CHz

When the source material is used in this mix, it's almost verbatim from the source. There's a nice little melodic riff at 0:34 and 3:16, the vocals behind 2:16-2:40 are arranged, and the use of Chrono Trigger at 2:52-3:09, 3:47-3:54, and 4:13-4:19 are good, but every other connection is directly from Corridors of Time. The guitar and choral melodies, bassline, and chime accompaniment are direct covers. However, altering the original material isn't the only acceptable arrangement method. The instrumentation's all been changed, giving the piece a whole new feel. Further, the only time the mix is a direct sound change from the original is the intro. Throughout the mix, there are new percussion and vocal bursts as accompaniment, in addition to original guitar work in a couple of places. 0:09-0:27 and 1:39-2:15 are mostly original material. Even though so many lines from your mix come directly from the original song, there's definitely some degree of personalization. In the end, though, I don't think there's enough to balance out the direct usage. As far as the production goes, your percussion and guitar are excellent. The vocals are the weakest part of the mix in terms of sound quality, but I thought they blend in well with the rest of the track. It's really the amount of arrangement that's causing me to reject this, not any fault of the sound. Add more interpretation of the source instead of copying it directly, especially in 0:27-1:39 and 3:10-3:47. The arrangement is good in a couple of places, but try to keep it at that level through the entire mix. NO (resubmit)

The production is definitely better with this version, but you still have room for improvement. I was relieved to find that you iced the claps and mixed up the patterns, but the new perc is too weak. There's no real reason for that kick to be panned left for the entire mix, and it's especially annoying from 0:30 to 1:31 when there isn't a whole lot going on to drown it out. Your sequencing's still mechanical, especially in the piano. In fact, the sequencing sounds worse in this version because the piano is out in front for a good portion of the mix. On the plus side of the production, this mix was a big improvement in terms of balancing the sounds. Especially at the end, the panning was a big help in keeping everything clear. EQ is another thing that can help so make sure that your sounds aren't all occupying the same frequencies and blending into each other. The arrangement is improved from the old version, but you've still got a ways to go. There's interpretation to an extent, and then a ton of repetition of that material. The break at 2:05 was a good idea, but it didn't flow well from the previous material and the interpreted piano that comes in at 2:21 clashes with it fiercely. Try to make what you already have in the mix more interpretive instead of just adding more material. This is a definite improvement over the last version, but you've still got some distance to cover. Use the ReMixing and WIP forums to get other comments and tips for how to step your stuff up to the next level. NO

I'd find having to reboot into XP every time I want to listen to a USF more aggravating than annoying. Getting dat Parallels or VMWare instead of Boot Camp would be a more acceptable solution, but honestly the whole thing just boils down to me being hosed no matter which way you slice it because I have a PPC Mac. Not that it particularly matters if you just call the UNIX guys, but ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/AppName.crash.log for application crash logs and /Library/Logs/panic.log for kernel panic logs.

I actually rate the lack of a Mac USF player as a severe gayance.

The one original track from the game, nice. I can definitely see some AnSo-groove working for that one.

Excellent set of games to start off with, I have to say. Even picked one I've never heard of before (Almana no Kiseki). If you'd like some track names for the seven-track Treasure Master NSF, these are taken from in game and the manual: 1: Title 2: World 3 / Microchip (World 5) 3: The Moon (World 2) 4: The Islands (World 1) 5: Prize World (World 6) 6: World 4 7: World Complete Dead sexy music, that. Also, I too was under the impression that the Zillion anime and game were made concurrently. The game was released a month after the first episode aired, which is far too short for a cartridge game to be developed and published, so it has to have been planned and started some time before airing. Plus, the Zillion guns in the anime are HI-TECH versions of the Light Phaser, which came out before both the game and anime, and Opa-Opa was a character, so the anime was clearly developed with Sega in mind.

