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Magix pro audio division, including Samplitude and Sequoia, was recently sold to an American investor - and I'm anything but happy about it ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Based on my current knowledge of the approach taken by the new investor behind the former Magix DAWs Samplitude Music Studio (the semi-professional entry-level version of the DAW), Samlitude Pro X and Samplitude Pro X Suite (the professional DAW versions) and Sequoia (the professional DAW version with advanced broadcasting features), I wanted to advise against using these DAWs for the time being (unless you can still get an older version such as Samplitude Pro X8 Suite). This is because Magix has sold its gifted pro audio section to the American video and audio editing developer Boris FX, which I was not familiar with until these days, and I will probably stick with my good old DAW version Samplitude Pro X4 Suite for the time being. But take a look for yourself: https://borisfx.com/products/samplitude/ While the familiar DAWs are certainly not going to undergo any major changes, a few not entirely irrelevant things have already come to my attention, giving me the well-founded impression that the American investor is threatening to rip new customers off and downgrade or slim down the product. Here are a few examples: 1) The really good Independence Pro sampler, with its approximately 70 GB of high-quality VSTi sample content, plugins, and sound design tools, has been completely eliminated from the expanded Samplitude Pro X Suite - allegedly for licensing reasons associated with the takeover. Strangely enough, the Independence Pro sampler still seems to be included in the really expensive Sequoia, according to the total installation size of approx. 90 GB. https://borisfx.com/products/sequoia/ Since Independence was one of the core features of Samplitude Pro X Suite, which allowed you to do a lot in terms of composition and sound design, this is all the more sad. Those who already had the Independence Pro sampler in earlier versions of the DAW will still be able to use it in future upgrades. But for all new customers, this would be a real disadvantage. You would then have to purchase Independence Pro Premium Suite for around 300 euros on top of that in order to get the full range of features you were used to from previous versions of Samplitude Pro Suite: https://producerplanet.com/de/article/independence-pro-premium-suite-3121/ … 2) Problems may arise with some of the collected VST instruments that are exclusively owned by Magix and whose licensing rights are therefore not held by the new investor. This could lead to problems, especially with older music projects that use some of the affected Magix VSTis, at least as soon as you upgrade to a current version of Samplitude or Sequoia. ... 3) In this context, it is also not yet entirely clear how the old DAW licenses and a possible reactivation (for example, after installing a new operating system) will be handled, as these licenses were always managed by the parent company Magix. As a precaution, I am expecting the worst in the long term, but I am still hoping for the best. … 4) The new advertising intro for the DAW with AI language tools worries me a little in terms of the usual professionalism of the product. Presumably, one of the reasons for this is to save on personnel costs for voice actors and translators in typical American fashion, thereby maximizing profits. But when these AI voices, which already sound inhuman and incredibly stupid, can't even pronounce the DAW's product name correctly, and apparently no one even noticed this during testing, I can't help but wonder how future versions of the DAW will perform and what the once-excellent support for queries and bug fixes will look like. ... I will definitely keep you up to date as soon as there are any new developments regarding the DAW in the wake of the new investor - maybe I'm just being too pessimistic and should give the new company some time and space to restructure. Nevertheless, it will probably remain a mystery to me how an innovative, passionate DAW developer like Magix could come up with the unforgivable idea of selling off its legendary pro audio DAW series to an American investor (I would have had far fewer concerns, and even some hope for progress, if it had been a forward-thinking Japanese company in this field)... ... while the parent company Magix stubbornly clings to its immature, crash-prone toy DAW Magix Music Maker. As I recall, I once wrote to the company to the effect that they should completely scrap this buggy product (if only for marketing reasons) and instead promote the well-functioning and stable semi-professional Samplitude Music Studio as the new entry-level product into the DAW world of Magix (because Music Maker is basically the ultimate anti-advertisement for the company, which at the time almost dissuaded me from upgrading to Magix's professional product line, which, in stark contrast to Music Maker, offers some of the best DAWs on the global market). But if I remember correctly, the company really wanted to convince me that Samplitude Music Studio was too complex for many beginners and that Music Maker was very popular. Does Samplitude Music Studio seem overly complex to you? https://borisfx.com/products/music-studio/ I find it really hard to believe that, with such excellent products in Magix's pro audio division, the company's management consists of complete idiots who have no idea about the product or things like sales. To me, it feels more like this takeover had been planned for a long time without many people knowing about it. Sometimes a large sum of money simply flows behind the scenes, one hand washes the other, and suddenly a high-quality product that far-sighted developers and passionate people have worked on for many decades, or maybe even half the company, changes hands (or even continents) to the highest bidder. It wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened, and money might rule the world even in such matters (once again to the detriment of true progress and higher human ambitions). … Perhaps music, composition, mixing, mastering, and sound design need to be used much more like a powerful form of magic that fills people with such pleasure, lively intensity, and an engrossing otherworldly attitude to life when they listen to it that greed, selfishness, opportunism, and thoughts of status and luxury seem like tiny, completely insignificant things in comparison.

