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I'm happy to announce a couple of staffing changes here at OCR. First up, I wanna welcome @Hemophiliac to our Judges Panel! Hemo's been putting in the work for the last few years as one of our Workshop Evaluators, and has also stepped up in the past few months to handle a lot of the visualizers for the remixes you see on our YouTube channel. He's an active presence in our community and has a lot of helpful advice in the Workshop. We're glad to add him to the panel. Look forward to getting some fresh new NO votes on your tracks! Speaking of Workshop Evaluators, a few months ago we retired our Ready for Review process in the Workshop because we felt that it was a cumbersome extra layer of evaluation prior to submitting to the Judge's Panel. Our Evaluators did a lot of great work over the years but we're retiring that role. In it's place, we're introducing our new team called Sages! Sages are active artists in our community who'll be in the Workshop giving feedback on remixes, posting tutorials, and coming up with their own ways to revitalize and energize the Workshop. Our three new Sages are @Xaleph, @pixelseph, and @paradiddlesjosh! We're glad to have some fresh faces on staff, and I'm personally looking forward to seeing what these folks have in store for us. -- DarkeSword

It's a huge pleasure to be fulfilling this role! Over the coming weeks, you'll be seeing my mug replying to your posts in the workshop and (if I'm doing things right) I'll be providing you with means to make improvements to your writing, arranging, and/or mixing. Can't wait to hear more of what y'all have cooking out there!

Starting today, the sharing of music generated by feeding a prompt into AI-software is prohibited on OC ReMix, both here on the forums and on our Discord. LLMs, AI, and other machine-learning technologies are both interesting and impressive, but the implementation of these technologies in popular usage rely largely on unethical training practices. Copyrighted works are used without artist consent to train commercial AI-models. Moreover, OverClocked ReMix has, over the course of over 20 years, established itself as a place for artists to learn about the composition and production of music and hone their craft. We ask artists to pay tribute to VGM through the art of interpretation; we're looking for the personal spin, the human touch. I, personally, don't believe audio generated by a machine-learning algorithm is doing that. There are ethical implementations of AI-technology in the music sphere, such as sample libraries, physical modeling software, and audio production suites that use machine-learning to perform complicated tasks that an artist can use in the production process. Sharing music that uses this kind of tech is absolutely fine. But tracks generated wholly or in-part by services like Suno and Udio (among others) do not belong here. And just to clarify, the discussion of machine-learning, LLMs, and AI here at OC ReMix is not prohibited, but should be tempered by an understanding of the goals of our community, which include artistic development and education and the appreciation of VGM through thoughtful exploration and interpretation. Thanks. -- DarkeSword

I'm really excited - we have some cool stuff planned ahead!

Awesome to see this Sage business! This is important stuff. Just yesterday I was talking about OC ReMix's rare feedback culture to a musician friend of mine. Can't wait to see what you come up with.

