Leaderboard

I'm in the "not enough" camp, too. It's a nice, chill groove, and it's certainly transformative in terms of style. But it's basically minor variations of a loop of the first 30 seconds of the source. It's very repetitive. By the end of the first minute you've heard everything the remix has to offer. I wouldn't call it a cover, but it's short on content. Edit: Allow me to tone-police myself, as I realized I came across as excessively negative: I do really enjoy the groove here, and while the lo-fi tone is a matter of taste, it's executed well. It's good "loading screen" or "elevator" music, for a minute or so. I have nothing but praise for the foundation created here. It just needs to go further. NO

I don't feel like there's a source disconnect here at all. The connections from 1:38 and 2:56 of the remix to 1:09 of the source leaped right out at me. More importantly, the whole thing feels like a cohesive whole that's clearly derived from the source material. It's not like there are huge chunks of original writing here. This is indeed some nice, mellow, rich synthwave. No glaring production issues that I can pick out, and the arrangement is solid. I have no concerns putting this on the front page. YES

My personal limit for copy-pastes is 25%. 1:53-2:32 is the repeated section, so that's 39 seconds out of 194, which is 20%. It's also not strictly repeated; I hear some extra horns in the first half and jingle bells in the second half. So that's not a dealbreaker for me. Otherwise, it's a nicely full, transformative arrangement. The original is technically orchestrated, in a very simple, shallow way, but this goes well beyond a "sound upgrade." It's not even really a remaster, more like an orchestral score that would sound appropriate as part of of a movie soundtrack. Much more cinematic than "Pokemon" in my opinion. Sure, some of the instrumentation, notably the string ensembles, can't pass for the real thing, but it's in the ballpark. Overall, it sounds great and I have no substantial complaints. A fine track indeed. YES

Hah! That Lost Woods BOTW theme really goes with everything, doesn't it? Right off the bat, I'm digging the adaptation of these themes into a darker electronic rhythm. You take your time building up to full steam but I appreciated the slow burn. The sound design throughout the first few minutes was perhaps smoother around the edges than I would have liked, but the gritty lead that enters at 2:37 gives this the necessary bite to carry the arrangement home. I want to echo Brad's critique of the kickdrums that enter at 2:36, which lacked nuance and didn't sound great to my ears. The other judges have correctly identified that this is a very bass-heavy mixdown and the master limiter gets pushed pretty hard during the choruses. It's less than ideal, and unfortunately features some of the same issues I had with your first submission, but like that one, I found that this was carried on the merits of the creative arrangement and sound design. I do hope you can take some of these critiques to heart for future submissions and use that to improve your mixing game even further! YES

Not a close one for me. Great variations throughout. prophetik laid out a lot of the interpretive aspects of the piece that really shouldn't be undersold; this is a different genre, lots of additive writing including original countermelodies. I'd even argue that the areas referencing the "on Yoshi" drums aspect of the source aren't even copying those patterns, so it's like getting wholly original writing inspired by the Yoshi drums. Gario had a valid point on the repetition of the melody from 1:54-2:39, sure, but it wasn't long overall and that part was really a brand new rhythmic idea after everything prior to it; really, the offending repetition was only from 2:16-2:39; some doubling/chorusing of the lead there and/or varying the beats more from 1:30-on would have been a subtle way to differentiate from the first iteration at 1:54, but it was brief, the repetitive section was already meaningfully interpretive, and it's a nitpick. Sure, more could be done with this, but nitpicks aplenty aside, when you look at the big picture at how interpretive this is of a 16-bit theme vis-a-vis rhythm, tempo, instrumentation, additive writing, and dynamic shifts, and how full the production sounds, I don't know how this is a close call. If this gets rejected, I'd argue the bar's just too high. YES

32-bit float?! they called him a madman... the intro is really nice. the filter on it is enough to catch it but not enough to stomp out the character. the bass swell is also well-handled and comes from absolutely nothing. the presentation of everything at 0:39 is really great - i particularly like your unfiltered bass synth. gario's right that there's a backing pitch that's not fitting everything else (seems like a minor sixth right at 0:54). the melody when it comes in is quite loud as well, at least when it's higher in the register. once it drops lower it's more balanced. the drum entrance is great, the soundscape is just very idiomatic. 2:56-3:06 (arguably 3:12) feel like 1:44-1:53ish of the original, and while they don't follow the chord structure they do follow the shape of the line (in arguably a more listenable fashion). the earlier section is also similar in its exploration of a line's shape vs. its specific melodic content. i feel this is relevant because the original's melody noodles so much that it's almost unsingable - it just keeps wandering, and the artist here did a nice job making something that is more cohesive without losing the songlike feel that made the original interesting. this is also separate from how the artist continues to use the adapted arpeggio from the original throughout the entire track as another tool to relate back to the original. the addition of even just the initial descending parts of the three passages that gario calls out make it to 50%, so i'm good there. looking at it as a whole, there's a clear and consistent relation to the original, and the soundscape like i said is great. even with that one note at 0:54 (which isn't really wrong as much as it is a dissonance that wasn't set up) this is definitely good enough to post. YES