Heck yea. Within the first 5 seconds of the song, you know what you're in for. As someone who was around in the C64 days, and lucky enough to have access to one, this definitely takes me back. The original tune itself was working so hard considering it was for a puzzle game, and the remix brought that energy forward a couple of decades beautifully. Yeah it could have mixed things up a little more, but I can appreciate the song for what it is. Still laserin' well into the 21st century!

Thanks for the Pokemon Quest suggestion, I'll check it out :-) Regarding the repetition at 3:23, there's some subtle rhythm and texture changes so it's not totally the same! But I get that it seems similar.

Heavily suspect AI usage. If not, this heavily samples and relies on source audio. That alone is cause for rejection. There's also audible clipping throughout and is pushed super loud. 5.3 peak! NO

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Hi, sorry for bumping this thread from 2 years ago but the topic interests me. I'm both a VGM Arranger and a huge Kingdom Hearts fan (I feel in love with KH1 back in 2003 and been a fan since). While I don't have any experience with others playing my music, I feel I could provide something to this album idea (I have a unique style to my music with an emphasis on melody and write in Musescore). How much progress do you have on other themes besides Roxas? I could maybe provide an arrangement for Riku (maybe something representing his character growth and having decent energy), Xehanort (I've always wanted to do a theme for him), Saix/Isa (I think it would primarily incorporate "Sacred Moon"), the other villains (that could be fun), and/or Ventus.

The sequencing of the orchestral elements is not half bad here. In particular, the brass short articulations were executed well. Strings sound like they really could use greater variation in round robins, and the solo violin was heavily exposed. But really not the worst I've heard before. The overall arrangement is fairly conservative structurally sticking very close to the original with a few melodic embellishments. The choice of embellishments was good, but more expansion on structure would have been nice as well. More of your own ideas would be welcome and less Wily 2 is what I'm saying. More variation and development of your ideas, and less repetition and similarity to the source. The major problem is that the track then crossfades into the source in the final 1/3 of the track. Now, there's nothing wrong with, crossfading into another genre that you had created or using a simple chiptune sound to solo or improvise over the orchestra; for example. But utilizing the original source audio directly (or recreated nearly identically) is not acceptable. NO

That's a pretty solid use of the multi-tongue articulation in the trumpets right at the jump! The result is much better than trying to brute-force staccatissimo 16th notes at tempo in terms of realism. proph nailed all the major points on this one already: the strings are sorely lacking in realism (especially the solo violin) and the arrangement is overly repetitive. There's also too much of the original audio for an acceptable OCR submission. As an additional note, I'd sub the piatti (crash cymbals) out for tambourine during the A section: in a physical orchestra setting, it will be much easier for the percussionist to keep the tambourine balanced dynamically with the rest of the ensemble and the part as written lends itself to aux percussion like the tambourine for that reason. If it wouldn't compromise your vision, we'd be more interested in a version of this arrangement with more variation in its presentation and less of a reliance on the original BGM. NO

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This entry for DoD's Koji Kondo Month was so much fun! I really enjoyed the lyrical nod to the Rabbit Joint Cover during the LP and once again in revisiting the track for a vote. While I don't necessarily agree with the advice that you should mono and center your sub-150 Hz elements (we don't live in the heyday of vinyl record pressings for music distribution, where that was a technological necessity), I agree that the bass and drums can both pull back about 2 dB and the mix balance would be better for it. Ultimately though, I've got to side with my other Js. The "Águas de Março" quote is too long a span of non-VGM material for OCR, especially without a strong tie-in of the VGM source material during that segment. It's simply not in the letter nor the spirit of the Submission Standards. That doesn't change the fact that you've made a fun send-up of an OCR classic. NO

No reason to hold this one in suspense more, my fellow Js have identified exactly my thoughts. I don't think the instruments in and of themselves are bad choices, but I do think something is missing that would make them shine more - whether that's with saturation or other effects would be up to Matt. The arrangement overall works, but individual sections feel plain and last too long; as an example, :42 - 1:25 feels like it's said all it needed to say by :53, such that by the time the pitch ramp comes @ 1:14, I'm pretty fatigued by the repetition instead of enjoying the transition. 2:36 - 3:30 is another example - the section has changes inside it, but nothing in those changes feels like a compelling reason to have the section run as long as it does. The big pay-off at 3:30 loses all its steam for me since I was expecting something like it 30 seconds prior. This isn't too far from passing, it just feels like it's stuck between being a sketch and being fully realized. A tighter focus on managing the low-end and mids as Chimpa suggested, as well as tightening up the arrangement, would get this over the line for me. NO (resubmit)

