Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Decent though conservative ideas on the arrangement, though the intro almost felt like a MIDI rip + beats. Tempo and structure's a bit too similar as well, though you're at least pulling off a half-decent genre adaptation. Not much (if any) variation going into the second iteration of the arrangement starting at 1:31. Sounds are pretty beginner-ish, but check out the ReMixing forum for some ways in which you can improve your skills. Far from making the grade, but not bad for a first sub, and I hope you keep at it. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/ff1.zip - Track 16 Not a bad effort here. Samples need a bit more realism and depth to the sounds. Good vibe here and nice switch on the rhythm moving the time to 3/4, but a bit conservative on the arrangement as you just go through 3 runthroughs of the source melody with different instrumentation. Good expansionist ideas on the instrumentation, but get a bit more creative and rearrange things further. Lots of potential here. Look forward to hearing from you again here. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 208 "Cinco de Chocobo" You know, we get some downright "WTF?!?" NO Overrides, but this takes the cake in my 8 months on the panel so far. Read the rules, lady. I hope this evaluation was timely for you. NO OVERRIDE

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "The Day the World Revived" (ct-2-06.spc) For all the talk about hidden depth in the source tune, this sure didn't capitalize on it. This used some pretty rough original beatwork while barely even touching the source tune until 1:37 (save a brief reference at :18), and featured a disappointing piano finish that sounded really beginner-ish. Um...use the source tune. And don't send OCR anything encoded above 192kbps. 256kbps is too high. Keep at it though. NO

Haven't you heard? White's the new black.

Still have to edit up VGF48 (featuring Paige) this weekend provided I have the time. RoFL will be coming sometime after show #50, which I've gotta be preparing for next week. Still need to plan things out. Tune in this Saturday for VGF49, featuring the return of Mustin as he talks about fan reaction to the recent release of OneUp Studios' newest album Xenogears Light, further developments of the upcoming OneUp Mushrooms album and much more. j00 tune in, ok? hai!

Email sub file animal_crossing_i'minlove_oc_remix.mp3 - LT I PMed you to ask if you could just scratch my resident evil (Safe Room) song. And I would like to know if I could replace it with a completly different song, from a different game. Either way you need to scratch it, please. Thanks. LT: No problem. Ran the replacement submission idea by djp, and he said ok for this time only. Yesterday, Pat mailed me with the info for his replacement submission. Name: Patrick Wagstaff Age: 17 Bio: Bla bla bla. Original Game: Animal Crossing Original Composer: Kazumi Totaka System: Nintendo Gamecube Year: 2002 Original Title: K.K. Love Remix Title: I'm In Love I don’t know where I got the inspiration for remixing an Animal Crossing song, but I think the final result has turned out nice. I normally deal with trance songs or piano solos, so with this one I wanted do some thing different. No I didn't chose the K.K. Love (the original) for a Valentines Day mix, or because I am in love or anything, but simply because of my passion for the original. And besides, me in love, or somebody in love with ME! Ha, ha, now that's funny. It's been my style/trademark with most of my songs to through in a "Break" somewhere along the line. And this song is no exception. This is a link to a midi of the original. http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/gamecube/kklovesong.mid I hope you like it. Enjoy

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 201 "Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII" Nothing glaringly bad about the piece. I liked the presence of dynamics and so forth, and the performance was very spirited, but the arrangement and production were still lacking in my opinion. Arrangement had many nuanced touches like Darke mentioned, but still came across as too conservative. Adding some new support work under the melody and altering the rhythms slightly wasn't enough. Especially keeping in mind that you remixed a 6+ minute piece in the FF7 Main Theme, this really didn't take enough creative liberties with Uematsu's piece, instead following the source tune pretty closely most of the way through. Noir's Jenova for Classical Piano was more successful in adding personal flair within a conservative rearrangement. What was up with the ugly-sounding key change at 3:14-3:15? [shrug] I also didn't mind the muddy piano tone so much, but sections like 3:15-3:37 sound particularly poor and murky on the production side. You don't have to embrace the treble or anything, but give some of the higher frequencies some lovin'. Frankly though, while I liked the performance, and could live with the production, I feel that the mix wasn't as creative on the interpretation front as it could have been. Looks like it has a good shot at passing though, so best of luck on the rest of the vote, and I look forward to hearing more of your work, Susie. NO (refine/resubmit)

