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RWS 1-2 - ReMixing With the Stars: Season 1 Episode 2: Origins of Home Gaming

MindWanderer

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Cash Newbie

Cash

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Cash: Not sure how I'm feeling about the synths here - bass sounds a little too bassy and the lead sounds a little vanilla. I can hear a little dissonance at times as well. Definitely diggin dat organ though. :D

I always have trouble picking/makes synths. I don't like something and keep switching it around...well I'm glad you like the organ. :D

Cool Side of the Mountain: Taking such a short source and spinning it out for 2 minutes is quite a challenge, and this does get a little repetitious. The original content works well but isn't as much as I would have liked. Perhaps one less pass-through of the source at the beginning, or some more off-the-wall rearrangement as it looped through would have helped. The end was a bit abrupt, too. Still, there are some good ideas here, and I'm glad that someone tackled the challenge of ancient source material.

I definitely agree, it is repetitive, and could use more arrangement. I got lazy at the end and did a bunch of copy/paste.

Cool Side of the Mountain: This is a pretty 'chill' mix :P. Love the drum beat/bass you've got at the beginning.

I'm also not a huge fan of the lead synth, but the arranging is pretty cool. I like the original sections a lot.

I definitely agree with Rex about the organ. I actually would have liked for it to have a bit more of a presence in the mix.

I think this is the one that's grown on me the most. I've been liking it more and more each time I listen to it.

Thanks! Glad you like it! The organ seems to be popular, I'll give it more presence if I revisit the track. As for the lead, I don't like it either, it was probably the third iteration of the lead. I couldn't decide.

Thanks again for the feedback guys!

By the way, I'll make sure to vote today.

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MindWanderer Proficient

MindWanderer

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Speaking of votes, I still have only a whopping three of them: Kuolema, SuperiorX, and TheRexAsaurous. If you sent votes and you're not one of those three people, I didn't get them. There's just under a day left, so please don't forget.

Because of the upcoming holiday week, I'll also be announcing the next episode tomorrow and extending the voting period to 2 weeks.

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Melbu Frahma Newbie

Melbu Frahma

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Speaking of votes, I still have only a whopping three of them: Kuolema, SuperiorX, and TheRexAsaurous. If you sent votes and you're not one of those three people, I didn't get them. There's just under a day left, so please don't forget.

Because of the upcoming holiday week, I'll also be announcing the next episode tomorrow and extending the voting period to 2 weeks.

Huh. Could've sworn I voted late last week. I'll go revote.

EDIT: Done. And I gotta say, I really agonized over who to vote for this episode. :-P If I get free time, I'll write up some reviews for the artists, too, although I don't know how much I can really contribute.

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Troyificus Apprentice

Troyificus

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Speaking of votes, I still have only a whopping three of them: Kuolema, SuperiorX, and TheRexAsaurous. If you sent votes and you're not one of those three people, I didn't get them. There's just under a day left, so please don't forget.

Because of the upcoming holiday week, I'll also be announcing the next episode tomorrow and extending the voting period to 2 weeks.

My votes in!

And couldn't you extend the mixing time to 3 weeks and leave the voting to 1 week? :grin:

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MindWanderer Proficient

MindWanderer

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Results are up!

Results!

  1. First Place: "2 Sizes, 4 Swords, 8 Bits" by Kuolema feat. wildfire, with 21 points.
  2. Second Place: "Remembering the Storm" by TheRexAsaurous feat. Dafydd, with 17 points.
  3. Third Place: "A Passing Dream 2" by Tuberz McGee feat. ectogemia, with 14 points.
  4. Fourth Place: "Cool Side of the Mountain" by Cash and Change feat. urdailywater, with 8 points.

I thought everyone did a great job given the round's constraints. Our first-place winner was especially catchy, and I find myself humming it often. I'm not a particularly good judge, but at least a couple of these could be OCR quality with a trip through the WIP forums, and I encourage the effort.

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Xarnax42 Newbie

Xarnax42

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Because of the upcoming holiday week, I'll also be announcing the next episode tomorrow and extending the voting period to 2 weeks.

Well, crud. I somehow interpreted that to refer to the voting period that just ended. Sorry, I missed that. :/

At least reviews can never be late!

