Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Yeesh. Better reply back to everyone quick: Zoast: The pitch was where I had issue with the vox, not the production. The production was pretty good, IMO. Hope people are really checking the mix out. Tron-6K!: Sorry bro. I'm a no-go on Magfest 3.0. Need $ to go, which I never have. I'd definitely go if it were possible. Sorry about not replying to that PM. I read it way back and said "I'll reply later" then I forgot to reply. If you wanna be like an "official VG Frequency correspondant" during Magfest and call into the show during the Saturday of Magfest, that would be the shit, especially if you were boozed and totally shitfaced. We gotta make it happen, Justin! KG: Yo bro! Thanks for the congrats. If you wanna do some stuff covering official/unofficial VGM music releases, that would be great, sure. I don't do that for the Pimp Section myself since 1) I'm so focused with the community here, 2) I'm currently on dial-up for the summer so I can't just get any game music I want, and 3) I can't afford to pony up the dollas for actual game music CDs. Feel free to do your own forum post or add stuff here. If you decide to do something, I'm sure it'll be good to read. Just make sure to hook people up with links and everything. Gotta be able to get the tracks (even the elusive ones). TO: I'm not actually on the air until mid/late September, but I can pimp some tracks out and give any particularly good ones some airplay in the fall. Drop me a line anytime about 'em when they're good to go, Lee. Like Xerol mentioned, I think I'm fairly accessible about playing stuff for my show as long as it's good. weed: No prob on the pimp at all, bro. The mix gets better and better every time I listen to it, and as you get more used to the flow and listen more intently to everything going on, you really feel how cohesive it is, despite how things change fairly rapidly. Hot work yo. I'm glad you'll still be doing some infrequent mixes. SGX: Awesome! I've been waiting for this one. Excellent work. I didn't even know that was Teresa you sampled. Amazing shit. I'll cover it when the new Pimp Section goes up. It'll be up relatively soon bros. Stay tuned.

Pretty cool stuff overall. I'm afraid I'm not familiar with Kingdom Hearts' OST, so I'd really prefer for someone to verify the arrangement content ("Hollow Bastion", with some of "Destati"). I know it's all good though. The piano in particular could use some more realistic dynamics, but the way each note had practically the same velocity, the piano sounded strong in its relative spraseness. Kind of ironic that this mix and destructo's FF8 mix "The Lost Horizon" essentially have the same intro. The string, drum & piano build until the 90-second mark was excellent. Once things picked up at 1:49, especially with the piano coming back at 2:03, everything conveyed pretty frantic, suspenceful imagery. The lack of realism on the sample dynamics could be thought of as a negative, but I thought that added a certain character to the piece that clicked for me. Compositionally, everything is paced well, resulting in sensible builds and a quality flow. It makes me wanna buy Kingdom Hearts so I can whoop somebody's ass with Donald Duck. Good job by my man SGX with the mastering here, by the way. Everything's sounding pretty nice. I'm all about the YES on this one. Can't wait to have you swing by WMRE to guest host VG Frequency this coming school year, sephfire. It'll definitely be happening. Good work, Dan! YES

I'm checking if Jack can touch up the ending. I'll hear back from him pretty soon. EDIT (7/29): tefnek's indeed gonna touch up the ending so it isn't odd anymore. He'll be able to do it once he gets back home in 2 weeks.

Heh. Yeah, pretty good stuff yo. I wouldn't quite YES it yet myself; thought the vox has a few issues, but I liked it overall. It's a tiny bit remiscent of Stephen Kennedy's FF8 mix of Balamb Garden for PMM: Nobuo Uematsu. Keep it up!

Are you insinuating something? Though you're technically a listener judge, I think of you more as a musican (Mr. Tablas), since you are excellent and make my mulatto groins shiver in glee. As we all know, "You Make Music."

