Liontamer

Yeah, I fell basically in this camp. The arrangement here uses the theme through most of the piece, so source usage wasn't in question. MindWanderer's wrong to ding this on not being more melodic; as long as there's arrangement of identifiable writing or patterns, the approach is valid even if not melodious, and that's definitely done here by Mellow Sonic, without question. ------------------------- EDIT (3/23): Thanks to MindWander for clarifying his POV. When MW noted this wasn't melodic, that caught my eye more than his explicit point that it was neither melodic nor progressive, which is absolutely spot on. So that's my mistake, and we're totally on the same page along with the other NOs. It doesn't have to be melodic, but if it's not going to be, it still have to evolve and develop more. -------------------------- I'm also OK with a piece that's more of an overall groove with only subtle dynamic changes as long as the changes are apparent within that narrower dynamic curve -- and that also happens here. However, in reading Jivemaster's vote in particular, he nailed down what was nagging me about this piece. The part-writing combinations do change, but the different core patterns of the song feel repetitive and overlong as they mix and match, e.g. the synth lead at :36, 4:43 the heavy bassline at :45, 2:27, 5:40 the breakbeats at :45, 3:11, 3:46 the ambient strings at :45, 3:12, 5:06 the warbling synths at 1:30, 2:16, 4:08 the drones at 2:04, 4:08 Even though you're hearing the textures change throughout, the components feel like just the same loops cycling in and out without meaningful variation, which made the atmosphere seem repetitive and underdeveloped for such a long piece. If the individual part-writing varied a bit more, this wouldn't feel like it was dragging on and not justifying the length. To me, this was a really cool approach that's got a good overall groove, but this needs more variation in the writing and/or instrumentation of the patterns being cycled in and out, which could be subtly addressed. I wouldn't mind an additional vote or two on this just to make sure there may not be other YES's for this as is, so I'd like to continue voting with either a 5th NO or another YES to keeping things going. NO (resubmit)

I can see why any judge should look at a medley carefully, but I didn't believe it was a tough call. On the level of interpretation, the key changes, different instrumental textures, live performance dynamics, as well as the addition of original part-writing all together added up to a substantive arrangement. Nice move from the woodwind lead to the piano (with original string accents) at 1:30. The swell at 2:23 was nicely done also. As far as the arrangement's structure with multiple themes, I don't see how the medley was problematic; the pacing and flow didn't feel disconnected or "pasted together" from theme to theme, IMO. The transitions at :37, 2:39 (with the bowed strings as the common thread), and the move into original writing at 3:14, then the shift back into CT at 3:34 were all fine. Same at 3:46 (with the bowed strings fading down as the next section built); all of the transitions here are clearly given legitimate thought. Everything sounds kosher to me. Nice job by Andrew, Kristy, and Fernando! YES

The opening strings sounded very mechanical; it wasn't as much the sample quality as it was the articulations repeating so perfectly due to the string writing being looped. At :23, the woodwinds attacks were also very stilted, followed by the brass at :38. None of the performances sounded humanized, and the textures were surprisingly sparse for an orchestrated piece, which undermined a lot of the forcefulness intended in the writing. Totally agreed with MindWanderer on the writing for the melody being too repetitive; the arrangement was extremely samey throughout despite it not being very long. I thought the droning instrument from 2:34-2:49 resolved fine, for what it's worth; I did hear some dissonance in places, but nothing that stood out in a huge way. Beyond that, Alex, I'm co-signed on MW's main criticisms; vary the melodic treatment more substantially and humanize the instrumentation. I don't think it's an easy fix, per se, but it's worth the attempt. NO (resubmit)

I'll go in the minority. I wouldn't be mad if this got posted, but I thought Gario's criticisms of the drums being plodding was actually sold short. The tone & production of the beats was good, but they basically droned on with little development. To me, you could skip around to different parts of the track after :42, you basically heard the same groove throughout. The textures did change up, so I'm not saying there's no substance or dynamic contrast ever, but I felt the beats droning on, the melodic lead sticking by the same synth the whole time, and the overall similar energy level throughout made the track feel more static, plodding, and flat than it needed to be. It didn't knock any points off here, at least for me, but MindWanderer had a valid point on the track not even needing the restart at 4:10. It's a enjoyable arrangement, but it also feels underdeveloped. Would love another pass at this to spice it up further, Martin. No disrespect intended of course, but it felt like this wasn't quite as developed as your R-Type arrangement. NO (resubmit)

I'm not sure why MindWanderer went YES, when his vote seemed to make a pretty concrete case as to why the lack of interpretation made it a NO, nearly all of the part-writing of the first half being straight from the original song. That said, I understand there's further context. After 1:32, original additive writing was introduced that worked together well with the source tune; IMO, that kind of writing should have been present throughout the first half in some form as well if the arrangement was going to maintain the tone and structure of the source so closely. It's a nice sound upgrade that doesn't sound completely unlike something RoeTaKa could have attempted. The additive approach of the second half was working, but this needs more arrangement substance in the first half, especially due to the track being so brief at just under 3 minutes. Good stuff so far, Alex, but develop this further, whether that's through more original additive part-writing in the first half, introducing melodic interpretation, or providing more length and/or dynamic contrast. It's a solid sound, but you've played this too safe. NO (resubmit)

