Disco Dan

http://ramsites.net/~s2dwcabr/08%20Frost%20Man.psf YAY FOR SIMPLE RESEARCH!!! And in the future, let's not rely on the opions of Dyne to determine something in the queue. mmmmkay? Ok, that being said, this is actually fairly similar to the original, (as you can hear at the link above). This is a pretty simple techno adaptation. It appears as if we have an attempt at variety with the addition of some really fast arpeggios at various points, but the rest of the music doesn't really build. See, if you're gonna have a break in the song where you introduce a new element, and then go back into the song, it should be bigger than it was before the break. But this one stays the same outside of the breaks. So the song doesn't really build. It just has some breaks to say "hey, take a break, I know you've been listening to the same section of this song over and over again, so here's some fast arpeggios to take your mind off of that." Not to mention the clever Megaman vocal sample at the end. Anyway the only variety as far as I can hear is these little breaks that come throughout the song to interrupt the monotony (though not very well in my opinion). The original is a techno piece as well, so it's not like keeping it in a techno mood was much of an alteration. Overall, I'm not very impressed... NO OVERRIDE D

Hmm... yeah, I probably should have listened to this one beforehand. Oh well. Can't win 'em all. D

Hmm... Toughie... Up til 1:32 it's actually pretty boring, in my mind. Not very spectacular and nothing really sparks my interest until we get into the original section. Then again, at 2:25, it gets boring. And that over-spaced guitar is bugging me. This is, however, an opinion. Well, then again, what in music isn't? Well, I suppose some things aren't, but this is another debate for another time. ANYWAY, the guitar sounds REALLY spaced, like it was recorded ... well i don't know, really. It just sounds like we're getting only some of the frequencies instead of the whole spectrum. Like we're getting it through a tin can. And it's not just a one time thing, but an effect that occurs throughout the whole song. It seems very undermastered and condensed, soundwise. I almost wonder if a quick EQ fix in soundforge or cool edit would fix this. Let's try that. Until then, NO D

I'm gonna listen to this one in just a second, but in the meanwhile: http://ramsites.net/~s2dwcabr/102 In Zanarkand.minipsf2 You'll need the latest PSF codec plugin thingamy which can be accquired at zophar.net I will compare briefly. D

sounds very WIP. Like, you've got the beginnings of a percussion section, that sounds like it MIGHT develop later into something more. Some layering that COULD continue to develop in that fashion. And a song-length that screams "finish me!" So, that being said, please finish. What you have sounds decent. NO D

This may have been borderline, but then I listened to the original. http://ramsites.net/~s2dwcabr/FF8 410 The Successor.minipsf There is NO variation except in the instruments used. The original is 3:37, and I listened to it the whole way through. Then to test my theory, I picked a spot around 2:40 and listened to it. Then I listened to this remix at around the same spot. I had to backtrack just a bit but found the spot I was looking for. It's a slightly shorter and "orchestrated" version of the original. No other changes as far as I can tell. NO D

ok so the horns aren't THAT bad. But let's change the title, mmkay? It's not salsa. More Merengue, if anything. Salsa is much slower and laid back. Anwyay, some of the horn blasts sound pretty nice. Actually, the thing I think needs more work is the percussion. Find some nicer conga samples (they're pretty easy to locate (much more so than, say, strings)), and listen to other examples in the merengue style to get an idea of how the percussion is arranged in this genre. Listening to salsa won't do you much good in this instance because you'd have to slow the piece down to like 66% speed and rework most of the instrumentation. Stick with merengue, it's working for you. Also, you may want to try to uncrowd some of the instrumentation. Latin jazz is all about dissonance, but they're all about clean dissonance, not just "hey let's all just play what feels right in this section and it'll sound cool and jazzy 'cause we're misunderstood, etc." Not that this is THAT bad in the crowded department, it could just use some cleaning up. I think.... Either way, in its current state: NO

