Gario

MOD REVIEW Very nice, very nice. Nothing to say on the arrangement end of it, as it's very sexy and fun. Take me to jazz-town anyday of the week. The organ is great, though I think it's a little piercing throughout. Might be the fact that I have headphones on and not listening out speakers, but they sort of hurt my ears from time to time. Perhaps put a little bit of high pass on them to help that out (not much, just to get those real highs to stop stabbing through). Regardless of that nitpick I'd call this a pass. Very nice work you've got going here.

Haa, that was pretty high energy and fun, actually! Takes a while for the source to come in, but it sounds like a nice strong buildup regardless. The melodies are a bit washed out, too, so be careful to make sure things are clear when so much is going on at once. Nice work!

Killer Studio Chips ... Actually, I got dibs on that one.

As far as pure chiptunes go, the judges don't have a particular bias against it. The reason pure chiptunes have a difficult time getting on the site is because there isn't a bias for them, either; the production standards are weighed against any other song, not against the production values of chiptunes (which is considerably difficult to match, when it comes to pure chiptunes). This song isn't a pure chiptune, so I hear a good deal of production polish that brings it to an acceptable level, in my opinion. Don't worry, it still has a pretty good shot as it is, production-wise.

MOD REVIEW Ooo, a fun, fast, chiptune-ish track? Sounds like it's right up my alley Lots of fun, lots of energy and well produced. Can't say it's easy to find much wrong with this one, right now. I feel the drop in energy at 2:18 is a bit unfitting considering the amount of buildup to 2:07 that happened moments ago, but I don't think that's a deal breaker. Sometimes the vocoded sections sound thrown in, since they're not really used consistently in the track, but I personally like them anyway. The inconsistent use will probably ding you a little, but then again they ARE kind of cool. Regardless, I think it would pass as it is, even with those minor gripes. Best of luck on the panel!

Well, they're bringing back Boogerman, so I don't think they care much about being politically correct. The sky's the limit!

Oh, I know I can contribute some stuff to the mixes, I just mean I can't make the entire arrangement, is all

I'm a dedicated Reason user (Reason 5), and I'd love to help out as a 'star' this round. Just for the shits and giggles. Let's do this. BTW I'm quite good at production and 8-bit chiptunary; I'd even say that's kind of my thing. I can work wonders in arrangement as well, but I think I'm limited to pointers in that regard, for the sake of this compo.

I might be, pending on my schedule (which lightens up in the Summer).

Ooo, very pretty, and also very atmospheric. I actually like the more ambient take to the track overall - it really takes its time to get to the theme. The track rather decides to soak in the atmosphere, which works well. I will comment on the rhythm of the guitar, though, since it's a little choppy. Since you said you're learning the guitar, I suggest investing in a metronome and practicing with it. It's something I noticed in the other track I listened to, as well - your timing on the rhythms need to be tightened up considerably. That being said, this was very peaceful, calming and pleasant. I liked it.

This was a great compo, overall - much thanks to Darren for putting his all into it.

Ooo, I feel relevant, being commented on my feedback I'll add a quick note and say I personally enjoy covers as much as I enjoy more liberal arrangements - they give off a more solid feel of nostalgia for me, so it's comforting to hear from time to time. However, for the two cases brought up I wasn't just swinging in for some random feedback; these were marked for Mod review, which means I attempt to judge the music against site standards rather than to my personal taste. The Shadowman track was well produced and it had some originality to it while still retaining Shadowman in it, so I said it would probably pass as in accordance to site policy & standards. The Mana track, while having a good atmosphere, had a few production and performance snags, as well as the verbatim source usage in general that if I didn't call it out before submission, it may have taken months before the judges had a similar response. That's what Mod review is for - quicker feedback than the panel, close to what you'd hear some time later by the judges themselves (I hope). I'd hate to give off the wrong impression, since I do give covers praise when they're not marked for review and they're well done

The source is all there, nearly note-for-note (in the melody, anyway). Focus on the melody line rather than the harmonization, as the harmonization is almost entirely different from the source. This track is not too liberal, no worries about that.

