Emunator

Sounds were pretty smooth from the start, but then the drums came in and I felt pretty underwhelmed by the samples used. On my first listen, my impression of this track is that you've got some great sound choices and a lot of fantastic variation on the source, as Shariq pointed out, but ultimately the weak quality of the samples (drums, piano, the buzzy synth chords) is turning me off from this. The bass and the kick occupy too much of the same space, so the low frequencies end up sounding too muddy and cramped. The kick also sounds pretty awkward when it hits multiple times in quick succession, I think you need to tweak the velocities a bit on those sections to make the patterns sound more natural. I'm really a fan of your arrangement and it grows on me with repeat listens, but I think there's a bit more production work that needs to be done here, personally. Good luck with the vote. NO (resub)

Definitely siding with Larry on this. Brutal arrangement/performances, as usual; those guitar chugs are intense! However, the balance/production feels... not quite where it should be. Like Larry said, the volume is pretty loud but there's a very thin quality to the instrumentation... can't tell if that's a compression issue or not, you'd probably know better than me anyway, Andrew But yeah, the drums sound very distorted and your snare is just weaksauce, and the levels aren't quite balanced in a way that fully fills out the soundscape when the guitars aren't there. Resub this, I've got full confidence that you can get a better sound out of this arrangement. NO (resub)

Overall I feel like this is a little bit too simple of an arrangement, even when you factor out the direct sampling issue. Nothing here is really wowing me... not to say that your work here isn't well-produced and listenable, but the writing and arrangement definitely goes through the motions without really doing much outside the box, either. Your guitar tones are fantastic and the performances are fine, but since this is going to be a resub vote anyway because of the awkward synth line, I'd urge you to take this feedback into consideration and look for other ways that you could expand this remix into more ambitious territory and really go places with your arrangement. Either way, at the VERY least rework that synth sample, it's not doing the trick for me here. NO (resub)

Wow! I'm really impressed here, this kind of jazzy/instrumental style reminds me heavily of old-school McVaffe/Red Tailed Fox/Malcos and I, for one, have sorely missed hearing more subs like this. I really love the dynamic piano chords/melodies that dance around a relatively static backing track/groove. I would have loved to hear a bit more in the way of other instruments and solos, but what you have here is an extremely solid jam. You've definitely made the most out of a relatively-small amount of content/loops, and for a track that doesn't even reach 3 minutes I was a bit disappointed to see how repetitive it got, but I think the quality of the adaptation and production is enough to overshadow the static instrumentation/arrangement. Keep sending stuff our way, you're showing a great deal of talent in a genre that's been notably absent from OCR lately! YES

Sorry Larry, I'm going to have to be a contrary voice here. I feel like this is much too underdeveloped and sloppy, on both production and fx, to meet the bar. First off, I should preface by saying that I admire the creative approach here, there's definitely a lot of cool ideas being tossed around here and some moments of brilliance throughout. However, when comparing this production to other chiptune-influenced electro house mixes from artists like halc, the soundscape seems extremely thin. There's many extended periods in the song where there's only one or two very basic synths and the beat playing at a time. It wasn't until the VERY last section, with the sidechained synth and the lead going, that the soundscape felt like it was properly fleshed out. Most of the transitions/sweeps/drops felt pretty underwhelming; for lack of a better suggestion, the timing on your sequencing and drops doesn't really maximize the impact when a new melody or section is introduced. Sometimes I feel like the drops themselves are too abundant; for example, you've got a very dramatic, drawn out drop at :33, but then another one comes up at 1:03 and it just feels redundant. Oh man, that hard-panned synth at 1:13 hurts my ears on headphones Because of how exposed it is due to the lack of other instrumentation a lot of the time, that jarring panning automation becomes physically painful when you're not listening on speakers. Source-wise, I see how a lot of your melody lines were derived from K. Rool's theme. However, there's some periods of time where the remix goes for over a minute without ever overtly referencing the source, it loses me as a listener. From 2:20 to 4:20, I barely heard anything that even vaguely referenced the original, and at that point I nearly forgot what I was listening to. I would personally say this is too liberal of an arrangement for OCR, even without the rest of the issues I mentioned. I hope some of this feedback is useful, and you don't think I'm being too much of a dick here I think you've got some great ideas here, and no doubt you'll be able to get a mix passed the panel with some improvement, but I personally don't think submission is quite there. The arrangement would need to be truncated to remove some of the excess original writing (or tie it back to the source further) and I would also push for production improvements, such as the panning and the sequencing/timing on your buildups, before resubmitting this one (assuming it doesn't pass this time around.) NO (resubmit)

