Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Opens up pretty thin, and with some fuzz, for the retro sound. Oh boy, the drums at :36 sound so rigidly timed and metronome-like, and then the bass guitar line at :42 also sounds very robotic. The drums should have never been mixed that loudly over the melody and countermelody; the balance just doesn't make sense. Unfortunately, this all sounds so mechanical, which works more with chiptune sounds, but not sampled instruments that are meant to be organic. Some good original writing at 1:10 in the front, albeit thin. Melody returns more upfront at 1:24. Oof, some off-key chord attempt at 1:36. Texture got super empty at 1:50, without adequate padding. In pricinple, I liked the interpretiveness of the writing from 2:20-2:48. The chiptune sounds were the most expressive aspect of the track, which is odd to say. In any case, too rigidly sequenced, too thin, too unexpressive. prophetik also mentioned some of the wholesale cut-and-paste repetition, e.g. 3:31; some further variations in the writing would be a positive but just as a matter of principle, since this isn't anywhere near a state of passing. Your next goals should be properly padding the soundscape and exploring how you can make your instrumentation sound more humanized and expressive. NO

The submission link: Your ReMixer name Kyaku Your real name Richard Westbrook Your email address Your website(s) https://www.youtube.com/@kyaku_ongaku Your userid (number, not name) on our forums, found by viewing your forum profile 38541-kyaku Name of game(s) arranged Top Gear and F-Zero Name of arrangement Top Gear in Mute City Name of individual song(s) arranged Top Gear: Track 1 and F-Zero: Mute City Additional information about game including composer, system, etc. (if it has not yet been added to the site) Both are popular songs for remixes so I imagine I can’t add much more here, though please let me know if I need to. Link to the original soundtrack (if it is not one of the sound archives already available on the site) Top Gear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAMvfv6X8xs F-Zero: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxU0eHnQjo8 Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, how the source material was referenced in the arrangement, etc. I can’t help myself with these two-song combos, it’s kind of a habit at this point, a fun angle to guide remixing for now. Both games are very nostalgic for me and in my minds eye I pictured a Mute City 200 years before F-Zero, where the cars we're much more used to seeing today were racing around. It was fun to spend a little time riffing on guitar samples too for this one.

The mixing's too muddy for my personal tastes, but I'll live, and I'd rather that than the track being too dry. The source is only 1:42-long before it loops, so it goes by quickly at a faster speed. I had to listen to the source tune awhile at 2X and 2.5X speed to better pick up on the patterns and cadence, otherwise it just sounds too abstract, but I agree with MW that the source tune seems to be all over this. What I don't agree with is saying that the source barely qualifies as music and thus the arrangement can't either. Is there a Standards violation somehow? Are we implying that this source tune somehow doesn't qualify to be arranged or simply can't be arranged in a way that would pass OCR? It's a strange thing to say that, even though the source tune seems held fast here, effectively given an expanded and transformative sound palette. But feelings and vibes don't account for me "validating" the arrangement, so I'll attempt to do some A-to-B mapping of the source references to the arrangement, but this isn't melodically transformative, so I'm surprised that no one's attempted a breakdown. These NOs feel like they're coming more from a place of the source tune being abstract and harder to grok than Rebecca going too liberal with the treatment. Not closing this yet, but I shall return with a vote... ? EDIT (4/12/24): I forgot to formally come back to this after Rebecca broke this down for us. Straightforward, I TOLD j00! YES

Two* Many Trevors Though why stop there? https://ocremix.org/artist/15564/freezetag https://ocremix.org/artist/4307/chako https://ocremix.org/artist/8363/eon-blue https://ocremix.org/artist/18593/facemelting-solos Or "Too Many Trevs" and you can further open it up! https://ocremix.org/artist/15682/trev-wignall https://ocremix.org/artist/4728/jredd https://ocremix.org/artist/4589/destiny

