Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Chrono_Cross_psf.rar - 306 "The Star-Stealing Girl" http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Xenogears_psf.rar - 205 "Shevat ~ The Wind is Calling" The reason I listed both themes up top was because, while you attempted to remix the first theme, the motifs inadvertently reminded me of the second. Like Israfel mentioned to me, a lot of Mitsuda's work from these games sounds similar, but I think it's a case where the attempted rearrangement has strayed too far from the source. I'm only hearing the vaguest of vague connections here with "Star-Stealing Girl". I don't mean to be glib, Ravi, but I feel Gray gave the best feedback for production concerns, so I can only add a few more comments. You can hear where the voice sample abruptly cuts out at :16 if you're paying attention. I think all of the other voice samples had clean cutoffs though. For future reference, if you have the information at hand, you should also let us know where you obtained the samples. I felt the structure was unorthodox (in regards to the scope of mixes at this site), but I still had some issues. Things sounded a little muddy, there was no high-end or sharpness present during any portion of the track, the cymbals are very weak, and (tying into the muddiness) there was poor overall separation of sounds, especially during your fuller sections (e.g. :40-:56, 1:43-2:00, 3:04-3:50). Work a little on production, but reign in the rearrangement level so this doesn't become ineligible on those grounds. Point me and the others in the right direction if something is up, but I tried really hard to find Star-Stealing Girl here and ended up with more Shevat motifs than anything else. Don't get too liberal with the ideas and end up losing the melodic foundations of the original. NO

Old decision: http://www.ocremix.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=44998 Link:

Not a bad intro with the synth steel-string geetar to open things up along with some swirly pad stuffz and a phasing organ-type synth at :09. The percussion & bass guitar synth coming in at :17 sounded really flat and detracted from the groove here. I can tell the style's supposed to be laid back, but the percussion and bass plod along and drag things down. The note patterns on the bass during the melody aren't bad, but try to go for some more variation on the percussion; the cymbals and kick drum can be spiced up while still remaining laid back. Correspondingly, do what you can to give more fullness to the sound of such important support elements; they're an important part of the foundation of the track, but hindered a lot of it from getting off the ground fully. Hopefully the other judges can recommend some other things. The lead synth for the melody was also very flat, especially during the chorus from 1:10-1:27. The bass guitar and drums also sounded very dry, and I heard some subtle sixteenth note hats in the back that nonetheless sounded exposed and belied timing issues with the percussion & bass. I'd recommend just scrapping the hats for that section, as I don't feel they help fill the space well enough. To your credit though, they did work better when they were less prominent around 2:02 during your fuller-sounding piano solo. There was better sounding stuff from 1:27-1:44, though the sequencing sounded too mechanical on the steel string guitar handling the melody as well as the bongo patterns. I liked the subtle elements you had in there though; some VERY light chime, didgeridoo and xylophone-style work functioned very well to accentuate things until 2:02. That stuff could be brought up a touch. I really liked the energy there and it briefly brought some unique flavor to the picture. The piano solo starting at 2:02 was alright, and I liked that the bass guitar had some more creative activity. Again, the bass could sound a bit richer, but it had the right energy. Perhaps bring the piano levels up a bit as well. I liked the touch of reverb I heard on the last few piano notes at 2:30. Very swanky transition from 2:31-2:36 into the final iteration of your melody as well. The piano was the most natural sounding instrument within the mix, and this was probably your best overall section of the track if I had to pick one. Definitely the closest realization of the groove you were going for. Going into the last iteration of the melody, you could certainly afford to take some further rearrangement opportunities with the melody to help make the mix's climax stronger. Or do so earlier on to provide some further dynamic contrast and development. Also, the way you switched into the chorus at 2:53 from the melody, everything sounded a lot emptier as several support elements dropped out in the back. Try to prevent that kind of abrupt contrast from happening. All things considered though, I felt the actual arrangement was pretty strong. Admittedly, I'm not really down with the sound effects thrown in there around 3:10, but Israfel thought the goofy voice cracked him up, so some people like it. The resolution here was certainly ok, but I would have preferred the synth fading down alongside the strings rather than cutting out first; just a small nitpick there. Even just going for a laid-back style like with the piano solo section, most of the sounds need a bit more fullness to make the most of the intent. Just listening to the source tune, one hears a lot more effective, fuller-sounding delivery there. Definitely consult whatever help you can such as the ReMixing forum here or the VGMix Conservatory for advice on maximizing the strength of your samples, because I like most of the foundations in place. Aside from that, look at humanizing some of the more mechanical-sounding elements, as well as providing some further creativity on the bass guitar & perc sequencing during their less prominent areas. People don't pay as much attention to those things as casual listeners, but they still affect the overall presentation. This was strong stuff so far that needs a bit more fleshing out in the delivery. I liked your FF7 mix "Chinatown's Future" morseso that this, Bev, but see a lot of potential here. Keep at it, sister. NO (refine & resubmit)