Mulled over this one for quite a while; definitely something I couldn't judge after only a few listens. No problem with the ideas in the rearrangement; comparing it with the original, this was a very creative application of the source material. Developed at a pretty slow and deliberate place. Little things: Nice touch with how one of the animal noises worked alongside the notes of the "Deep Jungle" melody from :45-:48 & 2:35-2:37. The fakeness of the string sample you were using was slightly exposed from 1:46-1:48 for me. I was worried I'd have to NO the track on a lack of variation, because you essentially repeated what started at :27 later on in the track at 2:17 with only very light percussion additions. I initially wasn't sure if there was enough change/development for the track as a whole, but that wasn't the case. The flute section at 3:12 was definitely shrill like DarkeSword pointed out, and I wouldn't mind that being toned down, but it otherwise worked well and was a welcome change of pace in the presentation. A bit repetitive and treading water at first glance (due in part to the ambient feel), but nonetheless a fairly cool combination of sounds creating a relaxed atmosphere and providing good rearrangement. Like DS also pointed out, the use of the nature samples was tastefully handled and blended well with the rest of the sounds. Solid work, Damon. You've really come a long way from the two submissions we heard from you a while ago. I don't mean to point and laugh by linking to those rejections, but rather recognize how you've achieved much better production and more creative rearrangement than the stuff you were submitting before. Keep improving your game and learning new things. 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) Seems like some pretty standard trance adaptation work. At :17, I noticed the flute on lead sounded a little loud and overbearing. If the levels on it had been like that for the whole track, it might have been an annoyance I could have coped with. After it comes back at 1:00, it's still just too loud. Then at 1:15 as you've hit the main melody, the flute lead is ridiculously loud and piercing until 1:41. The overall presentation from 1:56-2:23 sounds loud but doesn't really have enough distinction amongst the various sounds in play. The instrumentation sounds decent enough for this trance work, but I don't mean to sound insulting when I say the sounds are very generic for the most part. Nothing's wrong with staple sounds from the genre, but I don't think those elements combined well enough here. Not really liking the thin-but-loud texture of the keyboard, synth strings, flute & electrosynths working together throughout the track. Stuff with thicker sounds, like "G-Storm" or "Kick Your A" can pull their levels of loudness & mushed sounds off because the sounds are full. The hand drums were hot though. Compared to your awesome Sonic Adventure remix, "LightSpeed", I felt as if this mix was too loud during the loudest sections, featured flimsier sound choices, and poorer instrument separation/EQing. The composition for the breakdown section from 2:38-3:04 sounded like slapped together improvisation, and needs more thought put into it. The keyboard used to back up the flute is exposed and sounds really flimsy again. I liked the arrangement overall, which had good compositional ideas with the genre adaptation, the new flute line, as well as the rearrangement ideas from 3:12 until 4:07 in altering the rhythms of the melody (though again, the keyboard sounds flimsy). The arrangement was definitely passable to me and doesn't need to be worked on significantly. I'm certainly interested in analoq & zircon's takes on the piece and how well they feel the execution played out though. My suggestions would be to eliminate the piercing frequencies (flute), achieve a bit cleaner separation of sounds so you can hear the supporting elements better, beef up your synths a bit (the keyboard in particular), and make a more coherent freestyle section from 2:38-3:04. Again, those are just suggestions; certainly don't have to do too much to pass in my eyes. I'm on the borderline, Mike, so anything you'd wanna do that you feel makes the track better and achieves a better sound will get a YES from me if you have to resub. NO (refine/resubmit)

This here is Funky Kong; Funky like a monkey. Donkey gets the ladies even though he's kinda chunky. He lays it down when Diddy's not around. Then he hops on Funky's Flights and hightails outta town. Haha! Let me hit ya up with some o' that monkey love. Heheh. C'mere girl. Yeah, boy. Lay it down, Donkey! ROFL #2.

