Gario

To answer the question on how late we are in general... well, right now the judges are slow on our end at the moment (this includes me!), and as far as workshop moddin' things have been fairly slow as well. We've taken a few steps to try to alleviate this as Rozo is on vaca and I'm unfortunately divided on my own attention to the forum, things are definitely not as active as I'd like them to be. On the broader point that OCR ain't what it used to be, yeah, the forums are considerably slower, likely due to the population's switch to Discord channels (which has a robust WIP channel in itself), FB, Youtube, etc., but the staff does still pay attention to the forums. I won't expand on too much more than that, but your observation ain't off too much. On topic, generally we do pretty well with a PM, though, so send one our way and we'll surely get someone to help you out soon. I apologize that I can't give this a fair shake at the moment. I do appreciate the bump, though!

This is both fascinating and hilarious that no one can ID these songs (me included). I'm not as convinced as others that these are taken from other JRPG sources - the handling of the instruments are pretty rough for a professional game release, imo, particularly how cluttered and messy things get when lots of instruments come together (particularly in the first track). Even taking the recording quality into account, I don't think these have the polish necessary for a released VG soundtrack. The arrangements are top notch, though - from a compositional standpoint they're really well done. I can hear where everyone is putting these into PS1/PS2 era games, though; the samples are from that era, and the style is just... so JRPG. I still think these are likely custom for the flash animation at the time, though.

*Sigh* Yeah, this didn't happen. I'd give a million reasons why, but at this point it'd just be excuses filling in for what was just regular ol' irl exhaustion. Still look forward to the entries, though, and can only apologize repeatedly for not stepping up like everyone else here has.

but what do you mean megaman was on playstasion for as long as i remember

Arceace - Oh shit, this is freakin' awesome. That opening just raised some hairs, here, and the overall track delivers superbly with all that gating. The fact that the sources are quite well integrated certainly helps. With a stronger, meatier kick, a little less delay on some of the chips and a hair of re-mixing so the foreground pops out a bit more and I wouldn't be at all unhappy seeing it on the panel. That last chord being major was a bit of a funny way to end it, though - kinda clashed with the rest of the track. AxLR - I was interested to see what ideas you wanted to push, and this didn't disappoint. Very sample-heavy, very trippy, but y'know what, this is pretty cool. I can definitely see what you meant when saying you were worried that people might not catch the source in this - it does sound like something completely different. I think I'm missing the use of Airman (which could be corrected if you point it out), though I hear Metal Man clear as day. I'd say it's hard to argue that you don't use the sources in this, considering you literally sampled the sources to make something different. As much as I love OCR, it sometimes makes me sad that I know we'd never be able to accept something like this for a variety of reasons (direct sampling being the only source reference is a big OCR no-no, for example) - you can get some really awesome results if you open your mind to really making new music from older pieces. If the competition for this one wasn't one of my favorites of the compo so far I'd have been more than happy to send a vote your way for this one (provided you could point out where Air Man was in this). Nice work! Mak Eightman - Solid metal fare. I think the sources sound kinda funny in that genre, but it works well enough. Can't say the sources are lacking, and the production values are decent, so overall nice work. RonaldPoe - Ironically, I think this is how I imagine music for MM1 sounding like in a strict upgrade. The soundscape is pretty thin, though, with little bass to balance out the rest of the arrangement. I'm feeling that Fire Man is pretty lacking in this one, though. pixeltea - Nice. This one jazzes it up in a big-band sort of way, with some slick sax and piano action complimenting a more frentic overall arrangement. While the instrument samples don't make me all that happy, the arrangement and integration of the sources more than makes up for it. The interpretations on Crash on the piano were a real highlight of this track. You've got an excellent sense of how to handle harmony and change things up - looking forward to more from you, in this compo and elsewhere. Ridiculously Garrett - Slow and chill, this one's pretty good, as well. While the other track has a bit more going on with some of those reharmonizations and such, this one brings on the heat with a cleaner, thicker production, and it ain't like this one is lacking in the arrangement department. Yikes, this will be a really hard vote, from me - both of these are absolutely great tracks, and for different reasons. SuperiorX - Nice production values, and some great Ground Man. Not sure the Shade man was handled in the best manner, though; it's used as texture (which is cool), but the texture didn't seem to mesh well harmonically with the rest of the track. Aside from that, though, pretty excellent track. Supercoolmike - I'm glad you posted this - I think you had pretty strong potential to take this round with that gothic set-up. Tough to integrate Ground Man into it, but the soundscape was actually pretty cool. Alas, the downsides of being unable to finish! Thanks for giving this some love regardless.

The download is in the public voting thread. Get er' done.