Additional ears? You got it. I'm coming in cold on this one so you're going to get all of my impressions - not saying that all of this needs to be addressed to pass a resubmission, but hopefully you can make use of the brain dump. The intro brings some really cool flavor - the noisy distorted elements remind me of Porter Robinson's Fellow Feeling (see the 3:00 mark if you're short on time.) If you're going for random blasts of noise, I think this works - if you're trying to make it sound like footsteps stomping through, it's not giving that impression at all because every stomp is exactly the same. There's no variation in the sample and it reaches uncanny valley territory fast when you play the sample multiple times in a row. This all boils down to what you are going for here, but either way, I think some subtle variation with each repetition of the sample/layer of samples (without knowing how you actually did this) would build immersion. Some of your orchestral elements (flute, glock) are very resonant, oftentimes peaking at their fundamental frequency between 3-6db above everything else. The bells in the intro also feel comparably dry. This will probably get ironed out in your next pass, but I'm going to point it out anyway. The orchestral sequencing sounds workable for the most part, you're getting good mileage out of your samples. It's not the best but I do think you're using them effectively for the most part - the main areas that sound really noticeably fake are the half-step chromatic runs on the strings at times like 2:48. I just don't think the big ensemble patch moves fast enough to accommodate that writing, and would recommend adjusting the lead writing to fit better within the limitations of your samples. I also feel like the intro could use some deeper sub bass presence. It's not that the stomps aren't contributing any bass frequencies, but a big cinematic sub drop or sustained bass to accompany the stomps (see Fellow Feeling) would make this feel much more dynamic, or have some risers building up tension in the low end leading into :49. The decision to intersperse various melodic elements (glock, harmonic strings, cello) was a good one - otherwise, this intro would be way too long. It already feels a bit lengthy as-is, but those additions help pad it out quite a bit and justify the length. However, this gets to the problem of transitions and buildup, which I think is my biggest gripe currently. There is rarely much going on to signal that we're approaching a new musical idea, so even though you have some very dramatic changes throughout your arrangement (which are quite inspired and interesting, I must add!) they come on very suddenly. Cinematic risers, fills, sweeps, etc. are a part of this equation and could definitely be used to greater effect here to bridge your gaps, but there's another element I want to touch on: the idea of movement in your part writing. You do a great job building atmosphere and have all the makings of a very dramatic song, but there's a lack of movement on a compositional level. When cinematic music is clicking well, composition and sound design have a lot of synergy. Right now, you are doing a good job building an interesting sound palette for each individual section, but the underlying chord progression feels weak. It hovers around the tonic chord for most of the time, and even when you do have chord changes, they don't feel properly supported with anything strong in the lower frequencies. This is where a bit of music theory troubleshooting could go a long way - your melody has many opportunities for powerful chord movements that build drama and tension, especially as you lead into new sections, but you're not fully capitalizing on that potential. I don't think it would even require changing up much fundamental about the rest of the parts; just identify the chord progression you're playing and make sure that there's strong support in the bass for whatever chord/root note you're trying to play. I don't know how else to suggest addressing this without studying up on some fundamentals of music theory, but certain chords just move naturally into others and can help you allude to future changes and help transition between vastly different musical ideas in a way that feels rewarding. I think you're running up against some of the same problems I faced before I made the decision to finally start researching music theory. I had a conceptual idea in my brain for what each section of my song was supposed to do, and could support it in terms of selecting sounds and picking grooves/effects/etc., but it boiled down to luck whether or not it worked on a fundamental composition level, and I spun my wheels trying to fix that issue with every other production tool known to man. I think if you were to pick an area to focus on, the big orchestral section starting at 2:36 would be where I'd focus my energy most. Everything else before and after that can skate by a little easier, but when you're trying to make a big melodic orchestral statement, the fundamentals need to be strong first. Figure out what chord you're playing on each measure and map them out in sequence using just a basic patch. I find that it helps to actually just plot my chord progressions out on piano so there's no temptation to get distracted by sound design. See if the song sounds strong and compelling when it's just played on a single instrument, and go from there.

Thank you for feedback. I restarted the remix from scratch so it fits to the submission rules, I added an early version here. This time its a little more on the funky than the deep side esto gaza oc remix.mp3

Hello, I'm sharing a wip for a remix of Tomorrow and Tomorrow after receiving live feedback on the OCremix discord. The goal was to mimic the style of Imagine Dragons (ie Warriors) Source from 0:00 - 1:05 of and below is a earlier wip to compare changes I've made (for better or worse)

Hey Vylent! As was mentioned in the live feedback, having space between vocal phrases is helpful for the listener to digest what the vocal passage is doing and saying. The guitar lead in the older version is a great example of creating that space between the vocal phrases! The intro in the older version has a stronger build than the current, though it goes without saying that your vocalist, Sirenstar, is absolutely wiping the floor with the AI vocal. Returning the levels to the drums on the out (as in the older mix) would better realize the vision of getting this mix close to Imagine Dragons. There’s some rough cutting on the vocals around 2:44, and the breath coming in around 2:48, 2:52 is a bit hot. I think that’s most of the feedback from last night! I am really looking forward to hearing this get polished and see it get submitted!!

