Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

For a 3:24-long track, I needed need 102 seconds of overt source usage for the source to be dominant in the arrangement. :27-1:38, 1:49.75-2:10, 2:21.25-2:24, 2:42.25-2:59.75 = 113.25 seconds or 55.5% As far as source usage, there were some more tenuous connections after 2:24 when the piece focused on soloing, so it was actually closer than one would think. Luckily, the string backing from 2:42-2:59 was derived from the backing strings of :15-:18 of the source (then :28-:31 of the source for that last flourish), so that put the source usage over the top. Just impeccable arrangement and musicianship all-around, and an amazing take on "Judgement Day," there's nothing else to say. Nice work from this collective within the Materia Collective! YES

Opened up pretty creatively, taking the theme into a more militaristic orchestral approach. We'll see where it goes. Interesting drop-off at :56 shifting to the harp, then a clap groove starting up at 1:15; didn't expect that. The phasing effect from 1:34-1:39's not executed well -- it sounds more like unintentional ducking -- but that luckily didn't last long. Actually, no, the ducking continues all throughout the new set of beats up until 2:15, jeez then again after the brief beatdrop until 2:35. The way the lead synth ducks from 2:17-2:32 sounds brutal; if this was intentional, it's not working the way you want it to. That definitely needs to be fixed. Jeez, then AGAIN with the lead ducking at 2:53 because of those kicks. The harps and strings are just being pushed back every kick. Well, the ducking was already a dealbreaker, but you need to find out what's going on with that, because it's pretty persistant throughout the track. Arrangement-wise, this also ended up disappointing. It started off promising in the sense that a lot of creative ideas and pivots occurred with the writing, and things are definitely interpretive and creative with the handling of the source tune. But then after the groove built up at 1:41, we basically heard that same core groove and pattern at the same relative energy level for the rest of the 3+ minutes, and the ideas became very static and repetitive. You are varying up the leads and textures some during that period, so I'm not trying to undersell what's there, but the overall dynamics of the piece flattened out pretty much after that. A decent & promising base, but you'll need to eliminate the constant ducking, and also introduce more dynamics and/or instrumental variation of the groove in whatever ways you can after the dance groove starts. NO

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It's awesome to hear another sub from Erik S, who I'm a fan of. The intro is a spirited cover that's structurally close, but the different rhythm to the beats at :12 helps set it apart. By :57 with those beats coming back, I was already tired of them in the sense that they feel very auto-pilot-like; not varying them up enough has flattened out the dynamic curve of this piece a lot. Pretty flat ending at 2:36 as well. This is an awesome source tune theme, and I love Tim Folllin's work, so I love that you arranged it, but beyond the new rhythm to the beats (which later became too repetitive), there's not much interpretation to the source tune beyond a richer sound palette. I absolutely love your previous posted OC ReMix, Awesome "Game Over (Cheeze Mix)" -- it's legitmately in my personal top 5 OC ReMixes ever, so definitely don't take a NO vote as a sign of disrespect, but I think there needs to be more melodic interpretation, more drastic instrumental differences, and/or more dynamic contrast & variation in this arrangement. Right now, it's a fairly short, underdeveloped cover, and just based on your Awesome mix, I know you're capable of more creativity and development. NO

No one ever arranges this one... Good stuff with the opening adding some original string accents to compliment the good orchestration. Nice use of the mallet percussion at :32 to simulate stomping on a Dry Bones in the game. Nice transition at 1:03 with SFX to add a little tension. Some of it sounded kind of tacked on, but it integrated well-enough overall. Good original brass writing from 1:34-1:44 as well. I'm both surprised and glad that the instrumentation took some drastic turns at 1:44 to present another side of interpretation and put this on very firm ground with the creativity of the arrangement approach. Sounds like those light electric guitar chugs at 2:38 were influenced by the (Larry-named) "Monstrous Turtles!" The fadeout ending was a little weak, but on the plus side, it was introducing some new concepts even during the fade instead of retreading previous material. It's a disappointing thing in the sense that it's clear you hadn't run out of ideas yet, but what's here with this arrangement was more than adequately developed. Great stuff that's been like some other successful "Sub Castle BGM" mixes lately, i.e. starting out pretty conservative and dampening expectations, only to then fire up with very interpretive instrumentation and textures. Nice job, Orica, and welcome aboard! YES

