Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

http://www.zophar.net/gym/SK+SONIC3.RAR - 12 "Icecap Zone 1" Pretty generic boom-tss IceCap Zone dance remix. Something new was added at :46 (very minor), but otherwise, the same uncreative cover attempt as several where the source tune is kept 99% intact and the arrangement takes 0 creative liberties with the material. Keeps a decent minimalist groove going all the way to 1:57, which felt like too long. Sounds were very loud and clippy, and the texture wasn't hot. The familiar IceCap melody came in at 1:57, and it was verbatim. Look, I know the theme is sweet, but this was really conservative and uncreative relatively speaking. Arrangement was needlessly drawn out for the first two minutes, then conservative and repetitive for the other three minutes. You gotta be more, homeboy. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/loz3.rsn - "Hyrule Castle" (loz3-14.spc) Decent thick bassline and some perc opened it up. The cymbals were too trebly and mechanical. The synth at :27 was definitely all over the place. Very meandering sounding. The percussion was too thin and needs to be severely toned down; the cymbals were ridiculously loud at :55, and the synth electric guitar coming in at :53 sounds very unrealisitc and distant. The strings had no realism to them either. Very sloppy production. Beyond stuff like adjusting the sounds balance among your various instruments, you've really gotta get into the fundamentals of fine tuning. It honestly sounded like 0 attention was paid to the mastering here. The strings at 1:49 sounded completely wrong; the notes did not work well with your other instruments in place. The arrangement came across as utterly random. Ideas just came and went, but there was no progression or flow. Nothing sounded cohesive or melodic whatsoever, especially since your lack of sound balance caused the arranged melody to be very obscured. Already 3:00 in and it's just not working at all. Unstructured. Unwieldy. Unfocused. The electosynth notes on support in this section were clashing really badly with the rest. I think at 4:40, you were just retreading arrangement ideas. There's no reason this deserved 6:13. None at all. You'll hate me on some level for this, but I mean no disrespect. In any case, I'll be harsh and bluntly honest. You can do a lot better than this, Alex. I know you can. The GoldenEye rejection you had was sweet. But definitely not this. NO

