Vig

I really enjoy the body of the mix. The front and the tag are pretty...inappropriate though. I feel like like you might try trimming them off, and working on an intro and ending that have a little more to do with the rest of the remix. NO

Shpongle.

Man this is badass! But the cymbals sound like shit....oh it's 96kbps. Dude, it's not even 4 minutes! Reencode this bad boy at 192kbps then we'll talk. No way in hell should we be accepting such a degraded encode. On the bright side, it sounds like the arrangement is pretty sick, so I look forward to actually hearing what you did. NO (resub)

10 seconds in I thought to myself "God I hope this isn't a solo piano track." That piano just sounds so dull and lifeless. It sounds honky! Trim between 700Hz-1kHz. definitely bring up the top end, and probably the low end. Add some sort of reverb, probably a more subtle room for this performance. Actually Ideally you would just get a different piano sample, but barring that, try the tips mentioned above. NO (resubmit) - Sound quality issues. That piano sounds way too shitty for a solo piano piece. Solid performance though. See if you can tweak the mix.

Points for the concept. Points off for the boomy mid-low end. The bass is especially muddy in the 100-200Hz range. I love the lead guitars, both the tone and the performance. The rhythm guitar however, is somewhat clumsy. The voicings and rhythms aren't fantastic. I can't really call that a dealbreaker because it's not terrible, and that's clearly where you're at right now; you're not going to get way better rhythm chops for a resubmit. I would ask however that you tighten up the drum part. The rhythm is just really loose, and the mix is really odd for the genre. NO Gotta EQ that bass, tighten the drum part, more ambience perhaps.

The piano dropout isn't done musically. Just bad. Aside from that, the mix is a mess. The hi-hat is by far the most dominant thing in the mix. You can tell there's something up with your mix when you turn the volume all the way down and slowly bring it back up, and there's one instrument that is clearly audible way before everything else. Second after the hat is the snare, which would be fine if this were a rap tune, but this is instrumental, and the focus needs to be on the musical content, which is buried behind the beat. NO

This Thread Has Been ViJacked.

Okay..So there's really nothing wrong with this track. The performance is fine. The reason why I'm hesitant to pass this is that it's....so incredibly generic. We already have dozens of piano remixes that sound just like this. Same arpeggiation, same dynamics, same rhythms. This in particular is too long and meandering. It doesn't have any direction. It sounds like you sat down and played for 8 minutes without planning it out first. I mean, it's impressive in that regard, and it's definitely nice to listen to, but I can't pass this. NO

Awfully quiet. the guitar should probably be compressed some. Woah, what's with the bad edit at :18? sloppy. again at :29...and again! dude you can't punch in like that. make little fades! The string sample is not nearly fast enough for that part. The rhythm guitars have no bite..too dark. Drums are also too dark, performances are sloppy. needs work NO

I love the synth that comes in at :15. haunting. I like a lot of the atmospheric elements here, but there's a glaring problem, and that's that the arrangement is sooo repetitive. That combined with the fact that the piano is really compressed and harsh, it becomes tiresome to listen to. The last section is plodding because it's mainly the piano playing flat eight notes over some really uninteresting pads. You've got to tone down that piano, make it more lifelike, and add some dynamics/variation to the arrangement. NO

The mix is dark. You might cut away some of the low mids of the guitar and emphasize the highs. That's not really the biggest issue here. Some of the samples really don't sound great, and the writing is very mechanical. The vibe of the first section is really cool, but aside from the guitar, the whole song is held back by writing that is somewhat rhythmically lifeless and harmonically unsophisticated. The faster runs like at 2:20 really stick out because the velocities are the same and you can hear that each sample hit sounds exactly the same. NO

Agree with OA that there's some unhelpful repetition here. The mix has some problems too. The drums should be louder, and the strings and choral pad should be quieter. They are the least interesting sounds in the mix, and they are also the loudest. Honestly I think if you fixed the mix I'd pass it, even if you didn't change the arrangement at all. NO (resub) EDIT: Oh, and you need an ending. You forgot an ending. Such things are important.

holy loud motherfuck. I really need to remember that half of the submissions we get are like 10dB too quiet so when one like this comes around it doesn't scare the shit out of me. Anyway. I dig this tune. There are sections where it's drifting towards cookie-cutter trance, but there are ample creative additions here and there. Love the guitars. Also, unlike most trance submissions, I'm hearing seventh chords and inversions, so there's some harmonic sophistication to keep my interest. On the downside, the kick and snare could use more balls. I'm listening on headphones with a buttload of bottom end, and the kick is anemic. I think you might have emphasized the highs more in the snare, give it more snap. Not enough to reject though. YES

Err..yeah. So what I meant was, this is really loud. Nice work. The mixing is pretty solid. The reason this isn't flying is that the sounds and writing are rather generic. It sounds like a very typical dance adaptation. There's really nothing here that hasn't been done before far to many times. Not trying to be too discouraging; this is pretty tight all around, but it doesn't sound very inspired.

