Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

http://www.zophar.net/gym/SK+SONIC3.RAR - 07 "Hydrocity Zone 2" The lead was somewhat tepid introing in, but I'll willing to see where things go with that lead pad along with some nice belltones (:06) and hand percussion (:10) creeping in. The drums at :21 are kind of plain and loopy here, and for some reason the strings are panned pretty strongly towards the right channel with nothing to fill out the left, plus the string samples are a bit exposed. Alright, :43 got things going with the supporting beats from Hydrocity Zone much like I remember from last time, the first real usage of the source. I could tell I wasn't gonna like the brass sample again thank to it's first appearance at 1:05, but the performance on it was handled alright. No glaring performance issues there with me and things were arranged around a little bit. There's just something plain and flat with the drumwork from 1:10-1:31 that makes me feel as if it doesn't drive quite the track along; less plain patterns and more good fills like the one you were using could spice things up. I also noticed that the some of the higher frequencies didn't play much of a factor here; boosting those up a bit could sharpen things up and give it some shine, which the whole track is lacking, as it sounded noticeably dull in my headphones. More panning and separation is likely needed to get this sounding as good as it could. 2:01-2:16 finally reached the source tune's pretty conservatively handled chorus as most of the elements dropped out, but then went back to the freestyle original material until 2:31. Good job making the lead elements much more prominent in this resub. Before, the drumwork had all of the presence but you scaled that back appropriately. 2:31 brought the melody back in with some arrangement that was relatively conservative but changes some of the notes around a bit. I do like the new support instrumentation and ideas going on with the bassline and strings to try to accentuate the melodic material. The Hydrocity chorus was basically taken verbatim at 3:04 then doubled from 3:19-3:34, though the whole track was too loud and cluttered during that whole section, so please clean it up. Decent original stuff until 3:49 as well. The tempo was changed at 3:49 with some lounge-style keyboard and effects going on, and I liked how the phrasing of the melody was changed a bit, especially compared to the rejected version. The electro effects sounded totally out of place after 3:57, drowning out the melody and making the timing seem awkward. Those effects hurt the abrupt tempo change at 4:09, which did help arrange the source tune again in yet another instrumentation variation. Had another original section at 4:25-4:39 with some hand drum action that felt a little too loud, but was a worthwhile addition overall. 4:29 had more verbatim melodic usage, but the backing elements were good. Meh, not a fan of the beats returning at 5:07 whatsoever; switch it up. The synth brass was pretty fakey the whole way through, which was disappointing, because I think it could have sounded better. Hate the last drum and cymbal shot ending. The cymbal fades too quickly, and that kind of close is just tacky to begin with. It's not worse than the gunshot ending, but it's still not any good. I'd just say let it fade out or maybe warp the sounds a bit as you fade. Now that the beatwork got scaled back a bit, the arrangement more prominent like it should be. I respect how you used the baseline of the original as the foundation of the track and then at least changed up the support instrumentation of the track during the melodically verbatim sections. The meat of the composition didn't change from the last time around, but you get props for making some detailed but notable improvements. If the sound of the drumkit could be improved, I'd love to hear other Js weigh in on that. Plus I think the track needs to sound a bit sharper. Especially in lieu of some of the sounds/samples not being icy hot, if there were no hangups in the mixing and production that would make a YES a lot easier. Dunno if people will criticize the length. I'll admit that this sometimes sounded like it lacked direction, but to me it didn't drag on the way a lot of these 5:30-7 minute subs have tended to do lately. Overall, I'm really borderline on this one, Caio, but gotta go with the NO and push for one last go at revisions (please). I think the arrangement was conservative on the surface, but showed itself to be pretty creative. The arrangement was still weaker last time, but I didn't give it enough credit the last time around.

Track starts off with no power. The note movements all fudge around; there was a gratuitous use of constant attacks rather than having virtual bow movement be responsible for the notes changing. There's no sense of anything being grounded here; the intro's composition is just unfocused and wallowing in reverb. Better stuff moving over into the piano, though the fakey synth bass at 1:04 was weak. "Radical Dreamers" melody came in at 1:14, and it's not interpretive enough. The strings joining on support were attempted to be used with subtlety, but still sounded exposed and too synthetic. FINALLY some additive ideas with the support instrumentation at 2:10, though the soundfield became pretty cluttered. Things could use more panning and separation here. Then some actual rearrangement of the source material at 3:01, though as things faded down around 3:05-3:14, we got the weak synth bass making another cameo appearance. The minimal approach after 3:14 with pads, light vox and hand drums was alright, but really doesn't take the source in a substantially interpretive direction, just one where motifs from "Radical Dreamers" are used in a very liberal last section. Work on humanizing some of the instrumentation more, pan and separate some of the sounds for a more enveloping atmosphere, and scrap the overly conservative stuff and get some real rearrangement ideas. "Mostly cover" + "pretty liberal section" has been shown by precedent not to be taken, so I'm not gonna take it now. On the plus side though, this was still an interesting listen and your skills have improved. Glad to see your work headed in the right direction, Brad. NO (resubmit)

