Chimpazilla

ReMixer - RoeTaKa Name - Alex Roe Email - UserID - 9374 Games Arranged - Dark Souls II (Dark Souls II: Scholar Of The First Sin (this is the edition out in 2015 with the DLC included)) Arrangement Name - Kodoku Songs Arranged - Sir Alonne (DLC Crown of the Old Iron King which will be in the Dark Souls II: Scholar Of The First Sin edition. Theme is on youtube) Game info - Dark Souls II or Dark Souls II: Scholar Of The First Sin Composers - Motoi Sakuraba, Yuka Kitamura Systems - Dark Souls II: Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3, Xbox 360 Dark Souls II: Scholar Of The First Sin: Microsoft Windows, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One Comments: A return to Dark Souls, always a joy! The DLC of Dark Souls II was actually a decent enough trio of work compared to the base game. And if there's something I love about DLC done right it is brand new music. The music of the DLC is arguably better than the base game's soundtrack; a rare feat. Sir Alonne is a very cool character. Basically he comes to a kingdom that isn't doing so good, he joins and kicks its enemies asses before moving on to whatever he truly wants to do - probably fight you. Anyway, love the original song and because of his design I had a lot of ideas to do an epic eastern take on his theme. I'm not really shaking the foundations here too much and I don't have a lot of experience in this style or hybrid but it was a lot of fun to make.

Sub bass is nice, but it is too loud here, and since it is the ONLY bass element, it ends up sounding muddy, as it is impossible to discern the individual notes being played. There's a bass frequency missing in the track imo. This sub bass is the strongest at 40-60Hz; people without the ability to hear sub bass will hear no bass at all. My feeling is that sub bass should be supportive to another bass instrument or timbre and not be alone. The drumming is really simple and repetitive. I agree with my fellow judges, this arrangement is really repetitive. Some changes in drumming would most likely change that feeling completely. The chord change at 2:00 is really nice... perfect opportunity to change up that drum pattern and introduce a new feel either at half or double time, or with a new drum element or some swing or something. I do think the drumming is the biggest reason that this track is dealbreakingly repetitive. What is here is mixed pretty well other than the sub bass being too loud. Just do some drumming changes and maybe introduce one more element in the bass-but-not-sub-bass range to fill out the spectrum and this should be golden. NO (resubmit)

Cool concept! I love the glitching, even though the patterns on the choir part are a bit simple and repetitive, it's working well, gives a great creepy effect. I'm really enjoying the interweaving of themes, it's very well integrated. I love the use of the "it'sa meeee, Mario" clip. Good drum groove, could stand a bit more variation but I like the occasional bitcrushed sections. I wish the track were mastered a bit louder, it hovers around -3db most of the time. Still, great creativity here. YES

1) Remixer Name- Yoshiblade 2) D L Forum ID) 52832 1) Game Being Arranged- Super Mario World, Castlevania 64 2) Name Of Arrangement- Very….Very Wrong Castle 3) Name Of Arranged Song- Castle Theme, Castle Center a.k.a Dungen Main Theme 4) Original Composer- Koji Kondo (SMW), Masahiro Kimura, Motoaki Furukawa, and Mariko Egawa (Castlevania 64) 5) So after utilizing the workshop I feel I can say that this is my first remix thats follows an envision, interpret, display, revise workflow. We start firmly in Castlevania territory with the backing vocals from Castle Center and the cold ambiance of a stone European castle drafty and cold. The Castlevania I kept as devoid of electricity as possible , where as the SMW Castle I wanted more chripy and chippy. The glitch aspect is very import to marry the cheerful Mario with the brooding Castlevania, I really would like to know what if Mario was envisioned as some sort of gothic horror. 2:22 the pain of SMW, the sins of a million dead Yoshis are slowed and twisted. The circuits of the Games are bent as the glitchiness robs them of their respective independent worlds and throws them together in a warped reality!!! (ok Ill calm down) 3:18 really needed to be there as some sort of grotesque John Carpenter’s “The Thing” “bUt IT”s mE mARio!!! i wOnT hURt yOu” this twisted impostor, come to think of it the twisted Impostor vocals sums up my feelings about this mix, something that should otherwise be cheerful(Mario, garish, upbeat and happy) synthesized with Castlevania (twisted mutilated gothic horror) all served with an electro-glitch twist!