Larry's vote was pretty blunt, but he's absolutely right. There's very little in the way of expansion going on here, it sounds very much like a MIDI rip (and I should know, I tried to make a failed MIDI-rip electro house mix of this same source a few weeks ago and it ended up sounding almost exactly like this, even down to some of the samples we used ) Work on chopping up the melodies and loops in the sources instead of just recreating entire sections verbatim, and adding in your own unique sounds and melodies on top of that. Not much more to add, keep at it! NO

Original Decision: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=32478 ....yeah. Your ReMixer name: Brandon Strader Your real name: Brandon E. Strader Your website: http://www.bstrader.net/ Your userid 3123 Name of game(s) arranged: Donkey Kong Country 3 Name of individual song(s) arranged: Brothers Bear (SNES) Dave Wise http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JibGNrKohU Made this in a couple days for DKC3 project.. It was very fun to make due to how generic bluesy rock the source is.. I kinda stayed in that same general area with it.. I was inspired by Uprising by Muse for the drums and bassline.. but for the most part I think it is extremely true to the original... there's a couple solo breaks but they're in the style of the song and give a short break before heading back into the rock... give it a few listens and let it grow on you, this stuff is contagious.... anyway I'll make it easy on you this time with a source map instead of text. This shows exactly in the session where all the source usage is... http://www.bstrader.net/remixes/unbearablesource.png as you can see it's well over 70%... So it is a little bit on the conservative side, but I think the little change in the bassline and drums might even that out a bit. I've been getting in a lot of trouble with the panel for having too many elements in the songs... I tried to keep it simple this time... there's not a lot of pieces fighting for your attention and everything can be heard clearly and fully. A couple great blues solos that I really enjoyed playing. Anyway, I suck at write-ups so here's my copy pasta from dkc3 secret forum; "I made this song in a couple days from the source "Brothers Bear". I liked the bluesy rock sound of the original, so I stayed very true to that with the remix. The remix is very conservative, meaning that it does have a huge rendition of the source in there, but there are also a couple nice little breakdowns as well. "Unbearable" is dedicated to the highly annoying Emunator, which I severely hate and wish nothing but torment and pain for. The song proudly displays a love for live instrumentation and blues solos!" LT EDIT (9/18): Got a breakdown from Brandon: ------------------------http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEIK08yvpCU

Original Decision: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=35548 name: Brandon E. Strader remixer: Brandon Strader forum: 3123 website: www.bstrader.net game: Mega Man 9 / Mega Man 5 composer: Ippo Yamda (MM9) / Mari Yamaguchi (MM5) source: Splash Woman / Wave Man ( / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtEcfF1STWY)remixname: Lady in the Water link: genre: Orchestral An orchestration somewhat in the vein of "Mirage", this is my third orchestration so far that I've submitted... I've maintained most of the orchestral elements from "Mirage", including the koto and shamisen. I wanted to add some more ethnic instruments but I ran out of RAM and my computer was crashing, so what can you do. There's some production tweaks but I felt Mirage was pretty strong, so I didn't go overboard. I made this for Round 1 of the Grandiose Robotic Master Remixing Competition run by DarkeSword. I wanted to get involved with a Shariq Production™® and I thought this would be a cool way to enter that Darke World. I made an orchestration I am very happy with, combining Splash Woman and Wave Man themes -- sometimes simultaneously. When I was writing the harmony for the Wave Man melodies during the chorus, I knew I was on to something special. (1:21 heard on the Oboe / Pizzicato violin). And the Splash Woman melody is going at the same time, which I thought was really awesome. Some stuff just works together nicely, you find out while you're in the process of fiddling around with doodads. I did a lot of doodad fiddling with various gizmos. Wanted to make sure I actually represented Wave Man properly even though I wasn't particularly interested in using that theme. I'm all about the Splash Woman, folks. Anyway, it's used for the intro, and also at 1:58 which represents 1:34 in the source youtube. As you can tell I really didn't go that deep into its source, really just a couple stand-out melodies were used. As for Splash Woman, I think it translated to orchestra extremely well. It's another charging piece at times, but I think it reaches a level of major-key epicity that the darker previous orchestrations didn't. I probably won't do many more orchestrations soon. It'll start to seem like a gimmick and people won't be interested in hearing more of them. I like to try different stuff, genres, and fiddle with the gizmos of various genres -- it keeps me interested in music. I hope it keeps ya'll interested too.

Original Decision: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=36685&highlight=excalibur

Original Decision: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=39383&highlight=requiem+dying+world Woooooop.

