Gario

I was thinking about DP'ing it, tbh, but I figured he could use a little breeze-through in here, being an older track of his and all.

Wow, classic Halc - I sure do miss his contributions on OCR. This is an older track, but it's a good example of what Halc always had to bring to the table: crisp samples, clean mixing, great sequencing, and that oh so tasteful blend of square waves to give that signature 9-bit sound. The arrangement, while overall having enough variety, does stick to that bass instrument pretty strictly throughout, which makes it go stale after a time, but overall that's a minor complaint so that doesn't take my vote down by much. Halc, send us more stuff. We need one of the OGs of the 9-bit style to show the rest how it's done. YES

Whoa! Didn't know this project was still gonna happen!.. that said, I've been a bit disconnected from OCR and music in general lately due to life stuff, but it's good to be back on the scene, even if with an 8-year-old song. I still fondly remember writing this one in between cashiering customers in the parking garage in Indy. XD I didn't really grow up with SoM, but I've been playing it recently on my SNES classic and it is certainly.. one of a kind, if not a little wonky. What I can say for sure is that Kikuta-sensei is a god damn AMAZING composer and his work on this game is top-notch from start to finish, so I'm honored to be able. to represent this great track of his. Much love and congrats to all the other great artists who contributed to this album, and as always, please to enjoy!~~<3

EVAL ... ... holy shit, this is a 54 minute epic symphonic poem, isn't it? The largest track I've had to judge was a 20 minute Tomb Raider track (though that had more sources - something like 30 to sift through), so this is off the charts. Before I even begin, would there be any way to break this up into significant movements (much like most traditionally long music, from Requiems to Oratorios to Symphonies), then request they get released together as something like a single song album similar to other traditional music releases (like Haydn's "The Creation", Briton's "War Requiem" or any of Strauss' tone poems)? That would scare the judges FAR less than seeing a 54 minute single track pop up on their radar! It's not impossible to post in at least some form or another, but you'd likely be stuck in panel limbo for years with something like this as a single track rather than an album. Furthermore, you must post timestamps of where the source was used, as well. Fortunately, this is a widely known soundtrack so I can personally verify that the sources are well represented for much of this, but that's not a given among the rest of the staff. From a basic listen I can at least tell this is within our source usage bar, but we still need to know exactly what sources you used in this, what games they're from, where they were used in the arrangement, etc. *Ahem* On to the (actual) eval! First thing to note, this is a really, really good arrangement, with some solid orchestration, to boot. When I'm really familiar with the material it stands out just how the motifs are interweaved throughout, as well as how you transformed them to keep them fresh. Being that I've not played all the Zelda games I do feel like I'm missing out, though, and a lack of a detailed source reference in the post (what games, what sources, preferably where each is used in the arrangement) makes it impossible for me to double-check to see if it complies with OCR's requirements. It sounds great regardless, but you ARE responsible for posting what sources you're using specifically. Upon a rough, uneducated listen I think I can hear the source clearly in more than 50% of the track, but without those sources or timestamps it's nearly impossible to tell for certain. Is that some Holst "The Planets: War" inspiration at 43:46? I think it is, don't think I didn't catch that - that chord at 44:39 in particular is iconic. From what I can ascertain, the strings do sound a bit artificial, which keeping it real does impact the track. They're not the worst (they might even still be passable for most of the arrangement), but when they're the only thing playing (like at the beginning, for example) it's pretty noticeable. Obviously a live performance is pretty tough to get a hold of for something of this scope (it would be incredible if you could, obviously!), but overall if you ever plan on getting a hold of a better sample library that would do this arrangement wonders. I normally don't suggest purchasing better sample libraries as a fixall solution (not everyone has the dough to spend), but the amount of work it would take to hand-craft the human touches to something of this magnitude would be completely impractical, likely spanning years in personalized edits. Beside that, with your overall talent otherwise that would just be a wise investment; companies in need of composers would definitely take your music even more seriously with solid instrument packs behind it. I hear the articulations, and I hear the dynamics, so a more advanced sample library would likely give it that much more life and push this far over our bar for realism. On to the other instruments, the woodwinds sound alright, though the brass all sounds extra bright and tin-ny. A small amount of low-pass would help keep them in check. Not too much lowpass, but just enough to make them tolerable to sensitive listeners. Overall the instruments used in this sound pretty good otherwise. Aside from that, though, it's still quite good - even as is, it would have a good shot on the panel. The thing is, though, simply due to the breadth of the arrangement we'd likely need to release this as an album rather than an individual track. That's not at all a bad thing for you, per se - there's more advertisement space provided for something like that no OCR - but it WOULD mean breaking up the tracks into smaller parts (which affects the tone-poem element of the track). Upon a single listen of this I could parse a few places where segmentation would make sense (31:04 and 48:20, for example, have nice clean breaks one could take advantage of for this purpose - hell, 48:20 - 54:57 makes a great standalone arrangement, in itself!), so this isn't unthinkable, even if it cuts off some of the motivic callbacks sprinkled throughout the entire track. Rather than using the front page as a place to post the entire thing, using it to put up a few of the more enticing stand alone moments (like that ending) and telling the listeners in the commentary to listen to the whole unbroken album for the full experience could be a reasonable way to get something like this posted. This "album" method also will allow the less realistic moments that cause some issue in other sections of the piece to be covered as "album only" moments, with the juicier, fuller parts being posted onto the front page with virtually no hassle. There are a LOT of advantages to posting this as an album. If you want to go this route, get in touch with me; I'll see what I can do to help make it a reality. You're right, there's not enough music like this on OCR, so perhaps you can help fix this.