Sounds are pretty interesting for the first 40 seconds or so, though the composition felt random. Sound quality was coming off pretty muddy headed into :48 as more elements moved in, but I liked the beats that came in to help fill things out. The overt arrangement of "Gummi Ship I" didn't piece together until :53. Waiting to hear these winds do something, but everything changed around at 1:16, so I guess we won't be hearing that. The percussion that came in at 1:15 was kind of thin but decent. Both the bow-played strings & plucked strings that started at 1:17 sounded really distant and muffled. The beats were still pretty flat in their attempt to support the sax work that started at 1:42, but again, I'm not penalizing for that. Could use a bit more thickness, but it presents a fairly unique sound I haven't heard before. I liked the light glassy noises brought in at 1:41 as well. Liked the switch up at 2:06 to "Dearly Beloved" a hell of a lot. Very smooth move into the second source tune and much more coherent arrangement ideas and cool sound combinations from thereon. If the production and sound balance didn't sound so messy and muffled, this could really deliver for that half. The ending was just the song tapering off quickly at 3:41, so you may want to come up with something a little more cohesive there. Didn't bother me too much, but it was still lacking any real resolution. If you worked hard on retooling this one, this would have a great chance at making it. I'll be glad to offer any other comments you may want if you keep working on it, Ravi. I'll be hanging onto it. NO (resubmit)

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FFX_psf2.rar - 102 "In Zanarkand" I've heard of Kanjika; played an original of his on VGF a few weeks ago. Certainly shows some talent, but needs more time. The sounds good, sure, and you've rattled off a list of what assume are some phat samples, but this is basically an orchestral mock-up piece. It takes some minor turns in the "arrangement", but this was extremely conservative; basically a cover most of the way with different samples and some changes in the structure of the support instruments. Nothing innovative here when taking into account the complete package presented. You gotta be more, bro. You know what I'm talking about. Interpret more. Create more. Be more. NO

Don't have the source tune on-hand, but since zirc vouched for being familiar with the source tune and the level of arrangement here, I'll certainly take that. At first, I was kind of "Well, it's kind of loud. [pause] Don't see what's so wrong with anything." Then at :56-1:10 all of sudden you are WAY WAY up there. Then again I'm like "Well, that's only one short part of the mix." Then again from 1:39-2:05, we're way up there in the volume. Things stay way too loud all the way up to 2:32. 3:12-end/5:00 had the same HUGE volume. Way too loud for its own good. Wow. Anyway, definitely work on what the others criticized with the production. Clean up the cluttered soundfield, and brings those levels down. Also gotta point out alongside Malc that the ending cut out abruptly, so don't forget to fix that too and have it fade out properly. Arrangement seems to be well done, but it can't be appreciated with the vast overcompression here. NO (remaster/resubmit)

I um...huh?

Valentine's Day is coming up. So I'm gonna co-host with my girlfriend, Paige. Yeah, that Paige. And we're gonna have a Valentine's Day style theme with various VGM & remixes and etc. This is either the best idea I've ever had or the worst. Be sure to tune in tonight and find out. Feel free to give me suggestions with songs I've never played before on the show, and hope to see you there.

Heard this way back after I joined the judges' panel, so it's great to see this one finally see the light of day, especially in such a timely manner for OCR's 5th! Smooth handling of the Battle Theme especially and a good foray into uncharted territory from Gray that resulted in some brief but stylish hybrid work. A great follow-up to Phoenix Symphonic to be sure. Man, that was posh.

Nope. But I'll be damned, I didn't know you could 4:20 A.M.

