Liontamer

I pretty much agree with Prot's vote. The vibe here is pretty sweet. If this were a 4 minute mix, I might even YES it, though I'd have to compare with the source. Some REALLY bad notes from both 2:43-2:45 & 2:50-2:51. Dunno what happened there, but fix 'em please. While I really do hear the subtle developments here, there needs to be something extra going on to get away from the repetition here. By 4:05, even though there were obvious additions compared to earlier in the tracks, things were still a bit too repetitive with regards to the melody. The repetitveness doesn't bother me so much, except this is a lengthy track and one or two fresh ideas would hook this up. Adding some original note progressions anywhere within this track while not moving away from the great sound you have would serve this well. This is actually pretty sweet work so far, Tuomas. Though the drumwork is actually fairly weak compared to the power of the lead synth, your sounds are really cool and work very well together, including the shakuhachi. I don't agree with Vig saying that it sounded ridiculous; I felt the combination of sounds was a unique approach. Despite my first comment up top, I'd prefer to hear just a couple of brief additional ideas in here to replace some of the repetitive stuff rather than cut the length of the track. To be honest, it's tough to make a vote like this when I'm a big fan of a very repetitive track in SkyHigh's "Snow Motion", because a vote like this is similarly subjective with whether I enjoyed the repetitiveness or not, but I feel that that remix worked in its simple construction, whereas this only partially/nearly works. Nonetheless, this is a really cool genre piece that I could see people enjoying. Just a little more substance while retaining this atmosphere would create a sense of more development occuring over the 5+ minutes of the piece, and that's all I need for the YES. NO (please resubmit)

Cool. I read his e-mail but just wanted to be clear how much of the source was used overall. When Alex said it turned into Tetris near the end of its development, I wasn't sure if that meant he weaved source material throughout whatever he was working on earlier, or if Tetris was just the latter half of the track. http://www.zophar.net/gbs/tetris.zip - GBS Track 2 Pretty slow build for the first two minutes, but the development was pretty engaging so it wasn't a detriment to the mix. Around 2:30 though, I was waiting for the actual Tetris to come in, which it finally did at 2:45. The arrangement of the theme works well; fairly simple/straightforward, but the countermelodic elements are very nice and Alex got into some genuine rearrangement ideas as things picked up. The horn samples could/should have been more realistic moving from note-to-note, particularly during their very prominent section from 4:04-4:30, but were servicable overall and also outshadowed by other stronger instruments/elements that were present throughout the entire track, i.e. the piano, strings, and drums. Although I didn't pay too much attention to the war motif when I was judging this, it was certainly pretty cool when I casually listened to it. Like Protricity mentioned, the sound effects worked well without functioning as a crutch just to make things interesting. For example, the marching sound effects worked well as a beatkeeper yet also contributed to the militaristic feel of the mix. Fairly solid work. YES EDIT: As much as my Russian heritage enjoys the folk music from Tetris, I also agree with Binnie that technically Tetris's use of Russian folk songs is in violation of our policy that any music arranged here should come from a game first. Tetris might be one exeception, but I don't believe it should be. I'll retain my YES if we won't change our standards to disallow the Russian folk songs from Tetris to be remixed here, as I didn't have as serious problems with the brass or the use of Tetris in only the second half, but for the record if we push this issue on Tetris's music further, I'll be switching my vote to NO on policy grounds.

So...my laptop is the brokez. It won't be looked at for a week, so the organized show has gotta be postponed until I find out what's wrong with it. Could be a week, maybe 2. May even have to format my hard drive. Just gotta roll with it. In any case, this Saturday, we will still play crud and hang out in the NEW VG Frequency IRC channel (#VGF @ EntertheGame), but we will do what is commonly known as ze freesty00L and bullshit around. Should be some good stuff as we play any requests that I can download onto the radio station computer and shoot the shit with people on the air, although Species will have to help out and record the stream if he's around, since I won't be able to. Oy! We're down, but not out.