Hey Xaleph, I think you've pulled some of my VSTs from the Discord server anyway, but here's a list of some stuff I use commonly: VST Instruments u-he's Zebra2, Hive, Diva. All the u-he synths are notable for having free versions with very limited paywall restrictions; the free versions don't limit settings at all, they just play static or randomize notes intermittently after 20 minutes of rendering/use. This can be worked around by reloading the instance, and it's obviously an easy workaround for final mixdown. FM8 by Native Instruments - goes on sale a lot FMDrive - very cheap Genesis/Mega Drive synth that can read the original instrument files Roland Sound Canvas - not free but essential for a lot of GBA/SNES type sounds. A lot of them make up GBA soundfonts unaltered; Golden Sun, Pokemon, etc. Sforzando and Samplelord are both worth bringing up as soundfont interfaces; the former is free and the latter can notably read some proprietary instrument files used in E-mu kits like the Proteus. Performance Samples has paid VSTs but also a lot of freebies; I use the strings and percussion a lot. They just require a certain version of Kontakt. VST FX Guitar Rig - I use Guitar Rig 5 specifically. Its amps/cabinets are really diverse and convincing and I use the reverb effects on pretty much everything. Convology XT has a free version with a lot of convolution reverb presets. I use them in conjunction with these Impulse Responses a lot to emulate how reverb effects were achieved on the PS1. EliteReducer 2 and CMT Bitcrusher are both free bitcrushers. MeldaProduction has a lot of versatile free FX; I use MCompressor for sidechaining and MVibrato for gated/tremolo effects. ToneBoosters has a lot of free legacy FX i.e. Barricade. Tokyo Dawn Records has some good free/paid FX like Kotelnikov; I use the paid version on my master bus pretty much all the time.

Oh man, you gotta add Famisynth to the list! Not only is it 8-bit heaven, it's 100% free. http://mu-station.chillout.jp/plugins/FAMISYNTH-II/index.html

I only now realized I got another wooden spoon to my proud collection in the final round

Not bad at all, you'll be hearing an update in here before the end of the month.

yeah, i got lucky a few days back, in the morning. this old fav tune sprang into my mind, green hills (actually, stage 5 in the 8 bit sonic 2!) it's pretty WIP-y after 2 minute mark. i'm a bit stuck for now, but idea is a buildup of course, to something.

you already helped a bit i think...i started something a few days ago after writing&reading on here. it's not super duper but was enough to make me quite happy. was so starved for getting a groove going before!!

ha, that's cool redshadow. i haven't been using soundcloud for a while. i'll get back to you when i have anything new and noteworthy, because i love the idea of my music being blasted to some random ppl in the states. but it's gotta be something new. my music from 2018ish was really just about coping with the strange new reality. i can do much better...but it's gotta happen!! i gotta get out of this strange anti-creative loop. for reals.

definitely. over-analytical and just plain traumatized by all the crap that happened in those years. i have tried some pure cbd early on in 2019, when the voices situation was still pretty new. it's not really for me. i tried some weed a few weeks ago, and it was good for letting the fingers, like, just fall on the keyboard and see what they do. but it's a thing i better only do once a month or so. my history with cannabis is iffy. anything meditative is the way to go. biggest change for me has been doing regular cold showers. whenever i feel like not quite myself, cold water shock is good for gaining some presence. big fan of wim hof, and what he's saying about the vagus nerve and stuff. if i'm not wrong, that nerve can be connected to hearing voices, and becoming acquainted with the sensation of the cold can help you gain back some control.

