Liontamer

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Despite a 320kbps MP3 being sent in, the opening sounds distant and feeling like a low-quality render due to the lack of high-end sharpness/clarity. Theme arrives at :47, and I liked the arrangement of it, but this soundscape sounds so lossy. 1:04 drops out the intro's sounds and moves the tempo up a touch, then it's supersaw city at 1:18 with some loud thumping beats that had very nice heft. That said, the soundscape's too flooded; some claps were added around 1:25 and practically don't even register; the only reason I noticed them was because I'm actively listening for textural changes; you only audibly hear the clap once when the other sounds drop for the transition at 1:45. The transition at 1:45 felt awkward/sudden, but I'll move past it. I do like the loose way the theme's arranged there; it's a style I'd never heard before and a pretty unique sound to apply to this theme. Pretty lonely lead there though; some beats entered in at 2:01, but it was a very barren sound until a (relatively brief) cut-and-paste return of the saw section at 2:18. From what DarkSim was saying, it appears as if multiple parts are occupying the same frequency range, which could explain why it feels to me like the supporting part-writing doesn't provide enough textural glue and makes the textures feel very simplistic/basic. If you compare to something like Pimp! Code's "You Know", that's cleaner, so you can make out the supporting part-writing (which is subtle like yours) more easily. The arrangement approach is good, the mixing just needs more clarity and refinement, IMO. NO (resubmit)

I see how the intro's underwhelming, and the sampled guitar chugs at :20 sound so rigidly timed with repeating attacks/intensity that don't have any round-robin to at least somewhat humanize them. Before the organ joins in at :28, those chugs sound bone dry and untreated. Loved the doubled/layered lines from :07-:10 though, that's an awesome sound. The tremolo strings at :47 sounded good, but then hit those longer attacks again at :49, so that's no good. Look how exposed the guitar sample sounds at 1:42 as it ends. The lead at 1:50's also very mechanical-sounding. Piano at 2:27 sounds good though; still fakey, but it's mixed very well, so it sounds way more realistic in tone (and less rigid) than more exposed parts like the guitars (or even the piano at :12, less so at 1:28). Final section at 2:58's just way too rigidly timed and lacks any fluidity until 3:29, both the guitar and piano. It feels like the effort's all in the arrangement, just not in the sequencing detail work. I love the arrangement, and this doesn't need live performers, but this does need more fluidity/humanization in the sequencing, and this strongly shouldn't pass as is. It's a mock-up with a completed composition, and those fundamentals are strong, but it's now awaiting the production polish. Without it, I'm a no-go. NO (resubmit)

At :44, the textures's too muddy, IMO, but certainly nothing seriously dinging the piece, especially in light of the tremendous arrangement ideas, really ratcheting up the energy level of the theme. Loved the padding from 1:15-1:47 that added a nice warmth and contemplative tension to this section. There's also some sadness in the strings from 1:48-2:19, which I appreciated. They sounded similar to a favorite of mine from the FF7 album, The Orichalcon & bustatunez' "Rare Square". Great adaptation of this theme into something that sounds like a stress-filled cinematic cue; this is maybe the part where things look bleak, immediately followed by the hero sucking it up and trudging on, so I got some good imagery here. Loved the synth and vox-like line doubling the melody from 2:36-2:45. Nitpick: the thin electric guitar tone then added in at 2:51 sounded underwhelming; the corny-sounding delay and the way the guitar was panned hard had it sounding thinner than it should have; more resonance/depth to that sound would have improved the final section. Awesome dropoff section at 3:12; great lead sound, and the all of the industrial & electronic sounds underneath; nice screeching sound from 3:21-3:28 as well, some good sound design there. Loads of dynamics here, and just a strongly expanded fleshing out of "The Stage Is Set". Probably Zack's best example from this album of why he deserves some film scoring gigs. A nice ride here! YES

