Sir_NutS

Very original and fun take.  Eino's stuff used to be a bit rough around the edges production-wise but this sounds pretty clean to me, although the mix balance could have used another pass imo, as some leads don't pop up as much as I would like.  I feel some more harmonic content in the mids could've helped fill the mix a bit more but there's nothing wrong perse with what we have here.  That said, the ending didn't work for me, it's too abrupt and lacks resolution. It's the worst part of the whole thing by far imo, and takes quite a few points off of what would be a solid entry.
The arrangement and adaptation are pretty awesome here, really kudos Eino I can't see myself turning this clowny tune into something actually listenable and enjoyable.  Adaptation here is by far the song's biggest asset, really well done.
Overall, I am not as on board on this one as Larry and Bev, as some of the mix imperfections and the... honestly bad ending turned me off a bit, but I think it's still good enough to have on the frontpage, but it only just makes it.
YES (borderline)

Hey, I missed voting on this on the panel, just wanted to add that this is super cool and I like it a lot!

Hey, I missed voting on this on the panel, just wanted to add that this is super cool and I like it a lot!

A videogame community giving nostalgia a lot of weight is not unreasonable.  That's what we live for!

Wow, this was a blast from the past.  I had the original archived, so was able to listen to them sequentially.  The resub was substantially reworked, yet you could tell the resemblance.  Strong work, Sir_NutS / Sadorf.
DJP's quip about it being a
underscores both the lasting appeal of games and the persistent interest of the community dedicated to enjoying and remixing their music.  Back in 2005, I had no idea I would still be downloading and listening to ReMixes 15 years later.  Though many of the artists have changed, some of the artists have demonstrated amazing longevity (very much including Sir_NutS).  For your dedication, persistence, creative reinterpretation, mastery of the bleeps / bloops, and hopeful submission, I salute you.
Here's to more great games to enjoy and amazing ReMixes to appreciate.  Cheers.

I am glad Sadorf has another finished remix with Sir_NutS, as I'm a big fan of A New Ray of Light from 2004. And this one takes me back to those times.

Hold the phone.
You mean to tell me that Sir_NutS and Sadorf just got a Final Fantasy VII remix posted?
What year is it? Did I step in a wormhole?
(Excellent song, btw. Just...wow...)

War for the best version of this music ends here with this song. Fun, a bit more "fabulous" (bright) than any of the other arrangements i've heard. This song in particular always struck me with how different it sounds over all the different ports a game receives.
- an NES arrangement lover

A videogame community giving nostalgia a lot of weight is not unreasonable.  That's what we live for!

Bad person? More like TERRIBLE person. But I kid... at this point I'm 99% sure we'll be adding twitter/youtube/facebook/soundcloud links to profiles and also the profile postbit field next to every post, which should be pretty cool.
I'd like to remind everyone that, above perhaps everyone else on this planet Earth, I do want to improve OCR
Screenshot of WIP theme attached. It's WIP, but it's already preferable to current theme in some ways. We'll get there.

A videogame community giving nostalgia a lot of weight is not unreasonable.  That's what we live for!

Rama is on the ball here.  Look, I'm one of the oldest members around here, been using the forums since they were a thing.  But things are changing, and just like physical letters, forums are very niche nowadays.  And even the forums that are still up with a strong community, have streamlined things a long time ago, so forums themselves are a different beast than what they were a few years ago.   I'm hoping the admins can still find a way allow for personalization of their posts, or some way for people to show their art that fits better with a modern design.  

Even though forums are largely dead, I still appreciate that we have them here still, and I appreciate also any attempt at streamlining/modernizing them.

Rama is on the ball here.  Look, I'm one of the oldest members around here, been using the forums since they were a thing.  But things are changing, and just like physical letters, forums are very niche nowadays.  And even the forums that are still up with a strong community, have streamlined things a long time ago, so forums themselves are a different beast than what they were a few years ago.   I'm hoping the admins can still find a way allow for personalization of their posts, or some way for people to show their art that fits better with a modern design.  

Even though forums are largely dead, I still appreciate that we have them here still, and I appreciate also any attempt at streamlining/modernizing them.

Rama is on the ball here.  Look, I'm one of the oldest members around here, been using the forums since they were a thing.  But things are changing, and just like physical letters, forums are very niche nowadays.  And even the forums that are still up with a strong community, have streamlined things a long time ago, so forums themselves are a different beast than what they were a few years ago.   I'm hoping the admins can still find a way allow for personalization of their posts, or some way for people to show their art that fits better with a modern design.  

