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Thanks for your comments. Maybe I have made some mistake, all the tracks I make are musical arrangements and not remixes. It means that I listen to the music that I like and make it into music, arrange it with the instruments and the style that I like at that moment. Thank you all for your comments and your advice is welcome.

This is easily one of my favorite songs to just put on a chill to for a couple replays. It's got something new going on constantly, is a great length, and is just SO GOOD to listen to. I really love this mix.

For tentative interest I'd like to be put down for "As Before, We Are" from Horizon Forbidden West.

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Bundeslang: This place is a wealth of knowledge. Everyone knows you. Do a 5 minute podcast (a wealth of dying knowledge)

I have similar feeling towards this post. I really looked up'd to SIr's tracks along with a lot posters, OneUp especially (whenever you guys posted, we had a real compo on our hands.) I was really encouraged by everyone's remix and especially their crisp production. Doing these competitions was never about winning The ultimate reward for entering the compo was just the feedback from everyone. You could be the last loser, and your feedback to me was just as important, that's how we grew. I miss that. I hold a little pride knowing that I was the only guitarist to hold his weight with some of the giants from the compo forum; back then recording guitars we're sooo difficult to. Production and creativity were so hand-in-hand. I'm from America, but I actually moved to Beijing, China 10 years ago for work. I still live here. That's ultimately why I dropped off making music. The thought lingers heavily. But due to this forum, someone from this forum bought some nice recording gear to help me make some music for a game--the game never succeeded (he is somewhere on the OCR--thank you). I would ultimately like to see a revival. I'm somewhat active on Instagram under the same username. Bundeslang: Biggest thanks you. You helped everyone. You kept this thing going. May I ask, Who was your favorite artist?? Spicy question

The energy management/pacing of this song is really well done, transitions are well placed, sound quality isn't bad and it ages well (10 years later). Great job DDRKirby!

Interesting mix of songs. I hope Anthony Vincent sees this, I follow his channel, Ten Second Songs. It's nice to see OCR mashups still alive 15 years after they started being a thing. RIP Constromlie.

I'm almost satisfied with the chorus and bridge sections, but the verse parts need a bit more work. Someone To Call My Lover.mp3

Thank you! I made these on a whim at first but it turned out to be a really fun 6 month project.

I don't know details, but I know there exists places to publish/purchase loop libraries for this purpose. I'm sure somebody around here can point you in the right direction (and you might have better luck asking on Discord) I will also pass along some advice that virt once gave me: if you charge nothing, your music is worth nothing. It's fine to release it cheap, but both for yourself and for your fellow musicians it's best if you do at least charge something.

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

Thanks a ton for that @pixelseph - I normally have the source in the description of the video, but I'll start putting them directly here. @Vylent Really happy to hear that m'friend - glad you enjoyed the mix! @Liontamer Always great hearing from you LT - and I figured due to the nature of the source, it won't be suitable for submission (or the more repetitive nature of it) but I'm glad you enjoyed it all the same! @The Vodoú Queen Many thanks! I'm happy you enjoyed the mix and thanks for checking it out. @paradiddlesjoshThanks for checking it out, as well as the critique! I was definitely having a little more trouble mixing this track than I'd like to admit, but I'll keep this in mind for future mixes : ) @Xaleph Great insight as always - I was having a bit more trouble mixing/mastering the track than I'd like to admit but I'll definitely pay more attention to these ranges moving forward.

Very strong opening. That fakeout drop at 1:30 was crazy! Once the drums kicked in, I started bobbin my head. This was super cool, good job on this!

I really love how chill this is. I realize it’s a WIP but there are some minor things you can do to make it feel more polished. I’ll give more details later but the big picture is that there are subtle changes in percussion you can add/remove/modify to make it more alive. First, don’t change the main kick and snare - that being mostly static gives stability to the piece. The mid percussion (hand percussion and guirro) could have variation of velocity/length/ and maybe some pitch. Additionally slightly humanizing it so sometimes it hits slightly before/after will make it sound more alive. There are some tools that help do this (or you can play it live). How you panned some of the mid percussion, and didn’t over do it is correct and sounds good. I like the subtle transitions, it sounds right. If there is anything I can do to help, I’d love to! FF9 is a great game with an awesome OST and EDM is my jam! I think the funk feel is perfect. Feel free to jump into discord and ping me. I’m looking forward to the next version.