http://exotica.fix.no/tunes/archive/Authors/Game/Joseph_Richard/Cannon_Fodder.lha - rjp.JON (Bless you DeliPlayer) Hahaha! I checked out rjp.WARX4 in the source archive, and it's Amiga-style reggae and shit! Crazy as hell, it's so cheesy, someone's GOTTA remix that with new vocals inspired from that one. weed could do something good off that, I mean it. Aight, getting to the actual mix. Not a bad intro. Melody came in at :24, but VERY softly and somewhat obscured. Whatever woodwind was playing the lead was really flat/MIDI-grade and unrealistic, and the interpretation of the source material was minimal. Don't have the strings dominate over everything the way they do here. The atmosphere changed at 1:41 with a decent break in the source material before going back in at 2:02. The supporting patterns basically repeated ad nausuem and the compostion was extremely plodding. Having the melodic content play second fiddle doesn't work in most contexts. Not bad for a beginner, but this was poorly mixed, which ultimately made this a tiresome listen. Heh. Not a bad idea for the ending, I suppose. Didn't have to be so long, but at least it's different. Hang in the ReMixing forum, Sam, and learn how to create better sound balance (as well as scout out some better free soundfonts for the woodwinds and brass used here), and post stuff to the WIP forum to get some comments that would steer you away from the mixing/production decisions you made here. NO

Good intro. The drumkit entering at :14 was kinda plain, but it was a solid pattern and was relegated to the background quickly. I really didn't like how the drums were so loud, let alone the whole mix. It's been a problem I've had with some of Mike's past stuff, so I gotta point out that I think it hurts the piece, and undermines the use of volume to create dynamic contrast. I know its hard trance, but I don't like the way the mixing was handled most times here. The sounds were relatively indistiguishable and poorly seperated during the chorus sections when one particular electrosynth joined in and it seemed like everything mushed together (e.g. 1:10-1:39, 1:53-2:07, 2:36-2:50, 3:04-3:43). The arrangement dragged on a bit as well, but was well alright for the genre, though I would have prefer more variation. As long as you don't pay attention to the repeating piano pattern arranged from the source you can hear other synths involved handling other aspects of arranging "Fighting". Gonna be a hardass again and say NO, looking for the resubmit. I would listen to the clearer sections and think "I'm being too tough on this," but I'd reach the chorus section and be convinced that this could be done with less volume and clutter. I feel it could be done without hindering the approach here, still sounding strong like hard trance and posessing ethereal effects like dream trance, and I could have gone some more melodic variation of some sort within the arrangement. Side note, too bad the phased piano didn't make more of an impact here, though it was indeed a great idea for the ending.

Fairly decent sequenced piano, though I want the realz! Nah, I'm asking for too much. Wish the piano had more body here, as its syntheticness was apparent just listening to it, but it had reasonably good performance dynamics going on. We move into some more upbeat stylings at :50. I was bleh on the string sample coming in at 1:04 for some of the note movements, but the arrangement is really creative so far. Dope key change goodness for the source melody to be sure. Sexy stuff at 1:28 with the accordian. Slightly off-timing around 1:33 though. The percussion was pretty sedate and should be spiced up further. Right now, it's just too looped and robotic sounding. Vary it up. I forgot the name of that instrument used briefly at 1:57, Gray mentioned it to me once. That was so cheesy, I'm like "nah, don't do that" in my stream on consciousness, and the exposed claps were also lame. Boooooo. Not to be a hardass, but if the arrangement wasn't so hot, I'd no for weak sounds. To me, it feels like the mix lacks a lot of body as a result of all of these samples sounding so thin and though you definitely took pains to make things sound as realistic as possible in the performance, it did occasionally feel rigid due to some of the note-to-note movements with the piano, lead strings and perc work, and CURSE THOSE CLAPS. Nonetheless, the arrangement was the most important part. I won't lie, I'm kinda bleh and would love to hear an upgraded version of this, but everything checks out on the arrangement side and the sounds are handled decently despite how they completely detracted from the performance for me. There's gotta be better stuff out there involving free soundfounts, but nice work nonetheless. Heh. "Moontang." YES

