Rexy

Mirby, a knife and a GIANT ASS SWORD are two completely different things. And I shall amend my post with the final few reviews covered for the month (total of 200). Epic turnout was epic

And for review 200 of this month, I go BACK to Link's Awakening (as if that wasn't obvious enough for the intention, haha) and take a look at some recent-ish pre-Threshold material there. Hello Platonist When I first heard the track, I remembered being somewhat dazzled by the means of rendering; starts out lo-fi with synths that bear resemblances to tesla coils, and when the beat comes in with the rhythmic part that bears a resemblance to the Zelda 1 dungeon theme, before mutating into the chord structure for the A section, one can clearly see the arrangement quality being brought into it. The chippy melody line, I believe is a clear production highlight - it was cleverly manipulated with what seems like a wobble filter that could've fit lovely on a dubstep wobble, though works equally as well on square waves too. That to me is some insanely covered writing covered with that synth; may have wanted it a little higher up in the mix though, but as it is it's wonderfully crafted and fits with the mix's atmosphere. The piano coming in basing the next section entirely on section B was a good touch; a little mechanical, but for the mix's genre it was practically needed to add more tension towards the track, and for what it was it works. I felt it was significantly clearer to me at 4:36 when it was transposed up an octave to go with the faster moving beats, and to see it blend in with the chippy synth later shows a great deal of attention placed towards texturing and really helped fill in the much needed high frequencies within this build. It's a shame that the mix to me ends rather suddenly not long after this build, though given the length of the track I can understand the intent. I know the judges had this qualm of the mix being too "liberal", but taken from experience in playing the game I had sensed a clear amount of recognisable source from when the chord progression came through at 1:15 all the way through to the end. It's such a strange source to work with, true, but I felt with the material he had he ended up getting the arrangement component nail on the head. So I guess my feelings in regards to source identification may have been different from the 2008 judge roster, but for me as long as it's there for a fair chunk of the mix, it qualifies. Very fun track all around with some neat tense synth writing and chiptune manipulation slightly pre-dating halc's pixelated showers. Captures the spirit of the source quite tensely, and I hope he'll be able to contribute to the site again some point soon

One of those strange dreamy tracks, though pretty. Likewise, I was skeptical when hearing the opening almost mimicking the original, though when the pads came in it managed to capture more of this dreamy quality to it. As the rest of the instrumentation came in, it manages to capture the uplifting quality pretty well. Plays close to the early portions of the theme though, but it's something that works and captures the spirit of the game rather well. What did need work though was the mixing. When the drums came in, I could sense there being absolutely no headroom, and it's often more prominent when it's in full reaction with the moving bass and additional snare textures. Perhaps some more careful equalisation on the individual parts of the kit might've helped, as was any way of fighting off any clashes between the bass and the kick drum (most likely by changing pitch on the kick?). In spite of that qualm, it stood up well for 2003 and is a decent representation of some undercovered C64 coverage. Should be worth checking out if you're a fan of the game, and apparently I have quite a few connections with those

I remember this a lot from back at the VGMix days To think, it's been 7 years to the month, and yet it still shines as one of my favorite tracks from Nixdorux, though it took a while for it to grow on me. The intro itself doesn't bare much resemblance to the source until the staccato instruments reference to the source's harp at 0:56, though at this point I probably wouldn't care less as Nix's way of bringing in the sweeping instrumentation at the time was a beautiful sight for the community. When the melody came in fully on the flute/english horn parts, it becomes recognisable straight away and with it being mashed with the chord substitution it made for this nice and sinister atmosphere built in. I have to say the build based on the C portion of the melody, starting at 2:55, was by far my favorite part; that really showed one of the greatest sense of dynamics from the mixer that I had witnessed during my time here and managed to add to this building of drama brought all around it. I also commend you for your excellent percussion writing; it may be minimalist with just the booming bass drums, low piano notes and cymbals, but it had proven affective in being able to work with the atmosphere here and helped provide something somewhat inspirational. It's a shame the brass couldn't quite be as expressive as it could, though considering back then it was harder to get it realised than most other instruments, something like that can be excused. And for what it was, it all turned out to be a very pretty arrangement overall. Nonetheless, with tracks like this that stand the test of time easily, I have been hoping to see you resurface in due time, and really add some strength to the ever-present French mixing community. Please come back soon Nixdorux; I miss your orchestration skills D:

I am aware of the envelopes, and this is how my trumpets stand: The attack is already as sharp as it can go, on both the sustained AND the staccato layers. I honestly don't get this at all >_>

It all comes back to the things that are most unlikely to be "fixed" x_x When Deia first heard the track, she had wanted to hear more punch being given towards the trumpets' attack. I had already sharpened the attack as much as I could go (it's the EWQL brass - NOT some "low-quality sample"), so I then decided to duplicate it with a layer of staccato brass to help that. Any attempt to fiddle with brass "attack" is going to come down more to boosting the staccato layer's volume. I had that many instances up that I just had to keep on bouncing parts individually as wave files JUST to stop Cubase from crashing. The piano's also maxed up as high as it can go as well. The only option I even have with it now I'm presuming is to export that as a wave and normalise it, which means having to fiddle around with things even more. I've no idea if I'm able to boost any reverb, and even what type of it for that matter, but at any rate, I'm definitely calling defeat for this round. I know that my limitations are never good enough to break the mould, so maybe sending this track here wasn't a very good idea

Right-click, save target as. Works for me.

So my original thought was to see if I can get this sent off to the panel before the New Year, because I felt I did a more stellar job than any remix that I ever did for this competition. (And I know I need to finish off the other one as well, but I won't have time to work on it again for another week yet) Here's how it stands. I received great equalisation tips from Jason Covenant, took OA and Deia by surprise, secured appraisal from all 3 of the Concrete Men and blew SnappleMan out of the water. But is this enough to secure a pass from the panel? That's what I want to know :s Different direction from me, hint of cheesy disco with some chiptune elements, try and provide a more silly side of myself in the works. I need everything I can to make sure it's in a passable state. (Or if there's still major fixes... yeah, I guess I'll send Red Chamomile off tomorrow even if I didn't share it with anyone outside the team *_*) Thoughts?

Gonna have to agree with the sentiment for adapting this source to solo piano. Something about it has a Greensleaves-esque quality to it for me (Also, Xenocross, Xenocross, Xenocross... were you on VGMix at one point? That name sounds familiar to me.) It starts off with a delicate intro, before going into a straight interpretation of the source. There were some lovely liberties taken past the 1 minute mark most notably with the melody and pacing, not to mention a classy key change past the 2 minute mark that feels rather chopinesque in nature. The darker nature of the arrangement for the 3 minute mark and beyond was a great way of interpreting it in a more elaborate and 'cursed' way to boot, though I do indeed like how it manages to feel slightly more positive going towards the ending. The piano sound itself is lovely, but I can't help but think that this is a mechanical sounding piano - constant tempo at least up until the run up the instrument at around 2:25, and even then the articulation feels rather constant for me. The complexity of the arrangement makes up for this rather mechanical stance though, so it's considered a good take on what seems to be a classically-oriented source.

Goemon! Yeah, after checking out Mystical Ninja via the Wii Shop Channel a couple of years ago it's one tricky game to get into but the tunes themselves did indeed feel pretty. Very appropriate title too, given that you had to defeat a ghost boss to free Kurobei pretty early on in the game. To be fair it took me a while to realise that the guitars were actually fake (o_O) but even with that knowledge on, it's actually a pretty swift thrash take on the source, with plenty of variation and additional sweeps to cater towards the genre. Sure, the weak samples and articulation behind them may rub off a heck of a lot now, but the amount of detail placed towards the writing shows Eradicate's musicianship quite well. And that is some intense drum programming in particular; the double bass kicking, fast strum programming and blast beats were very intensely developed and the amount of detail placed towards thickening that and the rest of the instruments were of pure class. And it even went up a level for me at 4:20 with what seems to be a very handy way of handling acoustic strumming in a mix, with those kinds of hammered chords being represented rather beautifully. It's a shame this wasn't recorded with live guitars as it would've really kicked up this excellent writing tenfold, but for now it's pretty brutal and neat, and should be a great draw to fans of the genre. Nice work

I may have sinus reactions a lot (in reference to the previous poster), but I don't think it would go as far as to set something off within my nose. However, to me it just comes off as an awkward straight cover with a layered drumbeat (and what sounds like a wind sound coming in for the last minute as well), a little ill-mixed too due to sensing a bit of distortion during the bridge sections. I give props for the neat filtering though, but other than that there's been nothing going on much at all - a ridiculously bland interpretation of the theme.