The bell synth and the pad are both really very generic and simply sequenced. I'm fine with this being a cover-ish arrangement, and the guitar work is pretty good, but the mix is muddy as heck. The bass is way too loud and boomy. The guitar sounds really upfront and dry and doesn't fit into the soundscape well. Some arrangement variation would be good too, but the guitar solo work makes up for the lack of arrangement ideas. When the string stabs come in, they are muddy too. I agree with my fellow judges, take this to the workshop for some mixing advice! NO (resubmit)

I'd love for Larry to weigh in on this. If I'm being too strict on the source use, I'll gladly flip to YES. Need Mr. Stopwatch's opinion.

I think this is the first time I've paneled a Nostalvania track instead of giving it a DP. As usual, this is a super-sounding piano mix, and Markus has given us more wonderful 7/8, wow Markus you are really a skilled jazz musician. I have two issues with this track though, the first issue is that I'm not sure how well these two themes blend into a cohesive overall mix. The transitions are really well done, but even so, these two themes aren't wowing me as one song. The two Birabuto sections sound pretty similar, and the source is easily identifiable, but the Muda sections were much harder to place for me because they are so different from the original. The Muda is a big problem for me because in this mix, Markus plays Muda with some unique chord backing, and then relies on that chord backing as he goes into solo territory. I'll detail below with my own source breakdown: 0:00-0:47 Birabuto, easy to hear 47 seconds 0:47-1:30 original writing 1:30-2:11 Muda, fairly easy to hear 41 seconds 2:11-2:47 now we are into original writing territory, but using the chord backing Markus has established (not in the source tune though... if there IS source here, it is in the bassline maybe, someone help me) 2:47-3:09 I don't hear Muda here, someone let me know if you do and I am missing it! 3:09-3:34 Birabuto, easy-peasy 25 seconds 3:34-4:26 awesome, yet original So I get 47+41+25 seconds = 113 seconds, out of 266 seconds total is 42%. Other judges, please check me on this, because I hate the thought of rejecting a Nostalvania mix. edit 9-29-15: Thank you Larry! Onward to a well-deserved YES

Hi folks! Remixer Name: Nostalvania Website: https://soundcloud.com/karmus24 User ID: 47981 Name of game arranged: Super Mario Land (GB) Name of individual Songs: Birabuto Kingdom, Muda Kingdom Source Links: http://youtu.be/I1X9blkjFdo?list=PL67291BDCD76884B2 and http://youtu.be/cZUeLOAqRgE?list=PL67291BDCD76884B2 Link to Remix: My comments Here is my piano trio version of the Birabuto and Muda kingdom themes from Super Mario land. I mixed the two sources together, added some original writing and reharmonisations. I also changed the time signature to 7/8. The genre is jazz with some gospel influences. The mixtitle is actually a reference to the jazz standard Seven Steps To heavenwhich also is the title of an album by Miles Davis. Source Breakdown 0:00 - 0:50 Birabuto Kingdom 0:51 - 1:33 Original writing 1:34 - 2:24 Muda Kingdom 2:25 - 2:50 original 2:51 - 3:12 Muda 3:13 - 3:36 Birabuto 3:37 - 4:26 original

This is a VERY competently played remix of this source. Source use is easily identifiable, great adaptation to the metal genre with great interpretations too. I considered this for a DP until I realized there are areas of straight (or, juuuust about straight) copy pasta. The sections 0:18-1:41 and 3:11-4:35 are nearly identical, with the only exception being the drums, there's a little bit of drum variation between the two sections but the tonal aspects are identical afaict. 1:41-2:39 is also the same generally, but again with drum variation, and with some really dynamite soloing added. That's a lot of repetition in the arrangement. What do you guys think? edit 11/1/15: I'm leaning towards NO also, because of the repetition. Otherwise, this is a really great sounding track. I'm interested to see what Larry thinks of this one. If this doesn't pass this time around, I'd really like to hear it again with the arrangement varied a little more. I hope it will be an easy fix up, because this track needs to be on OCR. NO (resubmit)

