but it's EarthBound so I had no problem with it. The reverbed string support that joined at 1:13 wasn't bad but sounded so muffled and overbearing over your lead that it interfered with things. The music box notes at 1:49 also suffered until around 2:10 when the string support drops out because of this. Work desperately on clarity, separation of sounds and proper sound balance there. The piano taking over at 2:23, though lacking any particularly overt direction, was also not terrible. But the support work underneath the piano was too empty to adequately fill in the gaps for such a sparse lead. When you dropped the support elements around 3:35 to signify the finish, it didn't mean much, as, again, the support was flimsy to begin with. Give your support sounds more substance to make that kind of compositional choice for an ending more meaningful. Keep working at it, Jordan. NO

i would not say this is atonal if you're trying to say the melody is flat in the delivery -- as atonal is used to describe melodic components that are devoid of a central key. (see your local jewish expressionist composer for an example!) can't bug prot about proper use of 'notation' on one hand and let you get away with something similar on the other No problem, bro. As the complete non-musician/non-theorist, I don't intend to overstep my bounds. Of course, now I'll have a bunch of people cite me as being unqualified for this job. Let's just say "flat like warm soda." Preferably the generic/store-brand type of soda.

I actually was working on my vote as Dan made his, but still wanted to comment. I'm going ahead to technically give this a 5th NO, but certainly wanted to express how much I enjoyed this one. I'm not familiar with the Perfect Dark source tune and there's no USF rip out for it yet, so I have to simply go by what I heard here and hope this was a viable arrangement, that is not too liberal. Indeed this was a very promising submission, and I enjoyed it despite how relatively minimal-sounding this was. Good sounds and separation for the intro going up to :53. You gradually built things up well once additional elements like the melodic synth in the forefront (:53) and the bassline (1:01) came in. Nice sounding work. The drums starting at 1:31 really hurt this though, as the compression on them seemed to distort and clip. No dice, for me. At 2:10, the new drum choice was too loud to be so plodding and detracted from the atmosphere you set up. Scale them back and provide a little more variation in the sequencing. The bongos were already doing a good job of providing varied, well-sequenced percussion patterns though, which is why the other drum patterns only need a little work IMO. The lack of transition at 2:33 was too abrupt for me and the key change there was a bit jarring as well. The synth melody you had was too repetitive though, until 3:04 finally switched things up. Perhaps cut out a phrase within 2:33-3:04 so that section doesn't drag on like it currently does or add a bit more melodic-style content on top of it to give it more substance so that the repetitiveness isn't as much of an issue. Finally, at 3:04 though that plodding drumwork returned. Again, work on that drumwork to help it accentuate the material better, and think of a ending that provides a lot more resolution to the listener rather than what's in place now, as it's come across as fairly lazy and "I ran out of ideas"-ish. Great foundations are in place here, Doug, and I enjoyed most of the sounds. I feel bad there isn't more melodic meat/content in some places, but I didn't judge on that. Just posting to show my support for your ideas so far, and I really hope you'll consider all the suggestions here for another resubmission. I didn't have so much of a problem with the spareness of the sounds, but they're another area that should be looked at. You may or may not want to continue on with this idea, depending on how old it is and so forth, but this came along fairly nicely and wasn't too bad on the whole. Very interesting stuff that needs a bit more, bro.

I feel that so far, my vote is the only one that attempted to justify their decision enough. I feel it's ok to do whatever we will with this mix, but that the votes here deserve more substance. Makke won't take a potential rejection badly as long as the reasons have some meat to them, so I ask that at least some of these votes be revisited and given a bit more. I feel it's fair and worthwhile to the submitter to provide that and it demonstrates that we actually paid close attention when we assessed the submission. DJP agrees and will likely expand on his comments. In any case, Marcus provided me with an instrumental copy of SID No More, and I feel it'll better help everyone to clarify the reasoning of their votes & the observed level of Arkanoid arrangement.

Damn you, Trenthian! Today is VGF #26 from 2:30 AM - 6 AM EST, so head over to Ormgas to check it out and follow along with the playlist. Join #ormgas on IRC/EntertheGame (irc://irc.enterthegame.com/ormgas) to chat it up. VGF26 features old-school OC ReMixer (and now Emory alum) Electron as my guest host! Be sure to check it out for a number of tracks from him as well as plenty of other good stuff. Good way for me to recycle the previous^6 message. Bitch.

