Liontamer

Thanks a lot to ravon, w-ber & my fellow bros over at Ormgas.com for adding VG Frequency over to the regular rotation of OC ReMixes over at Ormgas. Starting tonight, you'll be able to hear a re-run episode of VGF at Ormgas, which is about every 3 days or so. Keep an eye out for 'em. Tonight is VGF #22 from 7:15 PM-10:15 PM EST, so head over to Ormgas to check it out and follow along with the playlist. Join us in #ormgas on IRC/EntertheGame (irc://irc.enterthegame.com/ormgas) to chat it up.

I agree with Ari on both points. Certainly flesh out the votes on mixes that are disputed. "It's too weird for the public" doesn't work. In any case, while I'm a legit fan of Sam's work, I definitely felt this was way below the bar as opposed to borderline. I'm no production whore, but I'll admit, like Prot, I'm surprised this passed given how flat the delivery on this was, and though likely intentional, I didn't feel as though it was a positive contribution for the mix. I think if we got a resubmit, this would turn out much better. Of course the arrangement was great and was something I felt was over the bar. I'm not sure where Binnie would have voted, but it looks unofficially like a 5Y/3N. Not my cup of tea, and it won't be for many others, but this one should spark some interesting debate amongst the listeners in the ReView thread, which is certainly a positive thing for a music community like this one.

Yeah, need more than that to explain why this doesn't cut it.

Beyond "Weapon Raid", could anyone please highlight which other FF7 tracks (if any) are being used for this remix? Sorry that I'm not in a position to do it myself. Once I get that info, I'll be glad to write my decision.

I'd hate to think that Jeremy nigguhgigasampled his way to a YES, but frankly, this sounds reasonably well put together to me, and I'm not hearing enough to swing to a NO at this point. I need to hear a copy of "Weapon Raid" in order to compare it to the arrangement though, since I'm not overly familiar with the original. I'll also take into account Dan & Prot's comments; maybe I just have a lower bar, but the execution sounds fine overall, even though it certainly could be improved.

The intro's pretty weak. Dunno if it's based on one of the game themes, as I don't have the capability to listen to the NSF at the moment. The crossfade into the changeup at :30 made little-to-no sense to me stylistically, and this second half of the intro was too atonal to stand on it's own all the way until 1:05. Awesome flow here at 1:05 though, once your main theme came in. Certainly hope it wasn't too straightforward of a cover, but in any case it was excellent. Unfortunately, it's sandwiched in the middle of a bleh intro and a not-as-impressive second half. The changeup at 2:42 was a terrible key change and killed the momentum you had here, along with the goodwill you had built up from that stronger previous section. I realize from your VGMix description that you liked the sudden breaks as that may fit more with this experimental rave style, but try and work for a more logical, flowing transition here, as that transition came across as lazy as hell. I'm certainly open-minded to sudden breaks in music, but most of the time they don't work well. The second theme mixed at 3:05 isn't nearly as good as the first one to me, also. Why not try to transpose the second theme to fit in key with the first, so the sudden transition isn't as jarring? All the frequencies are topping out and in mah face and so forth, but it's supposed to be a hard trance style, so I'll let it slide. That ending at 4:07 was kind of a cop-out/time-to-give-up type of resolution. Hilarious non sequitur cough at the end. Everyone else will tell you to ditch it for being pointless, Heath, but forget 'em, that was great. You know what you doing. Resub, bro, if you're still interested in working on this, since it's over 6 months old now. If not, this was certainly a good experiment. The sounds are generic but weren't bad on the whole, though some are gonna find this grating most of the way through, especially the second half. Anyway, I'm genuinely looking forward to your next FF7 mix, BTW. You already know I'm all for that one. NO