Hello again OCR! I was super stoked that my Food Frenzy submission was not only approved but also the featured Thanksgiving song. I thought for a little bit there that I wasn't cutting it! It was a really great day when I saw that tweet though. This next song I'm submitting is my version of The Ultimate Show (Super Dimentio) from Super Paper Mario, which I'm titling 'The Final Curtain'. Contact Information ReMixer name: GaMetal real name: Jonny Atma website: http://www.jonnyatma.com userid: 53657 Submission Information Name of game(s) arranged: Super Paper Mario Name of arrangement: The Final Curtain Name of individual song(s) arranged: The Ultimate Show (Super Dimentio) Composer: Naoko Mitome, Chika Sekigawa System: Wii Original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvmfyJw1IOU Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc.: (Taken from JonnyAtma.com) "I have had a TON of requests to do this song. I've been planning to do it for a while now (it's actually been number 1 on my to-do list for like a year), but I'm glad that I waited till now to get to it. This is a very complex song, so it doesn't seem to get a whole lot of remix treatment. Once again we encounter one of those game tracks where it's hard to hear exactly what each seperate instrument is doing, so although this isn't the hardest song to play, it was pretty tough to figure out. There's seems to be up to 7 or 8 different things going on at any given time. The original song has 7 different sections (counting the intro), and the only thing I altered was extending the 3rd section to twice the length to give it more of a 'verse' feel. Early versions of this remix had an 8th section that I attempted to use as a bridge after the 2nd playthrough that was going to be a play on the 'Charming Magician' theme, but I hated it everytime I heard it so I took it out. With that said, the arrangement itself is pretty simple: 3 playthroughs with a solo in the middle. I felt the original was already great enough (and had enough sections) to go changing it around too much. I find myself struggling to type much more about this one so I won't force it. I said earlier I'm glad I waited till now to get to this song because I feel like I really hit a stride lately where I'm very satisfied with what I'm hearing, and this song is EXTREMELY fragile and can be very easy to screw up because of how complex it is. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Ciao!" Thanks once again for reviewing my submission!

The beginning of the remix contains actual audio from the original track, is this ok? It sounds good but I'm not sure it's ok to do. The remix is conservative for sure, and I get what Deia is saying about the bass vs. the vocals, it is because it's a saw bass with a ton of upper end crunch which is crunching in the same frequency space as the vocals, also the bass and vocals are both dead center. If the crunch part of the bass was stereo separated, this problem would be eliminated. Drum writing is repetitive but the sounds are good. Guitar work and vocal performance are both very good. Even with some crits, I think this is a good creative cover of this source. I'm going with it. YES

I can pretty much co-sign with everything Deia said above, especially the slow empty intro and the obvious fakeness of the samples used. But wow I really like this arrangement and the creativity of the writing, and the excellent dynamics I hear in this track. The jury is out for me. edit 11/24/15: I'm not going to hold this up. I still really like the arrangement, but the fakeness of the strings, horns and woodwinds is just enough of a distraction to be a problem. The pizzicato strings are fine, it's the legato strings and brass and also the woodwinds that are at issue. With every legato instrument, you seem to have used all the same articulation for all the writing, with just enough of a long attack so that the shorter notes sound awkward. Ideally you should layer a few articulations together so that the more staccato articulation hits those shorter notes with a much shorter attack. I hate to reject the mix on these grounds, because this arrangement is stellar. But this will be a great opportunity for you to refine your craft regarding humanization. Clem is right about not having every note hit right on the grid too, allow for a teeny bit of human error, moving notes slightly ahead and/or behind the beat (not enough to make it sloppy, just enough so it feels human). And definitely look into layering articulations for the different attacks. Good luck and I hope to hear this again! NO (borderline, please resubmit)