Decent opening with a basic sounding but well-produced dance groove. The SID lead intro'ed at 1:14 doesn't cut through as the lead enough, yet it sounds somewhat shrill; I would have pulled back the beats and groove some to let the lead sound more dominant, but it's not a huge deal. That said, you have some good accompaniment thrown in from 2:07-2:22 that ends up getting lost in the shuffle due to the levels of everything else. At 2:30, I was getting tired of the main groove and clap pattern; it really needs some sort of changeup somewhere. From 2:59-3:30, there some solid original writing for the SID lead on top of the Cammy theme; again, it sounds too shrill, but the writing's solid and the mixing doesn't bother me in a huge enough way. The ending at 3:45 was weak IMO, but there was a resolution via subtraction; it did feel like you just stopped at a loop point to some extent. This gets a lot right in terms of arranging and interpreting the theme. I may be too harsh in this case, because I like the overall approach, and I won't have any big problem if this passed. But a lot like RoeTaKa's Dark Souls II 'Like a Dream,' I may end up in the minority, but I believe auto-pilot grooves like this one and the way they sap energy and dynamic contrast from an arrangement are too detrimental. There's good energy and adaptation to this genre, but 4-minutes of this groove barely changing was just too plodding for me. If this doesn't make it as is, Marc, this would just need some tweaks to the writing of the groove. You may also want to look into the potential balance and shrillness issues mentioned, but those aren't dealbreaker things, IMO. NO (resubmit)

Pretty odd choice of panning. It's a borderline dealbreaker because, while it isn't flat-out disorienting, it's still too wide on headphones. Everything also sounds very lo-fi; where's the high-end clarity? Structurally, this is all very close to the original song, and adapted well for this instrument set, but none of the part-writing is new, and and I'm not getting much out of it as far as interpretation. There was a nice 5 seconds of stuff added on from 2:07-2:12, as well as some other theme cameos in there like the main theme on bass from 2:18-2:23. There's not much of an ending once the final playthrough is done, it just wraps up immediately; try to fashion a real resolution. This is basically a nicely made, but super-close cover, Didier; it doesn't meet the arrangement creativity requirements of the standards. There needs to be much more personalization of the arrangement approach, whether that's through more distinct instrumentation, rhythm or tempo changes, and/or integrating more original part-writing or sections. Check out other arrangements of the theme to see more of what can be done, including CarboHydroM's spin, which was also a relatively close cover, but also did more interpretive things in his arrangement to give it its own feel. NO

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@zykO ! @Clem ! @Vig ! @Palpable !

Didn't recognize any Zelda from the intro, but did recognize the rabbit theme at :52. There's definitely some uncanny valley stuff going on with the brass and string articulations, especially the strings where things sound thin and not quite realistic. For example, I thought the brass from 1:43-2:31 & 2:34-3:02 sounded pretty flat. The added vox at 2:34 was a nice touch to help mask those issues, where neither it nor the brass sounded mega-realistic, but together they masked each other's issues some. The percussion was a highlight though, and 3:03 had good airy mallet percussion to fill out the soundfield. I think the arrangement's creative and otherwise fine, and it's possible some of the other Js wouldn't have a big enough problem with the sample realism. I felt, however, that this needs one more pass on the realism of the brass, strings, and piano, in that order of importance/necessity. I'm not a musician, so I have no choice but to leave it to other judges to better articulate the production issues there, but it's a very good start, Dallen, with a solid arrangement that mainly needs some production TLC. In particular, if the brass work had more body and realism, this would be much more of an easy call. Good work so far, though! NO (resubmit)

@Jivemaster @Sir_NutS: Lyrics?

Pretty sweet! There were a couple of brief moments where the note movements of the choir were blocky and exposed, but they were minor enough that I didn't feel the need to timestamp it. I'll just note for anyone that cares about the difference that the arrangement is mostly "Fi's Lament/Gratitude," but refers to the original variation of "Fi's Theme" from 2:03-2:59, which is apparent from the wind lead and steadier rhythm of the notes. Beautiful work from Rebecca here! YES EDIT (5/18): djp caught issues that OA agreed on as dealbreakers. I didn't agree that it pulled this down to NO, but wanted to elaborate on them: :38 - there's a very brief, but off piano note; not a huge deal :33-:42 - it's faint, so a listener could miss it, but there's a low & quiet droning note that resonates in the background that sounds off-key 1:22-1:25 - it's again faint, but there's a second low & quiet droning note that resonates in the background that sounds off-key

