Rexy

Now this to me sounds solid; while the original "Hall of Fame" track was practically seen as a majorly triumphant piece of work, this feels somewhat more comraderic in structure and all the energy placed behind the performance and some strong rhythm guitar work seemed to work out and continue to give it that lease of life. The Pokemon Main Theme reference in the end was also pretty neat to reference to and ensure it doesn't quite outstay its welcome. In spite of this short arrangement, we've got something that works well given the nature of the source. Though I'm not sure if it's my listening setup, but I felt some low mids were missing from the track. That was what I noted with the frequency gap between the bass and rhythm guitars, so maybe a frequency boost in that section for the rhythm or an additional synth part covering that range might've helped fill it up. But outside of that qualm, the live instruments were well recorded, and the piano - albeit synthetic - managed to fit in appropriately to the soundscape. I hope the Key to Progression guys return with a new mix one day, because if they can provide a lot of promise with an 8-measure-long source (there I go, back to 'restrictive source material' again ) then they could go a long way in interpreting other songs. For now, nice work

Since when did I ever say that? Besides, as of December 11th, the only thing you've 'hogged' is me anyway. I'm always open for more to join the fun, so we can bring down the 'Phantom Topless'.

Seems as if this variation of Kefka has a heart I wonder if he's hearty enough to even answer the whole 'henchman' question above.

I've been quite a fan of this source tune since Vurez's take in 2005, so it'll be good to hear others' takes on it. Though, considering it's a 2002 mix I can understand the sample quality. The percussion feels quite involved; the main beat might be stale, but the occasional claps, retro toms and scratches do help give it a little bit of life, and while the synths don't feel all that expressive the little panning work with the bell throughout was actually pretty neat and helped with the soundscape. Otherwise, the structure follows too close to the source; the only thing that's been done with it is transposing it down a semitone and adding some additional pad/rhythm parts to it, so for some it's most likely to come off on the vanilla side. Ninja Gaiden fans may get a good kick out of it at least; it's a pleasant listen, though on both fronts I'm feeling it's been showing its age.

Dale North's works really stand the test of time well in regards to production quality. Sure, nowadays the string samples may not quite cut it, but the handling of them along with the delicate piano work had been done with such care that could almost compare it to the mellower works of Tenpei Sato. Arrangement-wise it may be straightforward, but what tracks from 2001 weren't? The structure coupled with the little Arni Village cameo at the end was more than enough to show acknowledgement for Mitsuida's PS1-era material, and coupled with the musical viaion made it a pleasant sounding track from start to finish. It's a shame you don't do music that often these days, but when you do chime in it's usually made of gold. I like a lot of other OC Remixers hope that you'll keep chipping into the site within the foreseeable future

I do remember hearing this when I started exposing myself to OCR's early work and feeling a little puzzled with this a way. And indeed I still do now; bare-bone beats, a conservative arrangement, the fact that you got the bass to play the melody as well as the lead bell (that to me really clutters up the notation if that's done consistently), not much articulation done to the synths other than the use of echo, and generally a weak sounding soundscape. Back in the day it might've been pretty cool especially considering it was done with the demo version of FL Studio, but nowadays it feels somewhat vanilla. I feel disappointed that they didn't take the experience to hand and follow it up as people would've been wanting - it's a cool experience to learn from in making music especially when side-by-side with someone else.

On the other hand, I'm strongly AGAINST this 'remix of the week' thing. Firstly, there may not be more than one remix in a week (and we've definitely had this a few times), and secondly, it actually discourages the remixers from submitting due to this sudden boost of 'favoritism'. I know I'd be discouraged at least; I'd find it hard enough to get reviews on my OWN material without worrying about popularity. >_> What I do want to see though is something that may encourage people to give feedback to works, album posts or otherwise. It seems as if the closest link we have now to mass remarks is through Youtube, but then again it's coming down to this changing web environments. Sure, Rozo's ideas may involve more video editors, but if there are people ready to spread the word, then I'm sure the people will support the cause however they can