Hate the very generic sound of the lead, but that doesn't affect my vote. I agree that the piano used from :49-1:25 is terribly obscured and needs to be brought up. Things just get cluttered at 1:49 when y'all brought in both that electrosynth and some shrill string instrument as support, so I'm not enjoying how crowded everything became. 2:13 only got much worse as some downright distorted/clippy bass thumps were added at the very end and absolutely cruded this up for the finish. Sloppy mixing execution in the attempt to create a very full sound. Scale the volume back so that y'all aren't topping out every frequency towards the end, insert some more variation in the ideas to keep things fresh if you want to keep the track at a mere 2:39 (which is fine), and I believe the ending cuts out abruptly, but it may just be my download. But yeah, this isn't gonna be your sophomore ReMix, bros. Keep working on it, please. You snagged two votes with Prot on the borderline as well, so a resubmission addressing several issues would make it with little problem. NO (resubmit)

The piano intro the mix isn't particularly hot, but the quality's certainly good enough. Cool stuff fading in at :10 that's structured like ABG's "Ada's Groove." At :34, your flute lead indeed sounds weak, while it's also sounds obscured. Starting at 1:09, the electrosynth you have on lead has some flat delivery, and the countermelody joining at 1:20 is also fairly thin-sounding. 1:44 switches to some organ/keyboard-like notes that are almost atonal sounding that slightly clash with the groove here and sound very gimped out. The percussion at this point has barely had any notable changes in it, so you need to work on some percussion variation within :33-2:41, and not just go back to the same tired beats by 3:02. Decent guitar work fading in at 2:30 and providing support to at least add another layer of instrumentation, but the delivery there is really unenergetic as well. Execution needs to be spiced up, and I'm begging for more creative ideas, as the arrangement is too repetitive. When you hit those lifeless organ/keyboard again at 3:50 and kept on retreading the same territory, it just wasn't a strong way to work towards your close. 4:13 had some better sounds to wrap things up near the very end, though the nearly-finished fadeout abruptly cuts out at 4:39 (which might have just been my copy). Vigilante's right about the mastering needing some work, as the mix has some alright sound combinations that nonetheless get a bit cluttered at times. I also thought this needed some attention for the high-end frequencies to generally help sharpen the sounds. This was very plodding & repetitive, so the development aspect of the mix needs work, and please bring more fullness to your sounds. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gym/tforce3.rar - "Venus Fire" Not enough here, Marcos. Going into 1:18, one really expects this to be building up towards something and then you get a just a crummy/abrupt drum close at 1:31 instead. Besides, this is just a one loop near-verbatim cover of the source tune. You'd be good to go if there was rearrangement substance to this, but there is none beyond the change in support chords. From your VGMix description of this, I doubt you realistically expected this to make it here anyway, since you know it's just a quick cover. I'll patiently wait for Megaman "CutMetal" & Super C "Against the Rest" to show up on the panel or be direct posted. NO

NOoooooo. Terrible keyboard sample. Bland strings, though not abominable. Some thin, gimpy percussion joined in at :54. OH MAN, BAH; 1:06, some more stock percussion crap. Man, these samples are straight donkey crud, the structure is repetitive and unenergetic, and literally every time a new layer of instrumentation comes in, I get pissed off at this. 1:29 has some low saw wave or wutvea, then 1:48 with wuteva other lame thing. All this buildup up to 2:10 for a crappily sequenced cover with generic beats?!? Goddammit, this just isn't my day. Listened to the whole thing, but it doesn't merit anymore beyond this. I'm too busy trashing it. Bad everything. Even the strings coming in again at 3:32 are only a drop of decency admist this default crud. I'll never get those 5 minutes back. Fuck.