The intro was very flat to me so I disagree with Malc there, and the cymbals and additional synth entering in at :23 were very flimsy-sounding. No meat behind anything; thicken your sounds up. When the melody went up at :53, I said out loud, "Wow, that's just terrible". The same note progression sounds a lot better coming from the source tune. No offense, but the execution is very, very amateur-ish. None of the samples are articulated well, most noticeably the faux-strings in the background, while everything here lacks presence. The poorly sequenced vox entering in at 1:56 only reinforced this. By the 2:30 mark, I realized there wasn't much development here at all either. Very, very conservative & repetitive arrangement here and poor execution from the aenemic sounds. You've got to do everything you can to strengthen the sounds you're using and fashion more viable rearrangement ideas with further creativity. Back to the drawing board, I'm afraid. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/tetrisnt.zip - NSF Track 5 I have to agree with analoq, things were pretty cool to start off with on the arrangement side. Lots of countermelody/enhanced arrangement stuff opening up. Seemed to be developing well from :54-1:15 until you went back to the same melody again with exactly the same combination of sounds and elements. Perhaps try to more prominently rearrange the source material in your second iteration of the melody to present some fresh ideas and development. The new stuff from 1:41-2:15 wasn't bad as well, but then you went into just another iteration of the melody with another synth added. Bring that idea in earlier, but again, go for a bit more on the rearrangement side and alter some note progressions to give it even more of your own expanded interpretation. Like analoq said, there was some development, but no climax, so you're gonna have to fashion a stronger overall composition so that your ending doesn't seem so weak. On the production side, I'd prefer to hear some presence in the high-end as well as not letting the reverb and/or delay effects be quite as strong. Lots of good stuff is in place, Eon, so keep at it on this one if you're interested. NO

Can't snag a source tune for this, but I don't feel it's needed. The organ coming in at :30 sounds a bit random, which wasn't too much of a problem, but then I heard some questionable-sounding note sequences coming in at 1:07 during your melody. I also felt the shakers were a bit too loud and could have been scaled back a bit. Also, try to learn how to better articulate your organ and slap bass samples to flow more naturally. The belltones aren't bad but don't do much to cohesively enhance the mix, as the pattern for them is pretty awkward-sounding. There's kind of a different tone at 1:40, but overall not much dynamic contrast or development. Rather, at 2:00, everything became much louder for the last melodic iteration and that was about it. On the arrangement side, this has to be so much more. The ideas here were pretty brief and unexplored. Go for more on the composition end while improving the use of your sounds in tandem. NO

http://www.students.tut.fi/~judine/gk3/Emilio's%20Theme.mp3 - Emilio's Theme The Gabriel Knight 3 soundtrack is actually pretty damn sweet. Other remixers should seriously consider checking it out. A mere 1:41 generally doesn't cut it here, as songs of that length, like this one, are generally underdeveloped. This kicks in pretty fast, but it's just a cover of the source tune (the actual melody in the source tune itself gets going at :58). It's tranposed from winds to guitar, and sounds absolutely great here, but we don't do simple covers. Please rearrange this by adding your own ideas beyond simply changing the instrumentation and go for a much lengthier arrangement. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF8_minipsf.rar - 119 "The Man With the Machine Gun" So I was just commenting to myself before I checked this one, "we sure got a higher number of (lame) MIDI mixes this time around." and it could be more true since I joined. Like Israfel has pointed out in an earlier decision from this batch, I just don't see the excuse for using such cruddy MIDI stuff when decent free soundfonts are available to help enhance your product. Go for whatever help y'all can get. This one has nothing going for it. It gets very shrill from :41-:55 (and of course later on in the mix, since stuff repeats). Anyway, there was a bare amount of rearrangement, but this is just a tame MIDI-grade remix. I suppose the style of the instrumentation or what-have-you would justify the mix title, but it doesn't work in preveting it from coming across as a poorly sequenced, very shrill cover in a different key with some off notes. No innovation whatsoever. I realize from the e-mail, Jon, that it took you work to make this, as you're starting out, but this needs way more effort at being creative on the arrangement side, along with non-cruddy sounds. Otherwise, just stick to VGMusic and see if they'll bite. NO