Opens up pretty grimy. Distorted beats at :15 aren't my thing at all and are teetering on dealbreaker, at least initially, but let's see how prevalent they are. Yes, I get the "Dxrk" reference, and the beats stink there too. The arrangement's melodically conservative but well personalized. The distorted beats finally stopped at 1:14, replaced by something else from 1:24-1:29; ah booooooooooo, they're back at 1:47, why? Too dry and just creating an ugly, crackly, ill-fitting quality disparity because they're so loud and upfront, both louder and drier than anything else. Nice job altering the source's rhythms from 1:31-1:46; combined the with dropoff of the beats, a good way to create dynamic contrast. If the source files disappeared, I'd squeak this by. The arrangement's solid, with an expanded sound palette, it's just the honorific production choice of rolling with this dry, distorted beat being so loud that's debateable for me. If others aren't wowed by that choice just because it's purposeful, I could see some conditional YESes as a result. Just because I think it sounds awful doesn't mean I can't past that singular element though. Solid theme treatment, Trevors! YES

Hello folks, I would like to submit my remix "Medusa Tower" to you. Remixer Name: Marillion Asturia Real Name: Peter Gotthardt Email: Submission Information: Origin: The origin track is the track "Tower" from the game Phantasy Star, released in 1988 on the Sega Master System. Composed by Tokuhiko Uwabo, 1987, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7MwSs7DpQQ The name of my remix is "Medusa Tower". I made this on my own. The remix came about because I am a big fan of this game and had now familiarised myself well enough with DAW Rytmik to give it a try. I always imagined how I would arrange this track. This is now my humble attempt. I Hope you will like it, and i am looking forward to read from you Best regards Peter (Marillion) Gotthardt

The sequencing's too rigid, and the drum writing's too basic, tepid, and plodding despite the intended variations, so that prevents this otherwise personalized arrangement approach from lifting off the ground. The synth's lead first used at :10 is alright, but IMO it's too thin as is to serve as the lead, especially if the surrounding instrumentation doesn't adequately fill up the soundfield. The sampled piano first used at :41 sounds too blocky. 1:06's texture during the organ section was too thin and empty; something else should have been going on earlier than around 1:18 to fill things out, and you still could have switched to that backing line at 1:18. Eino Keskitalo's got a lot of strong examples, Tony, of arrangements with deliberate pacing that nonetheless has energy and flow rather than feeling stilted. Fleshing out the textures more and humanizing and/or adding verve to the sequencing are what this needed the most. NO

I've never heard this before, so I'm listening to this version fresh. Opening string sustains sound thin and exposed, but not awful. Flute sounds so weird with these faux-breath noises from :11-:18; I don't think I've ever heard that effect before, but it's awkward because that's not how the breath noises should sound. Sequenced electric guitar at :37 sounds super rigid and mechanical, with 0 body or realism to it; it's a difficult sample to use effectively. I've heard it pulled off by jnWake before, but it's tough and puts things as a disadvantage that has to be climbed out of. As soon as the drums are in there at :18, they sound static and locked to grid despite all the activity going on, and the core pattern is boring, creating a plodding pace. Same issue at 1:16; it doesn't matter how humanized everything else attempts to be, because the core beats make this feel super basic and static. Surprised it didn't explicitly come up in prophetik's vote, though he did say the drum writing was bog-standard. The ending section at 2:42 was the most humanized section there and that's saying something; the intro and outro (notably sans percussion) don't have the same rigid feeling that most of the rest of the presentation does. Yeah, there's not enough flow or cohesion to the sequencing yet, so until that changes, it would be a very tough sell. Once you get those timing fundamentals in place, your stuff will hang together better. NO