This isn't the rejected version. http://www.vgmix.com

I hear track 2 from the Game Boy soundtrack in the second half, but I'm wondering where the theme arranged for the first half is from. Certainly sounds like something from Tetris. Any need to confirm that further?

Violations: 1. Die Hard Trilogy 'I Love The Airport' YES texx tried to do some things with it both arrangement & rearrangement-wise, and no one's condemning it for having a very minimalist sound style. In terms of working with the source tune however, I believe this is too simplified of a reinstrumentation effort overall that doesn't give of a unique-enough take on the original. 2. Ys 'Beat of Terror' YES Definitely a verbatim rip/cover 3. Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun 'PharoTeknical' YES Very cool track, but I felt the area of 3:10-3:40 was the only section that didn't specifically rely on the foundation of the original. The rest of the track featured the most prominent parts of the original with minorly-arranged percussion from the original on top and some light synth modulation underneath. If the changes of the arrangement of the percussion were more dynamic compared to the source, I definitely would have NOed this. Definitely a great remix, but not one that I feel fits the ReMix standards here. 4. Streets of Rage 2 'Funkdreamer' YES I'm somewhat biased, because I like the original and the funk vibe here is good. There's nothing inherently wrong with straight arrangement, but the creative take of the artist in terms of the sounds and/or additions has to be pretty dynamic in order to get my support. "Tactile Freefall" & particularly "Space Cowboys" are recent examples that I feel illustrate how to stick closely to the structure of their source tunes but also feature substantial instrumentation ideas that significantly change the feel and upgrade the original. I feel "Funkdreamer" is about halfway there in doing this with the style, but is ultimately only a minor genre adaptation compared to those other post-1000 examples; even the bongos that are here are actually punched up from the Genesis version if you listen really closely. If I heard some substantial sounds additions (rather than changes) compared to the original, I would have been down. 5. Donkey Kong Country 'Strolling The Mines' YES As much as I hate to remove an actual composer's work, this really is a trance original simply built around the source material, even though the source material usage isn't a rip. I didn't hear anything significant done to weave aspects of the source into this original trance work, much like the Metroid submission we rejected fairly recently only more sophisticated. 6. Usagi Yojimbo 'Homage to Amida Buddha' NO As I said when I flagged this for consideration, I say this is a good cover with VERY basic additions. I may be in the minority here, because this doesn't change the feel of the source's sound enough, like "Funkdreamer", BUT this adds a lot more here compared to the SID via several varying types of countermelody that are somewhat hard to notice without active listening, along with the inclusion of the original guitar work for a notable portion of the track. Not much in the way of polyphony at times, but there isn't any specific formula/context for how a straight arrangement's additions best sound, and frankly I feel it's a lot easier to get a straight arrangement of a SIDtune or NEStune up to par given how minimal-sounding many of those source tunes are. While not as sophisticated or substantial as "Space Cowboys" additions, I felt this worked in adding other support sounds/instruments to give the remix enough additional elements compared to the original, especially since the SID sounds flimsy as hell and you get the aforementioned guitar work coming in over the top of this one from 1:43-2:15 & 3:21-4:22 to add something to it for over a third of the track. 7. F-Zero GX 'Dr. Stuard (Jeff & Toad Air Team Challengers)' YES Relies way too much on the original for the foundation of the mix. No offense meant at all, but whereas Scott Peeples' "PharoTeknical" is an example of a great remix that nonetheless doesn't fit the guidelines, I felt the changes made here were less substantial than that. I would have loved to have heard the SIDtune-style section used more. 8. Earthbound 'Dreaming on Distant Shores' NO The four notes of Rellik's first measure (:04-:07) are a viable arrangement of the first four notes in the five-note pattern in "A Flash of Memory" (:00-:01), then Rellik alters those notes in a slightly different pattern for the second measure from :08-:11. The four notes of Rellik's third measure (:12-:15) are also a viable arrangement of the four notes in the five-note pattern in "A Flash of Memory" from :02-:04, then Rellik alters those notes in a slightly different pattern for the fourth measure from :16-:19. That 15-second rearrangement is the basis of this ReMix. Muting all but the 7th voice of the SPC helped isolate the source tune melody. I placed this one up for consideration on account of all the reviewers who stated that they didn't hear the original in this. But Rellik's arrangement of the source is used prevalently throughout the course of the remix and is undoubtedly the foundation of the track. The question was whether the use of the original was recognizable in the context of the mix, and upon close inspection of the SPC I now understand that it is. I'll be the first to admit that the connection was tough to place, but it's there. Great job of building up a minimal idea into something much more. The usage of this piece of the source tune is very minimal, but I love remixes of minimal pieces of a source tune as long as the connection I hear is solid. May be violations: 9. Final Fantasy 10 'The Final Summoning' NO Not even considering the direct sampling of the vox from the game itself, the baritone horn plays the recognizable arrangement of "Song of Prayer" female/lead vox from :47-1:00, then a slight rearrangement of it from 1:00-1:07. The horn uses the recognizable arranged structure of the female lead of "Song of Prayer" from 1:23-1:29. The cello arranges from 1:50-1:57, with the last two notes providing the main connection to the note pattern of female lead vox. At 3:19, Abram McCalment's transition into the guitar solo, especially with the last three notes from 3:23-3:25, is a simplified arrangement of "Song of Prayer", before he provides direct use of source's note progression through call-and-answer with the sampled vox from 3:26-3:53. Checking the original PSF, the choir singing the source tune, "Song of Prayer", is a full choir. That being said, I focused my attention to the male vox providing support chords for the more prominent female vox, and indeed Jared's whole note cello moves in a note pattern similar enough to the notes of male vox support in "Song of Prayer". Though that probably wasn't a purposeful thing, that wasn't my concern. You hear Jared use the cello this way throughout the mix (e.g. 1:16-1:22, 1:30-1:43, 1:57-2:09, 2:25-2:38, 2:45-3:11, 4:07-4:34). Considering that I feel Jared referencing the male vox support chords of the source tune with a similar note progression from the cello is viable rearrangement, there's nothing making me feel this needs to be removed. If I hadn't made the connection of the cello to the male vox, this track would have been too original in my eyes.

