big giant circles

Please don't name it Epic Fail. I swear I'll NO OVERRIDE it if you do. (k, not really, but that's a really crappy name for your track...)

Likewise. Nice jorb as usual, you guys. Your babies are going to be musical savants, aren't they? :nicework:

Or rather, from Audix to Zyko! Two great dudes who have a lot of musical talent to share! Enjoy your day, buds!

There are some really great pictures in here! GT, you've got some great ones on your site. http://global-trance.com/xhtml_photo58.php <--Little Mermaid FTW

lol 10-4 GOOD BUDDIES

Most of this thread has made me laugh. I was going to recommend Classical, simply because most if not all of your "idols" are classically trained. This does not mean you are required to like pure, raw classical music. But whether or not you like it, you must acknowledge that Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, etc were absolute geniuses when it came to understanding the rules (if rules is the proper word) of music. That's why so many people study them, even if the music they create ends up sounding nothing like classical music. It's the principles you're going to be studying, and those principles apply to ALL aspects of music regardless of genre; nobody's going to browbeat you into deciding that classical music should be your favorite music. You sound young, if I had to wager on it. I'm willing to bet that as you mature musically, you'll gain a greater appreciation for classical music, even if it's not something you plan on replacing your current musical collection/preferences with.

minor points deducted for using a garageband loop But otherwise, pretty snazzy!

Is it me, or is this mix way too heavy on the high end? Doesn't seem to be any bottom end here to speak much of... Not a lot to say, other than while this isn't a bad track, there's a lot of work that could/should be done. I'll leave you with a couple tips, but try to make proper use of the WIP forums etc in the future and you can address certain things before it hits the panel. As I stated, the mixing seems really too hot on the highs, not enough lows. The piano was particularly rigid, and seemed a bit sloppy at times. The trademark supersaw-thing lead was pretty generic, and added a kind of harshness that ended making the mix sound overly flimsy and under-developed. If it weren't exposed so much, that would have helped. Better luck next time, keep at it! NO

I'm assuming this is the remix - link removed. *edit* Larry posted the submission, they were in fact the same track, but I gave it a fair listen just the same. [/edit] I'm a bit surprised that we have not one, but TWO Terranigma remixes on the panel, and they're both tackling the same source. I'm torn, because on one hand, I'm so glad to see Terranigma get some love, but on the other, I'm disappointed that the remixers chose only this track. It's a fine track, but as I said in my other vote, it's going to be an uphill battle to convince me that you can take this 11 second loop and make it stand on it's own. It's doable, but just being frank, short of a formidable amount of creativity and insight, quite unlikely (see Zelda OoT: Windmill Hut). After listening to the mix, I'm still convinced I'm right. After a :53 second original intro, the harp comes in verbatim, and I'm just not really sure where there is for you to go after that. You made an effort to add a more epic vibe to the short riff, and I applaud your efforts, but unfortunately, I feel like you can't really effectively get much more than a minute or so's worth of interpretation out of this (starting after the intro I mean) because Larry's right, I think you sort of ran out of ideas at about 2:08 where it's just sort of left on cruise control until the (very poorly done) fadeout. The instruments are pretty SNES-ish, even with free soundware you can get a better sound; people like Nutritious, Darkesword, and Ziwtra are good examples of that. Sorry for the no-go, I'm definitely glad to see more people tackling Terranigma music. I hate to sound like I'm so biased against this track; I promise I'm not at all. I'm just pointing out that it's a small, distant target to hit (by OCR's guidelines) if this is the ONLY source tune you plan on incorporating into your remix. Otherwise, you did manage to capture the nostalgia of the game, and for that I salute you. Better luck in the future, Timo! NO

pretty cool stuff, definitely very City 17-ish indeed. I dig the breath FX in the ravenholm track.

Yeah, headache indeed. Don't mean to sound critical/harsh as I'm sure that wasn't his intent, but that definitely doesn't really help us out. "Here's my remix, fellas, there's some source music in there, but I'll let y'all sort through a couple hours of music to find it!" Anyway, I'm gonna hold off the vote for now until we hear back from Ben. I will say it's a nice sounding piece, though I agree I'm having trouble identifying the source tunes clearly. Poo.

