big giant circles

yeah man, looks pretty slick!

I've been blasting through votes tonight, so pardon me for being a little short-winded at this point, but I really enjoyed this mix. Very nice arrangemt, lots of pretty orchestrations with a strong sense of nostalgia. YES

Man, I gotta say, Blake knows how to butter me up. Providing the source breakdown and everything. Pretty short track, my vote will be the same. Breakdown definitely seems to check out. Really nice catchy little piece! I feel like it might have been able to use just a bit more punch in the mastering, but what's in here otherwise is really interpretive, fun, with a really fantastic flow. Lots of smooth chords and textures, and some fun, improv-sounding expansions of the respective source melodies. I feel like this track would be right at home in a Mario Kart game. Pretty easy call here, folks. YES

Haha, I was getting ready to be like "uhhhh..." at first, because I was half expecting a MIDI rip for the first couple measures, but some additional synths/instruments dropped in shortly and dismissed that notion. The vocals were totally unexpected. Definitely helped put the sequencing in better context when they dropped. Vocals themselves sound nice, recorded and enunciated well, and I sort of liked the cross-panning. Well, that being said, they're sadly only a short part of this track. Were they permitted some longevity in the track, I think I could have been more forgiving of some of the other aspects. All in all, a lot of the instrumentation sounded a little flat. The piano wasn't particularly captivating, sounded pretty dry and lo-fi. The drums sound like they're being played in a tin can, and way too spacious. They need less reverb and more control on the individual hits and more EQ. Take the open hat for example, it's way too loud. The synths were pretty dry as well. Overall, the track has a pretty lo-fi, dirty, gritty, not-quite-hip-hop feel to it. Again, would have been better I think if the vocals lasted longer than they did. Pretty cool submission, I hope to hear more from Jetta in the future, I think there's some potential here. As for this track, it incorporates a unique approach, but ultimately suffers from some issues that I only assume are because the remixer might be fairly new to producing. NO

Well, I don't really have any critical gripes as far as the production is concerned. My main red flag encompasses one thing: the length. I'm always a little bit pessimistic when people remix songs specifically stating that it's either a trance mix or else anything regarding being "DJ-friendly" etc. Not because I don't like dance/trance tracks--that's far from true. But rather, because by default these tracks tend to clash with our standards. Traditionally, dance/trance have lengthy intros and outros, and lots of grooving, which is obviously why they're so good for remixing and mashing-up with other tracks, especially by a live DJ. Here at OCR, while we don't mind a degree of repetition, our guidelines generally intend that arrangements are kept fairly concise and direct. There's definitely room for a nice groove, so long as the arrangement is noticeably and distinctly moving forward. Anyway, it took about 1:43 to really get to the first notable melody drop. It's cool to have a lengthy intro, but that's a good chunk of time, probably more than it should be for an OCR. Then, the momentum sort of dies at 2:43. It really felt like the song was ending. And that lasts for almost a good 30 seconds. That could definitely be condensed. Anyway, I think the track is pretty great otherwise, but you see where I'm going. I think a quick uh, "radio edit" I guess would probably be a good way for a resub to go. Basically, just cut out all the unnecessary parts like the 30 seconds of dead-groove, trim the intro a bit, maybe try to cut it down to 4-5 minutes or so and I think you'd be gold. Feel free to PM one of us if you can do those things and I'm sure we can fast-track it back to the panel. Resub

I felt compelled to check out the original votes on the prior version. Gonna quote 'em for mainly my own reference. Having not heard the prior version, as I read these comments, I really feel like they still apply 100% to this version. Dang shame, this is a great track, really fun, bobbing my head/tapping my toe and all that. Highly enjoyable. I just think this mix totally falls outside of what our guidelines are aiming for, though. Basing an entire song (even a short-ish one) on 6 notes (3 really, just repeated and octaved) is kind of--not really what I would call a "ReMix". Not sure what else to tell you guys, really. I had no problem with the track otherwise, I didn't think there was any excessive repetition, there's lots and lots of awesome ear-candy, and the production is clean. But honestly, this may as well just be an original piece as far as OCR is concerned, really. Hope that doesn't sound insulting. I can hear that the melody is derived from the SMB Underground theme, but again, taking 3-6 notes and creating a song based solely on that loop is an uphill battle to the max. Honestly, if you want this thing passable, I honestly don't really see much of a way beyond incorporating some additional SMB melody in there prominently. If you feel inclined, by all means, send this one on back. Otherwise, keep making music regardless. Hate to throw down the dissenting vote, but I don't think it'd be fair to YES this based on our current ReMix criteria.

