Disco Dan

bad chords = evil NO DC (it's every 3rd chord (out of 4 that repeat))

There's no A for effort here. It's a showcase, not a science fair. That being said, I'm really not digging the unproduced sound of the vocals vs. the pseudo-produced sound of the rest of the song. Plus the voice sounds like every ... well I won't go into that at the risk of getting someone pissed at me who I don't even know. Anyway, it's pretty weak, and the song doesn't really take place, until well over half way through. Everything before that being a large percussion break. Which really isn't a break, since it's not taking a break from anything. If anything, the song, starting at around 3 minutes, is a break from the percussion. But it's not a very redeeming one. I talk to much NO D²

Yeah I think this is another keeper. Except for the deviation from the original chord progression (which is a personal taste thing) it's very HQ with nice variation from the original but also staying faithful. YES D

hmmm, DC, perhaps you listened to the wrong mix. Let me suggest some things that you might have missed while thoroughly enjoying it: It sounds like two songs played at the same time in totally different keys, which = messy, and I don't mean, like garage band messy, I mean like, bad sequencing messy. Percussion is minimal, annoying, and ungracefully done. But yeah other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed saying: NO

I've never heard the original so I can't really comment on the difference, but I like the intricate layers in this song. My only complaint, and the sole reason it won't be playing much on my machine, is that the drums are WAY too weak when the whole orchestral-plus-organ-wall-of-sound thing comes in. Overall a nice mix, though. DC Edit: Ok, now I've heard the original. I stand corrected. This is a LOT like the original. The main differences being updated sounds and a good (but low volume) beat. Looking back, I'm not sure I would have voted the same way, though if this wasn't directly from a midi, it must have taken some major ear-work to get into such complete replicated form...

This has an aurally pleasing (as opposed to orally pleasing) sound to it. Very professional sounding, for the most part. The only gripe I'd have is the percussion isn't loud enough at points. If someone wants to send me the original to show me that this is exactly the same, go ahead, but I'm having trouble believing that the music for FF VI was this intricate.... call me a cynic. YES DC

Hmmm, I like the ideas (i.e. the main beat, and some of the variations), but the repetitiveness is killin me. Hmm... no wait, it's not. But this is just the first listen. I don't think I could listen to it more than... let's say... twice. Ending = Cutoff = Bad NO DC P.S. I'd really like to see what CotMM thinks of this one. Dunno why. He might dig it.

oh man. I just died laughing. I hadn't seen the review yet. And I started listening to this song, and I was like "GOOD LORD" and so I came back to the panel to see what had been said about it. Ah, the laughs. It's just so "BAM IN YOUR FACE!" and it never really backs off from that. Hey could we get a little more volume, please? Ya know how we say sometimes that a mix sounds empty? This is the opposite. Well, ok we seemed to drop off at around 2:00, but see, I've got this problem with a mix sounding too much like a videogame with a beat. Granted, the panning is nice. Hmm, this could definitely use some improvement to get it to a postable level. Just calm down. NO DC

You make me proud, boys, you make me proud! *wipes a tear from his eye* DC P.S. PIANO PLAYERS: GET YOUR FOOT OFF OF THAT PEDAL!

the good and the bad: REALLY nice samples. Like, fuckin inCREDible samples. Usage of those samples is done very well. the bad side is, it (to me anyway) sounds unfinished, or like half a song. Granted, it was conceived in a week, but it might have been nice to expand upon the intial ideas a bit more. As it is, it's mostly a very high quality version of the original (with a bit of variation in the voicings here and there). DC

sounds like miroslav.... sounds NICE Lovely samples, nice orchestration, though, until the end, it really doesn't deviate THAT much from the original, just with very good sounds. And if I were the sole decider for this song, it'd get a no for being so short and underdeveloped. We have a brief intro (from the game), then the main body of the music (from the game) then an outro. To me it feels VERY unfinished. So I say: NO DC

Tekken 2 'Incantation' This song is typical kick-ass djp work. Great percussive lines, with a knack for putting the right piece of percussion in the right place at the right time. I haven't heard the original, which is good, because if I had, I'd be bitching and moaning about how the chord progression was butchered as I usually do, but this is very pleasing to the ears as is, so if you are a collector and fan of the djp catalogue, do download this. DC

Chrono Trigger 'Green Amnesia' I appear to be the only review mod up so I'll just cover this one quickly and say a few words 'bout it. I'm really not sure what came over me with this one. I may have been sick or something. In fact, I don't really remember writing this... OH THAT WAS A CLEVER PLAY ON THE TITLE! HAR HAR HAR! Ok, but um... yeah, for those of you that have heard "Downtime," this isn't all THAT new, but with a Chrono Trigger flavor to it. And um... yeah. Well I'll let other people say stuff. I feel kind of dirty talking about my own stuff like this. DC