2 Sizes, 4 Swords, 8 Bits - I really love the high-energy melodies, and the way you layered different wave types gives a really rich texture to your mix. A few of the transitions are a little awkward, and some of the parts with either a slower tempo or minimal instrumentation don't quite work as well -- the nuances that carry the energy of such a section in a live piece are much harder to pull off with these sounds. Overall, super catchy and a fun listen.

A Passing Dream - Had to look up the source on this, and props for such an ambitious effort. In addition to some of the smoother parts, the source bounces a lot between aggressive and just chaotic in a way I can't appreciate so well on first listen. Anyway, you've done a lot of great things with it. I don't know why it's taken so long for guitar[or other live instrument]/chip

fusion to become a thing, but it works so well. Really love all of the chip arps throughout, and the soloing is great too. Triangle was a bit different choice for the lead at 1:32, but works over the rhythm guitar. The section starting at 2:00 gets pretty muddy. Like Kuolema, I really need a break from that syncopated background that goes from 2:40 basically to the end. It's both loud and really repetitive. Other than that, though, I like the energy and the vision to really do justice to the source. Good stuff.

Cool Side of the Mountain - Originally a pretty bluesy arrangement, now a bit more of a lounge jazz. With familiar sources, not surprisingly, I almost always prefer more conservative arrangements, and I think there's definitely room to appreciate the same restraint when dealing with genre. I'm on board with the organ, and there are a lot of great arrangement ideas here. The reverb makes things pretty muddy, and an EQ that favors the lower frequencies doesn't help with that. I'm not sure if you chose any of your sounds to fit the theme, but if this entire arrangement were redone with live instruments (or realistic samples), it would have a ton of potential.

Remembering the Storm - You and your sound effects :P The flourishes supporting the original melody are the standout of this mix. I don't really love the lead synth. The countermelody at 0:54 is really nice. Overall, I think the production could be quite a bit crisper and the arrangement could be longer and maybe if when I played this song my speakers could erupt with cookies and glitter rainbows and then we can talk postability.

Originally the track was going to start out 8-bit and then morph into something else

This is exactly what I had planned to do. Since I was also inexperienced with chiptunes, the first thing I did was just recreate my

with the basic square, square, triangle, and noise tracks. I've started going back to toy with the melodies to make it an actual mix, but here's my unpolished 8-bit cover: http://www.jessedeacon.com/music/asgard8bit.mp3

Also, on the offchance anyone was interested, you can check out the gingerbread displays that were basically the reason I didn't get a track done here.

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Ethan Rex Newbie

Ethan Rex

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Remembering the Storm - You and your sound effects :P The flourishes supporting the original melody are the standout of this mix. I don't really love the lead synth. The countermelody at 0:54 is really nice. Overall, I think the production could be quite a bit crisper and the arrangement could be longer and maybe if when I played this song my speakers could erupt with cookies and glitter rainbows and then we can talk postability.

Yeah all i'm gettin is some burnt muffins right now. :tomatoface:

Glad you dig the countermelody - I'm starting to realize crazy countermelodies are my musical signature, so to speak.

Just a question - about the lead synth, are you talking about the chippy pulse wave or the obnoxious saw-ish thing halfway through?

Oh, and nice 8-bit cover, I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

P.S congrats to Kuolema/wildfire!

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wildfire Newbie

wildfire

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First place?

Wasn't expecting that!

Thanks so much guys :).

And of course thanks to wildfire for all the support/advice!

D'awww :3

But really, all the props go to you. All I did was provide comments on each section of the song. You're the one with the cool ideas. Plus, your track makes me really want to compose a purely 8bit track.

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Xarnax42 Newbie

Xarnax42

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Just a question - about the lead synth, are you talking about the chippy pulse wave or the obnoxious saw-ish thing halfway through?

The one that plays the melody at 0:29 - I just figured out why, too: it's that same off-putting color as when a singer sounds too nasal.

D'awww :3

But really, all the props go to you. All I did was provide comments on each section of the song. You're the one with the cool ideas. Plus, your track makes me really want to compose a purely 8bit track.

Dooooo iiiiiitttttt.

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