Liontamer

Trolleriffic. BIRFDAY!

:49-1:20, 1:27-1:59, 2:29-3:00, 3:07-3:23 = 110 seconds :11-:34, 4:09-4:32 (minor 8-note supporting pattern, mostly buried from :11-:34 - used in other sections as well, but even more buried) = 46 seconds Source usage checks out for me. Cool intro. The beep-style notes taken from :03-:06 of the source sounded off-key when paired with the e-piano chord at :11. Already disliked the mixing of this once it picked up at :19; just messy and muddy, IMO, burying the only connection to the source until :34. That 8-note background pattern was meant to provide a constant connection to the source during the original sections, but was usually very obscured. You probably should change the sound of that pattern so that it stands out more as a connection to the source. The synth at 1:28 was pretty generic, and the backing instrumentation was bland. The soundscape was still cluttered while feeling pretty barren as far as the texture, with the same issues at 3:23. The piano at :49 & 2:29 was pretty exposed as mechanically sequenced, which doesn't work well for an organic instrument like it does for a synth. I hear the variations on the theme, and that's certainly in the right direction as far as the arrangement, but many of the instrument choices were vanilla, the textural building was pretty sparse, and some of the mixing turned out muddy. Emu's already given an overview of what should be looked at on the production side. It's a good start, Corey, but the energy here was bland, and the instrument quality needs to be improved before this has a legit shot. NO

String articulations at :12 were pretty meh, especially that last exposed note at :18. Not a great transition to Splash Woman at :41, but it was serviceable. The orchestration for the Splash Woman section wasn't mind-blowing, but was interesting before moving back to Wave Man at 2:00. Weird sweeping noise at 2:05, 2:15, 2:26 and 2:38, I believe with the woodwind, that doesn't sound right, though it's a minor thing. The instrumentation started giving me flashbacks to my very first vote as a judge, Koelsch1's Valkyrie Profile 'Blind Eternity,' and not in a good way. That track stuck out as having a good arrangement, but some bland instrumentation (e.g. bells, strings, woodwind) that undermined the energy inherent in the writing. The final section put it over the top of me as far as having more right than wrong in terms of the production and execution, but you can't help but hear this track and realize the quality of the orchestration hasn't reached its potential. Everything was fairly well written and arranged, but some sections felt a bit lifeless despite all the activity going on. To me, it's a problem, but the smart arrangement of the two theme carries it enough as is that I can let it go by. Having checked out 4 resubmissions by Brandon in a row today, I'm disappointed none of them are outstanding, as he's grown a ways as a musician since he started submitting tracks. I wasn't feeling some of the RESUBs today, but he's shown he can significantly improve flawed pieces from iteration to iteration. That said, more consistency and a better ear from the start should be the goal. YES (borderline)

I've only listened to this version, for the record. The drums were kind of an awkward fit for the first minutes. Rather awkward transition to Spring Man theme chorus at 1:11. It then combined OK with Splash Woman's theme, but the segue was still very sudden, and the drums were still bland. 2:24 had a huge dropoff with an original section featuring a light Splash Woman theme cameo from 2:49-3:03. Energy went back up at 3:11 with Spring Man's theme. Really crowded soundscape (again) where the theme could barely be heard until the guitar took the lead at 3:27. The guitar's sounded OK, but I'm still surprised at what a poor fit the drums are and how the instruments aren't really clicking together texturally. I'd love more opinions on that so someone could articulate those issues better. The ending was also weak, and the transitions weren't smooth. The arrangement's definitely very interpretive and ticks the box there, but the instrument textures didn't fit when the electric guitar was the lead, the mixing should be cleaned up, and the structure wasn't quite cohesive enough. I saw Deia mention in the previous vote that Spring Man's theme could go, and while I don't think you NEED to do that, it probably would help this one on some level. NO (resubmit)

Quick source usage breakdown: :00-1:26, 1:47-1:59, 2:04-2:09, 2:41-3:00, 3:37-4:02 = 147 seconds or 58.02% Opening sounded sweet; nice and emotive, with the addition of the light vocals at :23 also a nice touch. Moved over into the rock at :43. The supporting electric guitars there were burying the bowed string leads. The mallet percussion also got buried, but it never sounded that fitting to begin with. The drum writing was also kind of bland, and the machine gun drums at 1:27 were kind of silly due to being so loud compared to the electric guitars moving over to the lead. I felt like a lot of the scoundscape ended up too crowded as well once things picked up at :44. It seems like many of my votes today had similar issues with poor mixing and crowded soundscapes, so much so that I had to refer to my control track just to make sure I didn't accidentally have any settings messed up. But unfortunately for you guys, my hearing and my computer settings are just fine. Even so, this was STILL reasonably well produced, even if the balance wasn't where it should have been, and I'm comfortable enough with it on that level. It's not perfect, but not flawed enough to reject on that level. The instrumentation sounded full-bodied and the arrangement of the source tune was expanded and developed exceptionally well, with great dynamics and loads of variations. By tweaking some things to get rid of a lot of the weaker instruments, this arrangement's finally playing with power. I'm really glad THIS version ended up at the final version on Random Encounter, as the previous ones were all very, very, very (very) lacking. Gotta hand it to your guys for your perseverence! YES

