Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Lovely stuff from the start. Being able to hear things more closely in my headphones, the bowed strings are in the uncanny valley, but of course still well beyond the quality level we need for a mockup, and it's not like they're a weak link or causing a quality disparity vs. the other sounds. After a genteel intro, the beats were brought in at 1:08 and added good movement here. Snare that cameo'ed at 1:34 was too loud for me, but as a point of contrast, it was a great momentary rise in energy for the drums; all of the drum writing sounds intricate and varied, and these evolving textures are great as the energy level continued to gradually escalate. Nice little dropoff at 2:17 before changing the textures again at 2:30 with beautiful, understated support from the acoustic guitar. Electric guitar joined in at 2:55, then ratcheted things up with some quick soloing at 3:11 before taking over as the melodic lead. It seems like the ending cut out a moment too soon, so we can ask about that. Both the instrumentation and arrangement were very impressive. As a conceptual contrast, very fun to hear Zack go collaboration maximalist with his FF7 DoD entry compared to being a one-man army for this FF6 DoD entry. Talented in whatever musical direction he wants to go in, it's safe to say. :-) YES

Cool instrumentation choices. If you can get it sounding more fluid/humanized, the concept has legs. :-)

The source breakdown was truly appreciated, thank you! Everything was right where you said it was, which made the source usage a mere check-off, which then allowed me a fresh second listen to just enjoy the overall evolution of the track. I liked the sound design overall and you managed to personalize your sound compared the source mainly by going so beat-driven, but also through different instrumentation choices for the different source segments you referenced, some cool textural changes, and some cool moments of moving around the stereo field. Everything had a dense and delayed sound, though it feels like it's missing a little something; would love to hear Chimpazilla's POV, because there's even more untapped intensity here, IMO, especially with the kicks, but it doesn't get there. More nitpicks: would have loved hearing some occasional areas of clarity as another contrast opportunity, especially because the effects tended to feel samey after a while. Also, more (subtle) variations with the loud core beat pattern when it was in play would have helped, because it felt like it had only had the one main pattern when it was on. Maybe someone else can better articulate what I mean with my nitpicks, but either way nothing close to dinging this though, just observations worth noting. Great theme choice, and I enjoyed your treatment, which stayed dark yet managed to have its own personality. Argle: "I think it works?" YES

I've never heard the previous two versions, so I'm visiting this sub with fresh ears. I also voted on the revised version Seth included in his comments after he said he noticed the mixing was wrong. Opens up with a rise in volume of a pad, followed by some basic synths and claps at :13. The theme arrives at :25 and there's some decent density to start. The theme's there, but this is texturally scant despite all this volume. Volume doesn't equal fullness in terms of the writing; right now, the beats sound really barebones. Hits the chorus at :55 and there's countermelodic supporting writing until 1:22 that sounds off-key, though it's relatively quiet. The melody's quietly brought in from 1:36-1:47 in a way that also sounds sluggish and off-key, like it's being chorused or delayed; not sure what's going on there. Once it hit the chorus from :54-1:22, the interpretation of the source melody itself felt very minimal and straightforward. This combination of sounds doesn't make sense when the percussion, beats, and bass are so minimalist and basic, yet it's surrounded by this busy-sounding yet off-key ornamentation underneath the melody. 1:49 transitions into what's seemingly an all-original composition section where the volume's loud while the texture feels very basic. More off-key supporting writing underneath the melody from 2:18-2:46 that sounds pretty bad on headphones but might not stand out as much on monitors; this writing sounds like it's meant to be doubling the lead, but it sounds clashing the whole way through. I grew up on this theme, but I'm sorry if I'm not recognizing something taken directly from the theme from 1:49-2:18; I couldn't make out any connection. From 2:18-on, I don't recognize that stuff from the source tune either, but it's possible it's taken from some sort of quitter supporting writing in the source or I'm just ignorant in recognizing some sort of interpretation. The source melody could bear more interpretation and/or variation, the beat-writing is too simplistic, the beats do have some weight to the sound, yet they don't fill the soundscape enough to not let the overall track seem thin, and the densest section are filled with off-key writing adding noise instead of substance. The less dense sections work better on account of the lack of clashing background writing and are, arguably, the track's best feature, yet those sections *still* feel texturally empty, so it's a tough approach to get this to a place where it could rise above the bar here. (I see you in the community, so the links are more for posterity and for others who may see this feedback and want to take part). That said, Seth, Audiomancer tried 10 separate times with one track before his debut mixpost, so if you have the sticktuitiveness to regularly use the community resources on the Workshop forums and on the Discord server for more feedback and guidance, maybe you can be another success story. NO

