Liontamer

The track was 4:46.75 long (due to the silence from 44.5-48.5 & 2:50.25-2:52.5), so I needed to hear the source tune referenced for at least 143.375 seconds for the source tune usage to dominate the arrangement. 59.25-1:08.75, 1:10-2:19, 2:23-2:26.75, 2:34.5-2:39.5, 3:01.5-3:40.25, 3:43-4:02.75 = 145.75 seconds or 50.82% overt source usage A squeaker as far as counting out what I could pick out from the source tune. Lots of good original writing that pieced together comfortably with the source, such as the opening and ending sections; I could also be overlooking some connections, and maybe another source was actually referenced, but source usage didn't end up being a dealbreaker anyway. The interpretation ideas were very substantive here, and unlike Dylan's Final Fantasy 2 'Variations de Chocobo' piece that we rejected, the overall flow of the arrangement didn't sound disjointed by the pauses. I didn't have any issues with the performance. Nice work, Dylan! YES

The drumming at :11 didn't inspire too much confidence in terms of the texture getting properly filled in, but by :23, things were OK. Not a fan of the vocals at :40, which didn't have much flow, though the stuttering-type effects were fine. Chorus vocals were stronger here. On the production side, things got very cluttered at :23, and it pretty much stayed like that for the rest of the track any times things got dense, mostly during the choruses; if this could be cleaned/cleared up so that the part-writing behind the vocals didn't mud together so indistinctly, I'd be behind this. The arrangement's an easy pass, but one more pass to tighten up the mixing would solidify this. NO (resubmit)

Just leaving my fun political note that Trump is garbage. I didn't mind the intro clip sampling action from the game; it was only 10 seconds and more about the sound & action than taking the original music, so that was all OK. I'm not sure why your lead and synth accents were quieter than the guitar chugs and drumming, so the mixing/placement doesn't make sense. 1:23 was already repeating the melody essentially verbatim from the first iteration at :43. Melodically, this could also stand to be more interpretive, but you did at least have a spirited rock cover here. The changeup at 2:29 fell flat to me; didn't quiet flow from what came before, but it was just a momentary bump in the road. Not sure about the notes around 2:55, 3:01, 3:05 & 3:11; didn't quite resolve correctly, IMO. Wow, back to the same writing at 3:23 with a little more guitar and synth accenting, but basically a copy-pasta of the :43 verse. The final section at 3:59 sounded fine to start, but dragged out without something melodic going on during the fade. A near-minute-long conclusion like that was overwrought; wrap it up sooner if there's essentially nothing more to say. The arrangement has good energy, and I actually thought the sampling and SFX stuff was tastefully included. You need to vary the melodic verses somehow, either through arranging/interpreting the melody, changing the rhythms or tempo, or presenting some different instrumental combinations/textures. Develop this more. The mixing of the parts needs to make more sense. Good base here though, Fahad; definitely see what more you can do with this one, it has great potential, and your rock arrangement ideas are well in the right direction of what we're looking for. NO (resubmit)

This one's pretty dated, in that the mixing was cluttered and the ideas eventually became repetitive over the 4 1/2 minutes. That said, I loved how Tim essentially channeled Secret of Mana's sound palette with the piano lead and string pads. The dance groove alongside that was a shaky fit for me, but it certainly got the job done back in the day and expanded upon the theme with a more upbeat approach.

This one has aged very nicely. Cool, unique spin on Flash Man's theme with a lot of the trademark @StarBLaSt synths and funk he's great at. Wish it went in a more varied direction at around 2:50 when it retread the verse, but it was a creative interpretation to begin with, so it can bear the repetition. Nice changeup to the strings around 3:20; that's what I'm talking about. I hope Star hasn't stopped making music entirely. His personal site's only had one track added since 2010, and I know he's had to have come up with some many great ideas since then.

@OceansAndrew echoed my thoughts, only more articulately than I ever could. This doesn't age well in that the opening brass articulations were rough, but when it was mostly held notes, it was OK. Same criticism could be put on the strings as well. The pace was pretty deliberate, which ended up exposing the samples, but it was interesting to hear a decidedly different mood to the Halo theme. Would be interested to hear how far @Edgen has come these days.