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Confusing Melody" (ct-2-23.spc), "Zeal Palace" (ct-3-05.spc) & "Undersea Palace" (ct-3-08.spc) If you mix 4 source tunes, Anthony, at least give some sort of breakdown of how you used them all in the arrangement. I almost didn't feel like digging through to listen and compare everything like that, and even though I have, I could have missed something that would be to your credit. First thing's first. You'll either love the approach or see it as a mere mish-mash of pieces, but in either scenario you have to listen for a while before you vote and compare with the sources, otherwise you'll make a very uninformed call here. Lemme try to break it down: Got "Confusing Melody" as the base of the track. Aside from that sustained synth, the vox like notes taken from CM are used from :09-1:36 & 3:43-4:05 of the track. Straightforward piano reference from the "Zeal Palace" intro from :28-:37. Some nice airy thumps in there, especially at :39, nice and dense. Not sure what's up with all the distortion and so forth, but I'm willing to see where it goes. Bubbly noises in the back from :49-:54 making an appearance, only to be brought back from 2:32-2:39. Good panning techniques employed here with that thumping gradually sweeping from left to right from :59-1:24, though it cut out fairly abruptly at 1:24. I liked the xylo-sounding melody from 1:11 to 1:24, but don't recognize if it's arrangement from another CT theme. Yeesh, weird use of the sound effect from Confusing Melody here at 1:32, 1:37, 1:41 & particularly 1:45-1:48. Not sure how it ties into the remorseful aspect of this; sounded really out of place to me. Don't see the point of the light percussion being used so briefly from 1:52-1:58 Zeal Palace reference again from 1:44-2:03. There's "Undersea Palace" at 2:11-2:32. That particular reference seems rather pasted in here, as it noticeably didn't gel with the other sounds. Weird groaning SFX again at 2:29 that seems to be REALLY out of place, though the sawing-like sounds worked for me. I honestly though can't knock these decisions just because they don't fit the assumptions I had for this when I read "contemplation and remorse" 2:56 has a combo of something with the Zeal Palace piano, but I can't identify it. Undersea Palace again at 3:15 with the really toy-sounding keyboard which sort of works, though that first note at 3:15 was jarring. Really not a bad idea to basically take the Confusing Melody, arrange it in a basic manner, and then build stuff on top of it with minimal pieces from those two other source tunes along with a good amount of additional ideas. There's a lot of synergy involved in the arrangement, as even the references to Zeal & Undersea Palace are each handled with 2 different sets of keys when used here. The combinations of sounds and themes ultimately work well. But my main kicker for NO is that listening to the SPC, the base of the track just involved taking the original and reinstrumenting it. It's too similar in instrumentation, like a grade-up version of the original. Even the shorter sustained notes in this mix are apart at the exact same intervals as the original. Then you come to the other source tunes involved and they're reinstrumented and integrated nicely, but there's no melodic interpretation. Dave might argue that the synergy of all of these original & fairly verbatim source elements is its own form of legitimate rearrangement like he did with Zelda 64 "Prayer", and I can't necessarily blame anyone else for going along that kind of reasoning, but that's just not how I view things here. Tough break here. I could actually see how this could be YESed for this approach due to the many cool additive things here, as well as the non-medley references to other themes here as well that do click to me. The production was pretty clean and solid all things considered. Keeping this. NO

Yeah, I thought the intro here was good. Nice ideas on the lead guitar at :19. Things sounded very airy/flowy/synonyms like that. Good stuff with the source melody at :38, though the backing strings sounded dull instead of airy. The beatwork faded in at :56, but it was really plain and dull-sounding. Good stuff from the acoustic guitar on support most of the time. Kinda disappointing that the lead didn't have more bite/power to it, but it's not a big deal. Already though, a lot of the sounds just bled together. Pan and separate and clear it up. Decent switch in the feel at 1:38 with some original material from that xylo-like deal, but the beatwork was quickly becoming repetitive and boring, and again the strings on support were dull. Into the xylo solo at 1:57 and the drum pattern was still repeating ad nauseum, plus the solo was well-composed but the sound was pretty sparse. Lead guitar returned at 2:16 but it needs some more higher frequencies to sound sharper, plus the volume could have been brought up a little bit, IMO. Back into the source material at 2:38, and I feel like the arrangement itself is dragging and I'm waiting for something new to happen to provide some variation. Good stuttering ideas at 3:03-3:06. Heard some new cymbal stuff at 3:16 on support and a very crisp and clean acoustic guitar joining in at 3:26. 3:38-4:16, kind of a boring solo to me with the lead, but some good ideas in there to provide some quietness and contrast. I'm appreciating the principle of it anyway, and the acoustic guitar and shakers there were good. FINALLY changed that drum pattern at 4:16 going back into the “Dire, Dire Docks” melody and (thankfully) dropped it out entirely at 4:36, which I think resulted in a nice change of pace. Moving into the chorus at 4:55, the lead was very obscured and the string support and ambiance all bled and mushed together, sounding very sloppy. Good stuff at 5:16 with the acoustic plucking stuff and the effects, which would have made for a tight close by around 5:54. Kind of a shame that you started riffing on the Title theme from 6:04-6:42 - not that it couldn't have worked, but the timing on the lead sounded sluggish/lethargic and takes getting used to. Plus you brought back in that tired ass drum pattern yet again. You had the right idea changing that pattern up at 4:16, so it was disappointing having it brought back like that. Solid ideas on the whole with the arrangement, so I see why Vig's says the track isn't necessarily too long, but when you have some overly repetitive arrangement ideas for the Dire, Dire Docks theme alongside those drums needlessly looping like that, the track drags on and Shna then has a point that it shouldn't be this long. Would love to see zyko close this, as he'd probably have the best advice. NO