Pro-Q is like an industry standard. I see it everywhere.

Hi VQ! I’ll be giving this one a listen in full a few times, along with re-reading the judges’ feedback, before giving you some recommendations. It may take a bit, but don’t fret! - the goal is to improve and that’s what we’re gonna do! Will likely need to edit this space several times, so I’ll make another comment once all the thoughts are put together! - Opening SFX set the scene. Bar 9 (around :15) is when the mallet percussion and cello enter. The cello seems to be giving a low pad/bed for the percs to lay on; the reverb here is good, though the stomp sfx bury the instruments by about 1-2dB when they occur. I would recommend dropping the volume on the stomps at this point by about 3dB and see if that doesn't open the space up more for the melodic content to come. - Around Bar 21 (:40), we've reached the transition to the A section of Blizzard Buffalo. The cello swells up to a peak around :44, and the sustain on the peak here softens the impact of Bar 25 (:48) where the A section kicks into gear. The sustain seems to be a combination of the reverb tail and compression on the low-end; automation on the reverb (decay first, and then the reverb bus as a whole) would be my first area to tackle. - Bar 25 (:48) has harp (or pizz strings) running an arpeggio against the chords created by the perc, cello, and added violin(s), as well as the thunder sfx in the back. The reverb here is really strong, making the articulations on the strings harder to distinguish. The instruments feel stacked on the center channel as well; I would consider spreading the percs suuuuper wide to free up some space for the arpeggio. The cello will maintain its center channel position throughout to give a solid foundation, and a slight widening of the violins will also help give some room for the arpeggio. - Bar 41 (1:21) has a wonderful solo violin swell! This is good dynamics here! The reverb level is appropriate given the space it's filling out, however, it's worth automating the level of it down for the next section at Bar 45 (1:28) since the soundscape is about to be more dense with instruments. I would also keep the violin center here, even if you panned the violins earlier. - Bar 45 (1:28) trades the mallet percussion for a piccolo and adds a muted piano(?), with bells at Bar 59 (1:56). The first bell strike comes in late (about 50-60ms after the rest of the orchestra) and makes its addition feel awkward until the tempo change around Bar 60 (1:58). This combined with the reverb still being too high in this section makes distinguishing the individual parts harder, just as before. Before we look at addressing the EQ of the reverb, let's see if we can't fix it by adjusting (and automating) its volume first.