Two sources that don't have a lot of melodic content - can definitely see why this is presenting source problems with my fellow judges. The piece isn't doing itself any favors by saving the most straightforward quotes of the source until the very end of the piece (the bassline rhythmic structure from Howling Gears being used only on the outro, for example). In times where a source has too simplistic a melody, or its defining features are in other facets of the piece (rhythmic structure, sound design, etc), it becomes much harder to nail down the tie between the remix and the source. And the spirit of Rule 3, as jnWake outlined above, is to make that distinction as clear as possible for the audience. On the panel, we're then tasked to ask, "when I listen to this section, am I making a connection to the source somehow?" Anyway, that's my preamble, onto the vote. It's a rare (and welcome!) vote on a VQ track where I don't have qualms with the production. There is some mud in the low-mids when all the layers start to coalesce (1:51 - 2:30, 3:50 - 4:25, 5:11 - 6:00), but it's not pulling me out of enjoying the track, so I'll live. I also agree with jnWake that the arrangement flows nicely - it certainly takes its time with basically a 2-minute slow burn intro, but the transitions between sections are excellent and the writing straddles the line between enough variance to feel developed and enough repetition to feel cohesive. The biggest problem the track has is source usage, as my fellow Js have noted. Both source tracks have a similar challenge to overcome from a remixing perspective, in that their actual melodic content is sparse to my ear. Howling Gears A has a single actual melodic phrase that I can pinpoint - the diminished leap in the synth. VQ's changed the interval to be something more palatable in the soundscape, but in doing so, I think it changes the character of the phrase enough that it's no longer easy to connect it back to Howling Gears. The arpeggiated runs in Howling Gears B are more clearly delineable, and they're woven in better. That leaves basically the rhythmic structure (the groove), not the notes, of the bassline, guitars, and drums to draw from in Howling Gears. Nidavellir's Shout has the portamento synth line as a melodic figure, as well as the even more melodic melody @ :26 in the source and B section melody @ :48. To my ear, the first 2:30 minutes of the piece is Howling Gears B (the modified arpeggio is the biggest tie, and even that feels tenuous to me), with the guitar coming in with the altered Howling Gears A melody around 1:12. If I am really listening for it, I can hear the Latin groove of the source's bassline at 1:50, but again, it's tenuous. 2:50 - 3:09 is much easier to identify as Nidavellir's Shout from the melody; I can't count the ostinato as the chord it outlines is not unique enough to Nidavellir's Shout. 3:10 - 4:27 comes back to Howling Gears B with the melody front and center in the guitar, and 4:32 - 5:11 returns us back to that modified Howling Gears A. 5:12 - 5:50 has no connective tissue that I can identify, and then we get the groove of the source bassline in the bass from 5:50 - 6:10. Timestamping gives me 233 seconds out of 376, or ~62% source if I include the tenuous spots, ~51% source if I don't (194 seconds out of 376). What it's coming down to, for me, is that I have to strain to hear the sources in this piece when our standards ask for very clear and identifiable - dominant, even! - source use. I think this is arranged and produced well, but all of the connective tissue just doesn't come through enough for me to pass this one. I would need to hear more clearly defined ties to the source, preferably early on in the track (within the first minute or so). NO (resubmit)

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Hi uh just trying out this website, and figuring out how it works, so yeah HIIIIIIIIIII

Some things did if you were in on the joke.

From what I get back using AI-identifying tools, this person's catalog is AI-generated. Don't have the cycles to entertain this. 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. Human-made (i.e. human-sequenced and/or human-performed) music, please. NO

Reminds me of Art of Noise - The Ambient Collection. It's darker and less melodic though. I like it very much.

This is a wild romp through the Virulent source indeed, very creative and avante-garde. I like it, there's plenty of source and it's a fun listen. This version is not my master, and this master is as jnWake pointed out quite overhyped in the high mids and highs. The premaster was already quite heavy in those regions, as my master still indicates, but this master is screaming in the high mids and highs to the point of pain. The limiter has been cranked so high here, and also oddly it is limited at -1.2db which seems odd to me. I agree another shot at the master would be appropriate here. I'm happy to provide my master but that is absolutely not a requirement. NO (resubmit)

Mario Kart 64 Winner 2025-09-14 2256.mp3 Ended up changing the middle section quite a bit harmonically because it was not satisfying to me. These Mario Kart tracks seem to go really well with some melancholy blended in. I was not satisfied with the transition and piano solo. I'm also playing around with a sine lead that I may use for some contrast between piano lead in beginning, not sure I'm totally down with it. I still need to vary drums a bit I think. I worked on humanizing synth chords and bass; I don't mind these being as repetitive but maybe can add some variations here and there to break it up from the initial copy/paste. I dialed reverb back just a bit because it was a bit too intense.

