Liontamer

Co-signed in full. Read it again. I was about to YES this, because the arrangement is very interpretive in shifting it to the reggae instrumentation, so I could also see some YES's with the feeling that the creativity compensates ENOUGH for the repetition, especially with the grace notes here and there. However, 2:20-3:15 going copy-pasta tipped it to a borderline NO. If you could improve the brass realism, that would rock, because there's a significant realism disparity with that vs. any of the other instrumentation. Get the track sounding a little clearer (partly by getting bass mixing under control as well), and (most importantly) add some more variation to the picture for 2:20-3:15 and you're golden, Jorrith. Great concept here, and if this passed, I wouldn't be upset at all, because it's really close. This is 90% of the way there, for me, at least.

Already sounded very lo-fi as soon as the track starts. Also, why are the beats louder than everything else, and why is there no high-end until a semblance of it at 1:15? The beats/hi-hats have that interesting drum machine style, but the downside is there's no velocity variation like Emu mentioned, and IMO nearly all of the instrumentation feels pretty stiff besides some of the looser e-piano/organ leads. The beats also don't do enough to fill out the background, so you have portions like :28-:59 & 1:15-1:50 where the texture is too thin and dry; the strings used at :00 and 1:50, for example, were an effective way to pad things out. By the way, that little piano cameo from 1:40-1:42 was WAY too robotic; watch the detail work there. Take Emunator crits into account on drum sequencing, but don't forget to add clarity to the soundscape as well. It's a cool concept, and the arrangement is well in the right direction, Will, but the track needs fullness and mixing polish. Good potential here. NO (resubmit)

1) S'lot of work, but that's the intention. Less so the live stats (at least initially), more the automated aspects of submitting a track. 2) No time soon. It could be years from now. djp can speak to it with some actual detail, but we'd need someone who could code it. 3) I assume that would be part of it, even if not at first.

You weren't kidding about the mixing being "tricky"; it feels rushed. IMO, the volume's too loud overall. The opening from :00-:14 sounded crowded as hell, and the orchestral elements were completely drowned out until :15. Once things moved to the main melody at :15, I still felt most of the supporting writing was either muddy or obscured; it doesn't sound horrible, but it's definitely not optimal; you almost wonder if there's any point having some of the supporting parts in there if they're not distinguishable. But you can sure hear that snare, since it's too loud and upfront. The snare tone is also not the right fit for this piece. :46-1:13 was somewhat less cramped than what came before. The frog SFX was a nice touch, even though it was pretty buried and easily overlooked. Nice break with the Magus theme from 2:00-2:32. The string decay at 2:28 seemed abrupt and exposed the sample, but the writing of that part was good for that section. This should be more epic than the end result, but the indistinct, cluttered mixing prevents this from reaching top-tier execution. This is mixed reasonably enough for me not to NO it, but it's not by much despite the excellent arrangement because a significant portion of the detail work is washed out. Would love to hear another pass at the production before this was posted, but as is, this gets by with the arrangement carrying it. YES (borderline) EDIT (12/9): I'm still OK with this. The plastic bucket quality of the drums definitely doesn't work here and stuck out very poorly in the intro, but the issues I had with that drum tone were mitigated when the soundscape got filled out more. The arrangement still carries it for me, and I didn't have the issues others are having with timing. The production tweaks didn't make me feel stronger about the call since the drums are such a drag. It's cleaner, but it's still borderline.

Revised version 12/6/15 Howdy Game: Chrono Trigger Source: Frog / Magus (Just the intro is at 2:00 in the remix) Title: Masamune Link: I'm a fan of Frog (Glenn) and his quest to wield the Masamune to defeat the Magus, among his other various goals. I wrote this on a whim Saturday (September 20th, 2014), recorded the guitars on Sunday and reamped them on Monday to finish it off. Mixing and mastering is a little tricky when the instrumentation is so thick with the orchestra, but I struck a good balance, kept the orchestra kinda upfront, but also have a fierce metal component in there. Sounds triumphant and classy, just like Frog himself.

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We're more likely to see it if you include "RESUB" or "resubmission" in the subject line or body of the email. The only change in the judging process is that resubmissions skip the waiting line and get placed on the panel as soon as we notice them, since they already had to go through the waiting time in the past. To me, that's like saying "if a source tune prominently uses a flute, does using a flute in an arrangement with an unrelated melody count as source usage". To me, that definitely doesn't count. In your case, it's not about just using vocals with similar effects, it's about how much of the arrangement directly arranges the writing of the source. I wouldn't give you credit for mimicking the style of a track. I would for arranging the theme.

Definitely sure Stevo would be down with that; never a need to ask to pass on a mix to Sakimoto. We've got a good FF12 mix (along with other FFs in there, but mostly FF12) coming soon too. EDIT (6/25): RebeccaETripp - Final Fantasy XII, VI, IX, V & VII 'Final Fantasy Forest Medley'

It's all tied to the e-violin recording, so the hiss starts as soon as the violin arrives at :14. It's one of those things where it's soft at a regular volume, but when you turn up the volume, it's more obvious it's there. It also may be more audible on headphones.

This is definitely a huge improvement. That said, I'm still not on board yet, even though it's close. There were some badly exposed spots with the sample tone sounding thin & fake when the performance was meant to sound forceful, e.g. :38:-40, 2:04-2:16, 3:39-3:45. Mainly though, this is still too rigidly timed despite the improvements; 1:05-1:09, 1:25-1:38 sounded too rigid in particular, but really most of the timing still feels too stilted & robotic (when the piano doesn't have a super delicate sound that mitigates the issue). It's close, and I won't have a problem with it passing, but IMO this needs one more pass to humanize the timing even more. Right now, it lingers too much in the uncanny valley. NO (resubmit)

I agree it's straightforward, and I said that in the last paragraph. I was only referring to the opening until :44, but I can see how it could be misinterpreted as saying the whole thing was mostly original writing. That's only talking about the intro.