The core beat pattern at :11, :34, :45, 1:30, and 2:05 ended up overused by the end, but there were enough changeups in the part-writing supporting the source melody to make that beat repetitiveness a non-issue. Kind of crunchy when it comes to the mixing, so some of the supporting writing was obscured, but nothing beyond a personal preference nitpick there. Nice formula for source tune personalization, primarily done by never letting the instrumentation or textures rest on their laurels for too many measures. The end result was that this packed a lot of evolution in its short runtime. We'll see if the other Js agree that the treatment was substantial enough, given how short this is. Folks may also notice that the track loops perfectly, which was also a nice touch. :-) YES

Cool contrast of the bright, bubbly theme being given much darker undertones. Y'all pulled it off well! Lots of effective changes in the instrumentation and textures to keep the piece evolving. Really strange direction to take it in, but it's embraced wholeheartedly, so you've sold it to me. ;-) YES

It'll seem like I disliked the piece when I mainly hear lots of unrealized potential. This was texturally empty, just way too thin and simplistic, which was unfortunate after a very promising intro with a cool sound. The volume of the elements in play doesn't make up for the relative lack of complexity here. Finally some beats come in at 1:26 to thicken things up more, but the part-writing is very straightforward and lacks that next level of sophistication. prophetik said maybe there's not enough arrangement, and I get where he's coming from, but he's mistaken in how he attempted to articulate the issue. This is presented in a melodically straightforward manner, and that's fine. What was missing here was more complexity in the accompanying parts and more creativity in the sound design. This is already going in the right direction in terms of different instrumentation and different sound design, the combination of which does help this stand apart from the feel of the original, but clearly not enough yet based on prophetik's reaction. But this sounds like a work-in-progress, not a fully developed and finished piece. Something like Charlie Atom's "Toriel's Pain" isn't where our bar has to be, but it's a great example of a melodically straightforward rendition with way more attention paid to the detail work of supporting writing that adequately fills in the textures, and killer sound design. That's not the bar, but it's a genuine North Star. This is a solid start, Noga, but it still needs more writing complexity behind the melody and other sound design ideas to further personalize your take. Even if you don't end up reworking this one, you can definitely be proud of how far you've come with this. There's a lot of untapped potential though, so hopefully you keep developing your craft. If you haven't already, consider joining our Discord for more feedback and/or using our Workshop forum resources. NO (resubmit)

