OCR01465 - Sonic & Knuckles "Lover Reef"

[Dectilon]

Well, obviously you're a qualified singer, but in this remix it really doesn't sound that way. Now, I don't know if it has to do with this not being your genre or if it just needed another retake, but it doesn't sound very well. During the duet your voices clash. At least that's how it sounds to me. It somehow feels like there could have been more preparation to get they style down.

I was bothered by a similar thing with the SoM remix. I really liked it until the japanese text started, because the pronunciation was all wrong. Imagine someone who has never spoken a word english wholy serious tried to sing a balad or something along those lines. Lots of words would be impossible to understand because they were pronounced wrongly. Wouldn't it bother you? I think it would have been better there to either just go for a english text (that part I really liked) or to learn a somewhat proper pronunciation. It's not at all complicated really.

Basically what I'm trying to say is: Don't quit, but either make some songs that ARE in your genre, or put a little more effort in getting the new genre down.

Music will always attract elitists who have smug opinions on the right/wrong way to preform a certain genre (possibly me included ). I mean heck, even modern chamber music (I hope that's the right translation), which usually is atonal and sounds like complete randomness has its elitist critics

[Another Word Awaits]

I personally rather enjoyed it. I didn't notice any glaring flaws in the vocal performances. D-Lux's recitation didn't sound quite as lively as in "Da Black Market," but did add to the delicious cheesiness of the song. Pixietricks and shonensamurai's performances were not spot on terrific, but I thought they worked well regardless. I wouldn't call this the greatest song on OCR, but I bet that none of the contributors would say that themselves.

[Dhsu]

I was bothered by a similar thing with the SoM remix. I really liked it until the japanese text started, because the pronunciation was all wrong. Imagine someone who has never spoken a word english wholy serious tried to sing a balad or something along those lines. Lots of words would be impossible to understand because they were pronounced wrongly. Wouldn't it bother you? I think it would have been better there to either just go for a english text (that part I really liked) or to learn a somewhat proper pronunciation. It's not at all complicated really.

Exactly which SoM mix are you talking about?? O_o

Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that Taucer's guitar section was a pleasant surprise. I was listening to this mix casually at first until that part just came out of nowhere and punched me in the face. In a good way, of course.

Geoffrey, definitely a highlight.

[Caster13]

I have to say that I've lost a bit of interest in OCR and haven't visited the site in a quite some time.

But I am glad as hell I came back and caught this mix. I've been listening to this for the past half hour on loop and I just think it is amazing.

I'm not musician or anything like that or even a half-decent critic, the most I've ever done with music is play around with Electrokplankton. But I can absolutely feel the camaradarie in this mix among the five of you.

To pull off something like this over a single night is great feat. Great job to all you.

[Whitey]

this song is perfect, every voice, lyric, note and tone.

its clean, has addictive & touching lyrics

it has the " repeating but never getting bored " tag on it.

its truly brillaint and awesome, i know alot of others dont agree but all i can say, you go thru 5 operations to keep ur hearing intact and speech therapy 3 times so u know how to talk and tell me that this isnt perfect.

- so far in my life, ive never heard anyone sing better than the way pixie has in this song.

keep it up pixie please

[Upthorn]

Okay. I've figured out how to say what I was trying to explain earlier.

This song is not meant to be a demonstration of talent. The amount, or lack, of talent displayed here does not reflect on the remixers.

This song is an expression of joy, and love for the community.

When someone tells you "You make me happy I'm really glad you're in my life I love you." Would you really take them to task for the run-on sentence, or any slight mispronunciations they make?

Because that's the equivalent of most of the unfounded negative comments I'm seeing here.

This song is (unlike most of the other songs here) not meant to be of professional quality. It's just supposed to be good fun.

It's like going to the discussion thread for "Music of my groin" and saying: "Vocals are clearly off-key. Sloppy guitar work. Poor recording quality. 0/10."

It only demonstrates that you completely missed the point.

Any problems with the performance are irrelevant to the success of this mix. Whether or not it made you happy to listen to is all that's important.

It made me smile and chuckle a bit. If it didn't do that for you, fine. But it wasn't intended to be fine art, and you shouldn't have expected it to be if you read the lyrics. So don't act like the mixers tried and failed to make a masterwork. Because they weren't trying to, and they didn't fail at their goal.

Edit:

this song is perfect, every voice, lyric, note and tone.

its clean, has addictive & touching lyrics

it has the " repeating but never getting bored " tag on it.

its truly brillaint and awesome, i know alot of others dont agree but all i can say, you go thru 5 operations to keep ur hearing intact and speech therapy 3 times so u know how to talk and tell me that this isnt perfect.