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 'Sonik Azure' Interesting guitar panning here. Guitar's a bit out of tune, but the rest of the stuff sounds good. High quality samples, sequencing is solid. Nice effects on the Rez/Cut. Hmm... this song kind of makes me happy. Yum. Edit: I finished writing this before finishing the song. I really like the ending. It's clever and cute and splicing vinyl noise into a song is almost never a bad thing. Also you gotta love the happy hip-hop feel the whole song has. Nice work. DC

A Boy and His Blob 'Cyborg Blobby' If I had any sound on my computer I'd give this a raving or stinking review and post it here, but seeing as that's not the case, I'll just put this here so the rest of you "Boy and His Blob" and Mazedude fans can post your reviews. Tell me if it's good... I hate feeling crippled... DC

Upon relistening, I think I've come to the conclusion that Ryu7z got lucky with this song. I could be wrong. But it doesn't deviate much from the original, yet has a pleasing sound overall. I'll admit that, up until the melody kicked in, I was thinking "and this is WHAT from zelda??" But once it does, I was like "whoa!" ("like whoa!" for all you l33t azns) What I'll give ryu7x is his ability to create a beat that's enjoyable and vary it with transitions and development (even if it's not extreme). However, as far as melodic and structural deviation are concerned, there's not much of it. But it's a fun sounding song anyway. DC

A hundred dollars? Where do you live? Canada??? We had, like 8 different songs dumped on us in the judges' department and this was one of the yesses. I think there might be 2 or 3 comin out. That zelda ryu7x one is the other. Also, that "pointy stick thingy" is called a baton, and they range in price from 2 dollars to a couple hundred (like everything else in the music world: overpriced). Anyway, the thing with NES music is that it has only three instruments playing at any one time. Which means chords are really limited, and the artist relies more on counterpoint to imply key and chord structure. This is also the reason some NES music sounds really empty. Avien has taken this minimal intro and fleshed it out in orchestral style. It takes a bit of doing to take something as simple as an NES 8-bit tune and give it more structure and blood than it had to begin with, plus he takes his own liberties, starting at the beginning. If you don't get goosebumps starting at 1:38, then this isn't the song for you DC

Why does this remind me of "The Truman Show" soundtrack? Anyway, this particular arrangement sent shivers through my body because I always loved the intro music to the original metroid (which is what the first half of the song is), and for a brief period of my life, I thought I was special because I had left the title screen on long enough to get that special music that went beyond the minimal intro. That build around 1:36 is pretty fuckin nice. Oh, before protricity says it (assuming he can find some online access), this song could definitely be upped to 160kbps and still stay under the filesize limit. That feeling like the whole song is underwater does not do well. This sounds like the beginning to a 15 minute medley including all of the original metroid music, but seeing as that wasn't a requirement, 3:36 will do. YES And please feel free to submit something else that makes me WANT to say yes DC P.S. I realize I am not the only judge.

Actually I'd say your complaint about length is a a very viable one. What the hell is it with getting 8 remixes today that are all excessively short?? I don't know. I guess if they all get posted at least it won't hog bandwidth as much... Anyway, I like the way this song climaxes at around 1:30... well except for that dissonance thing. I mean, dissonance is not bad. But I think this is more the fault of the original. Anyway, it's a good build and climax... Ok, no, cotmm, I think your gut is right most of the time, but you rarely listen to it GO WITH YOUR GUT This song ends on the dominant of the key it's in. The dominant, for reference, is the 5 of a scale, if you play a dominant chord (especially a dominant seventh) from any key, it always feels like it needs to go back down to the tonic key (tonic being the root key, i.e. the key the song is in). Now this isn't exactly the same, but imagine the "A - men" at the end of hymns. Imagine if it just stopped on "A" and didn't resolve down to "men." It would feel pretty unresolved. The reason that example isn't the best is because the "Amen" cadence is a plagal (from the subdominant) cadence and not a perfect (from the dominant) cadence. I know all of this technical mumbojumbo just seems like bullshit I'm throwing around to sound smart, but it's based on the way something sounds, not just some arbitrary rules some dead white guys came up with. And this song ends in a key that SOUNDS like it needs to resolve back to the root key. So, people, in the future, END YOUR FUCKING SONGS! NO DC (hey, if DarkCecil can rant about ID3 tags, I can rant about endings)

