MindWanderer

Oh, that Batman one is catchy once it gets into the meat of it. And, if my ears do not deceive me, the Assassin's Creed one actually uses almost the exact same chord progression! These will go nicely together. My new CPU and RAM arrived today, so with luck I may have time to make something for this on my new system.

My turn. Falling from Heaven: There's some really nice stuff here; I especailly like the main "hook," and the interplay between instruments during it. Other times (e.g. 1:33-1:47), the instruments really don't blend well at all IMO. Also, I'm a proponent of the idea that each part of a piece should be distinct; it's OK to repeat the main chorus, but it should be switched up a little bit when you do. I'm not a big fan of the intro, especially that retro-analog synth which doesn't seem to know what key to play in, and it doesn't go with the rest of the piece at all. (Of course, mine does a similar thing.) Winged Salamander: I agree with all aforementioned complaints. Also it ends abruptly, having clearly run out of good ideas. It has a groovy bass beat that I still like, but that's the only thing I can say for it. Tuberz McGee: Holy crap. I don't have the ear or experience for this: it doesn't sound quite like a real choir, but I haven't the slightest idea how you'd go about achieving this synthetically. I really like where Lenna's theme comes out; I always prefer more catchy, melodic stuff. Ending is a little abrupt. Eclipse: Awesome sounds here. The main part where Kain's theme kicks in doesn't sound quite like it belongs; the low-fi synth just doesn't sound right with the rest of those full-bodied synths, and too many of the backing instruments cut out. The riffed second time through doesn't sit quite right, either. But everything else is just fantastic; this could easily be reworked to be just a Sazh remix and subbed to OCR. Brother From Another Mother: Interesting. I tried something like this using only Chinese instruments once; I think Japanese instruments have a bit more range and work better for our Western sensibilities. Although the one Balinese instrument is a bit of a cheat. Very well executed. Kain's theme isn't readily apparent to me, and what I think is supposed to be it sounds more like the Transylvania stage from Duck Tales to me. Otherwise, nice, ambient stuff.

Yeah, I never have enough time on these things to do panning properly. Making sure each sound is balanced by another sound at a similar frequency in the other ear, while parts come in and out, requires automation that I usually run out of time for.Also, my own idiosyncratic preference is for no panning; having any sound noticeably stronger in one ear just feels wrong, like my headphones are broken, and I find LFO panning to be wildly distracting. I have a similar problem with soundfonts; I actually like the sound of synthetic instruments, with their precision and consistency, so adding humanization to appeal to other listeners makes them sound worse to me. In both cases I have a hard time making myself do as much as I should.

Yeah, volume levels are an ongoing struggle for me. Not sure if I just suck that much at hearing comparative loudness levels when I do A/B comparisons or if my speakers and headphones are somehow inadequate. Also, I keep finding myself overdoing reverb and end up overcorrecting. Glad you liked it to some extent, though.

Well, you sort of suggested it yourself, just not to me: Seeing as how I worked on it basically Wednesday through Sunday, just in the wrong week, I feel guilt-free about it. Plus I scrapped my whole original idea after it didn't gel for two days, and my second idea was pretty random, plus I suck anyway. If Garpocalypse submits at all I'm sure he'll win. I'm just hoping there are parts of it that some people find enjoyable.

I submitted mine days ago, I knew I wouldn't have any more time this week. The PM is in my Sent folder, did you not get it?

And then next round would be Penelo and Edward vs. Zorn and Thorn. Which would be... interesting.

Just manhandle both of them into the same time signature, it'll be easier in the long run. I think that with Amarant thrown in, about half of my remixes now involve one or more sources changed from 4/4 into 3/4 or vice versa.Edward and Penelo go so well together anyway, those two tracks were both excellent (and hard to compare). Chimpz, I may hit you up for some advice at some point; I wrote a waltz for B4C2 where I'm mostly happy with the arrangement, but the production needs a lot of work. Laguna and Cait Sith, however, are two great tastes that taste like ass together. Edit: That's not a comment on the remixes, which did well with what they were given, but it was a horrible source combination.

Right, I didn't change the voting rules, but there's no sense voting if the only vote you can place is for your opponent. And there's no sense in using a point system, either; winner will be by simple majority.

You should have the option to join the group on the group's page.

Mixes are up.

Pretty sure that's how most of the compos work. In RMWtS Season 1, virtually 100% of each episode's entries were submitted in the last 24 hours, usually about half in the last 4-5 hours, and that's when they were due at noon on a weekday.

The deadline isn't for another 52 hours, most of which are weekend. I'm sure that the bulk of the remixing is going to get done then.

I imagine Esperado will be fine if I give you another two hours. I'll have to put off posting the mixes until tomorrow night, though.

