DarkeSword   Administrators 🎮

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.

... Look up the mixer and FX channels in the help file. All will become clear.

Wow lay off the delay. It's on everything. You don't have to delay everything. This gets pretty ugly at 1:56. The delay is causing things to fill up and clip. The arrangement is pretty uninteresting too; things are basically just repeating a lot. That section at 3:40 comes two minutes too late. All your sounds are really nice, but you've gone overboard on the delay. Everything sounds messy. NO edit: whoops, guess israfel and i voted at the same time.

Everything is so quiet. It seems like you've got some nice musical ideas going on, but there so far back; they sound so timid, hiding behind that lo-fi percussion. Bring that out a bit, and push back the percussion. I can see how you're trying to be delicate, but the ideas get busier and seem like the song should crescendo near the end, but it doesn't. It's still hiding back there. Work on your levels, man. NO

Yeah, what HE said. The soundfont PLAYER isn't free. The soundfonts are. Huge difference. It's like a buffet... Exactly; all you can eat for an up front price.

I hate that wonky synth that comes in the beginning. It's not that it's not super horrible. It's just right at the forefront of the mix, and it drowns other stuff out. It's too loud. I think you mentioned that it's the bass? Bass is supposed to provide the groundwork for a piece; not be the main thing the listener hears throughout the entire song. Push it back. Your solos are pretty good, but it's hard to really hear them because of that synth. This mix sounds kind of of empty too; consider taking the bass down, adding some harmonic support, like chords in some instrument. The original song has a great driving funk quality with real strong melodic grooves, and that seems to be lost here. NO

I like the sounds, and like Prot said, it's "pretty flowing," whatever that means. Although that snare drum is too acoustic for my tastes; it sounds like you have a guy sitting in the back of the room hitting the snare drum with one stick. There's a little too much reverb on the percussion, I think. The cymbal hat sound is making this rolling hiss sound that's kind of annoying. Percussion doesn't really change all that much throughout the piece. Just some dropping out here and there. I don't know. It just seems like this piece is going through the motions. I feel like I'm supposed to bounce along or feel excited by this piece, but I'm not. NO

At first I was going to disagree with Prot about the synchronization issues, but I think he has a point. There are certain points in this mix where the guitars and drums just don't match up; I find myself trying to groove along with the track, but the flow gets broken up. I do like this piece. It's got a nice sound, and the solos aren't bad at all. Good sounds, and not a bad arrangement. A bit repetitive, but not annoyingly so. ... Okay, I listened to it again, and I can't get past those timing issues. That guitar's all over the place. Clean it up and resubmit. NO

I really don't like your instruments. They don't work well for the genre you've chosen. They're quite electronic sounding, but you're not doing an electronica mix. If you're going to use electronic sounds, at least make it interesting. Do some processing or something. This arrangement is little different than the original. I agree with Dan; I'd rather listen to the original, as it's more dramatic, more exciting, and has better sounds. That's saying something, considering this is an SNES song. And it just ends. ; NO

I'm just using the soundfonts that are in the Compiled Links Guide - Great for Beginners Sounfonts section. That's ALL I used to make a song, and it says they are demos. I don't know wtf is going on. It's fucking driving me insane. ... Okay, here's the deal. Those soundfonts are free. Yes. This is true. HOWEVER The Fruity Soundfont Player plugin for FLStudio is not free. You have to pay for the plug-ins in FLStudio. It does not matter if the sample you have is free. If the SAMPLER is demo (i.e. Fruity Soundfont Player), then FLStudio won't save it.

I think that your drummer drowned in all that distortion. Seriously, I like distortion as much as the next guy (unless the next guy is SeattleOverCoat *ZING!*), but seriously folks, it's very hard to hear anything aside from the guitars and the ride cymbal throught this piece. Might be recording issues, might be mastering issues, I don't know, but it's a bit muddy. Also, I checked out the original; I'd rather listen to that one; it's a lot cleaner and more enjoyable than your own rendition, which is, as you say, a cover. I'm glad you enjoyed rocking out, but when you're trying to rock out on a song that already rocks out, you need to SERIOUSLY rock out, and rock it out well. NO.

Okay. I love this style; it's very unique! I like your interpretation of the themes, particularly the Main Theme and the Windmill. I do, however, think this mix could use some work. First; that pervasive drum loop that continues throughout the mix. It sounds very drumloopy. You mentioned you used FruityLoops. Drop that shiz in the slicer, yo'. Mess with it. Cut it up and rearrange it. PLEASE! Another thing; it seems like a lot of your stuff is using the same phaser preset; mess with those settings too, and try to use different phaser settings. Those pads are not bad, but they seem to be shoved to the right. Trying bringing them closer to the center. One thing that really bothers me about this mix is the Gerudo part. There's that tinny instrument on the left that plays the melody after a bit; I have an issue with the key its in. It sounds really off compared to your chords. Try to get those int the same key, please. It would make it sound so much better. I like this piece, I really do. I also think you can do a lot more with it. I'm going to give this a NO, because of the issues I mentioned, but I'm also going to say that if my fellow judges also give this mix a NO, please take the suggestions in to consideration and resubmit. You have a cool sound; I'd like to see you on OCR.