DarkeSword

Preference-based with some enforced balancing at the end. Y'all can start posting your preferences now.

Social groups got obliterated in a forum software migration. I don't have them.

I'd like to allow people to form the teams themselves but I'm going to enforce some team balancing. If we have 10 people participating, it needs to be 5 people on each team. If it's 11, 6 and 5. I would ask people to volunteer to switch, but if nobody does, I'd move people myself.

Welcome to the first ever Game Set Mash!!, a new team-based longform competition format for the OC ReMix community! Current Status Game Set Mash!! 1 has come to an end, with both teams earning 27 points by the end of the competition. Congratulations to everyone on such a close competition. Fantastic work. Music Round 1 Remix Pack Round 2 Remix Pack Round 3 Remix Pack Scoring Each submission is worth 2 points, and each victory is worth 2 point. A tie results in 1 point for each participant. The scores for Round 1 are as follows Team SNES - 3 submissions + 2 victories = 10 points. Team PSX - 3 submissions + 1 victory = 8 points. The scores for Round 2 are as follows Team SNES - 3 submissions + 1 victory + 1 tie = 9 points. Team PSX - 3 submissions + 1 victory + 1 tie = 9 points. The scores for Round 3 are as follows Team SNES - 3 submissions + 1 victory = 8 points Team PSX - 3 submissions + 2 victories = 10 points The total scores are as follows Team SNES - 27 points Team PSX - 27 points Team Rosters Team SNES: Yami, The Vodoú Queen, colorado weeks, Aeroprism, ZackParrish, Xaleph Team PSX: pixelseph, H36T, paradiddlesjosh, Emunator, Hemophiliac How does the competition work? Participating remixers will form 2 teams of at least 3 members each. Each team will be assigned a set of 3 games. The competition lasts 6 weeks, with week-long mixing rounds alternating with week-long voting periods. At the start of the mixing round, each team will choose and reveal 1 source tune from each of their 3 games. Each source will be paired with another source from the opposing team, for a total of 3 pairs. Each team will be responsible for writing 3 remixes for the week that combine (or mash) both source tunes in each pair. At the end of the mixing round, we'll upload the remixes and have a community vote. Voters will vote on the 3 remixes that did the best job of mashing the two source tunes together. Teams will accumulate a score based on how many of the community votes they win. In the next mixing round, we'll rotate which games get paired up with opposing games. What are the rules about teams? I want to make things easy and accessible for people to participate, so there's no maximum on team size, but I will be asking people to do their best to even out the teams once we have all of our participants signed up. Unlike previous competitions I've run, there's no rules about who has to be a primary arranger for a track from week to week. Teams will be free to organize and determine how each of the three remixes gets covered. Using your teammates for collaboration and feedback is highly encouraged. What are the games we're remixing? For the first GSM, one team will be SNES Final Fantasy games (FF4, FF5, and FF6) going up against a team for PSX Final Fantasy games (FF7, FF8, FF9). Almost any song from these expansive, legendary soundtracks is allowed, save for a few exceptions: specifically, songs that show up in both SNES and PSX games, like the Prelude or any variation of the Chocobo and Moogle themes. When your team is picking sources at the start of the remixing rounds, pick something unique to each game. This seems like it'll take a long time, when does it start? I'm aiming to gather interest here on the forums and in our Discord and I'd like to start in August, depending on if we can get some sizable teams. I would love to have around 6-7 people on each team to really get the spirit of collaboration going. I'm happy to answer any more questions. It's been about 4-5 years since we've done one of our bigger multi-round competitions. I'm hoping to see some new faces in the mix.

