Palpable

He's just saying what we were all thinking.

So many birthdays and events! Have a big giant birthday.

Me too. Personally my favorite Who is "The Best I Ever Had".

We are tagging based on "solo" and "piano" though, so theoretically djp or someone could down the line write a more advanced search that lets the user search on multiple tags. "Solo" returns mostly solo piano mixes, so that's a really good place to start if you want a list now.

Yeah pop-ballad. Really not that far off from Celine Dion and a lot of stuff from the 90's, if you're looking for where you might have heard similar stuff.

Great, great album title. That's pretty much perfect.

I'd love to do Star Light Zone, but I have about five pet remixes that I keep meaning to do but keep pushing off, so I should probably pass on this. I'm sure there will be someone who wants to do it and can do it well.

And I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to say bye to you, Wes, and others. For some reason, it slipped my mind that you all would be going to the listening party and that I wouldn't be going to the BBQ and wouldn't be seeing you again. Well, safe trip back.

Wow, sounds like we missed quite the listening party.

I am so so glad Larry convinced me to pass this one in the end. The first two Forerunner mixes were heavenly, and this is a great follow-up. I agree with Rozo that it's even more ambient, more soundtrack-y, but that allows Nick to take some stylistic differences. Nick uses such a high level of detail in these mixes, I could listen to them hundreds of times without getting bored.

Yeah, we (diotrans and I) could do Tir Na Nog tomorrow at 1. Hopefully it's not too crowded.

There are others? Happened recently with a sub we passed that turned out to be stolen from a commercial album.

Nah. 10-char

And let me apologize for singlehandedly holding this up with my lone YES vote, though I don't regret the vote as much as the system we have. We've now started e-mailing some people when votes get split. I did listen to it again a couple weeks ago just to see if I would switch my vote but I still felt it was a YES.

I liked the drum'n'bass approach for this song and your drum grooves were solid, it suited the material well. I didn't have a whole lot of good to say about it otherwise. The beginning and the end were too conservative, with just added drums and some slight rhythm alterations in the melody. The rest was too liberal, and the squelchy synth wasn't that melodic. There has to be a balance struck between the two halves, it can't be a minute of the source note-for-note, a minute of no source. The production was also pretty off, with the drums missing the high-end and low-end. They're all mid and the track sounds very strange. Sorry to get harsh, but I think this track would need a lot of work before it could pass, including some major rewriting. NO

Love the sound of this actually, it's like enhanced chiptune. Reminded me of the Monkey Ball series, which has a similar style of music. The drum processing section was pretty sweet, and there were a number of trills and synth expression things I enjoyed. True, it's not gonna win awards for drastic modification of the source, but there's enough personalization here to make it a pass. YES

Aw man, probably not happening for me if it's after the Otakon panel. We'll see.

Since the fix-up is minor, I have e-mailed them asking if they want to send a new version. EDIT: (7/15) Frank wrote back, they don't want to do a resubmit. We'll keep judging this version.

I can always expect some great synth solos from Will at this point, but I also thought the new writing and chords for the simple Wind Fish song were very creative and worked like they were always meant to be written that way. There's one sticking point here and that's the bland drums, both the samples and the repetitiveness. I was disappointed by them, especially when everything else is clicking, but it's not a prominent part of the song and I can overlook it given the rest of the arrangement. This has a whole lot to like, and it's probably still my favorite arrangement Will has done. YES

Nearly identical for the first 1:19, with only some subtle background and sample changes. Even with the new piano lead after that, I thought it was too similar. Only the quiet bridge and the section following it with original string writing really stood out as being new, and both of those were nice additions. That intro section definitely needs to differentiate itself, either with different structure, instruments, or writing. After that, it might be enough to just change up the beat or have some slighter changes. Larry also pointed out a clipping section that needs to be fixed, but otherwise, the production sounded nice. I could see this one passing if the arrangement is liberal'd up a little. NO (resubmit)

