Rexy

I'm not too sure if it's everlasting peace just yet. I looked at the roster page, and I am just so puzzled looking at them all. Some of the votes to me don't add up - I mean, I couldn't remember WillRock's second entry doing THAT well at all, and neither could I even recall Ecto's third one going that high or my latter two submissions falling into fifth; they didn't even match SectorZ's tallies when they were posted here 3 months ago. And the tally sheet in the first post, while it was indeed more accurate - round 8 is broken. I didn't get 15 points with "Subtarctic Nightfall" - what kind of copy paste error is it? This isn't intending to make me come out as grumpy; I just feel perplexed by the tallies and some of those inconsistencies. But either way, I'm glad this has been semi-put to peace

My view is that we are all people from different walks of life - gaming generations, lifestyles, cultures, even entire nations - with a common interest in making videogame remixes and learning from what we have. I've been on many forums in the past, and we can't get any nicer than this, easily

I apologise for being late in my votes - 2 days in fact. But nevertheless, I have a reasoning for my viewpoints and I shall state them here. Guile vs Chun Li I know for sure that Brandon apparently is one of few people around here that doesn't like Chun Li's theme for some reason, which could explain his difficulty in integrating her theme in the scope of his mix. But it seemed to fit as a great countermelodic measure within the centrepiece of the track - kind of a more simplistic approach, but it felt workable. But he managed to make up for it with some strong clean production, lush work with the organic instruments and attention to structure, which given the length shows that he's capable of incorporating more inspiring ideas within a reasonable time frame. GLL's track definitely had some promising ideas in there - the Chun Li sound effects were cheesy (and rather low-fi) yet awesome, and the interpretation of her theme was taken into a great combination of dream trance and downtempo complete with some great accompaniment change-ups. However, this to me was let down by his production - it to me came out as rather muddy particularly when the bass and the gated chorded synths came together, fighting for this same frequency space, and the low fidelity of the soundscape in general similarly didn't quite add up. What baffled me more was the structure - for the first half, it had the potential to be a very fun dream trance track, but even then the downtempo section for the second half could have been cut down considerably to consume any filler. Guile's theme in that part was cued in pretty subtlely, so I'm cool with any artistic interpretation, but again structure is something that should be key for handling these things. Ultimately, my vote went to Brandon Strader for what I felt was a cleaner production and more cohesive direction. They both provided a great first match-up though - very enjoyable all around. Blanka vs C Viper I give mad props to Jake for doing something a little different and using the time to create a more downtempo entry in comparison to most entries and even weave the melodies of the sources together - had some promise early on, but then it started doing something that I admit didn't like Jewbei doing during the WCRG (sorry for calling you out x.x) and interpreting the other theme in the opposing key, which soon called it out to be a bit on the lazy side. It's definitely not a bad effort on the production side either - minimalist, a little on the quiet side, and fits appropriately well for the genre, so it just all comes down to what genre you prefer in this bout. But I felt that OA had a more significant edge in regards to cohesive direction. Not much melodic weaving like there was with Jake's, sure, but I WAS surprised with him taking the time to play the Blanka melody on the guitar THAT fast! Even then I felt the instruments were more distinct and separated; though I don't know about you but I think it was mixed a bit TOO loud? I recall heraing a rumble in my speaker, which I assume must've been down to the instruments' headroom prior to bypassing the mastering chain. That's probably my only real complaint about this, and I know that if it wasn't intentional it might see a fix for a future purpose. (hint hint... ) Just for the surprise I was taken with the effort put in, and even taking the time to speed up the enemy THAT much, my vote went with OA. I can see you doing really well here if you started like that! Ryu vs Eagle Gario's track as an arrangement was handled fine, and I thought the airy intro with the eagle sound effect was pretty cool. But some of the high-resonance synths didn't seem to fit this more ambient soundscape that seemed to be going; I would've hoped that there could've been an option to turn down the resonance/distorton on those synths or even replace them with something a little mellower. But I think I get the idea - have fun at the expense of thinking you'd lose against zircon. Guess that didn't really happen. Oni vs Yang This was a tough round to judge because of severe lack of familiarity with either theme. PH managed to give a good equal share to both sources; could've thought it may head in liberal territory but that's part of me blaming the familiarity here. What I DID notice about his track was that he had gone for a much cleaner production in comparison to what I have heard of him during the WCRG; the organic instrumentation in particular sound more lush, the synths don't necessarily feel as shrill, and there's been less messiness in regards to notation - there's a cohesive direction. The only thing that still felt as if it needed a bit of a look into were the thin sounding 909 percussion, but that's something that could be given some experimentation in future work and I have confidence in his production capabilities. I have understood that Neblix had complained about the way the voting went for his round, but let me tell you now, picking someone for the round wasn't easy. The sources were similarly mangled together with a cheesy sampling approach close to GLL's in the Guile vs Chun Li match-up, though there was still plenty of attention paid towards instrument clarity that really managed to work things over. In comparison to past works I've seen, the technical direction is steadily becoming more cohesive and well emphasized, though I still suggest that you don't put it off until the last minute - I know that some people prefer to do it that way, but you need to focus more of the time in the structure to avoid giving off that "rushed" approach, or worse, end up as a no-show at the end of the round. Both artists did really well and really upped their game, so well done to the pair of you. It was a tight decision to go between them, but I went for Phonetic Hero due to a stronger direction and having the edge on the production side. Still a remarkable match-up. And there we go - good luck everyone!

