Disco Dan

Actually, I kind of like the dissonance in the beginning as he's offsetting the melody from the bass by a half step at a time and then resolves it. Works for me. I like the varied expression and dynamics. And the playing is top notch with a few hesitations here and there and maybe a flub or two, but other than those minor gripes, this is very well executed. And the jazzy part that starts at 1:50-ish is enough for me to give this a YES. And as far as piano performances that we've received in the past, this is possibly one of my favorites. The quality is great, the playing is great, the recording is great, AND it's live. And if it's NOT live, it's the most impressive sequencing job I've ever seen on this site. Hands down. Either way it's an impressive end result and the work that went into it seems obvious. YES D

1) tune the guitars. 2) work on instrument timing. This one is less evident as the song goes on, but in the beginning it's incredibly obvious. 3) pick harmonies that work in a given chord structure. 4) tuning and timing NO But the solo is well executed. D

nice song. It'll go nice on your page of originals. D NO

Borderline YES from me. I'd LOVE to hear some major improvement on the quality and mastering of the drums. 'Cause there are some really cool and original ideas here. Actually, I enjoy the second half of the song grossly more than the first. I love the original horn chords and the ambience used from time to time. My only BIG gripe is the drums, which I wish were more solid sounding. But I can get past that. D

I'm gonna have to agree pretty much completely with GrayLightning. Because my life depends on it. He said if I don't that he'd kill me. He may anyway now that I've said this. Maybe I should delete what I just wrote. Ok, as soon as I'm done with this post I gotta remember to go back and delete this part. Anyway, GL pretty much summed it up. The intro and the part in the middle with the bizarre voices is pretty weird and unenjoyable, though the rest is fairly nice. Though it seems a bit over compressed and maximized. I'm also pretty torn on this one as it seems to be an overall enjoyable track. It seems to improve a bit more than marginally over the original though, so I don't think I can say no on this one. Then again, I haven't judged in a while so maybe that's my excuse. Either way, it's borderline, but: YES D

mastering is fine, and sample quality is not a problem. I even enjoyed the part at about 1:45 with the different samples. However, before that was rather unharmonized. And AFter that with the bizarre solo part was relatively painful. Overall, not enough for a keeper. NO D

Reminds me a bit of a harder "Funkytown." I still can't get enough of this one. Good stuff. D

NICE CHORDS. No, I'm kidding. I'm repulsed by the bass line in conjunction with the keyboards. The horns seem to have some great jazz chords, and the drums are ok. The bass is actually fine, it's just those keyboards that are bugging the hell out of me. Some of the chords are nice, but others just seem WAY too cluttered, even for standard jazz voicings. Not to mention the arpeggios seem messy. The second half seems much better than the first. I'd like to see it polished up a bit. I'm impressed with the structure of the horns along with the bass, and about 70% of the keyboard writing is ok. But the chords on the rest of the keyboard part seem, as I said, a bit off, like not-quite-ripe fruit. And it's enough to make me cringe and say: NO and I'd feel bad about that if I didn't think that everyone else was going to say yes anyway. D

While I see what you're saying about it being a daunting attempt, I think the attempt came off overall less impressively than it could. And by that same logic, everyone who submits a remix probably has good intentions with the music, but sometimes they just can't pull it off. Also you pretty much hit the nail on the head. The A section that repeats is fine and dandy. It fits the style, sounds good and doesn't offend the ear. The other section though, is both tonally bizarre and inappropriate for the designated style. And I took a year of counterpoint, in which time we spent tedious hours creating patterns and melodies that followed strict 18th century counterpoint rules, and the stuff in this song does NOT come close to that, with the exception, of course, of the A section. And that A section I don't think is enough to redeem the mix. It just needs some major rethinking in the other section, and I think we'd have a winner. But we don't usually let other stuff through for the "good effort" clause, so I'm not sure why this should be different. D