- so far in my life, ive never heard anyone sing better than the way pixie has in this song.

keep it up pixie please Smile ur blessed and most of them seem to use it against you, shame

See. This guy gets it.

[viper_h]

Hi guys/gals,

I registered specifically to show my support for this amazing track.

I love it so much, and I love pixie's voice. I have a thing for people's voices and pixie's is really beautiful.

The lyrics i find really fun to listen to. The lyrics MAKE the song. You people who say "get rid of the lyrics" have no taste.

The rapper guy reminds me of the guy from Bloodhoud Gang, and that's quite amusing to me.

The only problem I have with this song is that it's too short. More lyrics! More pixietricks!!!

Love it!

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Okay. I've figured out how to say what I was trying to explain earlier.

This song is not meant to be a demonstration of talent. The amount, or lack, of talent displayed here does not reflect on the remixers.

This song is an expression of joy, and love for the community.

When someone tells you "You make me happy I'm really glad you're in my life I love you." Would you really take them to task for the run-on sentence, or any slight mispronunciations they make?

Because that's the equivalent of most of the unfounded negative comments I'm seeing here.

This song is (unlike most of the other songs here) not meant to be of professional quality. It's just supposed to be good fun.

It's like going to the discussion thread for "Music of my groin" and saying: "Vocals are clearly off-key. Sloppy guitar work. Poor recording quality. 0/10."

It only demonstrates that you completely missed the point.

Any problems with the performance are irrelevant to the success of this mix. Whether or not it made you happy to listen to is all that's important.

It made me smile and chuckle a bit. If it didn't do that for you, fine. But it wasn't intended to be fine art, and you shouldn't have expected it to be if you read the lyrics. So don't act like the mixers tried and failed to make a masterwork. Because they weren't trying to, and they didn't fail at their goal.

Thanks. You summed it up far better than I could have.

[Rocknrule]

Love this track! Lava Reef is my favorite Sonic track ever, I want to see more Sonic tracks put to lyrics. Also, more lyrical Lava Reef remixes would be greatly appreciated!

[jmr]

Definitly one of the best mixes I've downloaded in a while. (Pretty good timing, too; I just finished beating S3+K again earlier this week.)

I'm usually not a fan of vocal mixes, but the clever lyrics really made it for me. Not to mention that sweet Taucer solo.

After reading through the previous posts, I have one thing to say: at least it's better than 90% of the pop-crap I hear on the radio.

Anyway, nice work to all involved.

[J_Lidar2k51]

Maybe we casual listeners with no real musical background don't matter to the real musicians here, but I bought a keyboard to voice my mind and that's exactly what I'm gonna do.

I've been listening to this track on loop for the past hour and still can't get enough of it. I personally cannot find anything wrong with the pitch (in all honestly) but I have been called tone deaf in my life. The track flows well, I love the duet and the playful lyrics.

If you guys had a great time doing this it doesn't matter what the "professional music critics" have to say about it. Nobody can take the experience away from you. And I, like many people (from what I can tell from the thread), greatly appreciate the submission to the site.

[Fusilliban]

When someone tells you "You make me happy I'm really glad you're in my life I love you." Would you really take them to task for the run-on sentence, or any slight mispronunciations they make?

This song is (unlike most of the other songs here) not meant to be of professional quality. It's just supposed to be good fun.

Is there some OCR metadata that I'm not reading? I don't object to looking at the song this way, but I'm not sure how I was supposed to know that's what it was. Please keep in mind that this is the internet and a minimum of 80% of us are low-empathy social misfits who are bad at reading context in person, nevermind in flat text. I mean no disrespect here, I just... didn't see anything that would lead me to think that. This may be due to my failure to pick up on cues, rather than them not being there, but if it's the former I suspect I am not alone.

So my initial review of this song was mixed, but after listening to it several times and thinking about it a bit more thoroughly, I realize I'm holding it to too high a standard - I'm not looking at this as a remix, I'm looking at it as a standalone piece, which is foolish of me. So, kudos to the crew here, this remix is pretty excellent.

I'm a bit iffy on a couple parts. Some of the synth bits used seem a little rougher than the rest of the piece to me when I listen to the instrumental cut (thanks for providing it, Zircon) but these are minor imperfections and they're pretty well obfuscated by the lyrics. I think I mostly take issue with the background guitar riffs - they sound weirdly rough to my ear when they're mixed in with other stuff. The foreground guitar is still aces.