Structurally sounded the same as the original to start off, but good original writing additions at :12 to help adapt this to an ethereal dance piece. The dropoff and build at :25 could have had more dynamic contrast, since the rebuild was so fast and the track quickly plateaued in energy again at :38. Even when the beats were brought back in at :49, the textures still seem like they're in a pretty low-key gear. The core snare writing should have been more intricate just to keep things fresh, but you at least had a needed change in the beats at 1:33. At 1:33, the beats were still pretty pedestrian, but you at least had some decent effects on them. Also have to co-sign on the cymbals from 1:46-1:57 distorting. At 1:58, there was another rendition of the verse with some more quiet supporting writing added to fill out the textures; at this point, the new parts seemed to just add some clutter and density, but without the energy level feeling any different; kind of a shame how the different densities of your textures didn't truly register and help the track to sound like it was developing/evolving. Summarizing, I thought your track needed more dynamic contrast and that the various news parts coming in over time failed to create that contrast. In other words, 1:00 sounds very similar to 1:30... and 2:00... and 2:30. While you have some developments, the overall energy level just hovers in place with mostly the same sounds and not enough variation in the textures, instrumentation, or writing. MindWanderer also mentioned some close, nearly cut-and-paste looping of sections, so be sure to develop the interpretation of the theme further to avoid coasting for too long. Good base here, Miguel. I really like the 80s style you're going for, and this piece goes well in the right direction. See what more you can do with it. NO (resubmit)

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Yeah, sure, I'll take a PM whenever. Otherwise, we'll see the page when it's live; as long as it's thoroughly sourced from notable sources, it shouldn't get bahleeted.

Really had to bump the volume way up to hear the detail work and textures here. I liked the adaptation of the Stranger Things-esque pulsing line as the foundation of the track, though the sound was noticeably drier & thinner than the style of the Stranger Things theme. While there's clear effort to changeup the instrumentation, and the SFX and brass & string swells were good, the usage of the melodic and countermelodic parts of the source felt way too straightforward. Where was the change in tone at 3:43 when it was needed earlier on? Pretty late to bring that in for a few seconds, and then just end the track without a real resolution. This felt underdeveloped to me, and I thought the static nature of the ideas added up to pull this down to a NO. The adaptation to this cover style wasn't insubstantial, but there needed to be more interpretation and development. I'd need to hear more substantial personalization/interpretation of the source's writing, or more original writing ideas integrated into this; just something to help this stand apart from the feeling of the original even more. Pretty good base here though, Connor; we'll see what the others think. NO (resubmit)

The lead synth was pretty generic, but great energy out of the gate. As soon as the track pivoted to the chorus at :24-:32... yep, the mixing was totally imbalanced and sounded like indistinct mud. When you had a strong lead to focus on in the foreground, things weren't as bad, but the mixing's still pretty messed up. From :54-1:09 for example, the "Bloody Tears" melody was being played, but it was buried deep, deep, deep in the back of the track; same from 1:24-2:16, the lines playing the "Bloody Tears" theme might as well not be there, it's practically inaudible (and for multiple instances). The whole wall of sound execution of this piece ended up jacking it up pretty badly, and you've got an indistinct mush of sounds for much of the piece. On the plus side, Mikki, the energy's fantastic, and all of your original part-writing fit like a glove alongside the CV2 arrangement parts. We would love to see this get posted in some form, and the writing side doesn't need to be touched here. If you can rehabilitate your mixing job or just make sure you're rendering this correctly, then this has a chance. The arrangement aspect was definitely ready for primetime here, so -- if you're not already doing so -- please use our Workshop forums for critique of this track and to ask targeted production questions, or head to any pro audio forum and ask around there. NO (resubmit)

The track was 4:29-long, so I needed to make out at least 124.5 seconds of source usage for the source material to be considered dominant. To me, I was finding a lot of gaps where I couldn't ID the source. :35.5-40.5, 44.5-1:34.25, 1:36.5-1:42.25, 1:45.25-1:51, 1:53.75-1:59.75, 2:02.5-2:11.5, 2:15.75-2:27.5, 2:33-2:37.5, 3:12.5-3:18.5, 3:21.5-3:27, 3:56-4:02.5 = 115.5 seconds or 46.38% overt source usage As far as I could tell, this was coming up a little source light, but if MindWanderer or anyone else can point out some connections I missed, I'd appreciate it. I didn't mind that there weren't live performers, and I'm against specifically urging people in that direction only because some people aren't that inclined to collaborate. That said, I see what MW's means about the instrumentation being in an uncanny valley. The blockyness of practically all of the lead work -- particularly the guitar leads and organ from 2:37 all the way through 3:47 -- just doesn't sound good, and that ends up being a dealbreaker for me. Also, the lead synth at :09 still seems pretty generic, and the faux-guitar funk synth at :00 was also a pretty default-sounding line; maybe you can effect these in some way to give their sounds more uniqueness/character. If you find a way to smooth this out and get the piece sounding more expressive, and also get your leads to sound more sophisticated, this would be on solid ground. The arrangement itself is already strong, so now it's just about getting your production to rise to the occasion. If there are more "Overworld BGM" references that I'm overlooking, let me know; otherwise find a few other ways to subtly keep referencing the Mario theme during some of the extended original sections, and that would put the source usage over 50% to dominate the arrangement. Good base here, Garrett! NO (resubmit)