I was going to give this an official name (something better than "Tools we use"), but I wanted to start a post that lists some VSTs (free and paid) that I know a good number of us use for mixing. This is not intended to be a clone of a list of all possible VSTs, or like 2 people in our community use it so we put it here. It's intended to be a place to find out what others use in our space that we find particularly useful. Just replying with a simple name of a product isn't good enough for me to put it on the list (for the reason I stated above) - though you can always respond with plugins you personally found among the most useful (or just most used in each song). I want to avoid this being a junk drawer that has no real value. The value will come with a curated list of tools that we feel are worthy. For a list of DAWs we use and to find performers of specific instruments, please visit https://ocremix.org/workshop or ask in our discord. Sage Recommended 1. Instruments 1.1 Drums Addictive Drums by xln audio ($159 || complete: $869) [drums] ML Drums by ML Sound Lab (free) [drums] Steven Slate Drums by steven slate drums (free || $119) [drums] toontrack EZDrummer ($179) [drums] Superior Drummer ($399) [drums] 1.2 Samplers Native Instruments Kontakt (player: free || regular: $299) [sampler] [instrument building tool] Heritage Percussion by Impact Soundworks (free) [sampler] [tribal percussion] Super Audio Cart by Impact Soundworks (gameboy: free || complete: $149) [sampler] [chiptune] Shreddage 3 by Impact Soundworks [sampler] [guitar] Free -> Precision (free) [bass] & Stratus (free) [electric guitar] Hydra ($149) [electric guitar] - this one is my favorite of the Shreddage Line Impact Soundworks collection has a lot of instruments difficult to find, such as the Oud ($99) Spectrasonics: Keyscape ($399) [sampler] [piano] Trillian ($299) [sampler] [synth] [bass] Spitfire Audio Spitfire Labs - free [sampler] [textures] [orchestral] [live instruments] Notable Lab Instruments: Arctic Swells, Astral Forms, Frozen Strings, Strings, Strings 2, Amplified Cello Quartet BBC Symphony Orchestra (free) [sampler] [orchestral] 1.3 Synths Native Instruments FM8 ($149) [fm synth] Massive X ($199) [wavetable synth] Reaktor ($199) [modular synth] Odin (free and open source) [semi-modular synth] Phase Plant by Kilohearts ($199) [semi-modular synth] Pigment by Arturia ($199) [wavetable synth] Serum by Xfer ($189) [wavetable synth] Spectrasonics: Omnipshere ($499) [hybrid synth] [wavetable synth] Trillian ($299) [sampler] [synth] [bass] Spire by Reveal Sounds ($189) [synth] Surge XT (free and open source) [hybrid synth] VCV Rack (free || pro: $149) [modular synth] Vital (free || pro $80 || subscribe $5/month) [wavetable synth] Zebralette (free) [spectral synth] 2. Effects Deelay by sixthsample (free) Guitar Rig by Native Instruments (player: free || pro: $199) Helix Native by Line 6 ($399) [guitar amp] illformed Effects: dBlue Glitch (free but may require jbridge) [glitch] [stutter] Glitch 2 ($59.95) [glitch] [stutter] iZotope: Stutter Edit ($199) [glitch] [stutter] Vinyl (free) [vinyl record] Kilohearts Essentials by Kilohearts (free) Slate Digital Fresh Air (free) [vintage exciter circuits and advanced dynamics processing] TH-U by Overloud ($269) Valhalla Effects: Super Massive (free) [reverb] Vintage ($50) [reverb] Delay ($50) [delay] Xfer: OTT (free) 3. Utilities FabFilter (Pro Q 3: $169) iZotope Utilities: Ozone (elements: $49 || standard: $199 || advanced: $399) RX (elements: $49 || standard: $299 || advanced: $799) SPAN by Voxengo (free) [eq analysis] TBProAudio ISOL8 (free) [Mix monitoring tool] Tokyo Dawn TDR NOVA (free || ge: €60) [equalizer] Kotelnikov (free || ge: €50) [wideband dynamics processor] 4. Non-DAW Tools Brad the Mad's Tempo Calculator (free) [Chart, lists given bpm subdivisions as ms and Hz; chart goes from 60 bpm to 179 bpm] Tuneform's Tempo Calculator (free) [converts bpm to ms] MIDI CC List (free) [Chart, lists common CC uses] Virtual Instrument Delay Chart (free) [Google Sheet, lists delay offsets for most orchestral sample libraries] Tap Tempo (free) [Webapp, click or tap a key in time with a piece of music to get its tempo] Notes Native Instruments offers a starter pack with several of the recommended tools called Komplete Start (free) Free(ish) DAWs (https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2015/11/11/free-daw-software/ - he updates this regularly): Reaper Cakewalk Sibelius GarageBand Audacity (audio) Cheap Stuff / Sales Black Friday / Day after Christmas / Spring / Summer usually have sales Humble Bundle often has VSTs, sfx, and samples. Heavyvocity has some good textural tools (instruments & effects) Sample Packs: 99 Sounds’ (free) 99 Sounds’ two 99 Drum sample packs (free) To Add To Review SINE Player, Soundpaint, Musio Orchestral Tools, 8Dio NES VST

