Protricity

I really enjoy these drumloops. Can you please give me the contact of the guy you bought them from so I can replace his name with yours and resubmit this to oc? thanks. Anyway, we have here clipping and almost never more than 2 instruments going at a time. Oh wait, its starting to build. Looks like its not even going to go into the second part of this melody. Oh, and now we have sync problems. NO and by the way, guys, this is origially an old russian folk song. A very nice one. No gameboy has any claim over the melody.

1. Really bad quality encoding. This sounds like 64kbps reencoded at 128kbps. Guess what, reencoding at higher bitrate will do nothing for your song. It will just tee off other people who use dialup and need to download a larger file ^^ I would say the drums are nice, but they clipp too much. There is no make up on the melody cause its simple and doesnt even seem to fit with the drums. Next time, higher quality encoding, more melody, and dont clip. NO

Dont repeat like that, please *ATTEMPT* some ingenuity. This is basically the same as the original. There are sync problems, and holy god, the entire ending is off key. One good way to prove that a song wasnt a midi rip is by having off key sections, gj NO

Usually I am not a stickler for instrument quality, but when something is very bad and annoying and sticks out like a sore thum, to me, thats bad arranging ability. The open hats are way too loud and ugly. Try to make less annoying drums in the future. Watch that clipping (way too much clipping) and lets try to get over that 2 minute barrier, eh? Also, fade out ending = ban from #ocremix. NO

UHHH... just a thought, http://www.angelfire.com/retro/aviolentrage/ICO_Shrouded_Castle_OC_ReMix.mp3. Try removing the period at the end http://www.angelfire.com/retro/aviolentrage/ICO_Shrouded_Castle_OC_ReMix.mp3 I dont know why I came up with such a crazy idea. Anyway, Review pending. If you still have Period related problems, no pun intended, contact me for the file. So anyway, I really REALLY like the use of the strings and piano. The melody was changed and in a good way. Good effort presented, and a VERY good feel to this song. YES

Yay, I've never heard a beat like this before. Simplistic, common, repetitive, and what are all the other words I like to use? oh yes, here's one.... NO

When you see the name DarkCecil13, you know about 300% reverb is comming your way. To me, this is way to simplistic and repetitive. Short, but not sweet. The reverb kills the percussion. And can we do better ID3 tags? please? Sounds like it might have been a nice song, but I feel like I'm listening to it from the other side of a building or something. I only hear the echos... NO

Last of the mochecians!!!!!!!! but I guess its not exactly the same, oh well, its pretty damn close. hmm, I swear this game coppied LOTM. Anyway, A nicely put arrangement even if rather repetitive and sorta messy with the piano/strings. I could tell some things were tried to prevent the repetitiveness, ex. improv guitar. Good. I like to see things like that. YES

Music of my gr... oh wait, no First off, this isnt a medley. Second the playing is really poor. Yes there are standards to playing ability. I might have been able to do this without any prior guitar experience simply because all the notes were played on separate takes (and not to sync). There really isnt anything special about it. NO

HOLY PHASER!!! Can someone send me that kick? This reminds me of a cool F-Zero song. Then I remembered; newer games dont have good melodies. This is repeptitive, although I like the movement, and the strings. I do not appreciate burping sounds in the middle of a song !@# Way too mono. Weak ending. NO

Hmm, Nice play on the original, but its not different in any obvious ways. Its the original played with an annoying rain loop that wont go away. Too short. Not much happens. NO

A few sync problems here, a few tunage problems there. But man, good job with the guitars! Not only the way they were played, but the way they were implimented in the song. I would say the weak points are the drums. Also, the guitars should be louder. Other than that, very nice mixing/medley ability. A better ending could have been better, me thinks. I dont even need to finish this song. YES

OFMG!!! Realistic instruments = 4WESOME!!!! OFMG Aside from everyone's general love for style and simplistic moody pieces, I found much I liked about this song. Very creative takes on the melody. Very well done sound processing and instrument control. The song is long, 6 minutes, thank GOD (sooo sick of those 2 minuters). It is completely non repetitive. It builds and builds, constantly impressing until... it fades.... and .... ends. Great! YES

Never played 64 games, but if you are saying its too much like the original, then I'll just take your word for it. Anyway, This kind of song needs to break into some new patterns eventually. Break out with a new beat and go boom bang! for example. Otherwise its just too repetitive. There is the lack of bass as well. The drums never change, they just continue in the loop.. There are some chord structure problems - kinda like, lack of chords entirely. I know that there is some theory involved here, but it is so bare. NO

