Vig

WTF is a zyk0?

I'm a bit confused by the mixing here. The guitars have a lot of what sounds like artifacts that might have come about from time stretching...On the other hand it might be some kind of tape emulation flutter? I'm finding it distracting either way. There's definitely a notable lack of bass. The kick is too loud, the snare is too quiet, and the hats are way too quiet. The drum writing is stiff and repetitive. Some variation would be great. The vocals need a bit less body to create room for the other elements. The vocal writing is okay, and the guitars could sound just great, but the mixing really holds them back. Aside from the vocals, the arrangement has very little in the way of dynamic lift to differentiate sections. NO

I think the piano being so loud is actually a poor mixing decision. It's got a ton of body, and it eats up space, which really ought to be taken more by the drums and leads. The drum programming is pretty weak, and the loud piano serves to draw attention away from that failing. Arrangement-wise, I think the melodic interpretation is unnecessarily liberal. It doesn't serve too much of a stylistic purpose, and the piano part writing is a bit chaotic at times. There are interesting chords, but they aren't applied with much nuance. NO

I do hear the source, but I'm going to lean NO. I think this track is well-composed, but what's built here isn't built around the source. The melodic motif is sprinkled in, albeit with a different rhythm. I think the rhythmic change to the melody alters the character of the source enough that it's relationship is pretty tenuous. I don't feel like any ideas in the source are developed or expanded upon. Nice track, but I think it's more of an original, in spirit if not by the hands of the clock.

Great musicianship. The mix is not great. You've got the piano a lot brighter than the violin, which is pretty much the opposite of what you would want. The violin has a lot of box and body, almost no presence. I'd start by shelving down everything below 800Hz and shelving up everything over 1.5k. seriously. You could do the reverse to the piano, just not as drastically. maybe 1 or 2 db in either direction. Of course all that bullshit I just said was purely for my own benefit, because this is still a YES

Right off the bat the timing and tuning are sloppy. The part writing is good. The guitar solo shows potential, but it's a bit noodly. The lead after the guitar solo is...I actually have no idea. Is that a clarinet? Overall you've got some great ideas and talent, but the execution could be a lot tighter. I look forward to hearing more from you. NO

I don't think it's overcompressed, I just think the mix is unbalanced. Too much harshness between 2-6kHz. This comes at the expense of the bottom, which is a little bit thin at times. This is an extremely common problem in metal mixes we see submitted. I realize it's gotta be about the guitars, but the way a metal mix deals with this is by having the bass more or less seamlessly double the rhythm guitar, filling out the body. The arrangement is pretty good, though it perhaps jumps around too much. The snare is terrible. Where's the crack? where's the verb? I think the lead guitar could probably use more reverb too. I think the mix is the main thing holding this back. NO

The intro is extremely quiet and washy. Need more presence. The middle of the song is better mixed, but the pads fill up space without being dynamic at all. Gotta make that part a bit more interesting. 2:20 is a welcome break, definitely one of the more interesting sections so far. Overall it's kinda meandering, and the fadeout ending kinda proves that point. I'd say the arrangement needs more direction. I don't see what larry's talking about when he says it's "Mostly original." this is a pretty straightforward arrangement. NO

First off, I think the production is just fine. Strings not realistic enough? Really? They sound better than some actual video game scores. The only problem here is that it's not so much an arrangement so much as a soundalike. If someone was like "hey we need a track that sounds like the Arkham City theme but we can't afford the licensing fee," they would hire someone to do this. Same feel, same instrumentation, same orchestration techniques, with just enough notes changed to not get sued. I do recognize a couple spots where the original "melody" exists, like the very beginning, but I think this track is much more about the feel of the original than the melody, and it's certainly not about the harmonic progression. NO

I'm more or less in agreement. I think some parts of this rock, while other parts feel a bit empty. Obviously you need some more mellow sections to precede the hard hitting sections, but some of the relaxed parts could use more little details. The intro works well, the reverb really creates space, but then some of the interludes just feel empty. I'm not a fan of how the vocals are mixed. They sound like nonsense, which is a bit weird. I think they could work if you pulled them down and made them a bit darker, more atmospheric, I don't want to be able to hear them saying...what? December? Eat member? Other parts of the mix are great. The acoustic guitars sound great. The arrangement is great. I'm gonna lean slightly on the YES side, as in, YES the mix could be better in places and the arrangement has a couple spots that drag, but on the whole this is a really solid piece.