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Just chiming in after the fact that I agree the arrangement is a pass, but I more of a conditional YES on toning down the highs. The "tss" sound first brought in at :37 was pretty sizzly and piercing on headphones. And from :53-1:11 & 1:46-2:04, the "tss" is too loud over the melodic stuff, IMO. I'll reach out to Andy and see if it's something that can be tweaked. Poo on the piano being mechanical, though it's not a huge deal once other elements came in the fill out the soundscape.

SoundCloud The streaming may be 128kbps, but you can make your music downloadable in 320kbps or whatever MP3 encoding level you want, or you can just upload in lossless format instead. Bandcamp You upload lossless, and people can DL the format they want. MP3s from there are downloadable as either 320kbps or VBR0. If you're concerned strictly about higher bitrate streaming (as opposed to downloading), I'll join the popular sentiment: the demand isn't there, and the difference to the ear isn't practically discernible. As bandwidth capabilities rise over time, it'll eventually happen in the same way FLAC has grown as an increasingly offered downloadable option, but the baseline standard of quality is currently phone earbuds, so it'll require a sea change of sorts in maybe 5-10 years.

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The arrangement's totally fine, and there's no concerns about it being too conservative; the end-goal is was it transformative in a meaningful way, and this arrangement in chiptune and rock together was completely substantive, even going so far as to seamlessly weaving together the 3 source tunes with each of their more unique writing beyond that main melody we all know. The guitar at 1:07 sounded distant, and I waited to see if that decision made sense given what came after. To me, it's not ideal, but at 1:45 looks like the the melody is the big focus, so the guitar's OK as a supporting part then. But as the track went on, it felt like the chip elements were struggling to be heard over the guitar. I'm obviously no production expert, but it just sounds as if there's needless frequency overlap that blurs a lot of the textures. Also, there's something sounding like the very high-end got cut from the track though, so there's no sharpness/clarity to it. Dynamically, I think the mixing undermined the changes in energy and textures here. From 2:03-2:58, it felt like the density and distance of the track hovered at basically the same level. From 2:40-2:58, with more lines of writing gradually joining in, the soundscape was just getting cluttered. Even after 3:02's excellent changeup to focus on more chip stuff, the change in texture again at 3:33-4:02 back to the guitar being prominent but mixed in the background brought back more instances of clutter, which made the track feel samey. I'll just say, I didn't really read the notes about the Namco 163, because that it and of itself wasn't a problem in anything I heard; I simply felt there was an overall lack of clarity throughout much of the piece. Like Gario mentioned, the drums were extremely dull in sound quality (NOT writing), and combined with my issues on the guitars generally mudding together with the chip elements, I didn't feel this version of the mixing worked, and the parts weren't clear/distinct enough. Sorry to also be a NO on this, but with another pass at just the production side to clean this up some, this would better realize the energy of the arrangement. NO

Having talked with Rebecca in the past about tweaks to previous files, many of her project files were lost in a hard drive crash, if I have it correct. I'm assuming that improvements can't be made, but noting that the inability to make a resubmission doesn't change my POV, it's just something worth noting. I listened before reading the other votes just to see what I thought about it first. The criticisms on balance really didn't sound like dealbreaker issues, just nice-to-have tweaks. The only thing I could have gone for was toning down some of the woodwind highs, which got piercing/shrill, but it's not enough to NO this as is. I've also noted sample realism as an issue for some of Rebecca's past pieces, but I didn't hear anything problematic enough to note here. With the oboe for example, the way it sits in the soundscape doesn't feel like the attacks -- while noticeable -- greatly exposed the sample. Her sound palette's generally well above the bar, and there aren't any parts that dramatically strain credibility or illustrate a quality disparity. To me, the arrangement is another great folk adaptation, with genteel instrument choices that weave together a beautiful, delicate texture. The source melody is pretty apparent here, so there was no need to timestamp things to verify dominant usage. IMO, nothing about the balance of the parts made it difficult to focus on the melody or the individual part-writing at all, so I just don't think that criticism holds any water in comparison to the strength of the arrangement. While I have my own votes where I've NOed a strong arrangement on production grounds, this isn't one of them. I don't like invoking djp a lot, and I know he argues that the panel has a higher and more discerning cutoff than he does (somewhat by design), but I just can't imagine he'd say this version couldn't be posted as is, despite acknowledging some meaningful points of improvement. Arrangement typically carries the day at OCR, and that's the guidance of my vote here, but there's not even a question for me of the production quality being reasonable here. I don't understand why this would NEED to be sent back. YES

