Liontamer

Not sure why the melodic lead at both :17 and 1:55 is so quiet, but it's barely audible, plus that and the countermelody are pretty rigid/stilted with their timing. There's a lot of freestyling going on from 40.5-1:11 at a steady pace, following by comping over the backing writing of the source until 1:38 brings back the source tune's build via strings and later guitar. These sections were good overall, but there's a flatness to the synth timing/programming that drags the piece down and doesn't contrast well with the more organic-sounding parts. In terms of the dynamics, the percussion patterns felt too repetitive and also dragged this piece down, which is surprising given that it's only 2:28-long. On the plus side, the bass writing, while subtle, was well done throughout. Weird fadeout at 2:19, which dropped precipitously right at the start of the bar and sounded like a mistake as a result; that should be tweaked for a more gradual fade. To summarize, place the synth handling the melody more prominently, and add more dynamic contrast to the piece. You don't need to increase the tempo, and I want to be clear that I'm not implying this is being dinged for slowing the theme down, but the way this is presented here ultimately is plodding; some different/varied snares or changing other backing parts may help, but something needs to be tweaked with the writing or parts to keep this engaging throughout. I've enjoyed your work for years on YouTube, so don't be discouraged here if this doesn't make it as is. We'll see what other judges say, but this can certainly be refined into something to make the front page. It's a very solid base here. NO (resubmit)

Nice fade-in of the melody followed by the drop at :28; right from the get-go, this puts a lot of personality and swagger to the presentation. I liked the beats added in at 1:05 giving a little extra oomph and making the rhythm feel different despite the tempo being the same. Just a fun listen overall; even though the overall energy level's consistent, there are a lot of small yet constant subtle evolutions of the sounds and textures to keep this developing throughout. A textbook example of how to be melodically conservative yet overtly interpretive and personalized. For me, the ending cut off suddenly, so that needs to be fixed, but other than that, this is stellar from Andrew! YES

Like MindWaderer said, it's structurally conservative, but you did a very nice job personalizing the instrumentation and changing the textures, energy and dynamics compared to the original source. An understated but very beautifully done touch was the vox accent first used at 1:24, and the wind writing was excellent as well. The track does just end with a fadeout (boo!), but even that section didn't merely cut-and-paste a past section, so the variation & evolution was constant from start to finish. The only thing making it a close call vis-a-vis our Standards was the brevity, but it's meaningfully developed throughout, so I didn't have any reservations. Beautiful stuff, Eliott; welcome aboard! YES

Rhythmically, this doesn't really sound like the source tune at all, at least on a first listen. Can anyone else make sense of this one?

Yep, good energy, effects and layered part-writing throughout to present a nicely souped-up take on the source, Mike! Love your style; the power and stylishness of this arrangement works with this tune nicely. YES

Great job keeping the Magus theme in play (along with the Lavos cameos) for practically all of the arrangement. From a production standpoint, I would have liked this to sound less lossy and lacking in high end. To me, it muds together to some extent, but it's grungy and potentially more of a personal taste thing; it's certainly nothing meaningfully dinging this on a production level, and the intensity's there while the instruments & part-writing remain distinct enough. Cool, dark stuff, and we definitely don't have anything like this style of rock on the site yet. Nice work, Karlyn! YES

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The rigid timing of the electric guitar sample at :46 is already sounding like a dealbreaker; it also cuts out abruptly at 1:14 when moving over into the bowed strings, which was completely unnatural and had no decay. Right after that, the sequencing/timing of bowed string sample at 1:14-1:39 was also very robotic sounding and exposed; you have to mitigate the realism issues of the sample tone by at least humanizing the attacks/timing. More rigid timing with the wind lead at 1:39 and the bowed strings at 1:40, it's just a pervasive issue that's an emphatic dealbreaker. Also, the way the wind lead's mixed, it doesn’t even sound like it’s sharing the same room/space as the strings; instead, the winds sound stapled on top. So in short, Huy, the guitar sample isn't cutting it, and you need to humanize the timing of practically all of the instrumentation, with the acoustic guitar strums being the notable exception/outlier. Consult the Music Composition & Production forums for help on mitigating and masking realism issues with your current samples as well as exploring other instrument/sample options. Improving all of that will allow an otherwise decent arrangement concept to be better realized in terms of the production. NO (resubmit)

