Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Had a hard time reconciling this with the source tune that you thought it was from, cuz the source itself was so unmemorable (not to mention the fact that you're not quite sure what you actually chose to mix), but that's alright. "Black Rose" is definitely what you decided to mix. The arrangement was too conservative, in my opinion. Sparse but decent opening for the first 55 seconds, though I felt it was a bit too long for a 2:56-long mix. Some of the note movements of the strings were iffy, but didn't quite set off a red flag until the track picked up at :55. Oooh, those were some very unnatural-sounding strings. A downright flimsy and pasted-on beat showed up at 1:15. :'-( The piano breakdown at 1:35 was decent until some poorly used vox abruptly cut in at 1:45. A somewhat cool whistle-like thingamabobber (bah, sue me) arrived at 2:00, but that crappy beat came back as well. I liked the ethnic percussion, on the plus side. I noticed your bassline was too subtle, so punch it up a bit and make it more noticeable. And a show of hands for whoever agrees with me, but there was this shift to acoustic guitar at 2:40 and that was the most interesting thing in the entire mix. WHY did you wait that long to bring it in??? And just to CLOSE the song? What??? Frankly, I'm not The Wingless, so I can't get away with saying this stuff without looking like either an asshole or a weirdo, but that string close was the ultimate cocktease. That was probably the most interesting idea in the whole damn thing and you didn't pimp it out at all. Loads of potential and actually not a bad texture, but that needed to be a bit fuller as well. This was hampered by some poor sample usage for some of the sounds, the orchestral strings, the vox, and that weak-sounding beat in particular. Cruise on over to the ReMixing forum to look into how to improve the performance, then showcase what you've got in the WIP forum and see what kind of feedback the people give ya. Try to do more with the composition side of the arrangement as well. At times, it seemed as if you just took various sections from the original and replaced the instruments with weaker sounds. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/dkc.rsn - "Aquatic Ambiance" (dkc-08.spc) Short and sweet, because, no offense, I'm not gonna use much time on a subpar Aquatic Ambiance sub. Everyone loves the theme and never changes it. The only reason it worked in the older days of the site was because people were producing some stylish conservative takes of the theme back in the day. This wasn't it. Just monotonous as anything using just the first few bars from the original as the foundation here, the sounds were thin as well as the subsequent texture, and the arrangement had nothing to speak of. I apologize for being rude or glib, but for all 5:43 of it there was nothing redeeming. NO

Yeah, I remember blowing shit up with Duke Nukem 64 when I first got the Nintendo 64. Always a good time and some scary shit. I remember this guy's name submitting some really short stuff a couple of months ago. This sub's got a bunch more substance than that last one, but as with any <2:30-long sub, as I learned from Protricity, you better be bringing it on every level if you want a YES. Overall, this was pretty conservative but you added your own personal flair to the arrangement. To me, it should have been even more interpretive, as I heard the main melody used 4 times, which is basically ad nauseum for an only 1:59-long piece. Basically a stylized cover without enough interpretation or variation, and vastly underveloped. Production was pretty good, though a little cluttered. Expand the idea considerably Matthias, get more interpretive, and try your hand again. NO

Don't have the source, but the vibe certainly conjures up images of FPS games where you have to kill a bunch of your friends and you bitch about your network connection lagging and the other players cheating all day. Don't like the name of the mix because submissions with names like this tend to imply that there's not much interpretation of the original. In any case, I'mma have to fly without the source here. The groove is certainly alright, so you're doing a decent job of biasing me. The sounds are fairly default-ish, but are used moderately well. However, the texture is very thin and doesn't fill up the space very much, so you should do something to thicken up the soundfield. The pizzicato strings at 2:13 sounded WAY too synthetic and exposed, and the same went for the vox arriving at 2:23 with some very robotic note-to-note movements there. The groove retread itself at 2:42 with the vox, some light SFX and some synth guitar (boooo) on top. It's hard to find an example of synth guitar done well. Hang in the ReMixing forum and research how to achieve a more realistic sound for synth guitar. Decent fade-out ending; nothing wrong there to me. Wish I had the original to compare to (i.e. gimme gimme, other judges), but making the call without it, I'd say work towards a fuller texture by thickening up and or replacing some of the synths, and fix up some of the more minor details pointed out above. Right now, the track just kinda plods along with its groove and isn't too interesting, so anything you can do beyond 2:42 to not retread the opening so much would be helpful in preventing things from becoming monotonous. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/tombsa~1.zip - Track 17 LOVE this soundtrack, so GET IT! I like the ambient feel and this could work decently as an in-game track. The track sounds a bit washed out and needs more clarity. But let's talk specifically about why this can't pass as is. Now, you remixed a 15-second theme with this source material. Why are you just adapting it to this Middle Eastern style and that's it? The mix just repeats itself every 27 seconds. So already, that's all I need to hear. Little things creeped in here and there, like some faint clicking noise at :55, gradually turning up the ambient pad-type sounds as the track progressed, and the guitar work fading in around 1:36. The changeup at 3:39 was interesting, but too little too late. For the genre here, your gradual building method was pretty effective and I respect that. But as it relates to the site here, we've gotta get a lot more melodic rearrangement here as well; get interpretive with the actual source tune's composition rather than just adding effects here and there over the 4 minutes. One of the perks of the job is that I get to keep this. Keep at it, bro. Get more interpretive with things next time around, and perhaps visit the ReMixing forum to learn how to clear up this production a bit. You can achieve this airy ambient feel while bringing about more clarity. NO