Yup, this is pretty what I imagined this would sound like when I suggested Sakura should be taken out. Solid, coherent, and just downright good.

Well, that's one down. 27 hours to go for the other two teams....

Ugh, my computer is randomly freezing up, and just burned out a graphics card. Hopefully it holds up long enough for me to churn out another round. I'm putting together a new machine, but I'll probably be getting a bunch of the components on or near Black Friday, too late to mix that week.

I've done a couple of remixes in 3/4, when the sources were in 4/4. I actually find it a lot of fun. Haven't tried 5/4, but then I never cared for Shakespeare either. (The poetry, anyway; the stories are good.) I fully intended to try to do this one because I expected to be out of the FFCC now, so hopefully next time.

Reviewz0rz! Barrett vs. Amarant: Both sources are characterized by a sort of meandering melody with a lot of "white space" in between, which means they go well together but picking out individual pieces of melody is tricky, especially when they're at all liberally arranged. I usually treat source usage as the most important factor in these things, but this time that's hard. The Only Uncertain Thing is I worked as hard as anyone!: Nice soundscape, good epic buildup. Balance is off, the melody is sometimes buried. Good effort at trying to make the brass sound decent, but it's hard and this isn't there. Pretty good job of making use of those minimalist-ish melodies. Gun-Armed Bandit:Soundscape is lacking in the low end, and the instruments are kind of crummy. An exposed solo instrument in the intro needs to be really, really strong to work, and this isn't. Horse-clopping transition from ethnic to 9-bit kind of comes out of nowhere. However, the arrangement under all those production issues is actually pretty good. [*]Kain vs. Beatrix: I thought these two sources would go together really nicely, having similar scale and melody usage (if different time signatures), and a catchy hook, but clearly both remixers had a hard time. Skies aren't for Us: There are a few dissonant notes that really leap out at me. Interpretation of Kain's theme is pretty liberal, I have a hard time hearing it even knowing that it's there. Beatrix's theme underruns it really well, though. Overall a little repetitive. Great production, though. Loss of Sorrow: Fun noodling with Beatrix's theme in 4/4. Accompaniment and bass sound oddly incompatible with the melody, which is quiet at times. Once again, Kain's theme is hard to hear--the notes are there, the first loop through, but the beat is heavily modified to the point where even listening for it, it took me two tries to catch it. And then the second time through it's arranged and even harder to pick out. I always advise people to put in one "straight" use of a theme somewhere in their mix, preferably early on, so people can train their ears as to what to listen for to catch the more liberal runs through. [*]Freya vs. Sazh: Sazh's theme is a bitch. Side Effects of Afro Include Memory Loss: Very quiet. Using Freya's theme as a bridge worked reasonably well, and I can't say I blame you for not integrating the two themes any better than that. Really long into and outro. Also very monotonous, no change-ups to be found; these two facts combined make for an unfortunately boring remix. SazhaFreyaSazh: Good integration, better sound quality. That sax is really horrible, though, sounds synthetic and grainy. Overall sounds really low-fi--I don't know if that's intentional, to sound like an old jazz recording, but without tape or record hiss it just sounds bad. The arrangement is actually pretty good given Sazh to work with. [*]Basch vs. Vivi: Once you pick out Basch's melody, it's actually pretty similar to Vivi's. Lots of possibilities here. Fulminating Darkness: Interesting stringed instrument in the intro, I can't place it. In the intro it sounds great, but when it returns it has a terrible EQ problem. Beautiful rock ballad thing going on. Good use of the sources, they really do sound like they belong together. Unfinished Wizardry: Wow, this is loud, especially that bass. Sounds like a hell of a lot of clipping. I don't really hear any melody. And... yeah, that's about it. [*]Locke vs. Lenna: Really similar melodies here, if different energy levels, and it helps that they for once are on the same console with similar instrumentation. LOCKEDUPLENNA: I'm... really just not sure what to make of this. Some interesting and creative, if unpleasant, sound usage, but is there supposed to be a melody here somewhere? She Stole His Heart... Then His Wallet: Lead viola sounds pretty artificial, and really brings down an otherwise solid mix. Interesting in a good way twists on the melodies, right in that sweet spot where recognizable meets novel. I'm guessing this is Lenna multiclassing into "Treasure Hunter" rather than "Thief?" Good transitions between the low- and high-energy sections, much better than my attempts to do the same.

Unless people hate my entry so much they'd prefer the sweet sound of silence....

Part of the wall of text people are apparently having trouble parsing:

Technically he has 5 minutes.... I would have been amused if both he and Hollow no-showed, it would mean Garpocalypse and I would be up next for sure.

Oh cool, I just found a Jew's Harp soundfont.