Last week was a nice week for me personally, but things have been rough for us as at Ormgas.com. Fellow Ormgas member Mattias "Sockan" Ström, whom we knew as SockULF, passed away on July 21st after being viciously assaulted on Saturday the 17th by a drugged up man who, seemingly at random, knocked Sockan down and attacked him by kicking him in the head repeatedly. After suffering severe brain damage and only being able to breathe with the aid of a respirator, he passed away this past Wednesday. He was only 22 years old. For his friends and family, along with others such as myself who didn't know Sockan closely, it's a very difficult situation made more difficult by how senseless it was. If you need more information about the attack on SockULF, it's available at Ormgas.com. Even though most of you do not know him, you can nonetheless view the condolences given at http://sockan.ormgas.com. Ormgas went silent from this past Thursday until late Sunday as a memoriam. The news that I was personally happy about this past week was that I was nominated among a list of candidates and subsequently chosen by the OCR Judges' Panel to be the newest Judge with OverClocked ReMix! Without gushing over the news like a fanboy, I have to admit that it's an honor to be among the people that help in large part on deciding what music is chosen for OCR. After first coming to OC in early 2002 as a guy with a casual interest in video game music, I've come about as far as a fan possibly can in the community. I'd like to personally thank my friends Matt Kertz & Joe Mauri, since it's their "fault" that I found out about OCR, later listened to every OC ReMix ever made, and got serious about playing video game music on the radio. Without them, I wouldn't have ever found a community with such talent and creativity. I'll get into some more thoughts about judging later in the Pimp Section, but for now, let's get into what music caught my attention for the week ending Saturday, July 24th: ArseAssassin - "Shattered Stars" [http://personal.inet.fi/urheilu] - Feedback Tuomas's samples here are pretty generic to me, since I've heard a lot of techno and trance tackled with most of the sounds here. Despite that, everything here comes together for some well-constructed, upbeat techno that you can relax to if you prefer something energetic going on. The reverb's a little too heavy at times, but the atmosphere is good and everything flows through nicely with a pretty comfortable groove. There's still some additional production work and tweaks to be done by AA since this is for a contest at Mikseri.net, but check out "Shattered Stars" for some very solid original work on the dance techno side. binster - X-Out "LiquidX Remix (VGMix Version)" [VGMix2 #62] Along with hanging out with A Scholar & A Physician, Martin Binfield has come out some impressive stuff in the past few months, so if you haven't heard his Ico mix "Icon," you're doing yourself a great disservice. Following up on the ethnic/techno hybrid of Icon, Binster's got some thick-sounding techno on deck with the long-awaited release of this X-Out mix on VGMix. At times, this one sounds a little rough around the edges, but the groove is excellent. Hopefully, Binster follows through with this C64 release by dropping this one on R:K:O as well. Martin's not sure if he wants to submit this as is for OCR yet, so I'll just have to wait patiently, but you fans out there need to get aboard on this one. I could use a few adjustments on the EQing side to not let some of the end feel as cluttered, but this is strong work overall that you won't be disappointed in. Captain Tortilla (Dennis Mott) - "fok the fok" [Melamine EP] - Feedback If OverCoat's waiting on pin and needles for this, you know it's gotta be...decent. Dennis plugged the release of his 2nd EP over at the VGMix forums, which features some short simple tracker work. There are some interesting ideas here, even if a this is a hit-or-miss prospect. Along with the "provocatively-named" track I chose to highlight, the Cap'n has got some other songs you might enjoy, like "another song title" & "shangro-diggalo." Disposer - Lufia 2 "Time to Come Home" [VGMix2 #1900] Just in terms of other material I've heard in the past, this sounds more like a Beej/Mustin collab than Disposer's stuff, and I absolutely love "Time to Come Home" for that. The piano, guitar and string elements here come together very nicely along with cameos by several other instruments. This needs some refining to really go that extra mile (for example, the sax sounds very flat). Pretty damn promising, and lots of potential to be exploited further here. GrayLightning & SnappleMan - Secret of Mana "Distorted Star" [VGMix2 #1353 / OC ReMix #1220] Over a year ago when Gray was relatively new to the OC scene and his new age work didn't carry as much finesse, Gray suffered two controversial rejections at the hand of the OCR judges' panel. The first one of those rejections was for "Distorted Star." Generally willing to give material he's not satisfied with another look, Gray had SnappleMan help him out by laying down some guitar alongside the original work. Thanks to Andy's additions, the track has more energy along with a bit more coherence and flow that the original lacked. (New age...we just don't understand it. The feel is a bit raw, but these two had what it took to get the job done, and this works as a very interesting combination of new age and electric guitar, showing you that nearly anything isn't out of the question when it comes to remixing. Mark Vera - Laser Squad "Mission Recalled" [Laser Squad Nemesis OST / OC ReMix #1217] Jouni Airaksinen's back in short order with another hot-as-hell space mix, this time covering the Amiga side with Laser Squad. It's pretty cool that Mark has these connections with European game music composers, as Laser Squad Nemesis is the second game remake project he's represented on OCR following his massive bunch of submissions from Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters. It's not often you have a remixer that regularly impresses judges like Protricity & Dan Baranowsky, but Vera's got a lot of skills under his belt