Me too. What're you gonna do, though - lost the coin toss. I sure hope Realme moves forward, though; would be a real shame if I didn't get another crack at it sometime down the road 'cause he didn't move on, so I'm rootin' for ya, Realme! *Sigh* Welp, Cloudman it is. I'll do my darndest with it, for sure. On the bright side, Freezeman is a great theme, so not all is doom and gloom from me - I got a great match-up, lol.

Wait, are we asking if it's better to get one-on-one, personal training from a professional over random public feedback? I'd think that's almost comically obvious - of course it's better to have one-on-one teaching from a professional (assuming the professional is worth their salt). If you can afford personalized training and education, that's the way to go. That's sort of like saying a healthy balanced diet is better for you than McDonalds, because of course it is. However, the caveat is pretty easy, here - also like a balanced diet vs. McDonalds, it's better if you can afford it, and it's better if you can dedicate the extra time required for it. Many casual artists simply don't have those kind of resources, and unless they push toward making it into a profession it's difficult to justify the time and financial investments required for such one-on-one interaction. Sometimes you can get lucky and get some attention from a willing professional for funsies, but outside of that you've got to put in some real resources in order to get something like the one-on-one mentoring you're talking about. You won't get as much out of something like public feedback, sure, but getting less out of it is certainly different than getting nothing out of it. With online forums and chat servers today it requires much less investment from an artist - dropping a quick link and asking "Thoughts?" is faster and cheaper than sitting with a mentor to discuss your music. tl;dr of course personal mentoring is better than public feedback, but public feedback is more accessible, and it's better than nothing at all (provided my caveat I presented earlier).

Perhaps I'm biased, but I'd argue that feedback is more often than not helpful when someone is specifically asks for it, no matter the skill level. However, if no one is asking for the help and they're just sharing their music it can be counterproductive to point out all of the track's flaws. It took me a few years to realize this myself, but if you pour your critique of someone's music when they're not asking for it, it can take the fun out of the craft and possibly drive people away. Context is important, so if you want to be helpful pay attention to what the artist wants from you. It sounds a little counter-intuitive saying even experts can benefit from critique, but given the right circumstances it can help make things go faster. Sometimes, for example, if I'm working on something and I need a fresh set of ears I ask for some feedback (I haven't written anything in months, so you'd likely not notice nowadays). It's harder to accept feedback when you're more seasoned, but you can still get some use out of it if you remains somewhat humble about it. Most seasoned musicians will likely fine tune the track eventually, sure, but it can help make things go faster if you just let more fresh ears listen to something and give some honest feedback. So yeah, if people are looking for feedback it's quite helpful for them when they receive it no matter the skill level, but it's markedly less so when they're not looking for it.

Eh, it happens to the best of us; I've had one or two submissions to these things where I only had about 50 seconds of music finished. One week to make a mix can be a brutal limitation, and it's one hell of a hardcore way to get back into arranging music off a coldspell of 3+ years.

Oh, that sounds interesting. Well, let's see what happens - at the end of the day this ISN'T an OCR submission, so if you can justify your stuff then you might be able to get away with it. I just know what has qualified before, so there ya go.

Well if it helps contextualize this a bit, take a listen to some of the past competitions on here (like 2010 & 2011), and check out how they integrated the sources. Also, while not strictly called for, a good rule of thumb on handling the sources would be to pretend you're writing it for OCR - that is, make sure either of the sources are recognizeable for at least 50% of the track (either in the background or front & center). In 2011, for example, I did a funky arrangement where I pulled from plenty of alternative sources (including Schala, for shits and giggles) - but I made sure the sources I needed to include were there for at least 50% of the track. I'm certain if you want to do some more original writing you'd be alright as long as there's about half of your arrangement where people can recognize the sources somewhere. Aside from that, go nuts - whether the source is in the background over something more original or if the sources are more front and center, as long as they're there. Just realize that this is being voted on by regular people and not necessarily judges, for better or worse, so I suggest not being TOO subtle with your sources. If people feel like you're not really arranging the sources and instead going on your own rail that could impact the vote (even if you can prove that you're subtly using the sources). Of course, time stamping in here wouldn't hurt your chances if you feel it's pretty subtle, so hey. Hope that helps a bit!

Found out the composer for The Mummy: Demastered was an artist called "Monomer". I've been checking out his stuff lately, he's damn good.

Mmm, I'm lovin' the energy in here - glad I'm participating this year. TBH I haven't seen people getting excited for one of these like this in a while, so maybe we'll have some really full brackets to vote on next week. Can't wait to see which RM I'm gettin' next week, seeing that mine is contested with another user on here. Well, if I don't get Windman maybe I'll be matched against the person that does get it - would be pretty funny if that happened.

