Rozovian

All Your Elitist Js Are Belong To Us. And the standards are fine, and most of the judges are great (the rest would get a conditional yes or no(resub) from me). The standards are an inconvenience, but also an incentive to improve.

What post about chipamp? And I know about Audio Overload. Doesn't play the chip files downloaded from ocr, tho. Last time I checked, anyway. As for sorting threads, it's possible, but it'll sort all normal threads in the normal display age, regardless of how recent they are. There's almost 2 months old stuff on the page when sorted like that. Good idea, but post age needs to be limited. Personally, I don't see the problem with just scrolling down, looking at the number in the replies box. As for marking threads without feedback with red, it's not that far off from my idea for flagging threads as having been updated. Takes a bit of coding no matter what, but I'll add it to my list of suggestions. Later. lol, Alex, deleting accounts. I know I'd be safe, tho, so maybe I should support that idea? Maybe not. But thanks. I hope the ocrstaff knows what they're doing. Up to some kind of official mischief, I reckon.

FireSlash - awesome sig. Anyway, I was expecting something not too different from the previous versions, expecting to tell you that you sometimes have to "kill your darlings". If you're not familiar with the expression, it's when you have to abandon an awesome idea for something because it's not working, but you have become too fond of it to hear that. For most part, I was right. I do like how you've used the second synth, but you need to vary the overall soundscape more. By the way, there's a synth kick in there. Is it just a random rhythmic element, or is it the actual kick in this remix? If it's the latter, you should probably replace it with an acoustic sample. In either case, it's a bit annoying, imo. I'm hearing a lot more variation, but aside from tweaking your lead sound to be a little more interesting, the overall sound is still very repetitive. Drum patterns are the same, maintaining a high-energy level and never really rising or dropping. Make it drop, make it rise in energy by varying the drum patterns and the general intensity. I hear you've improved this, but you need to change its sound more, probably by changing drum writing and general intensity. I suggest you find or make a softer lead that you can use for less intense sections. A step in the right direction. Good work.

Yup, sounds better. Enjoying logic? It's a little shrill. Not painfully so, but it feels a little empty. You might need to give your mid-range instruments a little more volume or width. You've got drums, bass, and high bells, but the mid range is often too soft to really hold it together. Not much more I can say, since this isn't a style I don't know well enough to critique properly. It's gotten pretty good. Nice work. Make sure to balance it well. Good luck.

The irregular hihat rhythm is a little annoying, but I suppose that's more a matter of style. Those pan-modulated crashes and hats are quite annoying too, but as with the irregular hat rhythm, it's style. I'm willing to overlook that, but I'm not sure everyone would. Some of your short swishy drop-like synth sounds are a little annoying, you could drop their volume a bit. Other than that, the intro is pretty cool. The lead, when the track gets started, could use some cutoff modulation or something to make it a little more interesting during those long sustained notes. Drums are louder than your lead. I think they could afford to be dropped a dB or two. That would also bring out the delayed keyboards more. You've succeeded, imo, in separating the tracks. It's far more enjoyable like this. You know, unless there's just too much source verbatim, I think this has a chance to get on ocr. You should probably check with a Judge over irc before actually submitting, but it sounds promising. God work, but it's not over quite yet.

No source link, no source comment. I like the sound this has, but the distorted.. guitar could use some timing fixes. Re-record, and cut together something out of the successful parts. Bass is relatively simple to write, all you need is a rhythm and a basic melody that you transpose to whichever chord you're in. As for volume, compression is how to do it. Compress the drums, let the guitar maintain good dynamics -that's where the guitar's punching strength comes from. EQ everything a bit, process everything a bit, but know that you'll have to do the fine tuning of the effects when the arrangement is done and everything's recorded. Drum writing is relatively easy once you figure it out. Listen to some random music and how the drums are played. Sure, actual drum kits sound better than sampled ones, but when it comes to the drum playing/writing, you can try copying some cool rhythms from your favorite songs and see what works. Keep in mind that if you're gonna submit this to ocr, you should have at least 50% of the finished piece derived from source, and interpreted (as in not a cover). I'm not familiar with the source so I can't say how well it's interpreted atm, just saying it needs to be. Sounds like it's worth working on. Good luck with it.

