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I'm happy to announce a couple of staffing changes here at OCR. First up, I wanna welcome @Hemophiliac to our Judges Panel! Hemo's been putting in the work for the last few years as one of our Workshop Evaluators, and has also stepped up in the past few months to handle a lot of the visualizers for the remixes you see on our YouTube channel. He's an active presence in our community and has a lot of helpful advice in the Workshop. We're glad to add him to the panel. Look forward to getting some fresh new NO votes on your tracks! Speaking of Workshop Evaluators, a few months ago we retired our Ready for Review process in the Workshop because we felt that it was a cumbersome extra layer of evaluation prior to submitting to the Judge's Panel. Our Evaluators did a lot of great work over the years but we're retiring that role. In it's place, we're introducing our new team called Sages! Sages are active artists in our community who'll be in the Workshop giving feedback on remixes, posting tutorials, and coming up with their own ways to revitalize and energize the Workshop. Our three new Sages are @Xaleph, @pixelseph, and @paradiddlesjosh! We're glad to have some fresh faces on staff, and I'm personally looking forward to seeing what these folks have in store for us. -- DarkeSword

I'm really excited - we have some cool stuff planned ahead!

It's a huge pleasure to be fulfilling this role! Over the coming weeks, you'll be seeing my mug replying to your posts in the workshop and (if I'm doing things right) I'll be providing you with means to make improvements to your writing, arranging, and/or mixing. Can't wait to hear more of what y'all have cooking out there!

Awesome to see this Sage business! This is important stuff. Just yesterday I was talking about OC ReMix's rare feedback culture to a musician friend of mine. Can't wait to see what you come up with.

At 1:33, that synth line's pretty shrill. From 1:51-on (arguably 1:33-on), the way this is mixed, I feel like I'm hearing the beats and claps being the most forward instead of the melodic elements, and then you also have leads and supporting lines competing to be heard due to being in the same frequency range. For example, the lead at 2:07 is too subdued compared to the percussion and industrial sounds (even though I realize it's meant to have contrast with the louder instance at 2:41), then you have stuff like the plucked strings and bassline just adding mud. Very busy sound without clear enough mixing to know what should be focused on, resulting in nothing having a direction. I like the overall arrangement concept, Eino, but the overall texture is too messy and cluttered. NO (resubmit)

Tons of interesting textures and patterns in this one. I really like the industrial percussion, with the reverb on it, giving it a spacious and metallic feel. The changing time signatures make it hard to pin down the track, and as such the melody/arpeggio is used as more of an anchor. Given how busy the upper-mids are in the later sections of the track though, I think the mixing does this a disservice. Around 1:35 is where things start to get hard on the ears, with that string pad, and all the resonance on the melodic synths. Things become altogether too cluttered, and it's difficult to get a sense of direction. I think the arrangement could be improved, however the main issue is that of imbalance and lack of focus. The first minute or so is very engaging and intricate - I'd like the arrangement to progress at this level of textural depth, without losing itself in the process. Toning down some of the resonance may help, or dropping a synth down an octave in the busier parts. There's a great track in there, but this one needs another pass to highlight the details. NO (resubmit)

intro has a lot of sfx and random-sound sounds that come together to make a rough beat under the ghost arp. we get some melody at 0:30 or so, very chopped up and strange-sounding intentionally so. layering in some plectral instrumentation as well on top obfuscates the melodic material, and the percussion is pretty loud through here. 1:16 is a big stylistic shift, both in terms of time signature and in terms of instrumentation. the heavily filtered strings here are pretty grating and really loud, and it's hard to differentiate between them, the treble content in the very weird bass synth, the ghost arp, the melodic stutter synth, and the plectral instrument that you've had going. it hits more of a groove later on, and around 2:00 has kind of settled down, but it's still confusing to listen to. 2:07 is another shift, bringing back the industrial percussion under a 7/8 groove with more of the very intentionally overtoney bass doing stuff under the stuttery synth. the hard break at 2:40 was confusing to me, as i didn't get why you'd want to just shut off the track in the middle without there being a clear resolution or build section around it. there's some more ghost castle lead played as the melodic content and then it's just done very suddenly. looking at the freq analysis confirms what i felt was confusing to me from an auditory perspective - the bass instrument (which doesn't really ever venture below about 100hz from what i can hear) is by far the loudest element in the mix, both the fundamental and the first overtone. it's fairly confusing from an auditory perspective to listen to something that features such a high fundamental, especially with the heavy variance in styles throughout the track. the section at 1:16 is a good example - there's nothing to ground the track, and so many elements are in the same aural area that it makes it hard to differentiate and really listen to them. it's very tiring on the ears. i really want to like this track. the creativity in choices of synths and approach is really neat as expected from eino, the sources are a fun combo, and the arrangement is interwoven nicely. ultimately though it just doesn't sound good - the heavy layering of instruments in the same freq range is intensely tiring. i was only able to get through two listens before my ears felt quite pressured, and the middle section is most of where that came from. the track also is meandering and lacking cohesion, which combined with the lack of real dynamics throughout makes it difficult to follow and stay with what's going on at any given time. there certainly is a ton of source used in creative ways, but the track still manages to feel inchoate. i think you need to spend some time breaking up the blocks of instruments in the same freq range, and then re-volumize everything so that the instruments that are the loudest at any given time are what you want the listener to be listening to. right now the melodic content is never the main thing, which isn't a great result. also consider adding more to the bass end of the bass instrument while still keeping the weirdness of the upper overtones so as to ground the mix more. NO

I've listened to this a whole bunch of times, over two days now, and there's just something about it that doesn't jive with me that I've been having a hard time putting a finger on. Part of it is how rambling and aimless it is, which is partly due to the sources doing some weird things, but when you slow them down they just sound like random notes in a way the originals don't. However, is that an objective criticism, or something I just don't care for? I honestly can't say. I'm going to put a pin in this one. ?