Yeah, I really like this arrangement too. Even at 9 minutes, it's interesting to listen to the whole way. The development of the song is cool, you didn't go the standard epic rock song way. This chugs along, morphing subtly, holding a steady pleasant beat. The lead guitar sample is a little painful, since the sequencing is robotic and the sample ain't great. It would be great if you could get somebody to play on it, this is a good place to start if you want to go that route. The other option is just spending more time sequencing it, adjusting volume and expression. I thought I heard some vibrato in there - if your guitar instrument lets you play with expression, use it more. The EP actually sounds fine sample-wise, but when it takes lead, you could afford to play with the expression and sequencing a bit. It's plain. Maybe throw some distortion on it too, because that would suit the song and spice up the section. Lead synths have the same stiffness/blandness problem. I also think the sparseness hurts parts of this song. The snare drum could be a tad fuller and louder at times to fill it out. I would definitely like to see this improved upon and resubmitted. Don't end this song's journey here. At the same time by fixing this, you would improve your own skills and become a better producer. NO (resubmit)

I echo the previous comments about the arrangement being repetitive drum-wise and sounds being either low-quality (drums) or weird-sounding (some of the synth leads). In addition, the lead writing could be sequenced more realistically with some volume changes, and the ending is too abrupt. I like the mood, the structure, the new writing - there's a lot of good stuff in place. You just need to work more on a few aspects of this. NO (resubmit)

Hmm, toughie. I'm actually ok with the source usage, being a fan of remixes that drive one melody line into the ground. The production is really nifty, with a spacious, quirky sound and a fantastic beat. Every measure sounds a little different from the last, but the problem is there's not that much variety dynamically. Aside from the short dropouts at 0:50 and 1:29, this stays in one gear the whole time, and doesn't really have much contrast from moment to moment. It would have cool to see a section playing with the chords, or using the second part of the melody somewhere. It's definitely close, don't get me wrong. If you decide to resub, I'd want to see most of this intact. In fact, I was tempted to go YES but there's a lot of cool directions you could take this in, and I want to see some of them taken. NO (resubmit)

Tougher decision than I thought it would be, because there is a Donkey Kong sound to this for most of it. Let's try a different kind of breakdown than counting seconds. Bridges don't seem to have any connection I can find, which is roughly a third of the song. The rhythm of the original is present the rest of the time, but the phrase is only kept intact twice per iteration because sometimes the bass changes and last three notes are changed. You can add the melody line too, which gives me... Larry's breakdown exactly. Ha, so much for not counting seconds. Yeah it's too liberal for me. I could see someone saying YES to this based on the rhythm connection and the way the theme always leads up from the changing bass the same way, but that's too loose a connection IMO. Pretty much if you kept those last three notes intact most of the time while playing with the bass like you did, I think this would hold the connection. Beautiful song no matter what you decide to do with it. NO

A week on the job for OA and I already have to lay down the smack. This job sucks sometimes. Let's start positive. Arrangement was very cool - energetic and bombastic. The prominent orchestral elements give this a unique character. Larry's breakdown looks correct, but I'm not sweating a few seconds. At 0:46 - 0:55 and 2:02-2:42, you've got the chord progression unchanged with some hints of the original to tie it together. That's cool by me, I'd count that. This sounds like Power Blade to me almost all the way through anyway, because of the chord connections. Yeah production... it wasn't all the way there. Your song gets cluttered at times, and some of the string writing is hard to hear, especially when the guitar is playing. Harpsichord is barely audible a lot of the time, synth at 0:45 sounds really far forward. I think what Larry says is true, about some of the elements overlapping in frequency, and I too thought your previous mixes were better balanced and mixed, but that could be because there was less going on in those. The string articulations also sounded off when it got fast, and it was difficult to make out what notes were being played. Any of these issues on their own and I could overlook it, but together, it's too much to ignore. Sorry, Andrew. I don't think this is that far off, but it needs more work. This is a tough song to mix with how much is going on and honestly, I'm not sure I would have done any better job. The problem with an ambitious mix is that needs a lot of work to make it all sound ok. NO (resubmit)