Gray and I were talking about how we missed the 80s after djp mentioned the McDonald's McDLT in his writeup on Chekan Winter. All the better to have something like this mix to harken back to the days when Reagan was president and coke was abundant. The base of the mix is so 80s, it's great. Then again, as a judge, I'm groove-biased...

http://exotica.fix.no/tunes/archive/Authors/Game/Huelsbeck_Chris/Turrican_2.lha - mdat.world_3 (:00-1:26, 3:19-4:10) & mdat.world_1 (1:56-3:16, 4:12-5:21/end) Went searching a little bit to find an application that would play the tunes contained in the ExoticA archive. Download the very light XMPlay app and TFMX plug-in in order to check out the source material. I remember this one; played it back on VGF41. Andre said in his post at VGMix that this was his retirement mix from the scene, though I personally hope he keeps at it. I've played some other material from him before and he's a young talent who doesn't get enough exposure beyond the Commodore remixing scene. Surprised I haven't seen this posted to AMIGAremix yet, but they might be backlogged. Sweet arrangement here. Starts off with some liberal interpretation derived from the world 3 music before going to much more straightforward coverage of a portion of that tune from 1:02-1:26. Some people won't like the suddent transition into the electronic stuff at 1:30, but I loved it. Dunno why it works so well, but it came across pretty well. Cool stuff. Some light brass activity at 1:43 that I felt could have been a little more impactful. I was surprised by how well the occasional cymbal crashes, glassy chimes, and brief string flurries worked to accentuate the material here, before moving into a new section at 2:34. Fairly basic sounds moving into the trance/techno portion of the mix from 2:43-3:15; pretty decent overall but needs more oomph. The 3:15-4:11 section felt low on the energy level & sparse, possessing some overly generic-sounding synths in play with some pretty tame percussion work. Once things beefed up more at 4:11, the percussion wasn't as much of a factor way in the back, but it could have been beefed up a bit. I think this would have benefitted from a sharper/crisper sound as well, but that may just be me. In any case, the arrangement was well done once again, featuring some nice ideas to really expand and interpret the source tunes. Not "kick-yo-mouf" intense here, but this one should catch some people's attention that weren't expecting to hear anything this catchy from an "unknown" game like Turrican II. A surprisingly good fusion of electronic work with orchestral elements. YES

Good effort, and one I'm familiar with after playing it on VGF44.99. Yeah, this was a mishmash of themes, although to be honest, I didn't feel as if I heard much of the MGS3 Main Theme in there. I suppose it depends where I'm looking, and hopefully Reu can give further details on how he used all 3 of the Solid series' main themes in the near future. In any case, I heard a great deal of stuff derived from MGS2's version, as well as some from MGS1. Can't really articulate it further than that, but it does pass the arrangement test. I felt Vig's comments on the issues with the piece were excellent and on the mark per his usual: Great summation of where basic improvements could/should have been made in order to strengthen the performance.Reading some of the feedback at VGMix about the piece, I felt Gwilym & H the 8th's comments on the piece being poor for being a "weaker" orchestrated version of already orchestrated originals was off-base. I don't see a substantiated point in essentially saying "you can't remix a track this way" or "this'll never sound as good as the original". I liked mv's very critical yet very fair & detailed assessment of the track much more. People are certainly open to those types of opinions, but it's misguided to say you can't or shouldn't bother attempting to rearrange a cinematic-styled original in a similar genre. As for comparing this to the sheer power of the originals, anyone should obviously be able to tell that Reu wasn't simply going for a bombastic, heavy-handed approach here, even during the tenser moments of the track. His interpretation of the themes offers a calmer, lighter feel overall, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. There were definitely some areas in the track where the instrumentation could have been stronger, and where the arrangement could have offered some more unique-sounding ideas, but otherwise this was a very well-made offering. Solid work from Reuben as usual. He's building up quite the catalog here. YES

