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Everything posted by DarkeSword
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It was announced months ago. http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-12-17/new-haruhi-suzumiya-anime-series-details-revealed
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Top 10 Zelda songs on GamesRadar - with lots of OCR links
DarkeSword replied to richter's topic in General Discussion
So "The Legendary Hero" from Wind Waker (and by extension, my Ancient Hero mix) didn't make the list. Fail. -
Your mix has to be a mix of the music. You can't take sound effects and create an original song out of it.
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I personally will hate you for the rest of your life, or for the rest of my life. Whichever ends first. This will not factor into my judging though, so go ahead and remix what you want.
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*NO* Final Fantasy 7 'Remember That Day'
DarkeSword replied to Liontamer's topic in Judges Decisions
There's no reason the opening strings have to sound so crappy, and if you're going for that filtered sound, you never contrast it with clean unfiltered strings. After the minute mark, this song feels like it's on autopilot, lazily going through a genre-adaptation of the melody. The guitar and harp stuff is interesting, but not enough to save the blandness of the arrangement. The percussion especially gets old fast. It's not all bad; balance between instruments is good, and it's got a nice groove, but you really need to work on this more. Bring some more originality to the track. NO -
There's a second season coming of Haruhi.
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OCR01683 - Secret of Mana "Thicket"
DarkeSword replied to djpretzel's topic in ReMix Reviews & Comments
You interpreted that question incorrectly. -
First, I just want to say to everyone else: lay off. He's allowed to request whatever songs he wants. Stop your mini-modding. As for purplecowdoom: As an artist, let me tell you: reviews are certainly worth beans. I always appreciate when a listener takes the time to leave a few comments about my work, even if it's just as simple as, "That was pretty cool." Reviews are not really for recommending mixes to other people; they're for giving your opinion on the song to the artist. Similarly, I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about when you say you need expensive programs to help with WiPs (especially concerning graphic design; I have no idea where that's coming form). All you need to help with WiPs is a pair of ears. You go to the WIP forum, listen to something someone is working on, and give them feedback/your opinion. That's all you have to do. Anyway I just wanted to clear stuff up.
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*NO* Chrono Trigger 'Overdose Acoustica'
DarkeSword replied to Liontamer's topic in Judges Decisions
weed, what you're hearing is the choir clashing with the trailing reverb of the bell line, specifically on beat two of the measure. Plus the staccato choir is clashing with the sustained choir lines. I think that this has a really nice sound to it, but like weed mentioned, it's a little wonky in terms of choir harmonies. There's also the issue how conservative it is. Instrumentation is certainly a viable method of arrangement, but for the purposes of OCR, I don't think it can be relied on as the primary method of arrangement. Part-writing is very important, and I think that lifting not just melodic lines, but harmonic and continuo lines, out of the source doesn't really jive. There's certainly a lot of personalization here, I'll give you that, but I'm afraid that the combination of issues is a dealbreaker for me. Really wanna hear this tweaked up. NO, resub -
*NO* Adventures of Batman & Robin (SNES) 'Amused to Death'
DarkeSword replied to Liontamer's topic in Judges Decisions
Yeah it really follows the structure of the originals far too closely, and coupled with the Batman movie theme incorporation, it doesn't really jive with the standards. Still, a nicely executed piece of music; drums and guitar are particularly nice. Anyway, gonna have to say NO on this one. Hope to hear from you again. An aside, not having to do with my vote: The smattering of Joker voice clips also gets old pretty fast, to be honest. I'm not a fan of their usage here. -
*NO* Final Fantasy 7 'A Journey into the Deep Abyss'
DarkeSword replied to Liontamer's topic in Judges Decisions
You're not really thinking about how your patterns fit together. It sounds like you came up with a few cool sounding patterns and utilized the standard beginner's arrangement technique: add patterns, subtract patterns, add patterns, subtract patterns. Never mind the fact that the arpeggiating lead gets old fast and is pretty weak in establishing the hook of the melody. It's just meandering the same old syncopated pattern over and over again. There's absolutely no development in here; you've got 1 minute of material stretched over 6 minutes. Sorry, but you've got to do way more with the arrangement; Jenova is too little too late. NO -
Which is precisely why you'll never be a judge. Aside from the fact that it's a cover, there are a lot of balance issues between instruments, especially when flute and oboe attempt harmony and countermelodies. Too crowded. The samples really aren't that great either; they're only about as good as the ones I use. But like I said, without the attention paid to balance between voices, they don't really deliver as well as they could. So no, it probably would not get a YES from OCR judges. It's not a production, it's an arrangement with some serviceable samples.
