Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Anyone else think that both the placement & the plain patterns of the drums are holding this back? Just doesn't gel well with the rest of the track and drive it along. Otherwise, the arrangement starts off conservative again, but then works into some new ideas that are pretty good. The sounds are kind of cluttered until 2:15, but I'm not taking off much for that, as the production is alright. Would like to get some more input on these drums potentially not fitting in. Leaning on b-NO at the moment, but won't cast a vote yet until I hear from someone and also listen to the track further.

Hello. I made a submission about 3 weeks ago ('Valley of the Fallen Meteor'), but the link I sent is now broken, my song was deleted. I have a new one here now, so yesterday I sent an email to submissions@ocremix.org mentioning my problem, but I never got a confirmation email. I was just wondering if you guys ever got it, and if not what should I do? (email it again, or?) Remix name: Valley of the Fallen Meteor (OCR Edit) Remixer Name: LuIzA TSM URL: http://www.download.com/luizatsm Forum id: 10041 Game: Final Fantasy VII Song: Valley of the Fallen Star my very first remix, the 8th version of it, the original idea was born in july 2003 and started production in october 2003. It features live guitars and bass, all played by myself and drums and percussion sequenced by yours truly. I know there are some glitches, but I decided to leave it like that, in order to keep the naturality in the lead guitars. thanks for the attention. -Luiza ------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 301 "Cosmo Canyon" Pretty conservative take on the first listen, but there's more to be appreciated later on. The drumkit here sounded pretty thin & weak overall, and the bass guitar wasn't much of a factor either it felt. The first 1:16 was basically just a cover with some minor additions via the supporting instrumentation. 1:30-2:49 finally brought about some tinkering on the rearrangement side, though I still feel as if the mix could have been more interpretive and exploratory. It was mostly just minor rhythmic alterations in the performance, but that was it. I heard a few light audio deformations as well (e.g. 1:29, 1:34). The performance wasn't bad at all, but it was basically a few stylizied run-throughs of the theme without enough in the way of putting a unique spin on it beyond simply adapting it to the genre. The last section starting from 2:50-3:34/end was good, but probably would have served better in the middle as a way to split the first and second sections to provide a more marked contrast within the piece. Impractical as a suggestion, I know, so I'd say do what you can to get more interpretive for the first 1:16 to compensate instead. The production needed a bit of work also. Nothing I'd call bad, but this track was all mid-range, with nothing much going on with the lower or higher frequency ranges, making the sounds a bit distant and obscured to me. In any case, cool ideas and a very nice genre adaptation, but the arrangement didn't take much creative liberty or risk in interpreting things. You could have also made up for it by really expanding the instrumentation by writing new parts for several others instruments, yet keeping the melody intact. Not sure if you'd wanna resubmit this considering you've worked on it for so long and it might require an overhaul of sorts, but in any case, I certainly think you've got the potential to get something passed down the line provided the arrangement & production are where they need to be. Look forward to hearing more from you, Luiza. NO

LT Edit - Original decision: http://www.ocremix.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=50554 Remixer Name: Vurez Remixer's Website: www.vurez.com Remix Info: Remix Title: Thrashing Through Grana-Vallis (2005 Mix) Name of Game: Ys VI The Ark of Napishtim Original name of song remixed: Mountain Zone I submitted this back in late 2004 as "Grana Vallis Turbo Style". Since then, I've uploaded the same track to vgmix.com as "Thrashing Through Grana-Vallis". Recently, I viewed the critiques here and at vgmix and have made extensive changes to it and I call this version "Thrashing Through Grana-Vallis (2005 Mix)". I think I refurbished my track as much as could have without completely starting over from scratch doing a whole new arrangement. I've added more new sections to the mix and changed the lead melodies up a bit. I've also redid the mixing levels so it wasn't as muddy as my previous version. I think you'll notice this version is much sharper and punchy. Pretty much the only thing I left be was the basic rythm. I thought about changing it (as some of you suggested), but since this is for the most part a Ryo Yonemitsu tribute arrangement, I felt this track would be best if it utilized a rythm similar to what he used in some of his arrangements. Hopefully all the changes I made will make up for this. Also, please note, the original "Mountian Zone" track I supplied IS the full version of the song. The cut off point at the end is just where it loops (just thought I'd let you guys know so you'll know how much new stuff is in the mix). Link to the original track: Link my latest version of this remix: And in case you want to compare this to what I gave you last time, here's the vgmix link for it:

Finally, FINALLY got the source material courtesy of my bro Kaleb from Secret Squirrel's game music FTP - bueno! Check out Slightly Dark for info (and downloads) for the best in rare game music. And of course Kaleb represents it every week with Song of the Week, which y'all need to check out for some of the best original and professionally arranged VGM that you haven't heard of. Following in the footsteps of other community luminaries like EdgeCrusher & Xelebes, I got Kaleb's own thoughts and input on the mix. Thanks again for his help on tracking down the source material: Personally, I understood the camp of the NOs, including KG's. There are several ways in which the ideas of the mix could be tricked out further. I definitely think the production could have been cleaner bringing up the instrumentation more and clarifying the sound without sacrificing the airy quality of the vocals, but it wasn't a substantial hit against it. The instrumentation was very basic, but frankly I didn't see it as that lacking in the context of a vocal-based minimalist mix like this. The harmonized vocals sounded pretty damn good to me, and I liked the energy there; moody, melancholy, and mysterious. Good ideas here, starting the mix off with arrangement from the middle section of the source tune as the lengthy buildup, and then reaching the melody all the way at 2:12. Despite initial appearences, the piece was well-varied to me. Ain't nothing "wrong" with it besides being too unorthodox, even for Wing apparently. Very enjoyable already, as far as I'm concerned. YES

http://exotica.fix.no/tunes/archive/C64Music/Daglish_Ben/Super_Cars.sid - Subtunes 1 & 2 (just an ending jingle) Don't forget the game was also on the C64. Was a bitch tracking down the source until I found out it was also on that system. Intelligent choice of genre for the mix here as the source tune really translates well to the funk genre. Had this on VGF52 to bring in the the noise, bring in the funk. Intro's pretty cool with some crowd SFX alongside some nice bassline activity and laid back cymbal work. Hear a weird noise at :18 and again at :27. When you moved the bassline higher while it was in tandem with the organ work from :25-:34, it was really awkward-sounding. Takes a bit of getting used to, but it never ends up sounding quite right. Heh - at :34, you brought in the Ari Asulin-style™ slap bass sample of extreme discomfort. Though the mixing could have been better, so things sounded like they were coming from the same stage, I liked the percussion work and hope it wasn't just some drum loops or anything like that. The voice sample at 1:25 & 1:33 was really stapled on top of the soundfield and didn't mesh well with the music at all. Got odd notes again from 2:00-2:16 as your low organ/keyboard notes sounded wrong when layered with your bassline. 2:17 had some more string work. The groove is fairly decent, but the texture seems pretty unrealisitic given the live setting you were going for. Everything sounded like it was upfront and at nearly the same volume, so re-examine the balance among your instruments with the volume and the panning/placement. The applause you had and the beginning and end was a decent touch, but given the nature of the track sounding so clean and in-your-face, the fact that the crowd didn't sound crystal clear strained the quasi-authnetic live atmosphere you were going for. The playing sounds too robotically/perfectly timed though it's going for a live sound, e.g. the note-to-note movement and timing on stuff like the bass/strings and some of the drumwork. I felt like things were supposed to sound funky, spontaneous, and powerful, but it wasn't quite gelling together like it should. This was definitely a quality arrangement in my opinion, so I hate to give you a review of sorts where it seems like I'm bagging on everything. Wish I could better articulate how to make this a more realisitic-sounding performance, but certainly check out the ReMixing forum for tips on potentially fine-tuning this one with some more realistic performance dynamics. A shame to be so borderline on this, but it needs a little bit of refinement to push it over the edge. This was pretty strong material from an obscure game that I'd like to see posted eventually. Nice job so far, Chris. Don't get discouraged, bro. NO (please resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozmmusf.rar - 108 Clock Town - Day 1 Wooo. Um. Yeah, these lyrics definitely ain't delivered well. The sounds are really basic and the production and sound balance are pretty poor. The chorus is at least decently performed and has some short delay, but it's on the much lower side of decent. The arrangement ideas were there per se, but the sounds were fairly sparse. The concept isn't well executed, Chris, and I'd hang in the ReMixing & Work-in-Progress forums religiously for more tutorial and feedback. Practice your vocals a hell of a lot so they aren't so dry and (well...) amateur. I know this is an amateur community, but there's a difference between the vocals of someone who practices and trains their voice and then this. Ah well. NO