Didn't like the bad-sounding keyboard sample introing at :13. The wind instrument joining in at :30 was also very flat in tone and poorly done. The strings you had "beneath" those other two instruments actually were too loud rather than in the back (like accompaniment of this nature is meant to be) and managed to crowd the piece. Ack. Really muffled/reverbed/flimsy-sounding drums came in at 1:03 and the wind lead is so so weak, it can't carry the task of being your primary melodic instrument in any way whatsoever. It's weak on one hand, poorly articulated on another, and almost grating on a third hand, which normal people don't have. What was up with the note choices from 2:17 onward? Not dissonance, just poor note choices. 2:45 in, and I'm frankly kinda hurt that this is going on for another 2 minutes. 3:07-3:31, you're just rehashing the same structure you had at 1:03. The sounds practially never change here at all, which is only a negative when they're so poor here. The tempo changes were a good idea wasted on this poor execution of everything else. The ending at 4:46, which should have been a gradual fadeout, abruptly cut off. Bah. Bland as hell on the execution; poor sounds, no energy. It was a chore to listen to this, and I don't say that often. NO

The sounds are generally alright, but this meanders around an awful lot to start off with. 1:40 of the way through and there's basically been some vox along with indiscriminate note sequences. Not good for half of your 4 minute mix. Awesome rain/wind effects, BTW. No sense of direction until 2:15. The shakers that are placed way, WAY in the back sound very gimp, and the drumbeat that fades in at 2:38 doesn't mesh well with flow of this at all, so scrap it. I have no idea why that was in there, and just as I'm typing that, THERE it is again at 3:12. Nah, get rid of it. The beats don't even synch up well. The male vox at 3:14 was atonal or flat or whatever and crudded up some otherwise decent ambiance. Then the vox just cut out abruptly at 3:24 for no real reason; I can't emphasize enough how low-grade that sounded. Figure out a way to give this a stronger ending, and improve the tone & realism some of the vox. Also, I suggest to drop the lousy drumbeats and focus in on bolstering the stronger ambient foundations you have in place. Lots of suggestions you have from the panel that could bring this one over the line, Ravi, but make sure to tie this in more closely to the source material as well as Prot is having reservations about that. You'll get on here sooner rather than later though, I think we all agree on that here. Good potential on this one provided more work is put into it. NO (refine & resubmit)

Binnie's right, 2:42 is just weak and could be substantially improved. Very WIP-level/placeholder/I'll work-on-it-later quality there. I pretty much echo Binnie's comments verbatim. This is a WIP, Kris. Finish it, bro. It started off very well and degraded over time. I'd like to YES this and see you get back in the game. NO (please finish & resubmit)

Hate. Bad. Vox. Doesn't go anywhere until :50 in. Way too much reverb; very washed out. 1:20's a breath of fresh air I suppose, but there's just way too much reverb everywhere. Yeah, I'm totally with Malc on this. It just comes off like the epitome of bland marching music. The triumphant connotations Pretz mentioned are certainly "there," but this is still pretty aimless. Even if the reverb levels were adjusted so that they didn't muck this, this is just some boring arrangement, which was hurt by the lengthy, meandering intro. Hell, that could even be the source tune's fault per se, I have no idea. Really offers nothing special to this site, in any case. I hope someone else has something more constructive and/or insightful to say on this. Really meh, I'm afraid. NO

The electrosynth lead at :27 is just too generic, while the beats are alright. The stayle change at 1:08 was really cool (YAAAAA!), so you should keep that. Very cool sounds. The techno stuff you started with was way too generic, but I loved the return of the bassy electrobeats at 1:28; awesome fusion of your electronic base with some ethnic instruments to really give the source material a different feel. The lead at 1:51 isn't that good, IMO, and suffers from the same lack of fullness Prot mentioned earlier. 2:09, I'm meh on the accompaniment being obscured again, but hot on the arrangement. That was over all to quickly as you moved into 2:40. That kind of ending at 2:40 is REALLY anti-climatic and unoriginal, believe me. Scrap it and work on some rearrangement expansion for this, along with some possible different sound choices that move a little bit away from the extremely exposed saw wave or wuteva that is. Just didn't feel that it worked here, which is why Prot's pointed out the distinct lack of bass or accompany for sections such as :33-1:08 (among other places). You obviously have some accompaniment in place, but it's very obscured, so beef things up there and get the sound balance working more in your favor. Hit the WIP board and some other electronic mixers for advice, Ben. Genuinely looking to a resubmission of this. A little more dedication & development could get this here. Didn't like everything here, but I generally enjoyed so far. NO (resubmit)