Great arrangement. Great orchestration, great dynamics, great interplay. Minor quibble: the piano solo in the beginning is sequenced pretty flat for this genre. A pianist performing a section like that is probably going to go for a much more delicate dynamic; inject some of his/her own personality to the performance. It sticks out as flat in an otherwise dynamic arrangement. Major quibble: So damn short. Oh well. YES

I don't have any problems with the samples. They aren't fooling me, but they aren't ugly, and they are certainly expressive enough to get the job done. I feel obligated to complain that the arrangement is pretty conservative. Most of the interpretation is in the instrumentation, and the song feels longer than it is. But I'm really just being a pain in the ass. This is a competently executed remix. YES

Right off the bat I love your sounds, but it's SO cluttered. The piano and the bass are fighting, and the lead synths fight on top of them. Your part writing in the rhythm section is just way too busy. You need to tell the bass to seriously CHILL. If you want to have a breakdown where the bass goes all out, that's great but you can't just have the bass having a freakout for four minutes. Start by deleting about half of the notes from the bass part. Do that. Then see if the keys and leads don't sound better. You might have to go through a similar process in the key parts, though instead of deleting half, maybe delete a third. Seriously. You've got some great ideas in here but I can't remember any of them because you have them ALL going at once. Establish the groove. You're not getting paid by the note here. NO

Hmm. The mix is very quiet, and the drums feel awfully dry and narrow given the soundscape of the track. The song overall is spacey and ethereal, but the drums are just dry and up front. I'd say you would benefit from a lot more compression overall. The arrangement is really nice and moody, but for a track like this that is pretty chill and repetitive, the soundscape itself is crucial, and right now you need lots more reverb and compression. I'm having trouble with this one. All three sources are pretty much variations on a theme, as is this remix. The remixer has added a couple cool sounds, like the bell synth, and some of the distorted droning later on, as well as some not cool sounds, like the drums and the thin distortion when it's exposed because there's nothing else filling the bottom of the mix. I'm not hearing any creative risks that aren't already taken in the originals. If you wanna go for atmosphere that's cool, but the drums are so exposed. They are thin, they are dry, and they are narrow. VERB IT UP. The guitar is cool but it could be fatter. I think it's a vibey tune and it just needs a little more vibe. NO

Woah, holy delay on the drums. The mix is very right heavy unless I've suddenly gone deaf...nope it's definitely a balance issue. Those strings and horns don't cut well enough for how you're using them. They sound muddy next to the distorted guitars, and that's no good for a lead. The arrangement is pretty good, but it's so cluttered in the low mids! I'd start by carving out some low mids from the strings and horns, and maybe add some more top and bottom overall. I'd like to hear it resubmitted but You've gotta do a bit of cleanup first. NO

I'm going to make myself a hypocrite here, after I voted NO on the other Zelda track with medleytits. YES The cognitive dissonance rattling around in my brain puts me at risk of serious cranial hemorrhage, but here's how i'm going force some retroactive congruence: this is a phenomenal orchestration. Extremely nuanced and dynamic, almost to a fault. At some points it almost seems like you throw in something cute just to show off. You stick to the source material in tone and style, but you extrapolate in a very tasteful and creative way. That said, I would much rather hear you arrange one song for three minutes than eight songs for six minutes. If I ever need something orchestrated I'm calling you up. Texting. Whatever. What do the kids...Instagram! Whatever I'll snapkik you. EDIT: Yeah you need to give this thing a title.

First thing I noticed was too much kick, not enough bass. Second thing I noticed was the melodic reinterpretation was a bit awkward. Then it kind of goes off into left field with the harmonies that don't really quite work, and then it seems to come back at random. I'll give you that you have some interesting melodic ideas, but they are really thrown together here with no cohesion or direction. Keep working on it though, give it some structure and it could be really cool. NO

I haven't been around much so I realize this has fallen out of the lexicon, but we have a word for this: Medlytits: (noun) - A problem afflicting a great many submissions of more than one source song, in which melodic variety is used in place of actual arrangement. - "She's a very tasteful pianist, but her arrangement has got some serious medlytits." Great job, very well-played, but this is a medley, not really an arrangement. It's not at all without merit, but it's not what we post here. NO

