Liontamer

Noticeably stiff timing, I'll agree there. I don't think it's purely excused by the instrument set, but what's here was fine. Pretty much agreed with Chimpa's critique; a little repetitive with the main "Cosmo Canyon" backing pattern, but the overall concept was creative and also varied enough. The combination and intergration of Cid's theme clicked well, and though the dynamic curve could have been wider, what's here works very well. Nice job with the solo shot, Callum; you've arrived. YES

The opening had a lot of generic sounds, but they were put together reasonably OK. That said, until :45, the way this was mixed made it so that there was nothing to focus on, and all of the parts were just smooshed together; something needed to take the foreground during this build (e.g. the synth line brought in at :24), and it never happened. Make sure the balance between the different parts makes sense, and that something cuts through and takes the lead. The backing piano brought in at 1:40 was mechanical-sounding and exposed. It could work for this genre, but shouldn't sound too dry like it does now. Pretty bad when it's called upon for accents from 2:30-2:42. I agreed with Chimpazilla on the second half feeling too repetitive. Indeed, there are touches here and there (like the sweeps and saws) that add more to the texture, but it's not enough to truly set the second iteration apart from the first when the structure and overall energy are still the same. Good start, Jordan. You have good energy here, but see what more you can do with this concept; the second half's too much of a retread without enough differences or dynamic contrast to keep the show fresh. See what you can also do to let the various parts occupy their own space more, and definitely add some realism or depth to the piano so it doesn't stand out so much as sequenced. NO (resubmit)

Yeah, I'm not hearing the source tune used much at all, particularly during the verses. Palpable pointed out the only meaningful connections I could make out (1:02-1:41 & 2:24-3:06). Even in the intro where it's clearly the original song, it just sounds like it's sampling the "Disco Ball" audio with effects. "Can't catch me" vocals were flat, particularly around 2:49-2:53; fix that. Otherwise, I enjoyed the track, but, yeah, where's the source tune in all of this? This is a traditional remix that heavily samples the original audio, but the name of the game here is arrangement. Rob/Drew, if we're overlooking something that makes it clear the source tune melody or parts are explicitly referenced, let us know. As far as I can tell, this is a perfectly fine original track that's inspired by Ridge Racer, and references the source tune some, but not nearly enough to be dominant, so it falls outside what we're looking for. NO

The overcompression also hurts this. I'm not dying on that level, so I'm somewhere between Emu/Jive and Palpable on that, where I don't think that's a dealbreaker on its own, but I agree the clutter & overlap the compression adds isn't ideal. If everything else was on point though, this wouldn't be enough to go NO. Now, I need to clarify that I'm not in a bad mood or anything, but, man, just... eww on that synth line from :05-:10. Why would you be OK with that? Could we get even more generic with the tone and stiff with the timing? Is that possible? C'mon, add some uniqueness and life to it. Yep. It honestly is lacking the whole time it's there, and you've already shown you're better and more creative than that. Not everyone will agree with me on how poor it is, but I think it screams beginner-ish, and you're not a greenhorn anymore. I don't think the guitar performance sounds bad, but as soon as it kicked in at :11, I'd argue the performance felt stiff compared to some of your other work; it just doesn't give off emotion and energy like some of your other tracks, and it's something I've pointed out and criticized in the past. That synth came BACK at :34? You're killin' me. At least in "Loadout," the synth wasn't AS integral, because it hurt that piece too. Here, it's brutal without being br00tal. Anyway, the arrangement is on point, and I agree with Palpable with the sentiment of not making the perfect the enemy of the good. HOWEVER, on top of the loudness/compression issue, that anemic, dry, rigid, lame default-y synth kills this dead in a complete dealbreaker way, and it's not even close. It sounds like no effort was put into using it well, and that definitely registers in a meaningful way for me. Dustin, take the production advice of the actual musician Js to heart, but give ole' man Listener Larry some credence and FIX DEM SYNTHS. They need character and flow. No more vanilla robot synths, plz. NO (resubmit)

