jnWake   Judges ⚖️

I'm not sure of how it could be done, but maybe giving some benefits to people that succesfully use the WIP forums could lower the workload for the judges. Just throwing out ideas, but maybe if a song receives a good review by the Workshop mods, the ammount of YES votes to be accepted could be lowered. Stuff like that could work I think.

Whoever got Wheel Gator should be scared of my mighty Strike Chain.

Hell yeah Sponge avatar!

Same with Wire Sponge.

Distant Thunder is a weird pick for a cello theme, considering it has some small "solos" with high pitched instruments... The theme is great though. Anyway, on the first section, the melody is played too low. I don't know if you can actually play it an octave higher on a cello though The second section is probably the one that fits the cello the most. The third section is pretty good. I think the bass could be a little more upbeat. The last section adds interesting stuff with the percussive elements. Nice. The duo at the end sounds a bit off, maybe it'd work better with some harmonies. Source usage is fine in my opinion. I don't really have many complaints about the arrangement, maybe you could add the percussive elements from the end to the first sections, since it feels a bit slow at times. The length is also okay in my opinion. Recording could be a bit cleaner (and by that, I mean less noisy).

Assuming I can pass a round, it'd be cool if I am put in the bracket that doesn't compete on the week from the 10th to the 16th of September, since there's a huge holiday on that week here in Chile and I'll probably be away from home...

DSKOverture has decent string sounds, and some other acceptable sounds. Sadly, it doesn't have many features, so it'll always sound a bit fake. The other DSK VSTs are "ok", with ChoirZ being the only one I would use for a mix. The guitar and bass ones are pretty meh.

I think the huge amount of work needed for this project (writing lyrics, getting a lot of vocalists AND writing music) will hold it back for a while. The start will be (and is being) slow, but I think it'll pick up if you keep going and eventually show some material!

At least I'll get my first choice. Poor Wire Sponge, he only gets cut in half by people, no appreciation for him/her/it/whatever.

Some time ago I expressed interest in the Legend of Hyrule track. Since I'm not sure if the "**interest expressed" mark in the track is mine or somebody's else, I wanted to say that I'm "dropping my interest" for now. I can't come up with an idea that pleases me... However, I DO want to express interest on Nocturne of Shadow. I wrote an arrangement already, just need to sequence it and I'll get in touch with the project coordinators!

Wow the 2012 versions sound terrible. How lazy can they be?

You can try this (free) VST for now: http://www.myvst.com/vst-instruments/ethnic/list-by-popularity/1208-dvs-saxophone-freeware . I haven't tried it, but the video is shows a good sound imo.

This is like "Toto remixes the Zelda Overworld Theme for a Mario Kart game" I love the intro, it's so groovy. I'd make another instrument play the lead, since it gets a bit drowned if played by the piano. Try with a sax or something like that, it'd sound cool. However, the source doesn't convince me in some sections... - 0:37: For some reason, the source feels weird here. It MAY be the G# (if I'm hearing it right) played by the piano. It also may be that I'm used to hear the backing chords decreasing from the original song, so I'm not sure. - 0:55: The chord progression doesn't fit that well with the melody. Other than those two small nitpicks, I love where this is going. Just keep in mind that when drastically changing the backing chords, the melody has to suffer some changes (I noticed some nicely picked changes in some notes by the way).

To make judging faster, the number of NOs and/or YES's needed to pass/reject a mix could be lowered. Doing that could affect the quality of the posted mixes, but I don't think it'd be a HUGE factor. It could be tested...

Maverick Rising also missed most of the boss themes, so there is material for a sequel!

I posted this on the competition topic: "Yo Momma - Nice source! And nicely arranged too. At times I feel the song sounds a bit muddy, maybe because the synths are too similar. Maybe you could have used more varied samples for this." I think the arrangement is fine, I didn't find it boring, but I'd spice it up with different samples. Strings would be very fitting, to make a contrast with all the synths.