To be fair, even with mixposts I have a tendancy to get too critical, so I kind of avoided that here for the mixers' dignity. If there are some positive remarks I could sense about some of the mixes, I'd state them in posts

Wow, a Christmas mix from 11 years ago xD I can't pass this one up. You'd think you'd be in for a straight cover of the source with the awkward acoustic guitar patch in the intro, though it soon turns itself into a more 80s-hiphop/rock-esque setup with the kind of sounds gone for, all the way down to the reversed percussion sounds, record scratches and everything. It's all written blatantly with MIDI patches, which I emphasized with Electron's MIDI-guitar-based source that there have been live guitarists extending a few months prior to release, though for the time they could be seen as fun and lively sounds but these days can be seen as painfully aged. The arrangement itself can similarly be seen as straight forward in regards to melodic arrangement, but the genre adaptation and firm writing on the accompaniment manages to give it a good kick. So this track may have aged considerably on both arrangement and production fronts, but at the time the execution managed to feel very solid and upbeat, and should be a good checkout if you just want a fun Gerudo Valley interpretation. It's a shame JV kind of vanished off the face of the earth, as the brief encounter I had with his work back in the day was very compelling to me, but I do hope he takes what he did with pride

The great Radical Dreamers flood of 2001. I already reviewed Zeratul's track earlier this week, so why not another There's some good shakeup with the chord substitution at least, which works well for the most part, but I have to say it here; the piano and strings are heavily mechanical and didn't really fit in with the soundscape (and I'm not even sure if the sharp panning of the piano was supposed to fit at the end either), and the strings were especially without any form of release so the transitions between notes felt so awkwardly jarring. At least when the 'guitar explosion' came in, things started to get more involving; I'm admitting the texture for the synth bass was pretty cool and managed to add to a good sense of bitterness expressed towards the feel. A little undermodulated maybe, but still a neat effect. Given the nature of the source there's only so much that could be done, so arrangement-wise I thought it was a pretty cool take on the theme. Like a lot of 2001 mixes the execution felt rather weak though, but I do know that there has been some remixer growth down the line, so it can be excused. Not going to keep a hold on it simply due to its roughening with age, but it's still alright.

Trying to ignore that awkward gurgle on this one; mad props for the enveloping, but for me it just has that awkward unnecessary presence that can be grating. But alas, with that main criticism out of the way, I felt the setup was pretty neat for its time with the industralised drums and synth runs following the source reasonably well and giving it a good amount of charm with the writing. Even the string swelling at 2:20 was a good touch to give in an added sense of eerieness towards the track's timbre. Though, people have been mentioning signs of emptiness on the track. For me, aside from some of the synth echoes and the obligatory drone, it does have that non-filled feeling, though what I think this track desperately needed was a bass of some texture. We had this neat setup for something that could be akin to maybe an Aphex Twin song, but it's being held back via these empty textures and especially leaving out what I felt was the most significant component of the track. Taking aside the flaws, you might get some enjoyment out of it depending on genre preferences, but for me I just found it hard due to the emptiness and constant drone sound. It's alright for what it was at the time, but it has aged drastically simply down to the weak writing decisions, which is a shame because it seemed like a neat idea on paper. You'll need to be cautious if you're to approach this particular track

Well, I'm not going to take any fades into consideration, but I will try and listen carefully and make judgement. The real problem is, like a fair chunk of Beatdrop's mixes back then, the bass tends to sit really awkwardly; for me it tends to be doing way too much even for what can be considered an electronica song, and even then the arrangement stays really close to the source material and is riddled with off-time percussion writing (particularly at 2:15). I would've even preferred a different instrument for the melodic section other than pizzicatos as well as it just comes off as unrealistic and doesn't fit in with the rest of the instrumentation. To be fair, the only good thing I can see that's going for it is in regards to some of the synth processing; it's minimal, true, but at least the sustains involved in them helped to give the track a form of life. Suffice to say, I couldn't find much to enjoy about this one; felt really sloppy to me, even outside the "quick fadeout" that most of these guys were saying. But I have seen that Beatdrop has come a long way since then and has really shown his true colors as an arranger, so something good managed to come out of it. I'm hoping he'll come back to OCR soon especially considering his quick growth