Yay, a sub with a breakdown! I wish more regular mixers would start doing this--really makes voting go much smoother and faster. Speaking of smooth, this mix is like chocolate butter. Love it. Clean and crisp with lots of slick shiny embellishments. Really liked the glitch/stutters, used sparingly for max effectiveness, IMO. Not sure how I felt about the trumpet at 3:45ish, I didn't dislike it, but I'm not sure it sounded particularly convincing to me. Small gripe considering this is a 98% electronic diddy anyway. Throw this thing up on the front page with pride. YES

For the most part, yeah, this. Griefing would probably not exist if people knew who was doing it. Or at least, there would be far less of it.

I gotta say, I got so pissed tonight that I just had to uninstall the game. I played the most frustrating vs match I've ever played. Everyone's pings were good, but the game was just ridiculous. I repeatedly clipped through survivors as a hunter AND jockey, what would have been a perfect charge was completely disrupted by literally some invisible texture (was an open street, but I just randomly stopped charging and did that staggering thing that he does when he hits a wall, and no, they weren't using explosive ammo), I boomed on 3 survivors in a corner and it didn't register a single one, I later exploded 2 feet away from an incapped survivor, but it didn't register, and as a tank, I punched at a survivor that was backed into a corner and it somehow missed. I mean, I'm not the greatest player, but I'm pretty darn decent at the game, and this was not just "oops, hunter/tank/boomer/etc fail" moments. Definitely brought out the rage-quit in BGC tonight, that's for dang sure. [/rant]

Pretty catchy

Hmmm, the piano sounds very rigid and GM-ish, from the perfectly quantized performance to the note velocities to the chorus-y effect on the piano that I remember old soundblaster cards being able to apply. There is dynamic variation, but you can tell it's being done on the channel, and not on the individual notes. Every note that's being played simultaneously seems to be going at the same velocity. Right around 2:42 where it gets crazy fast, all resemblance to realism is shot I mean, it sounds like meticulous sequencing, but highly at the expense of realism and true dynamic, emotional performance. As I've said before (many times) we don't really mind sequencing, even rigid sequencing if the style calls for it. But this is a solo piano piece (or at least a duet piano piece), and this is a little behind the times in terms of the output quality. Keep at it, just try to alter note velocities here and there and not rely solely on the channel/master volume to provide dynamic or emotional contrast. And it probably wouldn't hurt to use better samples, I know of several free piano soundfonts or VSTs that sound much better/more realistic than the one you're using. And it also wouldn't hurt to spend some time humanizing your sequencing if you're going for an organic tone, like a solo piano. NO

Did Alex do the music for this game? GameFAQs says differently. http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/data/939027.html All I can find is that he was the Audio Director. Maybe he did additional music. Guess we can always ask him, right?

Dunno, sounds like Yahtzee with a new mic to me. Where do the credits allude to someone else? He always throws in quirky stuff at the end, sometimes in 3rd person. His speaking technique sounds exactly the same, it just sounds compressed and EQ'd differently than his former recordings. Also, I liked the subtle Jurassic Park reference. +10 points to the review for that.

iknowrite??

Quite so, old boy!