A little loud and a little crowded, but pretty awesome. The realism of the piano sequencing wasn't there, but the part was buried enough in the background to not stick out like a sore thumb. That said, it's honestly a bit disappointing that part was spruced up further. If it had been exposed more than this, that would have been the one weak link that would have killed this sub dead. I'll be real, please try not to have your piano sound this thin and mechanical again. You may be thinking it sounds like a legit saloon style or something, but the thinness ensures it doesn't; you're a better musician than that. Cool stuff with the Rhodes at 2:08 to give the arrangement some new sounds before transitioning back to guitar at 2:40. Awesome comping-style stuff at 3:28 for the quick finish. The dynamics were understated, but well done. I see in the previous vote that the dynamics came into play, but at least with this version I wasn't bothered here. The source itself was pretty repetitive, but this subtlely avoided that through good original writing ideas to provide variation. The source breakdown Brandon gave in his original submission is seemingly 404'ed (won't load for me now), but there was a lot of original-sounding sections that didn't seem connected with the source despite the claim of a 70% connection, so I'd need a breakdown here. If that checked out, I'd pass it, but aside from the melody, the connections weren't obvious from a couple of listens. I'm assuming there are some backing pattern usages happening according to Brandon, but it needs to be spelled out. No vote until I get more.

Just noting I've only heard this version. The percussion writing was underwhelming and, while not lazily written, didn't really lend enough energy to the piece, IMO, undermining the dynamics of the arrangement. There's just a blandness to it that's coming through. That said, the overall energy in this rock conversion was pretty solid. The volume was somewhat too loud, but tolerable. The mixing was also on the weak side, and the encouding sounded like it might as well be 128kbps quality because the high frequencies seemed pretty muted. If the percussion were more fitting, or the mixing more polished, I could get behind this as over the line, but I'm not quite there yet. It truly does rock, so I'd like to see this pass, but it's missing a little something to put the level of polish over the top. Great start so far, guys. If it doesn't make it, this is close, IMO. NO (resubmit)

Just noting I've only heard this version. The beats were overbearing, and the woodwind & higher string sequencing was stiff and unrealistic. Texturally, the electrosynths didn't work as well as they should have as leads. The background of the 1:52-2:09 section was too empty after the dropoff, yet 2:31-2:44 sounded too loud and compressed. There's some balance and volume issues that need to be worked out. The arrangement's alright, and I wouldn't be mad if this passed, but I heard too many smaller issues with the production adding up for me to pass it. Some instruments are too loud, some sound fake, and some areas are empty. You don't necessarily need to alter the arrangement itself, but I'd tweak some thing with the production to get everything clicking. This is coming along nicely, Wina, there's nothing to be discouraged about if this doesn't make it as is; you can definitely get it there. NO (resubmit)

Busy, BUT lazy also counts.

But he THINKS they do, that's the most important thing.

Please don't speculate whether I'd timestamp something more or less than what you had. This wasn't even close to borderline on source usage: 0:11-0:15, 0:36-1:10, 1:27-1:34, 1:35-2:07, 2:09-3:07 = 135 seconds or 71.05% That said, love the arrangement, and don't have anything to add other than nYAH at DA.

Moseph explained it, but just leaving this here as another reference: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=60151

Melodically, this got plodding fairly soon after it started. Initially, the conservative approach was personalized nicely with the new instrumentation, but then the arrangement never went anywhere else interpretive structurally until 3:57. The addition of the drums at 1:19 was underwhelming in the long run. The tone was vanilla and the pattern, especially the snare, was boring and repetitive after a minute, when the soundscape really needed to be devloping and evolving more substantially. 2:37 finally added the escalating warbling-style synth, but the drums were still plodding on complete auto-pilot, and the overall texture was still thin, with a lot of empty space. Trim the fat on this (e.g. some of 1:19-1:41). You're following the source's structure so closely, yet leaving the soundscape empty, so a lot of the quieter sections before the main melody drops in are too sparse and just bloat the length. You also need to write less plain and repetitive drums (1:19-3:56 with 0 variation in the pattern is too long) and pad/flesh out the background instrumentation further so the soundscape isn't empty leading up to 3:56. The final section with the piano was sweet, and served a nice changeup (finally) and more substantial interpretation of the source. Good start, Aleksandar, definitely figure out what criticisms you feel will help the piece, and work on this some more to take the development of it to the next level. You may be able to get this where it needs to be. NO (resubmit)

Yeah, we're definitely not having paid memberships where members could help eval tracks. Let's not run too far with evaluating how that idea would work; we're not doing that.