You got that right, bro. The WMRE webstream is current fucked and I can't reset it right now, so VGF33 is postponed for a couple of days. I'd go through with today's show, but people prefer it to be live, so we'll be going with that. It'll also be more of a 3 hour show rather than a longer episode. Please keep an eye out for when it's rescheduled, and sorry for the incovenience. If you miss it, the MP3'll be out later in the week.

No plans to have djp on the air. Yet, anyway. Not to goad him into calling in, but I'm sure he might drop by at some point in the future, Silent. Aight folks, should be a good show tonight. Be there for material from Beatdrop, tefnek, zykO, Christian Pacaud, Joecam, binster, Joshua Morse, Jaxx, Quinn Fox, Reuben Kee, SuperGreenX, DCT & more! Be there, foos! Happy birthday, DCT!

I don't mind the use of the source tune verbatim, since Rapture actually used the same soundbank as the Rare team; that's actually pretty cool. My main problem is the fact that the I agree that the trance structure isn't tied into "Life in the Mines" nearly enough to consider the track a rearrangement rather than original trance material with the source tune referenced on top of it. IMO, the source material is not integrated with the original material, it's just over the top of it. I didn't hear any chords from the original used in the trance work to piece it together with the source. To me, it's just a more sophisticated example of using, say, the Mario theme and then putting a good beat underneath it that sounds good but has nothing thematically to do with the Mario theme. At some point I feel the two aspects should piece together through rearrangement. I've got zero problem with Rapture using the same soundbank the Rare team used. Just the fact that it's source tune placed on top of an original; if you removed the source tune use from the track, you wouldn't hear a single thing that's from "Life in the Mines", so I'm not feeling it as a rearrangement. My votes are coming sometime either shortly after VG Frequency or later tomorrow, no later than that.