I'm not the biggest fan of shonensamurai's vocals here. To be sure, they're better than I can do (I sing like a dying moose), but they're a bit off in some way that I can't quite put words to. Still, the emotion is there, and that's cool.

There's a world of difference between pixie's lyrics, and the opening non-word vocal work (the term for which escapes me). After reading this thread, I suspect this has to do with being trained for opera-type singing and sustained notes rather than the more poppy style used here. The lyrical stuff is ok, the opening vocals (which remain in the instrumental cut) are friggin' excellent.

D-Lux's mini rap is a little cheesy, yeah, but it's spot on, and the cheesiness makes me smile a little.

All around good piece, my listeners were all over it this morning. I think the greatest weakness of the piece is that it's so far beyond the original, it's hard to judge it on the "remix" scale.

[Don-Don]

I pity the people who are taking this mix to seriously, they're missing a really fun piece of music...I guess you could say whether or not it's perfect depends on your definition of perfect.

Also, where can I find the instrumental version? Been looking around for it, but no luck...A link would be appreciated. XP

[Shonen Samurai]

Is there some OCR metadata that I'm not reading? I don't object to looking at the song this way, but I'm not sure how I was supposed to know that's what it was. Please keep in mind that this is the internet and a minimum of 80% of us are low-empathy social misfits who are bad at reading context in person, nevermind in flat text. I mean no disrespect here, I just... didn't see anything that would lead me to think that. This may be due to my failure to pick up on cues, rather than them not being there, but if it's the former I suspect I am not alone.

There was DJP's writeup.

Thanks for the kind words. We all appreciate them.

[q-pa]

Okay. I've figured out how to say what I was trying to explain earlier.

This song is not meant to be a demonstration of talent. The amount, or lack, of talent displayed here does not reflect on the remixers.

This song is an expression of joy, and love for the community.

...

This song is (unlike most of the other songs here) not meant to be of professional quality. It's just supposed to be good fun.

...

Any problems with the performance are irrelevant to the success of this mix. Whether or not it made you happy to listen to is all that's important.

It made me smile and chuckle a bit. If it didn't do that for you, fine. But it wasn't intended to be fine art, and you shouldn't have expected it to be if you read the lyrics. So don't act like the mixers tried and failed to make a masterwork. Because they weren't trying to, and they didn't fail at their goal.

Amen, brother.

Could not have said it better.

But watch me try:

There are many kinds of mixes on this site. They cross not only genres but also moods. Some are tender ballads ("Death on the Snowfield," "Pacabelle's Gannon"...), some are 4-on-the-floor dance (DJ Crono & Sir Nuts's stuff), some are hard metal (SnappleMan's stuff), others are just good fun; nothing more to it ("I Got the Spacebeam," "Water Warning," "McVaffeQuasi Ultimix," and yes, this one too). Though I must say, this one pwns.

Looks like we scared Pixie out of this thread entirely. Nice Work, guys...

Edit: Requoted for great justice. --Literally.

To be fair, this mix was done very quickly. Zircon actually submitted it before I had to the chance to rerecord my vocals. I wasn't happy with them because I'm not used to singing in a fast, poppy style, and I had to record them in a rush. It's definitely not my best work, but when you're collabing with four other people eager to get the mix out to the masses, that's what happens. The point was that we had an awesome time together.

[GordonF]

Hey,

After listening to the mix over and over for the last several days, I decided to pop in here and read the reviews. I was a little bit disappointed in some of the negativity flying around, but I guess thats behind us now and I just wanted to add in my little bit.

I'm no musician, and as a rule, I prefer instrumental remixes over those with lyrics. This one, I have to say, is a definite exception. The vocals really make the remix great-- they complement the melody perfectly, in my opinion.

I look forward to more songs from pixie and the rest of you. Thank you for submitting!

[Another Word Awaits]

I pity the people who are taking this mix to seriously, they're missing a really fun piece of music...I guess you could say whether or not it's perfect depends on your definition of perfect.

Also, where can I find the instrumental version? Been looking around for it, but no luck...A link would be appreciated. XP

Generally, remixers usually put additional content in the ReViews thread for the song, with the intention that people who care would actually read the thread to find what they are looking for.

In any case, as I wrote in the last page, zircon posted the instrumental on the second page.

http://www.zirconstudios.com/Lover%20Reef%20(Instrumental).mp3

[Don-Don]

Heh, guess I missed it. I'll keep that in mind though, and thank you very much for your help.

[WesPip]

Okay. I've figured out how to say what I was trying to explain earlier.

This song is not meant to be a demonstration of talent. The amount, or lack, of talent displayed here does not reflect on the remixers.

