Palpable

OA! Give him a big hand, and then please feel free to include him in any further judge bashing!

Haha Jay's gonna be pissed about Larry's vote when he sees this... eight months from now. I agree with Larry's second breakdown, which puts this just over the line. The original parts of this were really well-integrated, and the soloing over the two chords of the original was pretty great. Great contemplative break at 3:17 with piano and kids (one of you guys is a kid virtuoso). Overall, there's a lot to like, and some slightly muddy mixing in the sections Larry mentioned doesn't stop this one. YES

The FAQ doesn't entirely reflect the views held by djp and other staff today... I'm in the process of tagging mixes by genre, instruments, and other descriptors. http://www.ocremix.org/forums/search.php Check out the tag cloud at the bottom of that page for some search terms. Right now, the search is not that advanced, but it can find you all the guitar mixes that have been tagged so far, for example.

I think you're right. A lot of Elvis's troubled later years are still remembered today, alongside the fact that he was a legend. Actually, their lives aren't that dissimilar. I wonder if new legends will evolve around MJ the way they did around Elvis. I didn't mention this in my last post, but I had been thinking about MJ a lot this week already, watching his videos and figuring out which greatest hits of his to get (somehow I don't own one). It's uncanny to me that his death happened now, like I was anticipating it or something.

Can't believe this doesn't have more comments - what a fantastic song. Granted, I haven't played the game either which might account for the lack of comments, but this is radio-quality pop right here. Great singing from Simona, very expressive and smooth. Then the blend of guitars, piano, and synths just hits. I could listen to this all day.

Very. Once you get past all the tabloid bullshit craziness he's had over the past... well, pretty much his whole life, he was one amazing and unique singer and songwriter. I actually had "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" coincidentally in my head when my co-worker told me he had had a heart attack. I also always thought he had another spectacular album in him somewhere - it would just take the right producer. RIP MJ.

Well, I feel like a right fool. No offense to the rest of you, but once I saw that Larry didn't think this was too liberal, I knew I was going to change my vote. And here I go. Somehow I missed the dum-dum-dum connection in the first 0:50 of the track, which seems plainly obvious now. Honestly, that was just laziness on my part since Nick pointed it out in his breakdown, and I apologize for making a hasty check a few days ago. I assumed someone else would have brought it up, so when nobody did, I didn't look more carefully into it. Larry was also able to pinpoint a specific part of the Maw that matches Nick's track and I feel a lot better about that connection now too. The timestamps help if you want to be persuasive. Big props to Larry for the due diligence in soliciting a breakdown from Nick and pointing out the specific connections. I'm very glad to say YES to this one now, as it is an awesome track. YES

I don't think they've told us the panel time yet, but I'll probably end up going to Otakon the whole of Saturday, so it's moot for me and possibly others. Probably better just to keep the party where you have it, unless you're kind enough to move it to Sunday or something.

Sounds like a fun idea, though our panel at Otakon will probably be on Saturday around this time (if it's the same as last year), which means you may miss a lot of people. Me at the least! This is assuming you meant to open this listening party up to everyone and not just the people involved with the project.

Some days you just don't have the energy to make a joke. Happy birthday.

I checked this out one more time keeping Nick's breakdown in mind, though it's pretty much what other people have already said. I'm sticking with my NO vote. Like I said, I can hear the Maw in there maybe? It's a tenuous connection in my mind. The Flowers reprise at the end is the same way - still can't for the life of me even hear the crystalline synth that CHz is talking about, so any connection there is too subtle for me to count.

Great stuff, very fun arrangement. It was a little on the empty side and the brass wasn't quite there realism-wise, but I didn't think it was at a lack for energy, and for the most part the production was solid. Maybe I'm going a little easy on the production since Larry thought it wasn't strong enough, but I felt the arrangement really made up for any shortcomings there anyway. Kudos for the clavinet stuff going on at 2:03, which was a great reference to the original Genesis sounds that also fit the song like a glove. YES

Digging the arrangement, though 1:04-2:36 was pretty conservative. The later sections got more creative, especially the piano parts. Keeping references to the melodies and adding harmonies here and there helped the solo sections keep a balance of source and original writing. It probably could've been more integrated but I thought it was within the scope of what we look for, especially given how the mood and dynamics were changed. Playing sounds great too. Can't say I was 100% behind the production. It felt on the distant and thin side to me. The backing guitar and lead guitar could have also been given different tones to stand out more. But I don't think these are big enough problems to say NO to this. It seems to meet all our criteria, and hey, I liked it. YES