Ha! That's true, bro, although I preferred the glib NOs myself.

What happened to the melody from the last time??? That was the best part but it got gutted compared to the first version. The thin strings didn't seem to really work with the thick percussion & pulsating electro beats I heard in the first 50 seconds. Just thicken the sound on those guitar/wuteva strings a bit. Also some bad note progression I felt I heard from 1:38-1:45 with the string accompaniment. Ah man, at 1:09, I was just floored by about half of the notes of the melody being taken out. Bring 'em back, baby! I was thinking that you would bring the melody back to full power (like in the first version) later on in the song, but it never arrived. I think this would come off a lot stronger by not letting the melody be so sparse, at least for most of the time. Overall though, things were sounding decent at least, and I wasn't really having too many problems until the awkward transition at 2:28. Those are hit or miss, and I felt it didn't work effectively, so ease into that change of pace there. I didn't really see where Prot was coming from when he said things were messy until we hit the drumwork at 2:40 during more of a freestyle section. The notes get iffy/random-sounding at points and the percussion sounds very loose from both 2:40-2:50, 2:59-3:05 & 3:18-3:28. Good energy, but still a bit over the top. Tone it down a little bit. The ending there at 4:07 dropped off a little suddenly; might wanna just reverb the end for a slightly slower fadeout. Those were all the little problems I had. Unfortunately, the main point here is that there isn't much development going on with this theme. The second half pretty much felt like the first save for the break section from 2:28-3:09. Then you just rehashed what you had done before. That wouldn't have been a problem if the melody was more exciting to begin with. The production is awesome now, but looking back over what Prot said, the issues of some ugly notes, haphazard sounding percussion and repetition are all still existent, only a bit less prominent than before. Hate to say this, but keep working on it, bro. NO (resubmit)

http://www.alpha-ii.com/snesmusic/spcsets/dkq.rsn - "Kannon's Klaim" (dkq-s-01.spc) I haven't listened to the source tune in a little while, but it really kicks ass. I also pimped this one back in early August for VG Frequency: With that said, yeah, the percussion wasn't particularly engaging, but like Ari said, the arrangement here was pretty good and really gave the original a new dimension, especially considering that Mike remixed a section of the original (:35-:55 / 1:24-1:45) more promimently, while subtlely altering/referencing others (the countermelodic synth support from :15-:25). Not my cup of tea, personally, but very solid work regardless. We might get into the same situation as Bladiator's recent rejection where others may feel not enough of the original is being used here to fulfill the submissions standards, so I encourage all of you to compare with the source material, but, as I felt with Bladiator's mix, Daragen did a good job of taking a small section from the original and simply working within the framework of that. As long as I'm able to make tangible, significant enough connections to the source material, I'm willing to approve fairly liberal ideas like that. YES

http://www.alpha-ii.com/snesmusic/spcsets/mo2.rsn - "The Tendas' Cave" (mo2-106.spc) Sorry, LAOS. The sounds aren't bad, and I enjoyed a lot of the choices that thickened things up compared to the original, but rips haven't faired awfully well in the People's Remix Competition, and they're obviously not gonna make it here. No offense, bro, but you've gotta get way more creative. A couple of different percussion patterns and some other stuff on top isn't enough. Really explore what can be done with this one. It's definitely a cool source tune selection. NO OVERRIDE

Hahaha. We definitely don't accept 256kbps files here at all. Nothin' particularly jazzy here at all, although I suppose maybe I have a narrow-minded view of jazz. Like Prot said, very repetitive, and it does nothing dynamic with the source material whatsoever. This is some really flat arrangement work here as well, so work or bringing some life to these sounds. Good luck on any future mixes though, and hit the ReMixing forum here for more advice on how to improve your stuff. Chock this one up as an exercise in some of the basics. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gbs/garquest.zip - GBS Track 14 I pimped this one back in early August for VG Frequency: Now that I've heard the source material, I appreciate the conversion done here even more. Very good stuff, worthwhile imagery, a good change of pace from how Nicolas has usually structured his material, and an easy YES.