Oh wow, all the years I've heard EarthBound's music, I don't think I've ever listened to this one. Didn't recognize it, but it's a nice piece! This arrangement in an of itself feels like original game music when it comes to the overall sound quality and fidelity, like late-stage SNES soundtrack music from a different palette than EarthBound. By going this route though, lots of humanization, expressiveness, and production options were sacrificed. SNES vibes aside, the opening sounds still feel super basic and vanilla, but it's potentially all in how you use these sounds, so we'll see how that plays out. The timing of beats feels very locked to grid with a plodding core pattern (:01-:57, 1:38-2:17). The first verse at :17 the leads felt relatively lively despite being programmed in, but the overall sound is very silted, there's not really any getting around that. Organ at 1:06 was very flimsy-sounding, but it's meant to sound more stylized. I don't know music theory, and my ears aren't primed to pick out wrong notes, but, unlike prophetik, I didn't a single thing that stood out as bad/wrong notes, I just heard supporting writing lacking direction and synergy (e.g. :34-:49, 1:54-2:09). Machine gun drum kicks from 2:24-2:25 that are fleeting but do sound low-quality. The arrangement does go for a more upbeat feel but when prophetik said "what most of the instruments are saying is bland or looped a lot - like the drum patterns and backing organ", that's correct to me, and I'll go back to the stilted timing and plodding beats. It's cool for a chiptune aesthetic, but it also feels very limited instrumentally. I've heard fan-made 8- and 16-bit-style chiptunes and MIDIs all sound more fluid and expressive than this, so I'd have to see something like that done here. The goal seems to be to stick to SNES soundtrack-level sophistication, which is fine, it just falls outside of our production standards, IMO. There's good potential in your music-making as long as you keep at it, Rhino. NO

Great source tune choice, ripe for expansion. Vanilla-sounding synth to open things up, but obviously a stylized approach, so let's see where it goes. Melody arrives at :17, and the overall textures are basic but reasonably full, with the caveat being that it ought to further flesh out, IMO. Sampled amen break drums are brought in at :58 and those seem like a square peg in a round hole, but I'll live. Some added beats come in at 1:27 and this is definitely fuller, though melodically this is already very repetitive. 1:59 dropped out the lead and just had the countermelody with beat accompaniment, which was a good direction to create some contrast. Then 2:32 continues with a skeletal progression plus beats before finally getting back to the source melody on lead at 3:04, which feels like a cut-and-paste once the beats returned at 3:12. An addition to the beats at 3:32 for some more movement underneath. At 4:01, there was another countermelodic line added to the melody, but despite that I still literally said out loud "Enough already!" with this lead. If you're not going to vary up the melodic presentation, that's OK, but I'd argue at least vary up the instrumentation of the lead and/or countermelody lines more often to keep the overall feel from sounding too static. Even though the textural changes are a good idea, I'm still fatigued from the leading elements sounding the same practically the whole way and a relatively slower pace. This is a great start, Bionic! I'm interested to hear what the other Js think; I think from a genre transformation perspective, this is a pretty solid result, but it needs more sophistication and variation with the leads and sound design to really be strong and not drag out over time. NO (resubmit)

Like proph said, this takes you on a journey, and it's a strong example of retaining the melodic fundamentals but giving this a different mood via the instrumentation. The sound palette's not my personal taste, though the throwback feel of the synths definitely gave this some 80s energy with some cinematic flair. A Short Hike fans are gonna be feasting with the amount of subs we've gotten from it recently. :-D YES