I'm not sure exactly what the significance of this piece was, but for one reason or another, I had several people ask me to listen to it and give an opinion, etc. I figured I might as well right a review then, in judge style, bwahahah. Pros: The guitar really produces a nice feel to this song. You really cant go wrong followin' the formulas. Good deal on the percussion, although simple, it adds to the song. Cons: Major Rock EQing going on. My Spectrum Analyzer looks like an upside down arch. Lots of velocity in the high and low frequencies. I 'DEQued' it (reverse rock) a little later on and it sounds a lot better in my opinion. Seperate lead and background guitar recordings going. This isnt nessisarily a 'bad' thing, but if one was to go for a 'live' or 'real' feel, it kind if kills it for me to hear the same note being played on 2 separate guitars at the same time, etc. I dont appreciate songs that repeat too much, this song was a perfect example. I didn't notice any new melody or angle towards the song, just the original played with real guitar and higher quality strings. Its always annoying to hear remixes that are note for note the same as the original, oh well. Fade out ending, kinda lazy. At least try some kinda real ending. The video game is over. Way to short. I would really like to see some more songs in the 4-6 minute range. Is it really that hard? Overall, its a nice melody to have in the background. I love the original, along with all of FF7, but the SuperEQin, and simplistic nature keeps me from wanting to play it over the original: I enjoy the original more During the song I was waiting for the guitar to go off on its own little harmony, do something interesting with the song. Alas, it didnt happen. Its good to see guitarists/instrumentalists submitting stuff more frequently. Its a nice break from the synthetic world. Keep up the good music! -Pro

Well, I used Creative's encoder. I wasn't aware that it was Xing or old. Anyway, I just wanted to point out that there is a higher quality version (and smaller filesize) of this song in the superior ogg format, and you can find it at http://www.public.asu.edu/~arasulin/Age_Of_Empires_Realms_of_Africa_OC_ReMix.ogg for the time being. I used to use LAME (and I still do) but I dont use it for submissions anymore since a few friends told me they get errors and deformations when playing these songs on some mp3 players. I do agree that Lame is the best out there.

I felt the song was rather short and typical. The guitar, the beat. Its all the usual. Only problem here is that there is nothing 'special' about the song that makes this genre-simplism justified. The guitar didnt sound too impressive, nor did the beat. The song didnt stray fromt the original melody, save a tad at the end. I think more work can be displayed in this kind of song. Also, I would like to see more songs in the 4-6 minute range, is it really so hard? oh yea, I almost forgot NO

Thanks for the indepth review, prophecy. I very much appreciate them. I just wanted to point out that the intro guitars are real, not samples.

A cool mood mix that attacks repetitivity (?) in some interesting ways. I like how the beat and melody are mixed up to make the song flow and not get annoying. Also, nex managed to make it longer than 17 seconds like some other recent submissions. 3 minutes ! GOOD ACCEPTABLE YES

That beginning .... um..... totally... hit me the wrong way. Listen. In order to make a generic sounding conformist minimalistic common usual uninteresting and typical dance song, you DONT put reverb on the bassline. That kinda messed up the sound. Anyway, this song is extremely unimpressive. The whole thing sound like 1 huge drumloop. Are we gonna get to hear a melody? 3:00 has melody it seems. God its weak. vocals over a singular warm string. Sorry, not nearly good enough. NO

Dont care for the first minute of the song. Have no problem with the guitar. The Grungier guitars later one are pretty good. Damnit, I was hoping to go with a 12 rejections in a row streak, but this song and that Super Mario World one destroyed that hope. DAMNIT!!!!!! Anyway, I like the drums, and the feel of the song.; Could be less repetitive, but I think its fine as it is Good job YES

Too Short. Sounds good in some parts, but these kind of songs have to be longer, 1:43 is just.... lazy, sorry. I liked it, but It cant pass me as is. NO

This is actually very well arranged. Good job. It took me a while, but I really like it now. Great way to use what you got, VERY nice sequencing. I dont like the techno twips, they are completely out of place !@#$ D: YES

... um... yea, so... I tried to give this a chance, listened to it a few times, but personally, I barely consider it a song. Lets have more than 1 note playing in the future, maybe try some harmony. The beat flows like a sack of hammers. There are timing problems There are mastering problems NO

I know what was attempted here. And it would have been good except for: Lack of drumtrack(This is not a piano piece) Horrible Piano echo effect. Clipping Repetitiveness. I think this song can be salvaged. Bring it to someone who knows how to use reason better (Im guessing it was done in reason, thats what it sounds like) and have them rework the mastering and lay down a drumtrack. Then work on expanding on the song, rather than just playing out the original tune. NO