July 24-26, 2015 Baltimore Convention Center Baltimore, Maryland, USA We're celebrating a decade presenting at Otakon! Do you love VGM? LET'S GO! OC ReMix: 10 YEARS of celebrating Video Game Music at Otakon!! PANEL 6, 7:00PM on Saturday, JULY 25th! Happy Birthday DJP! Panelists: djpretzel Arrow José the Bronx Rican zircon

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Justin was cool enough to carve a little time out tonight to tweak this with the judge feedback in mind. And just like that, winner, winner, chicken dinner. The physical album's already pressed, but we've got this good to go for the digital release and having it posted here.

As far as the source usage, it dominated the arrangement, with the WW1 material in particular being pretty straightforward. There was an extended period of time where I didn't recognize anything (3:40-5:38), but the track basically went: WW2 (:01), WW1 ending (2:20), original writing (3:40), WW1 title (5:38). Pretty default-y synth opening, along with a very rigid piano. Immediately, I felt the texture is too thin/empty, despite all the creative writing going on. That added synth line at :55 is WAY too loud. The lead at 1:36-1:53 is just too rigid. I'd argue the source melody from 1:53-2:11 should have been in the foreground and not behind the chiptune countermelody; the balance there doesn't make sense. Yeesh, what an awkward non-transition at 2:20 to the WW1 ending music. Really thought the lead there sounded lame; the timing of everything was too stiff & stilted. I did like the shriller synth first used from 2:38-2:42. When some more countermelodic synth writing was added from 3:04-3:22, everything just mudded together, with nothing distinctly taking the foreground or background; again the balance between the parts doesn't make sense, and your writing clutters together. You definitely need to work on your transitions; another awkward shift at 3:40 that didn't flow, followed by another sudden change in the beats at 3:50 AND 3:58. Why doesn't any of this flow from one style to the next? Pretty generic electrosynth from 4:16-4:33. WW1 main theme at 5:38 was super-rigid with the timing. The beat pattern from 6:10-7:11 & 7:28-8:16 needed less repetition, as it's very plain and dragged on; you need more variation there, not just building more instrumentation around it. The big issues I heard were 1) transitions with 0 flow, 2) alternating between thin textures and cluttered ones, 3) instrumentation that's not produced in a sophisticated way, 4) sequencing that's too robotically timed. The arrangement ideas are creative, and I like that you're unafraid to play around with a lot of different sounds and styles, but there's just no polish behind it. Your instrumentation needs to sound less generic, be less rigid, and better balanced. As long as you ask tons of questions in the Workshop area (Music Composition & Production + Post Your Game ReMixes!) and other music forums, and stay with this, Zack, I think you can have some great results just based on the level of interpretation you're trying to add. Hopefully you've already learned a good deal more since submitting this, but even so, this was very far from the OCR bar in terms of overall execution. That said, your concepts show promise, so I hope you continue learning and improving. NO

We're shooting for 2027.

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The wind lead for the melody at :55 sounds decent, but has mechanical timing nonetheless. Everything does, but with an organic-sounding instrument, that shouldn't be the case. 1:14's and 3:03's sections sound like a cut-and-paste as well, though that was brief. Yeah, that beat from :48-2:07 & 3:03-3:39 just plods and doesn't add much to the song; it's bland, repetitive, and the snare tone doesn't quite fit. Dynamically, the arrangement feels very flat/samey due to the beats never changing. You need more dynamic contrast in this arrangement, Alan, even if it's subtle; getting more sophisticated and varied with the percussion writing will help. Chimpa really summed up the pros and cons well in good detail, and I agreed with everything she said on the arrangement and production. The arrangement's cool, but the mixing could use some work. The main issues though are that beat is lifeless & repetitive, and the timing of everything is too rigid. NO

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Word. Too dry. That's my main problem with it, but it's significant because the stiffness in the timing is much more apparent when the samples are this dry and exposed. For the most part, these are solid samples, but like Chimpa said, once you use reverb to thicken up the sound, you could mask a lot of the obvious lack of realism. As far as the arrangement, it's generally good stuff. While it's structurally conservative, there's care put into varying up the verses & textures through constantly changing instrument combinations. Nice job briefly escalating the energy and tension at 1:54. I thought the transition to the second source at 2:48 was just awkward and had absolutely no flow to it, despite the genuine attempt to bridge from one theme to the other. The instrument quality also sounded worse, even more exposed, particularly the lead at 2:56, the bassoon or whatever it was meant to be. Watch out for quality disparities, especially when everything else sounds serviceably realistic. In any case, if you can't connect smoothly to the second theme, then arrange it to mesh with the mood of the first source or scrap it altogether; it's not clicking right now, and it's an underwhelming finish. Cool source tune choices, Kyle, with Gauntlet giving Dragon Quest a run for its money in terms of the style. You've got to 1) add another level of polish onto the production, even just some better room reverb to mitigate the lack of realism in the sequencing, 2) try to smooth out the theme change at 2:48, and 3) watch the woodwind lead for the final section. There could be other issues pointed out, but that's what grabbed my attention. Hopefully you're able to improve on the production quality here, because I'd love to see this posted in some form. Definitely keep submitting more material to OCR, and don't be discouraged by a NO here; the potential on this track is great, and your ideas and creativity are well in the right direction here. NO (resubmit)