and this one's another highly proficient space game track that you'll need to hit up. For quality work on the European scene brought to North America you needn't look any further. Ork Estral (Nigel Simmons) - "Funny Crinkle Flakes" [http://nigel.has.it] Ork Estral (Nigel Simmons) - "Illusory Fields of Pink and Blue" [http://nigel.has.it] Here's my pick of the week. For those of you familiar with Ork Estral's remix work, and even some of his original material, Nigel is here this week to blow you away with experimental stuff that you'd practically never expect to hear from him. "Funny Crinkle Flakes" certainly has a very cool style of it's own that I can almost guarantee you'll be impressed by, and dammit, I'm gonna be keeping that one for a long time. But the real surprise I had here was "Illusory Fields of Pink and Blue" which had no orchestral foundations at all. This one's done in I guess what you would call an avant garde style (since I have no idea at all what you'd call it. The first time I heard this, I said "WTF?" and didn't really know how to react. The second time I heard this though, and got used to the structure, I loved it. There are lots of guys in the game remix community whom I particularly recommend when it comes to original compositions, including SuperGreenX & Star Salzman. But if you're going to check out Nigel Simmons, you absolutely have to download every single one of the 30+ originals he's got available and try them for yourself. These two pieces of his really present a stylistic range you may not have known he possesses. OverCoat - Azumanga Daioh "Chiyo Runs Away from Home!" [The People's Remix Competition: Animation 4] I have no idea what Azumanga Daioh is, but Scott has a cool folk-style mix from the anime for PRC:A4. As the only entrant, SOC was the undisputed winner, but this is some pretty cool stuff nonetheless. You not only get folk guitar for the base with very moody almost ethereal ambiance, but you get some live harmonica work as well for the latter half of the track to give you a different flavor. Aside from watching some of those harmonica levels, everything came together pretty nicely. In order to get something more accessible for the next compo, OverCoat's chosen a track from Noir as the next source tune for PRC:A5. OverCoat - "Give Me My Dreams!" [CompoST 26] It wouldn't be quite a full week without OverCoat coming out with some distorted ambient material, so you can check out his winning entry for SoundTempest's CompoST 26, where the genre choice of original game music was that of a dream world. Whereas most people would go for a more lighthearted take on the subject matter, Scott's instead gone for more of a piece where the dream's gone wrong, resulting in this sinister-sounding track that was strong enough to take the victory. The odd sounds and rough textures sound much more out of something you could find in the Resident Evil or Parasite Eve series, successfully creating quite the disturbing atmosphere. OverCoat - Super Metroid "Mommy Dearest" [VGMix2 #1915] Here's some industrial-strength horror work from OC to round out his contributions this week (he sure keeps busy). In a tribute to the crazy-as-hell Joan Crawford (awesome!), OverCoat tackles Minako Hamano's "Mother Brain" with nothing but raw power and some phat samples of Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in the role that was so damn good that the Blue Oyster Cult paid tribute to it in their 1981 hit "Joan Crawford (Has Risen from the Grave)". That was a damn good song from the BOC, but more importantly, this is just some cool work from the SOC. As you know, OverCoat's work isn't for everybody, but there's a lot of character behind it, especially this offering. "Clean up this mess." So good! OverCoat - "ur2hawt4me" [CompoST 27] BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Turn the volume DOWN! Shnabubula - Guardian Legend "Red Spiders" [OC ReMix #1218] With a name only a mother could love, Shnabubula makes his debut on OCR with what he self-described as a half-finished submission from the NES classique, Guardian Legend. With something this eclectic and scattered, I'm really glad it's not longer than two minutes. That's NOT to say that this is bad, because this is actually a pretty kickass idea here, but there's only so much that's acceptable when the construction is purposefully disjointed like this. This is pretty hot work that I'm sure the majority of listeners won't understand at all, but give it more than a mere chance. I thought this was odd, but the style grows on you and sounds a lot more logical as you get used to it. Short but sweet. Star Salzman - Xenogears "Pillar of Salt" [VGMix2 #1934] This here is, at this current point in time, what'd I'd consider the magnum opus of Star's mixing career. I've liked other tracks more than this, sure, but there is NOTHING that even touches the effort and creativity of "Pillar of Salt." With all the food, sweat and beers poured into the creation of this one, everyone knew this would be great. Like I said when I pimped the WIP of this last week, this is a hybrid of both Dazil & Omen from Yasunori Mitsuda's Xenogears soundtrack featuring two time signatures, 3/4 & 4/4, AND both Arabic & Hebrew lyrics (which can be found in full at the VGMix page). Seems like everything works in pairs. If you know Arabic fluently (zykO), you'll have to forgive Star for any pronunciation errors in the work (zykO), although it's great work especially for someone who isn't familiar with the language (right, weed? . Meanwhile, the Hebrew sections are immaculate. Dive in and prepare to hear Xenogears on an entirely different level. Truly excellent work that Star's got every right to be proud of. (But stop gloating in my face, bro! I don't care how many groupies it got you!!! tefnek - "Para Bellum" [http://www.tefnek.com] tefnek's latest original release is a dope breakbeat track with some ambient underpinnings that features samples of Dwight Eisenhower's D-Day speech 60 years ago. Fans only familiar with tefnek's big beat style from his Streets of Rage mix "Drop and Roll" get a slight change of pace here, although Jack actually produces breakbeat