DarkeSword

http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/n64/wocDK64JMC.mid MIDI RIP NO

Wow. Whiteboy. Very whiteboy. Pretty unoriginal. Not much arrangement going on in terms of the Prelude theme. You've got that bassline Vanilla Ice ripped off that other song, and the percussion's weak and boring. Lyrics are also VERY corny, and performed pretty badly. The voice just doesn't sound very much like a hip-hop voice should. I'm gonna say NO.

Coma has the original from SA on his FTP . We're still trying to track down the SA2 original the guy used.

I agree with the other judges. Pretty much a straight cover of the original. Some more interpretation would be nice. Bring some new rhythmic ideas to the piece; trade off, change up styles, something. You guys are guitar players rocking out, let's hear some solos! In fact this is only a minute long, and leaves me wanting more. I like what you have, it's a nice cover of the song, but it needs more rearrangement and more length. NO

Those drums are so loopy. Nice effects on the drums. Like analoq said, triggering and filter automation is nice. It seems to me though, that the drumwork is the focus of this mix, with little arrangement on the source tune. A melodic breakdown would have been nice; some more exploration and interpretation of the source tune could have made this mix really sweet. Work more on arrangement. NO

Wow, pretty boring. The melodic parts are sparse and unsupported, and the mix continues in the same vein for about 4:00. Drumbeats change it up a bit, but not enough. Nice ambience, yeah, but I'm gonna say that this was pretty boring. A lot of the mix is just the low ambient wooshy beepmap sounds; similar to Prot's gripe, I think that the melodic aspects of this song are very weak. The song is gimmicky. There's not much to this. NO

Great interpretation. Really high quality stuff here. Synths are pleasing and mesh well together. Great texture. YES

I swear I'm also hearing just a tiny bit of influence from Ice Cap Zone from Sonic 3. Mabey it's just my imagination. *listens again* I think you may be right, but its only for a few seconds, so I don't think he intended that. There is no 'IceCap influence' in this song, although I know what you're talking about. I used some similar chords for when the latin styled bass comes in; that's what you're hearing. It's not IceCap Zone. It's just vi, V, VI, V.

Blind was kind enough to provide the original. He also wanted me to mention that this track he submitted is NOT the version that will be on the PMM album, but a preview track. I'll vote later or something.

I agree with the others. Also, it seems like there's little attention paid to balance and levels here. Everything is vying for my attention. When you're writing music, make sure you put the idea you want the listener to focus on at the forefront, and try to keep everything else slightly farther back, so that it doesn't get in the way. NO

Sounds pretty empty in the first half; in fact it sounds a lot like an NES song with some new instruments. The sounds are alright, but they don't seem to mesh well together. A lot of things are at the same volume level; they seem to be vying for my attention all at the same time. A pretty boring arrangement, with little development. NO

Oh snap. This is GENIUS. No issues here. Sounds great, and a good interpretaton of the source tunes' musical aspects. The real trick to this remix is that the original songs are professionally produced rap tunes, and this song really takes those songs and makes them, as the remixer indicated, 100% hip-hop. By rewriting the lyrics, he's added his own spin on a very integral part of the source music; they're tighter, flow better, sound less corny, and are performed quite well. The rearrangement and interpretation of the lyrical part of the song is what makes it a winner. Very professional. YES

Intro is pretty cool, but once we get into the meat of the mix, it sounds pretty sparse. The melody has no highs or lows; its meandering, it's boring. I can hear where you could have a lot of cool stuff going on, but instead you just let the melody play on that lone synth by itself. The strings in the beginning just seem to disappear for the rest of the mix. Nice beats though. My advice: use some more instruments, and actually try to develop the material, rather than dropping it by itself on a cool synth and some nice beats. NO

It is pretty solid, as far as trance goes, but damned if it's not repetitive. That drumline doesn't change up much throughout most of the song. Neither does that arpeggiating line. Sure it filters and defilters at points, but it just keeps going and going and going. The scratching bit is pretty neat too, but it comes far too late in the mix to have a substantial effect on the overall song. Your sounds are good, but you need to work more on your arrangement. Vary up things more; take a break from the typical arpeggiated line and four-on-the-floor percussion and do something new. This is not a bad piece, but I think you could do a lot more. NO

NO OVERRIDE Wow. That felt good.