No problem. He didn't actually put the "2" in the game name, but I added it in. http://www.zophar.net/gsf/mmbn2_gsf.rar - 21 "Airman's Stage" The sounds were fairly generic fading in, but they were decent. The distorted synths, including the lead were a bit too loud and all-up-in-my-face during :26-:53, and some of the mid-range frequencies got a bit piercing. Nonetheless, I really liked the arrangement, and the panning sweeps you employed there as things slowly shifted back and forth, left and right were a nice touch. 1:20 featured a generic electrosynth along with beats, but it had some good energy. 1:33-2:00's section was a bit too flat. Hard to articulate being a non-theorist, but the note sequence from from 1:35-1:40 that ends each measure was very flat & lifeless. It sounded a lot better from 2:21-2:26 when the sampled piano played it, so your low electrosynth earlier might be limiting how those notes come off. From 2:00-2:13, when you started altering the rhythms and layering some other stuff, everything got really muddy and cluttered. Some oogly mixing right there that you gotta get under control. Nice bassline type break at 2:13 joined with the piano at 2:20. You gotta do a better job at masking the abrupt cutoff of the cymbal fade at 2:21 when the sample is so exposed like that. A little detail, and one that's not found in the rest of the track, but very potentially indicative of lazy work. Anyway, the arrangement provided some variation, going all the way up into the end, including a cool synth piano break from 2:40-2:52 that was later used in the background to fill things out and move towards the finish. The mix cut out abruptly at 3:34 instead of having a proper fade. Definitely cool work, but it needs some reworking during the more sloppily mixed sections as well as some of the more monotone-sounding bits that were minor but still dragged the piece down. There was a lot of variation and creativity in the arrangement, and you did a fairly good job of filling up the space. Nonetheless, the piece didn't come off as quite as dynamic and engaging as it possibly could have, the reason being the foundation of the track was basically a dance kick & clap pattern that never changed up too often. Definitely didn't retain the interest for the full 3:35. The generic nature of a lot of the sounds chosen may be a bigger issue for some of the other judges. For me it was not as much of a dealbreaker, but creating some unique/personalized sounds & textures wouldn't hurt, I can say that. Keep working on this, as it has tons of potential. Malcos and the other Js should be able to further isolate and discuss the issues and provide further insight. NO (resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/blaste~1.zip - Tracks 13 & 6 Yikes. Some oogly ass production here. REALLY high on the treble. Cymbals! LET IT RIDE! Well, tone 'em down actually. Can't hear too much in the way of melody through some of the first half. Bring it up more, please. In any case, 2:19 typically isn't gonna cut it. Gotta expand the arrangement futher as well, otherwise it's just a paint-by-numbers metal cover, which can be cool, but otherwise isn't gonna deliver on the creativity front. The fact that everything sounds so rough and cluttered didn't help at all for the listening experience. Anyway, keep honing your skills and check out the Dwelling of Duels. As long as you commit yourself to improvement, you'll get some good support and advice to help develop your potential from fellow rock & metal remixers. Certainly check out the ReMixing & Work-in-Progress forums for additional arrangement, performance & production feedback & advice to step up that game. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Battle 1" (ct-1-12.spc) Yep, the intro sounds promising. About :30 in and it was still sounding strong...ah, now I see what's up. The sounds at :41 were really plain-jane & tame once you transitioned into them. The melody was really subdued versus your others sounds. Beef the melody up more, but watch the level of reverb. As is, your sounds mudded together really badly. The bassline could use some more meat on it, and the percussion was a bit flat and a bit too high in volume, though I like how it was meant to sound laid back. The string sample sounded really fake, but it was covered up reasonably well. By 2:30 the arrangement was already getting repetitive and stale. The more active strings & piano dropped out at 2:55 to focus on the groove, but this groove has been on autopilot for quite a while. Boring. Like Vig said, expand the mix with further compositional ideas and realize it's potential. The ending at 4:03 was very I-give-up-ish and lame, and you should have cut out about 2 minutes of fat from the track anyway. In terms of arranging the "Battle 1" theme though, this ain't even cuttin' it. You barely touched the theme at all. Basically took a couple of merely similar backing chords for the bassline and occasionally played out the chorus with the piano. Very mininal use of the source tune in the big picture. This would need an overhaul in both production AND arrangement to have a shot. Don't make the arrangement so liberal that you barely use the source tune. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "Morning Sunlight" (ct-1-03.spc) Decent flow. You basically built some new stuff on top of the backing chord progression of the source until :39. The sounds were pretty basic. Finally at 1:35, some permutation of the brief melody of the source tune was used, though it was pretty liberal. Piano struggled to be heard amongst all of the other sounds, so watch the sound balance. Cool little modulation/effect thingermabobber at 2:20. You indeed have a lot of ideas, but the arrangement/composition felt very unstructured and lacks any melodic direction. There's absolutely no flow here because of that; definitely a hard track to get into. Cool stuff so far, bro, but it needs more effort put into it. Good start though. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gbs/tetris.zip - Track 2 Heh. Yeah, some of the samples were decent, like the strings and piano (thought that was too loud). Others were tacky (finger snaps, shakers, horns, vox samples). Wow, 3:38-3:55 really dipped the mix down in quality, as you had some extremely generic and exposed electronic sounds attempting to go for the salsa style. Some of the weaker sounds wouldn't be so bad, except that your sound balance is way off. The volume on most of the instruments and sounds needs to drastically be toned down. I actually thought you had a great deal of variation in the arrangement on the whole. But the sounds needs improvement, and your volume and sound balance sorely needs to be examined. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/ninja_ga.zip - Track 9 [NES version] http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ngt.rsn - Mine (ngt-120.spc) [sNES version] Immediately opening up, the electrosythns were very default-y and generic. The sound texture was absolutely terrible, due to crappy sounds and no concept of adequate sound balance. Everything was simply loud and cluttered. Place your melody in the foreground and work the supporting elements more in the background. The melody was absolutely overshadowed by the electronic groove. The melody came up a little more at 1:08, but it was still terrible. Synth guitar at 1:21 was really poor. Percussion was basic, boring and too loud relative to the rest of the track. The hat activity also had the same problem. Some decent work in changing up the rhythms of the source tune, and working in some level of (conservative) arrangement, but any arrangement qualities were overshadowed by the poor sounds and production. Camp out in ReMixing & the Work-in-Progress forums and learn the ropes. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/smb1.zip - Track 1 ("Overworld BGM"), Track 12 ("Ending"), Track 2 ("Underground BGM") & Track 9 ("Game Over") I'm not saying freeform-ish jazz can't have it's place here. I've certainly heard interesting material from guys like Koelsch1/The Anti-Jazz that has a lot of potential. (I'm not trying to classify the song. Vig, analoq, or DarkeSword would be better able to actually categorize what type of jazz it is.) After a brief shot from the SMB Overworld theme intro, things went with an arrangement of the "Ending" theme from :05-:17 & freestyle original work from :17-:30 before bringing in the main theme from :30-1:03. The "Underworld BGM" arrived at 1:09 and hung around until about 1:27. More freestyle stuffs, then the "Overworld BGM" chorus was back in from 1:49-2:12 before the tired (but true) "Game Over" jingle finish. The arrangement ideas were interesting, but your samples are awful. Though that's holding you back, it's not simply the quality of the samples. The primary problem is that nothing sounds humanized at all. This MIDI-grade material, with such poor sample articulation and not enough textural cohesion, is just way below par. A little cheesy, but the arrangement ideas were certainly up there for such a brief mix. Even for a medley remix, it didn't succumb to the verbatim cover trappings of medley-itis. But you'd have to work a miracle on the production side to get these samples working with some believeable velocity variation and so forth. You have no chance to humanize make your time. NO (revise/resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/smb1.zip - Track 2 ("Underground BGM") Yeah, beyond everything Vig the Boner Kebab said, the instrumentation (before things filled out at :48) was really weak and generic, which was unfortunate, because I thought the texture sounded decent despite that. I also heard some odd (though interesting) note patterns with your brass. At 1:28, the use of the source tune dropped out. Normally that's not bad, but that's not a good idea if the previous usage of the source in the mix is so underdeveloped and underexplored. When dealing with such a minimalist source tune that requires rearrangement and/or expansion, you've gotta play around with it for a good deal of the mix. This needs more substance in the arrangement and more direction, alongside better sounds (though they weren't used badly). Decent effort for a more tongue-in-cheek style remix. Half a decade ago, it coulda been a contenda. [/brando] NO