I don't think the submission process is causing any delays... Like Mokram mentioned, one of the obvious bottle-necks is the posting. Since djp doesn't have all the time of the world, it's obvious he can't handle to post mixes on a daily basis consistently. I agree with Mokram in that having more people (not many more) posting the mixes on the front page could help. Maybe try to organize it so that a mix gets posted every 2 days. Now, about judging, I've noticed one thing that may slow the process. I opened the first 10 rejected mixes on the judges subforum and ALL of them had at least one vote that said "No (resub)", with most of the mixes receiving only "resubs". Encouraging people to resub is a nice thing, but when you do this, the judging queue doesn't get any shorter than before judging the song (assuming most people actually resub). I haven't read the votes in detail, but maybe some of these "resub" posts are being too picky and could instead be changed to a Yes, which would slow the posting queue, but speed up the judging one. Otherwise, they could just be changed to a straight No. After all, no one says that a No means you can't resubmit.

I didn't mean it in an "OCR" way But it's true, the original song IS like many songs pasted one after the other. That leaves room for other remixers to tackle the other sections of the song.

Nice competition! I'll make (short reviews) of the tracks: Before the World Ends - I loved the natural sounding intro with the flute and guitar. I didn't know the source, but after listening to it, I felt it was nicely used. Only thing I disliked were the drums. Very unfitting samples IMO, especially the snare which is just bad. I expected a more natural sounding snare. Also, the synth starting at 1:45 could use some filtering since it feels too "static". Broken Wings - Good song, very dramatic. I wasn't that happy with the source usage since the original song has many sections and you elaborated on very little of it. Still, the section that you picked was nicely developed. Production is very good (for my standards). A deserved winner. Scarf Face - Fun song. The rock approach was cool, and fitting for the source. Production wasn't that good in my opinion though, especially regarding the volumes. Drums are very important on rock songs, and they are very low here, making the arrangement feel a lot less powerful. Guitars were very cool though. Synths are a bit dry. Upon New Shores - Source makes my nostalgia meter rise! I liked the different rhytm for the intro section, but I felt that the introduction of the drums was a bit too sudden, drowning the synth. Actually, drums are a bit too loud for most of the mix imo. Arrangement is interesting, the electric guitar usage reminds me of Chrono Cross! Source is nicely used on the song. Vertigo - Being very honest, I didn't listen to this one carefully. It's looong and I'm not a big fan of techno/electronic music... Also the link provided for the source wasn't very good. I'm not too familiar with this kind of music, so I can't really offer much advice. The synth at 4:55 felt a little weak though. Most other stuff sounded nice. Yo Momma - Nice source! And nicely arranged too. At times I feel the song sounds a bit muddy, maybe because the synths are too similar. Maybe you could have used more varied samples for this. I'm a novice, but I hope this helps!

I tried to stay away from the original X game, since it's been way too overremixed... I wanted to try new songs. X2 and X3 have odd soundtracks, most songs being too guitar based (with some notable exceptions though). X4 was a bit meh, not good or bad. X5 and X6 have interesting soundtracks. I didn't like X7's soundtrack and didn't listen to X8's one.

DSKOverture has decent flute and harp. But only decent (harp is better than the flute imo).

That is fine. Considering the large amount of projects and other stuff, we MAY have enough time for people to do enough Bonus Tracks! I'm pretty advanced on my song. Should I PM it to you? Or post it somewhere?

Sign me up: 1. Mega Man X2 - Wire Sponge. 2. Mega Man X6 - Blizzard Wolfgang. 3. Mega Man X6 - Shieldner Sheldon. 4. Mega Man X4 - Cyber Peacock. 5. Mega Man X5 - Volt Kraken. I hope someone picks the themes I don't get, they're so good. Also, for people that can't find the tracks: OSTs of X2 to X8 uploaded by this user. I don't know if he uploaded X1, but somebody else can probably find a link for that.

When remixing 2 part songs, both parts can be used in the remix right?