I think this sounds great. Good arrangement, nice combo of both sources. I hear what Js are discussing when talking about 3:20 but I think in the context of the genre it sounds fine. Only issue I had was the strings sounded a bit fakey in that section, but it's nowhere near a dealbreaker. Killer stuff. YES

Well here's the thing. You can stop-watch and splice all you like to indicate that this meets a 50% source usage standard, but I'm not going to sit here and stop-watch this track, because let's be very clear: the 50% guideline was established primarily because we got a Chrono Trigger submission many years ago where the entire latter half was almost entirely original, and a majority of judges (myself included) were just deaf to this because of how good the former half was. Prot pointed it out and we had a pretty lengthy discussion that ended up establishing a 50% guideline for judges to informally follow. And let's also be clear about another thing because over the years I have seen this guideline turned into a hard-and-fast rule that's been applied in a lot of judgements: 50% source usage is not in our Submission Standards. I really need to stress this. You can't just look at a track and say "well I counted the seconds and exactly 57.46% of the track arranges Terra's Theme so I'm okay on source usage." What kind of vote is that? Point forty-six? Really? And I brought this up many, many years ago but backed off because it didn't really seem like you were going to change your methodology when it came to stop-watching, but I really need to stress this as an artist who has 30+ ReMixes released on this site: silence is a part of music, and it's wrong to only count the fractions of a second when a note is playing and not count the fractions of a second when it isn't. All of this sounds like I'm actually going to bat for this arrangement, but quite the contrary. Terra's Theme is burned into my brain. I listened to the opening to FF6 constantly in my teens and early-20s. I used to play it on a keyboard in my room, I figured it out on trumpet in HS when goofing off with band friends. I know this piece. And this arrangement, as I said in my vote, is clever. But, I don't think the source usage is dominant and identifiable, which are two words that are in our Submissions Standards. There are passages where we get a modulated references to Terra followed by a long sustains where the other instrument fills in the space with whatever is mirrored from the other side of the arrangement. This is fine and clever in a vaccuum but it sounds like and feels like a lot of meandering fluff that's filling in the spaces. That's what I hear. I don't hear Terra in enough of this. It doesn't feel dominant. That's the site's standard and that's my standard; it's a nebulous and qualitative standard, as opposed to a discrete and quantitative one, but that's why we have a panel of experienced, human judges evaluating the music they hear. I'm going to judge what I hear. One last thing, Larry: you're calling the performance issues here "low-hanging" as if they are easily fixed by taking things back to the DAW and just doing a little production work. Your initial vote on this track is almost entirely stop-watching for source usage and then calling out "one weird goose honk" on the part of the saxophone performance. This is a miss on your part; there are major issues with this sax performance which Brad very helpfully diagnosed and broke down. Now I don't know if this discussion is going to be publicized but if I can address Lucas directly, I will right now: Lucas, I don't think that you're proficient enough on saxophone to be sending us tracks where you perform. As I said in my vote, the performance sounds like someone who is relatively new to the instrument, and you need more practice and development as a saxophone player before you can send us more of these. I said privately in our judge chat that I appreciate that you swing for the fences in your arrangements, but I think that these performance and execution issues are doing your arrangements a disservice. All that said, to address Larry's last point: I think that if the performances were impeccable they would make the vote harder, but ultimately I would still say NO to this track because I, as one judge evaluating this track, don't feel that the source usage hits an acceptable level of dominant and identifiable. And unlike "The Little Girl and the Star," this is not a case where I am categorically against this track going up on the site because of very specific reasons. If I was the sole judge voting NO and every other judge voted YES, I'd say "OK" and move on.

The sax performance is killing this for me. It sounds very inexperienced, like someone new to the instrument. The arrangement is clever but like other J's I'm just not hearing enough source connection. MW and proph sum up my thoughts perfectly, so I'm not going to retread here. It's a NO from me.

Some interesting harmonic choices. but overall it works. I like the synthy vibe though I hear what other Js are saying when they mention the shrillness. A lot of these sounds are piercing. I could see some improvements but also nothing is dealbreaking for me. I like it. YES

There's writing a song with ABA song structure or using codas to reiterate ideas, and then there's straight up just looping your track twice. You can't just loop your sub-2:00 track twice and send that to us. Come on. You clearly have the arrangement and production chops, but this is just not it. You don't even end after the second loop, you go for a third one and do a fade. That's no good. NO. Needs a lot more material here.