Even though forums are largely dead, I still appreciate that we have them here still, and I appreciate also any attempt at streamlining/modernizing them.

Yep, you really nailed it there. Way too close to home. When I read your post, I spat out my yerba mate and dropped my artisanal scone on the ground - "They're on to me!!!" I thought, as I frantically started shredding documents & eliminating any hard evidence of my "post-modernist" UX/UI plot to monetize OCR by getting rid of forum signatures. No one can ever know... My entire business model is in shambles because I was banking on getting rid of forum signatures leading directly to the vast, untold riches that have thus far eluded me in twenty years of running this non-profit community. This was it, this was the moment, and now it's been shamefully exposed...
Ahem... at any rate, in my experience you get respect when you give respect. Making relatively outlandish, bad faith accusations is not giving respect, nor is calling anyone elitist, nor is assuming that because you're not being agreed with, you're not being heard...
As @Ramaniscence alluded to, the paradigm of the online forum itself has eroded a bit, and while I've never felt pressured to follow every last design fad, I also feel like we - along with everyone else - are competing for the time & energy of human beings that are increasingly being bombarded with information. In the context of a thread, the additional secondary/tertiary, unstructured text & visual information provided in signatures is a bit distracting. Since we plan on leaning on the (streamlined) forums more in months to come, this is a preparatory step to make them not just more "modern" or "post-modern" but more focused, plain and simple. The purpose of this post was largely to explain the rationale & get ideas for equivalent functionality, and not to debate the decision, and we appreciated the good faith comments we received and will keep them in mind for profile enhancements or other ways of letting artists & contributors showcase their works, talents, & availability.

I've mulled over this topic since it happened, and I just keep coming back to the same conclusion: forums are dead. Traditional forum software on the internet is few and far between now. Most communities have moved to "discussion"-style systems like Discourse (not to be confused with Discord) or Reddit. Not that every site should be reddit, but how ridiculous would reddit look if every person had an image signature? Or even a text one. Removing visual clutter makes it easier to quickly navigate the conversation. Images on the page, especially large ones, should be meaningful and representative. Watching 2-3 people discuss something in a conversation and seeing the same 3 images in different patterns is not particularly meaningful. It's excessive.
I do agree it's nice for users have more customization/personality/whatever, but I don't think it would come from forums signatures. It would come from a organized and utilized user profile. Custom avatars are good. Banner images are better. Invision does a pretty good job of supporting both of those, but it's really base-level. Heavy text, low imagery. Very data, no flavor. Do I expect that to change any time soon? Ehh. Do I think reactivating image signatures is the right move? Almost definitely not.
 

Wow, this is a super underappreciated track! It's been stuck in my head for the last few days, and I'm really happy about it - super catchy and upbeat retro-flavored goodness! Totally nailed some of the classic WillRock sound here as well, haha. The guitar may be fake, but it certainly adds a lot of charm Absolutely love this remix, keep making awesome stuff! 

i agree with rexy that the source fits this style really well. the original was already kind of doing that funk-house style, with a really present kit and a bop band behind it, and this definitely takes it farther down the euro road with the chord extensions you're hinting at in the guitar, combined with the acoustic bass and disco vibe. i also agree that there's just way too much sampled content in here. it's so busy, and that's saying something coming from me! the sampled sections clearly aren't in the same level of swing so there's conflicting off-beats, and the sampled content drags the overall fidelity of the track. i did like what the bass was playing, and felt that helped move it along. i'd recommend some space in there to let the instrument 'breathe' a bit. your groove got pretty dry pretty quick when it essentially played the same pattern for three minutes, so starting somewhere less full of notes and expanding throughout the track will help quite a bit, i think. lastly, while i really liked what the acoustic guitar was playing, it was so choppy due to whatever slicer you used to adjust the tempo that it sounds really disjointed. i really wanted it to speak cleaner and it just wouldn't.
speaking of mastering, i found the kit as a whole to sound like it was in an entirely different soundscape than the rest of the track. it was very present and wide (the shaker in the right ear was really irritating maybe halfway through), and the continued shifting of the rest of the track's level of fidelity as compared to the static drums was really distracting. you can definitely do some work to volumize the rest of the instruments to level them out.
there's definitely some fun moments in here. i'd love to hear more of the EP solo at 2:00, and i enjoyed the panned EP solos before that. i also overall enjoyed the presentation of the melody, and while more variation there would have been good, it was fun. i just can't however get past the constant sampling and lackluster mastering. part of french house is that the mastering really sparkles, which helps the common phaser effects and sampled old disco track bits shine through in spite of their age. i don't get that feeling here and it really makes for a track that isn't where it needs to be to pass.
 