work just as often as he does big beat work. The tempo's at a nice pace here and the music get a little bit harder around the 2:40 mark when tefnek engages in some quasi-Crystal Method style action. This is certainly one you'd wanna check out to further familiarize yourself with tefnek's work. Keep on the lookout in the near future for his recently OC-accepted Raiden II remix "Airborne" as well. TO - Max Payne 2 "Keep on Distorting Everything" [The People's Remix Competition 20] Lee's winning entry into PRC20 took on the very challenging Max Payne 2 ending theme "Late Goodbye" by Poets of the Fall (a very, very nice track picked out by Bladiator). TO himself said this was crud, so we'll leave it at that! (Oh come on, it's not that bad dammit.) Check out PRC21 and follow the progress as TO's source tune choice from Descent gets the PRC touch. trickwaters - "A Final Fantasy Wedding Processional" [VGMix2 #1925] Pat's back at VGMix with his second orchestral-style release, this time with an ambitious FF medley that's titled in such an abstract manner that I have no conception what it's about. Seriously though, this is quite the lengthy piece that works as well as something like Jayson Litrio's "Dr. Wily's Wedding." Dear God, I don't plan on getting married, but I'm sure that this mix will serve some heartstruck gamers very well as they walk down the aisle and make the worst mistake of their lives...I mean...um...take on the vows of holy alimony...matrimony. Commenting on the actual mix, TW's samples at times have some flaws, but overall, I thought the progression of theme was excellent, with several false finishes that worked quite well. If u in wuv, u git it 4 yo BF/GF n say i luv u! ... I luv u. Unknown - "The Phantom Forge" [CompoST 25] Ty took first place for C25 early in the week with his take on an abandoned factory theme. Spooky st00f featuring eerie ethereal ambiance, bell tolls, some brief drums and a very "hollow" atmosphere if you get what I mean...of course you don't. Just go get it. zircon - Chrono Trigger "Calamitous Judgment" [VGMix2 #1594 / OC ReMix #1219] I've been with this one since it was first released last month, so let's go back to what I had to say about in for the June 26th Pimp Section: Luckily, I got to show my appreciation for this mix by helping to approve it for OCR, which you can check out here. This is straight up awesome work that finally makes zircon a breakout name!Zoast - Final Fantasy 6 "To All My Past Loves" [VGMix2 #1908] I took a closer look at this mix from Marshall Thorne once mv gave it props in his review for it on VGMix. With someone as proficient at mixing as Xavier endorsing it, I knew this would be pretty solid. This is primarily an acoustic guitar shot of "Forever Rachel" with some reverbed vox near the end provided by Zoast himself along with a touch of organ. Ironically enough, this is also the second piece this week with wedding written all over it, as Marshall specifically created this as music for a friend's wedding reception. This is some pretty relaxing stuff, and a good effort from Zoast, who I'll be keeping an eye out for from now on. It's FF6, you know you people out there want it. Zoltan Vegvari - Mega Man 3 "Intro Jazz" [OC ReMix #1221] For quite a while, I saw that this mix had been passed by the OC judges' panel, waiting to be posted. Yet it never went up on the site. Why why why? The wait was because they needed confirmation from Zoltan himself that this could be posted. As far as I know, this was only the second mix on OCR that was actually submitted by someone else for a friend (the first being Stephen Kennedy's Batman "Music of Funk" by Mustin). The production is meh, but that's not what's important here; this is some strong work led by Vegvari, a Hungarian jazz pianist turned music professor, featuring some light percussion and wind support. The pace is excellent, and the sounds work together nicely. Though I'd give anything to sharpen this track up with some remastering, Zoltan & crew won't do you wrong here. This is a nice, refreshing take on Bun Bun's MM3 intro that you might wanna plug to fellow (non-VGM) music enthusiasts. zykO - Faxanadu "Sketch of a Potentially Contrived Memory" [VGMix2 #1938] Crazy. This is some odd stuff from my man weed that takes all sorts of interesting turns as he cycles through several tracks from the Faxanadu soundtrack. Much like "Red Spiders" from Shnabubula, you'll appreciate this one if you can get past the perpetual style clash that seems to be going on throughout the track. Unlike Shnabubula's mix though, the style changes are even MORE dramatic and spontaneous. zykO must have been on the GOOD shit! I'm not trying to sound artsy-fartsy, but you can only appreciate this hybrid rock/piano/Spanish/acid smorgasbord after several very involved listens. The question for you is, are you up for the challenge? With the pimps out of the way, I guess I've gotta pimp myself as the newest OCR Judge. I've been regularly reading OCR judging decisions for over a year, I've listened to every OC ReMix, along with countless other VGM mixes & originals, I've given listener-based advice to tons of people in the community, and I feel I know the music standards of OCR better than any other person who actually doesn't create phat b33tz. I've been judging at OCR for less than a week, but it's already a lot of fun. I've managed to get through all of the current voting so far (give me a prize!), and a lot of the rendered decisions I've participated in have already been released to the public. Check 'em out (July 20th and after) over at the OCR Judges Decisions forum. Thanks to djpretzel for the welcome I got within zircon's debut mix, "Calamitous Judgment", along with Protricity & the other members of the panel for considering me for the job. I also don't wanna forget all the people who make the VG Frequency radio show what it is (the mixers & fans; we'll be back on in September), along with a big thanks to ravon and my fellow staffers at Ormgas.com, where VG Frequency has a true home. As far as hobbies go, a lot of people played important parts in getting me to this point. See ya next week, bros and sisters.

