Eino Keskitalo

Ooomph.. I still haven't caught the NES Jams album! Too much goodness! --Eino

Unfortunately, the initiative has a time restriction of up to year 2000. But freeware games, definitely cool! Nothing says they can't have awesome music. And be awesome games. --Eino

Wow, beautiful source. Lots of material to work with, nice melodies, passages, riffs, switching between 6/8 and 4/4 time signatures.. there's a lot you can do with this. Nice pick Chickenwarlord! --Eino

Definitely still enjoying this one. Not doing a side-by-side comparison to see what's changed, but, sounds good to me. I also didn't notice any off notes last time around (hangs head in shame). --Eino

I agree! Even if it was four years ago. --Eino

I suppose the main thing is that, when the mix hits the front page, it would be listed under either DOS or Windows games in the database. Depends on djpretzel/site staff, but I would guess this would require that the DOS version would have a distinct version of the soundtrack. --Eino

I wasn't able to participate, but I have to say it's awesome to see another successful round! --Eino

A ReMix from Quest for Glory, by jrm, just got posted. From djp's writeup: "DOS/PC games are still, even after 12+ years, underrepresented on OCR, relative to the amount of amazing music that was written for them." You know what to do! --Eino

Quite enjoyable stuff, and I'm listening to othe Prognos videos now. Sounds you brought this material to the band, I'd have loved to hear the trumpet refer to the original at some point I'm not quite sure, but I also thought that the harmonic liberties that the trumpet took sounded awkward at points. At other times it sounded quite wonderful, which made the CoT sound new again. Most of the time the source really wasn't very dominant. If I was at a gig and heard this, I'd probably would've caught the cello melody as a really cool shout out/reference to the original, but not heard the piece as a ReMix. Of course, that doesn't detract from the enjoyability! --Eino

Enjoyed this a ton. Really fascinating stuff. I tend to like this sort of layered/delay loop thing. I like how much you could get out of the cello: riffs, long legato lines, bass lines, many percussive effects.. I especially was appreciative of the percussive layers you started adding around one minute mark. (As a minor nitpick, there was a bit of boomy bass, like air hitting microphone.) I would be a bit critical of the length and structure: when you drop the beat after 3 minutes, this part could well serve as the outro - in my opinion the piece would be complete. It builds up to that point so well. When the beat comes back in, there's not that much that we haven't heard before until 4:32, I think this soloing was adding something new again. Don't get me wrong, the variations you added in the between were good too, but I couldn't get over the "ah, this is the same part again" feeling. One thought that came to mind was that the piece could go from the peaceful part to harder riffing/soloing more aprubtly. Like going from 3:38 to 4:28 directly. That's a chunk of critizism on a piece that's already excellent in my opinion, but in my mind there's room to make it even better. In any case I get really a lot, lot out of it, one of the most refreshing things I've heard in a while! Thank you! --Eino

I like how this is progressing. I keep enjoying the piece. The tuned percussion you've added that comes in about 2/3 is mixed too loud. The sfx around the same spot that you added earlier are still a bit loud, I notice you've turned the volume down but could turn them down a little more. I've got to agree with Rozo, I except the piece to go on for more, perhaps kicking up a gear. In any case, looking forward to the next update! --Eino

Yay, Star Control! I'll have to agree with Rozo, good and bad. The atmosphere is very promising, it's omnious enough to fit the Kzer-Za, but also quite chill. But the source isn't there dominatingly enough I think. It sort of reminds me of the source, but I don't get "this is the Kzer-Za theme!" feeling. I also think that adding the new bass thing in the third version also added some bad-sounding dissonance. I kind of liked the second version better, although the feel that the new bass added sounded different from the second version (more omnious and less "nice" chill), and may be just what you're going for. I've also tried to make this (really rather sparse) source to 4/4 (combining it with the intro theme), and I couldn't do it, at the time at least, so that it would have sounded good *and* familiar. This adaptation sounds good arrangement-wise and the basic idea (although production needs work to be on OCR level), but it's not familiar enough. Good start though I think, and it was fun to listen to! --Eino

I was lucky to be able to submit too. Four entires already! --Eino

You also get the games for Windows, Linux and Mac as before. I grabbed the bundle for World of Goo, I already have Osmos from a previous bundle (it was a bonus game), the other games looked good too. As usual, I'll probably check out the soundtracks soon and play the games in 21 years or so. That said I did manage to find the 3.5 hours for VVVVVV these few past weeks, and am now playing Cave Story+ on hard at the rate of about 1-3 save points per session.. yay for frequent save points. --Eino

