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Edit: Okay, after further consideration and some conversation, I'm tentatively going to keep my tack on here. I'm going to contact everyone with done or near done songs to get this into a small OCRI EP release. No new track assignments, no updates from stuff that isn't close to finished, this is basically just a cleanup job so that the music that is mostly done can be out and we can all move on with our lives.

There was never a song that made me want to remix. I got into music out of inspiration from my beloved brother Shariq "DarkeSword" Ansari. When I was little (we're talking like 10 years old), he wrote all kinds of music at home, using Fruity Loops. After I saw him do video game remixes, I basically wanted to copy him and do it too. He and OCR both taught me basic musical concepts (comp and production alike), and then I began college to study music and mathematics, and now I'm here.

Cool arrangement - to me the only issue is whether it's got dominant source usage. By your own breakdown (which, thank you for that), your song has about 3 minutes of wholly original material. That's definitely NOT having source melody in spades; in fact, it's skirting the line of too liberal. Beyond that, I heard too many places where the material was modified too much to count, where it's not recognizable as Littleroot Town anymore. 4:31 to 5:01 is a fine example. You're using an invented harmony of the melody line, making the notes bend, and changing some notes - after all those modifications, mixed with a bunch of original material, and new chords, it's extremely hard to see that as the same source. I have to do a lot of work to connect those dots. I really like a lot of what's going on here, even the original stuff. You're a talented producer and arranger. I'd love to see this on our site, and I think it could happen if you'd be willing to make some edits to cut out some of the original material, so that the source melody is more dominant. That's on you to decide how willing you are to modify what sounds like a pretty cohesive piece. NO

They should make a Star Fox ride like the Star Wars Star Tours ride from Disney! Star Tours is probably the best ride I've ever been on in my life. I think I would go on it three times in a row when I was little. Invading Venom tagging along the Star Fox team, getting sucked into a Star Wolf battle, doing Barrel Rolls? That would be the best.

Ultimately I can sum up the sources of some of my past mixing issues to be (pre-2015): 1. Overboosting EQ in general Sometimes it's slight, sometimes it's super obvious. Listen closely. 2. Not choosing good sounds from the get-go Pick bad stuff, and you won't have a cohesive palette to work with. Furthermore, if the EQ on the sample is good as-is, you don't have to EQ as much to get it to sound good in context. 3. Volume imbalance between instruments This depends on your listening levels, but ultimately, it's hard to get volumes just right sometimes, especially when the complexity of the layering is high. 4. Not-so-good audio system Goal: flat frequency response, ideally. That way, you're not biased towards certain boosts or cuts to compensate (or overcompensate). 5. Compensating for loud mixing with poor-quality compressors Yeah. Think before you put on compressors. Why would you want to use something if you don't know why you're using it? Hardest thing to fix for me: 1 Easiest thing to fix for me: 5 If you get a good audio system, you'll be on track to addressing most of those. That's not to say it won't be hard. The rest is constant practice, patience, and critical listening. Good luck.

First off, I gotta give you props on your arrangement here - even for a 6 minute arrangement you still manage to pack in a TON of ideas and pretty much eschew any direct repetition, without feeling unfocused. Some highlights for me include the great synergy between the bass writing and the engaging beats, the square synth soloing, and the occasional introduction of that iconic Ruby/Sapphire trumpet sound Lots to love here. The source usage is definitely an issue - I'm not having any trouble hearing how you adapted the Littleroot source when it is present, but the bigger problem is how many extended breaks you have throughout the song and how often the source usage that is present becomes marginalized in the mix by other non-source elements. It's a bold, ambitious attempt but by OCR standards, I think you fall short on source usage. I won't spend too much time retreading the production issues Kristina brought up but they're spot-on critiques that need to be addressed before this track is ready to be posted, as well. I find it hard to suggest a resubmission on this track because it sounds very complete as an arrangement as-is, but if you were able to polish the production and sample quality in a couple of troublesome places, and were willing to make the source usage more dominant in the arrangement, this could stand a good chance at passing. Regardless of whether you send this back, I appreciated the effort that went into this arrangement and hope you continue to send more stuff our way! NO (resubmit)

This is a pretty unique mix! I love music box sounds mixed with electronica elements. The bass isn't balanced well, often bass patches have one note that is too loud and needs to be tamed with eq prior to any compression, and I hear that problem here. The bass needs to be tamed in its lowest regions too, and in the mud zone (200-300ish Hz). I'm hearing a lot of rumble in addition to the random too-loud notes, and not a lot of clean impact. There is some very good bass writing here, though, like 3:47-4:02. You've got some things hard panned (like the synth at 0:30, and the section starting at 3:17), I'm not a fan of one-sided hard panning but that's my opinion. Some of the higher sounds in the mix are piercy and too up-front, and too dry, giving the mix a crispy and resonant effect that is a bit overpowering as well as feeling not quite cohesive sonically. Some of the more dancey synths sound somewhat generic but there are good effects used. Good sidechaining. In the breakdown, the guitar sounds fake and the piano is very rigid. Loud bass notes are very evident here. That whole sections needs to be humanized better. The bigger issue here is source use. Even with your provided breakdown (thank you!) I can't make it all out. You've obscured a lot of it with effects, which sounds cool but unfortunately makes it VERY hard to hear. If I give you credit for what you've laid out in your breakdown, even with a lot of lenience, I'm only getting to about 42% source use, and that is really stretching it. I just don't think it's enough source for OCR. If other J's find more source than I'm hearing, I'm open to revisiting my vote on the source aspect. There are some very cool writing and effects ideas here and I hope you'll fix this up for us, give us some more recognizable source and fix the eq/balance issues, because this is really cool. NO (resubmit)

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