The story sequence music from Jurassic Park. Again, I take intrique to see what people do with short loops (this one being 4 measures long), so here we go, haha. The original was indeed used note-for-note as accompaniment placement to match with the slow-attacking strings, appropriate sound effects, three-step jazz-drum work and some very eerie rhythm/gliding synth work. These days it may be seen as too safe as a way to handle the source, but as a way to build atmosphere could almost make this feel somewhat appropriate for Halloween. Even for its time the levels were decent, though I may have had suggested the sound effects to be brought down in the mix. Regardless, it has that eerie quality that in spite of modern-day shortcomings had held up reasonably well over time. I dig this

Hah, a bit of Dragon Quest coverage here. Nice. This is kind of a mixed bag to me; "Unknown World" is a restrected source that's 8 measures long, though at least there's some liberty taken towards the chord structure to give it a more personal touch. The original section at 1:35 was actually a good way to play around with the general melodic structure of the source as well somewhat, so mad props there for knowing how things work. So while in terms of arrangement you've managed to get it down, the production itself seems to have paled somewhat with the minimalist MIDI-sounding instrumentation; gentle strings and staccato work before suddenly bringing in a sudden drum beat that could give it a feel almost similar to the works of Massive Attack if handled more appropriately. Even then it ended rather sloppily with only fading the drums out, giving in quite an underwhelming feeling to the track overall. But for something dating as far back as 2001 it's quite decent for its time. If there were more attention being paid towards the minor details as well then it might've stood the test of time a lot more, but for now it could merely be seen as a little bland.

When I saw that C418 had FINALLY become a posted OC Remixer, my heart literally did a somersault. I enjoyed a lot of his works for Minecraft, so I felt happy to see him join with the rest of the indie composer lineup for 25YEARLEGEND. While the original "Ballad of the Goddess" was seen as a very dynamic piece of music, C418 on the other hand managed to take it in a more chilled direction bearing similarities to his Minecraft score. That to me is definitely not a bad thing; it to me defines his more heartfelt style, and to see it being realised here in this performance shows how much the series meant to him by paying tribute with the skills he gathered. Of course, while it does play straightforward with the structure of the arrangement, a lot had been done towards the subtleties for the instruments surrounding the piano to give it a more realised and moving direction. The strings in particular felt rather lush and well utilised, and even the subtleties on the horns - though a little constant - managed to fill in some good space on the lower end. I did however hear a foot pedal being caught on during one of the breaks (which as a pianist myself is never a good sign when doing renders), but it could only be seen as a minor slip amongst an otherwise fitting atmosphere. Regardless, well done again C418 for representing the indie community both with Minecraft and your links with other composers! Hopefully we'll get to see you grace OCR's hallowed halls again, whether it be others' mixes of your work or you doing more mixes yourself

Mad props for the funny title. I'm glad to see he got on bLiNd's good side at the end and even managed to collab with him. So, I got to have to say it's not the strongest of first halves with the slightly unsnapped synths and awkward levelling (noted especially when the bass came in), but I got to give credit for some good synth manipulation especially with the gates on the highs and some strong sound effect work in the more downbeat 1:40 section. Even then after the beat came back in with the nice varied rhythm synth parts, I felt the track managed to feel a lot more comfortable and well balanced since then, fitting a much stronger foundation of the beat overall. It's kind of a mixed bag for me in regards to ideas; gets better as it draws on, and handling of the source seems kind of basic at best. But when measuring up to other 2002 tracks it's not bad, and I'm especially happy that he took the experience to heart and focused attention on 2 of OCR's albums since. Hopefully we'll get to see him again in the future, whether alone or with bLiNd in another collab

Of all the Morse releases done this year, this ranks pretty well as one of my favorites, if mainly for a lot of the details being paid attention to throughout to give this track a lease of life. It starts out pretty straightforward to the original, what with the source's bass being used as the prime foundation for the arrangement though by the time the hand percussion comes in at around 0:50 it starts showing its way of playing with the melody, even added at 1:45 with Morse's way of chord manipulation to really give in that kind of draw towards the track. I say it's a very tasteful way to handle what can otherwise be seen as a rather unmelodic source (no offence to Kunal). A lot of attention to detail has been paid towards the instruments too with the controller changes on the synth work, all the varied percussion throughout, some neat pad sidechaining at 3:15 and some rather blissful piano work being placed in. Aside from my usual unease towards synth guitars (don't take it as criticism, just one of my oddities ), the foundation has proven itself to be very tasteful and fitting of its contemporary American pop music direction. Between this and the work done towards Return All Robots, I'm glad to see that there's been some arrangements done to various OC Remixers' original game scores as well, and I hope it can be the start of a good thing towards this growing community and changing game market. Be proud of yourself for what you did, Morse