Ha, Rad Racer. Something that the Brothers Chaps can be down with. Not much to say here. Good overall, though I had problems with some of the stronger hits; 1:35 and 1:37 in particular sounded off. 1:40, 1:43. Um, ok. Keeps doing that. 2:07. 2:24-2:29 was a particulary grating/annoying area. Dunno what the story is at all of those points, but they were all jarring and dragged the piece down. Not enthusiastic about the YES even though its sincere; just not an interesting piece to me personally, but it's objectively good enough despite the flaws I heard; too bad you can't just snap your fingers and fix 'em. Though not my cup o' tea, there was good development throughout to keep things moving and tons of ideas were explored. EDIT: Lots of people complaining about those grating areas. Gonna go NO and expediate the process. Fix it up and come back for a YES, Jon.

I be likin' the groove, and I'm a fan of Pro Wrasslin'. 1:07-1:38 is pretty aimless-sounding before you just go into the same deal you had before, only with some added harmonization as Vigilante pointed out. More aimless/unstructured-sounding stuff from 2:17-2:57/end. Dunno who first started using the phrase here, but you just gotta be more. Keep the cool groove intact and hook it up with more arrangement variation along with more coherent structural ideas. NO

Feels like the original fairly simply orchestrated with THUMP THUMP THUMP...THUMP THUMP THUMP 2/3rds of the way, but I've got nothing to compare it with. Sounds like you've got a pretty good base, bro. Not uber-hot orchestral, since THUMP THUMP THUMP ain't really clickin' here with the rest of the sounds, but you're already starting to the hang of some of this, like with these horn velocities. Refinement is needed, but it's pretty solid there, even if the horns are too loud themselves. The strings indeed need more work to sound more natural, and the other percussion is a bit too far in the back, though I can see how you tried to create a certain feel that way. Hope you get some more advice on how to fashion orchestral material like this from other judges and on the WIP forum. You certainly sound like you have some talent, Mario, and the room to get better. Definitely keep at it. Criminal ending. Abrupt and criminal, as if you just gave up trying to think of anything more. 2:26's transition sounded like you were really gonna develop this in a whole new direction with the arrangement and then [sputter], it's over at 2:39. WHAT?!? A cocktease of a submission right there. An ending like that would not N*Gage The Wingless's square-penix, I'm afraid. NO

Not a bad concept. I actually like the effects done on the percussion, and you have a good minimalist-sounding groove here. When the source tune comes in at :28, it's got some decent understated bass action that picks up in volume a little bit moving toward :37. Cool move. Good minimal style going on with 1:12, along with the melody at 1:16. Admittedly, I was put off by the thinness at first, but the choices here are purposeful and seem to click; a lot of the elements seem to come together fairly well. The overall texture isn't great yet, but it's not bad. The style change at 1:31-1:35 was too jarring, if only because it was too high in key compared to the majority of what you've got; also the last note at 1:33/1:34 didn't seem to flow correctly into your next verse. I also felt the countermelody from 1:54-2:09 was too shrill. Might wanna reconsider the sound choice there. Good stuff going from 2:09-2:14. Unfortunately, with such a nice transition type effect on the chorus, I was looking for you to bust out in a new direction to keep things fresh, rather than relying on very minimal countermelodic additions/layering to convey a sense of development. I felt the synth coming in at countermelody at 2:14 actually didn't mesh so well with the other sounds you were using towards the end. It sounded a lot better on its own, like from 1:16-1:30. There's that shrill dealie again from 2:33-2:47. Yeah, that's not working. Good start, Javier. Works pretty well for a sparse, trippy sort of track, so you don't really need to change how sparse the sounds are; just develop the rearrangement aspect a little further. Add some slight variations to your percussion patterns to keep things moving a bit more, and work a few more ideas with the source material's arrangement within your 3 minute timeframe. The nature of the arrangement coverage pretty much stayed the same throughout from 1:35 until 3:00. Prime stuff for a resubmit if you're willing to put a little more effort in. I saw lots of potential, myself. Maybe some others will like it more. NO (refine & resubmit)

