Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

When I first heard this on The Lesser Dogs, I meant to ask Trevor what the whispered vocals were. A relatively minor criticism, but the guitars at 1:33 should have sounded more upfront, because the dropoff from the violin's volume before seemed odd and made it feel like the performers weren't sharing the same space. Otherwise, quite the expansive and interpretive approach to the arrangement; "Waterfall" was already a gloomy, contemplative theme, but I felt like there was a different kind of darkness and angst here. Fun stuff, guys, and great job having Tyler and Mary combine their talents with LBoC! YES

Wow. Nice work, Dean! Agreed with Gario that this presented a new style for Chemical Plant Zone that I hadn't heard before, mainly distinguished by the effects you employed. Rubber stamped. YES

Just noting that I never heard the first version, so I'm going into this one fresh. I wish the melody was more interpretive during the first iteration at :13, but there were other creative ideas later that made the conservative opening not that huge of an issue. Opening saws were pretty vanilla, and the attacks seemed basically the same for every note; same with the electric guitar synth from 1:32-2:25, which sounded very exposed as unrealistic. I liked the bass writing in the background, even if that also sounded mechanically timed. I'd have to say the drumwork, particularly the cymbals, sounded the best here. At :14, the overall texture seemed empty; despite the overall volume, it felt like there wasn't much going on with this instrumentation; a musician J could better articulate why the texture sounds empty, but part of it for me was how the backing electric guitar chugs were very understated. There's some effort given to varying the textures, but because nothing was ever humanized or full-sounding, it's harder to notice that amidst the production/sample quality issues. NO

Heh. The tone of the booming drums at the outset gave me a "DK Island Swing" vibe that got a chuckle out of me. Kind of weird to hear a goofy light-hearted approach to this theme, but the energy is good, and feels like a personalized approach to the theme; let's see where this goes. Very subtle detail, but the mallet perc tones from :14-:24 were a nice touch. The chorused opening strings were exposed and sounded pretty fake, but get the job done in this context. The sax sample strains for credibility also, but I've heard DarkeSword get mileage out of it. That said, the sax chorusing at :44 is a rarer example where layering actually made a fake-sounding sample sound worse (rather than mitigate the realism issues). Would love to see some musician Js' advice on what's making these samples sound lacking and how to make better usage of them. At 1:08, the writing was sounding like a cut-and-paste of the opening aside from some minor instrumentation tweaks. The quasi-comping piano at 1:27-1:46 sounded sloppily performed and lacking energy; it may be subjective, but from the writing I heard, it seemed as if the piano should have been more forceful-sounding and more in the foreground. More essentially cut-and-paste rehashing of the arrangement from 1:46 until the end, which was a negative. Please understand, I really like the energy and arrangement approach in terms of making this a more upbeat theme, but then you just repeated the sections wholesale instead of further developing the arrangement ideas; that doesn't make the piece inherently bad or poorly done, but we are looking for a further level of creativity and personalization than that. Main issue: develop/vary the arrangement a lot more. You could also see what you can do to improve the realism of the strings and sax samples, but (IMO at least) a more developed arrangement with this soundset could pass the production quality part of the bar. Good base here, James. I hope you're willing to revisit this one, or at least submit some more material down the line, because it's clear you have the right idea in terms of arrangement; you just need to take the concepts further instead of just looping the good ideas. NO (resubmit)

I thought the textures were on the empty side but OK until 1:08. Then the countermelodic writing (which I liked the writing of) seemed too loud relative to the lead until 1:42. Arrangement-wise, it's all OK though, and the production wasn't a dealbreaker, though I agree with everyone saying the lead was shrill/piercing. It wasn't ENOUGH so that it had to be a NO on production, but the lead was an issue. Things got a bit better when the lead sound changed at 2:42, but the same issues returned with the original lead at 3:17. Anyway, it's ultimately fine, just annoying, how about that? YES

Not hazing. If you're going to point out "sour notes," particularly if it's often, it's very important to actually be correct about it.

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No one's mentioned it because it's not a sour chord.

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I was slightly more generous with my timestamping that Gario, but this also checked out for me. The music was 2:47-long, so I needed at least 83.5 seconds of source usage for it to be dominant here. 00.75-54.25, 1:49.5-2:16 = 80 seconds or 47.9% Then, accounting for the other sections like Gario mentioned, I didn't recognize as much, but there was clearly more than enough for the additional few seconds once I started counting. Nice mellow groove that was a little static, but did have dynamic contrast within a much more limited dynamic curve, which is totally fine and valid. Catchy stuff, and a very cool approach with this arrangement, adding a touch more funkyness to it, and certainly presenting a totally different feel, even compared to the more laid-back feel of the original SimCity version of the theme. I wasn't down with Nick's previous EarthBound submission (vis-a-vis the Standards) due to feeling it wasn't interpretive enough (despite going in the right direction), but had 0 reservations here. Also cool to find out Nick's in the Atlanta area. Keep it up! YES

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Sources were in play from :00-1:20 & 3:02.5-4:54, so no question on the VGM dominating the arrangement. I agreed with Gario that the piece was strong, and the performances above the bar, but I also agreed that there needs to be an overall volume raise before we post it. Count me in the conditional crowd, but nice job by John and everyone in the JSO. YES (conditional)