You know that handling Crash would be difficult as it is? I'm with you, Crash Bandicoot was a HUGE part of my gaming adolescence, and it was my goal since I discovered OCR to push any and all exposure for it. And right now, there are two mixes from the original game (BOTH involving me, may I add ) that are waiting to get posted onto the site. But it's hard because of the complexity of the originals and general structures for them, not to mention a lot of them are percussion heavy. And being a recent member that wants to give some exposure to a game that otherwise doesn't get much love at all, you need to watch out for what you've put yourself in for. It won't stop me from giving a few tracks a go, provided I don't overwork myself. Amusingly, I've had this dynamic worldy arrangement idea in my head for the desert town stages roaming in my head for years, but never really had the tools to pull it off; I hope with what I've learnt now, I could attempt it and see how it goes

Even for games in which MIDIs are really hard to find, I'd have a go at transcribing some key parts to use later, or to just learn to play it on the piano based on what I can hear and what techniques I am most comfortable with. Developing an ear for just writing music takes years to learn, and over time you will be able to identify notation in these songs that you might not have noticed without this training.

What if your track is really so close to geting a NO verdict? You didn't think of that, didn't you The judges can vote how they want, not by ultimatums. Even if there is no decision by the compo's start, have some patience. Things will look up down the line.

See, this is what we should be responding to instead of throwing in random female composers. And here I come with a comprehensive list of every female OC Remixer that has contributed - I hope this helps out in regards to the OP. If I'm missing anything, please clue us in!

I LOVE YOU JEWBEI! If I had a roster, I would've had Sakura as my first pick. I am so looking forward to seeing what you do with her, if no one else picks her too

I don't know if I'm going to take part this time as I already am busy enough (not to mention my familiarity with SF is stuck at SF2 and Puzzle Fighter), but I could still provide signatures again like with the WCRG and vote each week. Good luck to all

While I sent an MP3 your way for any potential feedback on Monday, the WAV however is going to be late. Within the past couple of days I ended up with a shoulder injury, thus heavily affecting my computer time. I'll try and get it within the coming week, or whenever it starts healing up

You can't have post-apocalyptic without Napalm Man and Grenade Man IMO - both robots based on weapons of mass destruction (assuming that nuclear war will be in the equation), and could fit suitably well in a situation like that. Cool idea though; would be interesting to see how others think about this.

I've been hearing about Nuzlocke runs for some time. Never got around to do it as I felt more focused on building teams based around what I seem to be obsessed with at the time. But yeah, should probably give it a go with my FireRed cart sometime. Wonder where would be a good place to make a log for it O_o

He did, but his two posts in 2010 showed that he was cool with sending stuff in if he felt desired to. Anyway, let me throw a question in here - it's definitely taking effect for tracks to be submitted from this point on, but what about tracks that are pending to be posted? Is it possible for the mixers behind those tracks to send higher quality versions over, and if so, where would be the best place to do it?