Arrangement isn't too bad. I think the melodic interpretation could be bumped up a bit, because you've got a personalized take on the melody with the synth, a straight guitar cover, original solos, and then just repeats of the first two melody sections. Major props not taking the easy way out by going with a full copy-paste job for the ending, though; among other things, I thought easing up on the accompaniment 2:00-2:10 was a good development idea. I don't have anything to add to the balance criticisms that hasn't already been covered. I think there could definitely be more dynamic contrast in this. Maybe it's part of the style to hit maximum overdrive from the start and never let up, but I think this could be a lot better if there were more significant changes. The ending in particular starting at 2:10 could be epic, especially when the backing strings hit at 2:20, but right now it doesn't really stand out at all from the rest of the mix. 0:59-1:19 is another section that just seems to have all power sucked away because it's so flat from start to finish. I'm up for passing as many Cave Story remixes as possible, so put the polish on the production on this one and send it back. Decent stuff so far. NO (resubmit)

You're not welcome at the next MAGFest. (I gave it 6.) (Larry gave it 5.)

Love the source melody. I mentioned after listening to your WIP that the mix seemed pretty liberal, so the source breakdown is much appreciated. Like Larry, I think that the break you mentioned at 1:25-1:40 was too liberal, but the xylophone at the ending was more than enough to put you over the top as far as source usage is concerned. Glad to see I don't have to NO this because of that. And really that's the only thing I could possibly NO this on. 2:45-3:16 sounds pretty cluttered, and the xylophone could be less mechanically sequenced (especially at the end), but other than that, yeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhh YES

I've had this mix since you submitted it to VGMix. You've been on my radar since I heard your absolutely wonderful New Pacific (Reprise) mix, and I like this one a lot too. I'm not going to go too deeply into the production issues, because Larry hit, well, everything. The ending is a little better, but it still cuts off. Piano could use more work, but it's by no means the worst I've ever heard. 1:28-1:43 is really cluttered; in comparison to the rest of the track, it sticks out like a sore thumb, and not in a good way at all. Overall, these aren't really major gripes, and I can't point to a single one of them and say, "this is definitely holding the track back." What is holding it back is a combination of all of those factors and the shortness and closeness of the arrangement. I'm not trying to discount your arrangement, because in addition to all the additive stuff, there are some other touches, like 0:44-0:58 and the original break immediately thereafter. However, even for something this short, I still feel there's room for more interpretation of the source, even if it's just mixing up the piano riff more. Three or four problem areas in a two minute mix are much more noticeable than they would be spread over three or four minutes. Things don't necessarily have to be perfect for a mix this short, but the package has to be put together pretty tightly, and I just see too much room for improvement with this one. If this doesn't pass the rest of the panel, please revisit it, because I know you have the goods to get it on OCR in some form. A few production and arrangement tweaks would easily get this over my bar. NO (resubmit)

That one guy submitted With teh Quickness. Maybe you'll get lucky!

I like the intro. Starts off very similar to the original, in terms of melody and instrumentation. A minute in and everything's occupying pretty much the same space; the piano, strings, and pads are all mushing into each other. Nothing really holding the track down, either. Percussion is pretty weak and there's no bass. Ugly at 1:54. The extra piano line stacked on top of the loop just sounds messy in the track. More synths come in playing original lines at 2:21 and 2:44, also taking up the same space. Everything is now pretty much indistinct at this point. And this amorphous blob of sound just repeats for a whole minute until 3:52. Give your instruments space to breathe. The arrangement sticks pretty close to the original in the beginning. There's definitely some interpretation, but the structure and sound are nearly the same. However, after 1:54, there's nothing new in source usage except for a nice little flare at 2:14-2:16; everything else after that point is additive. There's nothing wrong with additive material, but there's not really a whole lot of that either when you get down to it. I'd like to see more interpretation. NO

I'd YES it.

I like them a lot. I noticed that, for composers, there's an option to sort by Japanese name. However, you can't sort by Japanese name on any other fields that have Japanese names; I'm thinking mainly of game name here. Was that facility left out intentionally? Not that I really have a pressing need to sort anything by Japanese name any time soon, but it seemed a little odd that you could only do that for composers.

Yeah, they're definitely nice mixes, but not of the first boss theme. Antimatter's a cover of the stage 1 theme, and Saber Bird of the stage 3 theme.