Was about to be on board with this, because the arrangement's creative and fun, but I see why there was a NO on this. Lots of clutter due to compression, from :31-:43 & 2:02-2:17 in particular. The heavy beats/kicks (e.g. :51-59) are probably the weakest part of this in terms of the writing; they're so upfront yet pretty bland, and you end up repeating those patterns too much. Also, the main problem, this suffers from essentially cut-and-paste repetition once the ideas were established, so the track just repeats itself after the 2-minute mark. Compare: 1:06-1:22 vs. 2:05-2:21 1:22-1:34 vs. 2:21-2:33 1:34-1:50 vs. 2:33-2:49 :51-1:06 vs. 1:50-2:05 vs. 2:49-3:04 All of :51-2:05 is basically repeated wholesale from 2:05-3:04. You should employ more variations here instead of coasting in order to keep the track fresh. Having read Emunator's vote just now, we're saying exactly the same thing. You had good ideas, but then stopped developing the track, so it quickly felt too samey for the second half. Use things like different instrumentation, beat patterns or gating, rhythmic alterations, or similar effects done at different times; anything like that could add subtle differences that prevent the track from being too repetitive without evolving. Really cool stuff. If you can declutter/decompress this a bit per Emu's suggestions, and most importantly vary and develop the arrangement further, this would be good to go and better realize the potential here. You have a great first 2 minutes, but let's not just end the ideas there if you're going to let the track go another minute and a half. Awesome start though; we definitely need this piece on the site on some form, Tobias, this is close. NO (resubmit)

Yeah, I'll agree with the YES's that the production/mixing isn't optimal. Some of the textures felt dry, IMO, so I see where Palp's coming from on wanting more power here; to me, I think the piece having more spaciousness would help. Also from 1:18-1:51, the original electric guitar writing was just burying the source tune, so I thought the balance should have been tweaked. That said, nothing was actually dragging the production down to a NO level at all, and the arrangement was nothing but excellence. Effective switch to the woodwind lead at 2:49. I liked the rock section at 3:18 and the dubby synths following the source melody was fun; though they sounded pretty lossy, cool cameo of the female vocals at 3:57. Dunno why people felt that section didn't work; I thought it was great, followed by a skillful transition into the folky section at 5:16 and another electric guitar at 6:06. Minor point, but the final drum shot at 6:52 wasn't necessary; sometimes you just need to leave a good winddown alone. There were a lot of substantially different sections in this piece, but like many progressive pieces, the transitions and overall flow were smartly written and effectively presented. Definitely no reason to hold this back. Really varied yet cohesive medley; props for pulling this off! YES

Maybe YOU'RE not.

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Quoted for agreement. The drum groove at :24 was well-written, but it became overused and plodding on extended auto-pilot, lasting from :24-:45 & :56-2:21. A second pattern coasts from 2:31-3:36, but at least there was a change from the first half. A few of the theme change-ups (e.g. :45) weren't smooth, IMO, though that wasn't a huge deal. Ultimately, there was too much recycling of the source melodies without changes, only with different drum/backing patterns underneath, e.g.: * :02-:45 vs. 4:29-4:56 * :56-1:38 vs. 2:32-2:52 * 1:38-2:21 vs. 2:52-3:38 vs. 3:38-4:18 I feel like this is a solid work-in-progress going well in the right direction, but it lacks the finishing touches & detail work needed to fully develop the arrangement. It's a cool piece in vacuum, and certainly has some good sounds. I wasn't even bothered by the production, unlike Vig. But I'm really surprised this has so many YES's when the arrangement's on auto-pilot and cut-and-paste repetitive in such big ways. NO (resubmit)

The opening sounds like an anemic MIDI rip, it feels like all the high-end got cut, and there's the orch stabs for maximum cheese. A minute in, and I'm not sure why this is still so quiet; wondering if this will built to anything... OK, here's some synths getting louder at 1:23... well, not much louder. Yeah, the overall volume seems too low. The track's also pretty spartan in terms of the instrumentation. Basic synths, claps, and orch stabs without any polish in how they're used. The whole track is basically like this where everything's too quiet, the instrumentation's thin and the textures aren't filled out or cohesive. Unfortunately not much potential here for an arrangement like this, Patrick, when the production is so lacking. Keep at it though. NO

