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Liontamer

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Posts posted by Liontamer

    OCR04654 - *YES* Bastion "The World That Was"

    in Judges Decisions

    Posted

    Artist Name: Outset Initiative

    I originally composed this remix in 2019 for the Materia Community album "EXILE: A Tribute to Supergiant Games". This song has always been a personal favorite of mine from the Bastion soundtrack, and it was certainly one of the more challenging pieces I've to worked on to date. Darren's guitar performance makes up so much of the feeling of the original, which isn't something that you can just translate into midi. Since I wasn't using any guitars in my composition, I decided to directly follow the chord structure from the original to make sure there was always a clear link back to the source. That gave me a bit of freedom to have some fun and riff on the piano, which gives the track a loose jazzy feeling that I really enjoy.

    Due to some poor mixing decisions I made on the first iteration of this track, I decided to shelve the remix after the album launched and not to submit to OCR. The community album ended up getting pulled from distribution a few years later, which was a bummer... but it did give me an opportunity to revisit the track. I had some inspiration and free time a few weeks ago and decided it would be fun to resurrect the project and re-mix it from scratch. It was an enjoyable process and gratifying to see how much my process has changed and improved over the last few years. It's amazing how much you can do with tight EQing and a clear vision of how you want the track to feel and how each instrument should fit into the mix. I ended using probably 1/4 of the plugins as the original version and the difference is night and day. It's a good reminder that less can certainly be more, especially in our digital world where there's a plugin for everything.

    I'm quite glad I took the time to come back to this one – I hope y'all enjoy!

    OCR04639 - *YES* Super Metroid "Phytotoxin"

    in Judges Decisions

    Posted

    Artist: 744

    In keeping with the not-intentional theme of submitting two themes from the same game in a row (FTL and now Super Metroid) here's my first-ever attempt at drum 'n bass. After having listened to the Unreal Tournament, Bomberman Hero, and Orbo's Odyssey soundtracks a bit too much, and having gotten very stuck in a DnB kind of mood, I ditched two previous attempts at covering this theme and started over a third time.

    Since this piece doesn't do a lot with regard to chord modulation, there's some orchestral breaks and switches between a rock beat and back to DnB to maintain some variety. I used some of the Xtreme Lead and Proteus 2000 patches used in the Metroid Prime soundtracks. There's a specific one used in the Metroid Prime 2 multiplayer battle mode theme, which is itself a remix of the Brinstar jungle theme, and a choir patch used in the Meta Ridley theme from Prime 1, to add some...authenticity, is the word that comes to mind? These sounds have that bespoke "alien planet" sound to them and ooze pure Metroid. I also decided to give Logic's new Beat Breaker a shot, and naturally immediately went overboard with stuttering glitch effects just because I was having probably too much fun playing around. I tossed in a few lightly processed sound effects from the game as an accent where they seemed appropriate (credit to "latranchedepain" and sounds-resource.com for making those available from a quick search.)

    I'm not great at track titles, so enjoy a dictionary word relating to poisons from plants! Other track title suggestions I received included "Green Kill Zone," "why this room pink," and "PLANTS" so I think "Phytotoxin" is acceptable enough in comparison.

    Thanks to the folks in the Discord (esp. Hemo) for some useful feedback, and thanks for listening!

    -Ben

    *NO* Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Back from the Sewers "Remix Medley"

    in Judges Decisions

    Posted

    The treatment of the cartoon TMNT alone until 1:22 was extremely repetitive (and using it so much violates   our standards   re: non-VGM source tune usage, as previously mentioned).

    Ignoring that though, it's definitely going to be tough to do something stylized enough where a faux electric guitar sample isn't going to sound relatively low quality, even if it has flair to it. The percussion for the 1:22 section with those rim hits was just mixed in too loudly. Lots of shrill mixing here; the overall textures would sound stronger with appropriate EQ cuts.

    No transitions from theme to theme either (e.g. 1:22, 2:32, 3:51, 4:08, 4:49, etc., etc.), which means we're in medleyitis territory where the track doesn't flow like a unified composition and is full of quick themes and abrupt transitions (also frowned on re: our arrangement standards). Would love to hear you, Astroverse, flesh out one of two of these themes with an interpretive and personalized arrangement approach though!

    NO

    *NO* Puzzle Bobble "Highscore Jam!"

    in Judges Decisions

    Posted

    Intros with the sampled original audio before transitioning into the arrangement at :18. The mixing's not clean at all, but the bassline's phat and the overall sound's impactful; will look to the musician Js for feedback on cleaning the soundscape up. Even though the percussion pattern wasn't changing (and should have varied more), the textural change at :37 was welcome. Sax solo at :57 was a fun idea over the top of the source and a nice way to further personalize the sound. The ending was relatively abrupt, IMO, but if a longer and more developed arrangement ended this way, I'd have to live with it; if you're not going to fashion more of a resolution, consider some sort of trailoff so the ending has some room to breathe.

    At barely a minute's worth of arrangement, Magoo, you'll need to flesh out this concept more, but you're moving in the right direction. See what more you can do to continue varying up the presentation of the theme; a variation on the beats, dropping them out and changing the overall instrumentation for another iteration, adding a wholly original composition section or adding other original countermelodies; there's lots of potential directions to take things in to achieve a more substantial arrangement. Good start here!