 
NO

Your ReMixer name: Synesthesics
Your real name: Sandro Kreher
Your userid: 33651
Name of game(s) arranged                 Donkey Kong Country   
Name of arrangement                        Underwater Level
Name of individual song(s) arranged   Aquatic Ambiance
If posted, this will need a new name.

Here's to 4000 more!

(also cool mix).

Here's to 4000 more!

(also cool mix).

Oh man, this is a trip back in time - so much that only Larry and Darke were in the previous decision.  I thought the arrangement was neat and serviceable even back then, but I do understand your desire to give it a considerable production overhaul.
Arrangement-wise, there are indeed some similarities between this and the 2005 original - the breakbeat style, Sadorf's treatment of the source melodies, and the structure more or less.   I did notice some subtle tweaks here:
The intro brought in more source The 7/8 [edit: oops, I meant 7/4 - thanks prophetik] part at 2:07 caught my attention as a fun breakdown The 2:45 section deviated in style and went full contemporary EDM And the ending at 3:28 also did well with combining the C section's melody and the A section's chord structure. Once again, I see it as a knack for demonstrating not only your arrangement improvements over the years but also respecting another person's ideas - in this case, your collaborator.
It's obvious to say that the difference production-wise between the two is like night and day.  The soundscape now feels vivid when the original lacked in low-end frequencies.  The instruments are all clear to pick out and layered well, and the percussion has plenty of punch.  Even the piano - an otherwise organic instrument - has a strong reverb that complements the breakbeat origins.
I am, however, with Mindwander regarding the piano getting buried under the synths, but it's no dealbreaker at all - just a well-noted observation.
All in all, this blast-from-the-past is refurbished in every possible way - hence, I can see it being front-page material.  I say this can also be inspirational for anyone else who got their work rejected years ago!

YES

❤❤❤❤

This is a very long track, but I can keep things short since the issues I have are pretty straightforward.  First is the vanilla samples and its usage.  Stuff like strings, brasses and other instruments seem to be lacking articulation to say the least, and they come out as extremely artificial.  Second, the mix sounds like it has a ton of highs, a lot of lows but not much when it comes to mid content.  Things like brasses have a very sharp edge, which is something that can happen naturally in a performance, but it seems like every stab here is articulated to be as sharp as possible.  Many other instruments have a piercing quality to them (i.e. the final synth is resonating so hard I had to just take my headphones off). Also, even tho there are lows, almost everything on that range sounds pretty muffled.

I'm not huge on this arrangement either, as it seems too disconnected and I don't feel it's conveying much even though it has a very long runtime, but this is mostly subjective and not my main reason for rejection.
Overall, too many issues in plain sight here for me to let this through.
NO

❤❤❤❤

This is a very long track, but I can keep things short since the issues I have are pretty straightforward.  First is the vanilla samples and its usage.  Stuff like strings, brasses and other instruments seem to be lacking articulation to say the least, and they come out as extremely artificial.  Second, the mix sounds like it has a ton of highs, a lot of lows but not much when it comes to mid content.  Things like brasses have a very sharp edge, which is something that can happen naturally in a performance, but it seems like every stab here is articulated to be as sharp as possible.  Many other instruments have a piercing quality to them (i.e. the final synth is resonating so hard I had to just take my headphones off). Also, even tho there are lows, almost everything on that range sounds pretty muffled.

I'm not huge on this arrangement either, as it seems too disconnected and I don't feel it's conveying much even though it has a very long runtime, but this is mostly subjective and not my main reason for rejection.
Overall, too many issues in plain sight here for me to let this through.
NO

Wow, what a ride!.  This starts pretty atmospheric and chill, but evolves into some pretty hard-hitting progressive metal over time.  I could nitpick this track here and there but I think the only valid concern for me is the repetition.  The original isn't that long, and this remix extends for almost 10 minutes, so repetition is bound to happen but I think enough was done on the arrangement's side to keep this from feeling on autopilot.  It's almost 10 minutes but it really didn't feel like that, you took a lot of care in the slow buildup, building the motifs block by block until the (extended) climax at around 4:03.  
Great performances and clean production complete the package.
YES