Yep. Don't submit in batches. Submit once every 3 weeks. ---------------------------- http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF8_minipsf.rar - 212 "FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC" Well, I heard FLWV in the track in the vox and well as the piano chords here. Those source tune names are all wrong, so I went with what I could recognize. The opening percussion was really plain and the synth guitar work doesn't sound very beefy at all. The track picks up a bit with some added percussion work and then some cool female vox at :36. Some male vox leads arrived at :44 singing FLWV and the flow was decent, though it'd be cooler if you provided your own FLWV lyrics instead of sampling them directly. Nothing really spectacular though; pretty average production that really didn't carry much energy. You could really beef up the snapping percussion in particular and give the synth electric guitar a thicker sound, this could really be awesome. Ok, that segue into the chimpmunk vox at 2:27 was really unexpected. Wow. Um...you might be the only guy alive that likes that. Well, I'm just exaggerating of course, but that killed the track right there. I don't eve mean in terms of the judging votes. I just mean that most people would say "Ok, what the hell was that?" The texture for that final section was very thin. Throughout the whole track, the sounds were very soft for a dance track and really didn't work that well to me. I say keep the style of the first 2:25, but extend the track further with additional arrangement ideas and thicken up the sounds so the texture is a lot more impactful. I liked the arrangement a lot actually, and it sounded very viable to me, Neon. Interesting stuff that needs more meat on the bones and more time to develop in order to realize its potential. NO (rework/resubmit)

Thank you for being meaninglessly pretentious while claiming that the "gimmick" lyrics were needlessly pretentious.

Um...yeaaaah...

B-Unit!

