*NO* Streets of Rage 2 "At the Bar"

[Sir_NutS]

Your ReMixer name: Smooth4Lyfe
Your real name: Joey Ofori
Your userid (number, not name): 33213

Name of game(s) arranged: Streets of Rage 2
Name of arrangement: At the Bar
Name of individual song(s) arranged: Streets of Rage "Bar Stage"
Link to the original soundtrack:

Additional Info: "At the Bar" is a hip hop version of the Bar stage from Streets of Rage 2. Lyrics are about drinking and fighting in the bar, just like in the game. It's a smooth version of the track.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Rexy

[Rexy]

Once again, Joey, your vocals are sick!  The delivery is as enthusiastic as I expect from you, the lyrics delivered on their promise, and they've been well-mixed to the point that I can hear every word.  The other accompanying VSTs also sound well mixed, with the saxophone and flute licks having a surprising amount of articulation for their brief appearances - not to mention great use of sweeps and low-pass effects to pace the arrangement.

Talking of which, it's an expected direction from you - short and sweet, with those aforementioned subtractive changes and a decision to double up on the source material's A section (0:38, 1:35).  I want to say that it works, but the problem that I have is the presence of the source audio itself.  I didn't mind it for the 19-second intro, but it became more upfront when the B section got in play (0:57, 1:55) - and even when the A section got reprised during the fade-out, I could still identify the source audio underneath the VSTs.  It's more intrusive than I anticipated, which is a shame because the rest of the groove complimented your vocals.

Due to this, the track had put me in a corner.  In a vacuum, it's a powerful rap adaptation of one of Yuzo Koshiro's lesser-known tunes and a fun album opener for your Video Game Rapper album.  However, I'll need some time to reflect on whether the amount of source audio present makes it acceptable as it is for the front page.  There have been mixposts with sampled game audio before, but not at this level.  Hence, it's left me unsure about where to see the line.

 

[EDIT 11/25: After much contemplation, I too feel the sampling is too much for OCR.  It’s a shame, Joey, because I enjoy the concept a lot - so if you decide to rework it, it’s best you remove the audio and rework with your VSTs when appropriate.  Keep going and don’t lose heart.]

 

NO

Edited November 25, 2019 by Rexy

[Gario]

As Rexy said, the vocals are kickin', as usual, with some slick lyrics and well timed samples to compliment them. The production is clean, as well, and with the sampling in the background it's not hard to find how this connects to the source.

However, that leads to a bit of a problem: the primary way that we can identify that this is a SoR2 ReMix is the sampling, which is a bit of a no-no on OCR. I think it's safe to call this a violation of this rule:

Quote

Taking the original game audio and simply adding drum loops or using an existing MIDI file and assigning new instruments does not qualify as substantial or original arrangement.

It's a particularly fabulous case of this broken rule (with excellent rapping and a few instruments sampled on top, for flair), but I think it still falls well within this rule violation. When it comes to sampling, it's not strictly forbidden, but if one can't make the source connection significantly enough without the literal source sampling to fall back on, then it hardly becomes one's own arrangement of a track and instead one's accompaniment to the original source.

I like this - plenty to love with the rapping and production quality - but I don't think this is something that OCR can post.

Great work, and look forward to more coming from you, as usual, even if this particular track won't likely be posted.

NO

[DarkeSword]

I think the rapping and production are great, but there's too much sampling of the original for OCR, IMO. NO.