GrayLightning

Fix the strings.This definitely could be expanded on. It feels lacking and incomplete. Longer and some more arrangement here and there would make this much better. I would add more reverb as the woodwinds are really dry. NO

What's your budget exactly? I really like Sonic Implants Symphonic strings. It has a rich, and romantic sound in my opinion. There's a mini version of it for around $400-500 with the full version around $900-1000. If you want to buy something cheaper, I suggest Reason's Orkester, Edirol Orchestra or Garritan Personal Orchestra. These options are around $200-400.

Since I never actually emailed DJP with a write up about this, I will take this opportunity to write it here. Freemind did this mix last year in a celtic, new age style and I loved it. It should not be lost, that a lot of the actual composition and arrangement work of this was done by Freemind. He deserves a lot of credit for the mix. He sent me the reason/midi file for this and I decided to recreate it with a style, new orchestration and vision by giving it a more cinematic orchestral and ethnic style. I then added some new celtic parts played by celtic pipes and flute, and also changed a guitar part to indian sections with the sitar and the humanized and inspired tabla playing of Digital Coma. I then completely redid the drums and percussion which now uses military, orchestral and ethnic sets. After my own additional orchestrations I then did the mixing and mastering on this one. I'm glad a lot of you, especially Halo fans are enjoying this. Halo's soundtrack is great and it was great to work on this mix with Freemind and Digital Coma. Finally, to pimp my upcoming mixes, I have 3 new orchestral solo mixes from Final Fantasy IV, Donkey Kong Country, and Shining Force coming to OCR soon. Thanks for the comments and support.

I've been waiting on this for months since DJP told me about this a while ago, and I can say it has been worth the wait. Well arranged djp. I really like the changes you've made. Production and concept is top notch. Great stuff.

Solid mix all around. Good synths and effects processing. Good arrangement. Certainly passable in all respects. Good job rellik YES

Very nice. Along with the other comments already made, I would say this mix needs to be explored in greater detail. There is a lot of solid foundation and untapped possibilities here that makes this worth coming back to. I would use a touch less reverb also. Close one, I could go either yes or no on this one. Borderline No. Expand on it compositionally and instrumentally and this could be far better.

Yeah, I posted an older version of this mix on the OC WIP.

Wow. Cyborg Jeff's last mix on the panel was really weak. I didn't understand why protricity kept praising him, until now. Quality work from top to bottom. Excellent concept and execution. Love it. YES

Thank you for all the comments and reviews. I'm glad that many of you are enjoying it. I have several new mixes on the way that I think is even better. One of my newer ones will be posted this month for the OCR 4 event. I should mention if you have an older version of this mix from somewhere, you should get this new version. The version I submitted to OC is an extended, longer and better version. Thanks for listening.

Wierd intro, the rest is pretty good. Reminds me a lot of WipeOut music. This doesn't have enough hooks for me, and the production is a bit lacking. This lacks the intangibles of composition and production. More development would make this much stronger. Ending is weak. It just cuts off. You can do better than that. Borderline No

This may be the worst title I have come across at OCR. But very capable work all around. I love the middle sections, great arrangement work there. Tite. YES

Not bad at all. This needs a bit more arrangement. There's quite a few production problems here. This needs better samples, and better mixing/mastering. Everything is way too quiet and muddy. Solo string sounds fake and is sequenced with little emotion. It sounds too robotic. This is pretty good, but needs a lot more work in various areas mentioned to make it to OCR. I love the ending parts that begin late into the 2 minute mark. Please keep at it as there are good ideas here. Good luck in the future. No

I congratulate you for what you're going for, however execution is very lacking. It's way too mechanical. Sax is possibly the hardest to sequence and sound good. This is an example of why. Mix this up a bit more compositionally and this could go places. Right now it just feels too repetitive for the genre. Keep at it, very promising work that should be explored more. NO

Basically what Vigilante said. Very chill mix, this has a lot of potential. Work on this more, add more arrangement and polish it up. Get rid of that percussion that sounds like clicks and pops. It's not used properly. In this case it just sounds like audio problems. NO

Prot has summed up the main problems here. There's nothing more to add. No

Nice, gotta love kalimbas. I agree with prot though, this needs a bit more arrangement. Try altering the chord progression, or structure or form. Bring something new here. Please work on this more. I love the drum and percussion work. Borderline No

This one is tricky. On its own merit it's a nice mix. My problem is there are a million versions of this mix. So when a Terra mix is made, much less yet another orchestral version of it, I expect something new brought to the table. I do enjoy justin's style and orchestration, but considering this mix has been done to death, I think it's fair to have higher expectations. Great build up though. Also there's quite a lot of recording problems with clicks/pops. Such as at 1:41, 2:32, 2:40. It really isn't an issue, but if you weren't aware of it, it is worth mentioning. More arrangement and additions like your Halo Ruined Desert mix would have made this shine. Borderline No

By "good", I mean it's not going to be cheap. One of the better ones around is the RME Hammerfall. It does MIDI and audio in, and it got a good rave in Future Music. Unfortunately, it's around US$850, so it might be out of your range. It is top-of-the-line, though. MOTU also makes some widely hailed products, so you could look for some of their things, too. I use a Maudio/Midiman USB Midi Interface with no latency issues with. It cost me $40 and I have. I can highly recommend it.

Username: ParagonX9 (My real name is Jermain Blume) Email: ChaozNG@Hotmail.com (plz display as [ChaozNG@Hotmail.comSBG]) Site: http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/view.php?id=198486/ Song Title: Protect Your Island (Remix of Dragon Roost (WindWaker) (Yeah it has the style of the Braveheart RMX) Jermain...

I am not supporting the use of these programs. They are definitely something which should be rejected. Whether this mix uses it in full or to what extent could be open to discussion. The mix could have used it for framework then imported in a midi editor and been completely arranged. There are a lot of variables here where I think it is safer to be cautious and base my vote on complete certainty from facts. I will vote NO due to the distortion that has been pointed out. I will leave the scope of my review with that and nothing beyond that.

My only issue here really is the distortion as Disco Dan pointed out. I honestly really like this. I will make no comment on the SuperJam information. I think voting NO based on the information as a main factor is presumptuous.

This is certainly no mere upgrade. Too original perhaps? This definitely requires at least further comments by malcos and baranowsky. I would also like to say my personal view is staying in the same genre and style as the original can still be considered an arrangement. In this case the harmonic and compositional changes are definitely enough. My personal trouble area here is too much melodic originality coupled with the liberal compositional changes makes this hard to distinguish at times. This reminds me of some cases this year where the original source material had very little melody to work with and the result of the mix is too original. My feelings are the same in this case.

How does this confirm what you know when the melody and chord progressions have completely been changed, except in a few small instances where he used sections of the original. How is this exactly like the original?

This is one of the most unclear mixes I have heard on the panel. I do believe both camps had points, at times this sounded like the original, and at other times it sounded like a new original. This decision was obscure enough that I thought Emperor should clarify and be informed of the judge proceedings. He also said that the melody is very different from the original other than the sections he mentioned above.

I completely agree with Dan on this one. I too am reminded of roach's style on this mix. I think this needs more clever layering. The glassy/bell tones are a bit piercing. You may want to consider EQing that or lowering the volume and blending it with another tone. My other main gripe here is the drums are way too loud, especially around early 3 minutes. Cool and interesting mix, with a few touch ups as dan suggested and the ones I've mentioned before I would give this a YES. Please consider polishing this up and resubmitting. Borderline NO