*NO* Chrono Cross 'Luminaire'

[djpretzel]

Email sub file Luminaire.mp3 - pretty damn cool at parts, imo one of those mixes that make better use of breakbeats; mixed very loud, tho, so watch out - djp

Your ReMixer name - ThunderChild

Your email address -

yesterdaygeneration1750@hotmail.com

---

Name of game(s) ReMixed - Chrono Chross and Chrono Trigger Name of individual song(s) ReMixed - Chrono Chross - "Chronopolis" ; Chrono Trigger - "Crono's Theme"

Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc. -

For me, this mix has been a lot time consuming, most used for all the kinda' drum'n'bassy rythms.

When I began, I wanted to remix the "Memories of Green" theme, but, I went another way. "Memories of Green" seemed to be a very known theme, so i began with Chronopolis (it's very similar but not the same thing).

First of all, I did the introduction: Used rain and thunder effects (Sampled from Zelda : A link to the

past) to make a cool atmosphere to introduce us the piano melody.

Then a reversed crash enters us into the "remix"

thing. For this, i wanted to do a piano drum and bass remix, but not doing the classic thing (ultrapowerfull bass with a fast and mechanic rythm) and with not being very complicated. I wanted to give the piece a "sophisticated look", even if the theme was only a single group of arpeggios. In fact, thats Yasunori's way to compose music.

I wanted to make the piano the rhytmic-basis, and the electronic drums the melodic thing (hehe sounds strange, but that's it), so I changed a few things, like the speed or the rythm of the arpeggios.

In 1:25 comes the variation. The same variations that Chronopolis had, but with a slightly changed rythm . I used a kinda' metallic sound that reminds me to a sound that Chronopolis theme used. But, the sound is original (i did it a few years ago).

In 2:20 a kind of second variation begins.

In 2:33 comes another variation, but this is completely original.

In 2:45 starts the Crono's theme. It's a kind of different thing. We could call it as " The most evolved part of the variation" After it begins the main theme The last repetition of the main theme comes in with the "crono's Theme". It reminds me a little to memories of green. hehe.

I used for this fruity loops 3 ( i have no keyboard, so I can't use my copy of reason (I don't like matrix pattern synthesizer)). Fruity's sounds aren't so good as reason sounds,so i had to sample almost all of them from many places.

I had only used one sample of piano (bosendorfer C#4). The percussion sounds comes from a loop i found somewhere(I reeginered them by myself, samplig the kick, the hat,etc... to make them very drum'n'bassy 'a lo squarepusher' (you gotta hear "Port Rhombus")) I wish i had a decent samples but i found them in nowhere. So i had to use electronic instruments

The song had to sound mechanical and expressive.

It's something easy and complicated. Hehe.

Listen loud.

Hope you like it.

( I had to use my yahoo account because i couldn't submit a 5 megabytes file in hotmail)

[Liontamer]

Not sure why the mastering on this sounds so poor; nothing sounds sharp and all of the sounds crud together once several instruments and synths are doing their thing at once (notably from 3:15 until the end). The minimal-style break sections going from 1:26 to 1:59 really meandered a lot, so quite a few seconds could have been shaved off of that for a quicker transition. Otherwise add a bit more substance to those sections.

The electrosynth coming in briefly at 2:34 was terribly exposed and managed to clip/distort twice. There it is again at 3:15. It's really poorly used over the top of everything else. Not a bad idea arrangement-wise, could have been a little more creative tackling the melody, but the breakbeat approach was cool for a bit. The production or lackthereof ultimately doomed this one however.

NO

[djpretzel]

man......

wtf......

[Protricity]

To make this perfectly clear.

As long as I am on this panel, I will continue to reject songs that carry themselves off the musical abilities of others. When someone uses a drumloop in their song, and that loop is present 75% of the time, we have a problem. I respect original percussion, original notation. I disrespect midiripping, majority drumloops, soundeffects.

If you're going to put your name on the song like so, it must be your song, not someone else's song you're taking credit for.

You make the perucssion. You do the notation. You make the remix. Original song will be in there, but through your definition, your interpretation, your vision, your work.

If I am not wanted on the panel, I may very well be removed, but until that time, I will continue to reject songs that do not respect these rules of mine to some degree.

I'm not looking for verbatim obedience. I'm not looking for you to destroy your own songs trying to fit some ideal. I'm looking for a real, honest attempt to make a remix your own song, without any majority use of the works of others.