Big fan of the source tune since I heard it used in PxFury's "Flash Flooded" over at VGMix ("ur a shitty judg, fgt!"). Pretty defaulty lead going on here. The bass kick was pretty decent. The source melody came in at :41, and I'm not really feeling this empty, monophonic approach. The texture was pretty dry and the very light pads I heard in the background could be brought out to fill up the space instead of allowing the snappier drums (starting at :57) to sound so dry & exposed as well. Nice simple guitar breakdown at 1:46 with the reverb; I'd love to hear Harmony use those effects. Again, I like the gist of what I'm hearing there, and I hear all the little effects thrown in there to accentuate things, but the soundfield is still pretty empty. Same thing with the acoustic guitar at 2:18 tackling the melody again. There's basically just the bass kicks and that drum pattern repeating over and over again, with the pads not contributing much to fill out the space. The arrangement from 2:36-2:48 kind of meandered around for the sake of being structured different from the source tune, but it wasn't very cohesive. The final section with that same melodic lead sound at 2:54 was somewhat boring. Still the same dry texture and the same sounds; need those to be changed/altered a bit so that the sounds don't overstay their welcome. I just never ended up quite liking the lead, but if this track had more texture, I might not have had that problem. Good last bunch of notes at 3:24 though heading towards the close. Liked the rain SFX to close things as well; I'm kind of suprised you didn't try to incorporate that more substantially in the arrangement, again just a possible idea to help fill out the soundfield more and give the mix some body. Overall, the arrangement played around with the rhythms of the source melody, but was generally too conservative. Experiement with some other intepretations if possible, not just with original guitar breaks sandwiched in here, but altering the melody itself in others ways. Anyway, not bad, but the main issue is to add some meat to the bones and fill out the track further. NO (resubmit)

The portion of the source tune as used in this one really got underway at 1:16 of the .s3m file. I thought the arrangement was decent, but at :27 there's the drums basically copying the pattern of the source. There were only 2 relatively simple/straightforward drum & cymbal patterns throughout the whole track. The arrangement seemed conservative and underwhelming; not really much substance here, so I can understand why Shna pointed this out as being "too source-like". The melody only showed up from 1:40-2:57 without much interpretation. AkumajoBelmont did a great job of working with the melodies he had available in this source for his own Jazz Jackrabbit mix, but nothing's been explored here. Not poorly produced by any means, Joost, but where's the beef? NO

I don't have the source tunes available to me from any of the VGM FTPs I frequent, but I'm very familiar with "E. Gadd's Laboratory" (link courtesy of Shna) thanks to weed rapping to it in "the anti-ignorance". Dunno "The Gallery", but it's a relatively minor part of the track. You can basically tell that wasn't arranged much either based on how E. Gadd was handled. What is up with the CLIPPING here??? Sloppily put together and relies on the strength of the original being so catchy. This definitely makes the original worse in my opinion. The volume is just way too loud, the sound is perpetually abrasive, the arrangement isn't interpretive. SHITTY complete lack of a transition with the key change at 1:40 when switching source tunes. Just unacceptable. NO

Guardian Legend NSF - Tracks 11 & 8 http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ngt.rsn - The Letter (ngt-102.spc) Too bad this song isn't about how GrayLightning and myself are ladies' men, but as weed cryptically told me a long while back "you don't wanna be lightning larry, trust me!" You know, I really didn't get much exposure to video games growing up. I didn't even really get good at this game or anything like that, but I did borrow Guardian Legend from a friend and played it a little bit. I actually remember Track 10 from the NSF the most and used to listen to that a hell of a lot. Wish to death someone would remix that. Liked Track 31 as well. Played this one back on VGF51 to end the show strong. It was my favorite track from Dwelling of Duels: Scrolling Shooters, and I've been nagging weed about subbing it ever since, cuz it's awesome. Nice stuff on the intro, then I really liked the acid freestyle-ish solo from :18-:50 alongside those nice pads to fill out the back. I think the drums should have been beefier, as they're on the plain side and need that power, but I loved the patterns there and the bassline was tru pimpin' as well. The melody coming in at 1:12 was so good; I loved the aggressive tone and all of the guitar harmonization I heard. Good stuff switching up the flow a bit at 2:03 and freestyling instead of simply repeating the first verse over again. Good break in the action before heading back to the melody at 2:34. Loved the little belltones here as well, as well as the variations weed took care to provide in each and every verse. And nice work including the Ninja Gaiden reference from 3:02-3:27. I KNEW I heard it somewhere back when I first heard this mix, but could never put my finger on it. The last section at 4:04 was such a strong close. I though the overall sound lacked sharpness, but I think the volume simply could have been higher. In any case, awesome shit. Been waiting for this one for such a long time. It's worth it to beg, oh yes it is. YES