Heh. This certainly sounds like one Israfel could enjoy and enlighten me about. Need the original to compare this to though: http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FFXI_psf2.rar I suppose it may only be the FFXI Opening Theme or the Prelude, but I can't be sure (on dial-up). If anyone can find the original here out of these PSFs, lemme know. It sounds reminiscent of music from A Clockwork Orange; not completely like it, but it has some stylistic similarities. Potentially sounds like something I could YES. As Gray was thinking, if this is a straight playthrough from the FFXI Doremi Piano Solo Arrangement Book, that could be a problem too, although the instrument style here is certainly different than just a piano.

http://www.alpha-ii.com/snesmusic/spcsets/ed2.rsn - "Battle #1" The EQing's actually not bad on this one. Violin lead is very unnaturally done and needs dynamics. Some of the notes of the organ-like keyboard are bad if you pay attention to that area; same with the synth guitar during the section it had in tandem with the choir vox. The percussion's too generic here as well and doesn't really have anything going on. The ending a little too abrupt as well. All of the instruments are flat and lack energy. This likely is a MIDI/SPC rip of "Battle #1,", though I'll leave a potential NO Override up to someone else (I iz n00b juj). In any case, this is a cover mix that just doesn't have it. NO

http://www.alpha-ii.com/snesmusic/spcsets/sd3.rsn - "Swivel" (Highlands theme) Indeed, I remember this track from PRC8. Played it on VG Frequency back in February, although as TO mentioned the original remix was sans guitar. Thus, I confirmed with Lee that this is indeed dubbed "Electrion (Guitar Mix)" to reflect the additions. Considering that this current version is literally v1 with various guitar lines added, I thought the production on the combined tracks was excellent. The sound's pretty clean, and you can't even tell that this is two separate productions fused into one. Nearly none of FIDGAF's added guitar work took away from the ambient atmosphere TO originally established here. The percussion was pretty good (not great), but I enjoyed how the hip-hop beats was structured as well. I thought FIDGAF's support work was pretty nice. The timing on the guitar intro is noticeably odd, BUT with the way it progressed, as it synched up with the timing of TO's intro at 0:20, I thought it built a little bit of intrigue as to where this would be going. Good use of panning for the electricity sound effects from 0:19-0:40 (and later on) in the track. When the guitar swelled for the chorus (1:20-1:31 & 2:40-2:51) I thought it was mastered too loudly, as it was topping out the low mid-range frequencies while sounding shrill and somewhat overbearing compared to the rest of the music. Though loud and all up in my face there, the guitar overall was minimalist in some sections and powerful in others, yet sounding clean throughout, so props for that. We'll see if Vig and/or Danny B in particular thought it was solid. A subtle, 41-second fadeout, I see. That was actually a nice move. I would have liked to have heard FIDGAF do some more light freeform work of his own during some of the quieter areas, but overall, I can't complain. The rearrangement is pretty liberal, as this involves taking only the first 15 seconds of Swivel's melody (which, to be fair, is at a really fast tempo) and refashioning it into a somewhat different kind of theme, and I have to say that hearing sections such as the belltones at the 2-minute mark showed some of the most logical rearrangement ideas I've ever heard. TO's original compositional ideas seamlessly connected with the arranged game music. I would have enjoyed hearing some more sections from the source tune being applied in TO's liberal rearrangement style, but in some ways I can see why he didn't, since the source tune isn't that interesting IMO. Others might contend this is too liberal an arrangement, but I felt that it didn't branch too, too far out from the inspiration, despite the notable overhaul TO gave it. We'll see. I remember thinking back when this came out for PRC8 that I hoped TO wouldn't submit it, if only because it didn't have enough going on with it at the time. I felt adding FIDGAF to the picture created a lot more energy with this mix, while not overshadowing the subtle hip-hop beats and ambient sounds that made "Electrion" interesting in the first place. It's a very successful hybrid of styles. Solid work, bros. YES