This one is in a funny place - we did an evaluation for this album about a year ago, and at that time there were seven tracks, of which 6 were of good quality / close to postable (and three were already OCR postable in their state). Only one song was rejected outright. If someone else is willing to take the mantle and give the album a nice little push over the edge (get 2-3 people to finish their tracks) then this could still make a nice little EP in a very short amount of time. If anyone wants to take it, send me a PM and I'll work it out from there, getting more staff permission, etc. It's definitely looking like Touchstone is a no-show at this point, so I'll do what I can to make the transition as easy as possible.

I'm intrigued. I'll listen to it when I can have an hour to focus on it.

Sounds like the people have spoken - bumpity bump it a week, if that's what's necessary.

First season is a great series of pilot episodes (four in total) for a potentially great show - which is probably the first season's greatest weakness. It sets up to be something great with excellent animation, solid character building for all of it's characters and some great action in short bursts, then it's over before it can actually do something amazing with that set-up. You don't have to be into the game series at all to enjoy the episodes, either, as it does a solid job building it's world in it's own right. It might in fact be a reason gamers have mixed reception to this - it actually takes time to acclimate it's non-gamer audience, where the gamers would probably rather spend in the damn castle. Finishing your analogy, it approaches a climax with some excellent foreplay, but then it never gets there, which blue-balls you for a whole year before the next season comes. But yeah, go watch the first season - it's a great pilot opening, about as long as a short movie, and shorter than the Ducktales' pilot series of episodes. Then be pumped for the next season, since this is where shit is gonna get real, boyz. Considering they're only making eight episodes for this season (iirc), I doubt the quality will suffer; they've had plenty of time to spend on a relatively short series.

Hey @DarkeSword if we get 15 people in on this you should fill in the last slot to participate, too. It'd be a pretty fun change of pace, and I'd personally be interested in your take on this thing. I mean, sure, you probably don't have time... but I don't buy it! I ain't got time for it either, and I'mma make time for a few hours in a week to give this some attention. Give this one some personal attention!

Quick(ish) note about the uncanny valley: if you work toward a realistic sound and you can only get kind of close to it, it's worse than having something that sounds intentionally fake. The concept as applied to visual appeal is that psychologically the more human something robotic appears the more appealing it is (since the human features pop out, give more familiarity). However, if the robot is close to looking human without being exactly human, the brain instead focuses on the robotic features that make the otherwise human features look... unsettling. Get too close to your goal and the brain focuses on what's wrong rather than what's right with the image. This concept does apply to samples in some fashion (though for different reasons) - if you're pushing for realism and can't quite achieve it near perfectly, the listener will more easily notice what isn't right. If the instruments sound like they're supposed to be "fake", the listener will acknowledge this and instead focus on how they sound in the arrangement in their own right. Similar concept to above. It's... more of a speculation on my part, to be honest, but I've found that getting close to what you want without actually getting there can be worse than going for something different (even if fake), but doing it solidly. It's easier on a budget to make synths, chips, etc. sound great than it is to do this with sampled instruments, so often for free instrument and sample users I advise utilizing these kinds of instruments. It helps give a solid foundation as far as learning how to mix, avoid production errors, basic arrangement practice, etc., prior to learning how to make simulated instruments sound as realistic as possible. Just my two cents on that topic, because it coincidentally perks my interests.

Yeah, it's legit one of my favorite MM songs to arrange; it has a lot of potential for expansion, with it's constant mixture of major & minor. Here's hoping I get more than one arrangement out of this compo, too (assuming I get Wind Man, of course).

Alright, so sorry for taking so long to get to this after your request, Audiomancer; work has given me little space to work with. EVAL Dragonquest - a classic series that doesn't get enough love, that's for sure. I'll say this first: for the most part, the production is fairly good. The mixing is generally where it needs to be, and I don't hear too much crowding, so nice work on that. The arrangement would probably cause some issues for an OCR submission, since this sounds like two very different songs put together rather than a single, cohesive experience, and I don't think the songs are expansive enough to count as individual arrangements in their own right (really just playing through one loop of the source each, if I'm not mistaken). I hate to come down on instrument quality since understandably not everyone has the money to fork for better instruments, but I can't deny that many of the instruments in this are too low quality to pass the panel. The organ is pretty solid, the choir can work and the square waves are... well, square waves (they're fine), but the other instruments definitely felt low quality. One can still make them work with a LOT of envelope manipulation (e.g. automating the attack, delay, reverb, levels, etc., to make them sound more "real"), but it would be crushingly difficult to do so. What you have here is really cool, but it's difficult to write orchestral music with cheap or free instruments. It's not impossible (Darkesword does a pretty good job with free soundfonts, iirc), but it's very tough, so be prepare to learn how to automate the envelopes of your samplers in order to get the most out of your instruments, if you want to keep going down this route. Alternatively, you can take a more hybrid approach (which is how I like to do things, personally), and utilize more synths and such - make something sound intentionally fake rather than emulating reality. More than one way to approach this, but yeah, if the arrangement didn't hold this back the instrument quality would get this rejected on the panel. Again, though, the production quality (clipping, mixing, etc.) is pretty good here, so I think you show off some solid skills with this. This wouldn't pass on the panel, but it does help illuminate what does and doesn't work, as well as why. I do hope to hear more from you sometime, even if it isn't this track, per se. Hope this helps!