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Chrono_Cross_psf.rar - 102 "The Brink of Death", 204 "Dragonrider", 306 "The Star-Stealing Girl" http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Wind Scene" (ct-1-09.spc), "Sara's Theme" (ct-3-06.spc) Not gonna bother trying to figure out exact time references; stuff checks out with me I will vote on this by simply copying the ROFLicious vote of the former judge Binnie Katti of Northern Virginia for Dan's Breath of Fire submission a few years ago: Still holds true for Dan's stuff now. DP worthy. Nice work, Dan. YE

http://ksarver.free.fr/pages/JT3sketch0018.htm

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff6.rsn - "Wild West" (ff6-117.spc) This track showed its age vis-a-vis the standard more than Gray cares to let on, as there's some noticeable dullness to the production, but I still think the product was solid, which is why I'm glad we got it. Those fast strings were definitely not hitting me right, but the drumloops in particular were groove-bias-good, and luckily didn't carry the arrangement of Wild West. I felt like the instrumentation really picked up strength after 2:08 and no longer strained for credibility so glaringly, even the fast string notes. The brass work was excellent there as well. Nice and intensive pace the whole way through, and the sudden xylophone ending at 3:37 was a nice touch to close it out. "The Sveldt" from djp is booty-shaking fun tackling the same theme, but if you wanna shake your butt EVEN FASTER, Mike makes it happen. It's like dNb with a classy edge that somehow doesn't belong, but clicks regardless. Super Mario 64 "Onyx Lips & Cheese Nips" next!!! YES

Nah, I feel the way this was used, the source material was used the whole way through; the buildup for the first two minutes counted for me. Not really much actual rearrangement or interpretation going on, though I liked that light wind-like instrument coming in around 1:31 with quiet support. When things picked up at 2:19, the claps & beats were a good idea, but they were very flat. The whole track is muddy and cluttered. I say that about a lot of tracks, you frequent J-Decision readers will notice. From 2:19-3:07, you had so many pads and all that crud flowing around that you often couldn't even hear the lead synth and certainly couldn't distinguish individual sounds from that mass of noise. The mix was, like Shna alluded to, original material simply wrapped around the source tune. Not the right formula, though you finally got the right idea at 3:50 (though that mechanical piano's gotta be humanized). Refine your arrangement approach in future material and get help with your production to get a cleaner sound from the ReMixing forum. NO

Well, I can at least say that the production was a lot better this time around. No ridiculous level like last time that take the focus away from the content. I'm just looking for more substantial arrangement here than, like Shna said, taking a very small phrase from the original and then building other elements around it. The switch to the sampled electric guitar at 2:58 was a poor move in my opinion. Those samples tend to never sound good, plus the sound was very dull as is a lot of higher frequencies were lost during that section. Post this to VGMix though, some CT fans will be genuinely feeling it. Props on the production though as compared with some prior rejections. I'm not against the genre here, but you've gotta develop the source material more before you slap on the dNb style sounds and voice samples onto it. NO

Darangen's made me appreciate the Magus theme a bit more. I wasn't even very familiar with it until "Atonement". I liked the power coming in at :45 here, though the drums are kind of plain. The atmosphere is noticeably clippy and muddy. No offense Jeremy, but did you bother to listen to this on headphones and hear how crunchy and distorted this got during some of the louder sections. And I really hate that awful faux-electric guitar sample. Those stabs at 2:07 were incredibly tacky as well. I liked the sections where you had several elements going on at once. It was just when you exposed your samples at various times that I noticeably cringed. The way this is arranged, it seems to me that your samples are supposed to sound realisitic and performed by a human being, and they definitely don't. The bassline at 5:12 was another obvious example of that. Too much mechanical sounding instrumentation, like Harmony pointed out. Indeed, do a VBR encoding as well and don't (sorry, again) absolutely fuck up the compression which will ruin an otherwise solid track. Just editing radio shows of mine, I've seen this problem before trying to boost levels and using hard limiting and here it's ridiculous. Cry help at the ReMixing and WIP forums for help and fast. This one needs a substantial amount of work, but you have some good ideas, and I hope you're dedicated enough to bring this one up to stuff. Promising stuff, but desperately in need of work to be your sophomore mix. NO

Generic as anything, weak synths, VERY repetitive, and hardly any arrangement or interpretation of the "Boss (Titania)" to speak of. Totally relies on the source tune being so good. Absolutely not. NO

First thing I noticed was that everything sounded dull. The tribal drumloops did indeed get tired after a while and the vox was particularly muddy. I liked how "Edgare and Mash" was arranged here in particular, and didn't quit mind the brief length, though the arrangement was in fact underdeveloped. Your production needs a tons of work; it sounds like crud for 192kbps. Vary the supporting instrumentation more and learn how to produce something that sounds sharper and cleaner. Promising on the surface; aside from the drumloops and track length, you do have the right idea. NO

The source tune is great. Loved it after hearing virt arrange it in "Ska Poppin." I liked this track for the first 1:23, but it felt like it was just going through the motions beyond that. The beats were initially good, but they got plain and vanilla fast. The arrangement was too conservative; mostly altering the rhythms and so forth, but it got overly repetitive. When the key changed at 2:46, I felt it was a terrible choice and the arrangement had been going on cruise control for too long. Then some light electric guitar work came in at 3:16, which was a new idea, but didn't add much to the track either. I've loved Posu's past work, but this doesn't even compare. It just gets lazy and directionless over the course of the 4 1/2 minutes. Sorry bro, you make some great stuff as weed and many others know, but this wasn't it. It could be so much more. I don't really need to tell you how to get passed. NO