Drumloops are fine. Drumloops carrying the song are not. Drumloops should never exist throughout the whole song on a loop. Original percussion must be evident and hold majority over drumloops.

Its really that simple. I'm being fair and considerate to all situations and all types of songs. New ideas will always be there. Conflicts will arise. In the end, it will still be evident that a song is either the artist's whole effort, or it is not. There are many things involved in judging that are simply not subjective.

This song is carried by a drumloop the majority of the time with a simple harp/piano loop. Eventually some changes occur and new things start to happen. The variation at 1:30 is shortlived and simply nothing impressive. Then the old loops come back in and repeat for another minute or so.

Nothing impressive, nothing above the bar. Stuff like 2:50 is simply out of place and not well done.

On top of the general ickyness of the song, the drumloop is rather limited on frequencies. Seems to have little bass and too much 16k. Sounds ugly. Borderline clipping towards the end.

Ending is crap.

I hope this review is not a deterent. This is a large website with lots of remixers. This is quality control. I hope I was able to clarify my case here.

NO

[djpretzel]

I'm trying to distinguish between what sound like criticisms of the submission as a ReMix, and what sound like criticisms of a genre.

There's multiple sub-genres of electronica that do heavily emphasize breakbeats, usually not the artists' own, which are measured by how many ways a single loop can be mucked with (i.e. retriggered, etc.)

I think the mix has other problems, but even some of those are more emblematic of the genre, like the extreme volume levels.

I'm trying to get a feel for judges' familiarity with and/or respect of these genres, because if we need to tell people not to submit mixes in them, I think that's an unfortunate and undesired direction to go in, but if we say it's okay and then turn around and criticize their submissions primarily on grounds that are endemic of the same genre we said it was cool to submit in, we (rightly) seem like bastards.

I know some of us wear that badge proudly at times, but the site at large should try to avoid it.

I think this mix has problems with variation, and that the volume sometimes goes overboard into distortion that's not pleasant, but to me some of the other comments being thrown its way just sound like misunderstanding or lack of appreciation for the style.

This is clearly an ongoing issue.

[Protricity]

To respond, I used to do jungle. It does not require drumloops at all. Jungle is based on a fast moving percussion progression that varys and changes just like any other genre. Its sped up and involves all kinds of percussive instruments. Really anything is game. No where in the genre of jungle is there any specification that drumloops are somehow necessary or required. Drumloops in jungle are exactly as necessary or relevant as in any other genre in existance. Drumloops are always cheating. Always. They result in lackluster remixes that loop and loop.

What is common in jungle is the use of drumbreaks. Drumloops are used then from other songs or sampled loops as drumbreak effects. Its a very skillful thing to do. However, it is far more involved than simply going into reason's drumloop bank and selecting something in 170bpm and pasting it 17 times.

We can further bring this debate into the realm of genre-based limitations (though I really would like to keep it on the judge discussion forum), but believe me, or not, when I say I know jungle, know this genre, and know that nothing here is justified.

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Jungle_(music)

[djpretzel]

Drumloops are fine. Drumloops carrying the song are not. Drumloops should never exist throughout the whole song on a loop. Original percussion must be evident and hold majority over drumloops.

"Drumloops should never exist throughout the whole song on a loop" - REGARDLESS of whether it's the sole reason you're rejecting this mix or not, you're making statements that indicate you'd reject any mix that features loops heavily or throughout a song, and that's not acceptable. Larger issue.

I agree that mixes truly carried by drumloops - repeating, unchanged drumloops - are not fine. However, a mix can have the same damn drumloop for its entirety and still not be carried by it.

[The wingless]

Since the drums are the primary subject of controversy, let's start with that. The drumloop, as it stands, does not work. It has a very odd frequency (either too high or low) and repeats ad nauseum [sic]. Personally, I would push for a resubmit, specifically asking the remixer to add ALOT more variation to the drums. I can almost garun-tee that would solve about 75% of the problems. If not, suck it.

As an interesting side-note, if you completely omit the drums, this isn't a bad little ditty. The competency with the arrangement is there, and there are interesting little ideas being thrown about here and there. The only real problem (and for the sake of convenience, let us label it a BIG problem) is the clockwork drumloop. And that can be solved quite easily with a redo.

so, NO ++ resubmit

[Vig]

the drums are too loud, there are lots of questionable notes, and the entire mix sounds dry and crunchy.