This is an interesting topic I've been thinking a lot of lately because the recent hype with AI generated music got me in a time when I just released my first original music album. Since I'm still learning and lacking of experience the results aren't that great so some people might prejudge that and assume it's AI, even though actually I manually wrote every single note in the pianoroll. But it was a pleasant surprise to see you all pointed at exactly the points I'm concerned of. It's not about results but more about the process. Nowadays AI generated music might be still mediocre, to say the least, but even if it eventually got real good... there's something special about the satisfaction of simply having your work done after all the time and work spent. You kinda grew with your works in a way that it makes them more like friends you build memories and stories with, and when you finally see them ready to be published you feel like you accomplished something you can be proud of. It don't matters if the compositions or arrangements are bland, if the mix sounds horrible or the genres/styles are not everyone's cup of tea. It's your work and you love it and want others to enjoy it just as you enjoyed the process, with all its moments of both tediousness and happiness. And then you keep learning and being able to do more and better stuff as you keep trying and doing more and more of that. If all you did to get it done is just writing some text line in a web/app form, however... where's the story? Where's that special feel that may connect both artists and listeners? That work ends being nothing but some randomly generated product, very much like any of these old Flash avatar generators. Music making can be often too hard and frustrating, especially if you are under disfavorable conditions of some kind (like lacking proper tools, dealing with ancient hardware, being in some kind of depression or any mental craps that makes everything even harder, etc), so I can totally understand people loving the idea of having access to such a task with just asking some cold and emotionless AI. I'm all into making things as easy as possible for anyone to show their creativity to the world, actually. But making things easier is one thing; and I can see how practical AI tools can be to just ease some parts of the process; but for the end-product? That's a totally different thing that does nothing good for creativity but rather the opposite.

Thank you to everyone for the thorough criticism. I will definitely keep these things in mind when I have time to give this project another go.

Really hoping this one is eligible for OCR. Loving the Jungle/Breakbeat vibes, and it worked so well with the source material. ♥ Keep up the good work, and good luck on it getting through if you decide to submit it. :D

I like this one a lot! It reminds me of the classic jungle d&b tracks that you don't hear too much in videogame OSTs anymore. I've really no critiques, it's a good jam!

Arrangement: I second Liontamer's suggestion about expanding the instrumentation. The sparseness isn't selling the concept. Additionally, the drop at 0:46 seems like it was intended to change up the soundscape, but in execution, it's a big letdown because it throws all the energy you just spent the first 45 seconds or so building. It would be more effective to start with that more sparse, chordal bit and build the energy into what you've done with the intro. The false fade-out ending allows the interest curve to drop off too soon as well. Production: The lead synth at 0:16 could use a boost of about 1-2dB. Otherwise, the volume balance of your elements is well executed, at least to my ears. The solo violin at 1:45 is overexposed; if you have a higher-quality sample library you could replace it with or another texture for the lead overall, that would improve the sound greatly. It's a great relief to be able to recover some work after a crash. Keep pushing on this one, and you'll have something awesome.

