DarkeSword   Administrators 🎮

I dunno, I'm still having the same issues with the articulations, particularly in the bass instruments. The definition is just not at the level it needs to be to really establish the kind of pulse you're looking for. The percussion is also kind of quiet throughout the piece. I'm also not too hot on your brass samples; trumpets sound blaring and start blurring together in the end. I do like the writing overall; the interpretation and movement throughout the piece is really nice. The transitions aren't the best, but they're serviceable. Andy's right about the ending though; it sounds really weak. You need stronger low end there; it sounds thin with just high strings and woodwinds. Something powerful and deep would serve you better. Anyway, still a lot of production issues. Keep at it, I guess, and if you decide not to resub, good luck with future subs. NO resub

Guitar performances totally rock my socks, so nice job there. I do think you need to interpret the source tune a little more; I like your original sections, but the don't have much to do with the source tune, do they? They're nice, but let's hear some more creative takes on the game material. Certainly not a bad piece of music, to be sure. Quite fun actually. Just needs a little more. NO, RESUB PLZ

Man, why is this not even two minutes? It's so groovy, you could add in like a guitar solo or something. Oh well. In any case I really like the interpretation and the groove; I think the production crits stand, so I'd like to see those taken care of. I do like the part where the kick starts dropping on every downbeat; a simple, subtle change that drives the song forward. Let's hear a little more of that kind of stuff. NO but resub plz

QFE. What's up with that, man? Anyway "rockin'" is definitely the word. I could definitely get into a wicked dodgeball game with this music. Great percussion work. As for the sax, it's good, but I feel like the articulations could have been more defined to help the listener get the rhythm of the melody down. Whatever; it's just a very minor gripe from a former trumpet player. Anyway, great take on the source. Energetic and fun. YES

OMG I used to play this game ALL THE TIME. The drumbeat is right on; I think the hip-hop style works. The problem is that there's no strong bassline working in tandem with the beats to provide that strong base for the song to be built on. You need something meaty down there. Anyway, :32 with the sustained brass and stabbing strings sounds really muffled. You need to EQ that to get some higher frequencies. The brass chords just aren't working; they sound too muddy. Make the chords more spread out across the octaves and turn down the volume. I like the guitar, it adds a nice flair to the soundscape, but what's the deal with it cutting out like that near the end? Sounds sloppy. This piece has a lot of mid-range sounds, but not enough high freq stuff (hence the muffliness), or enough low parts (hence the emptiness). Don't cut out your bassline so much, and try some new rhytms than just what's in the source. NO

Anyone else see this movie? I thought it was phenomenal. I grew up on Disney movies, so it's nice to see Disney poking fun at all their old clichés. Amy Adams was perfect as a misplaced Disney Princess in the real world, and her singing voice is great to boot. The music was awesome, the dialogue was hilarious, and the effects were great. Am I the only one who went to see this?

Nom Nom Nom

Nice integration of the percussion with what was going on in the song. Always nice to hear someone take the percussion out of that background timekeeper role effectively. Texture is great all around, I love the chip stuff with the guitars. Pads are appropriately quiet; any louder and it'd be messy. i liek it YES

Right after that first pitch bend in the harpsichord, where the kick drops in, I actually smiled and went "oooh!" Nice. I like the variation and builds in this piece; you don't fall into the trap of repeating stuff over and over and over again just to establish a groove. Things are there just long enough and we switch gears. That's not to say I wouldn't like to hear like a 15 minute extended mix of this where I could just veg out to the beats. XD Anyway, nice work dude. The beats are hot and the synths are cool. WUT WUT

Echoing Larry and Andy here; the texture is thin and weak. Where's the bass? This needs more meat on it. Andy said big chord motions; I'm gonna agree with that. Arrangement is not bad though; I don't think it's too spastic, but some more variation aside from simply passing the melody around would be nice. Percussion isn't bad; that drumkit sounds familiar. You've got a ways to go with this one. One more time. For the bass. NO

Just wanna address this, as I have no time for vote at the moment. We don't judge your effort, or the "shear [sic] amount of work" you put into the song. All we judge is the end product, and if we collectively feel the end product suffers from medlyitis and doesn't jive with our standards and criteria, then we'll reject it.

First half is kind of messy. The samples are drowned in reverb and the articulations are weak. Not enough definition or balance between your sounds. It's a mish-mash. I actually liked the second half of the song with the samples and percussion and stuff, but the orchestral stuff still suffers from the problems in the first half. Also, the percussion has no bassline working with it to establish the kind of groove you're looking for. Low end sounds empty. NO

Agreed. There's a sparseness in the beginning; you could have done better with a deeper texture, even as we go through the song proper. Not sure about the clarinet countermelody in the first verse, especially at 2:02; something weird going on there harmonically with the voice and clarinet. As for the vocals, I'm ambivalent. The voice is nice, but I'm neither a fan of the lyrics or how they fit in with the melody; phrases seem to end earlier than expected. The performance does have kind of a disjointed quality as well. Perhaps that's a stylistic decision? I can't say for sure, but I think something less rigid would contrast better over the stiffer backing track. NO resub (is that terrible of me to say, considering this is the 3rd time this is on the panel? In my defense, this is the first time I've voted on this piece. :\ )