I'm not familiar with this so-called "breakbeat" genre, so i cant tell whether or not this is a shining specimen of the genre. however, i'm willing to bet that there's a lot of "breakbeat" out there that sounds better than this.

NO

[GrayLightning]

I wouldn't call myself a dnb/jungle expert, but I have heard enough to appreciate the genre and vote on this. DJP brings up extremely valid points. I think this is where the flaws of a system based on some form of criticism can look its weakest. To some extent, I think there are often times when judging a genre and a mix can bleed into each other. If an atonal mix were submitted at OC I don't think we can judge it only on its avant garde nature. It would be judged to a certain extent on some basic guidelines and standards while keeping in mind the nature of the genre. I think that is true for this mix as well.

This is pretty interesting as a whole. I do like how several themes have been weaved in this mix. My main problem with this mix is beyond the drums we have the piano playing melody and then pads. In my opinion there isn't much at all going on here compositionally until the end. The other thing is the mixing. When a number of elements are really loud it can create a bit of a mess and can even be trickier to mix in. There's a lot of clipping/distortion as well going on here. Nothing major, but it is worth mentioning.

I really enjoyed the subtle section at around 1:20. This for me is the highlight of the mix.

As far as the drum controversy, I think this sounds decent for this genre. I do wish it was mixed up and expanded more here and there, but it's serviceable in this context. The drum effects used as transitions are pretty cool.

End sections of this mix are the strongpoints here. I just wish there was more attention paid to the composition. Perhaps more layering or harmony to build in the ending sections would have been interesting. Ending at 4:00 just cuts off before the note decays.

This is not a bad mix by any means. It's borderline for me. If more attention and polish was made in various degress of the following: the mixing, adding a bit more complexity to the supporting elements or mixing up the drums a bit, it would make the decision much easier for me.

Borderline NO.

I strongly suggest the mixer polish the mix up more as it has great potential to pass the panel with a some more work.

[Protricity]

Drumloops are fine. Drumloops carrying the song are not. Drumloops should never exist throughout the whole song on a loop. Original percussion must be evident and hold majority over drumloops.

"Drumloops should never exist throughout the whole song on a loop" - REGARDLESS of whether it's the sole reason you're rejecting this mix or not, you're making statements that indicate you'd reject any mix that features loops heavily or throughout a song, and that's not acceptable. Larger issue.

I agree that mixes truly carried by drumloops - repeating, unchanged drumloops - are not fine. However, a mix can have the same damn drumloop for its entirety and still not be carried by it.

So in your mind, remove the drumloop from this mix and you'll end up with 4 minutes of simplistic solo piano and very downplayed pads following no perticular key that is ridiculously inferrior to the psf original. Thus this song IS carried by the drumloop. AND, and heres the point I'm trying again and again to stress, this song isn't a good remix. Its lousy, lazy, lame.

I am rejecting this song because it is not a good remix. K?

[DarkeSword]

I'm throwing in my opinion for shits and giggles. Don't bother me about this on AIM though.

Drums - the changes and variation are subtle, but they are there. There's a fair bit of retriggering going on. Most people prefer something more tricked out; I don't see it as a huge issue, having more subtle drumwork like that.

However, drums alone do not make a mix; the other elements are severely lacking. Sounds are unbalanced, and the reverb is weird as hell. The whole thing is TOO loud. Work on mastering.

Resubmittable, but still needs a fair bit of work.

NO

[djpretzel]

For the record I think I concur with all opinions other than Ari's. I might actually agree with what he's *trying* to say, but the way he's saying it still sounds to me like a blanket attack on the usage of drumloops and an underestimation of some of the retriggering done here, which is at least SOMETHING.

I suppose my point is, when there are at least several things you could point out as being problematic with a mix, why weaken your case by overstating one of them to such an extreme that it sounds like you're almost not even paying attention?

From my perspective, that's bad feedback.

[Malcos]

Still want me to vote? Ok...

It's obvious that this mix is over-reliant on the drums. Not only that, but there are eq issues as well. I do think that with some more work this could be pulled off.

I recommend a resubmit, with more variation interms of instrumentation, and with some work done on the sound levels. There is something here.

NO

[Digital Coma]

So, this mix is clearly rejected by the judges panel. I completely agree with all previous no votes.