Do you know what this sounds like? About half of a fucking great song. Beej, I respect your ability to write aurally pleasing music, and this is no exception, but it REALLY doesn't sound done. I'm sorry, but I kept watching the time and thinking, maybe it'll cut off because my download was bad and I'll go back and find out that it's really 4 minutes long, but no. Once through on each section, and then end. It makes me sad to say it, but: NO Great sound, but how about something that has a sense of closure? DC

Now if it's a matter of equipment or instruments, I can understand (to a degree, though not as much any more since there are multitudes of free soundfonts available to the public (I remember setting getright to download bundles of them back in my 56k days)), lack of experience, as far as I'm concerned IS a good reason to hold it back. If the song lacks experience, and because of that, is poor, (yes, I realize "poor" is subjective) then I honestly don't think it should pass. This isn't "Feelgoodaboutyourself ReMix," it's OverClocked, and it's known for a certain level of kickassedness. Need more experience? Try WIP. Actually, I wouldn't even do that. I'd actually ask someone whose musical advice you trust, since I don't know about what kind of help you're going to get trying the WIP forum. Maybe I'll go crush some hopes and dreams in there one day. But my point is, I think lack of experience in music SHOULD be a qualifier, if it shows. I'm not saying if he doesn't have a mix up yet, he shouldn't have his mix posted, because then NO one new could ever have a remix on the site (hell, I never would have had a mix up here), but if he needs more practice, I don't think a "go easy on the first timers" attitude is really what's necessary for this panel. In short: No instruments? Try your damnedest to get some, and ask around, but if not possible, it's not the end of the world, I think most people understand being in that position. No musical experience? Not a problem as long as it doesn't show. But I'll give you a hint. Experience doesn't come from having a song posted. It comes from honing your craft and continually practicing at it. So, while I agree with your "no quality instruments" statement, I don't agree with your "no experience" statement. That being said, I need to listen to this song, so I can see what you're talking about. I'll vote shortly. DC

www.zophar.net Check it out man. Cross-reference if you can. This is supposed to be from Mario 2. It's not. I mean, I THINK I know what he's trying to go for here, but it's just not in that game. The music he's thinking of, I believe, is the miniboss theme, but it plays on the tritone interval throughout. This is... not that. Not to mention it's slow moving, (developmentally, not tempo-wise, for tempo is irrelevant) it does not interest my ear and those tom...marimba... things... are definitely causing some chaos with the rest of the piece, not to mention that grating guitar ... thing. Anyway, I ... don't know what else to say about this. NO DC

It's the same thing twice. The solo's in the wrong key from the rest of the song (don't believe me? listen to the original.) being that it's, in his words "dropped a fifth." I have nothing against doing arrangements in different keys from the originals, but please, do the whole song in the SAME key. No wait, let me reword. That makes it sound like I can't appreciate key changes. I can. What I can't stand is people who put various parts of the same song in different keys at the same TIME in the song: Like the solo (:31-:38 and again at 1:31-1:38 ). Besides the guitars (which are a nice sound) and the drums (which are only original in that they're not the same samples used from the game, but they're notated almost exactly the same from the game music), the rest of this mix is verbatim from the game, I mean, with the same sounds and all. Too much original, not enough arrangement. The guy's got a good ear if those guitar tracks are live, but this song could definitely use a few tons of arranging ability before I'd say yes, so: NO DC

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! great stuff. DC

It's been a while since I've felt so strongly about a mix, but this one... I don't know. I basically said this same thing when it came through the judges' forum, but here goes again: This arrangement is incredibly simple. TOO simple, in my opinion. When I first heard this arrangement, I thought "nice. Simple, but not displeasing." THEN, I heard the original. And I sat down at the piano and played the original the way it was there, then listened to the arrangement again. The only credit I now give this arrangement is to how well it's played and the dynamics (variations in volume) used. The original of this song had a beautiful chord progression to it. The bass, accompaniament, and melody fit so perfectly and naturally together. On the converse side, the license that kLuTz took with the structure is the AOL of chord progressions, folks. This arranger has made the progression so user-friendly that it's lost all of it's beauty, at least to me. The lack of variation bothers me as well. I realize you were going for a simple feel, but there's so much that could be done with this. The song was already pretty simple to begin with, so it's not like making it simple would have been a huge challenge. But the slaughtering of the chord progression bugs me more than anything else about this song. Too much 1-4-5 for a song that originally had so much class. This arrangement really killed it for me. I'd really like to hear a more faithful rendition sometime. Might just whip one up for my own leisure. Maybe I'm an ass, but I think "maybe" is being too lenient. DC