Highs are hyped and the mix sounds brittle. Backing guitar should not be louder than the lead, lead is too quiet all the way through. Performances though are wonderful. Straightforward arrangement with great personalization. Soloing starting at 1:36 is dynamite. I'm enjoying it! Agreed with Larry about the fadeout, I would prefer a proper resolution, it's a shame and it even cuts off before fully fading out. BLARG. Ok I still dig it enough to YES

I'm not sure all the sounds in this mix go together as well as they could. The chugs do sound a bit heavy and staccato, but this mix is like a hybrid metal-electro-experimental track more than a purely metal track, so I find the staccato chugs interesting and playful. That formant lead is odd, so is the pan flute that follows it... but this is a tapestry of odd sounds that either work for you or they don't. Personally I'm enjoying the unique and odd combination of sounds. Mixing isn't perfect, and the ideas get repetitive after awhile, but overall I find this very creative. Thanks Larry for the source breakdown, wow this squeaks by on source, but the arrangement is very cohesive and has great flow. Me likey. YES

There sure is a hiss in the beginning. The piano chord backing gets repetitive for me. When the bass begins at 0:57 it sounds quite upfront and sounds as if it were recorded in a totally separate room from the piano (which is quite reverby). When the guitar begins at 2:11, it sounds pasted on top to my ears, not mixed in well, but the performance is good. The string backing is super plain and too loud and there's an arp in the background that is obscured by the loud string padding. Even the drums are obscured by the string pad. The ending is really abrupt and cuts off before the end of the reverb tail (or is that a hiss tail?). I do like this arrangement but I think there needs to be a bit of mixing cleanup and de-hissifying happening before we pass this. NO (resubmit)

That's some impressive violin playing. The arrangement is mostly conservative but then goes into some really interesting territory at 1:45 with a unique breakdown and some soloing. At 2:37 there's a really interesting section where the violin becomes sfx. Love it! My big issue with the track is I don't feel like it's mixed that well. I can barely hear the bass but the kick is too loud. The violin seems muffled most of the time. The drumming is generally very stiff and I'm not sure how well the kit suits the playing style. NO

Remixer Name: Trev Wignall Email: Website: facebook.com/trevwignallofficial Game: F-Zero X Arrangement: Dream Silencer Arranged Tune: Silence (Dream Chaser) Comments: The lead is electric violin. It sounds like some sort of guitar or synth sometimes, but it really is electric violin all the way through! The effects solo 2/3 of the way through is all done in real-time using my custom effects patch in NI's Guitar Rig 5. It's an abstract violinistic interpretation of what it might be like inside one of those cockpits... Instruments: Fourness Fuse Electric Violin (Lead) NI Guitar Rig 5 (Violin FX) Waldorf Pulse 2 and Blofeld (Basses) Zoom 9030 (Bass FX) NI Battery 3 and Kontakt (Drums) Travis Bean Electric Guitar (Rhythm) Ableton Live (DAW) The Silence theme doesn't really get enough love in my opinion, compared to Big Blue and Mute City. The inspiration do this (and I've wanted to submit for a very long time) comes from the great remixers of OCRemix. Lastly, here's a video of me playing it live. Thanks and enjoy, Trev Wignall

My main reason for paneling this instead of DPing it is that the arrangement gets repetitive because the instrumentation stays the same throughout. The song feels much longer than it is because of this. I have only one other crit, at 0:58 the toy piano takes the lead and it is much too quiet while the accordion stays loud as a backing element. So 0:58-1:27 I feel isn't mixed right. And yeah, SoS melody over and over again, although there are nice little variations, speedups, time signature change, etc. I'm a sucker for anything Zelda but especially THIS source, and the accordion and toy piano combo is such a unique way to tackle it. Despite the repetition and some minor mixing issues, the creativity here carries it for me. YES