I like that the beats have a kind of swung rhythm, but they do plod after a while. New section at 1:04 dragged a lot and the texture felt too empty; the overly fake-sounding string sustains, piano, and kicks all hurt this on a sound quality level. I like the string writing at 1:42 in principle, it's just an ultra fakey sound, and the placement is so loud compared to everything else. Cool rhythmic change at 2:01. I wish the textures were more sophisticated or better padded, because there's so much empty space due to how thin the instrumentation is. Could use more melodic usage of "Hidden Palace" as well. It's a start!

Opening both the 2012 and 2024 versions side by side in an audio editor, you can tell from the waveform data alone how much extra effort had been poured into this remix for over a decade. Let's listen! On the prod aspect of things, I ran analysis with a Blackman-Harris function, both 128 and 512bins on linear and logarithmic scale, to positive results. Spectrum analysis didn't make me fall off my camel either, you've got nice stereo separation and likewise no alarming RMS. However I counted more than a 150 clipped samples throughout, which might be related to that enthusiastic -12.23db LUFS integrated with a 6LU loudness range (accounting for DC offset as well). Either slightly limit your master bus output just to be safe, or keep rocking the '0db sample peak' lifestyle. Up to you. Arrangement-wise, there's been massive improvements in texture, sound choices, dynamics and overall balance from your 2012 original, pioneering mashup. Melodies are less muted, the mix sounds clearer throughout and the soundscape is so much fuller now. Imho, your greatest success here is instilling new life and movement into the piece, making this revision much more engaging to listen to. Case in point the first section from 0:15 to 1:00, where the industrial percussions have increased in presence and intensity compared to the 2012 version. But conversely, the source's melody is also more prominent and distinct during that part, which creates an interesting contrast, rather than an irritating dichotomy. The second section from 1:15 has undergone a shocking transformation, where the melodic material used to timidly defer to the classic Roland drum kit, but is now emboldened and confidently riding shotgun with the rhythmic bed from 1:32 to 2:05, before the eerie, melancholic twist of the original remix metamorphoses into an array of decisive stabs complemented by surgical percussion hits, which now makes the 2:05-2:38 section hugely more climactic. As for the ending section from 2:40 onward, I applaud the pivotal choice to swap instruments for the lead which confers it an exotic yet contemporary quality, meshing beautifully with the thunderous drums in this dreamy yet tangible soundscape. There's a lot of subtlety and detail about this arrangement that people hopefully will notice and appreciate. Like in spite of the whole remix being centered around a repeating leitmotif and written with a singular sound palette, you can distinguish the theme associated with each source in relation to its time period and cultural inclination. Which to this day remains a testament to your ability as an arranger to assimilate material from different sources, then interpret them with both cohesiveness and distinction. I can still revell in the care that went into creating this ambient/industrial tribute with delightful Deus Ex influences, yet I also realize that such flavor might not suit everyone's tastes, and might be looked down upon in some leet circles... In any case, it's wonderful to see you revisit and reinvigorate this old work in such an elegant fashion, so many years later. I can only commend your diligence and consistency in the pursuit of this ideal, in the spirit of Ryu Hayabusa. May this labour of love capture the judges' hearts and ears, just as it captured mine back on Game Duels. This truly made my day, thanks for sharing this Eino.

I knew I was in for a treat within the first 30 seconds. This was one of those storytelling remixes that is deeply cinematic and tells a whole story through audio alone. I was definitely not prepared for the ramp up around the 3 minute mark, but it was awesome! Kudos to all who worked on this, this was fantastic!

Those drums and orch hits were delightfully nostalgic and fun. This almost feels like an opening to a 90's show, ESPECIALLY when the vocals kicked in. This was a lot of fun!

This is a solid bop! Great vocals and great production, I particularly like the drums on this. Stellar stuff

A lovely remix! Great vocals and vibe. I don't have much else to say other than: AWESOME job! :D

I do enjoy me some chippity boopity and this remix was chock full of it with style to spare! Those crunch white noiseish snares were fun. Great job on this remix!