Tricky decision here for me. I think that I'm in agreement with Larry here though. I don't really have qualms about the production--Vinnie nails it with his comment about it being "consistently lo-fi,"--it gives the piece a more intimate sound. But I'm not really feeling the medlyitis; the transitions were more or less "stop-and-start." This could have been broken down into three or four standalone songs. There were also a lot of tempo issues; sounded like the drummer was speeding up and slowing down at times, and the guitars didn't lock-in right away. Overall though, good performances, and not a bad interpretation. I just feel like this piece needs to be more cohesive, with some more attention paid to locking in on the tempo and not trying to cram too many ideas in. NO resub

The whole thing has a really groovy vibe to it, and I like the texture. Production is clean, and the instruments sit where they should. My problem is the repetition. The percussion simply does not let up at all, and continues throughout the song with out any real change, save for adding some 8th note hi-hat work. No rhythmic variation, no cuts, nothing. There should be a little more interaction there, more integration. NO resub plz

I think this is great. I like how you mixed NES style sounds with acoustic elements. Personally I don't think there's anything wrong with that, because the soundscape isn't completely dependent on the NES sounds, and they are processed, to a certain extent. As for the arrangement, it's not the most liberal thing I've heard, but there's some nice embellishments with the guitar, and I dig the woodwind stuff. This piece has a really folksy, intimate kind of quality to it. I think the percussion is appropriately subdued as well. YES

Mario Kart 64 - Party in the Snowland!

The articulations on your moving lines are very weak, which lends the piece an anemic quality. No pun intended. Samples just don't seem to be balanced right; there are a lot of sections where the strings seem too loud, or the percussion is too quiet, or the bells stick out too much, etc etc. Not really sure about the adaptation, to be honest. The instrumentation is really similar to the original, but the samples aren't as good. The melody never really catches my attention, and this piece just feels like it's going through the motions. It's interpretive, no doubt, but not really all that interesting. There are also some harmonic ideas that I don't think really work, like the transition at 2:24. Not really sure what you could do with this one. NO

Yeah, even Winamp does it. I use MP3BookHelper for mass tagging. Pretty much anything that allows you to tag with ID3v2 lets you type in any genre you want.

chumble spuzz wins at the universe. edit: I can't stop laughing at "Big Giant Mills"

Pretty neat actually! It's got a nice rockin' sound to it. I like. However, we cannot ignore the fact that it doesn't really use the source; it's another song that's extremely similar to the source. An admirable acheivement, but ultimately not what we're looking for. I'm keeping this. NO

This song really reminds me of Moby's "Porcelain," particularly the bit with the filtered vocals. That's a good thing, because I really love that song. In any case, your vocals are actually pretty well performed, which is interesting considering they're not part of your original vision for this mix. However, I'm not really fan of the rest of your soundscape. The percussion is sitting in a weird place in this mix; too far back and it's got some weird reverb on it. Percussion in a song like this should be your anchor; centered, with presence without overpowering, and just a touch of reverb, no more. I think that the sustained strings could be better written too. They're mid-range, occupying the same range and your vocals; you might be better served bring them down or up in octave, quieting them a little. Try writing your chords at greater intervals; span two octaves with just four notes, and again, keep it quieter. Those sustained chords aren't interesting enough as is to be as loud as they are. Also, use a better string sample. The one you have sounds really phasy. I think other judges can speak more towards production issues, so I'll let them take care of that. All in all though, a great first effort. Hope to hear more. NO resub plz

This mix feels like a lot of initial statements without further developemen. "Here's an idea. Okay here's another one. Try this one." There are a lot of interesting ideas here, but they don't get the attention or development the deserve. The piano in particular really disappoints me; you comes in with that, you could really layer in a nice non-gating bassline, something funky to fit with the percussion and syncopation of the chords. It's so lo-fi, and it builds and stutters out nicely, but it really feels like it could come in NOT lo-fi along with some other accompniment. This could take on a house feel. There's a sparseness that pervades this mix. So many sections are just lacking in a meaty bassline. The arrangement is also kind of repetitive; you could have utilized more of the source. Not a bad sub, but a NO nonetheless.

So yeah, to sum up a bit.This is a weird mix for me. I like the raw, angry, chippy sound to it (and unlike a pure chiptune, this has a lot of processing and effects that bring it up), but I'm not really keen on how the source was used. I like the gating effects, but I would have loved to hear more of the first part of the Mysterious Woods theme, as opposed to the climbing notes from the second half. In any case, nice job. YES

Trying to figure out the Zelda timeline has always seemed like a waste of time to me. All I know is that Ocarina of Time is the first one. After that, whatever, it's just the same legend told over and over again, but differently each time. As far as Majora's Mask goes, from a game design standpoint, it's a brilliant piece of work and very fun. My only problem with the game was that I felt "punished" for doing complete saves, and I hated having to go back and redo things just because I restarted the three-day cycle. That's pretty much the reason I never finished the game; my own fault, really. I think that out of all the Zelda games, it's the handheld ones that have always held a special place in my (piece of) heart; my first Zelda game was Link's Awakening, and the Oracle games, Minish Cap, and the recent Phantom Hourglass have all been incredible experiences. Four Swords Adventures for Gamecube was also a sorely underrated game; the single-player experience and its emphasis on formations is incredibly fun.