Oh come on, orlounge's feedback was mostly positive - he even stated he might change his mind. Besides, we got a vote already, so don't fret over it too much

Gonna chime in with a status update really quickly. Total User Reviews: 283 (-14150 HP) OA Reviews: 18 (+900 HP) CURRENT PROGRESS: 7750/21000 Don't slack off here now! With there also being 62 mixes that have less than 10 reviews, they also require some similar love here, so please make us happy and get towards them

If it helps, of all the Wily sources I studied prior to the competition, I didn't study Cossack because technically, Cossack isn't Wily. >_> So I guess I might've stumbled a bit too, but I still tried my best regardless of not quite doing my homework.

I've been hearing awesome stories about Sixto on Back In Blue and the fact that he surprised k-wix with two songs instead of one. And even then, the surprised entry was worth the wait! So what we have here is some very tightly-played guitar work, complete with what I think is the same synth violin sound that was used in "I'll Go" for the Tales project. If you've heard so much of his work by this point (and I'm sure after his other rockin' project involvements I'm sure I have) then it could techincally be seen as Sixto-by-numbers going by the structure, but even then along with his faiths with the source he manages to really work so hard with the production and the face-melting solos that really push him far as one of OC Remix's prime guitarists. Even then the dynamics were shaped up fine, its most notable component going by the rhythmic rain synths at 2:15 leading into what I honestly felt was one of his most expressive guitar solos to date. Couple that with all the attention to detail paid towards the background elements, and you can see it as one of the shining gems involved on Back In Blue. So all in all, a lot of us are GLAD that you took up the first Wily Stage theme and gave it the dynamic treatment that Mega Man fans everywhere had hoped for. And be sure to keep rocking for us in 2012

Done and subbed! And the Bad Guy Robots are one happy family again.

S.S. Anne! If the version in FireRed was of any indication, it's a wonderful source to lend one's style to for a remix. So the track starts out fairly faithful, but in true Ben Briggs fashion it uses the progression as a foundation to manipulate over a more original structure, complete with some very interesting synth work being placed throughout. Even the little downtempo/syncopated part at 1:25 moving to the source's B theme helped to break the monotomy somewhat here and the gradual build back up to regular tempo also helped really give in a strong sense of color. That ending with the increasing echo/reverb space and the hi-passing does sound somewhat of a strange note to end with though, but it still shows another hint of testament towards Ben's skills as a producer. I may understand that you might've leaned a lot towards halc's style in this particular track, though the one thing I might advise you to work with is with your manipulation of your polysynth pads; they do kind of start to feel stale after a while. But after sensing your guys' work as Insert Rupee I can understand that you've learnt a lot in regards to texture to really focus on these little details, so I have a lot of trust in you. Hence, another neat Poke-mix! I'm all up for seeing future developments from you even though you've been focusing on more original material lately

So when I first heard this track, I managed to hear a huge step up when comparing it to Flexstyle's initial PRC works; even here it does well when taking the source apart (again, 8 measures long... I have a history with these small ones ) and adapting it well to this much darker DnB setting. Arrangement-wise it does tend to rely on the first four measures a lot, but there's a lot of variety placed in with the percussion/sfx building and all the strong synth pad manipulations to further amplify this mood - signs that Flexstyle's production skills are really shaping him up to be a prominent face amongst OCR. One can almost envision the calamity for the Great Moblin Hideout coming excessively early by this setting. I may say that people may not get this safe structure though, but for me as long as the substance carries the mix through, then it's a very appropriate contribution towards Ben's Oracle of Ages album. Nice going, and I hope to see you keep advancing with your work on Lime of the Season too