Cool arrangement, but cruddy samples and cruddily used samples at that. I feel like Vig here going this glib. But seriously though, cool ideas on the arrangement. The supporting drums and piano got really monotonous though, so address that. Head over to the ReMixing forum and work on humanizing the performance here. The sax in particular sounded awful. Shna already hit most of the salient points. NO

Too much hiss here was the first thing I noticed. I actually thought the key change was alright though, so I don't really see it as weakening the original, and I'm a big fan of the original. Sounds a lot more delicate this way, if anything. Certainly not a bad thing to do when trying to create a different feel as compare to the original. The performance was certainly decent, but aside from the key change and the obvious transposing of the source tune to piano, there wasn't much here on the interpretation front. This is a nice cover-style take on "Silence," but rearrange things much more substantially next time. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/dkq.rsn - "Jib Jig" (dkq-05.spc) Sounds pretty dope for MIDI stuff, but we generally don't take MIDI. The first section of the track didn't do anything that our other "Jib Jig" ReMix, "Set Sail," hasn't done already and done better. I can fairly safely assume that from the way you covered the DKC2 material, the Golden Sun 2 material probably isn't very interpretive either. No offense meant, but right now I don't feel like looking to see if my assumption is right or not. Head to the ReMixing forum and at least move a step up by learning how to hook it up with some free soundfonts for your MIDI. Hate to cut this short, especially since this was very well-done for a MIDI, but NO. Perhaps upload the MIDI to VGMusic.

No offense, but I dunno how this could be resubbed in this form and expected to pass. It's not much different than the first version. Frankly, this version sounded even more swamped than the previous, and, same as last time, the source material isn't interpreted much. Call this one a done deal please, and move onto the next project. I also crap on Gray for liking this one last time around. /grin NO