Dj Mokram, you make me cry again. With joy. Damn it, I have to find time to do this round too, no excuses. edit: Well, it's not my favourite theme from the game, but this and Castle of Illusion are my favourite Master System games. edit's edit: There are a lot of parts in the piece that you can do just about anything with. I'll try to twist this into a darker piece, but we'll see how that goes (usually the idea I start with goes out of the window pretty soon. My previous round's entry started with an idea to do a (chip) prog piece). --Eino

Congrats to the winners! Looking forward to your custom avatars. --Eino

Just a quick note or few. In this revision, I have absolutely zero complaints about the structure, it develops well. Lots of fun things happening. I love the feel of the piece. About the bridge of the source (assuming it's the part that starts at 00:43), it's not well written as a whole, pretty muddy. But the bassline of it is nice. You could use that and write your own harmony and melody over it. The shift upwards in the source you mention isn't bad either. I'll say it again, more apparent source usage would be nice (in the OCR context), the source only really becomes apparent at 01:05. I still think you could throw that bass fill from 0:18-0:19 in somewhere, such as around 0:47 in the arrangement. I think that'd tie down the (beautiful!) first portion of the mix into the source a little bit more. I think I was the only one of the commentators who enjoyed the source, and I still think it's cool, can be rearranged in a cool way like you are doing. Good going! --Eino

I have voted today as well. Not only in the second round of Finnish presidential elections, but also 210th round of People's ReMixing Competition. Vote! --Eino

Cool to see this support and activity! Silpheed has a great soundtrack, at least the couple of first songs. But it's really not a PC soundtrack, but a PC-8801 soundtrack. The MS-DOS version is a port. Another similar case and a thoroughly great soundtrack is . Alas (for the purposes of this initiative), it's not an original PC soundtrack.--Eino

Good turnout! --Eino

Very lush and clear sound. I think you did a great job personalizing this often treaded theme. Nice clock! And nice touch how it turns into fingerclicks! I think you could use more rests in the sax notation. Or to say it another way, the notes could at many points be shorter, for a more "punctuating" sound, like staccato, that would work well with the melody I think. It could probably make the sax more natural too (though it's not bad as it is). The bit where you do have some rests sounds pretty nice, around 1:20. The piano break around the 2:00 minute mark functions well as a breath-gatherer. The bass end of the piano coming in at at 02:13, with the clock coming back at the same time, sounds really, really good. However, the chord writing sounded somewhat random to me. The one at 02:07 seemed to sit a bit badly with the rest of it to me. I think the chords could stand to be rewritten, to contain a musical passage of its own. It's not that bad as it is, but kind of a lost opportunity. The point at 02:13 is a good anchor point! Nice work overall, I thought you got something new out of the old warhorse. I agree with other posters that the crystals and choirs sound very good. --Eino

Yeah guys, I urge you to listen and give feedback to Archangel's track here, it is a treat! Also do check out Draconiator's Jill of the Jungle arrangement, it's a cool piece as well! If Diablo 2 from 2000 is ok, how about Deus Ex (also from 2000)? I have a fairly complete PRC mix from the UNATCO theme, which I've been tinkering with lately. --Eino

Well, I don't know what was wrong with my ears when I listened to the third wip, but the third part certainly doesn't feel rough. (I also compared wip 3 and 4 and you didn't change it that much between them..) I still do feel a bit like the part is lacking a lead to come in. Around 2:50 mark, a simple string lead does enter, but it's in the background. Perhaps it could be emphasized? There's plenty of melody in the 3:15-3:55 part, but I still was wishing that something was the definite center melody, perhaps with more articulation/variation. Another thought that I had was it'd be cool if you could tie this part to the previous parts (they're pretty separate in the source) melodically by reintroducing some of the piano melodies from before, but that might not be feasible. I really like how that part "fades" out at the end. It evokes a sense of yearning. There's a note from a wind instrument from 03:07-03:10 which sounds out of key and iffy to me. The big swell around 4:07-4:10 sounds like it suffers from compression. The final swell and coda are in themselves an excellent ending to the arrangement. I have to say I enjoy the various percussion effects scattered throughout, and some of the similar noises which I assume are strings too. They add so much detail and atmosphere! Very enjoyable track, and yes it was very cool to hear it in full - and so quickly! Hope this feedback helps, I personally think there's still room for a bit of improvement in the later half, but it's very close to greatness! --Eino

I've submitted my piece! --Eino

I listened to the third wip already, but haven't had time to write my thoughts. I thought the final part was a great basis, but didn't quite yet have enough meat - I felt it lacked a lead or some other really ear-catching "center", and was rougher than the previous sections, but I supposed it was meant to be a 'wip' I liked the way it was different from the source, very fitting to the rest of the remix so far! Also, I'm *very* happy that my previous feedback was useful! I'll try to listen to the fourth wip tomorrow and reply. Great to see such quick progress! --Eino