Given the high speed and wtf nature of the source material, I can't see it being remixed any other way other than the same goofy nature of the original. But the approach taken here managed to change up the chords and fit it over something more surprisingly chilled. I can almost envision some kind of weekly sports recap being played over this, so I feel very down with the direction taken. Props also taken with the piano solo at 1:28, that really helped with the mood establishment and the progression since. Albeit, in spite of this nice soundscape going, the sounds to me barely have much dynamics other than during the piano solo. The piano seems to be a dead ringer with the near constant velocities and perfect timings, but the writing on it is still good enough for it to be not quite as much of a big deal. But with what's been obtained it managed to fit the soundscape fittingly well. All in all this mix surprised me simply by how serious you turned a silly sounding source tune into. I've been pleased to see your progress during the PRC and in later exhibitions, and so I'm hoping that you'll continue to keep taking your writing to higher levels; nice going, ToN

It's a strange source to go for due to its minimalism and lack of tempo, but to take it in a direction akin to the Metal Gear Solid score is definitely one to go for and still ultimately take the darkness of the source. It even worked well for the most part with the firm varied percussion and the transition of the minimalist pad/string work of the original to full bodied pads here. Affectively, what was taken of the source managed to work out into something significantly more contemporary while still being atmospheric, so major props on handling that. Even the minor synth elements had some strong controller work done to it to really give some life and associate ourselves with Tweek as a musician, and all the little details elsewhere with the rhythm synths have done much to keep adding some substance. For me, it's nice and chill; not much to fault concerning the stylistic direction, and you've managed to do well with handling one difficult source to arrange. Hopefully we'd get to see more of you come 2012

PRC 76 used the Inventory theme as the source. It had a notorious amount of disqualified MIDI rips in there, but Sir Nuts's winning track was pretty neat

Well, this one definitely takes me back. Like I keep saying, it's hugely difficult to do ANYTHING with sources less than 8 measures long (in this case 6). But what Dark Purple did with the track was used the rhythm foundations of the source material to gradually build it in over time, its full colors finally being shown at 2:45. Sure, it may have come with the cost of repeating the riff almost vertabrim, not to mention going for a lazy fade-out ending without any form of building down, but it's still a good way to handle the source even if it's quite a dated idea. It may not be the most well mixed track on the site, especially with the shrill loudness of the string pads throughout most of the song, but I still got to give credit to the synth guitar expression sounds really good for its time IMO. I'm still not a fan of them due to the weakness that they often provide when not done right, but as it is it's fine. It's going to split people with its repetitive nature, ageing direction and somewhat painful production quality, but I still found it decent. I also remember his remastered cut at VGMix and liking it considerably more (does anyone still have it? It's not on the OCR Mirror ), so either way I felt firm with it.

This to me sounds stylistically similar to d0d0's work that I reviewed earlier this week, though this time the opening soundclip is SO MUCH MORE APPROPRIATE and to some extent probably more nostalgic. While I felt more of a chippy Katamari-esque vibe in d0d0's in regards to feel, what I felt here was more of a sweet early dream trance vibe to it, carrying a very positive image throughout. It's a shame you couldn't fit in the B-theme somewhere, or even thought of a proper ending for what sounded like a firm track, but it's decent enough for what it is. The major concerns that I have with this though namely come down towards your placement of fills; sometimes they ended up coming off a little off-time, like the random pair placed in the two go-throughs of the theme. We have this nice setting, but to see it kind of break apart by mistiming does make things a little awkward. But for a 2001 work it's not too bad, albeit really showing its age by now. Fans of the game/source should get a good kick out of it at least

It's hard to deal with one of the more beautiful tracks in the Secret of Mana score in this kind of fashion, but I guess it does kind of fit for something slightly more uptempo. Though, in spite of it being in the short-and-sweet category, it to me feels somewhat rough. It's almost entirely a straight cover, give or take the sound effect intro, the translation of the second-to-last phrase to a standard 4/4 as opposed to the original's 7/4 and the booming piano. And even then the production feels a little weak, with grainy sound effects placed in (which I give credit for sounding somewhat appropriate) and levels being somewhat unattended to, notably with the strange loudness of the SFX and string parts. So I have to say this is somewhat pale for a 2002 mix. But if you're looking for something that maintains its faithfulness to the source, you've got it, but don't expect to be completely wowed over