The Orichalcon

You're still beautiful, Larry. The wrinkles add character.

I'll be sure to keep my arrogant, Australian, gay donkey to myself then.

I can pretty much say I don't. That doesn't change the fact that I liked the piece and think it should be posted, and also that I think it's a stupid idea for a judge to be allowed to judge his own work.

Yeah, that's pretty much how I was through that scene too.

The mixer list for the project has been culled. If your name is gone, it's because you haven't sent anything to me for months. If you want your spot back, show me a finished piece or nothing. I'm not going to let people block a spot on the list where others could potentially be actually finishing some work. The only exception is Rexy, who no longer has the means to finish her piece. I removed her from the list because I felt the last WIP she sent me wasn't up to par for the final version. To interested mixers: The project needs more mixers now and as you can see, people such as Mazedude, Analoq and myself have already completely tracks, so we're not going to let this project just peter out, even if it means releasing a project without every track covered. Link to some of your best music in the thread if you're interested.

Yes, three fourths of us know that.

I'm not too familiar with your music outside your FF7 remix on the site, and yet I still think this is above the bar in regards to our guidelines. However I think voting NO on your own mix is an awfully pretentious thing to do. If you don't want it posted, then take the thread down. Otherwise let the other judges vote on your mix properly.

The instrumentation here is so weak, this needs some serious beefing up. The beats are all right in the context of the mix, but along with the instruments, they could be much punchier. I agree with bgc most on this one. A few years ago this would've been insta-awesome-postage. Your arrangement is very enjoyable to me, lots of interesting and crazy things going on all over the place. But the way it's produced is just flat and uninteresting. The piece keeps this simple tone right the way through. No stand-out sections, virtually no shifts in the dynamics of the piece. I wouldn't call this mix simplistic. The arrangement would've taken some time to program. But the way the mix sounds is where it's simplistic. You need to work on accentuating different parts of the mix, beefing the overall sound up to really get the listener involved. Right now, this one is sitting in a WIP-phase for me. You've done the arrangement, now work on mastering the track to its full potential. NO

This is such an awesomely happy sounding track. I dunno how people can complain about the samples. They're perfect for what they're doing in the mix. Everything balances together almost perfectly. I actually liked the french horn. I think there's a bit of war-bias against the French going on here, go figure. Anyway, arrangement is great, soundscape is great. Fix the glitch and we're ready to go. YES

And new episode aired: South Park - Mystery of the Urinal Deuce (Link to episode download) Probably not the funniest episode, but it was still good. I was waiting to see where they were headed with it and pleased with the ending. Also, toilet humour. Can't go wrong with that.

I've heard this remix before somewhere. I dunno if I pre-judged it for ambient or not. But it's very familiar. Eitherway, this is more like what a trance remix should sound like. All the sounds are good, including the synths and not just the beats like other trance mixes tend to end up like. You've rearranged the source well enough. There could probably be a little more variation in there, but it's trance so you have to expect repetativeness (Note: I'm not making exceptions for genre. There is enough rearrangement here to classify this piece as a remix.) This is a YES from me.

Beautiful arrangement. If only you could get your guitar sounding crisper. Right now it's very flat, needs to be far sharper in the higher frequencies to really accentuate those higher notes. I think I hear you saying something at 2:13 in the background, careful not to speak when a mic is recording. Edit: Since been told it's not a voice, but a fret slip or something. Not that it really matters. The production is the only thing stopping this from blowing me away. The arrangement is subtle, but I can hear both sources in there. Suteki Da Ne in particular is very subtle, but once you hum the theme along with the remix, it becomes apparent where the ideas have settled. I'm going to borderline YES this. I think the sound could be far better, but for where it sits, the arrangement is good and it's a sad and relaxing remix to listen to.

Sounds like a cover to me. This is the kind of thing the Black Mages might attempt to make, and they'd probably do a much better job of it, but there are five of them, as opposed to one guy here. There are a couple of little changes here and there, but the arrangement is essentially the same. Even if you fixed up the rather bad production issues with this piece, it'd still be rejected for being too close to the source. Last suggestion is, if you don't know how to program drums, either get a drummer to play for you properly, or get someone else to program them for you. These drum patterns really are pretty lame, generic rock beats. NO

Haha, mix starts off sounding like the theme from M.A.S.H. Enjoying the off-tune sound personally. Gives it an old-fashioned sound where one wouldn't expect everything to be pristine-studio production. It rarely gets bad enough to 'cause the mix to sound bad. There are a couple of "cringe" moments, but it quickly recovers to the point where I start to assume it's intentional. The pan flute that comes in after 3:00 is pretty. This sounds like the theme for a lonely pirate now or something. The transition at 3:46 was only awkward because of those three music-box notes. If you doused them, it'd be a smooth transition. No reason to reject this mix. It's a beautiful work of arrangement, and the sound quality isn't anywhere near bad enough to reject. YES