Source: Original from An OverClocked Christmas v.16 [Unofficial] Album What Was Submitted to OCR Judges' Panel Judges' Original Decision ---- I'll start this off by saying a big "thank you" to anyone willing to listen to this and give it feedback, or directly help me work on pushing this over the bar. I've had some interest in it from ZackParrish, but unfortunately he's been very busy, and I never want to feel like I am (or actually) monopolize someone's time in helping me deal with my work or get better at it. Next order, I'll try to give a truncated list of the impetus behind the writing, orchestration and composition of this song, and then summarize the Judges' and other people's general critique and comments on the piece from the first time I posted it up on the OCR Discord's #Workshop, up to the Panel decision. . . Feel free to read my write-up to the Judges for a more detailed explanation and framework for the arrangement, but here's a brief breakdown: NOTES ON THE PIECE: Based off the idea of big-budget classic Hollywood films, classical composers (primarily Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Tchaikovsky), and the songs "Carol of the Bells" / "Sarajevo / Christmas Eve" by Trans-Siberian Orchestra and instrumental versions of "Kuolema Tekee Taiteilijan", "Nemo" & "Eva" by Nightwish; Arrangement-structure is based off the old concept of Ancient Greek odes in tragedies and comedies; extreme storytelling material, hence the extensive use of foley and SFX with the composition; and, 'Storytelling' "elements" are based heavily on extended-universe stuff from the Mega Max X comics (as explained in the submission write-up), that gets into the backstory behind Blizzard Buffalo before and after he turned into a Maverick--so the context may or may not be lost on listeners, I'm unsure. . . Basically, this song is the BGM of Buffalo's decent into madness, as he continues to prowl the snow-ladened city streets, looking for victims to freeze into the very same ice sculptures he used to make for the children in the nearby village. The 'music box' motif is the only thing keeping his sanity in-check--even for the briefest of moments--and puts the beast back into slumber (an allusion to Christmas folktales, Grimm tales and stuff about Krampus, which is also a great horned monstrosity). The ending of the remix was supposed to allude to Buffalo having a quaint dream about his peaceful life as the ski resort guard before being infected with the Sigma virus. CRITIQUE: The pads and backing are too wide in the stereo-field (wet) and they're eating up a lot of the subtle resonances of what's going on above it; reverb tails too long (albeit the pads and backing were heavily-inspired from the Nightwish reference tracks, but I'd figured they'd need to be removed or replaced with something else more melodical that still has that "Nightwish-drive".) It is bad enough for people to barely tell what the woodwinds are doing or whether the strings are legato, pizzicato, or spiccato/staccato, and muffles the drumline entirely...so it is a massive issue. Confusion about the foley: Liontamer frequently equated the heavy, bestial breathing and subtle roars that ARE Blizzard Buffalo in the piece to "thunder" and "noise", despite the FX being fairly audible. OCR I know doesn't really like slow-burns / long intros, but I felt it was integral to building up the piece, hence the robotic stomping and trudging through the snow, and extra effort placed on music box transitions, etc. If I'm honest, this dichotomy of judges for and against use of SFX in music kind of puts a bitter taste to my mouth (it works in the remixes of, say, Michael Hudak and H36T, but it seemingly doesn't work here); I think some of that is why my remixes get flagged up as "complicated", "over-complex", and "hard to judge", and I don't know whether or not that is a compliment or something other than. But they were there in this song, in particular, for the storytelling. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I can rip them out, if they detract that much or don't add anything conceptually for listeners... Would make me extremely sad to do so, however, considering time/effort spent to mesh them and the musical elements together. Intro is interesting "in a vacuum", but is a slow-burn, not melodious, and "meanders" (I highlight this word in particular because this is probably the single-most reoccurring piece of vocabulary I see, even in remixes that get a pass; might as well replace my middle names with 'Meander Noodles' at this fucking stage, and makes me want to bury my head in hot sand every time I see it or hear it); Epilogue (section after the hefty orchestra) is chaotic and not very melodic. This was hugely improv'd on my part, in listening to a few alt. piano compositions/arrangements based on The Frozen City/Blizzard Buffalo Stage, and some shit I made up on my own. TO ME, it works, but just might need the added finesse I cannot give it due to lack of skill and practice to make it make sense, coherent, and flow correctly. Dynamics between instruments (something expressed by Zack and Hemo and H36T in conversations on Discord); they're there and some are expressed OK-ish, but the horns are buried by the strings, and the piano and woodwinds are peaking / have a pitchy-ness about them. This was more-so true for the original take than the submitted take, but it could be a persistent problem (based on Judges' commentary), which leads to; Blocky part-writing; strings are NOT expressing as they should to sound realistic (bow movements, attacks, too mechanical), and the brass and piano doesn't have an "orchestral flow/harmonic progression" due to it sounding like 'baby's first music sheet', with chunks of heavy chord-lines...I'd guess...