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The lead sound's unfortunately not pleasing, and it sounds like the structure's verbatim with the original, with some denser sounds. There was one spot of genuinely creative additive writing after a while, the gliding synth at 1:23, which had a nice sound to it. By 1:40, I was ready for something else to be going on, and then I heard some other quiet string sustains briefly show up until 1:58. Those were good parts, but there's still not much going on dynamically with the arrangement. 2:20 finally drops the main beat pattern, but it's only until 2:29. OK, another beat dropoff at 2:38, but boy does this sound atonal due to these beats, all the way until 3:25. Kind of felt like Adon's theme in Street Fighter 1, which is not a compliment, I'm afraid. There's notable effort given to varying up the textures, but too much off-key writing. When the main beats are in play, they sound decent and have some impact, but the track also plateaus at that level and never gets more intense; combined with the very static timing (which I realize is a carryover from the source), this plods over time, with the textural changes not being enough to keep it engaging. Good initial effort, Boris. It's a ways from being something we could pass, but there's growth potential for you, so keep at it. NO

ReMixer name: BRTD2005 Real name: Boris Email address: User ID: 38804 Name of game arranged: Aero The Acro-Bat 1 (SEGA Genesis) Name of individual song arranged: Circus Act 5 (Synthwave Remix) Additional info: composed by Fox Productions, a.k.a. Rick Fox Link to the original soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMtbCu4M4UY

Original decision Above is latest judges decision. Attached is my latest attempt at remixing the song Searching for Friends from FF6. To the judges' panel, I attempted to make this version of Lookin' for Buddies more cohesive...one of the judges correctly figured out that I was changing instrumentation based on new people joining your party. I'm still going for that idea. Instead of using just synths, I used a DirectWave flute instrument that made myself after taking 15 minutes to record samples of myself when I had a short bit of quiet time. I also used a guitar vst, and a percussive rock organ instrument that I applied some effects to. I did still use two synths for melody for a short period in the tune that I hope I varied the parameters on enough. Original linked, remix attached https://youtu.be/XEO7RCD7jVg?si=5ScZmPzpj69OLjBr Thanks for your consideration! Respectfully, Eric, aka Audiomancer

No source breakdown needed, since the sources are in play almost all the time. "Lifelight" is only used during some of the vocal choruses. (Also, I have to note here that I HATED the soft way the percussion was mixed in the original "Lifelight" from the Ultimate OST; man, what happened there??) Anyway, pretty well mixed. In the opening section, the vinyl static quietly added a little something to help fill out a relatively thin texture, which was a nice understated touch used here and there as the track went on. The Brawl main theme was creatively used throughout. Nice lyrics as well. I thought Niko's vocals were too loud compared to everything else, but nothing dealbreaking there; loved when they first got layered at 2:54; awesome stuff there. Understated but effective dynamics, with some low-key areas like 3:18-4:00 to help break things up, which prevented anything from getting monotonous or plodding. Strings at 3:40 lacked realism but were at least quietly mixed enough that they didn't stick out like a sore thumb, and they were used effectively from 4:55-on in the final section thanks to the delay effects. Creative stuff that earned a strong place for the 20th anniversary DoD; nice work, y'all! YES