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I don't think I've ever seen anyone break down the source usage, so I'll leave a note here. Anyone who picks out more than this should add their insight: MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries "Dawn Watch" - 1:08-2:12 (sounded like direct usage of the original audio) MechWarrior 2 "Silent Thunder / Rust Heart" - 1:51-2:35, 3:02-3:24, 3:30-3:53, 3:58-4:07 MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries "Dragon's Teeth" - 2:36-3:51.5

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Not sure why the opening cymbal was simply muted at :02; even in a real life setting, that was an odd choice, but it's a small thing. As soon as the mix hit the first verse at :22, the mixing seemed too bright and piercing, so I'm not sure what happened there. The synth lead first at :05 and the gliding synth lead at :22 were too generic, IMO. The electric guitar chugs mixed in the back felt somewhat stiff and exposed, but were solid and added some good depth. Though the boomy kicks/thumps felt a bit indistinct, the beats also filled things in nicely. Something's just off with the frequencies here; I wish I could articulate what's going on. I also wish the core beat wasn't so plain; there's so much detail work going on with the beat-writing that's a lot quieter, but the pattern of the main beat during the verses felt bland, despite a lot of creative fills clearly being used to break things up. At 2:32, when those plain beats returned, it just felt like track could have gone in a more creative direction. When things cleared up after the dropoff at 1:52, the texture had more breathing room, but I'm still not sure why this was all so piercing. The delayed notes from 2:20-2:25 were oddly written; would be nice to smooth that out. The arrangement's a straightforward pass, but a lot of smaller issues for me with the mixing, sound design, and writing were adding up to a NO (resubmit). I think some more personality/uniqueness to the leads and some re-working of that main would help this, plus smoothing out whatever's making the leads seem so shrill. It feels like it needs one more pass on the production to iron out several kinks. I may simply be old man-ing this, Mike, so good luck with the rest of the vote. EDIT (3/13): Looking at Chimpa's additional comments below, she definitely nailed the assessment of the revision, i.e. it's improved, but still sounds much heavier with the higher frequencies. The kicks aren't that much more distinct, but they cut through more. I would have liked some writing & synth tweaks, but the mixing updates are enough to nudge this over. It should be have been a more solid pass, and I hold Mike to a high standard personally, but this version is solid enough. I'll change over to (borderline) YES, but this didn't fully realize the potential & energy of the composition.

Just skimming through the votes, it seemed like people were cool with the arrangement, but not the production. OK, let's see what's up. Wanted to first say that the guitar & bass work were awesome throughout. The pitched up vocals from :15-:29 don't stand out too much, but seemed too high and slightly chipmunky. Not a big deal as a subtle element here. Callum's chorused vocals at :29 were such a cool way to arrange the MMX Sigma Stage 1 theme, and not at all what I expected. I couldn't fully understand them due to the way they were produced, but that happens in music all the time, and the tone of everything sounded great. If Callum hasn't heard of him, he should check out Joey Barnes, who does some great original music and whose vocals Callum's reminded me of in some respects with Barnes' track "The Wire (Act 1)." The vocal gating at 1:24 was an interesting technique, but the way the vocals' volume seemed to drop/duck when the gating happened was odd. I disagreed on the vocals or their treatment feeling too repetitive; they weren't in there that long, and I thought they well creatively handled. As far as the words repeating, it's called a hook; it's fine. The transition at 2:19 didn't work, IMO. The lead synth seemed so bright compared to the more melancholy vocals before it; same with the whistling at 2:44; maybe it's more of a personal taste thing, but to me the contrast in tones really didn't click there. Anyway, 3:00 moved onto a section strictly focused on MMX, and the organ and guitar seemed to work better with the whistling-style part. The vocals from 3:27-3:40 got smothered by the guitar work; both of those parts sounded good, but weren't mixed properly to occupy their own space. If anything, the jarring contrast with the instrumentation & tone of the 2:19 section was the biggest issue for me, but it's also something you get more used to on repeated listens. The other production issues brought up like clutter and clarity were valid and should be addressed, and whether this passed as is or not, it should be improved. That said, the arrangement was very smart and creative, and the mixing didn't bother me enough where I felt parts weren't discernible. There's no way I'd reject this when the arrangement is so strong and the production, while not ideal, was solid enough. I'd love a version with another pass at the mixing, but I'm a strong YES if we only had this version. EDIT (3/28): Forgot to mention, but once I paid more attention, read the sub letter, and recognized the "Never Gonna Give You Up" influence on the lyrics, I was dying. Y'all are some clever bastards.

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Nice work!

With both the dynamic contrast and melodic interpretation, this could have went more places, but I agreed with Gario that there's 0 issue here with the arrangement possibly being too conservative. It's melodically close, sure, but the adaptation to rock is expansive and personalized, and that's all we need. You also have some brief but effectively written original sections there in between the uses of the source tune to glue it all together. Great energy in your arrangement and performances, Daniel! YES

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