need to confirm name if accepted as artist has changed the submission record's name several times -proph Artist Name: Toxicsquall I undertook a remix project of this composition, beginning with the importation of the original MIDI data into ODESI and DJ Studio. From there, I applied structural rearrangement techniques and modern audio mixing processes. To give the piece a distinctive Brazilian influence, I incorporated local elements such as the cavaquinho, cornetas, traditional percussion (batuque), vocal layers, beatboxing, and prominent basslines. This remix serves as a personal homage to Brazil. While not aiming for hyper-stylised grandeur, I hope it provides an enjoyable and culturally rich reinterpretation of the original. Source breakdown (from comments): 00:00:00 The chordal touches originally played on piano are now reimagined with vocal samples and funk-style sounds. Words like "vai", "chão", and the made-up term "Garchãopi" are introduced. "Garchãopi" is a pun blending the Portuguese word "chão" (floor), often heard in funk music, with the Pokémon name "Garchomp" due to their similar pronunciation. 00:00:39 This part is a rearrangement of the original song, keeping the piano and other instruments but with a funk beat in the background. 00:01:11 At this point, I introduce a Brazilian accordion and use some "builder" effects to add progression. 00:01:25 Here, I transition from funk to a more pagode-style rhythm typical of Rio de Janeiro, while still retaining funk elements to maintain a consistent rhythm. 00:02:00 This is an original section of mine that blends pagode, samba, and funk, with some harmonica (gaita) flourishes added in. 00:02:29 Once again, I start with a loud "vai!" and switch instruments to cornets and saxophones, preserving the song's structure—what was once played on piano is now interpreted by different instruments. 00:03:33 An original segment using playful vocal effects like “tchu” and “tchã tchã” along with the instruments introduced earlier. 00:04:33 We return to the structure of the original track, but now include more Portuguese words, such as “vai”, “desce”, “sobe”, “chão”, and “Garchomp”. 00:05:36 Cornets are reintroduced, and I build up the tempo for a crescendo that reestablishes the song's core structure using the cornets, much like a cinematic character entrance. 00:06:22 Subtly, I introduce the word “chão” in a rhythmic pattern in the background while the cornet continues playing. 00:06:42 The style now shifts to Funk Paulista, moving away from previous references to Rio funk. Heavier bass, synthesised sounds, and distorted low-end frequencies begin to dominate. 00:07:26 I maintain the original structure, but instead of piano, I use synthesisers and merge in elements of Funk Mandelão, technofunk, heavy bass, beatbox, and syncopated hi-hats with rhythmic 2 & 4 beats (kick-snare-kick-snare). Games & Sources The original battle theme for Champion Cynthia, featured in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, was composed by Junichi Masuda, widely recognised for his work on the Pokémon series’ iconic soundtracks. I applied structural rearrangement techniques and modern audio mixing processes, incorporated local elements such as the cavaquinho, cornetas, traditional percussion (batuque), vocal layers, beatboxing, and prominent basslines.

Artist Name: Azina As far as arrangements go, this begins with only small shifts. Fae-like playful piano accents electric guitar performing the harmonic structure typically played on piano. This continues until the second loop where a heartbeat rhythm is established in the low end, and choir-esk vocals underpin the now gently distorted main melody. The piece ends with a demure "victory theme" of my own making. Games & Sources The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toru_Minegishi Link to the composer; apparently he's the one who composed the gamecube startup sound. Oh, it just embeds here, I didn't think it would do that

Artist Name: 7DD9 This remix is about exploring Dr. Eldon Tyrell's pyramid in the Blade Runner universe. Vintage synths have taken over to create the proper atmosphere and mood for the listener. My love for this type of creation is strong as an old school guy and as a Blade Runner and Vangelis fan of course. I remember when I was a kid, I would wake up in the morning and run to put the cassette to load the game and listen to its music for hours. ...So Rick Deckard this time meets the Scarabaeus Astronaut... Games & Sources Game : Scarabaeus (1985) Music Soundtrack : Main Theme Original C64 composition by Csaba Nagy (perhaps) Scarabaeus, known in America as Invaders of the Lost Tomb, is a computer game released for the Commodore 64 in 1985. It was written in Hungary by Andromeda Software and distributed in the UK by Ariolasoft. Original tune :

You're a real one for this tribute; thank you sincerely for it! I only knew of Stéphane Picq's work through the 90s Dune game soundtrack (boy, you'd do a great job with any of those themes too -- check out Dune: Spice Opera!), so I appreciate being introduced to more of his work. Great energy with this original. Pretty crunchy intro; I liked the feel better when that cleared up at :51. Nice stuttering/gating/fuckery from 1:04-1:17, that was fun! As soon as I was typing out "Great rock treatment", we hit a purely electronic section at 1:30 that was also cool before a rocked out transition at 1:50. Ah man, the acoustic cameo at 2:57 was so cool. Love the back and forth integration of the guitars; this is a wonderful example of a fusion piece where seemingly disparate instrumentation goes together so well; love the chimeric style and flow here, not unlike "Speedy Guitar" or "Behold the Winged Cathedral" in its own unique way. :-) YES

With Michael, you learn to trust the process. Interesting and immersive sound design experimentation per his usual, that's a given. Nice mileage out of these minimal themes; how you sonically beefed them up AND built around them was impressive. :-) YES