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The 1:32 section was a weak point for me, because the soundscape got muddy but in reality there wasn't much of anything going on. The texture was different, and then energy gradually escalated, but the rhythm and tempo were the same as the previous sections, and there wasn't anything new going on melodically. At 1:44, the drum work came back in to fill things out a bit better. At 2:05, it sounded like there was light distortion and/or clipping from the brass. Good changeup on the instrumentation at 2:28 with the dropoff going to the piano and Eastern winds. Despite being 3 minutes, it really felt melodically underdeveloped, which is my main dealbreaker. It's close though. I felt the melody being so repetitive and relatively the same energy pushed me down to NO more than any production choices. That said, while I didn't take big issue with much of what Gario did on the production, his comments on the attacks of your instruments and the copy-pasta nature of the drums are detail work items that separate the vets from the up-and-comers; pay particular attention to his feedback. I'm definitely seeing how the crux of the arrangement is about keeping the source melody intact and then changing the instrument textures and intensity to achieve dynamic contrast, and this IS going in the right direction. However, myself and others agree there should be some additional variation in the arrangement to push it over the top; that doesn't mean some sort of drastic changes for the sake of having changes, but any sort of new melodic, drum, rhythm, tempo, and/or textural variations could be enough to get this over the top. I'm not borderline on my vote, but I'd say this piece was about 85% of the way there; it just needs that extra bit of effort. Very good start, Adric, and if this doesn't make it as is, definitely be willing to tweak this some more and resubmit it; would love to have this on the site in some form. NO (resubmit)

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Besides a more creative arrangement title, I actually would like to see more length and variation to the arrangement, given how structurally close to the source tune it is, but I'm on the same overall wavelength as Deia in terms of this personalizing the theme well for the genre. That said, she's absolutely right on the sequencing and articulation critiques. Everything indeed sounded dry and mechanical; this needs humanization badly. Until that's in place (and done well), it wouldn't make it on production quality grounds. This is a good start in terms of the arrangement, but the production needs TLC and, frankly, more experience. I hope we hear more from you though, because you already show great potential with this cover. NO

Stilted opening with the lead at :13; the timing really shouldn't be that blocky, but the overall instrumentation and textures are OK. The lyrics are unintelligible, but that's not a criticism. Fun way to reduce the "Never Gonna Give You Up" lyrics. Definitely with Deia that the theme transitions were effective, and I dug the energy once things picked up more at 1:35. Sounds like you had fun with this one, Jorrith! YES

@Clem: Any chance you'd be willing to revisit this one?

I don't think the orch hits -- which I'm not even sure are sampled, but could be -- sounded as questionable as some of the extensive non-VGM lyrics sampling. I'll take a closer listen, and we'll also get some other opinions on it.

Yep. He smells.

Nice opening with the bells as well, as going for the light orchestral approach; it's not structurally transformative, but very well adapted For the first minute, everything shaped up nicely. I agreed with Deia about the sour note at 1:51; it's not a huge deal, but it should be tweaked if possible to make the support writing work with Jeff's note there and prevent the dissonance. The dropoff at 2:13 actually felt like an opportunity to do something a bit more dynamic with the composition, but that's just a personal taste thing; that said, I really enjoyed the percussion in the background from 2:20-2:45 as well as the chromatic percussion transition (though there was light crackling/distortion from 2:48-2:49). Again at 3:13, there was another chance to do something more drastic with the dynamics or sound palette; this goes the more understated route. Also, until fuller instrumentation came in at 3:43, the harpsichord timing feels exposed as too rigid, something that was an issue for me throughout (timing), but not as much as it was there. Dynamically, there could be more going on, but within a flatter dynamic curve, there's actually a good deal going on with subtle textural changes throughout the piece. It actually feels very much like a piece of in-game BGM maintaining a fixed energy level all while fashioning contrast through those restraints. I think Palpable's right on his NO in the sense that it feels more like a personal preference leaning to me as well; there's indeed more I myself would like to see from this piece -- and I hadn't read the previous votes before writing mine -- but I believe the arrangement's genre interpretation, subtle instrument/textural changes, and overall clean production had more than enough going correctly that this should be a pass. No big issues here, and I enjoyed the approach. Good job, bros! YES

@Gario Do you mean at 2:56, the wind/howling and bubbling noises? I'm not familiar with the game's SFX. Please verify. Also, if removing the SFX would make it a YES, then IMO you should go conditional YES. But either way, I'll contact the artist about the SFX.

Yeah, screenshot it; could just be you.

There's something somewhat hollow in the texture, most noticeably at :56 and then with the Weapon Factory melody at 1:07. I also thought the kick was too upfront yet thin and didn't gel with the other instrumentation, but nothing that was a big detraction. What's here is full enough, and by 1:41 when things filled out more, there was actually a small bit of mud. Nice changeup of the texture of 2:04 to more of a spacey feel that works very well; I really love how the main source here has been transformed. The beat at 3:12's too thin; needs some meat on the bones and perhaps a different tone entirely. The synth at 3:34 handling the Culex/FF fight is something I've heard from Justin a lot, so I'm used to the sound, but the way it's sequenced feels way too stiff; it's an electric guitar synth, and maybe everyone doesn't need it to sound more humanized, but the lead's timing felt too blocky there for the final minute. Some more padding without creating mud would do wonders for the overall sound and fullness of this, but what's here is strong and the arrangement's excellent, particularly the effective time sig shift of 13/8 to 4/4. YES