DarkeSword

I don't think we would. That only makes sense if the original song Williams submitted was originally used in a Star Wars movie or other venue besides a video game. In this case, we have a song written by an artist that was never used in any kind of media venue like a movie, game, or music CD. The song was remixed by another artist, and that remix was used in a game. It's important to note that OCR's focus is to reinterpret and reinvent music from video games. In this case, the music from the game wasn't reinterpreted or reinvented, because this piece is the precursor. It inspiritive, rather than derivative (look at me, I'm making up words!). The question is, does the chronology matter? The piece itself is tightly done. Nice processing and a great, clean sound. However, to answer my own question, I do think that the chronology matters. I really hate rejecting things on the basis of policy, but unfortunately my vote here must be NO.

Another great track from my favorite remixer. It's a bit less melodic than his other stuff, but no less enjoyable. Nice grooves, nice textures, nice everything. Nice work!

Claado's leaving soon. You should probably show him some of your work before then so he can make the judgement about the caliber of your stuff.

What the heck is that?

File > Templates > Empty Honestly people, explore just a little.

I'm extending the deadline by two weeks guys. Please have your final arrangements done by December 19th. I think that's ample time to get stuff done.

Noted. I'll suggest it to DJP for when ztnet switches over to PHP 5.0, and when phpBB supports subforums. Don't expect it to happen any time soon (like, even within a year from now), but it's still a good idea. I'll pass it along.

Take your time. To paraphrase Shigeru Miyamoto, a bad mix is bad forever, but a delayed mix is eventually good.

Deadline is tomorrow, hopefully everyone can post their pieces by then. Might have to give an extension, but I'd rather not. Letsee the stuff people.

...psst...nobody said anything about #ocrjudges...

I don't mind. However, is everyone going to contest votes they don't like? I don't really feel this is one of those special circumstances. This one isn't that questionable imo. But if you guys want to continue to the vote, that's fine. I believe the policy is if a mix is not unanimous, first to six wins. i dont think a specific request is required. And of course it's questionable, otherwise the vote would be unanimous [/obvious] No, we never decided on that policy. The policy is that if a judge feels very strongly about a mix either way, he (OR SHE/!?!) requests for a 6 vote.

Short but sweet. This song has a nice vibe, cool texture, and great beat. Very groovy stuff. I don't think the arrangement is bad at all; it changes enough so that it doesn't get boring, and it doesn't drag itself out. Solid stuff. YES On a side note, I noticed that you mentioned that you took ideas about being too close to the original to heart. Good to see that you can do that without being a primadonna about it.

T_T I need an extension. I have so much Physics stuff due tomorrow.

Star already knows how much I like this piece. Happy-go-lucky stuff with lots of energy, great sounds, and a fun arrangement. YES!

Wow that drum sequencing is horrible. Your crash cymbal sample keeps cutting itself for some reason. Ride cymbal swinging sounds so square. Improvisation is incoherent and random. I can see what you're trying to do, but you're not doing a very good job. Vigilante said it best; you sound like you're just mashing keys. Charlie Parker without the logic, and even that's being generous. The song is experimental, and I know that you're trying to break the mold, but I don't think it works. The arrangement bounces around, and there's no logical progression between ideas. Even free jazz has some kind of underlying order in all the chaos. This piece doesn't show much in the way of development. I can skip around the mix and it sounds like the same thing at every single point. Drums are badly sequenced, piano is splashy, and nothing really locks together rhythmically or texturally. It sounds like each part is being played in a separate room, and then someone came and spliced it all together later. NO Also, since you chose to bring it up, I'm choosing to respond. Keep in mind, this has absolutely no bearing on the vote I just cast: What's with the rant? I realize you're frustrated because you're a sax player, and you see mixes like mine that use fake sax get posted, and because people flame your music and you when you don't think you deserve it, but in a submission email, we really don't need to know all that stuff. Just your name, the game and song you mixed, and a link to the file. I don't mind reading about your approach you took when writing this piece (interesting facts about production, arrangement, etc), but ranting about a the results of a remix contest isn't pertinent to your submission. Here's what I think: you have a nice tone when it comes to sax playing. And this piece also indicates that you have a good grasp of how to use your instrument. A lot of sax players even play random stuff like that so quickly without flubbing. However, I think you need to work on your songwriting and arrangement skills. Try writing and producing something more traditional, like a ballad or a latin tune; get a firm grasp on phrasing, progression, sequencing fake stuff (like drums), all that stuff. Then, go ahead and branch out to try more experimental stuff. You said that people might have flamed you because you were an ass in the forums; let me tell you, that is most likely exactly why they flamed you. If you weren't an ass, people would have given your more helpful responses, like "Here are some tips for sequencing man, good luck, you're a good sax player!" Nobody likes an asshole. So stop trying to be one all the time. It's not cool, it's not funny. You'll find that you can learn a lot here, if you just chill out and be less confrontational. Personally, I'd like to collaborate with you one day; I've got a song in the works where fakesax just won't cut it. However, there's no chance in that happening if you've got a confrontational attitude all the time. Just chill, man. Anyway, sorry for rant. Again, that had no bearing on my vote. If you took any kind of offense, I didn't mean it. I'm not trying to lecture you. The community needs more musicians who actually perform, as opposed to just compose, and wind players are hard to come by as far as our community goes. It would be to your benefit to just step back and think about working with people, instead of against them. That's all. Take care.