Nice work on this, Caleb. The soundscape was fuller and there was more variation with both the textures and the sound clip usage. Easy call now. YES

More dynamic, and that's the name of the game. I also noted how there's one line reminiscent of munky's old school Guardian Legend mix. Good job enhancing this, Jonas! YES

This is already in place via the Workshop evaluation system with the criteria you linked, not with % system, but qualitative feedback. That said, we're behind on THAT as well, with about 30 tracks to review there. Just need to keep on trucking.

Just a formality after hearing it and comparing with the source, but I could loop this all day. Nice work, Kyle & Bree! YES

[This is an automatically generated message] I've reviewed your remix and have returned it to Work-in-Progress status, indicating that I think there are some things you still need to work on. After you work on your track and feel that it's ready for submission to OCR, please change the prefix back to Ready for Review and someone will review it again. Good luck!

As long as you go beyond the authentic chiptune limitations and incorporate some other production choices, a track like this should be OK as far as the Submissions Standards. You may run into issues with sample realism, particularly with the choir, and I'm leaning against this in the sense of the piece not feeling dynamic enough as a standalone piece (while going well in the right direction) IMO, there's definitely notable subtle dynamic contrast within a narrower dynamic curve due to the textural changes from verse to verse and chorus to chorus, so it's there. Despite that, the track tends to feel repetitive and relatively flat for a 3-minute piece. IMO, the choruses didn't sound much different from one another. If you haven't sent it in already though, let's see what happens. I could just be an outlier.

[This is an automatically generated message] I've reviewed your remix and have set it to Completed status, indicating that I think your remix is ready to be submitted to the Judges Panel. Congratulations! If you feel like you still need to work on your track and want more feedback, you can change the prefix back to Work-in-Progress and we'll go through the review process again. If you decide to submit your track, please change the prefix to Submitted after sending your email. Thank you!

Agreed on the mud comments mentioned before; you mentioned you updated the track, but it's still a problem in the first minute; around :50, it clears up a great deal, so find out what was happening before then to cramp things up. Otherwise a relatively straightforward but personalized cover with several well-integrated theme cameos. Make sure the fade-out has the proper length to fully wind down to 0; it cuts off early on the SC version. If it's not already submitted, go for it; I'll mark it as a direct post. Nice work, Juke!

[This is an automatically generated message] I've reviewed your remix and have returned it to Work-in-Progress status, indicating that I think there are some things you still need to work on. After you work on your track and feel that it's ready for submission to OCR, please change the prefix back to Ready for Review and someone will review it again. Good luck!

Sorry for the long wait or formal staff feedback for this one. The main positive first, I thought the arrangement itself was solid. IMO, the middle area (1:01-2:06) went on too long while being more texturally empty, but the eventual rebuild was good and there's nothing inherently wrong with it, just a relative flatness dynamically. That said, it's the production quality that's holding this back from sailing through if it were to be submitted. I'd say the string samples are serviceable in tone, but are pretty exposed throughout, and that ends up hurting this in terms of the production quality standards. The way the sustained strings decayed at 1:31 was way too sudden and exposed the samples (again at 2:05 but less so). The rise in the percussion from 2:27 sounded unnatural as well. At 2:33, for example, the sample's unrealistic attacks for the higher notes are pretty exposed. The humanization needs to be improved, which would help improve the dynamics and expressiveness that's not fully coming across in the composition. It's a great base, and not much needs to be tweaked on the arrangement side. Use the Music Composition & Production area to get advice on how to improve the realism of the tools you're currently using.

Nice work! https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03892

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