The Orichalcon

Never heard the starcraft soundtrack before. I like that source though, good mild rock with a flowing melody. As for this mix. Starting off with a solo FL Slayer is never a really good idea. That guitar sounds so fakey and bad, although it's composed in an interesting way, not really the bad whiney sound one would usually hear from FL Slayer. I think you're gating the FL Slayer in the background there, it's an interesting sound that works rather well. Probably the peak of the sound you can get from Slayer. Anyway, the beats in this mix are as basic as they come, it's really lacking any power or interest. You need to work on getting some better samples or just utilising the ones you have a little better. I can hear the source in here in the piano, but to be honest, going from a real rock track with good guitars and drums in it, and then using a fake guitar to remix it is kind of taking a backwards step that is never likely to work. (I could be proven wrong, but not here.) NO

Well this mix is all about the arrangement really. It's not my type of music, but it oozes unconventional creativity. The percussion has a realistic room reverb on it, but it doesn't feel like the piano and sax have the same level of reverb, make it sound a little too obvious exaggerated. But it's nothing serious. The arrangement is all over the place, but it keeps on flowing along, never really stumbling or losing focus on the melody. The piano and bass plod along with those jazzy chords and offbeat notes respectively. The sax sounds realistic enough and I love the buildup around 0:45, it really gets the mix kicking. In the end there's nothing wrong so to say with the mix. The arrangement is unconventional and creative. It's something I wouldn't be comfortable with discouraging, so to say. A lot of people would find enjoyment in the type of mix. And with respect to the source material(s), it's a creative lounge-music take on it which never really errs from the focus at any point. Too difficult to describe. In other words, I can't find a reason to no this. YES

Okay, to start with this mix sounds a little too loud for the type of mix presented here. I think the strings and the drums in particular could afford to be gentler. The drums have a powerful sound to them that just isn't necessary in a mix of this stature. The string sample kills most of this mix for me. The attack on the mix is too slow at times to make the fast note changes, and yet it's too fast for some of the longer notes. Some more clever volume automation on those probably would have done wonders for the sound of the lead strings. I think the sharpness of the strings also detract from the overall gentle sound of the mix. They could afford to either have a little reverb over them, or to be accompanied by another string instrument, like perhaps a cello. However, these are my only real problems with the mix. The sound of the mix is generally quite good. The accoustic guitar is programmed relatively well to sound realistic enough, while some of the strumming sounds out of pattern for your typical strumming rhythm, it's not too much of a distraction. The piano could probably have been a little less sharp so as to not distract from the guitar and strings. The arrangement when compared to the original has some creative differences. The accoustic guitar is the most obvious example of this. I believe the strings could have been a little more complex than the one-and-two-note-at-any-given-time melody line we get through most of the mix. The key shift a little after halfway through this mix sounds quite nice and came out of the blue to surprise me here as well. Overall, the sound of this mix is pleasing to the ear, but there's always those little demons saying that this could be better. I think in it's current form it's just passable, however this could easily be a lot better than it is right now. I'll approve it through for now with a borderline pass, but I wouldn't be too unhappy if either this was rejected or if Roe himself took the initiave to address these issues to a further extent. YES

Nice bubbly sounds. As the mix kicks in, the samples used sound pretty basic. The whistly thing that kicks in at 0:36 is loud, it actually made me jump when it came in. There's a celesta or marimba or something note at 1:04 that's even more LOUD than the whistly lead, it happens again at 1:32. Tone that stuff down, you're going to blow my ears out. The percussion in this just doesn't sit as percussion. It's just hi-hats tapping the same thing over and over and over. Please, alternate, bring in some drums, breakbeats, anything... except claps. Overall, the sound of this mix is generally pleasing, but the levels on the instruments are really unbalanced, and the overall sound is just very basic. I'd recommend working on bringing the sounds back to a more pleasing level, and working on some much more creative percussion to accompany the piece. NO