MOD REVIEW Hmm... Well shit. This is a pretty amazing arrangement. You have a lot of fun with the source, practically reharmonizing the whole thing, yet sill retaining not only the sound, but the soul of the source. Very impressive arrangement. The production works well, too. Sometimes I feel the piano is a touch dry, but that might just be me. Otherwise, it's pretty much perfect, for what it is. Yeah, this will be a pretty easy pass on the panel. Go submit it, and very nice work!

I question if you want this to be a Mod Review, due to the fact that this was designed for a fan game (and therefore loops, fades out, is very conservative, etc.) - Mod review is specifically if you're looking to post something on OCR's front page. If you're looking for feedback here, that is great; the Workshop forum is just for that. Understand, though, that Mod Review might not get you the kind of feedback you want (that is, specifically oriented toward submitting the track to the site) - you'd get more generalized feedback by posting it as a WIP or Finished track headline. I'm changing the headline to 'Finished' - if you actually are planning on submitting the track on the OCR front page, understand that it's far too conservative an arrangement to be posted on the OCR front page, as it stands, and work to include some more original ideas into the mix (That's the gist of my mini-Mod Review). As far as things go outside of a Mod Review, though, the instrumentation is actually pretty fitting - that organ is really cool. The track seems a little hollow, like there is nothing going on in the mid range. No chordal filler or anything, so it feels a little empty overall. It sounds pretty cool otherwise, though - nice take on an underrepresented game of the series

MOD REVIEW: First and foremost, great track, man! Well mixed, clean arrangement, great production values. I loved it. As a slight side, your high e-string sounded a bit sharp, but that's not a big problem: just thought you'd like to know your string goes sharp. I honestly think this arrangement has enough personality to squeak by the panel... if the song wasn't as highly represented on the site as it is. Unfortunately, the issue with this song is the source itself has many arrangements for it, already, and one of them is also an excellent metal arrangement of it. It wouldn't be the first source with a lot of arrangement love with more than one metal remix, though, so I say submit it to the panel. It's a pretty cool song, so I wish you the best on the panel!

1. Hylian Lemon 2. Supercoolmike 3.

Uploading mine in a few minutes - encoding + uploading, atm. It's much better than the last... thing I did.

1. MushroomSword 2. Ghetto Lee Lewis 3. Jonathan!

Well I'll be damned, that's some nice guitar sampling.

By all means, that would be great. I understand that feeling all too well - my tower track was 99% complete, but I can't possibly put that track out now since I've gotten another five years better since then. If you sent it to either myself or Bahamut we'd be more than happy to take a new version

Honestly, it doesn't sound like it could physically be an issue with the sites themselves for at least two reasons. First, I can verify box.net at the least, and I know it doesn't arbitrarily turn volumes down on my things. Second (and more importantly), it is physically for a file transfer site to consistently change specific values on data so that the volume turns down like that without causing other kinds of corruptions on different files. The odds of that happening are astronomically low. If you think it's your internet itself (as low a chance as that is), transfer your music files via flashdrive and go to another computer and connection entirely (a friends place, parents place, school, library, etc.). That will narrow that option out entirely. I suspect it to be a setting in the DAW sound output settings, personally, but that's up to you to check out. Don't worry about the thread being about your issues - things like this are to help you get better, and if we're able to help on this I feel that would make participating in this compo entirely worth it (even disregarding the monetary prize).

Ah, yesss... This project has been going slow, admittedly, due to both directors having life get in the way quite a bit. I do have some good news in that while it's not up on the front page yet, DaMonz rocked out Battle to a completed track. But yeah, lack of updates are not cool, my bad on that. If nothing moves before Summer of this year I'll start getting some fires started up again, but until then I'm mostly out of the loop, as well.