Hmm... Dynamics would be nice. Dynamics aren't ALWAYS necessary, but in a song as slow as this one, they sort of help. As for wrong notes, I don't really hear them, just sounds like some clashing passing and neighbor tones in the melody as the root remains the same. Either that or my penchant for dissonance has gotten better with time. I have only 50% of an idea of what I just said. Anyway, build up here is either not there or so subtle that I can't pick it up. It's not really technically repetitive, as the notes do change, it's just that it's dynamically repetitive. I hear a slight increase in volume at the end, but other than that, the volume levels pretty much stay the same, and the building up and layering of parts doesn't seem to take place at all. And in a techno/trance piece, that wouldn't matter as much, but in this case, it has to make all of the difference. So... I'm gonna go ahead and be my usual self and say: NO

ok this better not suck. 'Cause I'm gonna feel... well... let down. AND MISLED BY MY FELLOW 'JUDGES.' Well it has a cool sound. But we just had a FF7 guitar mix. So... NO JUST KIDDING HAHAHAHAHAHAHA ok not really funny... well sort of.... Anyway, Vigilante makes some good points, and it's the same reason I come down so hard on Piano mixes. Though I've noticed people are BIGGER suckers for solo piano works than guitar. Dunno why. Anyway, I DO like the synth/guitar juxtaposition, but the sloppiness needs to be considered. It seems like it's trying to be rhythmically organized, but falls short. Hmm... I was thinking of saying more, but Vig pretty much said everything and worded it better anyway, so I'll just leave it at that. D

Ever heard Joe Satriani's "Midnight?" Listen to that. Then listen to this. Or maybe listen to them in the opposite order. Actually there's more form to "Midnight" but some of the arpeggiated chords are done in a similar fashion. Anyway, this is a really nice piece of work. Really ambient, but not synthetic ambient, which is what I personally am used to when it comes to ambient music. Sweeping synth pads that dominate, and nothing very natural sounding. All of this is very different from the norm and it definitely conveys a mood. I've never actually played this game, but this particular piece is nice without the in-game nostalgia. Very cool stuff. D

quality's a bit... low... Panning is extreme and OW Is it just my soundcard or does it start clipping at around 1:18??? Ok, this sounds like an OST arrangement. Not much variation, just repetition of the same material over and over. 3:30 and I've now heard the same song 3 times. Yeah, once it starts to build up again, it's the same song I heard 5 minutes ago. NO D EEEEEEEEEE!!!! I GET TO LOCK THIS ONE!!! JOY!!!!

Couldn't have said it better. Hit on all the same points I would have mentioned. The development is aided by the evolving percussion, but I honestly don't think it's enough. Sounds a bit like a work in progress. NO D

WE STILL LOVE YOU!!!! D

Right off the bat, I'm thinking, the encoding could use a nice bump. BUT, the track is bumping. Funny, I've never played this game, but I feel like I've heard this theme a lot. About half way through we have a nice solo section. I dunno... honestly, this song starts to bore me, but it's not BAD. Maybe I've been listening to too much stuff lately, but it's just sort of going by me without striking me as great. Ok, I know what it is. The bassline is bugging the crap out of me, because it just seems WRONG. It's like, it's supporting one chord progression, and the rest of the song is supporting a SIMILAR, but not cooperative, and certainly different chord progression. Did that make sense? Good. NO

Interesting. Like John Cage interesting. It's like "hey, let's see if I can make a chord using every note possible and not using any more than once" But seriously, there needs to be some major harmonic restructuring here 'cause there's a LOT of conflict. And I'm not talking about good dissonance here. Some of it may come from the low end being kind of heavy and muddy. Yeah, sometimes I wonder if being tonedeaf is actually a blessing in disguise, 'cause I can't take this mix for very long... NO D

o... kay.... weird

It's a zip file 'cause free hosting, as we all know, sucks. I would have hosted it on the jonx.net server, except that also seems to have been killed lately. Anyway, info: Game: Final Fantasy 7 ReMix Title: Of Transformants and Brevity ReMixer Name: Zyko E-mail: zyko@sbcglobal.net Ok, so this is some really weird stuff. Not to say it's BAD, but damn is it ever atmospheric. Some nice guitar work though. A few parts seem like the guitar is a bit out of tune, but for the most part it's pretty solid... or at least as solid as something this atmospheric can get. Sounds pretty cool through headphones. I'mma give it a: YES D