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/dkc.rsn - "Aquatic Ambiance" (dkc-08.spc) Covered this one for VGF in late July: Just like the stuff we dealt with for the OCR1250 lockdown, it's unfortunate that we have enjoyable tracks that have to be turned down. This is certainly a well made trance-style remix of Aquatic Ambiance, and I enjoyed it. But does it do much to the source tune beyond the trance genre adaptation? Unfortunately, it does not. So what we have is another case where an enjoyable remix doesn't fit the ReMix guidelines of OCR. While other judges or fans of the community will say differently, I don't feel OC's standard is the only way to make a good mix. It's a good standard mind you, and one we feel promotes more creative work overall, but it's certainly not the only standard out there and we don't claim that OC's standard is the only good one. Nonetheless, this mix does nothing particularly interpretive with the source material on a rearragement level and isn't an innovative or expansive straight arrangement piece either, and that's where the vote stands. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Peaceful Day" (ct-1-04.spc) Pretty straightforward call, done pretty well by Prot & Gray. Weave the arrangement and original ideas more cohesively as opposed to the structure you have now. Things sound good production-wise, Richard, and the transitions from section to section are very logical, but the formula here was pretty much arrangement/original/arrangement/original without being interpretive enough on the arrangement or integrating source tune elements in the original sections you created. Go for more actual rearrangement and resubmit. Cool mix per se, but outside of the OCR guidelines as is. NO

http://www.lemon64.com/music/sid/Galway_Martin/Arkanoid.sid - Subtune 1/20 I was also having some problems hearing the source for most of this, but I checked things out. Definitely deserves closer scrutiny. Most of the support bassline Marcus used started at about 2.5 seconds into the source tune as percussion, but it's really, really obscured in the source. I agree with Vig in that the bassline could have been louder during some of the fuller parts of the chorus, but during the verses it was at a good level. Cool rearrangement for that area by adding your own stuff to it. The chirping effects in the left channel are usually in the pattern of the source tune's usage (:02-:07 of the SID). For example, Makke uses that pattern from :02-:10 of the mix. Times like :13-:33, during all of the verses, feature original patterns before returning to the source's pattern during each chorus (:33-:43, :53-1:14, etc.) The SID work being placed ~99% in the left channel didn't bother me at all. From 1:47-2:28 on when the guitar, SID work & bassline are all easily recognizable from the source tune, and was definitely the arrangement level I wanted. Glassy ending entering at 2:18 is from 1:14 of the source tune with a tiny bit of embellishment that you hear at 2:27 when it's playing without the music. Rather than using the support stuff from the source, I felt there had to be a way to integrate something more overtly melodic from the Arkanoid tune amidst the Faith No More homage from the first 1:46 (more like how the last portion of the mix was actually done), but I heard what what being used from the source for this area and it was adequate. Fairly good weaving of Arkanoid & Faith No More's "Epic" though. I wanted more of the Arkanoid melody involved simply in terms of how I see the guidelines here, but in my opinion this barely passes on that level. All other things considered, the production was solid, and (independent of my judgement) I definitely enjoyed this one. YES

Considering it's my show, and I can defy convention, tonight's episode of VGF, the first real one since my hiatus will be VGF #38. I'll be doing make-up episodes over the next few weeks to make up for the 5 shows I missed. They will cover the following weeks: VGF #33 - 9/19 - 9/25 VGF #34 - 9/26 - 10/2 VGF #35 - 10/3 - 10/9 VGF #36 - 10/10 - 10/16 VGF #37 - 10/17 - 10/23 Meanwhile, I didn't find much in the way of new Halloween themed music being released, plus I'm limited to 2 hours now that someone's on after my show (criminal, I know) so we're just gonna stick with the standard formula of the new stuffz. There is some Anime Remix HRC material, and, celebrating VGMix2's 1-year anniversary, we've got a lot of good stuff from there as well. I'll be on the lookout for all the older stuff I missed, so hopefully we'll get to some of that soon. Remember to join the new VG Frequency IRC channel at irc://irc.enterthegame.com/vgf as opposed to the AIM chat we used to have.