I hate these stupid temporary host sites. "Please wait 45 seconds while we spam your computer with ads." Please fuck off and die, temporary-host site webmasters. Anyway as for the song. It starts off very abruptly with the main melody from the source. Can't say I'm really enjoying the sound quality here. It sounds like it's been recorded with a microphone in a cathedral. That being said, I enjoyed the arrangement for the most part. The harpsichord was a nice idea that works really well in the background. Biggest problem I have is that violin, which just dominates the mix from the word go. It wouldn't be too bad if you built up to it, but it's right at the beginning and right through to the end. Give something else a go in there so we don't get sick of it. I understand it's a creative choice, but the piece could be much more interesting if you thickened things up a little towards the end. That being said, I think this one could be posted with a little more work. Give it a proper intro, give the quality a bit of a touch up and maybe this could be passed. I'm enjoying the attention to detail with the instrumentation in the background, especially from 1:30 and on. Anyway, this is a borderline NO from me. Touch up the tidbits and I'll pass it.

New episode summary is up: Episode 1009: "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce" The world’s biggest conspiracy of all time will finally be uncovered when Eric Cartman exposes the true culprit behind the September 11th attacks.

Was a great episode. Season 10 is back on track.

You can download the episodes legally for free after they air. May I ask where? On that site you linked to perhaps, 'cause i don't see anything there. www.getsouthpark.com is the latest place to host them after they air (in connection with www.southparkx.net) Or you can grab the episodes from a torrent site where they usually pop up quickly. I get all mine from southparkx.net though. They're usually up within an hour or two of it airing.

You can download the episodes legally for free after they air.

The old thread appears to have disappeared. New episode this Wednesday. "Make Love, Not Warcraft" There's a preview over at Southparkstudios.com (just click the episode name.) I'm looking forward to hopefully a better second half of the 10th season of South Park.

OK, since there were some problems with the mix and we were requested by Larry to go back and retry the ending, we did just that but went a lot further by adding some more stuff, changing some things and bringing in the lovely pixietricks to add some backing vocals to the mix. It's different enough now that I think it needs a revote. Details and link to the new mix are in the first post.

While the arrangement isn't too engaging, the ideas are all right in bringing separate themes together. If you extended on the drum programming and made it more than a simple drumkit programmed somewhat is less creative than the initial sources. Your production isn't too hot either, flange might sound cool but when it's one flange effect played over a single repeating pattern most of the way through, it gets old fast and sounds noobish. It you want to actually take this one about 10 steps further and try to organise a proper arrangement with solid production, this could be good. But right now, it sounds like WIP phase #0.05 MEIN LEBEN! (no.)

The production in general is all right, but some of the synths in this are a little too raw and loud for the over-all sound of the mix, as though they slipped through the compression cracks. The beats sound good and are repetitive, which I'd expect anyway. The arrangement isn't engaging at all. This is another of those trance mixes that doesn't really try to engage the listener with an outstanding arrangement, but instead tries to rely on good sounds and production and beats to carry the piece through. Don't get me wrong that the arrangement is good here, and it's enjoyable in a background music scene, but does it pass the OCR bar? I'd have to say, no it doesn't. The beats are good, but the rest of the track sounds bland, and as much as I'm going to get a load of shit from the trance public over this, you can't let the beats carry the mix through. As zirc said, you use the same sounds right the way through the mix, and even the beats become repetitive. The switch-up at 2:10 was welcome but was executed poorly in my opinion. The detuned synths that you've used sound quite lame in comparison to the overall soundscape you had built up to this point. And the jabby bass-synth sounds way too raw and loud, giving it a newbish sound that is most unwelcome. The rest of the mix from there is carried by the beats, no question. There's no melody at all from the last minute which is unforgiving for any piece of music that's only 4 minutes long. NO

This is sort of borderlining between having a great soundscape and a really awful one. At times it sounds like you've set up an almost perfect balance of sound and the mix is going to really shine, but then things get really cluttered or spacey and the balance is ruined. As Malcos mentioned, the drums are repetitive. You have a great tone set up there, but stop the loops and set up the variation so the good-sound doesn't wear off on us before the end of the song. I'm not too keen on the reliance of that sharp string staccato sample + delay. It fits, but it sounds tacked on, rather than artistically laid out. Maybe consider mixing it with a long-note soundfont sample at times. NO

You should be proud to show off your stomach. Besides, 6'3 isn't so bad. Feel for Karl (Bladiator) who is 6'7.