The bassline of the source is very quietly referenced from :20-:29. Melody kicks in at :33 and this is definitely loud. The soundscape's not sizzling, but the kicks are so much louder than the synths. Kind of an odd mixing result where there's shrillness to the synths, but there's no sharpness to the overall soundscape; it makes it sound like we got a low bitrate MP3 encoding rather than the WAV. Some faux electric guitar added into the back at 1:10; it's actually good that it's not upfront, because it sounds too mechanical, so it just adds some texture without exposing the sample. Dropoff at 1:40 was a good idea to vary up the intensity of the track until restoring it with totally different instrumentation at 2:05. The lead synth line from 1:40-1:52 shouldn't have been so quiet compared to the synth warbles, but it's more prominent at 1:54. Love the brief groove at 1:54-2:04 as well. Shrill stuff at 2:05 and then particularly at 2:18 when the synths joined in, which hurt the final flourish section before the signoff with the car SFX. The arrangement's creative and interpretive enough that I can get past the non-ideal mixing. Strong usage of these sounds, lots of textural variation, and fun, driving (no pun intended) intensity throughout. I do wish the mixing didn't make it a closer call than it needed to be though, but I'd prefer not to make the perfect the enemy of the good. YES

I immediately disliked how the drums were mixed here. The snap of the snare has no depth to it, plus it's mixed so much louder than the vocals and guitar, so the comparative volumes of these parts didn't make sense. I guess you're in the drummer's seat. Aside from that, it's a strong arrangement with strong performances, a fun and instrumentally expansive journey! YES

I appreciated the source tune breakdown. Agreed that the cello from 1:28-1:44 got pushed down too much. Other than that, loved the tradeoff of the themes throughout the arrangement. Awesome performances and textures. If you haven't nagged Gareth Coker and Bear McCreary to check this out yet, Daniel, what are you waiting for, an invitation? YES

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Despite being from 17 years ago, I'm sorry for the exclusively negative comments I gave you way back; quite the banner example of how not to give feedback; zircon's was so thorough that I'm confident I let his heavy lifting excuse my frustration at the level of arrangement interpretation not being there. Even for a cover, I'm sure there was something positive I should have highlighted to offer you encouragement, since it was a great source tune choice. I'm glad you didn't let my douchey feedback stop your musical journey. Ever since being introduced to the soundtracks by Quinn Fox and djpretzel's arrangements, I'm always happy to hear OG-Phantasy Star stuff get treatment, so it's a cool creative focus, and unique relative to what others are doing in the scene. Though I've known PS4's intro theme since being a newcomer OCR fan, I've never heard "The Age of Fables" until now, so we'll see what we've got. Right from the opening, the piano sample sticks out; there's some body to it, but it's so blocky and sounds very unrealistic. The synth handling the melody at :13 sounded extremely vanilla and defaulty. I disagreed with MW's assessment that the production quality was good; the samples, as they're currently used, aren't getting it done, and unfortunately make this less energetic and driving than the original song. On the plus side, the countermelody that was briefly there from :40-:54 had a very nice yet understated tone to it; very low-key but a strong part in terms of improving the texture. At 1:06, the texture was filling out more, and I do realize that there's 7+ minutes on the clock, but the relatively empty texture isn't working. At 1:46, some defaulty-sounding warbling synths at least add some energy, even if the sound isn't sophisticated. The drum sampling and drum writing at 2:00 were very underwhelming; lots of volume, and certainly writing flourishes there, yet it still sounds extremely plodding and metronome-like because of the snare ("one-TWO-one-TWO"). Skip around almost anywhere from 2:00-6:14 and you'll see how long the beat pattern plods on; it needs a more interesting pattern as well as more variation in how it's presented. Riding this out until about 3:15, the texture is still very simplistic and empty despite everything going on. Because the sequencing/timing feels so blocky and there's not adequate warmth to any sounds or some sort of padding to help glue it together, you hear every individual part firing off, but the overall flow and synnergy isn't there. The brief transition writing to "The Age of Fables" three seconds before 3:46 felt like a bare mininum idea to stitch the two themes together. It'll sound like I'm saying you need to drastically overhaul the mood of the piece; the change in source tunes was a good opportunity to, for example, slow down the tempo, change the instrumentation, drop out the beats, or briefly change the genre. It could have served as more of a break in the established mood, which would then refresh it if you went back to it. Even with the lead-in to the "The Age of Fables", there could be allusions to that melody in the background while "The end of millennium" was still in the foreground. Right now, it's the same kind of vanilla synths, blocky piano, and plodding beats, but no meaningful change in the dynamics or textures, so there's no reset. I'll quote MW again, because he said it very well: "You don't need to play an entire loop with one sound palette for the listener to get the idea, and that's especially so when the differences between two loops aren't massive, and you don't need to play through an entire loop verbatim every time. You have spans of several minutes where the drum loops or piano arps are unchanged, which causes a lot of listener fatigue." 4:48 finally began to interplay the two themes together; that could come much earlier. Very repetitive feeling to things, with a dropoff finally happening at 5:56; agreed with the others that these sections go on too long without evolving. 6:24 iced the main beats and started the final section for a big flourish, or so I would have thought. The ending at 7:04 wasn't bad, but it was relatively abrupt, including the final fadeout. prophetik really dove into what's not clicking here and spoke to various way to handle it; I didn't read his vote before making mine, yet we're simpatico on what's not working here. I appreciate these source tunes, and the effort is there to expand them. TL;DR - the sound design needs drastic improvement, the timing needs humanization, the core beat pattern shouldn't plod and coast, and the lack of dynamic contrast can't justify the indulgent track length. It would take lots of effort to revise this in a way where it could pass; you can do it, it would just take a lot of personal growth and an aggressive approach to soliticing critiques and improving the sound design (which doesn't require pricey software/gear). Though I can't give you hyper-targeted, actionable advice (NOT a musician here), the OCR community is a wonderful place to run your ideas by people and get detailed feedback, which is often difficult to get from YouTube and even pro-audio communities. I'm glad you're in our Discord and joining the Game Set Mash!! compo, Sébastien. Stick around here and extract everything you can! Surrounding yourself with other experienced artists can help break you out of some habits and obtain valuable outside critique and recommendations on how to improve the cohesiveness and interest of your concepts. I'm looking forward to your next submission and hope you'll continue on with us. NO