Arrangement was cute and had cool solo writing, I liked it. The thing is textures were thin, and you could have had some subtle effects or something going on to spice things up. The instruments sound on the plain side. The radio parts of it didn't seem that well integrated either, if you were going for a concept that it was randomly becoming low-quality - the radio effect parts use different instruments than the main parts. Actually, it might have been cool to hear the piano for more of the song, would have fleshed it out. The ending was funny though. As far as the source usage, it sounded ok to me and was close enough to the 50% line that I could give it to you. The parts that used only the chord progression are always iffy, but this song has a pretty unique progression. Production sounds fine except as it relates to arrangement - textures could be more full. If you can resolve those problems, and maybe include more direct source usage, I could see this passing. It's a pretty nice arrangement. NO (resubmit)

Just here to jaw or are you gonna judge sometime?

Ugh. What's with your hot tracks being just on the edge of too liberal, Justin? I gotta go with Larry's breakdown on this; in fact, I think he gave you more credit than I would. I also didn't hear a connection between 0:00-0:04 of the source and 0:51 in your song; sounds totally different apart from the notes being 16th notes. Very refined and tightly constructed song, and for a project track I think it works because you did hit every part of the source, but just too liberal to put it on the front page. NO

Good job keeping the desolate mood of the original, but as a sound upgrade, it didn't feel appropriate for OCR. There wasn't much interpretation beyond expanding the sounds. The bells got very piercing, and I'd say soften them in the mid-to-high end. The strings also could have played a little smoother. Otherwise, it sounded pretty nice and I'd like to see you sub something else that's more interpretive. NO

I told Mattias this before when he gave me a sneak preview of this track, but this is my favorite piece of his. Something about the gentle, playful groove hits all my music pleasure centers. There are shades of Trentemøller, early Depeche Mode, Metroid Prime - all music I love. And the section at 2:44 is heavenly, there are no other words for it. Outstanding song.

Cannot believe someone finally tackled this source. I always thought in a game with some of the best music ever, this was such a strange simplistic song. It was like they ran out of time to write something more elaborate. Regardless, what Mazedude has done with it here is excellent. Great trashy sound with the main melody constantly floating over the mix. Tons of detail and a great groove.

Small steps.

Haha had a big long post written out only to realize Dave and Larry covered most of it. I agree with them, but I do see po's point. When a site like this gradually reduces its scope, it could definitely appear like people are consciously changing their music to conform to the changing standards. It's especially true when people from the early days still get posted here. But something that's important to remember is that the standards have not changed significantly for years, at least since I started hanging around in 2003. I don't think most people getting posted here now are conforming their music to standards; it's more that the music they want to make DOES conform to the standards. That is absolutely true for me, it's part of reason I like this place so much, and I'd bet it's true for most people who stick around. Not to say I wouldn't tweak things on a mix in order to get posted, but if I'm not happy with changing a song, I won't do it. I'd recommend that to anyone submitting.

Never played the games but I like what I'm hearing from the SPCs. Might try to pick up a project track later on. Wow, this song rips off Every Breath You Take wholesale. Good riff though, certainly worth stealing.

Meteo, did you start with this feeling of malaise, or did it happen after working on the songs for too long? If it's the former, I'm surprised you actually managed to spend so much time on these songs at all. Sometimes I will start a song and very quickly not feel like it's working, and usually I just trash it. Without an initial feeling of excitement, I really can't work on a song. It'a a matter of internal quality control and I think you have it on some level given that you have a posted ReMix. If it's the latter, I think it probably happens to all of us. Hell, it's happening to me right now, as I finish up the first Flickerfall EP. dannthr's advice seems sound - keep working until you think you're getting diminishing returns. Since you're doing an album, maybe it would be helpful to work on some other songs when you reach that point and come back later. With some time, it might restore some of the excitement you started with.

Dang dude, that's nice. You'd better finish that eventually.

diotrans and I are doing a remix of it for the DKC2 Project, which you can find a preview for in that thread if you look for it. We did take some liberties by adding vocals, but the structure and melody are pretty much the same. Hopefully you'll like it, it'll probably get posted to OCR eventually.