Good source, the bass is awesome here, tho you might want to lose it for some parts, just to change things up and give ppl's ears a break once in a while. The first third of it is pretty cool. The center part is where I start losing interest, so I think you could make some cuts there. Some drum fills feel a bit awkward, so you might want to have a look at all of them, see which ones work and which ones just screw with the listener's sense of rhythm. Last third is mostly like the second, it gets dull. There's nothing to follow, to it's more atmospheric/rhythmic than melodic, which isn't something ocr favors. You need a more clear progression, possibly a lead of some kind, but at leasta more clear and less repetitive progression. That being said, this has some qualities that I'm not sure I've heard in your work before. Interesting, in a positive way. Make this more intelligible, and it might be able to get on ocr. Even as a "non-affiliated" remix, the repetition and lack of clear progression hurts it enough to need some work in that area.

Myspace's player works for me now. But I can hear the quality loss, and it ain't pretty. Strings, especially the high pizzicato ones don't sound very realistic. Panning is a little weird too, with the strings panned left, it leaves the right channel kinda empty. Drums are kind'a weak, you should compress them, give kick and snare a bit of a boost somewhere in the 50-150Hz area, perhaps for the toms as well. Some of your synths don't really match the overall sound of the remix, it's kind'a normal most of the time, but then that trance-y synth comes in, and it's just... disruptive. As for the arrangement, it's better than the samples, that's for sure. I think this arrangement has some chance of getting posted (and I'm loving the ending), but it'll take some serious overhauling of the sound. I vaguely remember something you did way back, and I think this is an improvement. Can't recall it, tho. This is pretty promising, tho.

Not sure this is what should be the remix, but I can definitely hear some pretty cool remix potential in the source. Some of the later melodies would well as a lead melody on top of the first half of the track. Whatever, a cover is fine, and this cover is cool.

I would vary the crashes more, and try to find something sounding a bit more orchestral, perhaps using more than one at once. Guitar notes seems to clash when it's first fading in, but other than that, it's by far a better transition. I'm not a fan of the elevator and voice clip section, but as far as music goes, it's not bad, it bridges the styles and sections nicely. Yup, transitions are better. The Wario clip is a bit annoying if you're familiar with the characters and their voices, but other than that, there's just technical crits that I'd be able to list, and they could be summed up in "track feels weak", which might be because of the lower volume that you already were aware of.

I don't think they sound unrealistic. Or actually I do, but some reverb and other processing should fix that, reverb on the piano at least. The percussion might need some EQ and compression to enhance its sound, but I don't think this sounds terribly unrealistic. If you can, tweak the piano filter so softer velocities aren't as open and clear, that should further improve the piano sound.

Not familiar with source, and too lazy to dig it up. Soundwise, this is pretty good for a newb. Some compression and boosting of the drums would be nice, shortening the attack of your lead strings would also improve it somewhat, methinks. Some other minor tweaks might also be necessary. The flute in the intro and outro is pretty noisy, there's a noise loop in there that doesn't sound good. I hope it's not part of the instrument, but it seems to follow key. The writing is pretty good, so I suspect much of it is straight from source. If you've just upgraded the sound in a midi file you don't get any writing credit. I could be wrong, tho, in which case it's pretty good. For a first song, this is pretty good. I dunno how much you've rewritten the source, and suspect it's not much, so I would suggest writing a few original pieces to get the hang of writing/arranging. Good luck.

GB is really easy to get into, it surprises me that you didn't get it. I suppose you come from having read and written linear singular tracks instead of having worked with regions (areas with midi notes or audio data that you can move around independent of each other). Impressive that you wrote the program yourself tho, but in order to work with audio, you'll most likely have to apply some effects to control the sound (EQ, compression, reverb and such, depending on what you need), and GB does that easily. Other than that, there's the free Audacity, but it only deals with audio and is more a recording a basic processing app than an audio editor/DAW. Anyway, good luck with it.

He probably meant it as in "land ho!", but I can't be sure.

It's evident from the responses I've been getting to my lil survey that people prefer commenting on remixes of familiar games' sountracks. There are a few of us that choose to critique a remix of an obscure game/soundtreack, and then it's mostly because nobody else has. I don't hink that's gonna change without some obtrusive overhauling of the wip board. I've been thinking a bit about what Darke said about the open forum hurting the feedback a bit. I can see the benefits of a feedback wizard - like setup/install programs - where the feedback checklist is something of a form that you fill in. Integrating that with hosting, standardized thread names, and a form entry for source link(s) and it'd be great, but this is something that requires a lot of coding to work. Unfortunately, it doesn't give listeners the ability to hear the problems with it. I've got a few less taxing suggestions in my list in post#2. Would be nice to know what the ocr staff are planning. While on the topic of the checklist, giving it a button could get more people to use it. A button like the ones between the title box and the message box on the reply page. When you click it, it pastes in a checklist that you can fill in. Could improve the feedback a bit, and it'd be convenient if it didn't have to be copypasted manually. This should probably be suggested to djp.