Well, I'll tell ya what, I don't mind the "off-key" string being that it's taken from the source, but the performance on it sounds really inhuman. In "Ocean and Moon" the movements from note to note at least flow a bit smoother. Here though, they're pretty jarring. The overall feel is very chill, but at the same time, those quick strings you used (:33-:48, 1:18-1:32) are pretty important for a source tune with so little for a melody, so I've gotta ask that you get the notes sounding a bit smoother. They're only used briefly, but are a glaring weak point to me. I can ask Blue to see what he can do to fix it if anyone else agrees. I figure since this was only put together in a week or so, it wouldn't take much more to fix this up. The rest of the sounds are excellent, the arrangement is icy hot and I liked the production on it. Played the VGMix version of it back on VGF52 and I genuinely like it. It's a huge improvement over the original cut. Very nice layering and panning going on, and you really did a nice job expanding what little was there into a viable arrangement. One thing I really liked was how you introed in even more of a lush soundscape with that fade-in of sounds at :09. The bassline was also a subtle but notable presence I caught onto; nice job there as well. Aside from that inhuman sounding string jumping out at me and the fade cutting out abruptly, everything else sounded well put together. Needs that slight bit of touching up, but a nice & relaxing track to be sure. YES (fix dat wonky string)

Revised from my PM to Duane when I first heard this one. http://www.zophar.net/gym/SK+SONIC3.RAR - 24 "Sky Sanctuary Zone" & 12 "IceCap Zone (Act 1)" http://www.ocremix.org/detailmix.php?mixid=OCR00240 - "IceCapped" http://www.darkesword.com/listen/original/mp3/moonlight.mp3 - "The Moonlight Ballroom (1st Movement)" http://www.ocremix.org/detailmix.php?mixid=OCR01010 - "Hot Ice" Some things take a lot of time to come full circle in this community. DCT originally wanted to have zyko rap on top of the initial instrumental concept of this mix, which I played all the way back on VGF14. Since then, Duane's been nothing but ambitious in working on his music and cultivating the talents of others, which has really come ot a head now that he's started Urbanizm Music. This was still pretty chill, back from the last time I heard it. Some parts of the music composition have also been reworked since way back when. I wish the intensity changed up a bit at some point, but that's obviously not the point. The rhymes were nice; everything sounded so continuous, that it sounded like one take, though that can't be possible. Nice and laid back. Took a while for the vocals to come in - all the way until 1:07, so I'm glad y'all threw something in earlier at :45 to help lead into the real start. Some will hate the lyrics for having nothing to do with the game, but if you're gonna be anal to the point of hating the song because Just Us aren't rapping about Sonic being a blue furry ball of speed, keep your trap shut. Remix lyrics don't have to be about the game to be enjoyable. That's part of the way in which some artists go about reinterpreting the music they've chosen. And if, for instance, one can think outside the box in terms of choosing an unorthodox genre for a remix, the same can be said for how lyrics are applied. Whatever woodwind-type instrument came in at 3:47-4:08 sounded too synthetic and robotic, and was originally too loud vs. the music. You seemed to have a good thing going where all of the instrumentation took a subtle role while the lyrics are going, so hearing that thing blare out killed the flow a bit originally. You made a good move now pulling it back so it wasn't a big issue, and it served to compliment the vocals like the rest of the music. That little strumming synth RIGHT at the end at 4:54, ah man, where was that during the rest of the track? Nice ear candy! Bring back that sound in the next mix! Part of the rap & hip-hop game involves paying homage to the people that came before you, whether that be from covering an older track or showing off stylistic influences in your own material. Here Duane did a nice job referencing the styles of McVaffe & DarkeSword while showcasing his own flow. Having Just Us involved really pushed "Iced Out Nine Twenty Two" over the top with this new version. Those guys you gotta watch out for. I've played a few original tracks of theirs on VGF including "Sweet Butterfly" & "Lord Can't Tell Me No" which you've gotta search out. I hope the future looks good for DCT and Just Us; Urbanizm Music's another area of the community that deserves your attention if you respect rap, hip-hop and R&B. No haters allowed. Truly nice work and hopefully not the last you've heard of these bros here at OCR. YES