Some of the Star Fox 64 themes have such weird melodies, Venom being a standout in that sense... In any case, we begin with some pads and voice clips. Backing is doing material from N64 Venom. Source quotes at 0:27 become quite evident. There's some fun toms (I guess?) here, with tons of effects applied that make them sound quite interesting. As usual in your tracks, there's A LOT going on in terms of sounds. Things build-up for a bit and it starts becoming very very LOUD, the waveform shows the limiting very clearly and the LUFS stabilizes around -7dB with occasional peaks of -5 and such. Around 0:55 the Venom 64 usage becomes even more evident with the additional synths. We get a transition with a voice clip around a minute in and then focus on a quick synth bass. Really love the dark electronic sound of that sample. At 1:22 the source returns and we get some nice moments of heavy electronica until a more syncopated section at 1:48. After that we get more heavy electronica with additional synths and tons of loudness. While the mix is clear sounding it also feels very heavy on the high frequencies (easy to check with plugins like SPAN). Section with violins at 2:16 is fun, nice change-up. We then return to more quotes of Venum with a lot of percussion and such. Around 2:51 there's a break and we move to SNES Venom for a few seconds before a cool variation of Venom N64 with Venom SNES as backing. Track then continues with quick changes and all sorts of Venom quotes. This is kinda like prog EDM at this point! At 4 minutes we get another voice clip transition and then we return to the mood of 1:22 and it's loud and busy as hell. There's another voice clip transition and the melody from 2:16 returns before the track closes off with some stabs. On arrangement this is super cool, I have no idea how one would label this but I'd describe it as dark prog EDM. Source usage is clear and there's a lot of fun and creative usages of the original themes. Some transitions are a tad abrupt but I don't really mind them, I feel this generally flows well and is quite interesting to listen to. Well done! On production I'm mixed but mostly because of one particular thing. Let me start with the positives though. Sound design is great, there's a lot of cool effects and fun treatment of the samples (like those toms in the first minute). Percussion is punchy and the bass, when it matters, stands out great. I also generally feel that the mixing is well done, with most individual things being easy to hear. There's 2 things that bother me about the production though. First, the mix is very very heavy on high frequencies and that makes listening to the entire track a little tiring on the ears. You use a lot of synths and it's easy for all those bright sounds to layer together and create a huge mass of shrill sounds that can get rough, I'd recommend trying to balance it out by ducking high frequencies on many of the samples. My main gripe, however, is that the master is ridiculously loud. A look at the waveform will clearly show that the limiter is being quite aggressive and checking with a LUFS meter indicates very high levels for most of the track. As a reminder, submission standards claim "Volume levels should be normal compared to the average recording". Overall, while I think the arrangement is very very cool and the production is 90% there, I feel this needs (at least) a second pass on the mastering (although looking at balancing the higher frequencies would be great too). I understand that electronic genres want to be very loud sometimes but IMO this is way too much, especially for the length of the track. NO

Rise of the Triad - Suck This Remix | Astroverse Dimensions

Hi there, I'm following the OCRemix for some years now and all I can say is THANK YOU. Thank you for the Music and the Thank you for reminding me on my Childhood. It's been years since I played piano and even doing music on my own. Instead I'm doing dancing theater as leader with story writing, choosing music doing the most stuff. I created some nice things in my spare time then. I wished I had the time to remix stuff and implementing my feelings to it. The Story so far - the music is great - and the Arrangements very very nice and shiny to me. They carry really deep feelings and emotions... Thank you ❤️

I'm working on a collaboration, and I'm usually confident with my composing skills. But I need a second opinion to see if this sounds correct to anyone else. I'm using other VSTs instead of one for a piano, but for this, I'm using a piano VST for better hearing with the treble and bass. This piece of music is in E♭ minor, 5/4 time, 110 BPM. Here's what I'm asking about: The beginning has arpeggios, and to me, when it reaches the 11 second mark, the E♭ note that starts there sounds correct, because I think the off-kilter bassline helps. But I'm wondering if it sounds correct to anyone else. At the 29 to 31 second mark, I added notes to ascend back up to the E♭ note, because without them, it didn't sound right to me. But maybe they could work without those notes? And I understand that at the 28 second mark, the Emaj13 chord is probably an odd choice for. That's really there to leave the music unresolved. But this is something I also am wondering about. Does the Emaj13 leading into the B6/E♭ at 32 second mark sound right to you? I'm trying to figure this out. Again, the track is meant to hold tension, which is why the chords at the end of each melody aren't being resolved.

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