Aww, but we love more traditional arrangements when we can get them - having a formal education myself I appreciate the amount of work that goes into things like this. Our most posted ReMixer this year was Rebecca, after all, and she does nothing but luscious, full orchestral arrangements. This is certainly more subtle in some ways, emulating something stylistically akin to late Classical music (like Beethoven's 6th) or early Romantic (thinking like Edward Grieg's 'Morning Music'). It's really quite neat, even if some of the instruments are a bit mechanical (them violins toward the end, for example). OCR has a strange rep from ages past on being all about the untz, though I can't imagine why. Maybe it's because of the easier level of accessibility solely writing in a DAW has? Perhaps DjP's hillbilly Bubble Bobble is considered too low class to call classically arranged? Ah well, that's neither here nor there, since you're sending stuff my way in the inbox. Personally, I'm looking forward to more Schoenberg or Babbitt-styled 12-tone arrangements to come our way, but people tend to shy away from those styles when remixing (save for one notable WoW remix we received years back... eh, that's more Messiaen, according to the artist, anyway). I can't imagine why.

Yeah, the wind noise is a pretty big no-no on here - that's a super distinct sound from that game. While it's a cool sample, it doesn't really integrate into your arrangement anyway, so I don't think it'll be a severe loss, at least. TBH I wish we could accept Square Enix samples, but they explicitly told OCR not to post music with their samples back in 2012, so we gotta respect their wishes on it - any track that uses them on OCR were grandfathered from before they sent that request. Glad I could help, though!