Remixer name: worldsbestgrandpa Christian name: n/a Email address: Website: facebook.com/folkyall User id: 49865 Game: Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time Arrangement: "Soggy Carousel" Original Source: "Windmill Hut" Instruments: button-box accordion, autoharp, toy-piano, pokemon card on bicycle spokes, creaky door ... Step right up go around and around a mechanical melody lifts your feet from the ground the smile is a snare the song is a spell top hats and coat tails hide the sin well what's wholesome or wicked you cannot tell beware the carousel -worldsbestgrandpa

"Blue Monday" vibe right out of the gate. Drumming is stiff. Interesting ideas, machine-gun kick is a bit much in the intro... then the lead guitar starts, it's too loud and it is very obviously fake and very stiffly sequenced. Synth at 1:58 is very generic sounding. Starting at 2:15 the guitar sounds like it could be real. Right afterward though at 2:27, it's back to the fake stiffly-sequenced sample. Hhhmm. I feel like for this to work, that lead guitar needs to be reworked to sound more human, or possibly replaced with live playing. Adding a few melody variations to the lead writing would also help. Why does the track pan all the way to the left in the outro? NO (resubmit)

Contact Info: Remixer name: Maliris Real Name: Miikka Raatikainen Email: Submission Info: Game: Touhou 4 Lotus Land Story Name of arrangement: Black Apple Original Song: Bad Apple!!

Interesting style! Right off the bat the sax is sounding great, and it sounds great all through the mix. The xylophone is much too loud and sounds extremely fake whenever I hear it in this mix. There are a couple of percussion elements panned 100% left, I really dislike extreme panning. Drums are sort of stiffly sequenced. Piano is realistic enough for me. That xylophone, though. The overall writing is blocky. The arrangement doesn't integrate the two themes, they play in turn, but the arrangement is cohesive enough. Need more time on this one, and some more opinions. edit 10/19/15: I'm going to go with my gut, I think unfortunately this mix isn't quite ready for primetime. The xylophone is the worst offender, but the stiffness of the sequencing of many elements here is bringing this below the bar. I still feel like the arrangement itself is workable, it's just the humanization aspect that's the problem. NO

Hi dear Judges! Hope you're all doing great! (I think I'm stating all my sub mails like this now xD) Contact Information Chernabogue Alexandre MOUREY www.fflproduction.fr ID: 20943 Also features (on sax): XPRTNovice (ID: 48347) Submission Information Final Fantasy 6 & 10 La Ambiente Gogo's Theme (FF6) & Auron's Theme (FF10) -- Both composed by Nobuo Uematsu The inspiration behind this mix is my will to change a little my remix habits. I tend to do a lot of metal/orchestra (and even a blend of both), so trying jazz/latin music was a new challenge for me. It was done in a week, for the FFCC compo, and I recently remastered it a little. My theme was Gogo's, and I had the mix it with Auron's, which ended up in a nice and calm jazzy mix. Many thanks to the awesome Joe/XPRTNovice for the live sax recordings and tips on how to mix live instruments. If you want to check more remixes from that compo, head to my BandCamp to find my "La Buena Vista EP"!

Nice way to handle these sources (which are amazingly emotional even in chiptune form). The remix does attain a moody and sad feel and the performances are very nice including the lush backing vocal harmonies. The main problem I have with this track is, unfortunately, the lead vocal. While Jesse is on-pitch for the most part, and the vibrato is competent, there is something in the vocal quality that isn't fitting this song for me. Perhaps it is the mixing, as the track comes off feeling thin despite the beautiful instrumentation, and the lead vocal feels stiff, too loud/dry, and pasted on top, instead of sitting nicely in the mix. I'm also not convinced you got the best mastering job possible, sorry to say. As much as I can tell how much work and effort and heart went into this, I just can't see it on the site. I'm so sorry. Good luck with the rest of this vote! NO

