DarkeSword   Administrators 🎮

caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake

X bracket matchups are live. Check the first post under "Brackets" to see who you're matched up with. Mixes are due next Sunday at 2PM EDT.

No, it's not simultaneous. Zero bracket mixes from the 9th - 15th, with mixes due on the 16th. You have plenty of time to remix.

No, Zero starts on the 9th. I took everyone's dates that they PMed me into account.

Brackets are up. Mixing for the X Bracket will begin on Sunday, September 2, at 2PM EDT. Match-ups will be posted then.

People don't actually do that.

Yeah I'm going to agree with Vinnie here. There is just barely any real connection to the source aside from the four notes at the top of the arpeggio. When you have -that little- of a source tune to work with, you need to use as much of it as possible. Nice tune, but NO, absolutely not. As Vinnie said, I think it would be a mistake to post this.

Just want to chime in here and point out that the bit that starts at 1:14 with the descending chromatic part from the SMB theme sounds really bad and does not fit at all. It yanks me right out of what's happening in the piece and doesn't harmonize well at all. I really urge you to try to adapt the SMB theme to something diatonic. Other Js have touched on production concerns so I won't bother with those; plus this is already at 3N, so I'll end my vote here. NO, resub.

Do SNESology tracks aim to be "hardware perfect" or is the idea more about the general aural aesthetic of SNES music?

There are a couple of things that I always like when I hear them in songs. Here are some: When there are sounds of people cheering and partying in the background, even though the song is clearly a studio recording. Examples include 'Love Shack' by the B-52s and 'All Night Long' by Lionel Richie. When there's an acoustic guitar section in the middle of a rock song that uses mostly electric guitars. The key change that goes up one step in the second part of a pop song/ballad. Awesome saxophone solos in 80s and 90s pop rock. Agree/disagree? How about things you like?

Hold off on any sig designs until I come up with the visuals for this year's competition.

Didn't I vote on this one? Hm. It's a pretty simple piano arrangement. Very rudimentary, repetitive left-hand stuff. I also agree on the velocities. I think that the piano sample you're using doesn't have a lot of range. It sounds like you're really hammering those keys even during the seemingly delicate sections. Try playing around with some different piano samples and see if you can find one with more velocity layers. NO, resub

Draft is complete. Check the Current News section of the first post to get a link to the Completed Draft Sheet. Check the green column for your Maverick.

I haven't decided when to start the mixing yet. If anyone has any major can't-remix weeks coming up, please send me a PM. I will try to accommodate everyone, if possible. Maverick picks are locked in. I will begin the draft now.

That's correct. It's the reason I ask for so many choices. I ran the draft last night and two people did end up getting their 4th choices. I'm going to run the draft again tonight because some people have posted changes to their picks, and I never did put down a lock-in deadline. I got Zerothemaster, Metal Man, and Trism's changes in on the sheet. I want everyone to look over the sheet and check their picks and make sure this is it, because after 9PM EDT tonight, I'm going to be running the draft for real. Here's a quick overview of how the draft works. When the draft starts, everyone's first choice is their top choice. I go down the list and look for top choices that have conflicts. When top choices conflict, I roll a die to see who gets their top choice (dice are useful when more than two people have the same choice). Once all of the top choice conflicts are resolved, the people who lost their die rolls get their first choices greyed out, and their second choice becomes their new top choice. I make a second pass through the list, finding conflicts. Note that at this point, it's possible that a choice that didn't have conflicts in the first pass could have conflicts in the second pass, and a choice that won a conflict in the first pass could also have a new conflict in the second pass. Conflicts are again resolved with dice rolls. Losing choices are greyed out, and the process repeats until there are no more conflicts. Sometimes people will get bumped down to their third or fourth choice; sometimes two people who both picked the same song as their first choice will both lose out to someone who picked it as their third choice; it all depends on the dice, but the draft does ensure that entrants are given a fair shake at getting a choice that's high on their preference list.

Can you post your new order?

This is the tightest thing I've heard since José's Unknown from M.C. Really great beats, nice adaptation of the Temple of Time theme, and absolutely excellent, relevant lyrics. Vocal performance is superb; great flow, mixed just right. Love the scratching. YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEA

That's fine. Just make sure you use that in your file names when you submit your entries.

I think Vinnie's got the right of it. Piano sample is probably okay but there's not a lot of dynamic range here. The piece never actually sounds louder or softer, just busier and calmer. Probably just overcompressed. Arrangement is lovely though; good integration of both themes, great transitions and tempo changes. Needs a litter fixer-upper. Would like to see this on OCR soon. NO, resub

Draft sheet updated. Check your picks to make sure they are correct.

Draft sheet is updated. Please check to see if your picks are correct. Sign-up is still open. We'll try to go for 32, but if we don't get enough, we'll fall back down to 24 and I will figure out how to make that work. Please keep in mind that anyone is allowed to join.

Violin is killing it for me. Very fakey, whiny violin sample that ends up sounding very exposed. Piano feels very mechanical too. There could be so much more done with the female choir in the beginning too; something more than simple block chords. Some nice ideas but the execution is really flat. Mechanical sequencing and general lack of a really emotive experience just doesn't cut it. NO

This gets really messy really fast. It's right when the guitars start playing sustained chords that everything starts mashing together. You've got a ton of guitars all sitting in the same space, all vying for attention. There is no balance here at all. Chiptune intro is hokey and totally unnecessary too. Drums get really repetitive and your bass starts doing something loud and weird around 2:30. The arrangement itself is pretty repetitive. You've got about 1 minute's worth of material stretched out to three minutes. The solo is too early in the mix and there's a lot of repetitive material after it. A solo is what you use to break out of an established pattern to keep things fresh. Using it so early means you've already run out of ideas. Not good. You need to look at a bunch of things with this mix; instrumentation and mixing as well as part-writing and the construction of the piece. Needs a lot of work, IMO. NO

Current draft picks are compiled in a spreadsheet linked under "current news" in the first post.

That's correct, yes.