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~agashlin/usf/sets/lozmmusf.zip - "Final Hours" Not bad stuff intro in until :20. Really like the voice thrown in really quickly at :16. Works very, very well. The drums here are a little weak and needed more meat on 'em, but I'm liking the groove so far. Good simple sequenced piano stuff at :46. I think the sound could bit a bit sharper. Not a bad tempo change at all at 1:29, IMO, I just think the percussion here is too weak to make an impact here. I didn't like where things went following the abrupt transition at 2:09. Again, flesh out these synths and beats with some more meat on the bones. 2:39 with the piano runs really gets cluttered, so try and create more separation amongst the elements here. Very nice slowdown around 3:05-3:09, though the ending was REALLY abrupt to me. The tempo changes worked well to me. Wow, very promising stuff. I knew I wouldn't regret checking it out even though it had enough votes. Though technically I'm also going NO, I felt you just needed more power behind your sounds. I'd YES if this had less reverb drenching things along with fuller-sounding synths. I know this first resubmission took a while to make it over here, Mike, but make sure to contact a judge via PM (i.e. me) if you're willing to tweak things based on any criticisms you'd agree on and go for another resubmission. I know this resub got rejected, but I'd still genuinely love to hear another revision of this. Very cool arrangement that's almost there in the delivery. You don't have to listen to me, but please keep at it on this one, as I feel it's worth it.

Considering that when Beatdrop was on the panel, he was the information source for whether a DDR mix was valid for the site, I doubt he'd mix a source tune that would make his mix a violation. I'm sure it's fine.

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ffmq.rsn - "Battle 3" (ffmq-25.spc) You misspelled prophecy in your filename, I see. Not really my thing per se, but this wasn't bad. Vig & zyko will be able to give the guitar the critique it deserves. Pretty good cover/upgrade, but this is too brief and needs more done here. The source has been given some more depth via instrumentation, but there's practically 0 rearrangement to speak of and you just repeat 2 1/2 iterations of the source. Put more into this and expand the composition with ideas of your own. I'm not gonna NO Override, because I feel the instrumentation deserves further commentary, but this is both too brief & too straightforward a cover. NO

The drums ain't so hot, and the guitar is pretty rough but at least has the energy up there. The musicians on the panel can dissect that more if they want to. The vocals are pretty poorly recorded, and I'm guessing there wasn't any post-production work put into it. Yeah, these vocals are pretty untrained. Raw and so forth, if you're down with that, but no thanks I've gotta say. I don't like how much the instrumentation took a backseat to the vocals when they came in. The contrast in levels for both music & vocals didn't have to be so great. The presentation is too unpolished, and for that to not dip it down to NO, the rearrangement and overall execution would have to be way up there. Definitely not the case here. In any case, I don't see why we need a NiGHTS cover that doesn't particularly expand on the original. No dice, Chris. NO

http://www.c64.org/HVSC/Hubbard_Rob/Thrust.sid - Subtune 1/1 Thanks a lot for providing the source tune, Magnus. The percussion's a little basic, but I like the groove coming in at :16. Too bad the lead's panned right with no corresponding left channel activity for no practical reason. That definitely dragging this down. The production could also sound notably sharper. This could have gone somewhere at 2:08 instead of just retreading. 2:44 totally switched up the beat with some hard drums, but they lacked power and presence due to lack of sharpness in the production, and just meandered for a while with no real substance. Kind of killed the flow actually. The melody phasing back in at 3:19 should have happened a LOT sooner. You're just hitting some already done stuff at 3:35. There was some tiny bit of additions at 4:26 that probably should have arrived early instead of repeating some of the beginning sections verbatim in the middle. It's too bad, because a notable portion of the C64 scene's approach to mixing doesn't work so much here. Pardon my ignorance if any of you out there feel that's not the case, but a lot of relatively new mixers there do stick with repetitive, conservative arrangements, which is generally not frowned upon there, yet is just a NO-go here. Good groove overall, and something I've enjoyed listening to again and again since writing this vote, but I still think this could trim the fat off and be a stronger product. The panning choices need to be revisited, the final mixdown could use some more clarity, the instruments need some more strength in places, and the arrangement needs more dynamics and less retreadting. Hope that doesn't sound like I'm bagging on it. Like analoq mentioned, I'm feeling some of the sound choices and the overall groove. I really enjoyed it for what it was and hope to hear a resubmission if you're up for it.

