Liontamer

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Why are we paneling Ben again? I ask this every time. YES for SNES ORCH STAB

Wow, nice. The piano that dropped in at the beginning at :14 was silky smoove. I love the instrumental expansion for the start, and the textures were awesome. Ooh, really didn't expect the bitcrushed stuff at :43. Definitely threw me for a loop in a good way. And now I'm smiling and dipping to the beat Thomas set here, really digging the approach here. The string work at :58 was a little subtle under the electronic lead, but the overall mixing was solid, and the interplay between the electronic lead, the string and the piano was nice. When the beefy beat came in at 1:27, I thought the mixing needed some work; it was odd how heavy that beat was, yet the rest of the soundscape felt more dry until 1:41 brought in that countermelodic line. No big deal. There's a relative emptiness during the 1:56-2:25 section that I can't put my finger on, but 2:25 picked things up very nicely and filled out the soundscape with the intensity I'd been expecting before. Strong stuff before winding down with the fade out finish of the opening piano. Aside from some mixing tweaks, what more could you ask for? Great expansion and personalization of the theme. GLL's clearly not been resting in the near-14 years he's been away from submitting music to OCR, and I'm honored to be the closing vote on this one. YES

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Wanted to hear something more going on with the arrangement at 1:41 when the verse repeated, and that thankfully came through towards the end of it with new instrumentation ideas. At 2:41, there was more meat added into the soundscape via more new instrumentation; would have also like to have heard some other type of rhythmic or tempo change or melodic interpretation there as well, because dynamically things were relatively similar, but that's not to say there was 0 dynamic contrast. That last little held woodwind note at the very end should have tapered off a little more softly, because it felt like it cut off abruptly, but no big deal. All in all, a solid, melodically close arrangement that focuses on personalizing the track through lots of well-done instrument changes. The arrangement could have been more dynamic, but what's here still gets it done with enough interpretation. YES

Yeah, I agree with MindWanderer that while this was melodically conservative (too much in places), the overall approach was interpretive enough. In adapting this to orchestral, Rebecca included a lot of subtle original part-writing and grace notes. I would have liked 1:35-3:27 to stand apart from the original more, including some of the supporting part-writing also being close, but the additive parts within genre adaptation did provide some differences to let this still feel subtly militaristic but less like a march. The final 2 minutes definitely saved it and pulled this back from the concerns that the overall presentation wasn't interpretive enough. Keep doing your thing! YES

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2ND EVAL The piano opening things up sounded very mechanical right from the start. Beats at :24 were super-thin and sounded too clean compared to the effects on the piano. IMO, there was no synergy with the piano, keyboard, faux sax, and beats. I did like the piano picking up at 1:33; again, the piano sounded rigidly timed, but the writing there was creative, and you did a nice job gradually increasing its intensity. The beats came back in at 1:56. It was only at 1:56 that I ever noticed this track had a bassline; it barely, just barely registered, but it was so subtle that it doesn't contribute anything; give that some more presense. Basically lots of quasi-comping on top of the sparse backing writing until 2:41 picked back up with the melody invoked. Well, I didn't think the combination of instruments clicked for the first 90 seconds, and without some lyrics though, this ultimately didn't sound substantial enough as a standalone piece. The timing shouldn't sound mechanical on anything, and the instrumental could use more meat on it. Needs work to polish up the execution and thicken things up. I'd also argue you could get rid of the first 90 seconds and just develop with more ideas after things fill out more.

Nice and heavy intro with CoD's "Abandoned Castle." Not feeling the instrumentation at :35; not sure why the synth piano-lead sounds flat, but it's in uncanny valley territory, i.e. the tone sounds good, but the articulations sound rigid. The backing bowed strings also felt the same way; not totally exposed, but still a stiff, uncanny valley sound. The mixing was also cluttered, but reasonably solid. In the grand scheme of things, none of that meaningfully dings the track on a production level. I can see the argument about the change of themes at 1:05 feeling disjointed, but IMO that's only because you know the themes are different. A 1:04, the theme change had a quick transition sound and flowed together just fine and had I not known there were multiple sources, I could have believed it was structurally from one composition in the Castlevania series. On the flip side, something with the chorus writing from 1:20-1:34 also sounded flat; I'm not saying to slavishly hold to the melody as it sounded in the source, but that was melodious while this didn't present any contrast from the verse before it with the tone of the synth. Really flat transition to CoD's "Abandoned Castle" chorus at 1:34; that was a chance for some dynamic contrast, and it just didn't happen. That change DID feel abrupt. As it quickly moved onto focusing on that theme, there was some great energy with the treatment of Castlevania III's "Beginning" from 1:44. Much like how I thought the transition at 1:04 worked, the shift back to CoD's "Abandoned Castle" at 2:16 was also seamless. But then you have transition spots like 2:30, 2:37 (I'll live on that one), 2:53 & 3:06 in pretty close succession that all felt very jumpy. I did enjoy the subtle source tune interplay after 3:06, and the energy of the final section and the close were great. I'm one of the more permissive judges when it comes to transitions, so I was expecting to roll on the YES side, but I'm with the NOs that there are too many jumpy transitions where the flow of the piece felt disjointed; it's definitely not just from recognizing which themes are which, as we have multi-source medleys with lots of theme changes that click better than this. I hope Andrew would be willing to take another look at this to see how to have this flow together more, since the performance and production are strong. NO (resubmit)

I'm with MindWanderer. The arrangement's strong, but the mixing's too cluttered. I've tried giving it the benefit of the doubt, but I ultimately agreed that it's not mixed well. I'm not against power in a rock track, but every section with the source melody or the backing chugs in play was too cluttered, and that's a dealbreaker. The synth at 2:42 & 3:21 did step over the guitar, and the sequencing was really stilted there as well. Dustin's usually got things on pretty solid ground, but there are just too many sections where the mixing is sloppy. NO (resubmit)

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Much love to Mazedude for helping us eventually fill this request! http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03616

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

One thing really getting at me is how the drums don't gel at all with the rest of the track; they sound like a placeholder part in a WIP. On the flip side, I liked the movement of the warbly synth around the stereo field during your choruses though. The synth design could be more creative and sophisticated, but this mostly get it done because of the arrangement's creativity. If the sound design were as strong as the chorus sections for the whole track, I wouldn't have had any production reservations. Those punchy beats though are messing up the soundscape at every turn and are taking up too much of the foreground while also feeling disconnected from the rest of the soundscape. Also, see what you can do to add some sort of sophistication to the writing during the simpler/emptier sections (e.g. :41-:58). Good work so far, Ben, so definitely work on this further if this doesn't make it as is. NO (resubmit)

I got some Sennheiser HD 497's per GrayLightning's suggestion for about $60 back when I started judging, and I've been rolling with 'em ever since (13 years). They're discontinued, but you could try other types of Sennheiser over-ear headphones. Never been uncomfortable wearing mine for long periods of time. https://en-us.sennheiser.com/over-ear-headphones

http://ocremix.org/remixes/?&offset=0&sort=datedesc In the menus up top, click "music", then where it says List All ReMixes, click "Newest"; where you're in list view for several ReMixes, you can also click the word "posted" in the listings at any time to sort the listings.