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As a bass player, I super super dig the electric bass on this. I can just see some full-suited, sweating Italian session player with a 60's Fender jazz bass, squished inside the pit alongside all the other musicians, trying his absolute best to stick to the notation while everyone else gets cooler parts than him. A consummate pro. This remix is awesome.

I don't think I even want to say a lot here. "Epic" is just a huge understatement when it comes to describing this remix. Simply one of those tracks that make the chills run down my spine. Incredible job, everyone!

Disclosure, I is noob:) Cakewalk is now free. It used to be a program you used to have to pay for, but through foreign corporate acquisition, you can get it as "Cakewalk by Bandlab", free. You'll have to set up a Bandlab account, and then the DAW is yours. LMMS is also free, but it's VST capabilities are horrid. However, it's built in synths and soundfont support are awesome. There are VST's for SF support in other DAWS, but LMMS seems to do it the best and most consistently. You can always use both:) If you don't like them, you are out zero dollars. VST's are important, that's where you'll get the most of your sounds, and there are many good free ones out there for beginners, like us:) It's great we live in a time and age when we can get our feet wet for free. I've not paid a dime for anything, and I think my stuff keeps sounding better and better through practice with the tools I have. Full disclosure, I'm not posted on OCR yet (I hope it happens), but I'm working on it, and I have made it a mission to do so without paying anything, so that everyone else knows that it can be done for free, also. TL;DR. You can try Cakewalk and LMMS for free, and they both have their strengths.

omg we actually nearly did what this post suggested - release the SD3 album for OCR's anniversary - but we missed it by a decade, lol. Can't wait for the actual 20th anniversary - glad I've been along for the ride for about 11+ years, myself.

Sorry for the long wait or formal staff feedback for this one. The main positive first, I thought the arrangement itself was solid. IMO, the middle area (1:01-2:06) went on too long while being more texturally empty, but the eventual rebuild was good and there's nothing inherently wrong with it, just a relative flatness dynamically. That said, it's the production quality that's holding this back from sailing through if it were to be submitted. I'd say the string samples are serviceable in tone, but are pretty exposed throughout, and that ends up hurting this in terms of the production quality standards. The way the sustained strings decayed at 1:31 was way too sudden and exposed the samples (again at 2:05 but less so). The rise in the percussion from 2:27 sounded unnatural as well. At 2:33, for example, the sample's unrealistic attacks for the higher notes are pretty exposed. The humanization needs to be improved, which would help improve the dynamics and expressiveness that's not fully coming across in the composition. It's a great base, and not much needs to be tweaked on the arrangement side. Use the Music Composition & Production area to get advice on how to improve the realism of the tools you're currently using.

I don't know these sources and I see that my fellow judges have gone over them in great detail, and I thought it would be fun to listen to the track in isolation before listening to the sources at all. What a cool track this is! Totally immersive. The mixing is just right for what it is trying to achieve, every element has it's place and nothing overstates itself. The arrangement is dynamite. Completely enjoyable track, great work! YES

I'd say the stated source connection from 3:15-3:31 was very weak due to the strings and horns being so pushed to the back, but the overall source usage was strong and otherwise timed out as stated in the submission letter, so thanks to Jorrith for being helpful there. Nothing else to say but great job. The usage of the them from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" was very fleeting, so no big deal there. There was some soft clicking at 2:14 that I noticed, but could be easily overlooked as it wasn't that loud. Other than that, nice work! Without actively verifying the source tune usage in the arrangement, I wouldn't have been able to tell which sections were source vs. original writing, so great job weaving those sections together seamlessly. Y'all come back now, ya hear? YES

I didn't feel like the references to "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" were even noticeable unless one was specifically looking for them, and even then they're subtle. Despite how iconic that theme is, I had to specifically look it up to listen for the tie-ins. The strings were a little mechanical, but there wasn't much of them. The vocals coming in halfway through were a little surprising--that works better in Morricone's work where the vocals are much more in the background--but that's a minor issue. The arrangement does get a little hot and busy in the climax (3:48-4:20, especially 4:04 on), but that's my only major concern. Otherwise, really good stuff, absolutely accomplishes what it sets out to do, and definitely should be part of the album's mixflood. YES

I've been listening to this track for months, but surprisingly I didn't really listen to the sources until now - on its own it's just that good. I find it very interesting in the breaks that there is a LOT of original material which could've led to you using too much 'Good, Bad, and Ugly', but it's really just that - original material. I hear some of the infamous guitar arpeggio from that movie from time to time (like at 4:20), but surprisingly the direct references are very few and far between. That's good, because I'd REALLY hate to reject this due to breaking site rules on that. The source breakdown helps quite a bit, and it shows that while there IS a lot of original material, it still has about a 56% connection to the sources, which is within acceptable ranges. The seamless blending of bridging material and the two sources in the style of 'The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly' really works wonders for this, and the production values are top notch - I'm looking forward to this being on the front page (when the album is released)! YES