MindWanderer

Been listening to these all day, still can't choose. Great work, both of you.

The Wolf Among Us was a comic book series that Telltale adapted. I agree that they were just doing too much. Why play Minecraft: Story Mode when you can play Minecraft? Who's associates Guardians of the Galaxy or Game of Thrones with a slow-paced interactive experience? Who wants yet another story in the Batman universe that doesn't clearly explain what it offers on top of the series' existing 70-year history? (I hear the Batman games, especially the second one, were actually quite good, but it takes some digging to find that out.) I enjoyed the Walking Dead season 1, but I was getting bored with it by the end of Season 2. Kind of hard to care about the continuation of a story when all the characters die.

Yes, you would almost certainly get in trouble as soon as Square Enix got wind of it. You can't have any money involved for anything that makes use of their copyrights, and that includes their IP's.

I dunno, I got a chance to play Ninja Baseball Batman at MagWest, it was pretty dope.

I'm amazed no one titled their mix "Crash and Burn." SEGA MAN: I'm not personally a fan of Sonic music, but I love the conceit here. It kind of lost focus halfway through, though. Drunk Man: There are so many clever ideas here, it's actually kind of disappointing that the arrangement rushes through them all without letting any of them shine. I'd kill for vocals. The performance and production have the usual Eightman polish, I just wish the arrangement was a little more cohesive. Crashed a House Party on Fire: Also a very clever arrangement, but the soundscape isn't as tight. It's pretty thin, and that sidechain is overkill. It does sound much more carefully planned out, though, and the two sources are played well off each other. It's an unpolished piece, but I think it hits the compo brief well.

Ah, so many newer games in here. Give me 8-bit Mega Man any day. Groove Bomb: Groove indeed! I'm tapping my feet to this one. It is a little static, though, with not many changes in energy or sound palette. Still, it's a lot of fun, and you integrated the two sources cleverly and smoothly. Ending is a bit abrupt. Grenade Powered Locomotive: There seem to be some off harmonies here. The changes between the two sources are frequently abrupt, and the Charge Man sections don't seem to fit as well. Nice soundscape, though. Glassy Haze: The timing on the strings in the opening is slow. It takes over a minute to get into the meat of the arrangement at all, and even then the energy levels seem subdued throughout--the whole thing sounds like one long intro. Overall it seems thin and incomplete. Planet Killer 2019: 2019? More like 1989! The highs are a little subdued, but otherwise I'm loving this epic 80's soundscape. The arrangement is a lot of fun, although the usage of Top Man is pretty subtle. A few notes seem off, though. The lead is frequently buried, partially due to conflicting frequencies, and partially due to synths with similar timbre stealing each others' thunder. Could do with some more dynamism in energy level. But I'm hoping to see a polished version of this on the panel. Unbalanced: This is mixed awfully quietly. The two sources weren't really integrated at all. I did like the key transformations and the performance, though. Frozen Sky: I can tell you struggled with integrating the two sources, but you put forth a valiant effort. The arrangement is quite static, though, with unchanging energy levels, a drumline that switches drums but not patterns, and not much variation in instrumentation.

In this case, bass. There's just not a whole lot of bass going on here. There is a bass synth, but it's used for sparse punctuation, and it's pretty quiet. Generally you want some bass that's more sustained somehow, either with reverb, delay, or just notes held longer. You can also add a pad that covers the mid-lows.