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/smb1.zip - Track 5 ("Invincible BGM") http://www.zophar.net/usf/sm64usf.rar - 16 "Powerful Mario" Yeah, I remember Ben complaining (meh) over at VGMix when Rexy gave this one a less-than-deserved score in his opinion. Good job extending the mix a bit compared to the VGMix version. I liked the chiptune/NES-style intro all the way until :13. Good old-school touch without dragging the idea out. The piano didn't have to sound quite so fake, but it's a minor point relative to the big picture. Good handling of the Wing Cap Theme here, altering up the rhythms of the source and genuinely spicing things up. There's the telltale DarkeSword sax coming in at 1:06. Could have sounded a lil' bit smoother and a lot more realistic, but the flow was good overall and lent its sound nicely to the track. Sweet breakdown at 1:45 dropping most of the elements out and using hand drums and some new synth combinations to keep the mix fresh. Good ideas here in terms of changing up the style. The section starting from 2:39-3:09 dragged a little bit, especially with that generic, cheesy-sounding drumwork placed lightly in the back. Luckily things filled out a bit more at 2:54 to cover that up and get the track moving again. Good shit in upping the energy level again at 3:10. Pretty sweet realizing you didn't touch some parts of the Wing Cap Theme until 3:25. Nice return of the tenor sax again at 3:47 after working some chill sounds with the xylophone at 3:41. The ending came a little too suddenly, and, thematically, the vox didn't really make much sense in there to close it, but otherwise things were good. Not spicy hot in terms of samples and so forth, but pretty much everything came together nicely on the arrangement and presentation. Funky fun and whatnot. It was the strong package with well-varied, solid composition, good sound combinations, and smooth production. A great example of substance over samples, baby. Keep on improving your game, Ben, and congratulations. YES

No. While this sounds great, I believe the "arrangement" for the second half is dicey at best and pushes the boundaries of what's acceptable. If anything, I'm borderline NO because the presentation is excellent. If it were a lockdown candidate, I might vote to keep it, but in terms of taking it as a submission, I ask for more votes. I am not trying to simply hold up the process, but ask that the nature of the arrangement be considered closely. My request is to please go to 6.

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF7_psf.rar - 102 "Opening - Bombing Mission" (:40-1:12, 2:17-2:31) I'm glad to see old-school OC mixers coming back to offer more submissions and sticking around the community in some form. Things stayed pretty basic with the intro, with some beats coming in at :20. Various cymbal crashes, reverse cymbal crashes and some claps came in over the first minute. Lots of trance staples here, that's for sure. Source melody starts up at 1:05 and the lead here is generic and (arguably) not as good as the original. 1:33 features a pretty basic cover of the source melody with beats underneath it, and this isn't really going anywhere particularly. After a short breakdown & build, more elements came in at 2:01 to build upon the trance work although none of it tends to connect to this short, repeating section of the source tune melody. Stuff's just being built around the source as opposed to interacting with it. Things finally change up at 2:53 with some arrangement handling the section starting at 2:17 of the source alongside some more interesting effects on the lead synths. Nonetheless, it's the same problem here as with the previous section of arrangement, as none of the added trance instrumentation connects with another short, repeating section of the source tune melody. Here, it manages to perceiveably sound more connected nonetheless, but there's not much to it. Moves back to an original outro at 3:56 to wrap things up. The moral of this story is to actually weave and integrate the source theme you choose into the genre you pick. The source tunes were minimally arranged (basically just plucked verbatim and dumbed down) with some trance beats stapled underneath. Thematically, it doesn't get much more simplistic than that. There's a higher standard than that these days. Reinterpret things with more attention paid to the actual source tune next time. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ct.rsn - "At the Bottom of Night" (ct-3-03.spc) First off, congratulations to Will for his appearance on OneUp Studios' newest album, Xenogears Light. Yeah, good stuff. I'm a fan of the source theme, as I've said in the past, although I have to say I've personally heard much more engaging interpretations of it. Nonetheless, I liked the arrangement and expansion here. The volume could have been brought up a bit for the quieter sections, but in any case the gradual rise in intensity at 3:30 and the further added volume beyond 4:30 helped provide good contrast before closing things up with the lighter finish. I heard a light audio deformation at 3:33, by the way. Some people won't be fan of the whiny strings on lead, but I enjoyed their tone. Nice basic source coverage & rearrangement for the first few minutes with well-done expansive composition and tons of variation with the instrumentation. djp should have a good time laundry-listing everything employed here. Things were very relaxing for most of the subtler-sounding sections. The brass sample at 4:11-4:23 was one of the only nagging things I'd want touched up. Same goes for the French horn sample from 3:12-3:30, which almost sounds too quiet to be perceived as realistic. This won't be a bombastic remix that instantly commands your attention. Frankly, if this was from a lesser-known game, it wouldn't garner half as much attention. But with something so quiet and subdued such as this, it's all the more reason to listen closely. YES