Ya know... there might have been a reason he didn't reply to you. But I'll give it a listen. Can't be any worse than that Difficult To Stand piece a while back.... D

So... there it is. Just right click on the link and select save as. It's Geocities. It's very reverb heavy, there are a few "iffy" notes with the choral pad that's thrown on top of the rest of the mix that don't quite go with the rest of the chords at those given spots (see 1:22, 1:53). It could be my sound card, but it seems heavily bass-distorted. Especially through the second half. And besides the choral pad, the rest seems to be pretty much the same as the original with an interesting drum pattern used on top. I give it a NO D

21: Borderline, but the latter synth work makes up for the use of the original (in my opinion). If we throw this away, we have to get rid of Tetris Quasiultramix or whatever vaf's thingamy is called. KEEPER 22: Yeah, I'm gonna have to agree with everyone else on this one. It's pretty much the same. LOSER D

Nice feel. Ok, so I'm listening to this thing and thinking "oh this must be some theme I haven't heard from the game." O BUT WAIT DISOCDAN!!!1 U RMIXD THIS SAM SONG!!!!1 So I did.... I just didn't recognize it under all the um... "poetic license." I actually like the Mr. Bungle-esque vocal sample at the end. But the thing is, not only did the chord progression get kind of ... skewered in the beginning of the theme, but the ... Well, hmm Now I'm kind of torn. The extra notes are definitely artistic, not unintentional. In theory we'd call those "neighbor tones" but ... Nah, this is quite catchy after a point. I'm gonna say yes to this one. It's got enough good going for it to outweigh the lack of chordal structure in the beginning. I'd listen to it a second time, so YES D

I remember once, my roommate was trying to show me how to dance to 5/4 techno music. He essentially said "yeah, you just add an extra bop in there after four..." well if you'd seen it it would have made sense. But most people would get lost with that kind of thing on the dance floor. Fortunately, this isn't Club OverClocked, so we're open to different ideas here. Actually I'd like to see people try and dance to a 5/4 song out on the floor... ANYWAY I actually like that lead sound. The 5/4 part doesn't bother either. And since my tracks have always been such an equalizing nightmare, I don't really hear the problem, unless you're referring to the compression in the pseudo jungle part (which, by the way, is a great way to interpret the 5/4 time)... actually I really like that junglesque beat to the 5/4 time. I'm gonna give this a yes simply based on the variety, and the creativity that was used to interpret such difficult subject matter. Not to mention it's enjoyable to listen to. YES D

Ok, I have a concussion and head trauma, so this is going to be short, but the gist of it is, this piece has so much potential, a good start, but no real development and exploration of the full theme. I will however give credit to the solo section which I thought was relatively well done given the source material, which is in a tricky time signature. But all in all I think this feels incomplete and I feel it could use some more development if not some entirely new sections. So, for now, NO D

what he said

Ok I had to think about this one for a couple of days, but I finally realized that the cons outweighed the pros. 1) The original. The original is really quite a marvelous piece of work, and so I'm having trouble listening to this and separating it from the original. If it had been originally an NES tune, this would be quite an improvement, but at it is, it doesn't seem that way. 2) The synths. Lots of them. All very similar. That bugs the hell out of me. 3) 2:54 - 4:08. Almost no harmony here. Just the melody, over and over again, and the bass is pretty much in unison with it. The beat is jittery and annoying (that's my opinion anyway) through this section. Even the chords that ARE put in this section don't fit well with the melody. I guess it's like when a teacher asks if 5 is divisible by 2. The answer, technically is yes, but not if you want a whole number. Dissonance is kind of like that. We had this debate with that last Gray Lightning song, which had this awful out of key harp in it. Let me elaborate. Pure consonance is like 4 divided by 2. It equals exactly 2. There is no remainder, no decimal. It's pure and it sounds "right" but it can be boring after a while. Good dissonance is like 5 divided by 2. It's 2.5. Not a whole number, but not so bad that it has a billion decimal places. Bad dissonance is more like 206 divided by 23. The answer is 8.95652173913 etc. It's not pretty. It's not a whole number, and it's not even a fun decimal to work with. It's the best analogy I can come up with at this juncture but I hope that explains what I mean. If not, tough shit, and NO D