Remember Bluebomber the Lucario? Here's a short discussion about how OCREMIX STOLE FROM HIM. That was quite a while ago, so no point in flaming him for it, but it's pretty funny how he tried to protect "his" works. The guy stealing from Audix tho... I don't have a newgrounds account and am not really interested in getting one, but... GET HIM!

Strangely, Nekofrog seems to have missed most of my posts, and those of other listeners. There is currently quite a lot of activity (by comparison), but it's not of the quality it should be. I do agree with Nekofrog tho, I think the solution involves the Js, one way or another. One post per judge per month or two, even a short post should clarify the standards for those of us that are here as well as provide some quality feedback, without taking away much judging time. (It should be noted that last time I brought up the fuzzy bar, I got some crap for it, implying I don't read the JDs and the standards and listening to recently posted remixes. Where are the people to whom the bar is obvious? I don't see them on the wip board.) Dafydd suggests another solution, but it comes down to the lack of incentive to critique. There's no incentive for ocremixers to critique stuff here, so most of them don't. Not after they're psoted. Come to think of it, why do _I_ critique stuff here? I don't use the forum for my own wips because I don't think there's much the forum can offer me. Some time ago, in a need to vent, I wrote a letter to the staff of ocr. Didn't send it, but I'd like to share the core of it: That being said, I'm not planning to stop any time soon, but it does feel like the efforts of those critiquing wips here aren't appreciated by the Js.

Darke, why don't you follow the example of the nice judges who've taken the time to answer my lil survey? It's nice to see that you care about this thread so much that you want it to stay on topic, but it puzzles me to see you merely moderating and not actually participating.

Case in point. My first submission to ocr, reworked, but not submitted because there's so much in it that I like, but it's too much and not all of it works together as it should. Haven't gotten around to make those drastic cuts I think it needs. There's probably four parts that would work as endings, several pieces that would work as intros, a few different climaxes, breaks of different sorts... Too much for one song.

Oh most of you guys have no idea how much the sd3 project pwns. But as Sinewav mentioned, it's a conditional pwns.

No. A stupid amount of artists use it because there's people there. The quality is significantly cut, the music player doesn't work with all browsers, the loading of the page is annoying and the stuff that's on it can be distracting. Some pople want to download the file and run it through their various spectroscopes and other emtering to see if tehre are frequencies missing or whatever. Don't go saying "everybody uses it so it's good". The majority of everybody are stupid. If you want quality feedback, have a look at the other free hosts that host the _file_, not just stream it through some random player. We want the file in full quality so we can hear what's wrong with it.

The list gets longer: http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=DamonHiII The guy at least made sure to include ocremix in the title of his most recent upload, but there's not mention of ocremix in older vids' title or description, nor does he correct comments.