Yeah, it's funny; I was in a discussion about community violin players with OA the other day and he brought up James George. So I guess I could listen here and see what he did. You picked a tricky source to work with; seemed to be really devoid of substance outside of that repetitive harp, but to see it being arranged with the chords of the harp's patterns in mind takes it in a classier approach, and with James's performance matching really well on the violin leads, we have something that feels quite expressive. Of all the four different variations here, I felt happiest with the second movement; naturally I may be a sucker for more jollier performances, but that actually manages to capture the source and presented it in a very logical context given the pacing of it, not to mention I felt the violin parts were the most expressed/tightest played there for me in the mix. The fourth movement with the pizzicato playing, while not quite as tight, did make me smile with the surprised direction taken with the sounds here and was a very ridiculous yet amusing way to end what appears to be this more classically-minded take on the source. I'm not saying the other two movements stuck out as much, just didn't find them quite as memorable as the others; but it may not be a bad thing considering this might be mood music in more ways than one. Either way, a very fun way to tackle what appears to be a very restricted (harmony-wise) source. It may end up taking some people some time to digest it, but when putting in the track's context into play with the rest of the album you can see how much of a surprise element it could be in regards to arrangement. Hopefully you two will put out similarly strong works for 2012

I have a strange feeling that everyone has to contribute to that one song somehow o_O but no idea how, whether it would involve ALL robot masters or not, whether someone may take the lead like in some of the regular rounds, or anything. But yeah, I got to admit I'm looking forward to it already (and yes, wise words from Gario; this is probably what I get for not doing a knockout because I'm too scared to do one, but ah well... it's a big help )

SuperiorX, to my knowledge, Rozo's leadership in the last round gave you first place according to my tallies; don't put yourself down too But I suppose you've got a fair point in regards to this (though given C7's involvement in the community prior to this, I'm not sure if he's the right example for a "new face", but ymmv). I set out in this competition to try and up my game outside of piano arranging, as well as opening the door for some more collaborations, and in a way, I succeeded, though I often felt better about myself just making the songs rather than waiting on reactions. I know some people didn't want to see anything like this, but I've just had this locked-in frame of mind over the years as well as expectations of what I THOUGHT I could meet, and it's just really hard to shake off. But I'll remember it before the topic derails itself - never to complain before getting a rough reputation. If it helps, I might do a following gauntlet depending on how I feel but I could never see myself doing a Maverick/Robot Master battle simply because I don't have the mentality for knockouts. I thank for the responses at least, but I guess if you're eventually going to tell me to shut up, then I'll just stop writing in here x_X

I'm glad you enjoyed the gifts, Ryan! Was fun doing this first online Secret Santa thing, and I feel happy that everything went so smoothly. Hope you had a great holiday On my end, my present still hasn't arrived, but I did receive word that my Secret Santa had a shipping dilemma with the present supposed to be aimed at my house but it ended up at theirs. >_> I'll still be patient, but I hope it'll arrive here soon.

Maybe if I could understand people's motives for not voting due to there being better entries, I could've been more graceful about this. But... If people actually do that, then that just upsets me a lot. I have given it my all during these competitions, but I'm coming to the conclusion that due to the current positions for this and the Round 2 entry, people that vote for the remixer (and as a result vote AGAINST me) seem to be very common. And it's echoed with my ventures side-by-side with Brandon as well; from what I'm understanding from the votes, "Red Chamomile" received an insanely strong fan reception, while on the other hand "Liquid Metal" had more of a torn reception, which I kept assuming was because I was a guest artist on it. I can't help but see this uncanny pattern in regards to name relations and seeing it affect me no matter how many tick boxes I try to fill. The production tips I received throughout may be a plus here, but other than that this is just giving me too much grief. I can't see myself taking part in a future Mega Man competition if all it does is bring me down