I think Justin's done adequate work otherwise that the sampling doesn't really concern me that much, although it probably wouldn't hurt if they wereshortened a bit. Mix is decent. The kick is either a little too low to begin with, or else just not EQ'd that well, as it's pretty muffled throughout. Ha, 1:24 sounds like you're trying to throw a Star Trek cameo in there. Dunno if that was intentional or not, but either way. Not much else to add, really. Drums are well programmed, as is the orchestration, and the synth elements are blended with these very effectively. The samples may not be top-notch, but Justin knows how to get the most out of them! Solid work. YES

Not bad, but Larry's right to be so blunt about the clap. It's pretty noobish, you can do better than that man! Also, why is it panned left? That's not a good place for it, snare/claps should generally always be panned center. Otherwise, I didn't think this was a bad mix. The portamento square/sine/saw waves throughout are naturally very Metroid-esque. I personally didn't mind the vox. The mix seemed pretty flat overall. I'd recommend spending more time EQing particular channels, cutting and boosting the right frequencies so they don't all fight over the same space. Seems like this mix stays a little too much in the mid-low end of the spectrum. I felt like the mid-highs could have been beefier especially. I don't really have any qualms over the arrangement. I don't require any sort of groundbreaking opus, I'd say this is good enough. I'd just work on the execution, mostly. And don't be so dull with your drums. Choose a different clap/snare sound, and find a fatter kick. Maybe try out some sidechaining to give it some more Oomph/power. RESUBMIT

Gah, without even listening to the mix yet, I'm regretfully a little skeptical that this is going to be a successful ReMix, no matter who's remixing it. As much as I LOVE this game and LOVE it's OST, I hold this particular song in about the same regard as the Windmill Hut music from Zelda OoT. It's a nice catchy little diddy in the game, but not really long enough or bearing enough substance to stand on it's own. Terranigma is towards the very top of the list of games that have awesome music that I want to remix, (I actually DO have one that I started a year or more ago, but haven't found the time to work on past a minute or so), and this source was actually one that I considered, but the more I thought about it, the more I figured I'd have to incorporate this theme in as a counter-melody or cameo/medley-type thing because I just don't see dragging it out for more than 30-60 seconds tops. I'm now over 4 minutes into your mix, and I pretty much feel the same way. It's just awfully repetitive, and not really all that developed. I mean, even for trance. And I'm not exactly saying it's because you didn't do a good job; it's just that there's not a lot of places you can go (by OCR guidelines) with a source tune that's 11 seconds long, especially if you're shooting for a trance mix. My sympathies, it's a cool track by default of the source, but not so strong as a stand-alone piece. I'd suggest doubling it up with more music from the Terranigma OST perhaps, but I'd feel uncomfortable passing this when there are plenty of others that we've NO'd that were in the same boat as this piece. More Terranigma love, please! Also, random trivia, last time I heard someone "remix" this song, it ended up being some kid who stole it from Darkesword's website. He didn't even change the tags or anything I wish I had time to go back and play through this game again, though.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here Anyway, yeah, it was a long shot to begin with. I personally don't feel like it's a SOLID NO, more like a aww, shucks NO GG ANYWAY