Opens up with some pretty liberal interpretation on the source that goes off into mostly original territory. At :29, it shifts into an original line over the foundation of the source before going into the source melody at :44. The string articulations are pretty exposed as unrealistic, so it was much better at :58 when the lead was tweaked and mitigated the realism issue. The snare/hi-hat "THUMP-THUMP TSS" pattern from :44-1:54 was repetitive and plodding; you need some quick/simple variations in the core pattern so it doesn't just function on auto-pilot and undermine the dynamics & interest of the piece. Good dropoff of the beats at 1:54; I liked the string writing behind the lead, then you had more good stuff at 2:12 with the bowed & plucked strings. Repetitive beats back from 2:26-3:48 for the rest of the track. You had a creative original synth section from 2:40-3:28, but it was undermined both by the beat pattern droning on, as well as the lead timing sounding too stiff/quantized. Super-extended fadeout ending at 3:27 was a disappointment; fadeouts aren't bad in and of themselves, but when you just repeat those beats and pads from the previous minute and a half, it's just another instance of plodding repetition. Literally 2/3rds of the track is just the same beat over and over and over. It's not THAT good. You don't need to go wild in terms of diversifying up the beats, you need need to employ subtle variations -- simple stuff like occasional off-beats or rhythmic changes -- to keep the show fresh. Right now, the arrangement is melodically conservative, but you did do a good job of changing the other instrumentation around it to personalize your arrangement. Some further melodic interpretation would be welcome as well to keep the melody from getting too repetitive, so consider doing that as well; same as the issue with the beats, it's nothing to go wild over with changes, but do something to create more variation. That said, the main issue for me is taking your beats off autopilot. Promising material so far though, Joshua; now it's just a matter of further detail work to fully realize the potential here. NO (resubmit)

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She's right on the money; the arp serves as a base, not a crutch. Always a big fan of anything that uses "Sealed Door," by the way, one of Uematsu's underrated classics. Excellent piece, and nothing more to add other than "Nice work, Jake & everyone," and "Let's go." YES

Source tune usage is pretty obvious, so even if I didn't note a few liberal references, it's certainly dominant in the arrangement, which was 3:59-long: 14.5-1:23, 2:13-2:15.5, 2:30.25-2:41.75, 2:43-3:08.5, 3:10.5-3:37.5, 3:49.5-3:56 = 141.5 seconds or 59.2% overt source usage The lossy sound and hiss both suck. The closest analogy I can think of is Zoltan Vegvari's Mega Man 3 "Intro Jazz," but I would argue that once that one got going, it mainly sounded distant and hiss wasn't a huge problem, unlike this. Oh well. I didn't mind Jamie's e-violin tone, and thought it combined reasonably well with the piano; I see how others may not dig it, but it didn't bother me. Jeez, a skip in the violin at 2:15 that sounds super-awkward. Sucks how the hiss also fades at 2:32 when the violin drops out. Super bootleg recording quality. It might be impossible to reduce the hiss without cutting even more of the highs and making this sound more lossy, but IMO this needs one more pass at everything, if possible, to gain clarity and reduce hiss. The arrangement is awesome, and I hate to make the perfect the enemy of the good. That said, Mega Man 3 "Intro Jazz" feels to me like the the floor as far as recording quality goes with today's bar, and I think the production here, as is, is below the bar. This may pass, but the production's a shame to me given how solid the arrangement is. NO (refine/resubmit)

Holy shit, Chimpa's not lying on the volume, yeesh. Why's it done like that, Nik, it sounds horrible. String articulations at :42 were pretty rigid, though serviceable given their placement once other parts joined in. Arrangement's not bad, but it feels pretty droning and underdeveloped. From :56-1:38 &1:54-2:35, it's just the string pattern, the countermelody, the beats, and not much else; this is nearly half of the track. If there is more going on, it's difficult to tell given how loud & cluttered this is. Promising arrangement concept, but de-WTF the production, and make the writing of :56-1:38 & 1:54-2:35 more varied and interesting. NO