Main ReMixer name: TheManPF (User ID: 35318) Additional artists: Zach Chapman; Shinobisyntax; Niko Vargas Submission: Games: Super Smash Bros. Brawl; Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Name of arrangement: With a Little Help From My Friends Songs arranged: Main Theme (https://youtu.be/zeKE0NHUtUw); Lifelight (https://youtu.be/EhgDibw7vB4) Original composers: Nobuo Uematsu; Hideki Sakamoto Systems: Nintendo Wii; Nintendo Switch Years: 2008; 2018 Comments: Not really a Beatles reference, this song was arranged for the 20th Anniversary of Dwelling of Duels, as my way to commemorate the support and friendship from everyone in the community of VGM and, more importantly, DoD, in a similar way to "wily theme" but in a much more direct, intimate way. I've always wanted to cover the main theme from Brawl, it's one of my favorite vgm tracks of all time, but I never had any idea how to tackle it, it's such a rich and powerful song already that I felt I never would be able to properly do it justice, so I didn't really have plans for it for a long time. However, as the 20th Anniversary of Dwelling of Duels was getting closer and closer, I tried to stop and think what I would like to do to celebrate such an occasion. When I was trying to think of what to do earlier this year, since the beginning I was already set on doing something Hip-Hop/R&B-ish. I was super inspired by "House Party", by DakotaCityRag, from the August 2022 free month duel: https://dodarchive.dwellingofduels.net/22-08-Free/09-DakotaCityRag%2C%20Kyaira%20Ware%2C%20Brooklyn%20the%20Kid%2C%20Chocobao%2C%20Rik%20Lloyd%2C%20Hyper%20Light%20Drummer-Animal%20Crossing%20City%20Folk-House%20Party-DoD.mp3 I was also listening to the first ending of Spy x Family "Comedy" an awful lot: https://youtu.be/K1SAtJ8QIcc I was like "damn, I want to do something like this", the anniversary was a good opportunity for it, I wasn't really thinking of "competing" for the anniversary, I didn't want to stress myself over doing something super impressive that would get me the top spot, but I wanted to do something I felt was meaningful. I was looking at a list of games I played and trying to decide which one of them could fit an R&B sound, and also which one would fit thematically for the anniversary, and landed in Smash, and thought "wtf, of course, it's such an obvious idea", I'm actually surprised nobody else thought of it, it represents the coming together of all of these people from different walks of life in an epic duel to see who's the best, the Brawl theme also speaks a lot of friendship and meeting your heroes and deadly enemies (or rivals), it also has always been a celebration of gaming as a whole, which fits our vgm community so well, especially since in the anniversary we were expecting a lot of old names coming back, the phrase "everyone is here" kept repeating in my head over and over, it was a no-brainer, also it was finally a good opportunity to try to cover Brawl's main theme like I always wanted. For this track I wanted to specifically bring people that I have personally invited to DoD at some point, obviously, Zach had to be there, but the other two people were Shinobisyntax (also known as Sketch the Conductor), who I did a Subnautica track with for DoD 2 years ago, and Niko Vargas, who sang for "My Dear", a Nier cover that I did in that same month. Both of these people fit the R&B/Hip-Hop style very well, and Sketch is particularly REALLY REALLY GOOD at this style, he's extremely gifted at putting pen to paper and writing extremely catchy and meaningful lyrics, it was something that I really wanted to show everyone, I just gave him the concept "I want to do a song that celebrates friendship, collaboration, friends being there for you in tough times, and our love for music", and he just did his thing, all the rap verses were written by him. Most of the sound of the track was inspired by the two tracks I mentioned earlier, "House Party" and "Comedy", I wanted something lofi-ish but with a lot of groove, live bass and clean guitars, live keyboards (I played them myself, I'm not a keyboardist, but this was relatively simple and I wanted it to feel live), and have the vocalists go wild, and everyone knocked it out of the park. I sent Sketch all the stems I could and he did the final mix, including a lot of the sfx and sound design that really gives it that delicious sound (including the cinematic toms you hear throughout), he goes more in-depth about his process in this document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qVIXr2MhgysBGB9wUZ1GHLL6TGLNxnq1E0QS3H5cGZk/edit?usp=sharing At the 20th Anniversary, this track ended up ranking FOURTH out of FIFTY-NINE TRACKS, even beating pud (!!!!!) by one spot, looking at it now it's super wild to me that this ended up ranking so high, I never went in with that intention, the last few months have been extremely tough for me, I have been EXTREMELY depressed, losing most of my ability to feel pleasure from things that I liked doing, just sitting and recording this has been super hard, and I feel things like the guitar solo could've been worked a lot better, but I did put a lot of heart into it, I wanted to make a tribute to all my friends in the community, I wanted to show everyone in the anniversary how much this community means to me and how much the help of these people has made me able to push through, even after doing something like Hip-Hop which I never tried before (and I almost never hear in DoD ever!), and I'm super happy that that love came through ? Full credits: Zach Chapman - Bass Shinobisyntax - Mix, lyrics and vocals (rap verses) Niko Vargas - Vocals (hook/chorus) TheManPF - Arrangement, lyrics (minus rap verses) sequencing, guitars, keyboards, vocals (intro, pre-chorus and bridge) Lyrics: [Intro] Now my friends are with me And as we face each other in battle We shine ever brighter [Verse 1] I ain't got no time to be wastin with snakes, Pass the controller, I see em dashin while riding the wave, We off the hook, but stay connected like links in a chain, I'mma just blast em away, like I been chargin my a, ay, You bringin heat, well I'm ready with Terry, Grab a machete, we sending sheep in wolf's clothing to cemeteries, Meet up with palutena and tell her you met me, Should've retired already, like I was battling reggie, (Ready? GO!) We always got sumn left, You doublin your team and it'd lead to a (sudden death) My final fantasy is I'm set to rock, My team roster longer than the sword on sephiroth, Cause whenever I'm struggling, my homies stay up with me, I get to the stage when knocked down my team's my recovery, Ain't no L's in our names, We are the master and craze, We meeting up* then it's (GAME), We are the mains [Pre-Chorus 1] Listen my friend (Struggling, my homies stay up with me) Listen my friend (To the stage when knocked down my team's my recovery) [Chorus 1] Hear the sounds that light our passions aflame Bring to life the memories of precious days Linked together by the feelings we share Reaching farther with a little help from my friends [Verse 2] While Battling all of my demons, They got my back when I need it, I couldn't rap like a Phoenix, If i was back on the bleachers, I send this straight to the ether, To all homies I needed, Im really hoping you see this, You made and gave me a reason, Through trials and tribulations, With miles I walk the pavement, Im finally out the matrix, Were final like destination, When I'm stuck in a pit of despair, Searching for answers, I always find myself hoping they're there [Pre-Chorus 2] Listen my friend (Finally out the matrix, we're final like destination) Listen my friend (I always find myself hoping you're there) [Chorus 2] Hear the sounds that light our passions aflame Bring to life the memories of precious days Linked together by the feelings we share Soaring higher with a little help from my friends [Bridge] Friends by my side They are all here with me Some of them heroes to me Some of them once my enemies [Instrumental break] [Pre-Chorus 3] Thank you my friend (All of us find our destinies thank you for all the memories) Thank you my friend (I'm not alone cause everyone's here, everyone's here) [Chorus 3] Hear the sounds that light our passions aflame Bring to life the memories of precious days Linked together by the feelings we share Shining brighter with the help of my dearest friends Shining brighter with the help of my dearest friends