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/metroid.zip - "Kraid" Copied with some minor additions from my VGMix buzz comment. Cool mix. Thought this wouldn't make it as is, I don't see what you shat on OCR in the midst of your comments ("I made a specific OCRemix version for all those stupid tags; but that was before I learned the OCRemix sucked.") Anyway, this was a decent mix. Cool atmosphere, though many of the sounds were generic. Heard some odd notes in your use of the melody. Not much creativity on the arrangement front until things got additive at 1:34 with the oboe, which was cool. The sounds were rather sedate overall. The beats that came in at 2:39 were also quiet enough to not really add too much to the piece, though they helped change up the flow a bit. Not bad, Tim. Certainly keep at it, bro. You've got a good deal of potential. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/sd2.rsn - "Into the Thick of It" (sd2-06-1.spc) [:00-1:37, then backing chords until 2:11], "The Holy Intruder" (sd2-13.spc) [2:22-3:50], "Danger" (sd2-19.spc) [4:19-4:33], "Meridian Dance" (sd2-41.spc) [4:33-5:08], "Angel's Fear" (sd2-01.spc) [5:35-7:02] (Bah, I don't even know how the times really matched up beyond "The Holy Intruder"; arrangement's obviously fine though) For the bad: Light, crackly audio deformations at 2:05, 2:15-2:50 & 4:32. Probably some other places. Watch out for 'em. For the good: Not really gonna "waste" too much time on a analysis of the track, because this was awesome shit. My only significant exposure to progressive rock is from Dream Theater thanks to Jared Hudson as well as Mitch Owings, the first tech director at WMRE, but I'm a big fan of their material and this mix really does offer something unique to the community. Christian's always got some good material on this front, and bringing back Marc-André was definitely a strong move. Collabbing with ktriton was a great call. All of the live & synth instrumentation meshed together nicely, and I was really impressed with the entire package. Played the mix on VGF50 and had been looking forward to it hitting the panel. This definitely compared favorably to Dream Theater's material on the structure, performance and energy level. The transitions were SO good; definitely genuine to the genre and very stylish. At a hefty 7:17 with never a dull moment, I could loop this for hours at a time. While this obviously doesn't sound as crisp and clear as a professionally-produced track, I just have to also point out that the production was really strong and showed through very favorably despite such a relatively low bitrate (114kbps VBR). As long as artists can encode their material and keep it under 6MB without sacrificing sound quality, definitely feel free to go for lengthy pieces such as this one. Kunal & Christian are definitely two reasons why OneUp Studios' recent album, Xenogears Light, was a creative success, as they were an integral part of the performance process for most of the CD. The conception here was lofty, but the execution was up for the challenge. Do your videogame music-hating friends a favor and pimp this their way. Excellent job, Kunal, Christian & Marc-André; keep 'em coming! YES

http://www.zophar.net/gym/SK+SONIC3.RAR - "Chrome Gadget" The intro felt pretty weak, IMO, until some more substance came in at :38 in the form of some strings. The e-piano was alright. There were some odd note clashes around 1:23 & 1:33, for example. The minimalist section of 1:16-1:54 really sapped the life out of the piece, though I liked the strings. Decent stuff afterwards, with some tambourine work coming in at 1:53, but the textures here weren't very cohesive. The changeup at 2:14 featured some very pasted-on (and defaulty) synth drums, and the e-piano having no velocity variation was a bit too much of a negative, although I realize it's not meant to sound particularly realistic for this genre. Nonetheless, for breakdowns like the one beginning at 3:27, where the piano is the focus, the piano performance shouldn't sound that artificial and inhuman moving from note-to-note. The ending was fairly sudden & undeveloped, all things considered. Ideas were good, but the execution was lacking. The sound combinations never quite meshed at any point during the mix, which is where I felt the piece needed the most work. Feel free to work on it further and resubmit it. It's certainly got a lot of potential. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gym/sor1.rar - Round 7 ("Up & Up") The sounds were very default-ish. The texture was very sparse, yet there seemed to be a general level of reverb rather than individual parts being handled separately. Everything was pretty much at a loud volume level and fuller sections sounded crowded. The source didn't intro until :58, but of course the mix had a long time to develop. Decent cover-style mix with altered rhythms. It's already pretty cool on account of being derived from such a sweet original track. Get a switchup at 3:40, but the presentation was very flat and plain. About 5:30 in and things were retreading arrangement-wise. Decent ideas, but the sounds & productions are way below the bar, plus the arrangement would need to be more dynamic. NO