Way late on this, but awesome job, guys! I thought the soundscape could have been even more intense, but the execution here was strong nonetheless. Arrangement checked out, so just throwing on another vote as a show of support. YES

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Interesting opening layering the guitars with the chiptune. At :33, the chip lead was getting buried by the guitar work and should have cut through more, IMO. That said, the guitar work complimented the lead well, and the interplay was interesting even if imbalanced. I didn't like that aspect, and wouldn't be mad at anyone NOing it for that reason, but I'll live with what's there. The guitar-only sections also had great intensity on their own, and I had 0 problem with the execution of the soloing. There could have been some dropoffs or lead tone changes or textural changes somewhere to give this more dynamic contrast, but it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Solid work by Connor. :-) YES

The brass sequencing at :38 was pretty rigid. Same with the mallet perc first used at :45. And Gario's got you dead to rights on the flute lead at :57; the sample itself is fine, but the sequencing is awful with the same attack every time and rigid timing. You've got a nice sound pallette here, but samples themselves don't get it done if there's no humanization. I agreed with Gario feeling that the soundscape was static, but it was more laid back and did have some subtle dynamic changes, like the dropoff of the beats from 1:35-1:55; it could use more in the way of dynamic contrast, not simply by making things dramatically wilder or less intense, but through subtle yet more frequent variations of the textures. That said, it's suitably transformative with the treatment of the theme, and I also agreed with Gario that what's here might ultimately be fine anyway as long as the sequencing was improved. Agreed with djp on the ending; it just cut off with 0 resolution, so you've got to write an actual ending. "Smooth" is in your handle, so you've gotta live up to the handle and smooth this out with some major detail work. Good start though, Joey, but don't be sloppy or uninterested in the detail work that will take your writing (and realize your creative vision) to that next level. NO (resubmit)

The source usage checked out fine, and I like Ali's piece from a compositional/arrangement standpoint. That said, the production was a miss for me. Beyond a personal taste thing, the soundscape is just too muddy, IMO. Once it picked up around 2:04 as more elements added to the texture, the overall sound was so washed out, with the kicks in particular crowding out the lead. I'm not saying everything needs to be squeaky clean, and I'll certainly listen to this additional times to get more used it and see if it settles as a dealbreaker, but to me the huge lack of clarity in this soundscape makes it a NO (resubmit). EDIT (1/30/17): I listened again to see if my POV changed, but I'll stay an outlier.

Why is the harpsichord lead so quiet? That needs to be fixed. The brass in particular has some rigid timing that undermines the intended energy of the composition, sounding very mechanical from 1:55-2:30 in particular (though it was a problem throughout the entire piece). DragonAvenger had more in-depth criticisms on the other instrumentation that you should listen to. The arrangement was solid otherwise, with some creative rhythmic and time-sig changes, but those two main issues need to be addressed, IMO. The lead instrument, whether harpsichord or woodwind, can't sound buried, and the brass needs to sound more humanized. Gario mentioned how he thought the placement ultimately made sense given the structure of the writing and how it was used to build, but it still doesn't really work having the melody so quiet for your opening section in this current form, regardless of what was coming later. Good base so far though, Guillaume. NO (resubmit)

Passing it with reservations, as there are a lot of the same issues I take with Dustin's rock material. In this case, the opening bowed strings strained for realism (but were only there briefly). At :26, the lead guitar was performed live but had very stiff timing that made it seem sequenced and unexpressive; also, the lead sound was relatively dry. Arrangement-wise, this is a solid rock approach, but there's something off about the lead guitar. Nice bass work at 2:00 that was subtle but added to the texture nicely, followed up by the added layer of guitar work from 2:12-2:25 that all came together nicely. At 3:17, I really liked the layering of the guitars once again. So, yeah, when the lead guitar is out there on its own, it's stiff and not expressive enough, but the overall balance of the arrangement quality and solid production gets it done. YES

Nice overview of Tony's work, Will; fun read! Looking forward to more.

Good original intro. Hard to see how this would be a NO based off of this, but I can expect anything. The static SFX is a little too clean-sounding and upfront, to where it sounds more stapled on top of the soundscape than an actual part of it, but we'll see how it ultimately works. Interesting approach fading in the source tune's chorus at :32, which most folks don't start with when arranging this theme. Good energy from the guitars at 1:15 heading into the end of the build. At 1:23, the percussion was very tepid-sounding (e.g. those cymbals are super quiet) and its writing was very basic/vanilla. More important than that, once the theme picks up at 1:23, it's a by-the-numbers rock cover. That was brief though, as at 1:49, the theme dropped out and we moved into some original writing until the bridge at 2:05, which had more personalization of the source in the performance than the verse. 3:03-3:51 went back to orginal writing that seemed like it was there for the sake of including some non-source moments, but was an awkward fit that didn't really flow from the Kraid writing; however, the transition back to the source tune at 3:51 was solid. While Gario had some detailed production critiques, I didn't think the current mixing was problematic enough for the bar; the part-writing was distinct enough to be appreciated. While I had some issues with the arrangement being straightforward in places, it's still expansive, and while I had some issues with the overall flow, the arranged sections pieced together well enough with the additive original writing. Some qualms, but Schmoo's getting it done here. I'm not making the perfect the enemy of the good. YES