The opening strings definitely strained for realism, but are OK. Small thing, but you hear a breath at :14 at the end of the flute. The piano from :16-:29 felt off-key with the bass the first time I heard it, even though it's repeated again at :36 and seems fine in the background; it's fine once I got used to it. Melody kicked in with brass at :36. The realism of the instrumentation's not great in some places (bowed strings, piano at 1:32) but are more than enough to get the job done. There was a banjo line in here too with good writing, but it was buried; a shame. Felt like a cut-and-paste of :36's section at 2:28, but not a big deal overall with the level of interpretation, and 2:47 raised the energy for a big finish. I can understand why MW had a problem with the mixing. It's not a dealbreaker to me, but it feels like it's clipping; very loud part with the flourishes at 2:14 and 2:48, among many, many other places. If we couldn't get another version, I'd lean toward keeping it, but I can 100% understand how this version as is could put someone off with the way this is mixed. The arrangement carries this beyond the mixing and sample realism issues for me. Proper mixing of this track without the shrillness would have made this an easy call. Very spirited interpretation the overcomes a few unfortunate drawbacks that had nothing to do with the writing. YES (borderline) EDIT (11/4): 2:14's still unpleasent, and 2:51-3:00's not great. Still, less shrill equals less borderline. YES

Hmm... certainly a good sound as far as the genre transformation... At :12, there's almost a soft pop; same at :21 but softer, seemingly tied to way the whistling was recorded; not a big deal. My favorite sections from an arrangement perspective were 1:12-2:16 and 3:06-4:41; it's a fascinating transformation to the spaghetti Western style. The build-up from 3:14-3:24 was an epic transition. 3:24's section was shrill; not sure what part was doing that, but wasn't a pleasant sound. There were other areas where the highest frequencies felt potentially piercing, even with the whistling, but it's not significantly hampering the experience. Amazing concept by Brendan and crew! YES