I thought that opening synth was pretty generic, but I did like that you tried to change the tone around :36. There was a soft, but noticeable pop in the right channel at :34; not sure what happened there. That synth lead at :47 sounded kind of like a grade-up version of Tim Follin's phased music on Agent X, so that's a fun little style callback for me. I agreed with the others on the lead at 1:03 just sounding really plain. DragonAvenger did have a point on the drums being repetitive from 1:34-on. Do see if you can employ some additional subtle variations to the pattern, but IMO the arrangement felt well-developed for the second half, so this wasn't a major issue. MindWanderer also mentioned some potentially odd chords at 1:40/1:52, and I hear what he's referring to, but everything there resolved fine. I liked the wacky faux-industrial vox stuff thrown in at 1:57; it added something really cool to the texture, and clicked nicely with the synths before taking over in the foreground at 2:20. It got a little repetitive due to being used for so long without a break, but it was a cool idea and used well, so I personally didn't have an issue. For something that no one else brought up, that synth at 1:03 couldn't have been more blocky-sounding; it's strange because for certain lead tones, the blocky feel seemed sloppy (1:03-1:57) and sapped the track of energy, but once the vox/SFX fuckery arrived, the blocky timing of the lead wasn't an issue; it could be from: 1) having something more energetic and less mechanical surrounding it (e.g. 2:22); or 2) because you used doubling under the melodic synth at 1:57; or 3) because you also used a different tone for the melodic line at 2:22. Either way, I don't know. Feel free to run that by other people and see if they agree at all. To me, I'd really like to hear the synth at 1:03 in particular sound more expressive. The changeup at 3:07 didn't really make much sense to me, but that could be because I haven't played Twilight Princess. It was abrupt and broke the flow, but I'll live. Chimpazilla had some good criticisms of the mixing/panning that would definitely improve this, even though that stuff didn't affect my vote, since the part-writing was clear/discernible enough, IMO. Pretty close stuff here, Garrett, and the arrangement aspect of this seems like a pass already. There are just multiple smaller production issues adding up to hold this back (but not by much, IMO). See if you can take the advice of the Js to get the production on more solid ground. Definitely don't drop this one! NO (borderline)

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Nice work, y'all. YES

That's definitely a false positive, so don't worry about it. The FLAC.exe was included in our album releases up until a couple of years ago because FLAC adoption/support wasn't standard like it is now. We no longer need to include it within our album releases.