I loved this mix and all the sounds used within it. I remember back when Shael was polling the WIP forums on whether or not he should replace the synth guitar with a real one, and I voted no. The synth guitar and retro effects here definitely weren't annoying to me at all, and the track has tons of character here thanks to the sound choices involved. The "bad note" at 1:37, I don't agree on. None of the notes hit me the wrong way and I thought the flow was good, not low-fi monotony. Having heard this track many times since April, I never had to get used to any type of "oddities" in the melodic progression when I first heard it. With that said, more could be done to make this feel different compared to the source tune. Like Dan said this is essentially a cover; the tempo change is nice, but the structure is so close to "The Tragic Prince" in both the melody and portions of the countermelody. Also, with the lead instrumentation so close to the original, the guitar dynamics here are noticeably not as realistic as the source tune's, which could possibly mean that some MIDI shortcomings weren't addressed. I wouldn't know for sure. Yet I really thought a lot of decent instrumental samples together in an effective way to give this track a genuinely different feel as an arrangement (not rearrangement), and that's totally notwithstanding the voice samples (which, frankly, weren't even used a lot and didn't come off as a crutch to me). I'm actually a little pissed that my choice wasn't easy for this, because before I heard the source tune I was ready to give this an easy YES. I don't like it at all, because either vote has some merit with me. Like I said though, I liked how all the sounds came together, and I'm sure I'm in the minority with this crowd when it comes to that, as this is pretty minimalistic. If this made it though, I believe it would have a genuine place here as a more straightforward style arrangement. YES (dancing with the borderline)

Percussion is really poor too. NO

This certainly takes a tefnek/big beat-type approach to Tetsuya Shibata's "Doll Eyes," but this just doesn't work. The intro synth is flat and sounds muddy, and I just knew the mastering was gonna be bad once I heard that. Props (in theory) for the semi-phat b33tz; you don't get too many tracks where turning on subwoofers would break them. That's all I felt this track had going for it, but hey...phat b33tz. During the second iteration of the melody from 1:13-1:28, you had only what I could describe as this odd, slimy-sounding ambiance underneath it that clashed with the keyboard. Both the piano AND keyboards were incredibly flat as well the whole way through, and the brief key change from 2:12-2:27 was a weak try at throwing a little variation in. For some reason, at 2:43 going into the fadeout, the bass pads and all the background activity stopped matching up in key with the piano notes you had. Overall, when you strip away the big beat foundations, there's not enough arrangement of the source material going on at all. Even if this passed the arrangement test, something EQed this poorly is just unacceptable. Check out the ReMixing forum for some mastering tips, Jasill, because this needs lots of refinement. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Xenogears_psf.rar - 207 "Gathering Stars in the Night Sky" Looks like I'm caught in a tight spot here. I sincerely believe this could have been riskier/more varied up without Kaijin sacrificing his more straightforward style or the gentle feel, but overall I thought the flow was relaxing and quality. While I don't think it couldn't have taken Tim that long to produce a short piece like this, I really liked all of the changes he made, with the intro, the gentle bass pad and acoustic guitar support underneath the melody, and the restyled chorus section done via the piano. Other judges didn't feel that these variations amounted to much overall, and I would have liked more myself, but that doesn't negate that they were made, even if they weren't dramatically different changes. The R&B beat was cheesy, but yeah, that's how it's supposed to be. I had 0 problem with the bass notes being too high, or any production-related problems, and harping about a fadeout ending is something Prot would typically do. There's nothing criminal about a fadeout. My problem was with the main melody. The fact that it was near-verbatim isn't the real point, since other aspects of the song were changed in what I at least felt was a satisfactory way. What really held me back on this was the fact that coming out of the chorus into the second rendition of the melody from 1:19-1:59, and the third from 2:29 to the end, there was near zero variation in the arrangement from the first iteration of the melody to the second and then to the third. This is a very short piece, yet there were surprisingly no notable changes to Tim's arranged melody that would have contributed some sort of development as the mix moved from verse to verse. Changing up the activity on the second bridge compared to the first was nice, but I didn't feel that was enough. The main melody here was the meat of the mix, yet that clearly wasn't varied enough, with only a light woodwind coming in during the second & third (fading) verse. That's not much at all. What about placing some of the support instruments, like the acoustic guitar, light keyboard, or woodwind, in a more prominent position in one of the verses, or at least trying another type of relaxing lead for one verse; something that would retain the gentle, laid-back approach while displaying some marked development with the arrangement? It's obvious that more could be done with the heart of the piece without, as Tim essentially put it, perverting the general approach of remaining close to the source material. The presence of some substantial development and/or changes in the nature of the instrumentation within the course of the track is all I would need to see this as over the line. This is almost grazing the line for me on account of the subtle changes I noted upon active listening, but in the end anything that intends to stay true to the structure of the original work needs to be more dynamic of an instrumentation upgrade to substantially change the feel of the track compared to the source material. NO (borderline)