Well hello there! Welcome to OCR's WIP boards! This is certainly one hell of a way to start, to boot - it's quite good. I'm liking what I hear so far; you've got some good vocals, and you have the guitar chops to match. The emphasis of a 6/8 meter against the 3/4 vocals to distinguish the chorus is a great idea, as well. You've also got a great sense for mixing and production - nothing gets lost, everything pops when it should, and the production seems solid. As far as the arrangement itself, it has a lot of strong points to it - the arrangement oozes personality, the lyrics are quite good, and the aformentioned performances are also good. The backing piano part is pretty stiff, though. It has dynamics, but the articulations sound copy/pasted, and the releases are pretty dry. The releases can be easily masked with a hint more reverb, but the articulation can be tricky to address with some samples - subtle changes to the attack (we're talking milliseconds) can emulate soft pedal and such. The strings also sound pretty artificial for similar reasons when exposed, but they're not as much an issue when they're in the background. When singing, be careful in your lower ranges. It sounds like you're straining in that range, which causes you to go a bit sharp and overshoot leaps. There are a few other spots where you over/undershoot leaps as well (like at 2:20), so it's something to keep an eye on. Also be mindful of your vibrato; while most of the time it's alright, it does get pretty extreme from time to time (like at 1:11), which causes it to get more out of tune than is stylistically appropriate. It's not terrible (most won't catch it on casual listening), but if you're looking for perfection it's something to watch out for next time. The original titles are the only reason you wouldn't consider submitting anything, eh? Damn, that sucks for us - I'd argue that's one of the easiest elements to fix, but at the same time I can respect the argument that the title does indeed change how one listens to a song (give a listen to the 'Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima', then think about the impact it would've had with it's original name: ' 8':37" '). Just food for thought, anyway - minor alterations to the title are acceptable, as far as OCR is concerned (e.g. "Where Angels Fear to Tread" doesn't work, whereas "Where Angels Fear to Wander" or the truncation "Angel's Fear" would work great). Another idea is to take your chorus and base your title on that ('My Fear of Heaven' and 'Fear of the Heavens' are both great lines that also could serve as representative titles). I 100% sympathize if you don't want to change the title, but it's something to consider. You were looking for some advice/criticism so I provided, but to be honest this is still quite good. If you submit your stuff even as is you'd have a pretty good chance on passing even despite my crits here, so I do hope you at least give it some thought in the future.

Ah, apologies, are you planning on submitting one of the tracks presented here? This is a collection of releases that you've been putting out regularly, so while that falls under an album being pushed in the WIP boards (which is perfectly fine, by the way!), it doesn't make for a good thread to post a mod review due to the shear breadth of tracks on here. I removed the tag from this thread, but if you have a track that you plan on submitting and are finished taking comments on in here, make a new thread for it and tag it for mod review. Thanks!

My name/ReMixer name: Brett Christian Harrison Forum ID: BrettCH Game: Ironsword-Wizards and Warriors II Song: Main Theme Arrangement Name: The Knight's Return It took a little while but this is my second submission of this remix... Made a few tweaks, I hope you guys like it

Well, this one is actually a pretty cool arrangement, with workable production values and some really good samples, as far as I'm concerned. The orchestration is actually pretty well done as well, so kudos for that. There's a lot to dig about this, but there are debilitating issues that hold this one back. First, the instruments are sequenced in a manner that makes them sound mechanical. Every instrument has the same articulation throughout, and the dynamics sound stiff (allowing no variation within phrases, giving it that realistic touch). That lead violin/viola, for example, swells into every single note, with background instruments either ALWAYS having a hard attack or having a swelling attack to go with them. There's nothing wrong with those particular articulations, per se, but they need to be utilized appropriately; swelling into the first note of a phrase and having the violin play legato for the rest of the phrase, for example, will give the instrument that much needed human touch, since that's how a human would perform it. Since you're using soundfonts it's a touch tricky, but one can achieve this to a believable degree by playing around with the sampler's attack and release envelopes (no attack being a sharp articulation, low attack being legato, middling attack giving the instrument a more sweeping note, etc.), so play around with those options to get the right sounds. The entire track also sounds like it's highpassed to a certain degree - there's virtually no lower end to speak of, which makes the entire track sound thin. Open up the lower end of the EQ range on this bad boy and it'll breath life into the whole thing, given that the arrangement is mixed in a way that doesn't cause any other production issues in the process (like limiting and compression errors). I like the idea, and I think what's here is a solid base to work from. Listen to other orchestration on both here and live performances on YouTube to get an idea of what you're shooting for as far as humanization is concerned, and allow that lower end to pass through. You've got the tools to get this just right (again, the samples, even being soundfonts, sound fine for OCR purposes), and it sounds like you got the chops, so give that realism some more attention and let's see this happen. Good luck! NO

Contact Info: J-BHarmonized James High https://soundcloud.com/jbharmonized 33741 Submission Info: F-Zero X Catcher of the *Orchestral* Dream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUSxabS5_qM Original Composers: Taro Bando, Hajime Wakai I've been working on improving my ability at making orchestral melodies. My goal is not necessarily realism, but rather my focus is on the melody...as of now at least since I'm having to stay cheap in terms of sample quality. If you've ever heard of DSK music, I mainly use their soundfonts.

