MindWanderer

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.

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 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.

I can't argue with any of what DA and LT had to say. It's a good foundation but, between its similarity to the source and its lack of dynamic transformation, it needs to go further. NO

I really like the new section, other than the peaked notes. I do think it's far too long for the piece, though, derailing the mood for too long.

Your first link is condescending. Your second one says it's not possible, and the workaround is just to write in triplets (or whatever) and ignore the time signature.

The check-in has passed and the promised cuts have been cut.

I'm personally of two minds when it comes to source usage. On one hand, Gario's timestamps seem accurate for overt source usage. On the other hand, there's a lot of material that is clearly derived from the source--the riffing on the motif Gario mentioned for one, but more importantly the funky bass that forms the foundation for the whole thing uses the same chord progression as the bass motif of the source and sounds like it's just a radical transformation thereof. The timestamp is only 9 seconds short, which is a large percentage of a 2:10 arrangement, but for me it's close enough given the subtle connections elsewhere. What I'm not ambivalent about is the sound palette. The guitar and drums are great, even the piano is fine (although it could be mixed more clearly) but most of the lead synths are so bland and thin that I have a hard time listening to them for any period of time. I feel the same way about some of the accompanying synths (like the organ Gario liked), but since they're not center stage, they're passable. Fortunately, I think both are fairly easy fixes. Choose some different synths to carry your leads, with more flavor and resonance, and either add 9 seconds of overt source usage to an existing section, or extend a section to add 18 seconds of overt source to the overall length, and I think this will be good to go. For now, though, NO (resubmit)

It's ground we've seen visited before, but the results are still distinctly unique. There were some novel twists on the melody I certainly enjoyed. I have mixed feelings about the mixing. It's nontraditional, with the Green Hills melody line pushed behind the other elements much of the time, but it comes across as deliberate, and you can still hear it. On the other hand, it clips by almost a dB, and that's an objective problem. You could still achieve the intended effect without clipping. The sidechaining obscures the distortion, so it doesn't sound that bad on my setup, but not everyone may have the same experience. The ending is weak, practically nonexistent. My conclusion is the same as Larry's: Strong arrangement, lots room for improvement in the mixing (and in the ending), but adequate overall. YES (borderline)

There's a lot of clever arranging going on here, but the balance is seriously off. The leads, both guitar and synth, are too quiet everywhere except the intro and outtro, overpowered primarily by the rhythm and bass guitars but even by the synths and percussion in places. Also, I'm not sure about source usage. 1:36-3:17 and 3:55-end don't seem to have any source usage that I can hear, and that's more than half the arrangement. I have to admit that I'm not listening too closely, though, because the mixing is already a dealbreaker. But if there is source usage in those sections, it would facilitate the voting process if you could spell out how the source is used there. It's a good start, and I'd like to hear a revision with the leads in the lead. NO