Opened up with some fakey piano that nonetheless had good body to it. Around :30, I thought things were overdue to move away from the build, especially because texturally, nothing new was happening. Consider some light SFX or quiet additive writing earlier than :59. Beats arrive at :59, but since this is 6:30-long, we've still got a lot of runway, thus the slow build. Admittedly, this build's boring for me, and the exposed piano sample always playing each measure exactly the same as the previous times also gets boring over time. Some warbling added to the picture at 1:59, and the fakey piano's exactly the same, the "Prelude" theme is exactly the same. Not sure where the rumbling was coming from during 2:38-2:52, maybe due to the timing of something being slightly off; hopefully a musician judge can co-sign hearing something off there and identify a possible cause. Some cheap, low-quality claps are added in at 2:59; they just sound lossy and completely not in the same soundscape, and it's a boring, plodding, vanilla, basic pattern. Poorly integrated; I would have used different claps. 3:59 finally brings in the countermelody from FF4 on organ keyboard, though it pumps (and is mixed) in a way that doesn't let it cut through as much as those beats/kicks. I knew 5:29 would just keep repeating the theme ad nauseum based on the prior build, but I was hoping for a turn of some sort and it never came. 5:59 drops everything out except the countermelody for a winddown finish, and the track unceremoniously cuts off with no ending at 6:29. There's expansiveness to the sound, Keeb, but ultimately not enough substantial writing or textural variation to justify this length. Getting a warmer, more varied & humanized piano sound and different claps would be nice too, but that's small potatoes compared to the bigger overarching issue of the writing lacking development. NO