For those curious, a source tune use breakdown: "Spring" - :13-:47 (vocals sing woodwind melody from theme's :00-:32) "Summer" - 1:22-1:32 (vocals sing :10-:20 of theme) "Autumn" - 1:43.75-1:47.5, 1:48.75-1:57, 1:58.5-2:02 (guitar plays rising note patterns from theme's :00-:15); 2:03-2:11, 2:12-2:22 (vocals sing woodwind melody from theme's :15-:23) "Winter" - 2:37-3:03 & 3:17-3:35.5 (vocals arrange theme's :00-:27 string melody); 3:03-3:17 (vocals arrange theme's :27-:41 backing string part)

In before tomorrow! Happy birthday, bro!

Correct, it's both. Also, "ha!" at 9-bit dubwub.

That, and we can't use folks who can/want to only judge 1 genre. We need folks who are willing to evaluate anything no matter the genre.

I heard some clicks/pops around :06 (light), :12, and :25 during the initial build. I'm co-signed with Vinnie on the production. It was kind muddy, but ultimately fine for me. That said, I'm not with him on the arrangement, even though we basically counted the same things. I needed more than 126 seconds of recognizable, overt source usage here for the source tune to be dominant: 1:29-2:07.75 (obscured), 2:46.25-3:37, 3:37-4:02.75 (partially obscured) = 115.25 seconds or 45.73% Simply put, the parts that are slowed down are slowed to the point of being unrecognizable. And the parts that are "simplified" are oversimplified to the point of being unrecognizable. For me, the production was solid enough, so tweaking the arrangement to have more overt source usage is all I think this needs for the win. NO (refine/resubmit)

Overt source use (quick check): :08-:40, :56-1:28, 1:40-1:48, 2:12-2:20, 2:28-3:00 = 112 seconds (i.e. plenty) Not feeling the woodwind sample, which was kind of a weak link. Also not a fan of the generic FL default style warbles at :48, but was glad other stuff joined in at :56. Short and sweet, solid variation of the instruments and expansive writing to get a lot of mileage out of this one. It was put together cohesively enough to get by, IMO. I didn't agree with Vinnie's assessment of the arrangement. It's a very limited source, and Max used it well, not just variations of the instruments playing the core 4-note pattern, but also stuff like the strings that used the same progression but not with quarter notes, to provide a kind of rhythmic variation. I thought it checked out just fine and wasn't put off by the approach. But since he's such a strong NO, we definitely should leave this open for either one more YES before closing it or see if there's more NOs. Max continues to have mixes that pass despite being rough around the edges, so I'm looking forward to his continued improvement so everything can sound polished. It's not the strongest YES, but it gets by.

I'm co-signing on this. The arrangement is sweet, but the dub-wub parts are too loud/grating AND the source usage, while there, is getting marginalized in volume when that dub-wub stuff's in play. Literally, those are the only 2 production issues for me in the big picture, but they hurt it. I'd go conditional YES, but we're collectively trying to refrain from that going forward, so I'll throw on another NO, but heavily encourage you to tweak the levels of the loud dubstep-style stuff and make sure the airy source usage during those sections isn't getting steamrolled. Smooth out those levels and you're golden, IMO. NO (resubmit)

I like the track in a vacuum, and I'm actually in DarkeSword's camp there. But the rhythmic alterations compared to the source tune are really making it difficult for me to wrap my head around the arrangement and what's directly used from what. It sound pretty liberal from what I can tell. I recognize some aspects of the melody in brief pieces, but then it seems like wholly original writing follows for a few seconds before going back to another brief altered version of the melody. Very loose breakdown: :19-:27, :49-1:13, 1:21-1:24, 1:26-1:33, 1:36-1:45, 2:14-2:23.75, 2:33-2:38, 2:43-3:02, 3:31-3:52 I'd need a breakdown from someone before I could sign off on this arrangement, so I'll holler at Guifrog.

It was "Ajax," as in his last name.

That's not "really low." Most can't tell 192 from lossless in ABX testing.

No, you just misunderstood the change. The standards & encoding guide are consistent with what it says in the original post. Those are the encoding standards right now, either 192kbps CBR or V1 VBR. You cannot submit music at 320kbps CBR, that's too high.