The criticisms first: Not feeling the drums first used at :35; when they came in more fully at :44, the high-end sizzle was too loud and too much; take some of the edge off that so it's not so overpowering. Sounds like the track's clipping/distorting in some places (e.g. :54, 1:37). During the chorus at 1:03, I felt the kick pattern was bland and left the track feeling empty, BUT it would have made sense if the backing writing became more complex and sophisticated later. Unfortunately, at 1:46 when I expected that next level of development, it didn't happen. 2:46 was another point where the core percussion should have shifted beyond just plodding timekeeping. I agreed with Emunator on the exposed string articulations from 3:05-3:29. If the strings had been louder, it would have been worse, because they sounded pretty fake. The strings should have been louder, but also more realistic re: the timing. That said, they currently weren't that loud. At 3:31, it sounded like the vocals needed some brief de-essing. Onto the positives: Firstly, Katskachi is a marvelous vocalist, and I hope we hear more great things from her. Despite issues with wanting more creative, less static percussion patterns, and having some problems with the mixing, the arrangement was still above the line, IMO, and the production issues weren't dealbreakers, they were just things that could be addressed to take this to the next level. Emunator certainly had some good in-depth analysis, and I agreed that if the mixing were more like Blackmill and Veela's "Let It Be," that would be great as far as the track having more body. However, I think NOing what's in place right now is making the perfect the enemy of the good. There's already a creative, transformative, reasonably-executed arrangement here. It could be spiced up further and cleaned up some, but I think it's important to make it clear that that's NOT where the line is. YES

Some generic synths to open things up, followed by a generic groove at :15, but we'll see where it goes. Not sure the synths starting at :14 are in the same key as the melody or groove; pretty sloppy. String part at :45 is rigidly-timed, plus it's buried in the soundscape. "Ball Court" melody at :59 with a solid interpretation, followed by another iteration vis synth at 1:28. Shifted to the ending section at 1:57 with "World Map" on piano, but this doesn't flow well. The overall writing wasn't cohesive or melodious, and the parts aren't balanced. I like the concept of somehow transforming Tombs and Treasure's music into a club piece, but it's not clicking yet here. NO

The source tune is all about taking that melody and going 6 minutes with lots of changes in what's surrounding it, and I felt this arrangement did a solid job with the same approach, with the textures constantly evolving. Electric guitar soloing at 4:18 was fun; the slowdown at 5:06 was sudden though and could have used a few extra bars to breathe. Minor things, but I felt like the guitar strumming was too loud compared to the actual melody. The escalation at 2:26 was pretty interesting. Though the melody was getting crowded out by the bassline, electric guitar, and percussion, it was reasonably audible enough, IMO. Bassline sounded pretty sweet, always throwing in some new writing ideas there to keep things fresh. Chimpa wasn't quite on board, so I was expecting some sort of noteworthy issues dragging this down, but I heard almost none of that whatsoever. I wasn't bothered by the piano timing and didn't feel the percussion was too simple or repetitive. I agreed with the hats (in particular from 2:27-3:29) being distracting; there's some sizzle to them that doesn't sound right. There may have been some very brief spots where the performance wasn't as tight as it should have been, but IMO it was very brief, enough that I didn't feel compelled to timestamp anything. All in all, this sounded very much like a professional Japanese arrange album piece as far as the concept and presentation. Rejecting this would be pure nitpicking, IMO; the arrangement's a pure pass, and this is definitely cohesive enough. It's not to sound like I'm pressuring anyone who would go NO, but I would argue if I ran it by djp, he'd say there should be no way something like this got rejected. YES