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SR 3rd Season is confirmed.
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I'm a huge fan of the Lost Odyssey soundtrack, particularly the song Neverending Journey. Simply fantastic work. I wasn't impressed at all with Blue Dragon, but Uematsu is back on his game for LO.
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Yeah this one is almost there. I agree with the comments about the snare; pull it back or soften it up and you're good. What I don't get is why you start of with this great piano line and then switch to a whole bunch of non-piano stuff for most of the mix. I was really disappointed when the piano took the backseat to the other leads. I think that once you hit the Place of Peace stuff, the sample quality makes this end up sounding a lot like BGM from some old Falcom PC RPG, that is to say, the xylophone is kind of exposed. Something with more meat to it might be a better choice there for those syncopated lines, but that's a totally minor gripe. I think the punchiness of all the instruments wears on the listener after a while. You might want to consider highlighting winds and strings in the soundscape in lieu of all the different kinds of piano and chromatic percussion pieces. Really though this is quite enjoyable and I think that if you just tweaked a few sections with regards to dynamics you could make this really shine. NO for now, but please resub
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The arrangement here is not much more than a sound "upgrade" of the original. I put upgrade in quotes because the texture doesn't really work here; your leads come across as very shrill at times and the balance between instruments is off. That white-noise snare's sustain is just too long and sticks out. The arrangement basically just goes through the motions. I agree with the comments about the 2:25 section; quite creative, and I think that if you grabbed a hold of that and took the song further into that kind of dreamier, atmospheric texture, you'd be onto something. Give it some thought. As it stands now, though, I'm gonna have to say NO.
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*NO* Super Metroid 'The Aquatic Abyss' *RESUB*
DarkeSword replied to Liontamer's topic in Judges Decisions
Yeah, Jon nailed it. This song doesn't really have a purpose except to meander aimlessly over drumbeatz. Like Vinnie said, there's no direction at all. Add to that the fact that the entire soundscape is harsh and everything is mechanically sequenced and I'm left not knowing where to begin with fixing it. You and I have discussed what it means for a song to have direction and cohesion before, and I've shown you examples, so try to take that to heart before sending another piece our way, because what Jon said was right; thusfar, your submissions have all suffered from the same basic, fatal flaws. NO -
*NO* Little Nemo 'Sunshine Through My Window'
DarkeSword replied to Liontamer's topic in Judges Decisions
The opening beats remind me of ziwtra's Blue (Shooting Star Mix), which is not a bad thing. I agree with Vinnie though; while I absolutely love chromatic percussion, I think that you could use some variation in your lead instrument. I felt like I kept waiting for this song to open up with a more expansive sound with some kind of sustained synth handling the melody. The song kind of felt like it was on auto-pilot after a while. Certainly a pleasant auto-pilot, but auto-pilot nonetheless. I'd like to see a refined resub of this, but maybe we can leave this mix up for more votes? I can see other joojes giving this the BIG Y. NO refine resub -
Timing in the harpsichord is really sloppy at points. There's not a lot of balance between instruments and everything else sounds really mechanical. Violin sample's weak attack really gets exposed. You need better samples dood. I get kind of a Danny Elfman vibe from this around the middle, which is cool, but its really lacking in the execution department. Work on humanization and balance. NO
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*NO* EarthBound 'Your Friendly Neighborhood Hospital Dub'
DarkeSword replied to Liontamer's topic in Judges Decisions
Yeah agreed with Larry. This is just a cover of the originals. Fun, but not nearly interpretive enough. NO -
Yeah I'm just going to close this out by saying that you gotta make the stuff you submit here YOUR arrangement, not someone else's, even if it is from an official source. Anyway this is a fun track, but it's way too close to the original. Larry and 'Illi basically hit all the pertinent points, so there's no point in reiterating. Nice job, but NO. Hope to hear from you again in the future though.