Source: http://www.zophar.net/psf/DewPrism_psf.rar - Track 4 - Pass Through the Forest Some creative work here. Starts off with some light white noise and reverse-sounds, not sure what they are, some sound like bells, while others almost sound guitarish. The sinewave playing the arpeggios in the background when the drums and melody come in are a nice touch. Unfortunately for Trev, I have to say that the drums are still a little on the suck side. They're subdued, and while they're programmed creatively, the samples used are basic and never really relate themselves to a mix relatively well. In the thicker sections of the mix, it's not too noticeable, but in the less complex sections, especially at the beginning, the basic sound is noticeable. Just a nitpick though. In terms of arrangement, after listening through the source most of this is adopted straight accross from the source. I think you're using a guitar for the lead, and it's quite bland and subdued, which is what this mix suffers from overall. It needs to be more powerful, rather than keeping this low and subdued tone for the majority of the mix. The blunt sound is an issue too, it needs to be much sharper in the lead sections. The changeup at 3:30 sounded like it could be interesting, but you're pretty much repeating ideas relying on that sine arpeggios too much. I think if this was taken back and reworked to get a more powerful and crisp overall sound, building up to different overall dynamic levels, you'd have a really nice and inspiring piece here. But as it is, it's quite dull, over-reliant on the sine waves and just not standing out as an amazing example of rearrangement. Also, the soundtrack from this game is also very nice. Never heard it before this, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. NO

Now this is a very cool and subdued mix. The quality is pretty darn good as it gives a good atmospheric sound to the mix. The problem here is that the synths used sound a little too basic for the type of mix it is. They're utilised extremely well, but they sound the same all the way through, and I think some creative effects on the rhythm synths as well as the lead synth could have made this far more enjoyable to listen to, and perhaps even pass-able. As it is, this is pretty repetative though, and at 2:44 it needs to have more creative arrangement. The ending isn't even a real ending, it's pretty much the theme played right up to the last moment with a quick 2 second fade-out. Doesn't give the mix the credit it deserves. Generally, this just sounds incomplete. It has room for more work, more elaboration, and more creative effects. As it is, it's pretty pleasing to the ear, but it just needs more. NO

Pretty cool sounding mix here. But most of that is tied directly to the source material in question. The guitar is pretty cool sounding. But this falls under "cover" for me in the sense that the beat and bass are the same as the original. Maybe if this had build up into something a little heavier with some more original work that lead away from that general beat would be acceptable creativity in terms of the arrangement. Sound quality is good, just needs to be more complex. The generic beats really are the killer touch here. Keep it up, it's a cool sounding mix in general, just not quite there. NO

The fakey guitar in the source actually sounds better than the guitar sound in this remix. It's hard to tell, but I think the bassline is clipping, need gray or someone to listen to that with some more uber-equipment than I have available. This mix is just LOUD. Everything sounds just way too loud, even the strings playing the chords could be toned down a little. You have some cool delay effects on your guitar at times, but the flat and loud sound you have on it kills the point of listening to it to start with. Apart from the LOUDness of the mix, the arrangement is cover material. There are some cool ideas in the playing of the guitar, and especially in the effects, but overall it just doesn't cut it. Too short and not up to par on the quality. NO

So a club mix of the Gagazet music. I had my doubts before I listened to the piece. The lengthy intro didn't really quench my doubts either. When the melody came in at 1:12 I wasn't too fond of the delayed sound the lead synth had. It's also quite subdued in the mix, it could have been a bit louder for me. As the beat builds in, the actual sound of the mix builds up to a much nicer level as we get some sweet key changes around the Gagazet theme. The section at 2:40 is very sweet, with the stuttery high synth. Builds into the rest of the mix nicely from 3:14 with some sweet automated filtering. The strings that come in at 3:58 I feel could have been a little sharper and stronger in terms of the powerful sound the mix had here. Two-note chords could have worked a little better, but just a little gripe. The lead synth at 5:08 is just to die for. I never would have thought that a trance version of the piece could upstage the strings and bagpipe that played that melody in the original, but this does a wonderful job. I agree with larry that taking the beat out of the mix from 6:02 left the rest of the mix sounding rather cluttered, but it's a transition between sections that ultimately could probably not have been avoided, and doesn't sound that bad anyway. The mix is taken out in true trance style with a generally downbuilding of each introduced element with a monotonous bassline and 4/4 beat playing with your traditional trance breakbeats. Ronso very pleased with mix. YES