http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozmmusf.rar - 112 "Song of Storms" & 129 "Song of Healing Demo" Nah, generic electronica ain't bringin' it. Needs more processing and effects to not sound so default-ish and basic. Despite trying to create a full sound, the layering of sounds was never really cohesive, making things sound fairly empty most of the way through. I liked the rhythm alteration going on with "Song of Storms" at 1:40. Pretty basic use of the source with some trance work placed underneath it, so it doesn't really win on the arrangement side, but it was alright to listen to. Kind of an abrupt change into "Song of Healing" at 2:11. Work on that a bit further, cuz if you could make the transition good, it would be a nice change of pace here. Ah man, the trance material at 3:28 sounded REALLY generic. Had a lot of one mo time fo da bass action there, but was still empty-sounding despite how many sounds you had going on at once. Cymbal shots at 4:25 = tacky. Yeah, all of the Song of Storms usage was the highlight here, but this wasn't much beyond a genre adaptation. The trance work needs more compositional meat, as opposed to just being a groove placed underneath the song. I'm thinking more along the lines of the kind of stuff SuperGreenX makes, i.e. Intelligent Techno. Step up the creativity with more elaborate compositional ideas and better synth design - learn the ropes at the ReMixing forum and head over to the Work-in-Progress forum to get more feedback. NO

The hotness.

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/megaman2.zip - Track 8 ("Bubbleman's Stage") Yeah, I checked this out when Frank posted it to VGMix and played it on VGF54. Nice and expansive instrumentation here alongside the various rhythmic alterations. All perfectly fair game on the arrangement side as far as I'm concerned. Track does repeat shortly at 1:31, but the melody has different instrumentation at 1:56. I agree with Vig that the track needs more harmony. Didn't bother me for the first half, but rather the second half from 2:10-onward when things became spareser and sparser. Though a bit too sparse sounding, I liked the chill section that closed things out from 2:21 until the end. Hate to do this, especially after I felt the track was borderline YES initially talking to Frank, but upon further scrutiny, it does need a bit more development from 1:31-1:56 for the track to not just loop itself, along with a bit more substance and a stronger resolution from 2:21-2:52/end. Personally, I didn't feel the track was TOO underdeveloped, rather it went for the quick and dirty arrangement approach, which is fine for me. Just need a little bit more work to nudge this over the edge, Frank. Please consider working on it a little bit more. Genuinely liked what I heard in place right now, and certainly am looking forward to the remainder of the pending MM2 project. NO (borderline/resubmit)

All of the problems Vig had were on point per the usual, so read over those again. Interesting arrsangement of "Dearly Beloved" at :33, but it indeed sounded monotone-ish. The samples sound decent I suppose, but you need a ton of work on sound balance among your instruments (like for the intro) as well as realism. The performance sounds inhuman & unexpressive and has absolutely no punch to it. In particular, your usage of "Destiny's Force", starting at 1:20, really pales in comparison to the original in terms of having a strong sound. This definitely had medley-itis. The transition into "Traverse Town" at 4:19 wasn't welcome with me actually, on account of it being so abrupt. It just changed the key and tone of the whole thing with no buildup. Then at 5:35 had an absolutely awful transition into "Blast Away!-Gummi Ship". Just no planning to structure logical changes in the transitions. Came across as sounding slapped together. Very cheesy percussion ending at 6:10. Keep at it, Niels, but get more practice at orchestration via the ReMixing forum as well as fan feedback from the Work-in-Progress boards. NO