I'm more of a paladin than a sage, but I'm in a forgiving mood, so I'll forgive your error. Definitely feeling the Blade Runner/Vangelis vibe Vinnie mentioned. Really enjoying the track, production is clean enough, though it seems that the snare (or substiute/equivalent) being panned notably to the left seemed a little odd. I probably did think the drums and sound fx could stand to be just a hair quiter, but no deal breaker there. Otherwise, I'm totally digging the high energy drumwork with the 80's-esque analog pads and timbres. As said, great debut mix, eager to hear more from you down the road, Jude! (tacky as I'm sure it is to you, I'm actually having to exercise restraint from blurting out some sort of cheesy reference to a particular song...) <- that's the nice work guy. it means YES. (And I do in fact realize that you can't resize an emoticon).

Dare I say that this source tune by itself is pretty definitely un-remixable by our standards? Yeah, it is. Cool track, but I mean, there's just no way to identify your 6 minute track as being based solely off a 6 second loop... I'm not saying that I didn't hear the connection, but it's like, honestly, some games just have little stingers, or audio loops to fill out very very brief sections of the game, and they're not exactly intended to be much more than that, stingers or fillers. Just not really meant to bear any melody or distinct characteristics that really lend themselves to remixing. It's a VERY cool song, and I enjoyed it a ton, I'm afraid it just isn't passable by our guidelines, much like an awesomely executed cover track also isn't accepted here. Bummer... Otherwise, I definitely hope to hear more submissions from you in the future Robin!!

lol, 15 MB, really?

I'd say it's not the muddiness that's killing the track, it's the volume. I just don't understand how loudness is not an issue for any of you guys lately. If I record something and it clips from essentially measure 1, and then I render it, most programs will generally limit it to 0.0 db, but crikey, it's going to sound bad. That's what's happening in this track, and it happens in a lot of other tracks that nobody else seems to mind, and if this one ends up getting a bunch more YES's that totally overlook that, I'm going to have to throw out a big huge WTF at the lot of you. I sort of felt the same way about that Langresser track, but this is way worse, as far as the loudness issue goes. There is obvious issues with sound quality resulting directly from the excessive master volume. I refuse to pass this in it's current state. Hate to seem like a douche, but it just really is that bad to me. (Also, I don't mean to sound like I'm picking on you Andrew, I'm just addressing the issue in general.) <3 Now then. As far as the arrangement goes, it's certainly a creative and unique approach, and I definitely admire that. Let me go ahead and get all my gripes out of the way so I can get to the good parts. -Electric guitar tone is pretty thin and not very appealing in general -Not a fan of the cheesy crowd FX. -Volume of the vox is a little inconsistent. For example, 1:41 isn't even audible. -Intonation on the vox kind of wanders in (or at least close to) the red from time to time. -Clutter, clutter, clutter, mostly a direct result from the poor mastering and somewhat-meh mixing. -You really ought to dampen your kick, take off some of the reverb or at least shorten the tail. Now then, the arrangemnt is pretty fun. I'd say this type of music generally isn't my bag, but in spite of that, I found myself really enjoying it, even though it's not something I would think I'd typically enjoy personally, so that should say something, and I'd say you deserve a high five for that, certainly. The connection was obvious and the outcome is fun, so I'm 100% on board with the arrangement. All the flaws are on the execution side, so if you don't care to address a couple of 'em, that'd be absolutely stellar. Most critically, fix the volume, and try to even out your levels before you master it. It's better for a track to be a bit on the quite side than even a bit too loud. RESUB!

Well, he did say it was a cover after all I'm pretty on board with what Vinnie and Andrew have said, unfortunately. Great track, great singing. We just sort of have a kind of legal obligation to not release tracks that are quite so close to their original music. Bummer NO