I live in an apartment, so I don't have a yard, but you're welcome to poop in one of our flowerpots when I'm not looking.

As far as I know, I don't think there's any legal problem with gratuitous sound-clip usage. If we can have "Haunted Hell" and "Fear (Arrakis: Giga)" here, this one can be here as well. I feel pretty solid on this mix, but I'd still like to hear the source material here so I can vote on it. Can anyone hook me up? Edit: OH SNAP I GOTZ IT - http://dl.fileplanet.com/dl/dl.asp?classicgaming/castlevania/mp3/dx-025.mp3 http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/sony/ps1/tragic.mid

Unlike with Zelda, where an orchestrated-style version of the Overworld theme has already been used as in-game music and done for countless remixes, hearing "You're Not Alone!" done in the same orchestrated manner is at least a fresh genre choice for the source material. The samples are average but they aren't just flat-out crud, and I was impressed by how relatively well the dynamics turned out. Even though most of the instruments don't sound great, there's at least some meat on all of them and the manner in which they're produced is reasonably humanized. The first 10 seconds of the intro were bleh, but things certainly picked up after that. For those that would crap on the sample quality, I've heard way way worse. It's got a lot of finesse for something with samples like this. Personally, I'd rather hear OMG-by00tiful Gigasamples all day, but Tuba here has made quite a lot out of a little. The ReMixing forum should be consulted so Tuba can hook it up with some higher quality (and free) stuff for the future, but, otherwise, solid work. If this doesn't make it, I'll admit I won't die over it, but I can't hate on this. YES

Damn. I'm afraid Danny B below has it stated pretty well. I definitely heard the stylistic influence of Halo once I fired up the original material. Some of the vox is there, and the drum patterns have the same tempo and style, but nothing in the submission really follows any source tune progressions here. It felt like everything was inspired by 1:09 to 1:59, but this definitely doesn't fit the standards. This would be excellent original game music for, I dunno, Halo III. One thing I've observed about Justin that I like is that he's had both hits and misses with the submission process here yet, at least from what I've seen, he hasn't let any of the misses simply deter him from submitting more material. Personally I look forward to hearing what he'll offer next. I'm sure it'll have a more overt and direct connection to the source material I'll be down with. NO

I would have liked the melody's levels to be more prominant versus the big beat levels, but overall everything was very solid. All of the frequencies were rich and full, so props on the production side. I thought the dynamics on the lead strings were average though, as I listened to the movement from one note to the next. I've heard Star Salzman do a better job using those same string samples. The only thing I felt didn't gel with the big beat approach here was when the melody's notes went higher from 2:43 - 3:00. The energy of the finish at 3:48 was noticeably strong, but 1) that last cymbal hit at 4:23 completely rubbed me the wrong way as the strings were fading out, and then 2) some shrill synth faded in at 4:25, with the track immediately cutting off abruptly. (My copy of the track is 4:26 long. Anyone else have this problem? Maybe we need a fixed cut of the track just for that 2nd thing I mentioned.) I had all those very minor problems with the mix, but those don't undermine the overall quality of the mix. This wasn't as interpretive as the arrangement of "Drop and Roll" at ALL, but I know a high quality genre adaptation when I hear it and this was it. Thanks a lot, Jack, for providing us with the source tune for comparison as well. I wish more people would do that. Hot stuff. YES

