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I see I was batsignaled here! I think the other two judges assessment of the track as it stands is right on the money - I see what you were trying to do with the EQ here, but actual lofi production is a lot more nuanced than that. I'm not going to harp too much on that issue, and try to focus my vote on suggestions for tools, resources, and techniques that will help you get closer to your vision. I do want to say that, when comparing this to the source, I like the sounds that you chose and feel like you've got a good ear for sound selection, especially given the high-energy nature of the original track - this approach totally brings something new to the table that, when executed to its full potential, could be really cool! I particularly love the bass sound that seems to have some resonance sweeps going on, it's really unique! So, to recap - conceptually, this is a strong idea and you've got some good building blocks to work off of, but compositionally, it's still structurally too similar to the original track and needs more of your own flair to the arrangement in order to clear OCR's bar. However, the production quality is the main hangup, as there's a few major things that need addressing. I'll bullet point a few primary ones and then share some resources below: Remove the master EQ cuts that you have on your track - I sometimes do apply a very gentle EQ reduction to my lofi tracks to help with tone shaping, but they're usually a high shelf, not a high cut, and I'll apply them much closer to 10kHz and reduce by maybe 3dB - definitely not a full blown cut of almost all of the high frequencies! Instead, I would put EQ/filters on each of your instruments or instrument groups and shape them individually. Play around with using filters that have a resonance built into them too, rather than just a plain EQ cut, which will help character and personality to the track. It will sound much more natural and full if you apply these filters at different frequencies depending on which instrument you're working with. Other ways to achieve that lofi sound is with tape effects like pitch wobble and saturation - lofi production isn't just about cutting out frequencies, but also about doing more to warp/degrade the frequencies that you DO have. You want to make sure that your bass frequencies are still present - right now, there's not much in the way of bass, and the kick drum is much too subdued to fill that role either. This is where comparing with reference tracks will help. The drums and bass feel weak overall, as if you also applied a low cut to the track that removed a lot of the sub frequencies, or just mixed those elements far too quietly. Add textural layers - things like foley sounds, vinyl crackle, or even room noise, when mixed *very* subtly, can give your mix a sense of space. You don't want to overdo it, especially with vinyl crackle samples, but a tasteful dash of it will go a long way. Use reference tracks with a spectrogram plugin. I can't stress this one enough - download some of your favorite lofi tracks and load them up in your project file, then, using a plugin like SPAN, look at how the frequency spectrum is filled up by those tracks and then compare it to your own. You can learn a lot just by comparing your track to a finished track that already sounds good to you. There's a lot of resources you can use to help execute this - there's a few plugins I'll suggest, but I would avoid trying to throw more plugins at your track to fix the problem. The issues I'm hearing stem more from experience and methods rather than not having good enough plugins. Izotope Vinyl - this is an "all-in-one" lofi plugin that you can apply to your master track (again, I STRONGLY recommend not going overboard with this) that can do EQ shaping, tape wobble, and even introduce mechanical noise/hiss/scratches to emulate playing your song off of a record player. It's very easy to overdo it with these sounds, but this is a good starting point to show you how these different techniques will impact your sounds. SPAN - this is a free monitoring plugin that shows a visual representation of how the frequencies in your song are distributed. You can't solely mix with visual cues - eventually, you've got to use your ears - but when you're troubleshooting, this can be a great way to diagnose problems with your mix, and compare them to reference tracks. Lo-fi Reference Tracks - there are a number of songs published on OCReMix that are free to download and use as reference tracks. These have all passed the Judges Panel, so it should give you a good idea of where your track needs to be in order to pass that same bar. OCR Workshop - when in doubt, we have an active Workshop discord that you can use to get additional community feedback or participate in Office Hours events where you can submit your track for realtime critiques from the panel of Sages. I hope this is helpful and you continue to grow your skills and take advantage of the community resources we have available to help you get there :) NO

Hey! Honestly I didn't read 100% of what you wrote yet, but I seen you posting similar walls of text regarding concerns on music production, and the kind of crussade you are going is interesting, to say the least. People may agree or disagree with your thoughs, and may like or dislike your own mixes and stuff. But at least you are questioning these things and going your own way with them, rather than simply pretending to fit the current trends on whatever works or sells best, and that's an attitude I personally applaude. My own concern with the so-called loudness war as a musician now is more about a simple fact: to make mixes that sounds good and clear can be hard enough, but to make it to sound good and clear AND also loud as heck... definitively not a comfy thing. I'm not fond of mixes that are too much dynamic either, since it can be annoying (as a listener) to listen to music that can be totally quiet at a moment and extremely loud at another moment. It's just not a pleasant experience when you have to keep fingers at the volume buttons to adjust it. But everything sounding hella overcompressed and loud can be a headache for real, and so I totally understand and even relate to the special charm on older productions, even though oftentimes that might be a bit too raw. Funnily enough I see the exact opposite trends on other media forms, like movies, series, animes, etc. When people is talking you have to rise volume because you can't hear the words right, but when action happens your ears are screwed and have to decrease it. It's like they assume everyone watches stuff in a home cinema, but that's a pain when you just use an ordinary computer in a small bedroom with regular 2.1 speakers and living with more humans at home in near rooms.