Liontamer ⚖️ Posted March 8 Posted March 8 Artist Name: Princess Al's Nuclear Jamboree Hello, OC Remix! I've loved you for years. Now I'm going to contribute what I've been working on. My favorite remix from OC, 'Prancing Dad' by Prince of Darkness was a real inspiration for this one. Taking the classic boss battle theme and aiming to have it be a good 4-5min remix without being too repetitive led me to take some creative liberties with the arrangement and approach, particularly with the last half of the track. I made a point of having the bass slightly muted in the first verse/chorus for an extra impact later in the song. Lots of attention was given to the drum approach, as I absolutely did not want to just blast-beat my way through this. My personal favorite part of this remix is right at 2:50 with the density of the mix bringing in the lead guitar again. And then I just decided to be ridiculous and add a guitar/synth solo section to finish it off. Anyway, I don't really know if this was what you were looking for as far as 'artist notes'. This is my first submission, so hopefully you dig it! Games & Sources FFIV - Battle 2 Source material for this track is the Final Fantasy IV 'Boss Battle' track. Or 'Fight 2' or whatever other names it has. We all know it.
prophetik music ⚖️ Posted March 11 Posted March 11 (edited) what an artist name. ~3db headroom. big drum opening, and we're right into the meat. i like the harmony on the lead on the first ascending riff. the backing parts are mostly mush and i can't really hear rhythms, but they're nothing wrong that i can hear. i'm appreciating the personalization of the lead especially - lots of vibrato and grace notes, the attention is nice. 1:14's a new chord progression and i like the changes, as well as clearer rhythm in the backing parts. this section is a recap of the main melody line a second time, but there's a lot changed from the first time which is nice. we shift into The Required Acoustic Guitar Break for a bit, and i like the backing elements and the overall tone of the guitar here a lot. we don't spend much time there, as it's quickly back to screaming guitars on the main melodic riff in a big build (on the big bridge?). 3:28's a solo section with a nice prep, and there's a lot of technical ability showcased. 3:55's rhythmic breakdown is nice as a quick shift before getting back to faster stuff. there's an arp at 4:13 that's hip but it's hard in the right ear and i wouldn't have minded it being a bit more centerline to avoid it being so focused and loud there. there's a build into the last bit, and it's done (with a hard cut at the end which doesn't make much sense). this is a blast! everyone's covered this tune, so it's nice having one that spends some more time exploring it. the master's pretty heavy and it can be hard to hear some backing elements, but i honestly didn't mind as the total package is over the bar for me. it's big and loud and fun and i like it a lot. the ending needs to be fixed - figure out what you want to do and get rid of the hard cutoff (extend it a second and fade it? let the cymbal ring?), and it's good by me. CONDITIONAL (on fixing the last few seconds) edit 3/19: PANJ supplied an updated version with a false ending and another 45s of material! because that's what you expect from princess al and their nuclear jamboree. the ending is at 110% for the entire thing now, and it doesn't end on a hard cutoff, so it's good by me. YES edit 9/30: if it's AI, it's a NO, so that's that. Edited September 30 by prophetik music
Liontamer ⚖️ Posted April 21 Author Posted April 21 (edited) I’ve only listened to the new version with the “proper” ending. Loved it, loved it! Was jamming to this in my car and appreciating the textural twists and turns here. Nice work varying up the tone of the guitar and the drum patterns to keep things from getting stale. Wonderful sonic expansion of the source. Dense and intense, this is strong stuff, PANJ! Definitely send along some more, we’d love to see it! :-) A BIG welcome aboard! \m/ YES EDIT (9/12): Not so fast! :-D SInce I judged this one in the car, I didn't hear the fuzziness of some of the instruments or see the spectrum analyzer image of this being hard limited like many A.I. tracks are. The drums are in the uncanny valley and seem to be the most A.I.-like aspect of this, where none of the cymbals in particular sound clean, everything has a fuzzyness to it, but it stands out more when there are quieter, more isolated parts of the track. Plugging this into an A.I. detection tool says it's likely generated AI, and the user's music on YouTube and Suno indicates the same. A lot like the slew of genAI city pop arranged VGM, there's some catchy stuff in there, so it's a shame it's not human-made. AFter seeing their genAI music on their YouTube, I asked the artist about this track and got no response, though I know they saw my question. :-P I don't consider AI-generated music to be arranged by the submitter, so to me it always fails OCR's ownership test. We need to add big honking text on the submission form itself saying we don't accept A.I.-created music. Human-made (i.e. human-sequenced and/or human-performed) music, please. NO Edited September 12 by Liontamer changed vote from YES to NO
Rexy ⚖️ Posted May 4 Posted May 4 (edited) Yep, the source quota is on point - two variations, an acoustic breakdown based on the source's A section at 2:24, another A section break immediately after, an entire solo section at 3:28, and then the aforementioned updated ending added in half-time drums to reprise the BGM nicely. There's a lot to love all the way around - variations on chord structures between the two variations, drum writing, and backing textures - I felt like I was on a prog-like journey on this one. I find it curious that all of the double-time use was further near the start of the track, and then that got inversed closer to the end - not at all what I was expecting pace-wise, but you do you. Curiously, I also noticed the amount of headroom for the mix, but I can let it slide when the track is otherwise a spiky sausage outside of the acoustic guitar break. Your performances are tight, the core instrumentation is identifiable in the mix, and guitar tones have a solid variety. I did notice, however, that your rhythm guitars have a flange-like softness to them that doesn't make them pop as I was expecting, and this is even more evident when going through the ending section. A cleanup before posting would be nice, but even if this is impossible, the track still has the quality to show itself on the front page. Still, what a ride! It's not a perfect presentation, but the pros all work together in a monstrous machine of a mix. I can't have imagined your first impression going any other way—welcome aboard! [EDIT 09/30: Well, THAT explains the "flange-like softness" if it's now suspected AI - relying on prompts rather than actual music creation. Not going to lie, that has now made me feel disappointed. Please, if you're going to submit something to OCR, it has to be something you have made yourself, with actual music production tools. It hurts because I loved the concept, I just didn't want it to be like this.] NO Edited September 30 by Rexy
paradiddlesjosh ⚖️ Posted September 28 Posted September 28 I was sleuthing this one with Larry after it apparently passed the panel and I agree, the suspicion of generative AI elements in this track is high. We don't accept generative AI submissions here at OCR, either in whole or in part. We want artistic takes on VGM materials, not whatever the machine spits out when you prompt it. Show us what you can record and/or sequence! NO
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