Shadow Wolf

OK, make that 14. I do tend to review whenever I have time to sit down and listen to a whole stack of remixes, so most everybody who's posted a mix since 9/9 has some kind of props in their review thread. Merry Christmas.

OMG more funk. Except this time it's... J-Funk, I guess? We should split the site and put all the funk mixes on another server to reduce the load. Not a big fan of the funk am I. Still and all, I approve of the production on this one. It is undeniably catchy, and still running through my head well after listening to it, which says a lot, because I usually try to scrub funk out of my head as quickly as possible. That's the best you'll get from a hater, unfortunately, but it is a VERY good mix, just not my cup of tea.

Who the hell do you think you are? If you continue bringing this much awesome to the table, you're gonna crash and burn one day. I mean, who can get away with a friggin' rainstick backing up their synth lead? You, evidently. This is probably my favorite mix from you thus far, better than any of the other 245. Big FAT bassline, and I love the synth lead. The whole mix has a slightly arabesque /middle eastern vibe to it that I'm totally down with. And the rainstick. If only for the rainstick you get mad props.

OK, now THIS is just about my favorite type of mix. Totally unexpected. I download a song called 'Puffball Promenade' and I expect an orchestral mix or something. Instead it sounds lots and LOTS like a Darangen mix, which is not a bad thing at all. Great mix of acoustic, electric, and EP all throughout the mix, and awesome development of the theme. It's fun, somewhat inspirational, and mostly just unpretentious kickass. One of my favorite mixes in quite some time. Great stuff!

Title Screen in Outer Space! Seriously, does it even matter what I say here? AnSo makes mixes like rabbits make babies, and they're all awesome. Crunchy guitar leads and synth flutes (I think they're synth flutes), all moving into a nice Harold Faltermeyer-esque wailing electric guitar restatement of the theme. In a startling rarity, I actually like the closing of the mix better than anything else. Not that it was a bad mix, I just thought the acoustic fadeout was a great way to end it. A+. You may continue making mixes.

Interesting issues in the judge's decision thread there. First and foremost, I'm a total sucker for solo piano, so the beginning of the mix was an instant sell, with the exception of that one jarring silenced note right before you repeated the intro for the second time. I found it quite noticeable. But it's beautiful, emotive work on the piano. I liked the synth lead you brought in later, it carried the mix quietly and solidly for quite awhile. I'm not a huge fan of the zoo animals busting in at 3:37 or the introduction of the attempted 4 on the floor though. I feel like it was the mix was a beautiful statement, and a gorgeous piece as a whole without going there at all. Still, I don't think it's near enough to ruin the mix in any fashion. Good work, and I hope we hear from you again soon.

DAMN we have a lot of funk on this site. It wins just for the rock organ. It's so campy I have to love it. The fact that you stole the lead instrument from 'Superstition' gets you some points too. Normally funk and groove makes me go blah, but there's just something fun about this one. I can see Foxy Cleopatra dancing to it, and that alone is enough to make me giggle. Good mix.

It starts with vibrato strings, so it's gotta be epic. First off this is a very well produced mix. Your orchestra is all panned and proper so it sounds like I'm in a concert hall. Which brings me to my only real complaint - the sax. It feels like it's sitting on top of the entire sound field, kind of separate from everything else, which I'm sure is because it's live. The playing itself is GREAT, it's just slightly loud and just a touch out of place, especially for an orchestral lead. I think the idea of a sax lead is inspired; I've tried it before with some of my mixes that the world will thankfully never hear. The problem is, it tends to always come out like some "Kenny G Does Epic Movie Moments" album you'd see after 1 am on an infomercial. So I know it's hard. The only other thing I'd pick at is that there isn't a lot of development here beyond tempo changes and inspiring swells back into a restatement of the same theme. It'd be cool to see a little more theme development and original work thrown in next time. Other than that, great first mix!