ReMixer names: Jordanrooben Jordan Plutchok - 46229 Chimpazilla Kristina Scheps - 45254 Emunator Wes McDonald – 16467 Submission information: Game arranged: Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess ReMix name: "Forest of Purple Mist" Songs arranged: "Faron Woods" Composer: Koji Kondo, Toru Minegishi, Asuka Ota mp3 attached Jordanrooben’s comments: About a year ago, I discovered OCReMix through videos on Youtube, and in a short time I made it a goal to become a posted mixer there. Best. Decision. Ever. The people in the WIP forums have helped me so much in my remixing and composing skills that I wouldn't even be considering an OCReMix submission if it weren't for them! Thank you to everyone, especially Rozovian and Chimpazilla! I can hardly see why Chimp fell in love with this mix so much, but I'm so glad she did! If it weren't for her, this would never have gone anywhere. And thanks to her, I've fallen in love with this track too. A huge thanks to Emunator too, for his help finalizing the writing and mixing on the track. It's an honor. It's been a great experience, and I hope you'll like it! Chimpazilla’s comments: I discovered Jordan’s Faron Woods remix in the wip forum in February 2012. I was immediately captivated by the melodies and countermelodies he had written. Twilight Princess is my favorite Zelda game… and I was transported right back to Faron Woods while listening. There was something magical about this mix for me… it touched me deeply. Jordan made several updates but I felt that he could use some assistance with drumming and mixing, which he was kind enough to allow me to do. The updated song then caught Emunator’s attention, and he liked it enough to dive in and help with some final writing edits, some instrument replacements, some improved mixing and a brand new ending. Faron Woods never sounded so good! The song has changed in some ways but basically stays true to the melodies Jordan originally wrote, with some additional embellishments added. I am thrilled to have been part of this collaboration with Jordan and Wes, two very fine gentlemen. I hope we have captured the mystical feel of spending a weekend in the beautiful Faron Woods! Emunator’s comments: I came on board this arrangement in the 11th hour when I heard it on the WIP forums in a very after the arrangement was pretty locked in. I fell in love with the very anime/orchestral style that Jordan and Kristina had crafted, and found the instrument choices and dancing melodies very inspiring. The arrangement was already great, but I wanted to do what I could with my (very) minimal experience to help improve the production end of this track. I actually met with Kristina in person to work on this track and, over the course of a day, we made a mountain of changes to the remix, including replacing samples nearly across the board, resequencing certain instruments/percussion, and adding on a brand new outro, which is the only actual writing I did in this track. There were some limitations that we had to work with on this track because of how absurdly complex the project file had become, but I'm pretty happy with the final result. Thanks so much to Kristina and Jordan for letting me be a part of this mix! Source:

Honestly, after reading some of the other votes, I've decided to actually change my vote around. I guess the bass wasn't as much of a subjective personal-taste issue as I thought, and re-listening I definitely feel like there could be some objective improvements made to get this up to the bar and more listenable for everybody. Sorry to hold this up. NO (resub!) (oh wait, I just realized I never actually wrote in a vote the last time. Whoops.)

Just wanted to chime in and say thanks to Dave for making an extra effort to get so many mixes posted in the last few days, you've been doing great Your work has not gone unnoticed.

This makes me so unbelievably happy to hear

Love it dude, I feel like my judge comments mostly summed up my feelings on this, but honestly the borderline part of the vote really only applies when viewing this strictly through the lens of OCR's standards. Outside of that context, as a personal listener I find this downright fantastic and there's nothing borderline about it. This is definitely the track where I realized how much potential you had in terms of producing downright fantastic vocal tracks, and your recent attempts have gotten even better. Be on the lookout for more from Mansoor, he's done some amazing stuff recently!

Honestly, this is a very conservative arrangement, but where I think it shines is in the expressiveness of the instrumentation. Every performance feels EXTREMELY soulful, even if a lot of it is sequenced. There's some definite sloppiness throughout the song but this is one of those rare occasions where it adds to the overall effect instead of detracting. Some very interesting chord changes and additional harmonies keep this fresh without really straying too far from the beaten path at all. I think this has just the right amount of personality to clear the bar. Honestly, this is the kind of track my gut tells me would be a resub vote, but I'm finding myself charmed by what you've done here I get the feeling that others might be a little more critical but for me, it's a pass. YES

Definitely siding on the NO's here, the rhythms don't work for me. Also, those string stabs sound REALLY exposed and weak... the rest of the samples are fine, but the ever-so-slightly offbeat rhythms are making this really hard to listen to once you notice them See if you can polish this one up, Gui! It's an excellent arrangement and I absolutely dig the style! Excellent instrumentation choice, just get the timing to click better and see what you can do about those string stabs, while you're at it. NO (resub!!)

My album dick is longer than yours!