I'll wait for Brian's breakdown before I throw a full vote out, but I would like to comment that I don't think it's fair to not count stuff like :55 - 1:03. Those 4 measures are not only filler bars that serve as a reasonable bridge between segments of a track, but I think they're also citing the first 3 seconds of the source. Since there's only 2 notes there, it doesn't leave a lot of room for deviation without one of us screaming about it being too liberal. I suppose the same thing could be said about :14 - :28. So I personally think it's only fair to be a little more generous there. Not counting transitions (like these 2-4 bar gaps) between obvious/more easily indentifiable source is the epitome of using the stop-watch technique. And while timing the source is fine, I think time-stamping segments in such a way should be used on larger portions of the remix. Like, say the section from 1:38 - 2:08. Again, I think this is referencing the first :03 of the source, but it's a bit more liberal, and because of it's length, it's not really a bridge as much as it is it's own unique section, so I can understand not wanting to count that, and though I'm fairly sure what he's referencing, I myself will agree that it's a bit of a stretch. I'm also going to be generous and credit him until 2:23 or so instead of 2:19 because the sustain note fadeout of the melody. I couldn't make out any source after that, though. So here's my slightly more generous breakdown: 0:00 - 0:14 - original - 14 seconds 0:14 - 1:38 - recognizable arrangement - 84 seconds 1:38 - 2:08 - original - 30 seconds 2:08 - 2:23 - recognizable arrangement - 15 seconds 2:23 - 3:37 - original - 74 seconds So that bumps him up to about 98/217, so definitely not quite out of iffy/unlikely terrain. Here's some specific stuff unrelated to time/usage issues. Overall, this is a decent track. It's probably not the best work we'll hear from Brian, but it's certainly not his worst track either. The production is very clean, no gripes whatsoever there. I really enjoyed the feedback during the intro, but the slide at :11 (and 1:01 and 3:26), however had WAY too much reverb on it to fit nice with the rest of the mix, and it was especially obvioius when the extremely dry power chords followed immediately after. It worked on the feedback, I suppose because of the nature of feedback anyway, but it didn't fit the texture of the slide. I'm normally a huge fan of glitching/stuttering/chopping, and while I didn't think it was bad, exactly, I thought it felt a little out of place for this mix. It made the powerchords themselves sound particularly unconvincing/unrealistic, and since this wasn't really an electronic piece at all, that stood out in a slightly negative way. I wouldn't have called that alone a deal-breaker, but it's worth mentioning. The lead itself also bugged me just a little at times. It wasn't terrible by any means, but it sounds like you might have been using a plugin that had been sampled post-processing instead of a dry plugin with some guitar FX on top of that. I could be wrong, of course, but the attack on some of the notes made them sound a bit flimsy. The section at 1:25 onward is a good example of what I'm talking about. This is a pretty tough call. Throwing numbers down (don't think I've done this before) here's what it looks like. Production - 100% pass. (clean mixing, no clipping, no "mud") Execution - 75% pass (guitar is thin/flimsy at times, reverb on the slide, the out-of-place stuttering) Arrangment (by my breakdown) - 45% pass (98/217 seconds - 45.16% source usage. 32.71% by Larry's) So really, I'd say I can see this one going either way by my breakdown, but 33% is pretty low on the "identifiable and dominant" rule thing we have going on here concerning arrangement. I'm pretty adamant about counting :55 - 1:03, but I can understand everything else in Larry's breakdown, and that still only puts the arrangement at 36% So since I've decided to become the "sympathetic" judge lately, I'm inclined to throw this one a VERY borderline YES, but I'm going to hold off officially until we hear from Brian. Regrettably, I have the feeling it's an uphill battle for him, and even filling the sympathetic role, there's no point in voting YES when everyone else feels it's not OCR-enough. Nice track though, either way. Brian has proven to be a pretty diverse musician, and I always enjoy hearing new tracks from him.

If you can spare a little $$, this is a great deal. Buy 1 (of 10) of the individual plugins included in IK T-Racks 3, get 6 free. http://www.ikmultimedia.com/NewsDisplay.php?Id=2232 http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?ProductID=3823&refcode=trsingle3

Fair enough, and perhaps we should ask him. I'm just pointing out the riff to the guys who immediately made the connection to Zelda (probably because more people know it from there) and that it's in other places in the FF6 OST as well. And I'm fairly certain that one section at 2:17 was intentionally patterned after the Prelude. Also, I figured since source-usage was a big factor here, it could only help point out the connection to other places in the OST, since that helps his arrangement be recognized as not entirely original/too-liberal since it's a (slight) mashup of other tunes in the same OST. I did the same thing with 3 of my FFA remixes. Just sayin' is all. Also: I thought the track was awesome But even the diddy at :17 I thought would have been acceptable. And I'm not sure I find it practical to throw the if you're not really familiar with the source perspective into the equation. First of all, we all have different levels of familiarity when it comes to this music anyway. Many of these remixes I'm not familiar with at all, but it wouldn't be fair to judge them that way. That's why we all make it a point to listen to the source tunes. The idea (for me) is to become well-enough acquainted that we can make the proper connections in a ReMix. Some ideas are blatant (like that Sonic "cover" we just closed out), and others are far more subtle, but most likely very deliberate, and in some cases, admirably pulled off. In this case, Colin shows a keen knack for musicianship by changing the key (or even if transposed via MIDI I stand by this) and showing the ability to adeptly interpret a simple riff/motif in different techniques/articulations/rhythms. I never said his arrangment wasn't liberal, but I remain stubbornly immovable in my claim that listening to the back-and-forth render I've provided, one cannot deny that his performance is an arrangement of the source. Tag, you're it