I'm not so critical of this piece. There's clearly a lot of potential here. Some of the samples, though reverbed, come off flat, notably in the intro. I loved that keyboard-like support (started at 0:28) that you used throughout most of the track, and the 2:45-3:04 section was particularly good while it lasted. The percussion does need more behind it, but I wasn't bothered by the repetiton at all. Lots of small additions and subtractions helped keep it moving, and the overall energy was nice. The section from 1:07 to 1:25, where those strings were on top, didn't work at all. The strings sounded flat (though reverbed, once again) and the melodic flow of the notes was awful. Same thing from 2:04-2:45 and at 3:24 when the idea was used again. This was a pretty cool submission though, CC, and I enjoyed listening to it for a number of times. Like Prot said, attempting to improve even just one lacking area could hook this up. Perhaps the ReMixing forum could give a few tips on refining some of the sample sounds through further effects and/or tightening up the melody on those synth string sections. I'd love to hear a resubmission. NO (resubmit)

Like Prot said, I definitely liked the intro going up until 1:20. Good stuff. After that, I heard some nice transitions and a few hope spots for actual rearrangement early on, but generally everything for the first few minutes was just source themes with marching drums and orchestral stuff placed underneath it, which is really generic. People have to learn to do more with the Zelda Overworld theme beyond simplistic orchestration. It's been done, and it's been done a lot. Once it got past 4:30 and Robo started rearranging things, I enjoyed this much more. Both Unknown & Nixdorux already have the Zelda orchestral side of rearrangement covered, so ANY Zelda mix in this style's gonna need a lot going for it, including sample strength. Like The Wingless said, I do hear the effort and dedication involved here, but I felt the rearrangement presence needed to be much heavier. Of course, the samples need improvement as well, but I wouldn't YES if the samples were professional. Nonetheless, Robo should hit up the ReMixing forum and check out Greg Kennedy's "Mixing For Free" guide for some sample help. In any case, I'd like to hear something more thought out from 1:20 to 4:30. The rest was pretty commendable, sample quality aside. NO

I loved it. Period.

Kevin Stephens' otherwise-nice FF4 piano medley "Four Fantasies" was rejected 9 months ago for essentially the same problems as this one. Sequenced piano pieces have relatively high standards at this site, since, if a mixer isn't using a real piano, it's really important that the production be humanized with reasonably natural dynamics/velocities. As I can see from the submission letter, the attempt was made, but you can hear that it wasn't sucessful. I really enjoyed this though, Josh. If you dedicate time towards learning how to more effectively humanize this piece and others like it down the line, you'll only be that much more proficient at creating the sounds you want. The ReMixing forum here should have information that could help you out in those regards and/or you could post this in the Works: OC ReMixes forum and receive some feedback and advice via that route or even find people who'd be willing to assist you by humanizing this themselves or even playing the sheet music for you. Blak_Omen has gone that route and achieved a posted submission that way. The arrangement is already what we'd accept, so please consider resubmitting if/when you achieve a more natural sound. NO (resubmit, please)

Boy, this was thin. Both basses had no meat on them whatsoever, though 1:25-2:04 at least sounded decent/promising. And that MIDI choir...yep. Everyone basically covered what was going on here. NO

"Beta version," i.e. "we didn't do anything." God bless you, NO OVERRIDE. God bless you.

Since we can't take 7MB version, we can ask weed for a 128KB version if this actually passes. I thought zykO's guitar work was perfectly fine (Vig'll kill me on that) and featured enough natural subtle variation throughout the 5 1/2 minutes to keep things interesting. Nothing came across to me as grating, and the style's purposefully much more relaxed and loose than a lot of the guitar mixes you'd hear in the community. It was nice listening to the mix and simply focusing in on the guitar work. It's minimalist in the coverage of the source material, but the same issue that the judges had a few months ago with "River City Rap" for example doesn't exist here, IMO. I would have liked to have heard literally any variation in the drum pattern, which otherwise sounded full and provided the beat. As that's generally how hip-hop/rap beats are structured, I've got no problem with it. As for not feeling the rapping, I completely disagree. It's rough around the edges and I'm not oblivious to the minor rhythm issues, but the rhymes are solid as hell, sounding more like a freestyle than meticulously pre-planned material, thus I don't mind all the words not flowing 100% perfectly. Nothing over the course of the lyrics sounded like some sort of jarring misstep. As for the issue of musical repetitiveness, I think the criticism's valid but it's also in part an issue of how well you feel the lyrics hit you since those two elements are co-dependant here. Myself, I enjoyed the lyrics and thereby wasn't bored with the music while listening to them, but that depends on who you are. For me, weed's lyrics have a level of complexity and sophistication that encourages attentive listening. This is raw but solid work on both the instruments and the lyrics; organized enough where I don't feel any of the imperfections are a significant detraction at all. YES