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ki.rsn - Sabrewulf (ki-21.spc) The arrangement is fine, but like Danny alluded to (though on a not-as-significant level), there's not enough dynamic contrast here. It was a lot more of a problem for me than it was for him, as I thought the delivery was dry/one-dimensional and lacked emotion & energy the whole way through. Moving into the more recognizable source arrangement at 1:35, everything lacks presence and just plods along. While Uub infers that this is live piano, I certainly hope this wasn't. This needs much more emotive/fuller delivery to reach the perceived bar for piano material. Not bad, but incomplete in that sense. NO

http://www.chudahs-corner.com/soundtracks/sscx10040.html - "Radical Dreamers ~ Unstealable Jewel" (Disc 3, Track 15) This may be ineligible for OCR, as the source tune in question is an extra vocal track by Mitsuda & vocalist Noriko Mitose on the CC OST that (as far as I know) isn't included in the game or game's sound test & certainly isn't in the PSF set. Like Prot alluded to, the intro was pretty spacious and sounded good. But lots of issues surfaced. The percussion is fairly subdued but still somewhat overbearing compared to the melody, was pretty plodding, and didn't accentuate the melodic material well. Rethink the structure there. Minor things like exposed cymbal hits at 1:38/1:43/etc sound pretty cheesy. Though you get more used to it over time, the timing is certainly off in a lot of places. The melodic material never stands out here given how minimal the notes for it are, and later on things just become a mish-mash from 1:35-2:07 & 2:33-2:57. Nice ideas, Ravi, but the elements in these fuller sections needed more clarity/separation as well as more prominence for the lead/melody so that the listener has somewhere to focus their attention. I'm not sure if this track is even eligible for the site, though I urge you to look at it further for a public release of some sort as the ideas are promising. Everything needs work though. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/ninja_ga.zip - NSF Track 3 Very very amateur, but not a bad vibe until things start getting all WTF with the xylophone (:37/:45) and vox (:57). Terrible notes everywhere, and the ending was terrible. Prot has some good advice for ya though. Awfully nice of him too, because frankly this track wasn't worth it whatsoever. More effort into making this musically coherent would have at least merited legit commentary. Form rejection all the way. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/loz3.rsn - "Credits" (loz3-31.spc) Pff. Everything's the same. The timing of the notes matches up perfectly. You might as well have ripped this, if you didn't actually do so, which you did actually. Merely below average orchestral sequencing done note-for-note. No matter how much effort you put into this, we don't accept mock-ups. Frankly, that kind of stuff doesn't deserve one's name on it or a new title. NO OVERRIDE

http://www.zophar.net/usf/sm64usf.rar - "Staff Roll" & "Super Mario 64 Main Theme" I'm in agreement with Ari over this one. Certainly not a bad remix, but it's not notably interpretive on any level per the general guidelines here. I thought the integration of the SM64 Main Theme from :43-:59 would surface elsewhere in the track and provide something slightly substantial on the rearrangement front, but it never came to pass. I wasn't bothered much by the minimal variation in the drum patterns, but 2:23 retreading the chorus was not where it's at. The Mario sample at the end was tacky as well. Very tacky. Straightforward/cover-style arrangements have to be substantial upgrades compared to the source tune to make it here, and this ain't it. Throw this one at VGMix and see how the listeners react there. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/marble.zip - NSF Track 4 Pretty sparse sounds throughout. Not bad breakbeat-style stuff, but there's not much cohesiveness or observable structure here. The lead is incredibly generic-sounding and flat. Too bad too, because I liked the attention to panning heard in some portions of the mix. Interesting slowdown dealie at 1:00 only for a new section to take over at 1:38, but that also was sparse and flat just like the very beginning of the track. The delivery here is so flat that it tanked this one out of the gate. As elements dropped out at 3:12 going towards the finish, I was reminded of how incoherent the whole thing turned out. As an arrangement idea it sounds unsalvagable to me, since it deals too minimally with the source, so it's best to just wrap this up with a NO.

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ts.rsn - "Zue" (ts-25.spc) I've certainly heard better sounds used by Young in the past, but this was definitely some quality rearrangement beyond the time signature change, including plenty of instrumental variation. I also could have gone for the bassline being more prominent as well as the percussion being thicker, but the overall product is solid work. Though this doesn't stand out to me versus Ziwtra's other mixes, it's cool stuff nonetheless. YES

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/LoM_psf.rar - 123 The Darkness Nova The synth guitar strums here are really sparse, though the drums at :28 helped thicken things up. Nonetheless, the lead melody is very atonal/flat in the delivery and lacks presence over the synth guitar stuff, and that kills this one immediately. The rearrangement isn't particularly engaging either, and lacks significant development & energy throughout. Better luck next crime. NO