Strong points: Vibe. With a capital "Ibe." The groove is nice, if a bit loose. There's pretty good space between the bass, keys and rhythm guitar. Nicely done. A few problems are holding this thing back. The mix is a bit gnarly in some places. The rhythm guitar is not compressed enough, and probably too dry. It sounds like you went direct, no amp, and it sticks out in a bad way. Not a dealbreaker though. The lead sax is pretty weak. Extremely unnatural sounding, which is okay, but it's also forced and clunky. You can sequence a totally unrealistic sound without it sounding like it was played on a keyboard. The use of the pitch bend is really off-putting. The biggest problem with this track is the solo. You've got some very nice chops, no doubt, but this is not a well-constructed solo. It's all over the place. It sounds like you put a dozen or so riffs in a bag, shook it up and dumped it out on the track in whatever order it landed. There's no cohesion from one phrase to another. Now I'm not saying it's terrible. It's not. But there's no reason to listen to this solo for half of the damn song. Two minutes of guitar soloing. If you're going to play a 2-minute guitar solo, you'd better have a freaking direction (See: SRV - Little Wing, or Steve Vai - Love of God). This solo doesn't go anywhere. On top of it, there's no ending. Make the solo 1/4th as long, and bring the melody back at the end, and this is a yes. NO

Vig: How is it that the violin is flat? actually, a lot of the samples are flat. The flutes HURT. The writing is intricate, which I appreciate, but on the whole this is quite...frenetic. Messy. You're clearly talented in terms of composition, but this piece needs work in terms of making space and building dynamics. NO zykO couldn't handle the out-of-tune strings (which is saying something cause that motherfucka don't tune his guitar for shit) and went for a walk to his car. NO.

Vig: Listening to this quiet, all you hear is the turbo-steroid sidechained 4-8kHz poking out. It washes out everything else. Aside from that, it's a pretty typical genre shoehorn. NO. zykO: yeah, this is solid as the first few steps into a large world of electronic dance muzik but it is nonetheless just that; the first few, stumbling steps. it's particularly predictable, presetty, and doesn't do enough dynamically (both sonically and in terms of arrangement) to really grab the listener's attention. there are some neat ideas from 4:05 on that you should spend much more time exploring and working with compositionally before you even worry about production. but as it stands, NO.

Vig: I was confused at first. Perhaps I still am. Yeah. Definitely am still confused. Very meandering, but thoughtfully so. I love the layering, the vocals are a great touch, as are the accordion, mandolin, and clarinet. This track is so vibey, and it's just long enough that I don't get tired of the style. Well-written, and well-layered. YES. You know who's gonna love this shit? zykO: you're speaking my language, XPRTNovice poignant living room organ intro, slow-rising and unapologetically serene. it instantly feels intimate, quirky and surreal all at once, like strollin down to the local jr market atop an orange elephant. you've got an XPRT touch at layering the different textures (granted, it's entirely formulaic to marry a mando, accordion and clarinet together. the french have been doin it for centuries and yet somehow you're doing it in a way that doesn't at all feel overused). the break is sudden and jarring and feels like a horrible NOVICE ending (so you know i dig it lol), takes you to a back corner of the bazaar, a sultry place where you have clever strings in the background coercing the listener to look into the creepy tent made of human skin with the dinklage sitting outside of it (this = good). and when i do...... i am met with a rollicking good time, singing and all. ohhhhhhh i'm in love. take me with you to this crank if this is what crank is then i want to go there. ok but the voices are fucking great, you know that? ok in all seriousness, how is that not a live clarinet? excellent work. i would knock the accordion because it sounds lifeless but seriously, with such a great arrangement, it doesn't matter. NOTHING MATTERS. just YESSING it. YES. (yessssss) (p.s. i love you larry)

Vig: What I like about this track is that it builds. It gets more complex over three and a half minutes, yet it still feels really slow. I think the climax should be more dramatic. The track opens up as a tense, slow builder, but it never pays off. Another issue is the harmonic writing, especially around the 1:30 mark. There's some modulation that is never really established, and sounds really sloppy. Good start, but it needs more work. NO. And with that, I hand it over to special guest judge zykO: a sluggish journey that doesn't quite take me where I was expecting i'd end up. i think the main detraction here for me is that the percussion doesn't drive it the way i think it ought to have, it's dry and not energetic. the piano at the end of the track sorta fizzles out without much resolution. i'm actually really down with some of the arrangement ideas, thoug - a fresh take on the ocean palace that could have been so much more engaging. NO. Now here's an incredibly douchey pic to be deleted before this thread is made public. [Redacted]

Great arrangement. Great writing. The drums sound pretty weak, but I'm not gonna stress out over it. I think you could have very easily made this a 4 minute track and it would have been stronger overall. But again, I won't stress about it. Pretty good track. YES

I think I'm gonna give this track a little extra leeway because it does something right that every track I've heard today has failed to do: dynamic arrangement. Sure, this track isn't reinventing the wheel, and you could say it's a bit straightforward, but honestly it's way more listenable than a lot of stuff I've been hearing lately because you've got a good clean arrangement. The energy changes, parts come in, parts go out, stuff isn't fighting. There's a build, there are breaks, there are transitions, drops. Hooray, you understand song structure! YES