Wicked Guitar to start with. We quickly get into the grunge of the mix with some pretty crisp sounding drumwork, good rhythm guitar, bass is good. The drums programming consists of basic rock patterns but they work well. The vocals in this are in tune which passes the first test. The transition from note to note in the vocals are a little questionable, though it's not that bad (just a little gripe.) I also think the vocals could have used some more creative vocal effects over them in sections to give them a less dry sound. ie: running them through some filters and EQ'ing. I'm getting some clipping on the vocal effects at the very end of the piece, though it's nothing major. The Gerudo Valley theme was utilised well in the mix, with the vocals taking care of the majority of the main melody themselves. Not much else to say, this passes all the tests with flying colours. While I'm personally not fond of the poprock sound it has, I have no gripes with the way it's been utilised here. Nice work. YES

Source: http://www.zophar.net/psf/Chrono_Cross_psf.rar - 114 Shadow Forest This is your first official remix, eh? It's pretty good, creative work. It starts out with some rather creative ideas. The choir font sounds kind of basic, the harmonica that comes in sounds neat, the piano is a little too loud, and the Koto (I'm assuming that's a koto) playing in the background gives the mix a nice eastern sound. From 0:30 we head into some very basic work though, the piano sounds dry and fake. And no matter how hard you try to make it, a bottle of pills just generally won't make good percussion by itself, and this is no exception. Playing the Sims box like a bongo drum was a cool idea, but it doesn't lend itself to become a geuine percussion beat for the piece, but rather an annoyance. The guitar that comes in is dry too, and the music box is too loud. The flutes somehow manage to be even louder than the piano and we get clipping at 1:40 as a result. The dry plucking after that is nice, but once again it's just too dry to sound realistic. The harmonica is a really nice touch too. The mix just cuts off at the end as well. Overall, this mix is suffering from some poor production quality and a lack of complex arrangement. The ideas in it are interesting in themselves, and the harmonica is a nice touch. I'd recommend going back and working on the arrangement of the mix. Get yourself some proper percussion to replace the sims box and bottle of pills, and shape a proper basis to the mix, then work what you have over it in a more pleasing manner, adjust the volumes and work on making the instruments sound less dry and fake. Otherwise, I'm pretty pleased with this as a first mix, it shows creativity, which is always a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stale room. Keep up the work. NO

Man, Nobuo uses this theme in almost every credits-style piece of music he makes in the latest games and other tracks he does. It was even in Advent Children. As for the track, it starts out pretty much the same style that Nobuo himself went in his latest versions with the orchestral sound, except this is much poorer quality, and launches into some pretty basic sounding quality. I have to agree with larry that the high encoding was a little bit too generous to the sound quality of this mix. The arrangement is interesting though, it sounds like you're just lacking experience in this field, with some work and effort, better samples and effects, I'm sure you'll come up with some better remixes for the site. Keep it up. NO

The intro is still pretty good and creative. The transition into the mix is a problem though. It does have a click as it jumps into it. The tone of the mix changes too as the hiss comes in in the main section too. That transition should be easily fixable. Rather than pasting things together, do it all within the one audio file, and create a proper transition. The actual mix is great. I have no issues with anything but that transition into the mix. It's easily overshadowed by the playing of this mix, which is reminiscent for me of Stravinsky on a less dissonant level. It has that quiet and creepy sound to it. My judgement of the arrangement and material from the first version of this still stands, it sounds great and it's well done. While it's not the most well produced mix and doesn't sound as clean as others on the site, this one has genuine creativity and the balls to pull it off well with the live playing and recording. YES