This general MIDI crystal + saw sound you're using for the lead is killing me. It's so splashy and distracting. I agree with Larry, the sound quality on this feels very 15-years-ago OCR. I can't quite put my finger on it but there's a weird thinness to this piece. The percussion is written well with a lot of detail but it sounds thin. The lead bouncing back and forth in the stereo field is distracting. The bassline is an octave too high. Everything has this sheen of default General MIDI soundfont to it. I like the breakdown around 3:30, but that saw lead comes back a minute later and takes me right out. Not a fan of the extra endings. The keys get super exposed there and they don't sound good. NO

This is a really nice sound upgrade of the original track and would fit right in with a Xenogears remake. I like the more interpretive bit from 2:15 to 3:15. But it's not enough. The choir section at the end feels tacked on and honestly isn't doing ANYTHING interesting; just some sustained chords, which don't even feel like they relate to the source in any way. Joe was right in that it's going for that Mitsuda Ladies sound. Anyone who's listened to CREID will immediately recognize that vocal quality. But unlike CREID, nothing is happening here. Would like some more originality and an axe taken to the choir practice at the end. NO, resub

That's not a wrong note. It's intentional and it works once it gets contextualized by the chord hits. It's great. Really like this. Fantastic soundscape. Lots of energy and very groovy. YES

The performances here are too good to post with this kind of wall-slammy, overdriven distortion. I'm with Larry, this needs a production pass beyond what a Conditional YES would warrant. I mean, listen to 2:09. That's doing the performer a disservice. Please take this back to the DAW and take a hard look at the levels. NO, resub

This is incredible. I for one love these drums. Fantastic arrangement. Great soundscape. The meld between the two sources is great. YES!

At first I was like, "Is this too much reverb?" Then I was like, "No, this is not too much reverb." YES

I think prophetik's vote articulates everything I think about this track. You're working with a short source. That's fine. I don't think your efforts in expanding it are enough. That ostinato just dominates too much of this track. This is barely past 2:18 and I still felt worn out by the end. When you're expanding a short source tune like this, there are a few ways to approach it: just add an additional source tune for variation, i.e.get a melody from another Castlevania track and adapt it to work with the chord progression here. focus hard on an evolving soundcape with lots of automation on your synths so that you're manipulating the texture and energy levels of the piece. In either case your piece needs to have more of a contour. I appreciate the switch up where it's the bassline for a while but it's not enough. I think you're relying too much on the thunder SFX at the end too. NO

This whole track feels like an extended intro. I'm waiting for the B-section to hit and it never does. Gario nails it: this arrangement is static. Larry's correct in pointing out the slight variations throughout the track but overall this piece establishes one idea right at the start and coasts on it for not-even-3-minutes. Hop around the track and it's basically doing the same thing at any given point. I'm not as critical of copy-paste issues as other judges are (dal segno is a thing) but this is not a return to and reestablishment of a previous passage; this is just one passage. My honest evaluation is this: where's *the rest* of this track? Needs more. NO.

Incredible performance. That solo slays. I'm in agreement with the Js calling out the mixing issues. Anything non-guitar is getting buried. Do not touch the arrangement, it's perfect. The mixing needs a another pass though. NO, resub

Arrangement is great. Lots of variation and change-ups. Where you're losing me though is this sound design. The whole thing sounds thin as heck; whole swaths where we've got maybe 3 voices playing together, which makes for an incredibly sparse sound, which in turn kills the energy. Larry used the word "plod" and that's the word to use. Percussion is sizzling and not in a good way. Other Js have articulated the issues well, so I don't need to rehash further. As it is, it's a NO, resub from me.