Cool source tune choice, and I also liked the PSP arranged version. I hear the dated aspect of the sounds, and none of that would be a problem here given how cohesively they're used, so an arrangement in a similar vein of instrumentation realism (again, coupled with cohesive execution) would be fine, IMO. Back when Slightly Dark was a thing, this track may have been included in one of their winter/snow music compilations; there's certainly a touch of faint familiarity to it, at the very least. Watch the end of the bow movements of the strings at :11 and :20, which was exposing the sample as too dry compared to the other parts. :39 felt dissonant, but it was brief. 1:12 was pretty clearly dissonant, and I'm definitely not understanding what's going on here as far as the energy and flow of the composition. 1:43 went for a more genteel sound, but dynamically, there wasn't huge intensity to 1:12's section before that, so the subtle contrast isn't effective, IMO. No idea what the line at 1:30's doing either; it doesn't have a bad tone, but there's no synnergy to what it's doing and how it fits into the rest of the texture. Still quiet by 1:59's section; yeah, this approach is confusing, because it's been so quiet without enough dynamic contrast, then there's more dissonance/clashing from 2:17-2:36. 2:54-3:01's brief lead doubling was thin, exposed, and unfortunately felt like a flea playing a violin; there's too much of quality disparity there with how inorganic it sounded compared to everything else. Not gonna lie, when I heard the light tapping start up at 3:14, I busted out laughing; it's legitimately a great sound, no issue there, but as far as this composition goes, there's working within a narrower dynamic curve, and then there's staying too narrow. Is there no substantial contrast employed here? Is there no arc? The closest analog I can think of is something like Quinn Fox's "Orange October", which has more dynamics: https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00796. OK, the taps drop out at 3:41, and there's a quiet reprise of the theme. And then more dissonance around 4:04 with the glassy lead for the finish. Like prophetik, I didn't get much melodic material from the original at all in this either. There's genuinely interesting sound design potential, Sean, and I actually wasn't bothered by the panning, but if sections of writing aren't in the same key without you realizing it, it's unfortunately a non-starter. These soft and subtle dynamics may click better when the writing's all in the same key, so if that can be done, I'd be down to hear another version. NO

Always love the pointilist melodic style used in the opening, so I'm certainly ready to follow along. The way the piece brightened up with the SID-like line at 1:19-1:38 was awesome. Also love how vibrant these beats are until the dropoff at 1:38. VQ vocals hop in at 1:47 and added a brief break section before even more textural trickery capped off the finish. I didn't have any issue with how this was produced; good sounds, good grittiness in places that was totally intentional and added character, loads of great sound design that'll no doubt inspire others down the line. He's got enough polish to where this didn't feel like a WIP in any way; very cohesive realization of the vision with a very interpretive rendition of this theme. Fun to see Zack say this was a burnout track; him dropping his defenses and not overthinking the process led to a heightened, speedier state of creativity and productivity! YES

Opens up very slow. Looking forward to hearing how this develops, because this intro's got me intrigued. The vox timing seems a little off, but the mood is good. Drums enter in at :55, sounding pretty fake, but serviceable. 1:23 gets slowed down and dissonant, and I'm awaiting where the transition's going to go; Still slow at 1:54 and it felt like there could have been more a pivot there. 2:25 drops out the drums entirely in favor of an organ, and pushes the countermelody way up for a different feel. The organ line rises nicely over time to start become overbearing (in a good, contrasting way) by 2:47. The synth line drops out at 3:00 as things start getting more subtractive. At 3:36, the organ drops out, and we're left with the opening pattern until the finish. It's a different approach that Onrik Dreamer's recent piece, which was groove-based, but the overarching strategy isn't too different, i.e. stick with the theme the whole time and provide variations through textural evolutions. If you focus on the melody or the countermelody's instrumentation, both of those change over time. This totally would have flown in a huge way back in ye olden days, which isn't to say that it fails today's standards. Where's Children of the Monkey Machine when we need him on the panel? It is a limited & repetitive source tune, sure, so I can understand how slowing it down and working with it in this way could be viewed as droning/boring or feel too repetitive. The arrangement value comes from these textures never staying in one place, even though you may think they are. To me, Justin does a nice job dropping lines in and out, and varying the textures to have a piece that just morphs around over time, never settling into any one mood for too long, while having a dark vibe throughout. Loop this some and you can appreciate the subtles ways the soundscape evolves on a greater level. IMO, the other Js are underselling the positives of the arrangement; it's tough to get mileage out of this, and Draconiator's been completely short-changed so far. I also didn't feel the mixing/production did this concept a disservice; it's dark, ghostly, gloomy, and unsettling; it could absolutely fit in a next-gen Castlevania with a mood like this and morphing textures that aren't cut-and-paste loops. I may not be able to win the day here, and that's fine. To me, these NOs didn't step back to appreciate how transformative the theme treatment was, and undersold the low-key textural changes over time. We shouldn't be turning this down, and I think it's a shame to tell Justin it needs a major overhaul when it's a creative approach to begin with. YES