I'm, like, 2 weeks late with this but this is the part where I say thank you for your response I should've done it sooner, but I had rather been wanting for the Wild Arms and BadAss albums to sink in first before I could really make my move. The response does indeed feel mostly positive, and I do sense both Brandon and Palpable noticing the tail of the piano texture used. This actually came from my attempts to add as much "realism" to the old sample bank that I used back in my student days, which meant having to tweak some of the envelopes on the patches that I had to work with including the attack and decay. Yes, you read it - STUDENT DAYS. Believe it or not, this particular recording was established back in May of 2006 (yes, this take is nearly six years old!), when I had been working on the arrangement on and off during that year. This may explain some of my unhappiness with my life at the time really being channeled into the performance, fitting in with Aetherius's vision ridiculously well. And so when I saw him dropping the project a year later, I felt extremely disappointed at what happened, not just with the project but the fact that I felt as if I was merely on projects that were going nowhere no matter how much effort I placed in them. Over time my attachment to the track was lost, but thanks to prophetik's dedication in getting it finished through phase 3 (and with then being when I FINALLY settled on a name for this thing) and getting the album unleashed upon the world, the amount of pride I had in putting it down was steadily built back up, and was soon reflected on the faint but positive user feedback from it upon the album's release. It's a shame that I had lost the sample bank as I had been told for years that I couldn't emulate the same performance success that I had with "Tomorrow's Wake" (namely from Larry in-between talk segments on VG Frequency back in the day), and having discovered it it's all too late as I had moved onto a completely different set of gear, but I'm now game to learn with what I have now and see what I can do in what seems to be a more positive environment than years gone by. Hopefully this will be the start of a more positive comeback and not being over-confident in my abilities (when really these days, confidence in submissions tend to be lacking). Long ramble over, but you get the picture Once again, a big thanks for the responses, and I hope to push things through for the future!

Strange ambient source, but given Mark Vera's approach to Metroid in the past (being one of the first works I heard from him), I can understand the motives to adapt Star Control. It does indeed manage to capture more of an original melody on top of the rather disjointed sounding source material; not saying that's a bad thing but it takes guts to show some expansion on it for something short of 5 minutes here. The synth guitar, while not the best sound I've heard, could've easily benefitted with some modulation and envelope filtering to better realise itself; it's not too bad on its own though with the sustain and pitch bending in, so it's not too bad looking at it at a larger level./ I also have to mention that with the amount of intense double-bass kicks in there, some better kick drum realisation could've helped, most notably in the field of velocities, given the acoustic nature that the kit carries. That was easily transferred to the cymbals though, so it would've been good to hear it being carried over somewhere else. If I had more of an attachment for the game, or if the source was a more memorable one to me, I might've been more at home with something like this, but as it is it's definitely one of Mark Vera's more different works witnessed. Sadly I'm not going to keep this due to its age really sticking out with the production concerns and lack of attachment to the arrangement, but I do indeed see some good potential for the sheer amount of Star Control love given towards the site. It can be seen as inspirational if one is seen as a one-man army for covering a game like this

The Shadowgate originals feel kinda strange for me, namely due to the time signature adaptation if anything. But to hear it taken in a more interpretive 4/4 form complete with aggressive rhythm backing remeniscent of Stemage's work shows that there's some dedication in really focusing on the integrity of the melodies in this kind of structure. The guitars and bass are all very well recorded, the drums feel generally punchy (though if anything I felt the kick needed more power and more equalised separation from the bass itself), and even the solo at 2:30, while a little moist, manages to show some very strong soloing skills for the track. It's a shame it ends ridiculously quickly too; would've hoped for one last head-banging section going into the end right after the solo, but that might just be my only qualm with what to me feels like a very well done rock-driven arrangement. I dig this a lot

I remembered Usa's solo version fondly from the album. Guess it's been a long time coming to hear the updated version. To me, the piano felt rather unchanged from the original mix, and the adaptation to the source material there was still really pretty. It does capture that more serene quality to the town at the start of the game, and played well to Usa's piano arranging strength back at the VGMix days. And then hearing the moody part come in, in regards to writing, all the sweeping strings that managed to come in seemed to fit somewhat of a clarity to the quality to it. I think TheDeath's contributions seemed to be a completely different mixing down of the string part of the original, though for some reason a lot of the sound quality is very similar to Usa's original handling of it. Even back then it was a great adaptation to a minor key there, capturing the fall to the Desians to a T. And that sweep back into the happy part at the end was still pretty too, seeming to capture that moment of hoping to rise and bounce back against the Desians. I may have got my thoughts completely wrong though, even down to any mixing differences, but comparing the original album cut with the track description, there comes the $20,000 question - if TheDeath was credited even for some of the writing in the original mix, how come he wasn't credited on this track for the album cut? I went in thinking there might've been an overhaul of the soundscape, but it doesn't seem to be the case. Clarification, Kyle? Still a good track after all these years though, without doubt. Let's hope TheDeath comes back providing sweeping orchestrations soon, and similarly let's also hope Dan keeps upping his game for equally classy arrangements here