Folks, I'm very curious/concerned at the YES votes on this given that there's an entire 2 minute original interlude slotted in to the middle of this. I'm not a stop-watcher, but I understand this technically is over 50% source usage; HOWEVER, this entire middle section feels entirely unrelated to the rest of the piece. Is this a melody from Final Fantasy IX? It doesn't sound like it at all. I'll also call out that there are tons of prosody issues with the lyrics here, which I absolutely cannot understand. If the lyrics are original and the melody is original, why are there problems with prosody? Syllables ought to be stressed according to the contour of the melody. These lyrics feel grafted on and awkwardly stressed. Dawnaria's singing the notes just fine but it still sounds messy, and the fact that it's not even from FFIX really makes the entire section feel unjustified here. Would love to see some more input on this one. NO

@Liontamer I get what MW was trying to say but I don't think other Js hooked onto 4.3 specifically in the votes that followed. I agree with MW's vote in the spirit of what he was saying and I'm glad he brought up the issue at the very start of that thread, but I don't think 4.3 specifically is where the track gets tripped up. Gario just now made a better case for 4.1 being the sticking point. Ultimately though I think it comes down to an evaluation of the track by the panel of judges. And I see the issue was raised in the initial decision but sort of glossed over with some judges essentially saying "I'm not if sure this a violation or not, so I'll just vote normally on performance and production issues and since I'm voting NO anyway I'll sidestep the concept issue." This is a very unique track, and ultimately where we screwed up as a panel is we didn't have a larger discussion when that first thread was live to really answer the question of "Is this conceptually a good fit for OCR?" Genuine question: do we really need to spell out in the standards that we want people to submit work that is musical, first and foremost? If so, then fine, let's put it in the standards. But like Gario pointed out, 4.1 asks for "arrangements in any genre of music." I feel like we've already covered it.

Larry, you are wrong in stressing that the "source material" line is what the track violated. Source usage was not the issue, and this track isn't a standards violation as it seems to be framed in your subsequent posts in the thread post-decision. The entire work showcases material from the game, narration included. The issue was that The Little Girl and the Star largely centers a non-musical performance of the story from the game. As I said in my vote, the vocal performance is a narration. It's not sung, it's not rapped, nor is it recited as beat poetry. The narration takes the lead and the musical backing track supports it. Joe frames that as a bias but I will argue that it's a very valid distinction for us to make with regards to what we showcase in the OCR catalog. We would not post a track that, for example, takes a scene from a popular JRPG and recreates it as a full-cast audio drama with acted dialogue and the music from the game arranged in the background. A track like that would not be a standards violation either because everything is taken from the game; the issue would be that it's not wholly or in-majority a musical work. Now, I don't want to get into defining quantitative standards here; I don't want to go down the road where we're saying "At least 75% of the track should primarily be musical in nature" because then we're both inviting tracks that will skirt close to 25% non-musical performance and also that's just more stopwatching, which I personally am just not a fan of. This track is a very unique case. I understand that our standards don't specifically call out "non-musical performance" as a limiting factor. I think that this is just part of judging though; we're presented with a track that challenges our view of what fits into what we want OCR to showcase, and we make the judgement call in that evaluation. I personally am sorry I didn't catch this on the first go-around; I didn't see the first decision and I was specifically asked when the second thread went up by Dave to weigh in, which is the first I heard the track and when I made my opinion very clear that this track is not a fit for OCR.

In love with the harmonic changes here. At first glace it feels like a close cover but ooooooh that bit at 1:30? Are we for real here? I'm bummed this is so short but it does what it set out to do. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to hear this. Fantastic work. YES!

Agree with Joe. It's a NO (resub or else) from me too. I think the arrangement is good but some of the performances (outside the trumpet) feel a little wilted. I'm not sure if that's the EQ or the mud or what but it feels like the energy is being sucked out of this one. My touchstone for a track like this would be (obviously) Pulp Fiction but also Juno Reactor's Pistolero. There's a clarity that's missing here and it's hurting this track, which is a shame. Would love to see this on the site eventually. Hopefully it's not too late to fix up.

This is one that's gonna make you sit up and pay attention. Very dark, going for an almost 80s horror feel. I hear some of the other Js complaints about soundscape and balance but I don't feel like this one's too far off. Where I'm getting caught up is some of these longer original passages. I don't mind a little bit of original writing here and there but there some significant "Not Fire Emblem" chunks that could do with some source connection. 1:31 puts way too much emphasis on the fifth interval going up and down for a little too long. I'm not a stopwatcher like Larry (counting fractions of a second definitely not my style) but I share the overall concern that this one steps away from the source a little too often. NO, resub