Not too much to add here - this one is a really good reimagining of Zelda's theme. I liked your other track too - it's interesting to get two remixes of the same theme from the same artist at the same time - so it's incredibly tempting to compare the two. I'd rather not, however; they do different things, and while one has a few technical issues with the humanization/production that this one doesn't share, it does something different and no less satisfying with the same source. I'm a fan of both in their own right. I really like this collection of tracks, so let's get them both up on OCR ASAP. YES

Ooo, I really like this. I saw in the other thread (and even dropped this suggestion in there), but listening to this here, the real problematic samples are the two from Sora. Of course the Goofy/Donald samples are not good either for OCR's purposes, but you can look through some Disney material to find suitable substitutes. If those Sora samples are more popular quotes from the game or have some more meaning to the players (Not as familiar with them myself - only played through it once when it came out and once a year ago) you could perhaps speak the parts yourself. You never know, it could be a really cool effect on it's own with your voice speaking Sora's parts. Sorry we can't actually take Square samples, though - it causes so much unnecessary trouble for people. On an unrelated side note, that Halloween town remix is dope as hell - you've got some real solid vocal chops. It... just autoplayed the Soundcloud list while I was writing this, so there ya go, I'm a fan.

Not a bad question, but that's no-go, as Darkesword said If it were from one of the Disney characters, though, perhaps sampling a Disney property could be a useful workaround? It feels weird suggesting sampling the largest media company in the world rather than Square Enix, but them's the ropes 'round here. Otherwise, er, perhaps a good impersonation is in order? Ask around; you never know, someone might really pull through.

Huh, I wonder why; I thought it was a pretty clever arrangement, myself. Ah well, haters gonna hate, as they say.

A new Megaman with a new style? That's pretty cool. It's also cool that they snuck in some concept art in Legacy Collection 2 (It's in the Megaman 8 gallery, showing one power that Megaman will get in 11) - I was wondering what the heck that design was from a week before this game was announced, lol. Speaking of that concept art, I'm loving the idea of Megaman's costume making more significant changes to show off what power Megaman is holding. To Supercoolmike's point on MMX9 = introduction of Cyberelves, I don't think MMX would ever reach that point, much like MMClassic will likely never show the beginnings of MMX outside of the filler at the end of Power Battle 2. At most, they'd likely continue the story of the new type of Reploid that Luminous and Axl are said to be. Putting something like the Cyberelf war or the beginnings of the X series at the end of their prior series marks an end to how far the company can expand their franchise, which for something as reproduceable as the Megaman series would be a serious blow to it's profit potential. If we ever get a game (or games) following the Cyberelf wars, it would need to be done with either a Megaman Zero series prequel or a new Megaman series focused in that era. Either would be pretty interesting, but making an official Megaman Zero game that was a one-shot prequel would get me hella excited. I'm not all THAT excited for a new MMX anyway for similar reasons Zircon has (post-MMX4 is mediocre at best), but on this note of a prequel OH MAN would a remastered/redone console release of the Megaman Zero series be absolutely amazing. It stayed high quality for the whole series, and frankly it follows an amazing story that 100% concludes it's story arc at the end of the 4th game (which is a rarity for these kind of games, due to the incentive to profit on them for as long as possible). The DS collection is a pretty mediocre re-release, so it really would be amazing with a fresh coat of paint. But yeah, new Megaman is a pretty cool thing. Does anyone know if Inufane is at all involved with this one? If not, this is will be the first classic Megaman game outside of his influence - how will the different ideas show forth?

Not sure if he frequents OCR anymore, but @Ramaniscence is the owner of the site. If the issue persists, you should figure out a way to get in touch with him. Also, totally still waiting on them to upload my Deus Ex submission I turned in five or so years ago - tell em' to get on that shizz, while you're at it.

Privately y'all probably know this, but I'll make it public here once again: DjP is a smelly doo-doo face. Also, OCR can monetize my music from the site, just as I said in the prior thread.