This song is an expression of joy, and love for the community.

...

This song is (unlike most of the other songs here) not meant to be of professional quality. It's just supposed to be good fun.

...

Any problems with the performance are irrelevant to the success of this mix. Whether or not it made you happy to listen to is all that's important.

It made me smile and chuckle a bit. If it didn't do that for you, fine. But it wasn't intended to be fine art, and you shouldn't have expected it to be if you read the lyrics. So don't act like the mixers tried and failed to make a masterwork. Because they weren't trying to, and they didn't fail at their goal.

Amen, brother.

Could not have said it better.

[Tidar]

i love the melody!

i really got intoo this song for 2 hours XD

not cozz of the lyrics but cozz of the way you put the lyrics and the melody togther would say this is a real sega song (thats a compliment )

keep it up

collab power rules!

[Baidol]

The remix sounds good and feels good.

I will admit, the first time I heard it I was underwhelmed, but that was because I had certain expectations. My problem with it wasn't that the vocals were bad, just that they were different from what I expected. Once I realized that I enjoyed the song quite thorougly.

[DarkeSword]

The remix sounds good and feels good.

I will admit, the first time I heard it I was underwhelmed, but that was because I had certain expectations. My problem with it wasn't that the vocals were bad, just that they were different from what I expected. Once I realized that I enjoyed the song quite thorougly.

Quoting this for mix page's benefit. The rest of my post has nothing to do with this quote.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

Some people seem to be forgetting the point of this thread. Just post your review of the mix in question and be done with it. Stop posting about unrelated issues. I've moved a few posts to Abuse already. If you feel the need to discuss unrelated stuff, take it to PM.

[DistantJ]

So seeing the title of this mix I rolled my eyes. A romantic Lava Reef remix? The concept seemed pretty tacky to me, and I felt I would be unimpressed. I quickly skimmed over Pretzel's description and went to download. In fact I even saved it in my 'Temporary Files' folder, anticipating it's immediate deletion.

...But I didn't delete it.

Straight away there's a great opening with warm pads which just turn the legs to jelly. Some average percussion, a guitar, and there it is - that chick with the gorgeous voice again.

I don't know who this girl is, but she must have had some classical training. As usual all notes are hit absolutely perfectly.

Anyways, moving on. The general feel of this track is a feel I often enjoy, it brings a somewhat exotic feel, and whilst the lyrics are written in a romantic sense the tune and underlying Lava Reef chord progression give more passionate, poetic overtones to it.

I absolutely adored the use of the woodwind instrument and the guitars, but the piano really just irked me and felt like an unnecessary supplement.

The male voice, while not awful, does seem to be a bit of a problem. Not to say that the voice is bad, in fact it's pretty good for the most part, but when you juxtapose a classical quality powerful female voice next to a more average, punk music suited male vocal, the contrast is a little too apparent.

The poem/rap style reciting towards the end didn't work for me for some reason. Again, I just think it's the voice.

At first, hearing the vocal singing in the tune of the Lava Reef theme I said "psh" and rolled my eyes, but after a few bars I realised that this actually worked. The bridge and chorus from the original theme seem to have been melded together to form the chorus for this song, which does work, but can sound awkward at first to those familiar with the original piece expecting the bridge to lead into the chorus rather than be a part of it.

The lyrics of this song are quite pleasing, and they don't make the cheeseometer explode like a lot of game remixes with lyrics tend to.

[Liontamer]

Anything bashing the people instead of the song, as well as needless bitching about pixietrick's website loading blank (it has a white background and if you don't have Flash installed, the content will not display), OR begging/comforting/reassuring pixietricks in lieu of that emotional ("emo" for short) outburst of pessimism has been and will be deleted. Grow up, kids.

In other places in this review thread, there have been some perfectly fine comments from people who have nothing good to say about the track. Like it or dislike it, listen to DarkeSword, just say your piece on the song and keep the comments focused on the song. If you don't like the mix, don't be a douche about it. Only the judges get to do that.

[OzymandiasVolt]

I don't like Shonen's voice in this song. Don't get me wrong, it's obvious he can sing, just not in a style that I personally enjoy. Trixie's voice, however, was absolutely gorgeous, especially in the non-lyrical portions.

The music itself was quite enjoyable. You guys can apparently do excellent work on short notice, even if it's a rush job that was composed purely for fun.

Oh, and don't mind the elitists. Those guys are everywhere. The trick is to stop caring about their opinions, since their opinions are frequently unsound, and unsound opinions are worthless.

I'm looking forward to whatever you five compose in the future.