Yikes. The vox is a cute idea, but the movement from note-to-note sounds so unnatural, and I could barely grasp the connection to the Armored Armadillo theme until the transition into the MIDI horns at 1:04. Pretty beginner-level MIDI work. The harmonization was pretty awkward sounding as well. Doesn't do much other than MIDIfy the original with poorly executed support/harmonization ideas. The sax at 2:16 was at least something different, if not effective, along with the French horn at 2:35 and the tambourine at 2:53. You obviously tried, but this still doesn't do much to expand on the source material. Prot loves the MMX soundtrack, so we're all sure he'll YES this due to personal bias. Form rejection all the way. NO

I'm gonna rip my comments on this from my WIP:OC post on this. Still have yet to hear the source material. Guess he never checked what I wrote though: The vox is cheese-ing this up, but I wouldn't necessarily get rid of it. If you can change the voice used, it might better accentuate the track. The transition from orchestral to techno at :30 didn't work well the first time (just a subjective opinion; it could grow on me), but it worked more when you transitioned back from techno to orchestral and then merged them together briefy. Orchestral samples don't sound realistically sequenced though. They actually sound like they skip during the intro, which isn't what's literally happening, but that might as well be. Lots of flimsy-sounding electronic synths that could use some effects (even support stuff like the claps). The synth that came in at :44/2:15 sounds fairly lifeless. Good groove from 1:12-1:40 though, and I liked the lead sound there along with the glassy-sounding reverb. Again, the strings here are really poor sounding the way they're used. I'm meh on the sounds, but I'd guess that the arrangement here is alright (though of course I need to hear the source material). Not bad with the structure, though the samples are pretty dry. Not even a borderline NO for me due to the delivery here, BUT that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of potential here that could be explored since you plan to work on this further. Anything you can do to beef up the sounds so that they don't sound flimsy without drastically changing the presentation of the mix would be good. Does need a little variation returning to the techno at 2:06 as you pretty much repeat everything you had before. Try and make some types of changes (addition, subtraction, or arrangement-wise) to not let things become repetitive in a mere 2 minutes. Beef up and/or articulate some of your sounds, and throw some additional ideas in. NO (resubmit)

Was really low in volume until things picked up at :34, but it was smooth sailing after that. Nice work keeping the movement and momentum going with the changeup at 1:45 considering this was only 2:19; really kept new ideas flowing throughout. I had more in-depth comments to Karl that I had saved on the old comp, but since those are KIA, I'll just keep it simple. It's short and sweet. Wish it could have been mic'ed better, because that's a major hit against it. Don't think it's NO-able on those grounds myself, but I'd understand and wouldn't mind anyone here taking a look at the WAV and sprucing it up. YES

LT: A week shy of 3 months, I figure that's close enough.

BAHAHAHAHAHA. No way. Cool intro for the first 5 seconds. Then it goes downhill. The percussion is pretty plain jane, and the faux/quasi/pseudo guitar (:09) is something that'll get eaten alive by the harsher judges. That synth coming in at :25 doesn't work well at all, does it? I think you know the answer. What is going on with those "things" from 1:04 to 1:14? Wow. I'm really sorry, this is just major ROFLz all over. I get the feeling that the only reason we got this one is because DJP might have gotten sexual favors from you if the whole panel got drunk at the same time and managed to YES this. Form rejection all da wayz. NO

I'm all for the liberal mixes. All for 'em. I'd prefer to YES this. But the energy on this was sedate and dry. The whole time. Even if others don't have a problem with it, it pretty much kept this one from coming outta the gate, IMO. Care to bring a bit more oomph/presence into this, Sam? Interesting ideas, definitely. As it is now though, it just kinda chugs along...and keeps on chuggin'...yep. NO (resubmit)