Razor Wind: You know a remix nailed it when you listen to the completely original opening chord progression and know what Mega Man theme it's going to be without looking. And what would a Mega Man compo be without heavy use of 8-bit Mega Man SFX? I do have a beef with some clashing notes here and there, and I agree with Gario about that last chord, but otherwise this is pretty darn good. I hope to see a tweaked version of this in the judges' inbox at some point. Digital Redemption: Gario's better at picking out subtle source usage than I am. I barely hear Metal Man hinted at here, not enough that I'd notice if I didn't know it was supposed to be there ahead of time. Same with Air Man--it's more a suggestion than an actual appearance. The arrangement was also really repetitive, quiet, and static. Dopamine: Classic Mak here. There are a few clashing notes, and the shift to minor key was a bit surprising. A smidge more repetitive than it really needed to be, and the ending was a little lackluster, but overall a quality remix. Fire Truck: Yeah, the thin, static soundscape really brings this down. That last phrase of the main refrain doesn't sound quite right. And yeah, it sounds like a one-source remix, and a conservative one at that. Thunder-Crash Tornado Fusion: Strange opening, it's like walking into the middle of a session. When Tornado Man is in the lead, there's some solid interlacing of the two themes. That's what I come to these compos for! On the other hand, the sections with Crash Man in the lead sometimes seem a little out of place. Excellent instrumentation and production. Crash of the Tornado: I'm amused that both of these remixes are jazzy, and the same length down to the second. Soundscape seems just a little flat--the lows could stand to be a bit beefier. This is an excellent arrangement, but bearing the voting brief in mind ("the most important thing to consider when voting is how well the remix incorporates and arranges both themes"), I can only vote one way. Empty Desires: It's actually a solid start. I wish you'd had time to get around that block. Funny thing is, I can totally imagine Ground Man's theme, slowed down, used as harmony to what you've already built out here. Drill Bits: I agree with Gario: cool ideas to integrate the two sources, but there are some harmonic fumbles along the way. Could have been pretty awesome if you'd managed to finish and give those clashing notes another pass.

And if you're concerned about bias, you can always have someone else shuffle the brackets and do the selection run-offs. Fortunately this format doesn't have any other surprises. I'll volunteer for that if you like.

An extremely conservative take on this source. It's mostly just a minor re-instrumentation (with a ping-pong organ, one of my pet peeves). The leads of the original (piano and cello) are retained, and the percussion is only slightly tweaked. It also consists of two loops of what sounds like exactly the same thing to me. There are some interesting ideas here, but I don't think it's anywhere near what we look for in terms of interpretation. NO

This one isn't so hard for me. I'll ditto all of Gario's positive comments, but I don't feel like the concerns he had impacted the mix all that much. I thought the hard panning worked well (and I'm normally a harsh critical of hard panning): it was reserved for brief call-and-return effects, and applied them tastefully and effectively, for the most part. The swing beat was certainly nontraditional and takes a bit to wrap one's brain around, but it didn't come across as a mistake to me, and I didn't find it unpleasant. I'm not a fan of fade-out endings, but this is executed better than most, and I can live with it. I'm happy to give this a comfortable YES

I agree. Complaints that this wasn't "substantive" enough of an arrangement were just off the mark. The emotive playing, the transformation to 3/4, the subtle twists--more than enough to both hold the listener's interest and make this stand out as a ReMix. It also certainly isn't lacking in dynamics; changes in loudness and pace are used to good effect to control the emotional state of the piece. It might be "quiet" from a waveform perspective, but it isn't hard to hear at normal headphone volume. And it's over 2 minutes, with no filler--short but by no means too short. As a sad, evocative piano solo, I feel like this hits all the marks. YES

I love these mixes that take the subtle motifs of a source and remix them into something much more melodic. Without stopwatching it, this definitely sounds like a "Kurast Docks" remix despite having a completely different feel. It's like the Docks were remade in the TRON universe. I don't have a problem with the kick, personally. It's hardly omnipresent--although it always does the same thing when it is there, it's often not there, sometimes with other drums taking its place. And kicks are usually repetitive. The crunchy, low-heavy palette certainly does sound intentional. There's enough in the highs that it doesn't sound thin to me. It's maybe a little overdone--some of the FM synths are pretty plain--but I think it's fine. The ending is underwhelming but it isn't a dealbreaker. Overall, the remix is clever and it does what it needs to do. YES

Amazing we can still get clever new EDM out of this tune, after all these years and a dozen remixes on OCR alone. And this is definitely clever and new. Even beyond all the glitching and effects, there are neat variations on the melody I've never heard before. I pick out more every time I listen to it--not because there's anything wrong with the balance, but because there's so much going on. Production is clean despite all that. I have no beef with this. YES

I was waiting until the music was pretty much done before looking into visual artists. Most of the music is done, but there are a few key pieces still missing, and I've been kept busy at work lately. A couple of your most polished pieces are along the lines of what I'm looking for--your Andre the Giant, appropriately, is nicely realistic. And I'm hoping to get multiple artists involved--I'd love to have portraits of each of the wrestlers as an "insert." I'll definitely hit you up a little further down the line.