Another X4 Zero's Theme remix from DJ MetaZero. Wow man, you really like this song, don't you? There's a pervasive SHHHHHHHHH sound throughout this ENTIRE piece. It's because there's just too much damn reverb. Now I'm a big fan of what those not in the know call "the trance," and I fully endorse reverberation, but there's just too damn much here to make the trance enjoyable at all. It's muddy and the vocals get drowned out by the big, bleeding synths. Some mastering would definitely help. Arrangement is straightforward; not terrible, but it's in-your-face the whole time. Back off a bit around the middle. NO

Sax is sequenced pretty poorly. That's the sample I got off of DJ Orange; it can sound pretty decent if you sequence it right, however there's no attention paid to velocities at all. Everything sounds really unexpressive and flatline. The arrangement itself doesn't go anywhere either; it's pretty boring and reiterative. Not much substance; drums sound empty as well; all of the parts sound separate from eachother, and the piano drops out from the groove for a while. This is a 'jazz' piece, right? You've got to think of everyone as live players who are INTERACTING with eachother. Parts like piano, bass, and percussion; that's your rhythm section. Those cats need to lock together and establish a tight groove that take the song places. Right now it feels like all the guys got together, played their own thing in separate rooms, and then spliced them all together later. There's no interaction there, and that's why the piece comes off as VERY fake sounding. Sequencing jazzy music is hard, because there's a whole 'nother level of realism that you have to attain. This piece just doesn't seem to pull that off very well. Unexpressive, boring, repetitive. NO

Fairly typical trance/dance/generic club music sound, but that build-up into the main source material is ridiculously long. More than half the mix (all the way upto 3:20) is devoted to a single bar of material repeated over and over again, built up. I think the chord changes, once, but then it changes back. The single bar theme comes back at 4:44 and leads out the mix. Now, I'm not one to quantify music, but looking strictly at the number of seconds, we've got about 75.5 percent of this mix covering a single measure of source material. It gets old. When the more melodic parts do show up, the percussion is BOOM-TSS, the synths are generic, and the construction is typical. Sorry, but if you're really going to mix 1 bar of source material for over four minutes, at least do some rhythmically interesting stuff with it, instead of just building it up with a typical stacking trance progression. NO

Piano sounds like the last iteration of Jingle Bells Schroeder plays in the Charlie Brown Christmas special, when Lucy is bothering him and getting on his nerves. He's playing jingle bells with one finger and smashing each key down with the force of a falling brick. What I'm saying here is that the piano patch here has no trace of velocity sensetivity. I can hear it in the sequencing, but there are many points in the piece where it really feels like the piano key is getting hit with a hammer. Something as delicate as this kind of arrangement requires a softer, warmer, more subdued touch, as opposed to the harsh, bright sound. This isn't a minor quibble either; it's a big deal, because choice of sound is extremely important. Vibraphone sounds a little of place too, and and the string work could use some beefing up. Arrangement is so-so; nice arpeggios in the piano later on; too bad they're ruined by the hammering sample. Needs work. NO

Gotta disagree on this point. I'm intimately familiar with the samples used in this mix, and I have to say that they're used quite well here. Note choices, textural choices, as well as sequencing in terms of velocities, durations, and articulations are clearly indicative of having lots of attention paid to them. As for other comments, the mix is clear sounding; levels work and there's a tight balance kept between instruments.

The orchestral section of the song comes off as sounding very cliché, and the percussion at that point in the song is painfully simple. Single snare hits along with overuse of the crash cymbal does not an orchestral percussion part make. Wow that last sentence sucks. Anyway, the guitar playing is certainly competent, but I agree with Dan B that the electic guitar section is mixed too loud. Some weird stuff going on with the percussion hits around 2:49—might just be the double kick, but the guitar is loud and isn't in balance with other elements, it makes it hard to tell. Otherwise I think it's a pretty good track with nice arrrangement. The guitar playing is competent enough, but I think there are some issues, especially that orchestral section, that comes off as amateurish. NO (polish and russian...I mean polish and resubmit)

Here are my issues with it. There's way too much high register stuff going on. It's a bit ridiculous. Also, a lot of chromatic percussion.. There's too much xylophone and music box everywhere, and it never lets up at all. It's constantly going and going and going, and there are hardly any bass elements to balance that out. Saxophone sounds out of place as well. Also, you could cut out the entire middle section starting at 3:26 and going until 4:50, because alot of that doesn't even relate to the source material at all. It's certainly not bad, but I think it needs major revision.

Wow. Not everyone's cup of tea, I'll tell you that. This is very experimental stuff. I wasn't so sure when it started out—seemed really dry—but after a minute or so it really started to develop into something sonically interesting. Nice texture going on with all of the pure electronic stuff. Drum filtering is crazy. Pretty avant guarde stuff. I like it. YES

Just call it Chrono Trigger: The Motion Picture Soundtrack.

I keep waiting for the percussion do defilter and bust out with some crazy ass big beat, but it never happens. The percussion track is just TOO lo-fi, and gets a bit loopy as well. Sounds are nice though; like analoq said, they sound old-school. I don't mind 'em at all. However, what you do with them is another story. The structure and phrasing in this whole song is really boring. Everything is really low key and not very exciting. And I don't mean it's not loud; you can be quiet and still build a certain kind of intensity. This song lacks it. Also, lay off a bit on the analog seashore sounds. Rework the arrangement in terms of structure, and fix that percussion up. Not a lost cause, but still needs a lot of work. GO FOR THE GOLD!!! NO