Brief arrangement, but a short and sweet treatment of a relatively brief theme; could be more, but doesn't need it. Lots of flute vamping loosely inspired by the source over the bass and simplified melody of the original. The piano was blocky, which fit the style fine, but sounded way too exposed during the fadeout, which made for a weak finish at 2:13. That said, very transformative treatment with enough subtle textural variations. Good bass presense, fun percussion, and a bouncy, jazzy take! Nice work, Alexis! YES

Remixer: LXE Name: Alexis Gelinas Email: Website: instagram.com/lexadex_yo 38753 -- Super Mario World Koopalings Koopalings (aka Castle Boss) Jazz flute? I dabble...

ReMixer name: Spad3s Email: Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI3yrh11iHUTDdFx3ePAbdw Userid: 37731 Submission: link in case the attachment doesn't work: Game arranged: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island Name of arrangement: Yoshi Madness Song arranged: Athletic Theme FL Studio, Serum, Kontakt, Vital Second time submitting here, this song was unsurprisingly stuck in my head for a while so I thought the best way to get it out would be to make a Jcore remix at 201 bpm

Totally agreed with folks about the lack of full frequencies here. For me, if Parker was unable to redo this, I still think it's passable as is, even if it could be improved. Just noting that I relistened with the NOs in mind but am comfortable with my vote.

The beats and lead synth at :28 were on the bland/generic side, though the other stuff surrounding it was good. I thought the leads should have been more upfront compared to the percussion and guitar, but it's a stylistic thing, and the pumping until :54 created some nice dynamic contrast after it stopped. Really tepid beats at 1:12; where's the beef? I liked the beats from :54-1:12, but not from 1:11-1:29. Lots of cool glitching from 1:55-2:12; awesome dropoff here. Man, just underwhelming beats again at 2:13; it sounds like a WIP where the writing's laid down and it's awaiting the full & final production seasoning; too tame given the driving energy of the arrangement. There's some density, so it's not as if the beats aren't registering, I think they could still sound more spaciousness and give off a bigger energy. Would love to hear another pass at this with denser beats; hell, try going over the top with it, at least to try it out, then pull things back accordingly. The level of interpretation in the arrangement's obviously creative enough where I wouldn't say send this back, but the overall levels should be louder, I'm hearing where DarkSim was coming from there. More volume actually helps the dynamics of the arrangement shine through more. Nitpicks aside, Trevor, digging this a lot. You really took the melody and rode with it; lots of strong, varied ways of presenting it, with effective dynamic contrast throughout the piece. YES