I genuinely liked the theme and the genre adaptation, but I didn't feel this was interpretive enough of a go at remixing the Halo theme. Felt like the string work of the original was presented with some new ethnic instrumentation. 3:32-4:44 sealed it for me especially. Great for an arrangement album if the conception is conservative, but I feel the interpretation standard is a lot higher esepcially if you're not doing much to change the genre of the original. The new ideas for harmony were good, definitely the highlight of the track given the new instrumentation choices, but you didn't take enough creative liberties with the melody or the structure. I heard some good ideas where you tackled those as well, but I gotta see more interpretation or even more in the way of additive material. Reasonably well put together though the string samples lacked realism at times when they were exposed. Sorry, Kris. NO (definitely resubmit)

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff5.rsn - "Harvest" (ff5-1-16.spc) Something nagging at me at 1:37 & 1:55, because it sounds like a section taken from some other Final Fantasy track that I can't put my finger on. Maybe just because it sounds kind of battle-ish, but it's gonna bug me. In any case, really good stuff, though the source usage was too conservative. No problem with the samples at all. Geoff did a good job with the textures here and the synthetic feel of the mix wasn't a drawback at all. The usage of the source melody was verbatim which threw up a red flag pushing me towards borderline, but the instrumentation was expanded nicely, the areas of liberal arrangement that used some of the source's foundations were fine, and the compositional additions independent of the source tune were very well thought out. Keep on improving, Geoff. Very enjoyable. YES (borderline)

Nope. #58 will have last week's material, and #57 will have the material from 2 weeks back.

I remember hearing this a while ago, but for some reason I never had a copy for myself to release. TO recorded the VGF40 aftershow before I managed to lose that episode to Cool Edit crashing. Had to rerecord that episode after swearing a lot, but anyway, this ended up technically being a preshow to me recording things again. Myself and the lovely lady Paige are on the air while I act as an intermediary between her and Bladiator's suave advances. Also, proving 4 months in the past that it's not that hard to do a funny parody of me, Paige decides to mock me in her special way. For the record, I am NOT whipped. Clocks in a mere 8.9MB/9min46sec. Search near the end of the chat transcript to follow along with the channel as the wooing unfolded. Thanks very much to TO for coming through with this one, since he HAD to record Karl with a K attempting to put the moves on the ladies. Enjoy.

Fuck yeah, this guy's the dawg. Heard the first 30 seconds and was immediately impressed. Great work again, Brandon.

Look in the FTP, you cotton pickin' varmint.

Just got a letter from Ms. Red this morning: "Ugh, finals" is right, that's for damn sure. Susie's requesting we hold off until she can resample the piece properly, so let's freeze it up. Anyone else feel free to comment on how we can handle this thread. I'm guessing we make it public and freeze it. Dave? Anyone else? EDIT: Dave's down with locking it and leaving it here on the panel until it's revised. It's not getting in the way, and it'll be fixed/posted sometime after Bogus finishes finals.

ye ye, I probably should have gotten more feedback then just my own opinion, but I feel (well, I know) that it's much better then the one I submitted originally. Let's list the what I did --> Different drum samples (most aren't FL defaults now =D) --> Some Notch filtering --> Different Synth Samples --> A little change up at 3:0X --> Different synth at 4:00 --> Outtro is longer --> Panning!!! --> Stereo Seperation!!! --> Beefed up the lead bell --> uhhh....I think I added 1 or 2 more synth strings --> Bitrate 160!!! --> Got rid of that other scratchy synth That's all I can think of now =\ So yes, this is a pretty big improvment over the original I submitted. All my original information can be found here. I ask that the new title be From A Dream (OCR Edit) or something like that. My original one has been around for a while now and it's appearently quite popular O_o . and, as a final comment, I'm pretty proud of this mix, and if it doesn't make it, I'll continue submitting it untill the judges break down and accept it .