I'm always a huge fan of so many of the individual sounds/textures that Shaun picks out and uses in his work. Whether they all coincide perfectly or not sometimes remains to be seen, but I'm pretty sure I can honestly say that every single one of his tracks have been filled with tons of individually fascinating sounds and I've enjoyed them a lot. Source melody is pretty simplistic and sparse. Not a whole lot of melody going on, mostly it's a sustained root with some strings initially, and then a crystal/chime arpeggio panning back and forth on repeat until the glockenspiel thing kicks in around 1:05 or so. The remix is definitely a much more upbeat and energetic take on such a mellow tune. The chimes and strings starting out are identifiable enough. I had some difficulties clearly identifying which parts were referencing what later on in the track, simply because as I listened to the source numerous times, it was just kind of difficult to latch onto any particularly outstanding parts besides the sustained bass note, the chime arpeggio, and the minimalistic melody. And since there's so much more going on in the remix, it just really sent my analytical brain on a bit of an easter-egg hunt. Here's the deal, this is honestly going to take forever to break down, and I just don't have time to do it. If we can get a breakdown from Shaun, that'd be great, but in the meanwhile, I'm going to go ahead and ask for a resub based more on the production than the arrangement at this point. Assuming that the arrangement checks out ok, I really dig the structure and approach of the song. My main gripes would be that it seems to be a little heavy on the low end, and it kind of overfills the space, pushing other frequencies a bit farther back than they should be. I liked the half-electro-groove-half-IDM drum approach, but I felt like they should be a little beefier mixwise (the sequencing I thought was pretty rad). I liked all the glitchy stuff and stutters. And the only other critical gripe I had is maybe, use a different lead. I didn't mind the one the detuned saw thingy, at least not if it were not present for so much of the track. I guess I think it just overstayed it's welcome and should have morphed into something else a little eh, creamier, perhaps? Would have countered the sharp, short textures (like the drums and the percussive-synth sound that was going on in the arpeggios.) Hope all that makes sense. So to recap, -Need a source breakdown -Tweak the mixing (less low end overall mostly) -Drums should be beefier -Changeup lead periodically preferalby (less detuning would probably be good.) Love ya Shaun RESUB

Pretty source, nice song in general. The glaring problem right off the bat is as Vig said, the fake strings are not at all convincing, mainly due to the lack of articulated variety. Up until like 2:35 where the strings finally get some support and aren't so Spartan does the fakey-ness become less of a critical factor. But even afterwards, I'm a little surprised, because Justin usually does some pretty convincing work with free/cheap samples, but for whatever reason, this kind of had that low-end keyboard preset sound to it. 4:00ish was not bad, simply because the arrangement was moving enough that it overrode the quality of the samples. Eh, tough call, I mean, it's not a bad arrangement, I really can't say I had a problem with that at all. But IMO, the first 2.5 minutes sort of anchored this one down where it might have otherwise succeeded. Since this sub is like 3 years old, I hate to say this, but I'm gonna ask for a resub using better string samples in at least the first 2-3 minutes. I didn't really care all that much for the brass later on, particularly the trumpets, but I'm willing to overlook those since the arrangement was nice enough and had some solid emotional energy. RESUB

Haha, oh man, I remember working on this. I felt so "meh" about my solo until I heard the final mix, plus Brian so cleverly named the track so it really fit like a glove. :nicework:

Congrats kiddos! <3 Wish I could make it out But I wish you both the best!

I said so numerous times in IRC, perhaps I wasn't clear enough in my actual vote, but in my own slight defense, I did say that I thought the vocals would have been nice in practically any other style. I know we're a hobbyist community, and I don't expect Jill-quality vocals in every submission by any means. What I said so clearly in IRC that apparently wasn't clear in my vote is that the flaws of the vocals are amplified (to me) by the fact that they feel so out-of-place with the rest of the song. I realize the intent (artistic expression as you worded it) of having the lead singer vs. the growl singer to tell the story of the game in the song, but I also concluded that while I appreciate the intent, the outcome just seemed too jumbled and cluttered. Think of it this way. If someone records a live, I dunno, french horn in their remix, and while it's not perfect, it's a pretty decent recording, that's great. However, if the remix is say, some trance song where a french horn is generally not going to fit anyway, and the horn is mixed very dry and forward, it's going to probably seem worse than it is. And a performance that would otherwise probably be acceptable is going to seem much more exposed and weak. That's where I'm coming from. I'm sure that I am going to look like a huge jerk to lisabela if/when she reads my crits, but that is absolutely not my intent. I don't think she has a terrible voice by any means, I just don't think that the performance was spot on, plus they weren't processed or mixed well, and that they didn't seem a proper fit for the rest of the song anyway.