Leaderboard

Sorry for the double post, but there is a goldmine of good discussion that can create a thread just from this point alone. You and I discussed a similar topic last year via PM. I've gotten in a number of fights now, with bigwig composers drilling this shit into the heads of n00bs (and I was at one time among them) that charging anything less than a 3-digit figure per minute is "devaluing the industry" even though Danny Elfman — Danny fucking Elfman — lowers his prices to $1 USD in exchange for keeping the rights to his music at least once per year on an indie film. Yet, they expect everyone to believe that a kid scoring a crappy college film or indie game for nothing is undercutting the business. Despite that it's business as usual considering Danny Elfman's tradition. It's like everyone working on this game is doing it out of a labour of love and to get experience. The artists, the programmers, etc. But not the composer! No, the composer is special! On that note, I have actually had one composer, quite successful and used to be married to a famous actress, tell me that composers are "criminally underpaid" even if their paycheck amounts to millions because "actors make more". It's like, holy shit dude...Tom Cruise risks certain death to promote his films as do stunt people (who get no recognition from the industry btw) and you expect me to agree that the composer deserves the same pay rate? Most of these composers don't understand the concept of consumer buying power. You can't expect that a bunch of college students or whatever are going to be able to pay you Hollywood rates. And guess what? It isn't you who gets to decide you're worth the big bucks; it's the people with the big bucks who do. It's actually the hardest pill to swallow in this life: That we don't get to decide our value to other people.

Great news everyone! Jason Covenant has finally agreed to take the last track: Gilder's Theme! With this, every single track has been claimed and we are already mastering the finished tracks and as of this posting, 4 are completed and marked finished! We are well on our way of making this huge album a reality hopefully sometime later this year! Get excited Arcadia fans!

I remember this from the album eval, and my commentary is pretty close to the same as before: the arrangement suffers from having a density/business to it that gets stale over time, but the instruments are always changing so I can't quite say the arrangement gets 'static'. There's just no place for the ears to rest for a moment and appreciate what's going on, is all. For some reason there's a bit of a focus on the left ear, as well - more instruments seem to fill that side than on the right side. Neither of these are crushing issues, though - just a bit tiring for the former issue and a bit distracting for the latter, once you notice it. The arrangement itself is certainly all there, and I can't complain with the production quality. Great work - it's certainly a solid addition to the SoM album! YES

The mix feels super busy right off the start. Not the cleanest production here, but it doesn't completely break down. Loved the arrangement and those short time signature change breaks. Also any vocoding is a plus for me. I think this song could've used a break somewhere, it's too busy ALL the time, and it gets very tiresome towards the end. Even a 15 second section where things calmed down would've improved the listening experience tremendously. I need to mull over this, as I'm borderline right now. I'll finish my vote later.

Quite a busy track here, things kick off fairly suddenly with guitar and brass riffing. The groove developed over the course of the first minute of the track was gradual and well executed. 1:24’s vocoder break was great and unexpected. The subsequent synth solo and organ afterwards were a cute addition. 2:47 presents us with another solo, and a short vocoder section closes us out. The song feels like it crams in a large amount of content for the tidy duration. A couple thoughts after listening - while things were quite busy through the course of the mix, there wasn’t really ever a time where the soundscape was too full, which is a testament to good mixing. A slightly more developed intro and outro would have been to the track’s benefit, as I feel things started and ended a little too quickly. I also felt that while the source was there, it would’ve been good to have thrown in some verbatim use of the main melody as opposed to the faster more embellished version found here. Otherwise, solid job. YES

I was not expecting such an energetic and unique take here, and I actually had to take a moment to adjust. Nice work on pulling off such a radically different (and fun!) take on this source. I do think the second half suffers from being over-cluttered, but I was able to hear the main parts clearly enough and it doesn't bring it even close to a NO. Hopefully someone can confirm our correct, but I think this source was the one that Kikuta said was his favorite when he was asked (by me!) at the Otakon Q&A years ago. Fun times and this mix is lovely. YES

This arrangement is certainly a lot of genre-defying fun, just what one would expect from these two. There are a few production oddities. The brass conflicts with a few of the other instruments, the robo-voice especially. There are some strange dips in volume periodically, making it sound like the track is starting to fade out just for a second before coming back in. This especially stands out because the arrangement is overall lacking in dynamic variation--there aren't any gaps, breakdowns, or any other breaks to prevent auditory fatigue from setting in--so those small volume changes are more pronounced. I don't think either is a dealbreaking issue, though. This is still clever and fun, and the production is more than adequate. We'd need lyrics before posting this, of course, but otherwise I see no reason not to. YES

All right, so I'm going directly to the updated version. The arrangement is super fun, and I love the sound design! There's a lot of variety in the sound palette, and everything works together really well. The sine synth melodies backing the main theme is really an awesome touch, I wasn't expecting that at all. It's a nice contrast with all the nasty, gritty sounds in there. The guitar work is also great and definitely contributes in making this even more badass. 2:14-2:28 has quite a generous amount of mud and things seem to get lost. The issue seems pretty specific to that section, and no other part of the track seemed to be off on the mixing, so it's not a dealbreaker. Awesome track! YES

Sweet, I'm down with signing off on this now, nice work addressing the issues and being timely! YES

Jorito will provide a version with fixed mixing, eq and balance in the next couple of days. I'll update this post with the new version but for now I ask to hold on till the new version is provided. EDIT: Jorito provided an update: The mix is much better balanced now, and everything sounds cleaner. Since my qualms were production-only and they've been solved, I'm happy to change my vote to a YES.

This arrangement is really fun. There's a ton of energy and overall it feels both lighthearted and driving at the same time. guitar work is excellent, and the solos were really solid. I think Mike provided done solid advice regarding the production. The mids are definitely really dominant here, and it's taking over a bit too much. I all also agree that al lot of the elements feel fairly distant. A little nitpicky, but the wild howl at the end clashes with the notes. It's more distracting to me than anything else, and I feel like it sounds out of place anyways. This definitely needs to hit the front page. I hope you adjust some of this levels and get this back to us! NO (resubmit, please) (changed below)

I really liked this arrangement, it is very expansive on the original, plenty of customization and different elements, it never stays on one phrase for too long but it doesn't feel like it's jumping around randomly either. The guitar soloing was crazy. I think the initial section, with the orchestral elements playing along the drums and synth elements was odd, and didn't blend well, but this wasn't a big gripe for me as the rest of the arrangement made up for it. My main issues with this track lay in the production side of things. The mix feels muddy and distant, and needs better EQing. The mids are too dominant and make the song sound as if played through a tube, and the highs lack a bit of brightness. I loaded the song and did some hacked up EQing and I think your problems lie around 500-1.5k hz, carving those freqs nicely, or eqing the individual instruments that occupy this space may clear things up a bit. I also felt the mix's compression could be brought down a notch. Even though the mix feels distant I can hear the compression acting up on the guitars and orchestral elements pretty badly. This is a really creative remix and I want the production issues fixed before I can pass it. They aren't hard to fix so please take this into consideration and resubmit asap! Edit 07/05/2016 Issues have been addressed, the mix is cleaner and better balanced now. YES