ReMixer & real name: Eino Keskitalo e-mail: forum id: 20708 ReMixer name: Jorito Real name: Jorrith Schaap e-mail: forum id: 3917 ReMixer name: Xarnax42 Real name: Jesse Deacon forum id: 37005 Names of games arranged: Shovel Knight Name of Arrangement: Shovel's Lament Names of individual songs arranged: The Requiem of Shield Knight, A Thousand Leagues Below Source 1: http://virt.bandcamp.com/track/the-requiem-of-shield-knight Source 2: http://virt.bandcamp.com/track/a-thousand-leagues-below-iron-whale-manami-matsumae The arrangement, with MP3 download: Backup link: This track combines 2 songs from the game Shovel Knight into a sad, lamenting song with vocals. It features the songs 'Requiem of Shield Knight' and 'A Thousand Leagues Below'. It was made in one week for the Knights of the ReMix doubles compo. Composition and arrangement by Jorito and evktalo, lyrics by evktalo and vocals by Xarnax42. Mixed and mastered by Andy Booth from http://www.cheaponlinemixingmastering.co.uk/ - service recommended! ReMixer comments follow. I didn't get anything from Jesse yet, perhaps they can be sent in later if he has something to add? Jorito: This was one of those crazy moments where everything falls into place naturally and gets driven by tons of inspiration and motivation. It already started at the very beginning. Initially we were debating between either a very frantic song or a calm song with orchestral elements. Inspiration struck me, and I went for a sad, lamenting piece, and within 2 hours the basic song and mood were setup. In another bout of inspiration I contacted Jesse (Xarnax42), who had to drop out in the singles tourney, through the forums and asked him if he’d be willing to do the vocals. Turned out that Jesse was eager to do some vocals again and in a stroke of luck he also had time to deliver on short notice. A few back ’n forths of the arrangement between Eino and me and some very constructive IRC sessions later with the 3 of us the rest more or less happened automagically and we all dig the end result that’s now in front of you to enjoy. Eino: Throughout the two rounds of the Shovel Knight tournament, I was amazed by Jorito's drive and work ethic - I did my best to step up my game to keep up with him! It was very educational to work on lyrics for someone else to sing. The writing process was iterative with lots of useful feedback from the whole team, getting everything to fall into place. Jesse being able to do several work-in-progress takes certainly helped with the satisfying end result. All the awkwardness in the lyric was worked out while keeping the intention intact. The lyric should be meaningful without knowing the game, while those familiar with it hopefully appreciate the references. Everything here definitely clicked - everyone was clearly inspired to put forth their best. Very proud of this one. Source breakdown: 0:00-0:07 Celeste intro, based on the Requiem lead at 0:03-0:05. 0:08-0:16 Cello enters, riff is from A Thousand Leagues Below @ 0:55-0:57. 0:16-0:32 Variation of the main melody from Requiem with different bass. 0:32-1:04 Two first thirds of the first verse, based on Requiem's 0:02-0:24 (though on 0:02-0:12 more clearly); ATLB 0:55 riff from the intro features at 0:55-1:04. 1:04-1:35 Final third of the verse follows the 0:25-0:47 portion of the Requiem (ATLB 0:55 riff again ata 1:12-1:20). 1:35-2:08 The chorus is based on ATLB 0:55-1:05, which is easiest to hear 1:43-1:52 and 2:04-2:08. The vocal melody is based on 0:57 and 1:00 of the source. 2:08-2:40 The second verse follows 0:25-0:47 in the requiem. The cello adds some ATLB from 0:19-0:24 at 02:31-02:39. 2:40-3:10 The second chorus. 3:10-3:44 From ATLB 0:19-0:36. 3:45-4:00 From ATLB 0:36-0:46 (acoustic guitar), trumpet solo based on the main Requiem melody. 4:00-4:16 The same, actually. especially audible at the end. 4:16-4:32 From ATLB 0:46-0:55. 4:32-end Repeats of the chorus (neatly continuing the ATLB coverage from 0:55->). That's all. Cheers! http://virt.bandcamp.com/track/the-requiem-of-shield-knight http://virt.bandcamp.com/track/a-thousand-leagues-below-iron-whale-manami-matsumae