I think Mike meant to say that these are truly some icy hot flowz.

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/mo2.rsn - "Boy Meets Girl (Twoson)" (mo2-046.spc) The piano velocities sounded pretty mechanical, and the wind lead was very inhuman-sounding. You sure Eccles didn't rip this? And, yeah, that was a serious question. Not too jarring but there was a strange and abrupt tempo change at 1:10 as things slowed down and the instruments suddenly changed. Whatever's handling bass is poorly used as well. BUM BUM BUM BUM over and over again. Can't really offer anything too constructive on stuff so fundamentally flawed. Too conservative of an arrangement for me as well; work a bit more with the source to see what directions it can be taken in. It's not the holy grail for getting posted mind you, but head over to the ReMixing forum and learn how to at least get better results out of cruddy samples in the future. For this one though, scrap it and start something new. NO EDIT: So I sorted the SPC pack by title and sandwiched this mix between "Boy Meets Girl" & "Burp". I've gotta admit, "Burp" tacked onto this would have really enhanced the ending, no lie.

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/sc.rsn - "Fired" (sc-14.spc) & "Metropolis" (sc-10.spc) You have a 1:03-long intro for a 2:43-long mix. The whole idea has likely gotta be longer/more fleshed out to deserve such a long intro, but I'll give you credit; I liked how your sounds came together a lot. Low-fi/purposefully thin/whatever you'd call it (someone give me the right word), they worked. The sitar & sound effects sounded nice as additions, even if the "Fired" beat was verbatim for a while. The arrangement on it was pretty straight, but you hear some subtle changes in the beat as well alterations in how prominent other elements are once the lyrics kicked in. 1:55 was where the most prominent rearrangement came in, as what sounded like rearrangement from part of the first 20 seconds of "Metropolis" came in on top of the beats. The groove was minimalist, but I really enjoyed what you have in place so far. Definitely work on boosting the levels of the lyrics, Stephan. Though I'm safely assuming you're Latino, the lyrical delivery actually reminded me of white dirty south rappers like the Icy Hot Stuntaz, and I DO mean that as a compliment actually, because they were pretty fucking good. Vig's suggestions are pretty solid. Again, get the volume of the lyrics up and make sure the delivery and occasional layering flows well if you rerecord anything. Try to add another verse in here over differently structured/rearranged beats, add a lyrical chorus over your musical one; anything at all that will help give more depth to what's really promising but noticeably underdeveloped so far. Really wanna see this make it, frankly. What the fuck do you people want? I'm half black. You know how we do. NO (refine & resubmit)

Like I was telling Dain a little while ago, this is mastered really loudly, enough to bug me anyway, but I'm making sure that it won't affect my vote, as other judges didn't have any issue with it. Would have still preferred a less-agressive mid-range, but it's all good as the production is pretty solid. This one really takes the source in a new direction but I hear connections to the source in the more liberal/different sounding areas starting with the note pattern at :25. Nice way to stick with the original lyrics in a new style at :57, as well as doing the same with the chorus at 1:30. Cool stuff. I thought the lyrics from :57-1:50 should have been louder as the music was obscuring them a bit, but the original lyrics coming in at 3:07 were where I felt they needed to be. Great shit here. I loved the source tune and here the arrangement is quality, the production is agressive but well made overall. I felt like this deserved more of an ending that this got at 3:56, but whatchu gonna do? No particularly noteworthy problems here to hold it back. Can't wait to play "Hysteria" back to back with this on VGF. I think it's unfortunate this didn't get more attention when it was posted at VGMix, but a lot of people aren't DDR freaks there. I'm not saying that it'll get infinitely more attention here, as a lot of people aren't familiar with DDR stuff, but I'm sure SGX can tell you that a lot of people will nonetheless come out of the woodwork to hear this. Along with some stepfiles at Bemanistyle, it'll probably show up (along with other OCR stuff) in Flash Flash Revolution if it hasn't already, and the kids who play that will bug you more than that weird guy from Chile. Great work, bro. YES

TO's another good thing out of Australia. Great work, Joe. When I first heard the old version at VGMix, I wasn't too hot on it, but it's be refined nicely swince then and I really enjoyed it. The almost Engrished lyrics make 0 sense but they're fun and flow well, and frankly that's really what counts. High quality work, bro. Hope you have more ambitious stuff like this for the future. Looking forward to playing this on my radio show.