HMM... I really do want to go for this. It's an oldschool tournament-style knockout compo, which I can appreciate, and more Megaman music under my belt isn't a BAD thing... Eh, what the hell, let's do this - worst case scenario I really can't muster the capability to make anything competitive I'll just get knocked out, I suppose, so this tourney format works in my favor. My computer doesn't handle my DAW very well anymore, so it's been tough to make as texturally rich music as I'd like. Excuses, excuses... Welp, here's my picks: 1. Wind Man 2. Cloud Man 3. Tornado Man ... Got a bit of a theme goin', here. Also, curious why the Megaman & Bass Robot Masters aren't included in the list this time - they were allowed prior. I suspect you might've just forgotten about 'em, Darkesword.

I think the arrangement is pretty cool, the singing is on point, and the production is pretty good. I hear the issue with the lower mids being cluttered, and I'll add that the mixing of the vocals get drown by the rest of the arrangement from time to time (such as the section starting at 0:24), but overall it's not anything that's breaking the track definitively. I do like how the track breaks things up a bit with the SFX on the vocals in the middle - it's a nice change of pace. It ain't perfect, but it's still pretty good. I'm all for it. YES

Hallo, Remixer name: Jorito Real name: Jorrith Schaap Email: Userid: 3899 ReMixer name: JohnStacy Real name: John Stacy e-mail: Userid: 33075 ReMixer name: BardicKnowledge Real name: Ryan Thompson e-mail: forum id: 12956 ReMixer name: DS Real name: David Sylvester email: forum id: 34014 Links: https://www.youtube.com/c/ds_music394, https://www.patreon.com/DS394, https://soundcloud.com/ds_music_official, https://twitter.com/DS_Music394 ReMixer name: GameroftheWinds Real name: Gregory Orosz email: Links: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQFIzKI61fxibPgfPKeJQxw ReMixer name: Damian Nguyen Real name: Damian Nguyen email: Links: https://www.youtube.com/user/sanjuroboe, https://twitter.com/sanjuroboe, https://soundcloud.com/sanjuroboe, damiannguyen.com Submission information: Name of Game(s) Remixed: Nemesis 3 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_3:_The_Eve_of_Destruction) Name of Arrangement: Follow the Sun Names of songs arranged: We Followed The Sun (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHso_ZbG2mo), Memories (Prologue 1) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stiAJHkaL3Q) Link to the remix: Comments about the mix: This track goes back a loooong way, all the way back to August 2014. At the time, I just acquired a new orchestral sample library and was experimenting with it. That experiment turned into the first minute of this track, but I shelved the track since, and it was all but forgotten until the free round of PRC arrived at the end of 2017. I remembered this track again and figured it would be a good excuse to dust it off and give it another go. I did manage to finish the arrangement in time for the compo and ultimately won that round. However, I wasn’t 100% happy with it just yet. I was planning to polish up my MIDI some more and submit it to OCR, but when I posted the track on Discord, John Stacy reacted with a “hey, this sounds nice to play on” I started thinking. While I would love to have my arrangements played by a real orchestra, changes of that happening are slim. So I went for the next best option: go on a recruiting spree, try to get as many live performances in the track as possible, and incorporate and layer them with the samples. The performances by John, Damian, Gregory, Dave and Ryan really added a lot of life, depth and nuance to the track and improved the final result greatly. Good result, good vibes, making new friends, yeah, no reason not to be pleased with this one! Full credits: Arrangement, production: Jorito French horn, trombone, trumpet: John Stacy Oboe, English horn: Damian Nguyen Piccolo, flute, clarinet: GameroftheWinds Bassoon: DS Vocals/choir: BardicKnowledge Source usage: Most of it is pretty easily recognizable as “Follow The Sun”, with the part 1:28 - 2:34 heavily leaning on “Memories”, transcribed into a different key and with some liberties taken to make it sit nicely. Lyrics: To the Sun (4x) Cheers, Jorrith