GeT OFF MY LAWN!!~ NO

DA got it with the low end. The pads take up a lot of low real estate, and the bass doesn't cut. Boost the upper octaves of the bass, and trim the 1-300Hz range of the pads. In fact, a lot of the time, those pads are just wasting space. maybe pull the back. They are neither harmonically nor texturally interesting. My complaint about the arrangement is that it lacks direction. Somewhat meandering, as a result of a flat dynamic curve. NO

I agree with most of the criticisms, although I don't have a problem with the low end. sounds fine to me. I think in general the leads could be just a couple dB quieter, especially the guitar. And aside from that, Andy's right; the mastering is quiet. Honestly I feel like we could fast-track these fixes and post it with a slight revision. YES (Conditional on louder master, leads down just a hair)

Yeah, this is waaaay too creative. Totally whack. It's like the remixer listened to the original song, took the most recognizable motifs, and built a new song out of those motifs and otherwise completely new ideas. Did he really think we wouldn't notice? Yes

The piano intro has nothing recognizable from the pokemon soundtrack. I love it. Unfortunately it shifts gears pretty drastically. The transition is actually quite jarring. The arrangement is quite complex and sophisticated, but this unfortunately translates to "cluttered" in the mix. The string sample is sluggish and unwieldly, and it often fights with the brass and piano for your attention. I feel bad saying this, but I think this is an example when the samples and the mix really ruin it. There are some excellent compositional ideas here, but applying a very frenetic composition with sluggish and somewhat dark samples makes this track sound really muddy. NO

OCRemixers and OCremix forum goers alike, As some of you know, and more of you don't care, I am from Boston, though at this moment I am in New Jersey, and within the hour I will be driving towards our nation's capital, DC (ok, so really Fairfax, VA. But that's practically our nation's backup capital). "But Vig," you may ask, but probably won't, "why on earth would you do such a thing? Isn't Boston the shit?" Yes. Boston is the shit. However, I just got a job in Santa Monica working at a major recording studio. Since the commute from Boston to LA is prohibitively long, I will be permanently relocating to the west coast. "WOW VIG THAT'S A GREAT FUCKING STORY, PLEASE POINT TO THE GET." Ok. I'm driving across the country this week, and I have a couple waypoints mapped out (Austin, Phoenix) but I'm trying to find another couple of couches to crash on somewhere between DC and LA so I can save some money on motels. So if you live in the middle of the country somewhere (the souther the better) and have a couch I could crash on for a night, please send me a PM or email or something; it would be greatly appreciated. The compensation I'm offering is minimal, but twofold: 1. I'd be happy to play for you some WIPs and finished projects that have not yet been released to the OCR community 2. I will drink with you and tell you completely ridiculous but true stories of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. Ask djpretzel, Larry, or anyone else; my stories are epic. I don't necessarily have any idea whether I'll get any response from this, but I'd much rather crash with some chill OCR folks on my cross-country trek than stay in a motel, so please shoot me a PM or email or something. Cheers J

The playing is just way too harmonically dumbed down. The left hand generally sticks to Root, fifth, Root arpeggiation in the first section. The underwater section is for most of its duration, not really arranged at all. The playing isn't bad at all, but there's not that much in the way of reinterpretation, and considering that, it's way too long. NO

I'm flattered by the implication that my vote is equal to four, but I think it's okay to close this one.

Groovy. I like the sonics. Dig the kick, the snare could be louder. Guitar tone is sweet. Problems: Performances mainly. Particularly the piano comping is way too simple. The arrangement is also underdeveloped. NO

Production stuff first, then I'll go back and listen to the source. This is drowning in reverb. You should really pull it back on the vox and piano, make them more present. In general, that's where your mud is coming from. That's really my only technical gripe. The mix is pretty good otherwise. The vocal could be more up front, but if you make it more dry, that might do the trick. The arrangement is really great. I was surprised when I listened to the original. We don't get many orchestral adaptations from energetic electronic sources, and this does a great job of preserving some of the energy of the original. Very creative. YES

I really love this track; I wish I could pass it. aside from the actual source usage, i.e. the guitar riff that is adapted here, i realize you could say that the rest of the track is..inspired by the original, but the chord progression is not the same at all, and while you can easily get away with reharmonization when there's some melodic or even sonic element to tie it back to the original, this is just your own piece. You should sell it for some doughs, cause you wrote this song. NO