As the poll for who the sexiest OCR judge (other than me of course) keeps heating up, we continue pimping it up with summer material to cool you off, checking out the week from June 5th to June 11th: ABG - Final Fantasy 10 "Prayer" [VGMix2 #4333] As far as “Song of Prayer” remixes go, no one's ever really done anything much with transposing the melodies of the popular Song of Prayer vox into synth or instrumental music. And, unfortunately in my opinion, this is also not one of those cases. But if you're ok with some wholly original material being integrated with the Song of Prayer vox, and many people out there are, then you'll have absolutely no problem with ABG's latest release. This is yet another lengthy release from Shawn, clocking in at just under 8 minutes, and the trance ideas here are relatively basic but still well put together. The mixing could be a bit cleaner, but you can play this in a rave and shake your butt, so check it out if you have friends that also wanna take part in shaking their asses. BogusRed - Final Fantasy 7 "Beyond Midgar" [OC ReMix #1363] Ah, "Beyond Midgar." I'm so familiar with this one after so long that's it was almost strange to finally see it up on OC in all it's 88-key glory. After Ms. Susie Sahim got this one passed by the panel, djp along with many of the NOs pushed for something that would address some of the more glaring problems in this one, because while the arrangement was hot, there were some nagging hissing issues, as well as a pretty flat atmosphere, and a couple of notes with no releases, which is poison in terms of creating something that's remotely authentic-sounding. So I had the task of corresponding with Susie in order to keep her up to speed with revision suggestions and nudging her about the status of the mix. Once the summer kicked in and school wrapped up, everything was good to go from Susie's end, and you get this lengthy, beautiful and flowy solo piano coverage of the Final Fantasy VII Main Theme. Good stuff that the people are already fawning over (as if you couldn't guess). Chronblom - Rupert and the Ice Castle "Latin Wonderland Mix" [R:K:O #2690] It's as if we're required to have Latin-themed music represented every week somehow this summer. Chronblom of C64 scene fame offers up a quick one from the obscure Rupert and the Ice Castle with a mix that features some lead strings, acoustic guitars, spicy percussion, nice accordion (say wha?) and a pretty fakey piano. The mixing is a bit loud and rough and the piano in particular ain't bringing it, so I felt this one needed some more work before its release. But check this one out for a decent attempt at a European Spanish vibe, as the arrangement was fairly interesting. chthonic - Tetris 1 "Linear Groove" [VGMix2 #4293] Ben Briggs drops some beats alongside his blocks with this Tetris mix that takes more of a rhythmical and expansionist-style approach toward the source material. If you've ever wanted to hear Russian folk music given the funk treatment (and God knows I have), then you need not wait any longer. Sample-wise I was a bit underwhelmed as I felt the synths could have been played around with further via effects to create more unique textures. At the same time, I also felt the piece dragged on a little bit, but the ideas here are solid, so it's definitely worth the time to check out. I'd personally rather see some more done with this, but Ben's at the skill level where he could get this to OCR level, which I think would be quite a treat. Corran - Megaman X5 "X's Lament" [VGMix2 #4296] If want a man who knows how to make nice chillout music, Bryan is your man. The overall presentation here is relatively understated, much like DarkeSword's own "The Father of All" except even more so. That's even more of a surprise to me given how ominously this track felt like it would be during the intro. While the strings here sounded pretty fake, Bryan did a good job of not exposing his samples easily, allowing the casual listner to hear how relatively well all of the elements blended together. While it's a bit too active and upbeat to completely immerse yourself in, I think it'd be a good idea to either sit down or lay down while sampling this. Close your eyes and lament along with X. You know you wanna. DJ Mitch - Lightforce "Original Minimal Mix" [R:K:O #2717] Making the rounds at RKO this week is this groovy beat-driven electronic offering from DJ Mitch, who plays out some steady enjoyment for you clocking in at just over 6 minutes. I can't say I know where the "minimal" moniker for this one comes from, although the sounds here are fairly standard for the genre. I wouldn't have gone for more clarity and less murk here in the presentation, but this was some solid works that makes some nice active background music. No need to scope this one out if you're looking for catchy melodies and hooks; do in fact check 'er out if you're a fan of something that paces along nicely and lays down a consistent groove. Doron Deutsch - Bruce Lee "Acoustic Jam" [R:K:O #2705] Hey, this is some cool shit. It's not REALLY acoustic, but this sequenced piece at least attempts to convey a genuine instrumental feel here. I never played Bruce Lee on the C64, but I'm kind of wondering how it compares to Kung-Fu and Yie-Ar Kung Fu. In any case, this has some nice twangy acoustic guitar on lead that will remind you of Vurez on some level, though Doron & Vurez are, in my mind, apples and oranges. A little bit unwieldy on the guitar sequencing, and the mastering ain't the hotness, but this had a lot going for it as just something to kick back and enjoy for it's nostalgic value. Surprisingly strong in spite of its presentation weaknesses. Infamous - "Blood" [http://www.infamousuk.com] Oooh, some piano-centric stuff from Infy! Given the title here, this intro obviously wasn't what I expected, so I patiently waited for the track to take some darker turns. Indeed, some woodwinds and light haunting ambience/vox joined in, along with some beats and cymbal swells. The ambient vox was mixed disappointingly low and didn't play as much of a factor as it should have, which was a critical issue, but this wasn't half-bad for something so short. The beatwork in particular held this back a bit and could have been varied up and scaled back. Checking this one out, I didn't feel that Chris needed to shoehorn this original into some sort of CastleVania or Resident Evil style, but at the same time, those soundtrack tend to be haunting and really showcase all of the instrumentation clicking together and meshing well. Admirable stuff, and I hope Infy tries this style again in the future. Less Ashamed of Self - Rayman "Grave Task" [The People's Remix Competition v2-17] Be frightened...LAOS has won the People's Remix Competition. Here's he goes for an upbeat mix of the Skops Battle theme with a nice tempo, some decent but otherwise effective drumwork and some pretty damn cool synth texture than help make up for the relative sparseness of the piece as well. The use of drumloops was a little bit cheesy and REALLY drew itself out too long in the middle of the track, kinda like the pieces of bread in a sandwich somehow being the best part of the sandwich. In any case, this was surprisingly catchy, so swing by Doulifeè's space and see what LAOS brought to the table for this one. And if you do not find a way, no one will. Merino - "Search Lights" Version 1.0 [Club Party '05] Merino, baby! Where have you been at if you haven't been checking out their original material? You know, for most of Merino's material you hear some hiss during the intro, but as soon as the music kicks in, you couldn't care less. I keep