Haha, I thought I remembered voting on this track last year? *checks* Yeah, this track already passed the panel back in 2011. You should probably get in touch with me when you're totally finished with revisions so we can sort this out

Ahhh yesssh. I love the expressiveness of the synths/guitar in the mix, there's even some subtle vibrato/articulation on the lead synths. I disagree with OA about the snare, I thought it worked just fine here. Overall, some really strong melodic ideas that cover a lot of ground... maybe a little bit too much ground, honestly. I feel like the arrangement is sort of meandering all over the place without much direction, which is a bit disappointing. I would have liked a more concise arrangement with a more clear structure, but overall I feel like this is strong enough to pass. Not bad, guys. YES

WhothefuckisthisguyRock

Good to see you on the forums again dude This film's showing a huge jump in production quality for you, I'm really impressed with what you and your crew have been doing lately! I trust I'll be able to come over and check out the full thing when it's done?

Oops! Fixed

Alright, I've held off on making any official announcements until now because I was tired of stringing you all along with an endless slew of posts about how it would be "just a little bit longer!" I've been making those posts since around this time last year and we've all seen how much that's worth However, now I can finally say with confidence that... The music of DKC3: Double the Trouble! is 100% FINISHED! I hope this announcement alleviates any sort of pain (physical or mental) that may have been induced by the album's long lifespan. I can't express how happy it makes me to be able to finally say those words. Before I get to the big picture stuff, I want to give a HUGE thanks to Theophany for really coming through on the last few tracks... the final WAV file containing both Beneath the Moonlight (Stilt Village GBA) and Distant Dreams on Stormy Seas (Game Over GBA) is over 12 and a half minutes long and sounds absolutely incredible. I know I can't speak for everyone, but it's my personal opinion that it was entirely worth the wait to allow this opus to realize its full potential. Beneath the Moonlight was arranged by Theophany and features extensive guitar performances from Harmony and Fishy, as well as live violin by Jeff Ball. The latter part of the track, the Game Over remix, was arranged primarily by me with sections added by Cody and Theophany, and produced with Theophany's incredible sample libraries. I'm extremely proud of the contribution I was able to make here and I'm sure all the other artists feel the same way. So, a little overview now! This project was officially started in November of 2009, and made public 4 months later. This means that it took roughly 2 years and 10 months to finish. To put it in perspective, that's roughly the same time it took to produce the DKC2 album, which was half the size! With that in mind, I don't think we did too badly in terms of production time, despite what some of you may say The final tally here is 64 artists/performers, contributing 76 songs (64 main album tracks and 12 bonus tracks,) spanning over 5 discs and nearly 5 and a half hours of music. These figures place it comfortably above the competition as the largest OCRemix album to date. Those who have heard the whole album can vouch for the fact that we haven't just stuffed our tracklist full of half-baked filler remixes, either. I'm fully convinced that this album has built off of the greatness of the two DKC albums that have come before it, and improved in many areas overall. But I don't necessarily expect you all to take my word for that, though... so in that spirit, I've also uploaded the long-awaited final audiovisual preview. Big thanks to Peach and Cody for producing this, hopefully it'll give you an idea about the kind of quality and diversity that you can expect from the final album. Please enjoy and share it around as much as you'd like, we'd love to build some publicity and hype as we move forward to release. Click to view an all-new 13 minute audiovisual preview! So what's next? At this point, I'm going to try and finalize the album eval package and get it uploaded tonight, since I won't be by a computer at all on Friday or Saturday. Most of the album eval has already been finished, so that phase shouldn't take nearly as long. We have most of the album artwork finished but I need to talk with TheMaverickk about getting that package 100% wrapped up. The website and the release trailer are the two things that we still need to start on, but that will be completed concurrently as we prepare for release. I'm not really going to discuss release dates in detail, but I will say that we're deadset on a 2012 release at the very least. I'll say more when I can but I don't plan on getting into details regarding an exact date until we're a week or two away from release. I ask for just a little bit more patience while we get things wrapped up, but it brings me great joy to announce that the music of the project (which is really what this is all about, right?) is DONE! My deepest gratitude goes out to Cody Wedel, Flexstyle, Theophany, Peach, TheMaverickk, and every artist who has put forth their best effort with their songs, and every one of you who has kept the hype alive, even when progress slowed to a crawl. This project wouldn't be worth very much without people who are looking forward to listening to it, so a hearty THANK YOU goes out to EVERYBODY who helped us along the way I hope the final product does not disappoint. Cheers!

Ok, I've actually revisited my vote on this because I got the feeling that I was giving the source usage a little more leeway than I normally would have. On second glance, I'm noticing a lot more "inspired by" or "loosely derived from" instead of direct source usage for most of the mix. As much as I love what you guys have done here, I'm gonna have to revise my vote on this NO