I didn't count many of the extended gaps/rests in the theme, so I timed this out just to be sure the source tune dominated the arrangement. Thanks to Jorito for the very thorough breakdown. The track was 7:23-long, so I needed to hear the source material used in at least 226.5 seconds of the arrangement for the VGM usage to dominate the arrangement per the standards. 47.5-56.75, :59.75-1:08.25, 1:12-1:35.5, 1:47.5-2:21.75, 2:23.75-2:33.5, 2:35.75-2:45.75, 2:47.75-2:59.75, 3:02-3:21.5, 3:26-3:46, 5:11-5:45.25, 5:47.5-5:57.5, 5:59.5-6:09.5, 6:11.5-6:20.5, 6:23.5-6:33.75, 6:35.5-6:47.75 = 232.5 seconds or 52.48% overt source usage Onto the overall track itself, there was noticeable stiffness in the wind lead introduced at :46 (which otherwise had a nice tone), but that was masked better once the guitar came in at :59. The string articulations and sustains from 1:11-1:35 were very stiff and unrealistic, exacerbated by being so upfront. Small thing, but there were some odd notes with the organ from 1:46-1:47 that didn't click. From 1:36-2:12, I'm hearing Furilas's bassline stand out, but the organ, electric guitars and strings are just mudding together indistinctly and the track sounded like it lacked direction and focus for that time. It's really strange how the source theme was there, but just pushed way, way back compared to the bass. The new string lead for the melody at 2:12 was a good addition, though the writing of the core drum pattern behind it felt plodding, especially by the time it finally changed up at 2:52. Good, distinct changeup at 2:59; the sequenced string lead sounded sluggish but wasn't a huge deal. The addition of choir at 3:25 seemingly appeared out of nowhere, had some stiff-sounding timing (that was decently masked), and also sounded pretty muffled and not mixed in a way that seemed to share the same soundscape as the other instrumentation; not saying it was a huge issue, but there was a bit of a quality disparity there. Tuberz' guitar at 3:55 was my favorite part. It should have sounded cleaner/clearer, but the energy in the performance was strong and added some good variation to the source melody. The synth soloing joining in from 4:24-4:48 with the guitar overpowered the guitar somewhat, but the combination worked overall. Smooth integration of the "Vampire Killer" cameo. Later on, I liked the melodic doubling and interplay from 5:36-6:45, which left the arrangement with a stronger finish in terms of the execution, even though the first faux-guitar synth had weird, blocky timing. Back to the choir at 6:49 and then a random wolf howl at 6:56 at villainous laughing + more wolf at 7:05 that all just sounded lo-fi and felt awkwardly tacked on. I honestly chuckled at how unnecessary it was the first time I heard it; if those samples were cleaner and fit into the soundscape more, it wouldn't have been an issue though. What's here was pretty promising, and the arrangement itself was a solid pass, so I definitely understand the YESs. It'll make it as is, but IMO this needed some production TLC on the mixing, some timing/articulations, some more sophisticated drum writing in spots, and better integration of the SFX/voice samples (or you could have iced them, since you didn't really need them). Still, a very well developed arrangement, and no big issue with seeing it posted. NO (borderline)

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The performance could have been a little smoother, and it seemed like the levels got overloaded a few times, but everything sounds much fuller now. Way to rehab this, Dylan! YES

I don't agree with Gario's assessment of long intros or his guideline on how long you can go to max one out. I take this stuff on a case-by-case basis, and the main things I'm concered about are the interpretation of the source tune and track development. I didn't have any inherent problem with the build here being nearly half the track because there was development and contrast throughout the way. Songs come in all kind of forms, and there was nothing inherently problematic with this piece's structure vis-a-vis our Standards. I break on the side of leaving artists flexibility with how they want to write. Onto the track analysis, that opening is just... oof. The sound quality of the opening piano and then drums were basically General MIDI-type quality. Just robotic-sounding, bone dry, and super fake. C'mon, bro, let's not settle for stuff like this. The quick intro speech at :20 was cheesy too, but we'll let that go for now. The guitar work at :26 sounded better. Agreed with MindWanderer on the vocalization brought in at :30 & 1:36 being flat in a lot of places, even though the delay was able to somewhat mitigate that. Oh, the spoken work stuff comes back at 1:08. Well, I'll say this; I like the effects on it, but the voice doesn't really have much presense; it's somewhat nasally/chipmunky the way it's produced now. The electric guitar coming in at 1:25 added some good depth to your texture, but the drums writing (while not too simplistic) still felt plodding and metronom-ish. I didn't agree with MindWanderer's criticism of the electric guitar being produced differently at 2:17 vs. 1:29. They have two different tones, but what's the problem? Calling it a "discontinuity" sounded pretty overblown to me, and the bookends approach of the closing section compared with the opening sounded just fine from a writing and sound perspective. Apologies for not saying much about the writing and arrangement. Conceptually, this arrangement works fine and was a creative take on "Southern Shrine," but the execution needs refinement, so most of the issues are production-related. The drum writing felt pretty plodding, and you've also got to improve the sound quality/realism of the opening piano and your drums, and tighten up the notes of the choir work. The spoken word stuff could use a little more body to it. That said, you have a decent base here, Reuben, but it would take a fair amount of work to shape it up. Do what you can via the Workshop forums here or any other resources to given this one another shot, at least to see how far you can improve it. Even if you don't get this one posted here in some form, you show good potential and your creative ideas are well in the right direction for what we're looking for with interpretive arrangements. NO (resubmit)