IMO, the arrangement seems fine (I'd need to time it out just for my sake), but this is overcompressed. Machine-gun drums at 1:26, 1:42 & 2:51/3:02 were just adding a bunch of noise. Agreed with Emu on the synth parts being vanilla; they're pretty bland and lifeless, he's right about needing to raise the game there. The only reason the synths don't drag this down to NO is because they're so obscured by the compression and clutter; if the synths were more exposed, they'd ALSO be dragging this down. The interpretation and energy are great, Dustin, just give the mixing & levels another pass; the overall texture can still have power while parts also have room to breathe. I didn't feel the production matched other stuff we've posted recently, as far as this much compression being good enough, but I could be outvoted. Good luck though. If this doesn't pass, give the synths more personality and the parts some headroom, and this production would be on fully solid ground like the arrangement is. NO (resubmit)

S'all good. Just making sure we're still in business.

Agreed with Chimpazilla on the dry snare at :33; the kick was good, but the snare sounded flimsy & WIP-like with no meat/body to it. I was so glad when it dropped out at 2:19, and equally sad when it (expectedly) returned at 3:08. See what you can do to beef that tone up and/or push it back in the soundscape, whatever may work. Theme comes in at :56 and sounds conservatve but solid, followed by more interesting variation at 1:07. The guitar chugs behind it were solid because they were placed in the background in a way that didn't expose them too much, so props on that. Good dropoff from 2:20 before gradually building back into the original verse structure at 3:09. There were some minor grace notes and changes to the melody to smartly make the final verse different before the finish, so any repetition concerns weren't founded, though some more dynamic contrast across the board would have been welcome. Subtle thing, but I also really liked the gradual close from 3:38 as elements left, and the volume started dropping; very cool way to end it. I was on the fence about the weak snare, but the rest of the presentation was solid enough for me, including the other beats, plus the snare's is surrounded JUST ENOUGH by other elements where it barely blends in enough. While I'd like that dry beat to be changed before we posted this, I'm not gonna hold this back when everything else was creatively on point and above the bar. I can understand a NO, but I'm on board, so let's go. YES

Didn't agree at all about the production being a dealbreaker -- not even close. IMO, Jivemaster had the best critique on the mixing, i.e. there could be improvements with the mixing, the voice sample could/should have differed more the second time around, but overall, it's an easy pass anyway. Source usage was well above 50% of the duration of the track, so I didn't need timestamps, but just going on the most overt part and ignoring some of the melodic variations that were more about rhythmic similarities with totally different notes, I heard the source from 24.5-45.5, 1:03.75-1:41, 1:49.5-2:00 & 2:21.5-3:41. The arrangement was fire. Awesome work, Paul. YES

For anyone lazy, the sources: "Chrono Trigger" - main source "Guardia Castle - Pride & Glory" ("Courage and Pride") - :56 "At the End of Time" ("Brink of Time") - 1:11 "Frog's Theme" - 1:19 "Magus Confronted" ("Battle with Magus") - 1:26 "Schala's Theme" - 1:34 "Secret of the Forest" - 2:11 Though there weren't any big structural changes to the melodies of anything here, I felt there was plenty of personalization in this arrangement in the different instrumentation, occasional tempo changes, new supporting writing, and creative integration or pairing of other theme cameos. Instead of an A+B+C+D format, there were some references to other themes, but done in a way to combine most of them with the Chrono Trigger theme's backing pattern (e.g. 1:27-1:56), not just stopping and starting different themes with no flow. I had no problem with that arrangement structure. On the production side, the drums were (arguably) too punchy in places (e.g. 2:28-2:54), and there's something lacking to fully fill out the track, like it's missing some sort of padding or something to fill the gap. Other than that, I felt this was a solid orchestration with more than enough interpretive techniques. Let's go. YES

PMs or admin@ocremix.org are dedicated methods of communication, I gots 'em. I don't need anyone's dedicated presence, I just need a link to where you have the WAVs online. It can be from Google Drive, Dropbox, whatever. Literally whatever.

Guys, what is the holdup on getting me the WAVs? If someone's hard drive goes, the album is gone... So Rozo or Meteo, whoever has the WAVs, give me the WAVs. Hook me up!