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FFX_psf2.rar - 119 "The Sight of Spira" Yeah, I'm no sample whore, but you've gotta hook it up with a reasonably better sounding piano sample at some point, Red. Though it's too short/underdeveloped so far, I'm absolutely feeling the arrangement as I'm a big fan of the source tune, but the execution is definitely too sloppy here, no matter what method you went about using. The ReMixing & WIP forums are the place to see what else you can do for yourself on this one. Beyond tightening up some of the timing and looking into different piano patches, I'd really love to hear where else you could take this arrangement-wise. Objectively speaking, the energy wasn't bad. NO

I'm sure some OMGKRonofanficzPEndium fansites would enjoy it. Anyway... NO

Little areas where you changed the notes like at 1:18 & 1:26 didn't really work, and almost seem to pay lip service to the concept of rearrangment. The sounds were pretty basic, but I really enjoyed the overall groove of this. If you're gonna go more of the cover route, you'd really gotta refine your stuff more and give things some power along with more unique textures/sounds. Otherwise (though you had some good layering of the melodies from 3:30 toward the end), you need to dramatically rearrange things more to make up for lacking sounds. Hit up the ReMixing 101 forum for advice on how to strengthen your percussion work in particular. Too bad you never submitted this 2 or 3 years ago instead, bro. NO

The lead really doesn't mesh well with slowly-modulating dealie going on in the background. Pretty generic sounds, and by 3:18 things were just way too repetitive I'm afraid. I heard more elements enter in, like at 3:39, but this was treading water from the start. No real development here at all until 4:32. Obviously not enough to really work with though. Not a bad idea for the piano to be involved near the very end, even though it didn't sound that good. Ah well, you live and learn. Spend a lot more time in the WIP forums and ReMixing 101. Good luck on future projects. NO

http://www.zophar.net/usf/sm64usf.zip - "Dire, Dire Docks" 1:30 in, and nothing but a MIDI-grade cover. Not bad, since I love the theme, it's hard for me to just hate this track, but this might as well be at VGMusic.com instead of being submitted here. 3:00 in, and still nothing beyond the original looped and with thin sounds. Pair of string instruments at 3:23. Meh. I'm glad you used those six weeks to learn things, but, sorry, it looks like you never read the guidelines here: NO OVERRIDE

Very nice attempt at something different. Like Vig said, try and make things a little more cohesive, go for a bit more on the rearrangement side (since I heard some promising things from :47-:59 & 2:41-2:52 with the guitar sounds), and rename the mix to something entirely different. The unorthodox style isn't a negative to me, but I need more done with the source material's rearrangment. NO (hope to see a resubmission)

Cute how NONE of the names of this track match up at all; Place of Return, The Place I'll Return, and The Day I Return. Pick something. Anyway, I see this is from Gman250. Is that the guy who made Zelda 'Epona'? Thanks for making me ROFL if it is. Really dry trance, plodding percussion, below average string usage, and the melody's pretty poorly positioned relative to the other sounds, especially when you hear the source directly at 2:03. Some stuff needs to be quantized too. I don't think that drumbeat changed even once. NO

Yeah, there really isn't too much going on arrangement-wise. Some pretty cool ideas just for some FL demo work, but you're gonna need to do more than slow the original down and reinstrumentate it. The change in the strings at 4:16 didn't work at all, BTW. Think of what else can be done with this style and create some unique ideas. NO

Never took the time to comment on how sweet this mix was. This was very chill and I always enjoy listening to it. Great work per the usual, Jouni. Looking forward to more!

Too bad, too. Pretty ROFLs and whatnot. Post this to VGMix though. Short and sweet, but like Vig said... NO