Resident Donkey Kong Country fanboy here, sending you a DM :)

I have a WIP that is finished as far as arrangement goes (happy to play with the mixing/mastering if necessary, it's somewhat loud at -9.08 average LUFS). My remix goes a little further than originally intended and includes source material from three tracks of the LISA game (Forever Turbo Heat Dance, Pebble Man, and Men's Hair Club). I will not be pursing a Knytt Underground remix at this point. Here's a terrible music video of my LISA WIP for your en"joy"ment! For those of you who haven't heard the LISA soundtrack before, it's.... different to say the least.

Awesome, this is precisely the kind of criticism I needed! Thank you so much!

I didnt know the ost was on bandcamp lol. Thx for letting me know. ;)

it's very cheezy tho innit? i reckon it could be very nice cheeze once the arrangement is fiddled out. but the melody (the very sugary one) sounds very different at this bpm and groove. i tried to make it gain bpm for a while, so it goes back to the energy of the original the more the song goes on, but couldn't get it to work. so, gotta optimize on the "good cheeze" part. that's why i have this nagging feeling that i'd rather start a different mix, for now :S but maybe i'll come back to this one. with a fresher mind. heh :) this one needs a lot of cool soloing and stuff if it's gotta pass the "really good cheeze" marks, ......and stuff. i kinda still lack agility for that. or you make it really minimal and full pop, or....whatever. idk what to do with this right nao! haha. it's ok i guess. ty for comments!

I really like the take on this song, I think the sound quality is pretty good. You definitely build/break appropriately and it feels good to listen to this song. I'm very very much looking forward to where you go with this after you add more percussion/evolution to the song.

This had a lot of energy and I found myself tapping my foot throughout most of it. This track was a lot of fun and a hoot to boot!

This remix has an excellent sway to it. The arps in the background keep the steady pulse of the tone going. I definitely enjoyed the ending chorus, what a great melody!

I didn't realize how big of a collab effort this was until after I listened to it. It has high quality seeping throughout the song. The placement of the main motif was very well done. This would be a fantastic part of a video game soundtrack!

The production is very solid on this! This had a nice groove throughout and when the Sax and guitar came in it elevated this remix to a whole new level!

I felt like I was floating high above, drifting amongst a sea of digital clouds, reveling in the weightlessness due to the style and timbre of the synths. Let no artifice consume reality, unless that reality bears no meaning.

When the vocals ramped up at :58 I was thinking "I'm awake!" No joke this is one of my favorite time compression remixes. :D

The variety in instruments and styles is very good. The strings coming in at 2:50 and ramping up at 3:00 with the choir was unexpected but very cool, my favorite part of the track for sure.

Thanks for posting this! And thanks for all of the Judges' feedback - I enjoy all the advice and critique.

Luls, not that anyone's watching this, but I just updated my Bust a Move mashup and fixed a bunch of stuff. I've been on a fixing old stuff fix recently. :D