How'd you get 182s for the track length? It's a 3:30 song (210s), with a few seconds of silence at the end, there. I can understand filling in the gaps from place to place and slicing a few seconds from the end (which I did, in fact), but starting the clock a few seconds prior to each section and decreasing the length of the arrangement by almost thirty seconds doesn't seem justified to me, and that makes all the difference as far as stop-watching is concerned.

Wow, I can see what you're talking about with this being pretty liberal. When the source is there I can definitely hear it, but when the more original thread is present it certainly dominates. All of the themes present blend well together, so overall it's still well composed, but a stopwatch does seem to be in order: 0:37 - 0:51 0:53 - 1:07 1:25 - 1:56 2:12 - 2:25 2:26 - 2:32 2:35 - 2:39 2:44 - 2:47 2:52 - 2:57 90s / 206s ~44% Source Hmm, this is a bit lacking in the source department. Even if I fill in the gaps a bit and cut off a few seconds off the end of the track (since it's silence anyway) this will very clearly fall short of the 50% threshhold that Larry tends to stick to. I'm not one to stick hard to that rule if the overall sense of the arrangement sounds like the source, but in casual listening I do have some difficulty connecting it to the source save for some choice moments (like at 0:37 - 1:07, for example). Seeing that it's legit one of my favorite songs from Mana, that's a bit of an issue. The production is pretty solid, and the orchestration and handling of the samples is pretty spot-on, so it's safe to say that the arrangement being too liberal is my only real concern, but it's a significant one. Not to say the track is bad, of course - it's still a really cool track, and has some really cool ways to expand on the source (slowing down the theme at 1:25 was quite clever). I just can't justify passing this based on source usage overall. If the introductory material were cut shorter, or if some textures from the source (like the open arpeggio that's in the source at 0:26 in the Youtube link, for example) were incorporated into the original material (opening, closing and/or bridging material) I could see this being a pretty easy pass, but I think I'm going to have to turn this down for now. If anyone can ID more material than I and get this above the 50% mark I'd be happy to flip my vote, but it doesn't seem to be the case for now. NO

This is an interesting track. It's a really slow-burning build-up with a solid payoff, build with some simple sounding samples (I hear you, artificial choir). It's repetitive, but it's repetition done right; areas that sound like they're going to repeat material take unexpected turns. The ending peiters out in a bit of an unsatisfying way, but it's not that big of an issue. Considering the overarching presence of the kick in this, it could've used some more body. It's got the low end covered, but if you're going to be sidechaining for space with it some more lower mids to give it more presence would've made them stand out better, and just sound more satisfying overall. What's here isn't bad, but in my humble opinion it could've been better. I'm going to note that the overall instruments used in this are pretty vanilla, but I really like how they're handled overall - they all have some nice presence, and they're sprinkled throughout the track, utilized in different ways and combinations throughout. The instruments are vanilla, sure, but they're handled in such a way that they don't ever feel distracting or boring. Kudos for that. Overall, I think my issues are nit-picky and minor - overall this is a smart arrangement and blending of sources that really grows on you. Good stuff, I like it. YES

This has a pretty interesting method of expanding and varying the source that I think you're either going to love or hate: it syncopates the timing so that the main theme is about a half measure off the beat. As far as I can tell this is definitely intentional, and I'll admit that it works better than I thought it would. It's hard to dissociate how the song is SUPPOSED to go and how it's presented here, but when you do it works well for most of the track that it's utilized. It does take some getting used to, though. The use of the theme at 0:54 - 1:08 is an exception to this, though - the harmonization clashes hard against the theme, making it sound dissonant, unresolved and ugly. A clean fix would be to remove the source in the background and let the music build into the meat of the material without it, but if the artist would rather keep the source there he'll have to more carefully alter either the source material or the harmonies so that they harmonize together better. The production on this is solid, and the mixing is just where it should be, so kudos for the high production values on this. Some of the instruments sound rather low quality, though (primarily the slow strings used to carry the theme in the opening and closing section). They're just not suited to carrying a faster moving melody - the slow attack makes it sound like the instrument is just missing and (unintentionally) off the beat most of the time. The idea is generally fine, but it's not the right type of instrument for that kind of job. Either altering the attack envelop on the existing instrument or using a different instrument with a tighter attack would fix this issue entirely - you can still have an ethereal instrument without having such a swelling attack on the instrument. One final criticism I have is the extreme nature of the lead pitch bending. While for the meat of the track it causes no issue, at 3:06 - 3:10 the bending clashes hard against the rest of the track when the delay carries it past where it should've been. Decreasing the size of the bends, decreasing the delay or a combination of both of these things would alleviate this issue considerably. To be honest, this is a lot closer to passing than not, in my book. The weak string instrument that carries the theme does hold this back considerably in my book, though, as well as the highly dissonant section at 0:54. Fixing these issues as laid out above (as well as the pitch bending) would pretty much secure a vote from me upon resubmission, but right now I do have to send this back. I think the idea is great, though, and the production is really good, so here's hoping you fix this up and send it back this way. -- EDIT (2/16): Listening again, two of my three concerns, while they're still concerns that I would appreciate a fix on really don't affect the track so badly that I'd reject it on those grounds. The pitch bending is the most significant issue, and just lowering the pitch bend range would probably give it my stamp of approval. That's a really easy fix, so I'll be changing this to a conditional vote, here. YES (Conditional)

