DarkeSword

thx.

Yeah, up your butt. Why don't you comment on the song instead of advertising? :\

Just last night I finished my first remix based on music from an anime, specifically, Naruto. The song is called Iron Dance and the White Eyed Maiden, and it was inspired by an episode of some filler arc where Hinata is fighting a ninja who uses magnetism as a means to fight. At the end of the battle, a muted version of the song "Dance" plays. I really liked the low-key feel that the song added to the scene, so I tried to capture that in my piece. I also added in "Hinata vs. Neji" as a reference to Hinata's character. Iron Dance and the White Eyed Maiden [5.53MB, MP3]

I've been having trouble trying to formulate a vote on this piece, so I apologize in advance if this vote is not detailed enough or doesn't make much sense, or if people don't end up agreeing with me once they hear this piece. A few things don't really sit right with me. I feel like the percussion doesn't sit well with the rest of the mix, especially the snare. I'm also not a big fan of the arrangement. I feel like the melody has been shoved to a supporting role to make way for a lot of improvisation in the guitar. In that sense, it's not too interpretive aside from the piano part for the B section (which I did like a lot). I also agree with a few of Larry's criticisms about mechanical sequencing, but it isn't glaring. This is on the borderline. NO

Much too short, terrible recording, and nothing in the way of a developing piece of music. There's almost nothing here except for some chord changes. You've got to arrange the source material and give your arrangement time to develop and change. Don't get too caught up in the concept behind the music (i.e. it's a short coffee break). You're only justifying mediocrity that way. NO

I really feel like the balance between the percussion and the squares is way off. The percussion really should have way more presence here, and the arpeggiating square line gets old quick, especially at that volume. Piano stuff is really nice though, and I love the intro. I think you need to work on balance and part writing issues for a lot of the "electronic" sections of this piece. NO resub

I'm in total agreement with BGC. This is pretty much a trance cover of the original song. There's hardly any arrangement here. NO First of all, if you don't think it'll get a spot on the site, why bother submitting? That's just a crappy attitude, bro. Second of all, what the hell do you mean "How about leaving some real comments as to why..." Perhaps I may seem like I'm getting all bent out of shape over nothing, as perhaps you meant nothing by it, but c'mon man. Dude, read our dang votes. 98% of them usually lay down exactly that very thing, AS WELL AS what usually needs to be done to earn a spot. Your wording sounds as if you attempt to villianize the panel as simply stamping a vote with no measure of reason or rationality. Eff that, dude. You can't really expect polite feedback when you lay it out like that, now can you? Oh, and winamp can edit ID tags, btw. Quoted for emphasis. If you don't think it has a shot at getting on OCR, don't "submit it anyway." If you don't have confidence in your own music, why should we spend time judging it?

That's it? Where's the rest? Seriously, way too short, and not nearly creative enough. Nice guitar though. NO

This is nirvana. String work is gorgeous. YES

Well I loved the old Tepid mix, and while this one is different, it's really awesome too. Nice harmonic approaches. Guitar sounds really sweet. I'M GONNA SAY YES

Hokey and tongue in cheek is right. I always get reminded of stuff like Casper the Friendly Ghost when I hear stuff like this. That's not really a bad thing. I thought the lyrics were pretty useless. They're too quiet to really understand and sound a bit nasal; I don't think they really work in the context of the mix, and that melodic line could have been easily replaced with a stronger, rounder sounding lead instrument, like a clarinet or something. Regardless, it's not a bad piece. Good arrangement with nice textures. YES

LT Edit - Original Decision: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2811

I agree with Vig. Tons of awesome ideas, but they sort of get lost with the messy drums and odd balance choices. I'd have to say that those drums really need to be fixed up; they're the main detriment to this mix. Too sharp, too strong of a sound. They should not dominate the upper frequencies like that. Voices are likewise lost in the mix. I'm sure that they add a lot to the mix, but the problem is that I can't hear them. That ending sucks too. NO, but rework and resub.

Great jazzy piece. I love how the whole thing is put together; Lee is right, percussion is top-notch acoustic stuff. Very nicely sequenced. Brass is also handled really well. It's hard to get fake brass to sound like that, so nice work there too. However, I think that the direct sampling is an issue. The novelty of "OMG VIDEO GAME SONG" has long worn off; This song would benefit from scrapping that old-school sound and starting off with a proper intro and ending off with a proper ending. Right now the structure of the song is essentially "BGM." An intro, an ending, a solid solo section, and some more creative rhythmic interpretations could really take this piece to another level. You have the skill set as far as production and sequencing is concerned. Now just bring some more of that arrangement skill to the table. NO but definitely resub.

Love the texture you've got here. The compressed drums really work for me, though I'd liked to hear some toning down of the snare when the sine lead was playing. A rimshot would have worked better. Interesting ending too. I like it! YES

Ugh. Yeah, can we please get a more varied texture here? The balance between accompaniment and lead distorted guitars is horrible. I realize you're going for the wall of sound approach, but it's poorly executed here. Drums? Moar liek ho-hums! Sorry, that was pretty rude. But seriously, percussive work could be a lot more varied and integral to the mix, as well as brought out to really make a statement over the messy distortion. Arrangement is lacking as well. Could be a lot more interpretive. Also, more of that non-distorted electric stuff. It does sound nice, especially the end part that fades out way too quickly. NO

Yeah, a fun song to be sure, but I'm going to have to agree with the rest of the NO votes. Because it's live, it doesn't really have the polish we're looking for. Couple that with the fact that the arrangement is rather liberal, and you've got a song that doesn't really align with OCR's direction. Good stuff, but unfortunately NO.

Well you called this a mashmix, which I assume means mashup, which we don't really allow here on OCR. We're not looking for someone to take sampled audio from the game and mix up a song out of that. We want people to listen to the music from a game, reinterpret and reimagine it, and create a song out of what they come up with. This seems to be a lot of percussive material with some sampled audio over it. Not really what we're after. NO

I'm in agreement with Larry and Circles. Lots of interesting arrangement ideas here, but I think that you could do a lot better with your percussion's balance with the rest of the track, particularly in the beginning of the piece. It's a very densely written part when it comes in, and it overpowers the rest of the piece because of its relative dryness. BGC mentioned bass support issues in the second half of the song, and I agree with him. Try to bring some more low end to that section. NO resub

Nope. MP3, OGG, AAC, and most other file formats with smaller filesizes are known as lossy compression formats. When you compress the audio, you're actually losing some sound data due to sampling rates and other stuff (it's more technical than that, but you get the basic idea). You can't "uncompress" a lossy format in the way you're thinking. There are formats that are lossless compression formats, like APE and FLAC, which, while not giving you the compression ratios of lossy formats, don't lose any of the sound data, so you can go back to raw wave data.

That's a hilarious story, but I feel bad for you man. GOOD LUCK. T_____T

I will not authorize Sand Café to be available for download. Any reason for that? I mean, people have heard it on the teaser site, might as well let them have a higher quality version, eh? It isn't finished, and I don't really plan on finishing it any time soon.

Only if I finish it.