Здравствуйте! Great to see a submission from Russia, but it's under some weak circumstances. The theme doesn't come in until 1:07, and it's just a remix of the theme song from the Rescue Rangers cartoon, rather than any original music from the NES game. Very liberal take on the source material anyway, full of generic dance-trance sounds & occasional drumloop samples. NO OVERRIDE

http://www.noderunner.net/~llin/psf/packs/FFX-2_psf2.rar - 101 "Eternity ~Memory of Lightwaves~" Been looking forward to this one. Played it back on VGF47 just after it was removed from VGMix (for being a revision of a previously released mix). I certainly encourage all of you out there to check out Fatty Acid's original version of the track to compare it with this and hear what revisions were made. Played the first version on VGF35 and sephfire managed to do a good job updating the track with some synth/instrument replacements, his own arrangement additions, and a bit more subtlety with the overall levels. If there's cool rhythm alteration, you know Joseph's responsible. Very nice additive synth work as well that blended nicely with the "Eternity" source tune. Interesting e-piano work with the relatively lengthy intro until :51. The flow kind of plods along for those of you listening at home, so don't get your hopes up that it'll break out into something faster. That's not to say it was a bad thing. I thought things were really laid-back. The synth percussion work was serviceable, but definitely could have used more humanization (it was practically the same intensity throughout) and variation (spice it up 'n shit). Going on a hypocritical tangent, one thing I've always found interesting about Dan's mixes are that he can neglect sample dynamics (in this case, the piano) and they still sound alright. There's definitely not enough velocity work done here to humanize that area, but I had no big problems with it affecting a track like this. The fade at 4:30 was also a little too fast. The volume on the percussion definitely should have come down. It was too loud and that prevented it from sitting well within the piece; hurts the texture. One could easily argue that it merely sounds pasted on top, and you just DON'T want that kind of criticism coming your way. Also, this could have employed panning more significantly to creating a more surround-style soundscape. Some Js might say the pacing and build was boring, but I got a very chill vibe from it. Must be my chill bias. In terms of working with the source tune composition, the arrangement was definitely up to par with me. So there were some "questionable mixing choices" (as I hear Shael yell from the back "WTF???) that I think undermined the performance; enough to snag some NOs or bring YESs down to the borderline. But ultimately, this was one of those tracks where The wingless could swoop in and say "i couldn't give a fuck what the problems are," and that's basically my take on it. The mix was definitely alright to me - the arrangement was certainly there, and the production was otherwise solid enough as well. YES

http://www.noderunner.net/~llin/psf/packs/FFX-2_psf2.rar - 112a "Leblanc's Got It All" I will say this immediately: pay extra close attention to time references Navid made breaking down how he chose to rearrange this track. The first time I tried to simply listen to both and compare, I got no connection. But then, getting the detailed breakdown above, I was pleasantly surprised with how well this was reworked. The rearrangement was out there and sounded extra liberal as a whole but connected back easily to the source tune when I examined the various parts. Excellent work giving us an overview of how you handled things, Navid. I played a slightly older version of the track on VGF50 and the production has been improved since then, along with some slight modification of the sounds. Some may criticize the drumkit opening things up, but I thought it was impactful enough, though it had less of presence here than in the older version. Production-wise, some might say this sounds too muffled. I would have liked more clarity in the sounds, but it wasn't a big detraction. While obviously maintaining things so the high-end wouldn't clip at certain times, boosting the high-end frequencies all-around would have sharpened the sound up without undermining the quasi-industrial/whatever-this-is feel. The instruments were seperated well enough and the overall texture was hot. I really was impressed by the combination of sounds; haven't heard a track like this in all my time listening to community music. The more eclectic guys like The wingless & Israfel or the straight up weird fuckers like Goolancer & T.M. Revolutionary that use interesting sounds and textures have never presented anything that's sounded like this. Quirky arrangement, solid results. Even had some cute Prelude (2:05) & Terra (2:11) references done 4 ME, OMG. The arrangement was well varied the whole way through. Some may say the whole thing was unwieldy and they couldn't be more wrong. Just another example of one of those tracks you just can't vote on after one or two listens. This better be the first FFX-2 arrangement we pass. Decidedly strange, but very creative arrangement and a reasonably put together piece. Definitely keeping this one. YES