I'm gonna have to side with 'bad dissonance' here. Except for the transitional bit at the beginning which repeats three more times throughout the song (and sounds nice), the rest seems rather um... messy. Melodically and harmonically. I've heard some amazing stuff from Russell and so I'm a bit surprised at this one, as the quality of the instruments is another weird bit. The runs especially sound awkward given the attack of the strings. There are a few parts with the harmony structure that maketh me to cringe a bit. Tonally this has some issues. Sounds like some awkward open fifths in motion and other bits that don't quite jive, considering the very baroque feel of the intro. That, and the quality of the instruments is kind of below that which we've come to expect from Russ. That said, I'm gonna say: NO D

Jerky transitions, iffy harmonies, and the drumming is a bit hard on the ears. That's my take. NO D

I don't really enjoy this one at all, and I think some of it is because of the 'sewer-system' reverb that's used on most of it. There're some good compositional ideas here, but I think some attention needs to be paid to touching up the sounds used and how they're used. It seems muddy right now, to say the least. Also, the ending is kind of cheesey, though not necessarily bad. That's more my opinion than an objective view. NO D

A bit dynamically flat, and repetitive with exactly the same material over and over. And that arpeggio thing in the middle is WAY off key. NO D

YES D

Yeah thanks for dragging this out. D

well to be fair, it's not note for note. Which makes me wonder if you actually listened to it. There's this whole section with an awful added viola or cello or some such synth, and it's quite hard to take, but it's not in the original. So um. Yeah. Still pretty bad, but at least take the time to be accurate. D

all opinions aside, this sentence pretty much sums it up: and this one is quite accurate too: That's especially obvious in the solo section. On a slightly related note, just because a song passed in the past that was possibly below the line of quality, does not mean that we necessarily have to lower the bar for a past mistake. We'd be continually making the same exceptions, stating "well we let such and such through in the past, so..." So? NO D

I've got this great idea for a Guardian Legend mix that I haven't submitted yet. Why? Because the quality isn't where I'd like it to be. I'd say, find something that's more where you'd like your calibre to be at the moment, submit that, then touch up this one when you CAN, then resubmit. I don't see this "It's a shame to turn this down" logic, when if it's not your best, or not exactly how you would have liked it to sound, it shouldn't have been submitted in the first place. And I see what vig is talking about with the sound quality. It does sound very distant. I'd like to hear a better version as well. One that sounds like it's playing through my headphones and not through a loose connection. That all being said: NO D

From a pianist's point of view, I'm just gonna say that this is really sloppy and leave it at that. NO D

Ok after hearing the original (below), I'm changing this. The chord progression is pretty much sacrificed completely in this version of coldman's theme. While I'll give it high marks for instrument quality and mastering, the simplified progression and repetition thereof, in addition to the section between 3:41 and 4:10 which seems guessed at best, are going to sink it. Hence my earlier "yes" is now a NO. D

ok so there are two mp3s that seem to have the same music. That's weird. OH I see, the one that's linked to has more stuff in it. Granted it seems a LOT like the original. Like, comPLETEly like the original. It's only slightly enhanced. Can't dig that. NO D

I honestly felt it lost the moodiness as soon as the first drum came in. The drums are so incredibly dry. No reverb, nothing. Just spat spat spat. Then there's repeating bad chord at :54 and 1:09, etc. The mixing of the melody with the accompaniament seems to be having similar tonality problems. That and the whole thing seems like a downgrade in quality from the original. Actually, I don't know that. I haven't heard the original, but if it's from any of the newer systems, it seems my statement would stand, considering the audio capabilities of the newer systems. Anyway, that's my take: NO D

Rule of thumb with samples: If it sounds obviously fake, don't use it in a context where that's gonna be brought out into the light. In fact, this song keeps doing that. With the bass and the guitars. Then we repeat. I don't know, I think Dave is losing his touch. This probably shouldn't have been on the panel. NO D

you know what note I don't like? The one at 1:04. The whole song is mostly improv, actually considering how simple the original melody is and how this deviates pretty far from it. This might pass as background music for a game in like, a shop scene, but it's not very good as just listening music, quite honestly. I think that's my biggest gripe. It sounds more like a sound track rip than a song. NO D

comparisons aside: Reverb is way too heavy. Compression out the wazoo. Choice of instrumentation is conducive to the muddy, oververbed sound. Almost like Phil Spectre, but not in jail. And more repetitive. NO D