I'm gonna be a hater and say I didn't really care for this, but only because I hate the genre, it's nothing you did. The whole techno/groove genre reminds me of the 70s, old James Bond movies, and Gran Turismo all at the same time, three things I dislike extremely. Still, it's a well put together and catchy mix. Production and mastering are well done. Don't change anything for me.

I'm beginning to realize that I'm quite in love with tracker music. I love the chiptune vibe carried through this whole mix. It's got a great bounce and a nice rythmic thump to it. There's just an energy to these pure synth/chiptune/tracker mixes that I love. They're pretentiously lo-fi, and they don't care if anyone knows it. They're what you'd get if an elitist orchestral mix let its hair down and danced on the table. Pure fun and phat beats. Good work, and nice groove.

Continuing my review festival (I just sat down today and listened to over 20 new mixes, I haven't listened to any new ones since the beginning of September). The beginning of this mix for some reason reminds me of the end of a race in F-Zero. But it quickly develops further, and begins to channel... I dunno. Something anime. This whole thing sounds like a cut from an anime to me, but I'm not sure which one or why. I've only ever watched like 3. At any rate, good development and variation on the theme throughout the mix. It doesn't stagnate. At the same time, I do have to say it doesn't really go anywhere unexpected either. A good mix, although not one I'd put on repeat for hours. EDIT: Woah creepy. Martin said the same thing I did, and I didn't even read his post before I wrote this.

Not usually a big fan of the spy music genre, unless it's Harry's Metal Gear Solid scores, but the fact remains this is a very well developed piece. Respectful to the flavor of the original game. It goes places, and feels like it has something to say, which tends to be sticking point for me with a lot of jazz/chill/groove mixes. They tend to stick with one or two breakdowns and play off them for 20 minutes ad nauseum. None of that here. Solid work.

Alright dude. I don't know if this is specifically a quality of tracker music, or if it's just one of your many musical talents, but some of your songs just sound downright CREEPY to me. Minotaur Nightmares springs to mind immediately there, but this does the same thing. It makes me feel lonely, confused, and uncertain. Ironically, much like I would feel if I was playing a Myst game. It feels urban, industrial, and 'grungy' as well. This is what Myst would sound like if somehow took you down a badly lit and deserted street in the southside of Chicago. While it was snowing. I love the glass chime work (I don't know if that's what it is, but that's what I'll call it) that underlies the mix. Then the synth lead comes in and adds more creepy and it's just a beautiful package. I had the American Album for a long time, and for some reason this never jumped out at me like it does now. The album got deleted when I purged my library to make more space, but I'm thinking that was a mistake and I need to go download it again. Great piece.

Congratulations! My physical therapist always told me "motion is lotion." If you keep moving, some of those aches and pains will eventually sort themselves out, and you'll find yourself on a whole new ability level as far as exercise goes. Good work!

I shall try not to. I reviewed 2 mixes today.

Yeah, FF7 would be the most prominent example of anything close to Leitmotif in games that I can think of. Everyone in there had their own theme, and they were used in various and sundry ways all through the soundtrack.

Trance mix of the year, flat out. I'm listening to it for the first time right now and it will be repeated several more. Great use of soundscapes, there's a layering effect to this mix that gives it a very expansive feeling, specifically the synth pad always in the background. It manages to be powerful and loud without ever being overpowering and obnoxious. Instruments are layered in and faded naturally, smoothly, and beautifully. Also a surprising amount of varation and change for a trance mix. I appreciate that you didn't rest on your laurels and follow the exact same vector through the whole mix. I love the voices at the beginning. I think what surprises me most is that you just took the theme from a game that I've always thought was rather stupid (come on, it's furries in space) and made it actually inspiring. I wanna go kick ass when I hear this. Perhaps the best compliment I can give you is that if I hadn't known it was you, I would've said without a doubt this was some of Beatdrop's work. Nice work.

Wow. Just... wow. I hear a lot of great stuff come from this site, but I have NEVER heard Sonic done like this. Gorgeously dynamic and moving. Beautiful work. My condolences on the passing of you grandfather. I only appreciate that you've taken all those emotions and forged them into a piece this moving. It's a true rarity.