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/ninja_g2.zip - Track 1 [NES version] http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ngt.rsn - Fortress (ngt-213.spc) [sNES version] Accepted or rejected, Ashane, I strongly feel that you and your brother House should both consider submitting to OC in the future. Both of y'all have come out with some strong work that deserves to be heard & appreciated from the community here. Frankly, I think everyone involved in Dwelling of Duels & The Shizz should follow alongside other rock & metal artists like BrainCells, Darangen, CarboHydroM, goat, Ryan8bit and others who have submitted their material here. I played this mix to help kick off season four of VG Frequency on VGF44.99. This was definitely one of the more enjoyable tracks of the end of last year that I had a chance to check out. Off the bat, some people may have some issues with the guitar work sounding too delayed and/or distant, but I thought it was fairly emotive. I await the metalheads to kill me over my lack of knowledge, but I thought the backing chords reminded of the tone & feeling of the opening of Metallica's "Master of Puppets" for example, and that was certainly an interesting thing. Good freestylish arranged work at :15-:42, though I thought the lead guitar could have used a little more sharpness/clarity while the other elements could have stayed as is. Nice segue of the lead into the "Fortress" source tune at :43, along with a second guitar joining in on harmony at 1:00. Good melancholy feel. Things picked up the pace at 1:23, though the percussion was really (really) boring until we got some cymbal activity briefly in there from 1:50-1:55, followed by some more active drumwork at 1:55, which was very welcome. Make sure the percussion work matches the energy and creativity of other parts of the track. At 1:56, you went back into the Fortress melody, but the support work changed up, which provided some good variation. Nonetheless, the guitar on support was very low in volume and poorly separated, making its contribution difficult to hear. Making your support guitar work a bit more audible could have helped things before you launched into your huge freestyle section at 2:51. Good additive stuff at 2:51 that really worked well with the source tune coverage now functioning as the foundation of the track. Nice riffs from 3:29-3:34 that I would have loved to have heard more of. Ah, and there from 3:56-4:22 is exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for. I would have loved to have heard some more riffs earlier in the song just to change the flow up a bit. Also, during the last bit of riffing at 3:56, the performance was good, but the panning on your alternating guitars should have been a bit more distinct so they didn't mush together. I think other Js would have liked more variation for the foundation of the track from 1:22-3:56, and for some the production could be a negative hit for sounding too muffled; there's definitely could be an improved separation of sounds so one could appreciate all of the various instruments. For something like the solo from (2:51-3:34), I'm sure someone else will say that everything just kind of mushes together at times. Part of the problem was that the support instrumentation not having more separation from the lead work made the performance sound less complex than it actually was (drums notwithstanding). I think the production could be cleaner without undermining the feel of the track. In any case, I thought the arrangement was somewhat conservative and, depending on what you instruments you pay attention to, one may feel it's a bit monotonous. With the middle section going on for so long and retaining the same style, frankly, I almost forget about the introduction being so different in style itself until I listened to the track again. But the instrumentation and arrangement expanded the theme well and beefed the track up as compared to the original version, and Ashane featured several parts where he rearranged the flow of the original theme (the intro), added original composition on top (e.g. 2:52), and expanded the source's instrumentation (the entire mix). On that level, the track works much more in its intent as an additive type of remix, as opposed to reworking or overhauling the original composition. This one'll probably cause a debate, so I'm certainly interested in what Vigilante & zyko will say on this one. Looking at arrangement, production & performance as whole though, I think it's there. YES (borderline)