Indeed. However, I'd say not with FL's default plugins. The closest you could come with any of Image-Line's software would be with DirectWave, but that wouldn't really sound that good either. If you take some time to search for it, I believe Nutritious did an FL orchestral template with some reasonably decent free soundfonts and what not. If you're going for full-on pro-quality though, it'd probably be best to invest in something like QLSO Gold, Motu Symphonic, or at the very least IK Philharmonik. FL is a great sequencer, but you also need some good sounds, and unfortunately, FL doesn't really offer any of those when it comes to orchestral stuff.

I'd like to add source tunes "3-16 - Prelude" and "1-15 - The Fantom Forest" to the list. It's not "most likely", it IS the opening of the source. If it's helpful for me to point out, then let me clarify that both the Zelda theme in question AND this source use the same progression. It's a minor chord where the 5th interval walks up and back down two half steps. Pretty simple. What I recommend is taking Colin's track and loading it up into your DAWs and pitching it up 200 cents to match the key of the source. It might be a little easier to hear that way. And I'm not sure I can relate at all with "can't hear enough source usage" here. Unless we have a rule that a remixer is required to remix a specific minimum percentage of the source tune, then I don't see what the foul is here. I mean, do I have to remind you guys that someone remixed a 5 second riff? Also, the same riff is repeated in FF6 track 1-15 - "The Fantom Forest", so you really can't hold that against him. ********************** Anyway, it's been an hour since I started typing this. I decided I'd go ahead and do the legwork for y'all here, maybe it'll help redeem my extreme panel neglect lately. (Plus, I figured it'd be easier than trying to timestamp EVERYTHING and then count it up with the stopwatch). So I've matched the pitch of the source and the remix. You guys can CLEARLY hear the connections. Larry, sorry to say man, your breakdown left out a LOT man. One of the standout brilliant things that Colin did here was at 2:17 where he somehow managed to successfully (and impressively) fuse the Prelude riff with the initial motif/progression of Decisive Battle. Very nice man. It may have slipped past these dudes, but not me All these NO votes remind me of my own dissenting vote for Skryp's Mario RPG remix from a while ago. For some reason, I just could not hear the source until Skryp provide a most obvious (and embarrassing) breakdown, similar to what I've done. Boy, I felt like a putz But naturally, we all make mistakes sometimes and it's all good as long as we can recognize that we goofed up and fix it. Without further delay, let me link this thang. (remove upon vote - link removed) Now then. Let me mention the criticisms. The performance is realy solid, I have no qualms there. The overall volume is a bit too quiet. You have plenty of headroom throughout the track, so the very least you could have done would be to normalize it. I wouldn't call it a deal-breaker since it's a performed piano piece, but if we can get a slightly louder version, that'd be great. Also, I would have preferred that the track just ended at 3:45 with the epic feel. I thought the final quiet parts dragged it out a bit, but again, no deal-breaker. It did give the song more dynamic value, I suppose. Anyway, I give this one a WTF GUYS? YES (I'm gonna be pissed if this one doesn't pass)

Hang on, Colin, I'm coming to your rescue

Jesse and Andrew, you guys realize he did this in Impulse Tracker right? He's not using Logic or Cubase here Taking that into account, I remember I once DL'd IT and tried to mess around with it. I may as well have been trying to write a poem in Chinese for as productive as that endeavor ended up being. This is a very nostalgic sounding piece for me, almost like taking a SNES piece and making it more of an NES piece. Though, that's not entirely accurate, because it's got some cool, more modern electronic treatment. Like the part at 1:50 or so. I'd say my only smirk-inducing gripe would be the drums. Trackers are generally known for creating some of the most awesome/spastic drum grooves I've ever heard, but I thought these were a little boring, truth be told. That being said, they weren't *bad*, just dull. It's not a strong vote, but I'll call a YES just the same.

also, that brings the total to 6Y, I think it's time to close this out.