First off, thank you for formatting your post in the way that you did, it's very helpful to include the sources and timestamps like that. On to your bullet points, I'd like to talk about those. You're asking yourself the right questions, in the way to help be self-critical. Being self-critical is a very difficult skill to develop. So, asking these questions and thinking in this manner is a good place to start. On the first point, low quality instruments. You are correct, they are very low quality and sound very much like basic MIDI. This is most apparent in the guitars. Guitars are among the most difficult instrument to make sound realistic, especially when starting with basic sounds. The only things I could recommend would be to invest in some quality guitar samples (Impact Soundworks comes to mind on that, IE Shreddage), or search for a guitar player willing to work with you and record the parts. "Too much to my individual tastes". I'm not sure what you mean by this. Do you mean that your arrangement won't be liked by others because it's in your own style? Nonsense! Besides, you should be writing for yourself, and not for others (Unless you're getting paid to do it! :P) Don't worry about what others think, do it because it is fun to you or brings you joy. As far as the percussion, I can barely make it out because it's much quieter then everything else in the mix. If you think that it's repetitive, it likely is. Trust your instincts. Koi-iro Master Spark is only used for 24 of 162 seconds. I don't know how to call that too long, you really bounce from source to source so quickly that the listener is barely orienting themselves to a new section before it changes again. Look for other tracks/remixes/songs that you want your work to sound like, and try to emulate that. Listen to them side-by-side and note the differences, see what you can change to make your work sound more like the other ones. Experiment, and try new things. It is possible to learn and improve, it does take time and practice though. General thoughts on the track itself: 0:36 sounds like it may be a key change, and that change itself is not prepared so it feels sudden when it happens. This is in the source for Koi-iro Master Spark, maybe best not to use that part of the track due to the direct and sudden key change? Throughout the track there's a lot of muddiness and general imbalance of levels between the parts. I can't really make out what the bass is doing, and the drums are buried most of the time. The guitar parts and organ-like sound dominate most of the track. Let them work together to create cohesion and support between all parts. Generally in medleys the represented ideas usually are developed and not just hopped on for brief moments. With how quickly each source is visited in this, I get the impression of disjointedness rather then cohesion. I'd really suggest taking a step back and evaluating what you're going for and do that comparison to other tracks to get the production to a place where it needs to be, then go wild with the arrangement and making medleys.

intro has a lot of sfx and random-sound sounds that come together to make a rough beat under the ghost arp. we get some melody at 0:30 or so, very chopped up and strange-sounding intentionally so. layering in some plectral instrumentation as well on top obfuscates the melodic material, and the percussion is pretty loud through here. 1:16 is a big stylistic shift, both in terms of time signature and in terms of instrumentation. the heavily filtered strings here are pretty grating and really loud, and it's hard to differentiate between them, the treble content in the very weird bass synth, the ghost arp, the melodic stutter synth, and the plectral instrument that you've had going. it hits more of a groove later on, and around 2:00 has kind of settled down, but it's still confusing to listen to. 2:07 is another shift, bringing back the industrial percussion under a 7/8 groove with more of the very intentionally overtoney bass doing stuff under the stuttery synth. the hard break at 2:40 was confusing to me, as i didn't get why you'd want to just shut off the track in the middle without there being a clear resolution or build section around it. there's some more ghost castle lead played as the melodic content and then it's just done very suddenly. looking at the freq analysis confirms what i felt was confusing to me from an auditory perspective - the bass instrument (which doesn't really ever venture below about 100hz from what i can hear) is by far the loudest element in the mix, both the fundamental and the first overtone. it's fairly confusing from an auditory perspective to listen to something that features such a high fundamental, especially with the heavy variance in styles throughout the track. the section at 1:16 is a good example - there's nothing to ground the track, and so many elements are in the same aural area that it makes it hard to differentiate and really listen to them. it's very tiring on the ears. i really want to like this track. the creativity in choices of synths and approach is really neat as expected from eino, the sources are a fun combo, and the arrangement is interwoven nicely. ultimately though it just doesn't sound good - the heavy layering of instruments in the same freq range is intensely tiring. i was only able to get through two listens before my ears felt quite pressured, and the middle section is most of where that came from. the track also is meandering and lacking cohesion, which combined with the lack of real dynamics throughout makes it difficult to follow and stay with what's going on at any given time. there certainly is a ton of source used in creative ways, but the track still manages to feel inchoate. i think you need to spend some time breaking up the blocks of instruments in the same freq range, and then re-volumize everything so that the instruments that are the loudest at any given time are what you want the listener to be listening to. right now the melodic content is never the main thing, which isn't a great result. also consider adding more to the bass end of the bass instrument while still keeping the weirdness of the upper overtones so as to ground the mix more. NO

My only thoughts are... "Murder a steer"?

what the fuck YESS This is so great

The hate. It's coming.