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff4.rsn - "The Prelude" (ff4-01.spc) Had this one included in the VGF50 set, so I was familiar with it. I think Chris does a pretty good job here, although his synth work could use more fine tuning to sound more realistic. There was one track in particular on his CastleVania 3 remix album, "Unchosen Paths" where he used a bunch of synth work (mostly strings) mixed with his usual metal stuff and the synth stuff just sounded incredibly fake. All of the synthy parts (winds, brass, strings) could certainly flow a lot more naturally and sound more impactful. Nonetheless, it's good to see though that goat's not timid about doing a piece where synth work is such an important focus, as the performance here came together a lot better than "Emerald Ruins," and showed a lot of improvement on his part. I'm sure Chris is aware of shortcomings he has on that level, so I certainly hope Danny B & Gray break out some orchestration advice that would help things out for future works in the same vein, because if this were just a sequenced orchestration piece, it would have a lot harder time passing. Looking at the big picture, I was definitely feeling the arrangement. There were so many well thought-out variations done on the Prelude, I was really impressed. Definitely was feeling how nicely the original sections tied together with the source arrangement. The transitions were interesting and generally functioned very nicely, though there were spots like at 2:05 where, for example, the horns could have sounded more powerful in order to create better tension and escalation. Doing a brief breakdown of the track beyond the intro, some gentile orchestration gave way to the more militaristic original section at 2:05 before launching into an almost triumphant variation of the Prelude at 2:40 (beautiful ideas with the strings on support from 3:22-3:28). Another creative original section was worked in from 3:36-4:32 as the tail-end combined Chris's orchestration with his telltale guitar work and went for another go at the source material. Nice shift at 4:18 with the pizzicato strings moving to the guitar. 5:28-6:33 had another energetic original section to head towards the finish before closing with the arranged harp. Just a very intelligent composition all around. So anyway, keep improving your synth work, Chris, and keep the hits coming. I'm sure goatess thought this was a wonderful piece, and of course I'm looking forward to anything you've got coming with Unchosen Paths and the Dwelling of Duels. Solid work. YES EDIT: Glad you liked "Toyota Disco" so much. Everyone loved it.

This is taken from my VGMix review of the track. I know Dustin was disappointed to read my review of his mix, but that was my honest assessment. Honestly & objectively speaking, it was all potential and not execution, which is why my review unfortunately has nothing positive to say. I appreciate anyone being willing to give OCR submissions a shot again, but just because the panel has changed over time doesn't mean it'll necessarily be an easier ride. You've still gotta be able to adequately bring it with arrangement, performance & production, and on that level it really doesn't matter what the make-up of the panel is. Sorry, bro. Gotta swallow your pride and keep improving. Looking forward to hearing more of your stuff, though, Dustin. I thought your Kid Icarus & Punch-Out!! mixes were a lot stronger, but this felt like a step backwards. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/sd2.rsn - "A Wish..." (sd2-16.spc) Certainly not a bad track. I played it back on VGF44.99 and it displayed a lot of skill and potential. Paragon's definitely an up-and-comer to watch. Check out his Zelda 2 mix, "Rupees in the Ivy," which was rejected but also was a prime candidate for a resub, as well as his Metroid remix from the Dwelling of Duels: Metroid competition, "Fallen Stars Tell No Tales" (beg him to post it to VGMix or send you the file). The beginning started out pretty nicely. For some of the way, the sparse construction of the track worked well, much like another Secret of Mana mix that (unfortunately, in my opinion) ended up being removed, Brad Smith's "Mystic Invasion." Around 1:09, as the track picked up in intensity, I felt as if the composition needed to go in some other direction to keep things fresh, rather than retreading what came before, since the mix is relatively brief. There was a little bit of new instrumentation added to the second iteration of the source theme to thicken the sound up, but otherwise it was indeed a very conservative arrangement. There's nothing inherently bad about the piece, but at the same time, it's very limited in how interpretive it gets on account of the source tune being so straightforward AND the arrangement being so repetitive. The way the guitar work didn't synch up with the percussion was a little odd, but I'm not bashing that. It worked most of the way through, though around 2:09-2:38 you added some harmony guitar work that threw the timing off a bit too much at times. The ending at 2:43 was pretty sudden/I-give-up-ish there, though I like how it faded out at 2:50. I would have used another cymbal tap like the one at 2:44 again at 2:46 - just a small suggestion that might make that sudden ending a little stronger as a resolution. In any case, I don't feel like you need a huge contrast in the energy level to tap its potential. Keep the mellow feel, James; you definitely pulled off the sad/desolate mood well in my opinion. But the composition does need to avoid the mere retreading route and bring some more pronounced interpretation and development to the picture. Keep up the good work, and resub this one if you're interested. Personally though, this one fits the bill as more of a cover-style piece and doesn't need to be altered, per se. If you're actually up for rearranging it more thoroughly though, I'd certainly be up for it. Really looking forward to the eventual resub of "Rupees in the Ivy." NO (resub)