(in looking at my MIDI). I did humanize velocities and shunt notes off-grid on purpose, manually and with some seed randomization on Reaper, but I guess the parts need more chops on them. I do not know. I've never written orchestral scores before nor am I used to getting synths to express in an overly-realistic manner with the articulations mentioned. . . So yeah, 'baby's first', is very correct in this instance, LOL. # As was said in the Panel decision, and further discussed with Prophetik Music in private, (and a few others are aware of this)--no...I am not classically trained in any music theory or the theoretics and practice of part-writing for symphony orchestra, or anything else, for that matter. Insofar as music is concerned, I had a brief stint for 3 years in Junior High School in band, and learned a few instruments either on my own or with an instructor/tutoring, but that's the extent of formal education. All this comes from vicarious learning, YT vids, reading and taking notes and listening to a lot of classical (and modern) orchestra, etc. I've always liked and have been fascinated by more..."unconventional" classical music, (which is where the comment about why does this sound and feel more archaic in nature, yet doesn't work to its fullest potential, comes from), and this is very much rooted in stuff like symphonic poetry and Greek theater. Admittedly, this piece wasn't my first foray into part-writing, but it is probably the first in exploring that concept on a wider scale, throughout the piece, and it's way more than just a simple chord prog slapped onto the VG melody in an EDM remix, or me futzing around with the melody by a few Jazz improv stuff here and there like glides, or chromatic/diatonic runs, or a couple added/changed up notes to keep the beat 'fresh'. Major parts of the opening/Intro of this arrangement, and the "waltzy jig"--sort of...foxtrot vibe...near the end were derivative of the melody and harmony of Blizzard Buffalo, but were written from the ground up by myself, solo. I would like to closely work together with someone to...better understand without misunderstanding Prophetik's (and others') original point about why the part-writing may be "interesting and unique" but doesn't hit strong enough because of the various other issues that bring it down, inclusive of the ending that's "too chaotic and disharmonious" to be the lighter, more whimsical epilogue of the piece. I'm open to the usual suggestions (e.g. having someone like Zack add broody guitar chugs or the dark, melancholy drumline he's known for), as that would lean into the favor of this being a TSO/Nightwish-inspired remix due to the usage of more boomy drums and electric lead/rhythm guitars along with the orchestral VSTi...but at the same time I'm hesitant to pull others into a project I poured a lot of heart and soul into like this, because I (for once) wanted to try and get a remix I've done BY MYSELF through the trenches, of its own merit . . In no way is there anything wrong with tag-team assisting on these, but I'm at that weird crossroads where I equally love to collaborate and learn from others, but at the same time am really trying to push myself and pray that solo ventures are equally as...cool...and able to pass the proverbial benchmark, or bar, or what have you. It feels like I'm 'piggybacking' when I do sometimes, and that's a bad/negative mindset to feel. OK...enough blubbering. 'Bout to hyperventilate and all I'm doing is posting this up on the community forum. xD TL;DR: help would be lovely, or some kind of lighthearted, extremely casual tutoring. I've done a lot more free-flow / from-scratch part-writing and mixing exercises with recent remixes, but...IDK... This one hurts just as much as NieR did, and more than some of the others with the reject, and for fear of massive upheavals to what's already here (besides ripping out the annoying backing and pads). But, if that's what is needed to make it 'successful', so be it. The distance and time away from this piece has only lessened the initial sting a little, but in having to re-read the decision and taking these notes on it, I find myself unable to know where to turn or how to start fixing this entire thing. There are fundamentals with the individual composition bits alone that make it disjointed and apparently "too far away" from the source, despite almost everything within BEING CREATED from said source, and the immense frustration I had felt before has returned. It hits me with the "you dunno what the Hell you're doing" vibe, so I'm lost, and anything at this rate would help. Thanks for reading all this... Can always PM me here or DM me on Discord more for private stuff, and I'm up for the back and forth publicly. My hope here is that this discourse and kind of...displaying step-by-step-wise progress on MMX3 will help others in the community who have similar struggles, be it with the "noodley" bullshit or classical mixing, writing and orchestration. I've heard people say they want more VGM remixes leaning into the symphonic rock and orchestra, so this'll add to that, too, if the decision is made to add the rock/metal-elements to it. :) Anyways, I look forward to the discussion! Cheers. ♥ The Vodou Queen - Sorrowful Bellows - MMX3 Blizzard Buffalo Remix (MASTERED).mp3

My Resident Evil 2 Save Room Theme Cover is now on spotify :) Also available, previous covers of Resident Evil 0 and 1 and an original Save Room Theme:

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

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Gonna have to mention FabFilter for their top notch effects (their UI has basically become the de facto UI for digital effects), but especially Pro-Q, Pro-C, and Saturn. As a bonus, they have many fantastic tutorials on how to use their tools, which are basically tutorials on how to use EQ, how to use compressors, etc in general. Sonible I have less experience with, but their smart:limit is a fantastic limiter.

I worry some electronic music producers and artists with skill can perceive AI as a threat. AI doing images and music just feels... wrong... AI should only be used as assistants and companions, not a new form of something a user can claim as their own. If something is done by AI, the user should credit it as [AI] work. What is sad is, not many do. Could any DJ or any EDM producer think that AI might produce something as good or better by taken it from other well-known artists?? Can they detect it?? Can they avoid it??. I am neither of these, but even I see the red flag here. I am against using AI as anything other than help and assistance, but how can sites detect what is AI and what isn't??.. AI isn't going anywhere though, I just don't know the lengths it is willing to go at this point.

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.