Eh, I thought Split Mushroom (X4) was ridiculous enough; I stated that on my Twitter once, and Monobrow told me that the name "sounded like a dick tip" (how else am I supposed to emphasize this without breaking the rating barrier again?!). Nice going, Katie. Well I claim victory of the WCRG . So there

Now that the female plaecment is brought up, it can be true that it can sell games; but not necessarily. Being a Crash Bandicoot fan I'll see if I can bring in a tale regarding that series. Let me copy a question from Naughty Dog founder Jason Rubin's interview at Crashmania: For the record, the original Tawna design had her wearing a very short pair of pants AND revealed her cleavage, which was indeed seen as an over-pimping kind of way for women. In the final design, the pants were shorter and her shirt was far more modest, not to mention she somehow lost her tail. But for the success of Crash back in the day, even the sequels didn't need sexual females to sell well. Crash 2 and 3 featured a female character but in a different way - Crash's sister Coco, coming across more like an intellectual rather than a VG pin-up. In the second game she never left her laptop but used it as a means of communication to Crash. In the third game however, she became a full-on playable character, being used for the jetski stages, the China stages (where she'd end up riding a tiger cub), an airplane dogfight and the boss fight against N. Gin (hence the fandom soon seeing them as a potential pairing). In fact, Naughty Dog didn't start referring to sexy girls again until Crash Team Racing, though that was merely used for the trophy girls at the end of each race. The sexual approach would be used more often though when they moved on to Jak and Daxter, in which pretty much every leading lady would reveal their legs (Ashelin), their cleavage (Tess) or their waist (Keira). To my knowledge they didn't have any modestly-dressed females in the series until Rayn in Jak X, though I'm not too sure if that sold as well as ND's other titles to be honest. So yes, in the early 90s it was possible to get games to have strong female characters AND sell well. Nowadays, we aren't too sure, but the examples stated already (and I especially agree with the Valve statement) have shown that while few and far between, non-pin-up girls are still around in videogame form to some degree. I'm in the same boat as Luiza in that I'm not too offended by how females are portrayed; again, it's the inner character that I want to see rather than appearances.

I have "The Obsidian Ocean" - great track from the VGMix days

Another track that I managed to steadily get attached to, not to mention that it wanted me to take interest into actually playing through the game. The sources used are very simplistic melodies that tend to get absorbed well without becoming too repetitive, and thus it works beautifully well in the context of a more chilled track from avaris's end. Having heard his progression since the PRC days he's managed to show his clarity and develop his style a lot, and in the style of a gentler soundscape it's managed to provide something that provides more of a zen-like state of mind from the user. It may be generally a tad dry and a little on the unrealistic side in regards to the organic instrument selection used, but given that this is more of a citing of his musical influences, it actually seems natural to be able to take it that way and fit in a more modernised context. So you can see that I dig this - works well for my travels out and about, and can be quite reflective depending on the context. I hope to sense more of avaris in later endeavours

I have appreciation for a lot of tracks on Unsung Heroes, but ilp0's track REALLY took that appreciation over the top in something that grew on me a lot since the release day - so much that this was one of the tracks I even picked to use in my video talking of my involvement about it. But enough about myself - while I hadn't played the game (like most people), it still didn't need to have memories of playing the game to invoke power towards the track. It starts out pretty upbeat with plenty of schizophrenic writings, while still remaining very upbeat with the interpretations of the Village theme. Though, the amount of manipulations taken in with the Dialog theme managed to add more of a moody "evil is coming" quality towards it and can even tell of one's own struggle even in their happiest of times. This is especially emphasized with the ending, with the darkening chords and lower timbres adding in more of a feeling of despair that gives me the CHILLS every time I hear it - that's how potent I think the writing is!! I can't say the Village theme is without its own moments - the lively interpretation at 3:26 with the acoustic guitar performance leading into the mad piano riff really shows as a strong example of ilp0's musicianship and does a lot to fit more of a frantic touch towards the track. In fact, I said in the IRC for the listening party that his style is filling the progressive void a lot in the community, though when someone else (was it KyleJCrb?) said that ilp0 is "his own genre", it does indeed make me think that he's benefitting the community in a very unique way, both with writing, ideas and growing sound quality over the years. For that, I got to say that this is one of his best works IMO - capturing the source to an emotive quality, great musicianship, and it doesn't necessarily need a nostalgic connection to pack a punch concept-wise. I'm now really looking forward to see what he can provide in the time to come, because honestly, I can't imagine the wider community without him