I couldn't hear that spring Larry mentioned at first, but after turning up my volume all the way, there's a really faint sproing right after the harp plays the second note at 1:51. Dunno what the cause of that is. Not a killer for the mix at all, but I'd like to see that fixed if possible before the piece goes up. Anything more to add? Not really. Very solid interpretation; you did a great job of arranging the original piece. Source usage is there throughout, and your writing's all good. The low areas are rather soft, but you go nice and loud at the beginning and end, so no problem there. Enough work was put into the samples so that nothing sounds really bad. Really just an excellent job overall. Pretty easy call. YES

Like DS, copying my vote because everything applies to this too: This half felt a little more cohesive than the first, but it's still nowhere near enough. NO

The FF6 ending theme is a great piece in game. Fits the ending sequence absolutely wonderfully, recapping a whole bunch of themes as the characters <<spoiler>>. Outside of the game? Absolutely terrible case of medleyitis. Song one, song two, song three, song four, etc. And, unfortunately, your mix hasn't particularly improved upon that at all. Arrangement of the pieces is really coverish as well. There's some melodic interpretation in a few places, but most of the writing is directly from the original. I didn't think your drum writing was really that bad at all, but they did feel a little weak. Guitar's pretty good. Beyond that, there's really not much else to speak of in the track. Most of everything else is just backing up the guitar. But really, the problem is the minimal arrangement and medleyitis. I'm not sure if it would be possible at all to arrange the ending theme and get it onto OCR. It seems like tackling the whole thing could only lead to awful medleyitis as it does in this mix. A better approach would probably just be picking a few individual sources and putting them together into a medley instead of taking on the whole thing. NO, but I'm keeping this, because it is a nice guitar cover.

Definitely big fakeyness in the sax and steel drum, but really the big problem is that this just runs around in circles. Unrelenting beat, no volume variety, and just a general constancy in everything make this one strut on by without making an impact. It's just there for a while, and then it's not. 2:26 could've been a good step in a new direction, but then we just get the same old stuff over again with more reverb and few deeper drum hits in the loop. Arrangement could use more filling out. I thought the approach on the original was good, but pretty much the whole remix is different mostly/completely original riffs over the same looped arrangement of the source. It all gets pretty boring when you realize that after a minute or so in, there's nothing new for the rest of the track. Variety is the key here. Mix up those background loops, be more interpretive of the source (riffing on Katamari on the Rock's melody would be a good idea), and make the remix feel like it's not walking in place. NO

Transitions are pretty lame, but I'm not feeling much medleyitis as I think I should be. There's a nice progression in the first three sections as the mix gets darker. Surf rock section is the exception and sticks out like a sore thumb; I think this would be better served if the piece just ended at 4:55. The mix just feels logically finished there. Guitar and drum performances could definitely use some tightening up, but at no point are they bad enough to make me go "ew." There are some pretty close calls, especially in the first section, but nothing too terrible. Production has a few odd spots, like the way-too-loud cymbals in the second section, but overall it's fine. Lo-fi isn't a problem, because even though the song isn't clean, it doesn't suffer for it. Pretty close, but the good just barely outweighs the bad. I really like the direction taken in the first five minutes, and that makes up for the rough spots and last section. YES (borderline)

Did you record the track from an emulator or from an actual NES console? Popped the game into an emulator and it sounds exactly like the recording, but the track is sped up compared to the NSF and soundtrack versions. I'm guessing it's just an emulator error, but I've never played the game on a console, so I dunno. Anyway, as I said, there is an NSF, but it has the Japanese name of the game, Hebereke: http://akumunsf.good-evil.net/H/Hebereke.nsf. The game's by Sunsoft, so the same audio crew has worked on other NES games like Batman, Blaster Master, Journey to Silius, etc. Music's by Nobuyuki Hara, Naoki Kodaka, and About SS.

This product meets all applicable company standards and USDA regulations. SHIP IT

Your instrumentation ideas are interesting, but just about nothing locks together at all during the course of the piece. I'll point out 1:08-1:30, 2:15-2:38, and 3:06-4:13 as particularly notable examples of where it just sounds like you've thrown a bunch of things together without really taking time to figure out how you want the piece to sound and where you want it to go. DS said "aimless" and LT said "no sense of musicality"; really, this feels like you had a much of musical ideas, stacked them on top of each other, and called it good with no care at all given to the overall piece. Harsh thing to say, but the problem permeates the whole track from the ground up. There really isn't much more I can say on that besides try to think about how everything fits together. Start simple, practice, and work your way up to bigger and better things. NO

Oh yeah, definitely feeling zirc's tune up. Parts like 0:51-1:12 sound so much better with everything being more clear. Still wish the sax stereo separation wasn't so pronounced, but honestly that was my smallest problem. My other concerns have been satisfactorily addressed. YES