All right, here's my thoughts, with no regards to what version the tracks are. Oldskool Jungles Kick needs more bass, and the rhythm strings thing could use some more highs and a sharper attack. Source is used well, imo. Overall balance puts it at lacking some highs, but that's mostly because there's no hats/shaker and most of the instruments are cut off. Middle section could use some change in texture, the backing shigh strings are kind'a annoying. Give them a slight slow phaser effect, move their cutoff, do something. Drums, overall, are too soft, imo, and your lead doesn't cut through well enough. It's fine to have the cutoff like that during the softer build-up sections, but open it more when you want the lead to strike through the soundscape. -- Reversed Engineering: The sound choices here are pretty soft. the quack-like bass backing is the only one that I actually don't like, the rest are fine with me, altho soft. I was expecting something more industrial than this. It gets kind'a repetitive, especially wit the quack, but the overall progression could use some changes in texture, if not writing. Change the backing, at least, or the key sig (which can change a tune drastically). Nice ending. Anyway, the source wasn't very industrial either, so I suppose this is fine, albeit a little too soft for my taste. -- Connected Rainbows: Whoa, the source is just plain lovely. Yours doesn't start off on that note, tho, yours takes a good 30 seconds before there's a sound that I think is fitting for it. I'd go softer with the drums and maybe rewrite the intro, giving it a feel more suited the original earlier on. The first instrument could do well with shorter notes (and tweaked adsr), little plucks, giving it something of a music box sound. The backing strings overlap a little too much to sound clean, you should probably shorten the notes a little. There's a high-range harpsichord-like synth here that's particularly annoying that I'd get rid of if I were you, replace it with something similar but less.. idunno, grating? The latter half of the remix is a bit too repetitive for my liking. You could break into something more interpreted around 1:51, or just move to another part of the source to keep things from getting old. -- Mushroom Interlude: This starts off great, imo. Quite different from source, but I can clearly hear the source anyway. Good interpretation is what that means. I like the bends around 1:25. Before then tho, the second iteration of the source could use some more interpretation. I suggest you start off the same, do something else, and finish it the same. This track could use a bit more variation, tho, perhaps a key sig step down instead of up would do it. -- 808 Stadium: Pretty cool until the 0:52 synth comes in. The pulsating background is a little annoying, you might want to tone that down for part of the track at least, as are the sfx btw. Going organ towards the end is... an interesting move. It's better than the 0:52 synth, but still feels a little weird. -- Day of Mirth: Ooh, the source has some very familiar elements to it. Your remix is quite different in feel. I'm not feeling the snare, tho, I'd replace it. Like the other tracks, this one gets a bit repetitive soon, you might want to change things up a little more. Not sure what to say about the bass. I think there are better basses for this. Something smoother. The cutoff close that it does is fine, but its sound is a little... goofy. I thinkt he track could be shorter, considering some of it is just indue repetition. Changing the repetition into something new and interesting would of course be better, but cutting is better than leaving, imo. -- Starter: Niiice. The intro is just plain perfect. Actually, the whole track is kind'a like an intro, and it's... close to perfect. gets a bit repetitive around the 1:30 mark. Not much to say about it. Oh, one thing, I didn't like how you ended the saw pad in the bg. You could have closed its cutoff completely instead of just ending the note, it would have been a smoother finish fot it. -- Molten Havoc: The woodwind-like synth could use some shorter release and some overtones/more open cutoff, it blends together a bit too much and doesn't stand out enough. Source is cool (ironically), and so's yours, but in a whole 'nother way. It's a little low on highs, tho, but that's an easy EQ fix. Snare could use some variation in sound, perhaps in writing as well. The track goes by without any clear progression, which in some tracks is a good thing. I don't mind it, but if that's not what you want, considering giving the track a more clear structure. -- The Loner: Too abrupt change at 0:32, Flute-ish synths around the middle could use some resonance cuts, they're a little hard on the ears. btw, it sounds a bit Zelda-ish, its go to be the chords there. At the end, the piano blends together with itself, you should probably clean up the release/EQ/resonance issues it's got. Might be that a reverbed piano, slightly softened and with a mid-range reverb (with the highs cut), would be better than what you've got now. I dunno, just guessing/suggesting. -- That's it. Good luck with the project. It sounds like it's gonna be pretty enjoyable.

I have the amazing ability to forget most how earlier versions sounded. I thought some transitions were better in this version than what I can remember, but it gets a bit cluttery at times. I do agree with Willrock, I can't hear it either. The bass isn't that important to the track, tho, imo. Or hey wait... are you talking about the bass drum (which I can hear, barely), or an actual bass instrument?

2.1 version: Don't take offense at this, but I'm gonna be brutally honest about it. Lead is just lame and painful. Sorry man, you need to process it more. Since it's there pretty much all the time, you _need_ to change it. I'm not sure this is gonna make it to the Js' panel otherwise. 0:04-0:56, painful, but tolerable. 0:56-1:44, we've heard iut, it's juust one more "guitar" this iteration. 1:44-2:48, an iteration with a little more variation and deviation, but mostly the same thing. Again. 2:48-4:00 is also a bit more interpretive than the first iterations, but we've friggin' heard it. That's your problem, methinks, you rely on the repetition to cover the length of the remix. Cutting out the first two iterations would help, but it needs more variation in sound, dynamics, all that. B version: It's different, which is a good thing. Some levels fixing required in this version, with the accompanying lead synth. I think it's better than v2.1 but still got a problem with the repetitive sound and writing. Ultimately, both version have pretty much the same problems, altho I like the synth you used in version B and think it could spice up the remix when used well. You, however, use it as just backing. Give it a section to lead, drop the drums for a section, go double-speed with the drums, change key signature, chord progression, do something different. I hope you don't think I think this is terrible. It's interesting, and has a number of cool ideas that would make an awesome remix when done right - which I hope you'll attempt. Good luck, man. Remixer, listeners, please take the time to answer the questions in this post, we're trying to improve the WIP board and we need your feedback.