Having had Unsung Heroes floating around on my MP3 rotation in the past month, I say it's about time I take a look at some more of the flood posts. The opening track managed to capture that serene moment of wanting to express feelings about telling of the games that have been unexpressed in the community. Arrangement-wise it's pretty straightforward, but it didn't need a complex arrangement with the lyrical writing, slight modifications to the melody on both the vocals and flute countermelody, and even then the components highlighting the source sell the track more than what appears to be lesser-stellar original components, give or take the string writing near the end which I thought managed to compliment the mood quite well. As the time went on I felt a little unsure about the choice of room ambience; it felt rather dry and wide for what could be considered a tavern setting, and even then it wasn't exposed on all the instruments represented. That to me could be seen as more of a nitpick more than anything, as the sounds themselves have been emphasized very cleanly even with the ambience concerns taken to account, and Deia's laid-back vocal complimented the medieval-esque instrument selection just as much - the travelling bard in the pack of musicians, throwing her wisdom into the face of adversity, with not much expectation to go by other than her own heart. So for a rather inspirational album it made for a very pretty opening track, and I hope the other contributions that both OA and Deia worked on whether together or with others would eventually surface too to compliment the raw emotive power behind this one

Brandon has a bass at least, but you're going to have to ask him first. As for a drummer, live drums to me are few and far between so you might be pressed on your luck for that o_O

I'm up for it if you want me! I of course have piano service if anyone wants to use it, and I also have a harmonica on hand but I don't consider myself a shredder with it o_O

I guess this is the part where I say that the whole WCRG was a blast from start to finish. Sure, it wasn't an easy ride, but if anything it left me feeling more humbled and having grown my production set somewhat. These are things that I will be happy to take to new venture, wherever it would go. As for the whole popular-verses-left-aside remarks, the reason why Plant Man was my prime pick for Robot Master was both for accessibility reasons and for the fact that there was no Plant representation on OCR yet. I almost considered Centaur Man at one point because as stated he hasn't been represented in a Mega Man compo yet; but one look at Vurez's "Odyssey Beyond the Falls" quickly convinced otherwise (awesome remix, believe me). My knowledge on MM source material would remain slim though as I don't have much of a musical connection with 4/5/7/8/10 at this point, but I still enjoy working with lesser loved source material nevertheless I don't think I'd be doing the GMRB due to other commitments (as much as I'd love to represent Magma Dragoon for it... oh well xD), but I should still be able to listen in and see how things develop... and maybe keep refining the graphical skillset? We'll see For now, here's to a well-mannered results party!

While I'm here, while I am not quite open to actively pursue the project, I still would like to lend piano performance services for anyone that needs a part

A lot of the gentler cues from the various Dragon Quest symphonic suites worked for me in my student days - often anything to do with shrines, towers or sailing (requiems are questionable depending on your mood). From the soundtracks I have, here's what I think would work out to fit your situation: DQ4 - Menuet / Balloon's Flight / Sea Breeze / The Unknown Castle (I STRONGLY EMPHASIZE THIS) DQ5 - Magic Carpet ~ The Ocean (might need to watch out a bit with the second half) / Melody of Love / Noble Requiem ~ Saint / Heaven DQ6 - Ocean Waves / Pegasus ~ Saint's Wreath / Melancholy / Ocarina ~ The Saint DQ8 - Travelling with Wagon / Mysterious Tower / Remembrances... / Poet's World / Memories of an Ancient Ocean DQ9 - Angelic Land / Destiny ~ Prologue to Tragedy / Pathway to Good Fortune ~ Cathedral of Emptiness Your mileage may vary with some of these, but if you want something different to study to, it might be worth pursueing

I'm pretty sure the Sagat references have become a collective running gag with the Bad Dudes camp, particularly with a handful of individual mixes from members of the roster and the source getting cameo'd in unrelated arrangements from Diggi Dis and even posu himself. So I'm half-expecting to hear more Sagat for the rest of 2012. This classy cuban jazz like interpretation apparently fits more of JM's style than anyone else (which does seem odd to think since posu did a handful of the accompaniment work and lead guitar performance), though the translation from the original's 11/8 to a more conventional time signature AND a much more exotic jam setting definitely shines a very intriguing light on the arrangement. The teamwork is shown with a lot of the tradeoffs between posu's drum writing and guitar emphasis with JM's attention on pitched percussion and sweeping strings (with the occasional flute part from Stacy as well, which seems to be rather hidden in comparison); the collaborative effort has done a lot to shape in a much more atmospheric track that captures the more team spirit based nature of HvV extremely well. I don't think I have much else to say about it, other than it being a very different take on a popular theme by the Bad Dudes, and one to consider as a more distinct track amongst the HvV album tracks. I'm sure JM will be rising with a handful of tracks for 2012, and I'm also sure that Sagat will also make ANOTHER appearance somewhere with the way this is going