Fairly weak percussion and ambiance intro up until 1:01. The synth lead lacks depth, and there's no real clarity in the presentation here. The synth melody plodded along until 1:45 and then went back to the ambiance before some really poor vox & bells came in at 2:01. At least the drums coming in at 2:26 had a little meat to them, but all of the sounds are thin & weak in their delivery. 2:27 until the end just held to the same patterns throughout. Very underwhelming effort overall, I'm afraid. No meaningful variation or dynamics to speak of most of the way. Just learn whatever you can to bring some energy and depth to your sounds, and don't get so skimpy with the rearrangement ideas as this was pretty minimal on those grounds. NO

Pretty cool material with fairly unique sounds, good energy, and an overall catchyness. At :32 (and a couple of other, less noticeable places), the recorder got really shrill, but otherwise the delivery on everything was pretty strong. All of the instrumental elements here came together well, with John's arrangement & Roland's production both being excellent. This was direct post material that just needed to be verified in regards to the source tune, since Compy's link was down, so there you have it. YESs should be so simple. YES

Your mom.

http://www.zophar.net/gym/sor2.rar - "Good End" (25.gym) I'm feeling extra generous today, because while I didn't own many games, SoR2 was one of them, and this is just ripped beats with live sax on top as a cover until 1:35 and is DYING for NO Override. Then we hit the freestyle section of the sax, which was alright. Nothing particularly sweet or anything, but shit, I can't play sax. The rest of music detracted from the sax work though. Somewhere out there, Prot's making fun of this being a bonus track off the Very Best of SEGA. 3:12...what the...hell?!? Why would you even do that to the ending? Rayz-duh! Yu-zo! Rip mix! But...WITH...a...sax...on...TOP! [/sonik Elektronik] NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF8_minipsf.rar - 120 "Julia" Opened with a tranced cover of Julia with plain jane beat keeping drums underneath that plodded up the trance flavor. What was that subtle low note beat coming in at :51? It's not in the right key, obviously, and it threw things off. And there some "tick, tick, tick, tick" hat annoying the shit out of me, louder than everything else, including the vox. 1:26 keeps going with "tick, tick, tick" driving me batshit and treading water with the arrangement the whole way. By 2:00 every time the pattern repeated, I kept thinking "When the hell is this gonna stop?!? It never did. It went all the way until 3:08 of your 3:20 mix. Man, that ending was terrible; pure copout/I-gave-up-ish stuff. Anyway, good luck on future mixes. Scrap that one though. You ran nearly 2 minutes of a 3 minute mix with...ugh. Then I listened again and :17-:33 was the same thing you repeated for those other 2 minutes. Unbelievable. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/femblem.zip - NSF Track 13 Why'd this have to be tough on account of production? There's way too much reverb here and not enough sharpness. 1:42-2:09 & 3:36-3:55 are particular examples of how things sounded somewhat ok, but nonetheless mushed together. There's no high-end here whatsoever; everything's in the low and mid ranges. The thick low chords here linger for a long time once they're played and manage to obscure and wash with other notes since they all occupy the same limited space on the EQing. Since this was resequenced by Pat in the first place, I encourage him to do anything to sharpen the sound on this. There doesn't have to be less reverb, just less muddiness/more clarity. Piano-only mixes don't have to sound immaculate (e.g. Bladiator's "Chopinesque Kirby"), but there's only so low I'll judge the bar. Kevin's arrangement is more than passable, and I played Kevin's original version of the mix way back on VGF. I may just be a stickler; I'm honestly looking forward to both of you guys being posted here; you're both good names that I've been following for some time. Especially hearing Pat's other pieces at VGMix, I'm fairly sure this sound style was purposeful, but I really need a higher level of clarity than this. NO (resubmit, please)

Yeesh. Way to hang that flute note until :25. Panning effects were really bad. Way higher quality than the MIDI stuff you'd hear at a very bootleg CT fan site. Too bad that's not what this place is. VERY shrill strings coming in at 1:21. Some very minimal arrangement going on here anyway. Definitely at the level that a total n00b would think was a dramatic overhaul. 5 1/2 minutes of this? Nah, I'm good thanks. Jesus, even turning down the volume to 50% on Winamp, these shrill instruments are killing me. Sorry, bro, form rejection all the way. NO