Pretty crunchy original dnb writing to start. Oh, bummer, at :57, it's the beginning of snippets of the source audio itself being used, then it's fully brought in on top of the beats from 1:29-2:14. It'll sound like I'm saying we dislike the track when it's a fun remix (proph means it's not an arrangement). We're called OverClocked ReMix (capital R, capital M) as more of a brand name that sounded cooler than "arrangements", so people interchangably call things "remixes" here when that's not what we're actually doing. I'm sorry to say in this case here though, Stavrin, we're *not* a traditional remixing site, we're an arrangement site, as in the source material is played back or performed on different instrumentation, not directly sampled and not just note-for-note. This falls outside of our Submission Standards, but it's still an enjoyable remix for sure! If you'd want to learn more about making VGM arrangements, join our Discord and/or use our Workshop forum resources. NO Override

Cool cover, Jonathon, and thank you for sending it our way. :-) I appreciate you running down the various instrumentation aspects involved, which was very creative to use here. prophetik's right that, although this is a brilliant cover, this is essentially a find-replace of the source's part-writing with your (strong) sounds there's no structural difference with this version vs. the original, including just hitting the loop point at :53 and repeating the same stuff for 2 more loops. We're looking for substantial interpretive and transformative aspects of arrangement, even if an arrangement is otherwise melodically conservative. In the writeup for this ReMix, I link 10 other examples of melodically conservative yet overall transformative arrangements we've posted https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR04414. If you're ever interested in fleshing out a more developed, evolving arrangement, your instrumentation and mixing already sounded very solid! Join our Discord and/or use our Workshop forum resources if you're not against taking that kind of journey. NO

Whenever I vote, I like to pretend/assume that there's absolutely no way the track can be revised, because it forces you to decide if it's above the line or not, rather than judging it on what you think the track's potential is after a revision. I agreed with Chimpazilla on the sax mixing not feeling as integrated in the soundscape. That said, it's not something that stuck out to me without it being pointed out by her first, and I can also totally live with this. Performance sounds great for our bar, not just the sax, everything else too; though the higher notes on the piano clearly expose the sample's limitations, the piano and upright bass overall sound good as well, this completely clicks for me. When I heard this on The NO Show, I qualified things by mentioning that I'd need to hear this on my setup, as it was possible the mixing issues would stand out more; just off of that listen, it was sounding like a YES to me. Now that I hear it for myself on my headphones, this is lovely, lovely, intimate smoky jazz. Great weaving of the source themes, hugely personalized. IMO proph's higher-level sax skillz make performance flaws stand out more for him than the average bear, making him too tough on it, especially because the arrangement's very substantive, which we both agree to. This isn't HonkSax™ and this overall execution isn't anywhere below our hobbyist bar. Hyperbolic for a reason, because I'll come off like I'm browbeating Brad or flipping a table. 100 out of 100 times -- not 99 out of 100 -- something like this should be approved or it means our collective bar needs recalibration for being too tough. Are we gonna mess this up? :-P Pipko, April, Lampie, kudos! :-) YES

The claps in the intro were wearing thin, so I'm glad they bowed out. JSABlixer's take in the NO Show chat was accurate for me; the first half was interesting, yet the second half didn't keep me hooked and ran out of steam. proph felt the sampled vocal integrations were solid, though they felt more stapled on top for me. The drums, which were solid samples, eventually felt like they were mostly on auto-pilot of just changing every few measures at cutoffs that just seem too squeaky clean; nothing feels organic/human about the part-writing, it's feel very gridded out, like OK a few bars of this, then change the entire patten a few bars later; I wish I could better articulate that, but I do hope you'll ask around about it. The second iteration of the melody could use more distinct variation or difference from the first besides the lead sound. The piece's overall tone doesn't distinctly stand apart from the original enough; it's not non-existent, but it's not enough. Right now, this is more about the additive part-writing, which isn't a comparatively distinct enough presentation from the original. There's definitely a place for an approach like this, as H36T has shown several times with other ReMixes; this needs more something/anything substantive/different. I'm open to whatever direction you might be willing to take this in, if interested. NO (resubmit)