I'm not entirely certain that's true. I would argue that World of Warcraft has a pretty rich narrative, with no visible end in sight. The problem I ran into with WoW was exactly that: I kept playing like there was an ultimate achievable goal somewhere, and there isn't. You beat Illidan, and your armor will soon be obsolete because some new arena season reward just trumped it. There was a ton of really good story in WoW, all available on the website, but when you really played the game, all it really consisted of was "Grind for armor and loot in the context of this grand and sweeping story arc that you can only take part in if you can get 30 or more players together 6 hours a night 7 days a week." So I guess what I'm saying is there IS a really great narrative, it just gets lost in the grind. Personally I prefer games with endings. I like the finality.

^^^ I bet that's the first time Drum's ever been told his ANYTHING was too tall.^^^ Seriously though, I don't review songs as much as I should, partly because I'm always busy and partly because I don't have the technical musical skills to really be constructive. I can tell someone that it sounded good, or this part was great, and this part sounded muddy, but I can't get too technical. Furthermore, the judges usually point out everything and more than I was going to say in their decision threads, so why repeat myself when greater minds have already gone there for me? I think lots and lots of people here are like that. We listen, and we love the music, but we aren't really in a position of enough knowledge to offer decently constructiv criticism.

I take that back. It would seem my information was outdated. Here's an article from Mayo Clinic on July 26th, 2008, indicating that we may all be able to save a LOT of time in the gym from here on out:linkage. Essentially, studies have found that ONE set of 12 reps does basically the same thing as multiple sets, there's little benefit to repeating. Fine with me! Absolutely, Injin's right. Cardio is Cardio, however you do it, and you need to find what works for you. Don't abuse your pelvis and back if you don't have too. In fact, in the long run, I'd say an elliptical machine or a bike is much healthier than running because running puts so much impact strain on your joints over time. I knew a marathon runner that was famous because he trained entirely inside, he never ran on asphalt for that very reason. It tears UP your joints and bones. Man, I wish I could build muscle that quick. But if you don't want to walk around with a sack of rocks on each arm, just exercise until you hit a point where you're satisfied with your muscle tone, than reduce your number of workouts so you're just maintaining that tone. For example, if you work out arms monday wednesday friday, cut out wednesday after you hit your goal. It's all a balancing act to maintain the level you want.

I haven't kept up with the updates because I don't have the OS. But I actually have a friend's Vista PC sitting next to me right now getting all the spyware cleaned off it. I put SP1 on it yesterday and it's still asking me for security confirmations every time I wanna install something or make any major change. Copying and moving files does seem to be significantly improved though.

I gotta say, I've never moved over to Vista, partly because of the resources it uses and the security confirmations I have to wade through to actually do anything. Mostly because of the file I/O issues that Dave addressed a year ago right here. Seriously, the effort it takes for that OS to simply copy, move, or delete a file is astounding. At this point, I find XP to be a highly compatible and very stable OS. I'd be happy to continue using it quite indefinitely, unless Windows 7 has something quite revolutionary to offer.

Be careful doing that. Very often people hurt themselves weight training because the weights they're using are beyond their current abilities. When you lift a weight that's too heavy, you unconsciously use other muscles to compensate. If you're lifting something too heavy with your arms, you compensate first with the muscles of your shoulder, and then if it's still too much, with your upper back muscles. It pulls your spine out of alignment and puts you at risk for a slipped disc. I speak from personal experience there, you do NOT want a slipped disc. People want big muscles now, because we've been told "If you build it, they will come." That might be true, but you could tear muscle too. Your ideal weight on any arm building exercise should allow you to do 12 reps, and you should have a decently hard time completing that last rep. Starting out, 2 sets is just fine. Over the course of a few days, your muscles will adapt to it and you'll be able to do more. Add sets as you feel able. Increase your weight when you can do 6 sets without feeling tired out.

Wow, and not just any publisher either! Sweetness!