pestering Kailem to submit more remixes, but while he decides to deprive us with oh so much cruelty, you can check out this mainstream-style weirdo pop for some original sampleage. The atmosphere is a little on the sparse side, but the instrumentation and lyrics are stylish, anchored by some acoustic guitar and Kaliem's vocals. His delivery is a little bit rough, because he excels at more of a spoken word-like style such as the one used in their previous original "Filtered Water", but it's a pleasure to hear the band pump out more releases and have him get some all-important practice. Other cuts from Club Party '05 are available including another overly lengthy but still solid track "Air Balloon," as well as the lyrically impressive "Outside." Not to be missed if you're a fan of the off-kilter stuff. mikka - X-Out "X-OUT" [R:K:O #2702] Alright, so the name's not creative, but it's what beyond the surface that counts. mikka goes for some electronic coverage of the C64 game that first came to my attention thanks to Binster's superlative mix "LiquidX." This one features some nice electronic work tempered by some string pads and built upon about a third of the way through by a well-handled electrosynth lead and the all-important SID chip sounds. This one moves along nicely and is a good choice to while lazily attending to what you people out there call life. You kick back, enjoy the SIDtune goodness and don't come back until it's looped through four or five times. Looking to hear more engaging and active stuff from mikka that grooves a bit better (groove bias, folks), but for your money, which conveniently is $0, you're definitely in good shape if you pick this up. Ork Estral - "Ravished Soul" [http://nigel.has.it] Go, Nigel, go! Ork's dropping the usual excellent orchestral stuff with this dynamic, flowly piece that doesn't sound melancholy, but nonetheless makes a nice go at conveying the implied imagery of the title. What mental imagery Nigel particularly had in mind, I couldn't really say myself, but to me this was a piece that was demonstrating a soul being romantically ravished in progress rather than examining the mind of an already ravished soul. You see how emotionally deep we get around here at VGF? This piece really develops and evolves nicely, a true joy to listen to over and over again. Remember to literally clear out Nigel's webspace of everything he has available over at the now 44-tracks strong Mostly Ghostly, all available at Nigel's webspace. PriZm f/Leonie - Xenosaga 1 "ein anderer Abschied" [VGMix2 #3719 / OC ReMix #1362] Pascal follows up with this excellent sophomore mix from Xenosaga showing he'd no one-hit wonder. I love the crying intro here, as it's one of those ideas that's unique and sets this mix apart from all of the others at OCR. This was some excellent rock with great interplay from all of the instrumentation involved, along with some haunting soprano vocals from Pascal's friend Leonie that filled things out nicely. The composition here was very nicely done, really progressing well and gradually building the music's intensity within its 5 minutes thanks to the introduction of some militaristic beatwork along with some wailing electrik geetar. That's like...damn. Nice stuff with some sinister leanings. Don't you wish everything had these evil connotations? I know you did. RushJet1 - "Premonition" [http://rushjet1.tk] RJ1's our man in this scene as far it comes to representing the demoscene and chiptune-making to its finest. Here he drops some excellent (and authentic!) NSF music format material with this brief but upbeat original. The way Rush uses the capabilities of NSF to their fullest reminds me of early 1990s Nintendo soundtrack that truly made use of the 2A03 APU soundchip and pushed the NES's sounds to their limits. My only big gripe whenever I hear Rush's pieces are that they don't loop at all. Now THAT's a key area where the NSF format's capabilities need not be wasted. The file's literally only a couple of kilobytes which makes this an absolute must download. Alongside this already pimp release, RushJet keeps it going with other equally catchy stuffs like "Against Overwhelming Odds," "Sea of Memories," & "Overdrive!" Give them all that look and hear a lot for only a little bit of size. NSF enthusiasts, we love the RushJet, oh yes we do. Sefiros - Silent Hill 2 "Under the Influence" [VGMix2 #4212] Bryan Henderson heads back to the bread and butter of his remixing game with another Silent Hill series VGMix release. Centered around a piano, some drumwork and some subtle synth work, this actually isn't the usual fare from Sef. Things kick into gear with the melody entering in at 1:50 via a distorted lead that'll be hit or miss. The drumwork is pretty vanilla, but it's certainly serviceable. More of my focus rested on the piano and string work, which occasionally hit some odd chords that left me like "whut whut?" but hey, he was under the influence while making this one. If you wanna sample some remix material from a horror game that's not the usual spooky vox/pads/ambience combination, here's your calling. Sephfire & pixietricks - Final Fantasy 10 "Journey's End" [VGMix2 #4325] Try not to focus on that fakey piano opening things up, because the sample really shouldn't be exposed like that. Once things pick up though, the atmosphere is pretty good though it's way too muddy and dull, which prevents it from achieving full pimp status. Daniel Floyd's been working on this for a while, but he announced in the Works forum a while back that he had gotten Jill Goldin into the picture with her vocal talents, making this pixie's follow-up mix to her Ocarina of Time OCR debut "Prayer." Seph & pix bring the melodic ambient game here with this take on "People of the Far North" that initially left me scratching my head to make a connection, but it's there and does a good job of giving things a whole new feel through changing the time signature and creating a much more delicate, ethereal soundscape. Solid new material from both Dan & Jill that needs better production, but otherwise handles the arrangement and performance nicely. PICK OF THE WEEK: Shnabubula - "Symbiote Funk" [indeed] Sam's back with some dope original stuff from a new EP hosted at his site. I've always been a big fan of Sam's kooky craftsmanship, as the synthetic textures in his works are consistently top-notch. You never really hear the same instrumental combination ideas repeated twice, and in a musical world dominated by repetition and hooks, this truly manages to stand out in creativity by making sure there are tons of instrumental variations. Indeed, indeed you need to snap this up and in particular don't also miss "First Prime of Apostrophe". Glad to see Sam dropping some new original works to keep the eclectic fandom satisfied once again. He's a muzak machine. zyko - Final Fantasy 4 "Losing Sight" [VGMix2 #4328] YAY! weed closes out out with some solid FF kwakage for the win this week. FF4, now that's an FF soundtrack that deserves more coverage than FFVI or FFVII. The 6 minutes went by like nothing, surprisingly groovy for something with such a distorted edge. And the opening with the keyboard organ along with that subtle close with the FFIV Main Theme...dope as well! I'm still just struck by how mellow and laid-back this turns out to be in-spite of the volume and aggression here. This kind of stuff makes me proud to end the week with our resident man with a Z on the panel (fellow panelist and all-around good Z-guy zircon notwithstanding). Such an easy pickup for those who like to rock. We salute you. That was fun-filled, y'all. Come back and see me, homies.