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

Artist Name: Argle Finally a truly new remix. Not just old, or old-new, but new new. It's from my favorite ARPG and one of my very favorite games ever, Grim Dawn! GD is the perfect amount of complexity and build crafting for me, without tipping over the line into needing a master's degree in Excel spreadsheets for something like Path of Exile. Anyway, the track seeks to answer the question, "How much distortion?" To which the answer is, Yes. I may not have many through lines as an artist but a style I enjoy revisiting periodically is the "cinematic industrial" vibe of my Metroid Prime or FF6 Fanatics tracks. The moody OST of Grim Dawn seemed perfect for this. I didn't set out to use an EDM style four-on-the-floor beat from the beginning, but I gave it a try for something different than the aforementioned tracks. I think it works? To be honest I'm not actually aware of artists that make music in this combination of styles. It has to exist other than me right here. The crazy thing is I think I've remixed a game that's truly unrepresented, not just on OCR but seemingly everywhere! Terrible. I have at least 2 other source ideas that I would definitely do so mayhap I will revisit this game... I don't normally include source breakdowns but this is a bit murkier than my usual fare so here it is: 0:25-1:00 (source: 0:20-0:27 strings) 1:00-1:22 (source: 1:34-1:41 harp) 1:24-1:48 (source: 2:03-2:25 guitar) 1:48-2:12 (source: 2:25-2:31+ piano) 2:12-2:33 (source: 2:03-2:25 guitar) 2:33-2:58 (source: 1:34-1:41 harp) 3:00-3:24 (source 3:05-3:32 horns) 3:24-3:37 (source: 2:25-2:31+ piano) 3:37-3:55 (source: 0:20-0:27 strings) Games & Sources Song: No Man's Land

Original Decision RESUB 1 Artist Name: Seth Skoda Based on an online argument about genres not making a difference. I previously turned Death Egg Zone's music (also from Sonic & Knuckles) into a trap-ish beat just to prove the point, and it got a lot of attention. So... I started going in on other tunes. I zeroed in on Flying Battery Zone a little more, as that's my favorite tune from the game. Found the good future remix on VGmusic.com, thought it would be cool to include a little bit of it in my mix. The section starting at 1:22 and ending at 1:49 contains the counter melody and 8 bars of the backing from the good future remix. I hope this isn't a deal breaker, as it's otherwise my own derivative work. Was gonna mostly go EDM with some synthwave, but then I messed around with some 808 bass and it turned into much of the same modern hip-hop sound that I was using at the time. This final mix shows a little bit more of the original intent than previous mixdowns with the 80s drums and synths running alongside the more modern 808 kicks and hihats. I am very satisfied with how this turned out, and I hope it finds its way into many playlists of Sonic Music/VGM remixes. All that being said about the mix itself, I discovered this website in the mid 2000s and knew that one day I'd have what it takes to get a posted ReMix of my own on this site. This is my third time trying to get High Voltage posted; hopefully it's the charm. Games & Sources Sonic & Knuckles - Flying Battery Zone Act 2 Composer: Howard Drossin

I'm just commenting on the revised version. It's not an apples-to-apple comparison, but I was wrong about "Hunter's Community Chest" way back and I'm not gonna make the same mistake twice. Obviously, this has more energy and dynamics to it, particularly for the 2:39 section, yet this is also a fairly low-key presentation most of the way. The time sig change and deliberate pacing were very effective, and I love the instrumentation throughout with these amazing textures. Such a smart treatment of the source, this is excellent, Brad! :-) YES

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

Well, gawddang, I love the sources and I love this. Feels like something one of the composer bands like Zuntata could have envisioned. I’ve got nothing to say but YES. That’s gonna make this writeup tough! :-)