http://snesmusic.org/spcsets/kss.rsn Decent orchestration effort, though it needs refinement and you'll be better with further experience under your belt. Arrangement was alright based on what I remember from the original (well, I've played Smash Brothers...). Nothing particularly daring, but you did farily well embellishing the source material. Being half-Russian myself, I don't think the Russian feel was captured incredibly well, but I certainly heard the influence and it's not a bad try. The arrangement was already retreading itself at 2:15 of your 4:18 track, though the support instrumentation was different the second time around. Take more liberties with the source material beyond adding more instruments. Any further personal/unique touches would be to your benefit. 3:08-3:17 really exposed the artificial texture of your strings; tended to drag the piece down. Other parts of the samples you used were also exposed at times, but that was a particularly glaring example. Interested in commentary from the orchestral Js, but not a bad effort. Keep improving. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/zelda2.zip I became a fan of this theme from Pixelated's Zelda 2 remix of it, "Crying Alone in the Darkness". Pretty basic/beginner synth orchestration effort. Not very realistic and doesn't possess much depth, but it's certainly not bad for someone learning the ropes and developing their skills. Needs a lot of work to really realize the potential, in terms of just the instrumentation/sound quality. The arrangement was pretty straightforward, and somewhat repetitive. Some decent additive ideas were certainly there in terms of the instrumentation, but the mix still could have afforded to take some more liberites with the actual source melody. There was a brief original section from 1:50-2:14, but that was about it. The ending was really flat and was a poor resolution. Looking forward to Gray or Dan B offering some specific tips that can help you improve your work. Aside from that, you gotta get more creative compositionally and showcase your own ideas. Please keep at it. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff6.rsn - "Shadow" (ff6-111.spc) Ah man, why'd it have to be a looping cover? Really enjoyed this a hell of lot based on the sounds and the relaxed feel. Pretty wild western; I've heard K. Pras do some really cool original material in the same vein. Some of the woodwind synths were a bit piercing, but damned if I didn't enjoy this one. Fadeout was really abrupt. Not to accuse, but it almost sounded like the track was stolen; why the track faded out in about a second and a half when another section was clearly getting started was beyond me. In any case, dammit too conservative. You gotta be more. Like Izz said, develop the composition and put your own ideas in there. Not much else to say. NO

http://www.zophar.net/vgm/alexkimw.zip Probably the same track based off of Binnie's description. I miss that guy. He smelled like curry. But yeah, this is crud. Either way, totally cutting and pasting Shariq's last sentence, I vote NO, for the reasons Binnie stated in the vote for the last one.

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Chrono_Cross_psf.rar - 310 "Frozen Flame" Been expecting this one for a bit, since I ran this one back on VGF49. Gotta go the glib route and agree with Shariq as well. Much of the left-hand activity sounded a bit too simplistic, even for someone as relatively undemanding on those sorts of things. The resolution provided by the ending was very underwhelming and seemingly came out of nowhere, as the track sounded as if it had basically run out of gas. Fixy fixy! Still the same types of issues here as were present in Tomorrow's Wake v1, only this actually sounds a bit less polished. Nothing wrong with the sample itself, though the atmosphere is kind of thin. But the main issues remain: the sample usage and lack of attention to velocites hurts any realism and potential expressiveness the track has. The timing issues on the performance made things sound hesistant and unsure. Same exact issues. Honestly, and this is not to crap on your talents as is, but as long as you have time available and keep up your progress, you'll look back on tracks like this and realize that this needs a bunch of improvement. Again, the arrangement sounds good from what I can gather, yet the performance and production lack very badly. Work on it for the resubmission if you'd like to Bev, but that would be a more involved effort than Tomorrow's Wake v2, I can tell you that. NO (resubmit)