    NO (resubmit) 

    *NO* Puzzle Bobble "Highscore Jam!"

    in Judges Decisions

    Posted · Edited by Liontamer
    closed decision

    Artist: Magoo

    A fun, hip hop inspired take on the original Puzzle Bobble theme. Wanted to keep the playful vibe of the original while making it into more of a head-bobber. Sax solo for extra good vibes. Highscore achieved!

    Games & Sources

    Puzzle Bobble // Neo Geo MVS

     

    *NO* Ys 3 "The Boy with Jet Boots"

    in Judges Decisions

    Posted

    Pretty lo-fi in terms of the overall sound, and I wish the core beat was more sophisticated with the writing, but it's getting it done, and I respect the approach.

    Hahahaha, OK, shizzle went kafrizzle and now the track's just in the left channel from 1:30-2:05. You know what, I thought I'd be more annoyed by this based on the other Js reactions, but, even though I wouldn't mind that segment to be briefer, I'll live, and I actually like the overall tone of the track changing, which was actually a very nice touch along with the hiss. It's like the tape got messed up, and was pulled off nicely. In fact, I'm actually more annoyed that the track's energy seemed so reserved once that left-channel-only gimmick ended at 2:05.

    At 2:05, the soundscape's pretty muddy and busy, but the core beats still feel the same as what we heard in the beginning, so the track's overall progression feels flat, which is undermining the attempt at dynamic contrast, even when things got denser at 2:39. If there's a way to update/vary the core beat pattern at the heart of this without compromising the vision, I'd love that.

    I may be overstating the issue, because there's other creative writing going on in that final minute, but when you listen to this, the creativity of that final section's undermined not only by the core beat coasting but by the mixing being cluttered. Again, I could argue with Mike that it's a feature, not a bug, but it wasn't that to me.

    In any case, I'm gonna stay open-minded. This isn't ideal, but this is very nicely transformative and the hard panning gimmick was actually creative and well done. Nah, we ride.

    YES

    OCR04656 - *YES* Super Metroid "Brinstar Depths (Sin City Mix)"

    in Judges Decisions

    Posted

    As soon as the beat came in, I was excited. Even though this isn't a huge melodic change, I've also never heard this theme approached with this kind of sound palette. Love the way the core beats have lots of power; they fill out the soundscape well. I liked the brief original writing that was like a countermelody from 1:03-1:14, and would have loved that to stay involved. I also would have loved to have had this take some distinct melodic or rhythmic turns, which'll sound like I didn't like Mike's approach; to me, it felt like the sound design ideas were so enjoyable that there could have also been good mileage out of other writing ideas together with these instrumentation choices, and that's just excitement over that writing potential, not disappointment at what we have. Very cool stuff that beefed up this classic theme well!

    YES

    *NO* Croc "Cave 3"

    in Judges Decisions

    Posted

    Basically a sound palette change, though I liked the tone of things. Basically could be a MIDI rip for all I know. The claps sounded very barebones and exposed, but at least there was some attention given towards making this sound spookier. Needs more melodic interpretation as well as overall dynamics and variation over time; right now, everything's pretty by the numbers and the core beat plodded over time. Fun, but just a cover and an underdeveloped arrangement, I'm afraid, Str1ctur3. But keep adapting things and seeing how you can add more of your own personality and ideas into the picture for these sound upgrade renditions and you may just walk into a more interpretive arrangement over time.

    NO

    *NO* Phantasy Star 4 "Motavia"

    in Judges Decisions

    Posted

    Not a bad sound upgrade (albeit with pretty exposed string samples), but boy doesn't this sound lossy and muddy; not sure what happened here to degrade how this sounds, and it's at the DAW level or something with the encoding settings.

    Melodically, Str1ctur3, there's not much going on with interpretation, and at 1:57 the track basically looped with no further ideas, development, or variations. Again, not a bad sound upgrade aside from the mixing being poor, but definitely very underdeveloped (and the track unceremoniously cut off).

    A decent starting point, but a very limited approach together with poor mixing that undermined the positive improvement in the sample quality compared to the original track. 

    NO

    OCR04628 - *YES* Donkey Kong Country 2 "Truthful Symphony"

    in Judges Decisions

    Posted

    Artist: NyxTheShield

    This remix is heavily inspired by "T-Square - Truth" sound and "vibe", but without taking any elements directly from it. I always wanted to make a jazz fusion DKC cover and I felt this was the perfect opportunity to do so while paying homage to my inspirations. I hope you enjoy it!

    Games & Sources

    DKC2 - Stickerbush Symphony by David Wise

    *NO* Stardew Valley "Memories of Grandpa"

    in Judges Decisions

    Posted

    What's here's in a vacuum is cool; if this theme were made for a mid-80s NES game, this would fit right in. There's nothing inherently wrong with a demake, but there's also not much intepretation going on beyond the adaptation to this soundset, so it unfortunately falls outside of the kind of arrangements we're looking for at OCR. Even at 1:00 when you get a fuller sound, it was like the track stopped and started over (rather than connected sections flowing together). Would love to hear a melodically interpretive rendition of this as an 8-bit theme if you were game, but a cool creative exercise regardless, Moonset!

    NO

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