Comparing the two, there does seem to hold more variety in the lead portion, with some more animated lead work to help alleviate some of the static elements that were present in the previous version, along with a greatly improved drum part (with all of them fills to keep things interesting). I still think the EQ range is constricted, but there was a clear effort to improve the mixing to make it easier to hear the important elements, at least, and the lead bitcrushed square has had it's upper EQ ceiling lifted notably. I was pretty borderline in my vote before, so I think I'm okay swinging this in the track's favor this time around considering the improvements made. It's a unique track I think OCR would be better off with rather than without. As far as the overly bitcrushed style goes (as it was a complaint that arose in the prior decision) I stated my piece before and I'll reiterate: it's a stylistic choice from the artist that we shouldn't fault him for. The mix is certainly easy to hear everything even with the dirty instruments, so it shouldn't be seen as an objectively bad element in the track, even if it's not for everyone. Just sayin'. YES

Is that a Galaxy Quest quote? I think it is - HA! Also, she CAN be tough, but if you want past the spider girl just use some spider products that you purchase in the beginning of the game and she'll leave you alone. Just sayin'! Er... Yeah, for the music I think this is a solid and enjoyable arrangement of a really cool source. Go check it out.

Looks like you got a nice, warm welcome on here already, but I'll say it again: Welcome to OCR's WIP board! Seeing that people already gave an accurate assessment of how this would fare upon submission (it would indeed be rejected due to the cover aspect and the fact that it's a MIDI arrangement), I'll look at this from a different perspective. First and foremost, this is definitely a pure, unabashed MIDI arrangement. Definitely nothing wrong with that if that's what you're all about - I was a hardcore MIDI arranger back in the day - but nowadays there's little reason in this day and age to ardently stick to GM MIDIs when there are plenty of samples and soundfonts out there that just sound objectively better. General MIDI soundfont has had it's run waaay back due to it's extremely efficient filesize (we're talking kilobytes rather than megabytes in filesizes), but it's been virtually phased out due to how fast computers and the internet processes things today. That being said, looking at this strictly from a MIDI arrangement point of view, this is really quite good. The instruments are accurate and representative, and the overall presentation is nice and clean. If you haven't already, I recommend submitting this to vgmusic.com, since they're a site dedicated to posting MIDI arrangements. This isn't at all bad for the type and style of arrangement that this is, so in it's proper place it'll shine brightly enough (I have my share of MIDI arrangements on there too - mainly MM3 MIDIs - if you're ever checking MIDIs out ). In fact, if your other tracks are at this quality and are also MIDI arrangements I suggest posting all of them up at once on there, if you're looking for somewhere to showcase your MIDIs. What kind of tools are you using to arrange these? With some luck you might be able to transition easily into sample-based arrangements, where many of the lessons of MIDI arrangement apply (correct notation, effects envelopes, mixing balance, etc.). You've got a promising start on things, here, so I'm hoping you can apply what you learned so far to some great arrangements in the future that break past MIDI arrangements.