Original GYM with loud, jarring mechanical percussion overlaid. NO (somebody wanna 'no override' this? I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do that yet)

Not familiar with the original but what I hear here is excellent. This is a beautiful orchestral work with great attention paid to dynamics and development. Samples get the job done and the mix is clean enough. YES

I was kinda getting into this until that piano came in. After that, the mix really starts to get messy. The gated rhythm sounds cliché and doesn't work at this tempo. I also think you're a bit too liberal in your interpretation of Frog's Theme. I don't hear his theme in most of this; it's very hard to pick out the first half of his theme, and the second half, which is easily recognizable, is covered sparingly. The interpretation you DO have of the first half seems less like Frog's Theme and more like your own melody with its own chords that happens to have the same rhythm as Frog's Theme. To me, I just don't see any understanding of the source material going into this. NO

I'm pretty much in agreement with Dan here. The song could use some more development. What you have is awesome, but it still feels in-progress. Again, like Dan said, drums lack some energy in the latter half. LET'S HEAR A SOLO!! Nice start, but NOt yet.

That wobbly pad you're using in the opening section is kind of annoying. It bounces back forth between my ears, and sounds kind of loud in the opening. The rest of the mix however is pretty nice. Cool sounds, and they mesh really well together. The interpretation is really relaxing and spacey. Pretty neat. Kind of repetitive, but not in a bad way. YES

Ah yes. The first of the Artifact of Power series. Great interpretation of the melody, great development. The way you move from melody to melody is excellent, and I like how you've taken tiny ocarina songs and developed them into a full orchestral piece. Excellent work. You're shaping up to be OCR's premiere orchestral Zelda arranger. YES

Well it's not like the game is 5 years old or something.

Alright. Check it out. I'm going to teach you how to use effects. Pay attention. When you open a channel window, look at the upper right corner of the window and you'll see a small box with a digital display in it. You can click and drag this box up or down to change the number inside. The number inside corresponds to an FX Channel. All the sound from your Generator Channel (ex. the soundfont player) will go through that FX Channel. Now press F9. A window will pop up. This is the mixer. Select the FX Channel you set your generator to. Notice the drop down menus in the bottom half of the window. Click on the arrow button and go to Select. NOW YOU CAN ADD EFFECTS!!! :D :D Fruity Reverb is one of the effects. Enjoy, and try not to overdo the effects. _______ Note to everyone: A lot of this kind of information can be easily found in FruityLoops help files and user guides. Your best bet to learn how to do stuff in FruityLoops is to check out the help file. I don't mind helping people out at all; I just gave a pretty detailed overview of what to do; however, this question concerns one of the most BASIC aspects of FruityLoops. It's like asking "How do I use the playlist?" Please check out the helpfiles. They have search functions. Help yourself. If you really have a problem doing something in FL, post here; we'll be GLAD help you out; but please, don't just decide that you're too lazy to find things yourself, and post here expecting answers to really basic questions. Thanks.

I can't address what's been done in the past, considering I'm new to the panel, but something I'd like to point out is that when you're talking about remixing Jet Set Radio music, its not the same as if you're remixing something like Terra's Theme from FF6. We're talking about source tunes which are primarily groove based; the orignals heavily rely on the grooves and the samples to get their point across. Songs like Sneak Man and Let Mom Sleep are not a melodic masterpieces. Their primary pull lies in the fact that they have phat beats and unique voice samples. There's not much to them. The remixer here takes these tracks and brings a lot of new ideas in, primarily the excellent percussion track. He effectively takes what defines the source tunes (the vocal samples) and rearranges them with a fresh sound. Also, the samples and hits from BOTH source pieces are arranged into one cohesive song. Add to that the high-production values, and you have a winner. I think that this piece shows a lot of originality and talent. I think something like this deserves to be on OCR.