I'm classifying this as FF4 due to the secondary melody finally referenced at 3:59; that's only found in the "Prelude" from FF4-on, but I included the NES version for reference. -LT Remixer Name: Keebmouse Game: Final Fantasy Arrangement: Prelude to a Dream Remix of: Prelude - Final Fantasy Private Soundcloud Link

Opens up pretty heavy with a nicely personalized EDM take on the source. Loud and cramped to start, and then gets more cramped at :28; I did like the countermelodic writing that was added in there though. I'm not a producer, but prophetik gave some potentially helpful feedback on some of the cluttered frequencies. That said, if the arrangement side was a pass, I could approve something mixed like this; even if it was technically clipping, the density and levels didn't bother me. :55 moved over to the chorus, and that was a good opportunity to change the textures or intensity some, even briefly. It makes the retread of the verse at 1:23 feel samey even though some of the supporting writing changed; another idea could be changing the sound or the lead at 1:23 and/or the countermelody at 1:51. At 2:18 for the chorus again, the writing was a cut-and-paste retread of :55's section until 2:46. Yeah, the textures do change a little, but the leads and countermelodies sounding the same throughout isn't staying interesting for the length of the track. For example, the countermelodic writing at :28 is the same as 1:51 and 2:45. See what more you can do to vary up some sounds or textures, vary some rhythms, or employ other techniques to keep the presentation fresh. Great base here, Bryan, and it's great to hear music from you again! As I said at the start, the EDM arrangement approach was creative and well suited; now, it's a matter of ensuring the piece doesn't drag out from a lack of enough dynamic contrast. NO (resubmit)

Many thanks for the detailed and helpful source usage breakdown! Opens up like gritty mud, but OK. 1:01-1:20 is pretty static-y/crunchy; intentional, but I could understand people put off by it; crunchiness is back from 1:28-2:23 and I can totally see how the crunchiness is just getting in the way. I personally don't like the effect and think if you fixate on it, it sounds worse, so I can empathize with a NO on those grounds and would love to hear that dialed back. But I can also live with this when contrasting it with what else works within the arrangement, which is lopsided toward the arrangement being on point. From 3:02-3:18, I wish the electric guitar doing the call-and-response with the horns was louder to help the inherent contrast of this section with 2:06's better stand out. Electric guitar stuff from 3:56-4:13 was a nice highlight. Acoustic guitar at 4:13 (and earlier at 1:56) sounded sick; too bad it had a quality disparity with that blocky, fake-sounding piano from 4:22-4:27. Strings at 4:27 were OK but kind of exposed. Arrangement's got strong dynamics, and the sprinkles of EK's VA & vox were cool. Those damn crunchies. YES (borderline) EDIT (11/4): Improved's mixdown's improved. [/sic] Bye to the crunchies. YES