Drums are pretty flat. Either one of the piano or the flute playing together is badly detuned, and it's not a good sound. Yes this is bordering on a rip. It's a very basic rip too, as we get repetition the same as the original, the drums are basic, the string are basic, the piano and flute are basic too. Next time, you need to be much more creative than this, come up with your own arrangement and style. 'FRAID NOT

Great source choice from the game mate, I love Sam & Max: Hit the Road. The overcompression on this is way too apparent, whenever the brass kicks into gear the volume of the percussion drops to about a third of the raw level. The percussion itself is way too loud compared to the levels on the meat of the mix. The bassline also seems to be a bit punchy compared to the brass levels. As we get into the mix it sounds a little better. The plop plop of the percussion sounds pretty good, and everything seems to be balanced a little better. The jazz sound of the original theme is apparent, but it's really dysfunctional the way you've mixed it. The percussion doesn't really fit the mix at all. The brass comes in and just plays any old thing rather than sticking to a melodic notation. As I said before, when we get into the mix it sounds much nicer than the beginning. The bassline and percussion meld together nicely, and the flute that comes in playing doug's theme is nice, though it could alternate on the theme a little more rather than playing it note for note. This mix is just lacking a professional sound. You need to ditch the compression. There just isn't enough here to warrant such levels. Scrap the dysfunctional start to the mix and work on bringing out that sound that you have later in the mix. You're on the right track with that. Make it longer, and really get into that groove that you started building in at the end of the mix. NO

Strings are kind of flat, the woodwind is brought in rather blandly, it comes into some pretty note for note flute playing from the selection screen. From 1:30 we have a trumpet I'm assuming plunking away with staccato notes in the background as a clarinet plays the overworld theme. We get into a more complex area after that, but it's pretty much the same as the overworld theme from the archive. Overall it's not too bad, I just think the arrangement could have been more creative and more complex in the beginning of the piece. The production doesn't sound very realistic. It might have fit well in the game, but it needs to sound a bit more realistic, so to speak, as there are no confines in the quality of mastering in the world of remixing as opposed to mixing for a game on the SNES. NO

Pretty creative ideas here. Nothing too unique, but nothing bad either. Thankyou for providing some tetris nostalgia, but yeah. Bump up the sound quality level to 128 kbps + for future mixes. Overall, we all have different tastes. I thought this was nice, but it's not passable according to the site standards. NO

Love the source tune, cool boss music. Onto the mix. I'm not digging the piano at the beginning. The effects over it don't work too well, I think bringing back some of the dry sound would work better. There are some cool ideas in this. Overall it flows pretty smoothly, and with some better production I could see this making a suitable replacement track. Your rock drumwork is very good, great breaks, great programming, you know your stuff. The actual sound of the drums is a little basic, I think it could fare well with a crunchier and crisper sound compared to the rest of the mix. The synth lead in this sound like it's been compressed too much. It needs to be crisper and less hissy, so to say. There's not much more to say that hasn't already be said. I agree that this is enjoyable to listen to in terms of arrangement, and definately works well as a remix, it just needs to be mastered better. More dynamic contrast, as Vig said, should take care of the flat and "loud" sound the mix has. NO