Opened with some very fake-sounding orchestration. Strings entered in at :26 and to me it doesn't make sense that the beats are so much louder, or that the guitar chugs are so soft. Bowed strings at :57 sound super rigid, and the brass accents sounded flat. Man, everything about the first 90 minutes feels very work-in-progress, as in needing some sort of production touch ups to flesh out and humanize the sounds. The "Within the Giant" chorus on guitars at 1:42 sounds expressive and strong, even though the drumkit felt too subdued; I liked the subtle glassy/metallic accents in the background. 2:06 had a cameo of the FF7 battle theme before going back to "Within the Giant". Guitars from 2:52-3:13 were too loud and crowding out other instruments. Brass from 3:14-3:38 was a great concept, just a very exposed sample. It's a great arrangement, and the two sources piece together well; the writing & structure don't need to be touched. This doesn't need live players, but the sampled instrumentation's too exposed throughout, and this could benefit from some mixing tweaks. Perhaps other Js feel this is on the right side of the line, feel the samples are servicable enough, and/or would say YES when questioning what if the source files were gone. I think this sounds like a tremendous sketch where all the compositional components are in place but the final production refinements have yet to be put into place. If this doesn't make it as is, it's a very strong resubmission candidate. NO (resubmit)

Another case of a PsyNES track where there are piercing frequencies and the volume's loud, but I can move past it. I didn't hear the original version that got the form letter, though it's safe to say this is well beyond that level now. After the track ramps up and the melody kicks in at 1:19, the textures feel cluttered and busy for me, just not in enough of a way to hold this back. The arrangement's very vibrant and sprited, that's for certain. Good dropoff at 1:59 with a change in the sound of the leads and some different filtering effects and sweeping sounds to color things. 2:29 had different types of supporting instrumentation bouncing around underneath the melody to keep that presentation fresh. I couldn't get granular on how to rein in this mixing or make it sound less messy, but it's not a strong knock against this as much as it's saying there could be tweaks done to make this sound more cohesive. Solid reprise of the "Hard Man" melody for the final section at 3:25. Not sure what could have held this back, but I'm all aboard with this version for sure. Nice work revisiting this, Jari, and for having a don't-give-up attitude; it's paid off nicely with this one! YES

Definitely has some shrill sounds to open up, and then the pulsing beat is also too loud, IMO. I can look past it, even if it's too much. Interesting beats at 1:02. The bassline is arranging the Air Man melody, but it's mixed in a way where you can't hear the differing notes well enough, so, functionally, it doesn't really count; anyway, that was brief until the main melodic line arrived at 1:14. IMO, the mixing's needlessly abrasive with these saw leads, but not to a point where I'd reject this. Nice brief dropoff at 2:20. Not a melodious break section at 2:27; the writing could have been more melodious and more interesting, but it's not very long and the melody fades back in at 2:49 to pair together with it. 3:15 has some different original writing that briefly references the source until winding back with the main melody at 3:42. Very nice dropoff at 3:59 to ice the pads and leave some cleaner textures fronted by chiptune, which was an awesome changeup in the feel of the track. Nice job layering up the chiptune lines at 4:24-4:37 to fill things out before simplifying the textures again; VERY cool dynamic contrast for these final sections heading towards a ramp up for the finish. Heard the DD2 cameo again at 4:56, and I liked the subtle vox-like padding added in there as well. The mixing's not ideal, and I felt the writing of the 2:27 wasn't catchy, but those are two lesser issues within an overall strong arrangement. I could see some Js wanting another mixing pass at this; the way I look at it, if the source files were gone, this arrangement's strong and needs to be included. This is going to sound as if I thought this was a borderline call; this gets way more right than wrong. I'm fully on board; nice work, boys! YES

From VQ today: So it's on hold for now. EDIT (12/21): New version's up top from the new submissions system. Good to go!

Yeah, it's a pretty high bar in terms of the level of interpretation and personalization. You can check out the Deus Ex arrangements currently on the site as good examples: https://ocremix.org/game/574/deus-ex-win. This doesn't pass our arrangement standards, mainly part 2. This sounded like you took the original audio and made minor modifications. I should have compared the source tune more closely. If you ever decide to go a more interpretive route, Douglas, holler. NO Override

Not that I would have been able to articulate it like prophetik, but I also noticed the string issue as well, even though it wasn't a dealbreaker issue. The beats for the 3:01 section were also super tame and low energy; they needed a fuller sound. Those are the nitpicks. Love your arrangement approach, Zack, very cerebral! Strong transition at 4:05 into more intense textures heading toward the delicate closing reprise of the melody. Digging it! YES