Whoa, sounds incredibly lossy, like I recorded it off the speaker I was listening to it on or was encoded at 64kbps. I like the energy of the performances. The bowed strings are defintely the weak link here; they sound so unrealistic, yet the attacks are so loud and just forcing you to pay attention from :00-:27. Main verse melody starts at :27 and the soundscape is cluttered until :40 thanks to the muddy (and overly fake-sounding) vox padding. The layered guitars sound strong and the percussion's solid as well with some energetic rhythms; obviously not mixed ideally, especially the kick drums being so loud, but they're still positives. Man, the strings from 1:27-1:30 were just shrill and fake-sounding, then the orch stabs from 1:36-1:39 were brutally fake and exposed. Some good guitar soloing at 1:39-2:07, but the drum kicks were cutting through too much, IMO. More weak supporting strings and vox during another iteration of the verse from 2:21-2:48, followed by some loose yet creative interpretation of the chorus's part until 3:02. Sloppy and akward cutoff of the vox samples at 3:19 for the finish, which hurt it, but would hopefully be easy enough to fix. prophetik wanted to see more done with the arrangement, but the presentation's stylized enough, so to me that already-interpretive treatment can bear some repetition; there's no copy-pasta here, so I'm not on board with that criticism. The mixing should be cleaned up, the crummier samples (string, vox) need to have their lack of realism mitigated or eliminated. It's got good energy otherwise, and the arrangement/writing doesn't need to be touched, so I'd love to hear a revision, Hunter. Good work so far, but it's missing some attention to detail on the production side to help it be fully cohesive. NO (resubmit)

Opens up with some plinky piano but solid orchestration, and I like the percussion. Brass was really blatty at :12, almost sounding like it was lightly distorting, and the orchestration and vox were sounding distant. Nice turn at :39 with some deep bass, and a nice sweep sound from :57-1:03, but this mixing's shot and there's 0 clarity and sharpness aside from some abrasive volume until the textures abruptly changed at 1:15. Vox awkwardly changed from note-to-note, most exposed at 1:15 & 1:21, but adequately covered up later. A good textural change at 1:39, and I like the deep bass sound, but this mixing's doing it no favors. After the second poorly mixed track in a row, I literally had to thrown on a control track just make sure it wasn't my setup. I'm not put off as much by the repetition; prophetik's not wrong about it though. To me it sounds like you only sent in the first half of the arrangement, and then there's a raincheck on the second half. Even with an adequately personalized sound to the arrangement so far, I agreed with him that you'll need to develop this further. Cleaning up the sequencing and mixing is important as well though; find out how you can sharpen and tighten this up, the sequencing being the more important of the two. There's obvious potential here, Darryl, and this has a big sound, but this just isn't a complete arrangement yet. NO (resubmit)

When things picked up at :16, the soundscape felt empty. Even more beats at :31 didn't help. Until the change at :46, the chippy leads sounded distant. Really lacks in high-end clarity/sharpness; I'm not sure how this was mixed in a way where nothing sounds upfront, but a musician J may have a straightforward explanation. Maybe prophetik's already covered how to address that. Some of the beats are cutting through and there are shrill/piercing sounds 1:53-2:08. I appreciate the arrangement otherwise, so that creativity's going to carry the day, but this still needs another mixing pass to sharpen it, so I hope this isn't the track's final form. YES (borderline)

I liked how the percussion really change the flow of the piece. I could live with how the loops have been used, but prophetik's right though, where's the rest? The core beat though is extremely plodding, and despite all of the cool drumming going on, that kick stays in one place the entire time. Ignoring the melody and the loops, that kick is extremely boring and eventually weighs the whole thing down. Though you don't need to veer hard in the other direction and make it ultra-busy, it's not working as is. The plucked lead at :24 sounds thin and mechanical; it's actually serviceable, but when I hear something like that I'm thinking that it's a good starting point that will eventually get doubled or effected to then create some contrast, and that also never happened either, as we get the same sound for the melody finally arriving at 1:45, only with the sample sounding even more exposed. When the melody arrives too, the source's bassline is also there, but it barely, barely registers. At 2:32, we get another round of the melody with this plucked lead, and I'm ready for this to be over because the core of it is still so static; it's undercutting the more subtle textural differences you were trying to present underneath the melody. prophetik had much more salient comments, and he's a gentleman and a scholar. Really good potential here, IMO. Figure out how to spice this up and don't stop cookin' here, Alexis, it's not fully baked. NO (resubmit)

I asked our admin djpretzel and he couldn't reproduce the error: "likely to be specific to their network or browser" Is there any more information you can provide on what torrent client you're trying to use and/or any network info?