It's probably a bad idea to leave "Nobuo Uematsu" in the tags under Author in a remix, you're meant to put your mixing name there. This mix reminds me a lot of Sefiros' style of music. Playing the theme's from FF7 at weird intervals with strong drums carrying the timing of the mix. Overall this is a pretty cool sound you have going. You haven't switched up the piano very much through the start of the mix with the Edge of Despair melody, which would be a good idea. I was expecting the strings to start building up to a stronger sound as the mix progress as well. Bringing in other string instruments like a Cello can strengthen the overall sound of the mix. I'm not liking the midmix fadeout, it's a better idea to just create a transition between themes. After the fade out, we get a 30 second drum solo, followed by drums and strings. I'm expecting some bagpipes to come in over a marching beat like this, they'd fit in well too. After the strings come in for a while, they back out for another drum solo, then Aeris' theme comes in with some woodwind playing the melody. This doesn't alternate much for the rest of the mix. Overall, you need to alternate your sounds more. The drums in this keep a constant sound for the full 7 minutes, we don't break away from that, and that can be really tiring, especially with the reverb levels on this. You need to work more on bringing out the melodies more too. Strings, piano and a flute aren't enough, especially when they're just playing the same thing over and over rather than changing things up. You could easily squash this down into a 4 minute mix by scrapping the fadeouts and fadeins, getting rid of the drum solo's and working on some proper transitions. Just work on those melodies and you're right as rain. The quality of the mix was pretty good, nothing too loud, nothing too soft, which is a great start. NO

Sounds pretty cool to me, the way it starts out. But weird loud frequencies aren't necessary to scare the listener, I just find them annoying. The vocals were kind of bad. They were cheesy when you could hear them, and way too loud (to the point of clipping) in sections. The actual music is flat behind the distorted noises, very quiet and hard to hear. We don't get any real form of music until around 1:40. Bring everything forward so we can hear it. Your drums sound like basic rock loops and breaks to me, maybe considering giving them a meaner and deeper sound. Much less reverb over everything, this sounds like it's being played down a long hallway. Did I just hear a "George of the Jungle" riff around 2:55? Pretty cool ideas here, but the production is really really bad. You can get this type of atmosphere going while still having the majority of the mix crisp and clear so the listener can actually hear it properly. One thing that bands do when actually recording a live performance is take down the audience cheer levels during the sections when you want to hear the music, and bringing them out in the quieter sections. The way the Facing the Spider music came in was pretty creative. Overall you have some cool ideas here, but this would be more a cover you'd play on stage to impress doom fans at a live concert, rather than something you'd submit here too successfully. NO

and "my baby" I agree that the vocals make the song. The lyrics aren't important, it's the way they sound that matters.

Love the source for this, first time I've even heard of Uniracers, very cool. Onto the mix. The blank noise at the beginning of the mix can be chopped off in a wave editing program. The rhythm guitar to this is pretty sloppy. The cymbal hit is way too loud and piercing. It sounds like there's some creative guitar playing hidden in the background underneath all this noise. I really recommend getting your production issues down and taken care of before considering a mix "Finished" so to say. As Harmony suggested, have a look around the remixing forum. Also if possible, post your mixes up in the Work in Progress forum to get help and opinions on them from other mixers. NO

Source: http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/n64/YSTitle.mid - Yoshi's Story http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/n64/Yoshi.mid - Yoshi's Theme There's a very light hiss over this track, it's not too noticeable at lower volumes, but it could be very easily taken care of in a wav editing program. The piano playing is otherwise great, it's live so the piano is real. The tempo of the remix is fairly fast and it's played superbly from what I can tell. Gentle almost Christmas Carol sounding piano to begin with, and lots of good clear forte piano in the more pronounced sections. At around 1:50 I even got a Chips Challenge vibe from the way the piano was played. As soon as the mix starts we can hear the title screen theme brought in softly with the piano, and that plays until 0:53 when Yoshi's Theme is brought on, playing those groovy parts on the lower chords of the piano from the original. Love that sound. The Yoshi's theme part continues until the Karl eventually mixes the two themes together after the 2 minute mark to create a very creative and upbeat mix of the two themes. No complaints here, wonderful work of arrangement. YES

It's not meant to be "DOOM", it's a remix. And on that note, not everyone is going to agree with you on what "DOOM" is.

There is a program you can download that allows you to play it on newer computers under XP or linux. PM me if you're interested so we don't clutter DJR's thread here.