Thanks to Harmony for the source tune on this one. The opening strings were alright. There was a slow build for the intro, but for a 7+min track it was fine. I heard a heartbeat thumping in the background starting at :48 but the timing didn't synch up with anything. What was up with that? Ooooooook then, everything abruptly changed over to some string runs at 1:22. So there was no point to that heartbeat? Well, WTF? Some percussion entered in at 1:49, but it sounded REALLY muffled and was dragging down the clarity of the whole piece. The same with the brass at 2:03; very muffled. Things were quickly dragging until another changeup at 2:30. The xylophone action at 2:30 was always welcome. At this point, there was still a very muffled/smothered atmosphere, so the production needs to be much sharper. The brass sample usage was still poor as well. There was lots of repetitive instrument usage here in order to fashion an ethnic style groove, but it wasn't interesting at all. Some instruments dropped out at 3:38 for some spooky stuff. There's the heartbeat again at 3:52. That works for the piece thematically, I'd say, but it's kind of awkward here anyway. More xylophone fun at 4:06. 4:22 ditched the ambiance and the abrupt decays of the xylo were exposed. There was a changeup at 4:40 to some ethnic drums. The string and brass playing the arranged melody returned at 5:08, and I'm just being bombarded with a shitload of different instruments repeating themselves ad nauseum within this very muffled setting. At least there was a decent lead at 5:35 that surfaced. Even that repeated too much, but it changed a little bit at 6:15. 6:30 moved towards the piano-centric close. The arrangement ideas were certainly alright, but trim the fat off this needlessly repetitive groove, and clean up the production. Needs a lot more variation before it even has a shot, IMO. NO

http://jadiepoo.com/stuff/Deus%20Ex%20-%20UNATCO.mp3 - UNATCO Ugly/abrasive/default-ish sounds, and a decent arrangement but still not hugely new or interpretive versus the original UNTACO until 2:24. Things sounded very sparse, and, like mentioned earlier by Vigilante, there was a lack of texture and depth to the piece. Even most older pieces on the site compare much more favorably to this in terms of texture. Though the sounds were poor, you sound like you have a degree of potential on the composition side. Stick around and use the ReMixing forum to learn how to improve how you're putting everything together and use the WIP forum for feedback before you submit future material. NO

Except for a last song at the end (if you want, but I wouldn't - I'd continue doing maybe an extended clip like with DCT's mix), don't pad the show by actually playing full mixes. Playing clips only is supposed to entice others into checking out OCR and exploring the site further, plus you want the show, in its 30min format, to be fairly content intensive. That's what I'd be going for if I had a 30 minute time limit. And keep in mind as you gain a listenership with the format that regardless, you need to record and talk about things as if you're talking to people very unfamiliar with the site so that you don't lose sight of who the podcast is meant to target. Great work on this, y'all. Keep it up!

http://www.zophar.net/gym/gunstar.rar - 89.gym (starts :12 in) Well, we'd have two Gunstar Heroes mixes if Quinn Fox would stop hating on his own material and submit "Redrun Green." Punk. Anyway, this'll be short and sweet. This was actually a decent use of some stock trance/electronica synths. Why does this abysmally fail then? Well, it reaches 2:09 and simply repeats. Then again at 4:29. Mix even cuts out abruptly at 5:07 and goes on for 13 seconds worth of silence. Did I mention this was just a genre adaptation mix that's structured the same as the original? These are the hallmarks of the beginner (i.e. n00b). More interpretation, foo'. More variation, foo'. This vote is done. NO

http://www.zophar.net/gbs/sml1.zip - Track 2 http://www.zophar.net/nsf/smb1.zip - Track 2 ("Underground BGM") Some generic sounds in there, like the pulsing effects, but some decent usage. Not much done to this one beyond adding some hip-hop instrumental style beats under the original melody. The synths were really thin and sparse-sounding on the whole. No meat to the mix at all (aside from the bass thumps) and that basically killed it coming out of the gate. I'm all for a good beat, but this needs a lot more effort put into it to give things some power. The clap/bass thump beat structure that came in at :30 reminded me of "Tipsy" by Jaekwon. Saw that guy roll up into a Waffle House I ate at in ATL a year ago. No lie. He and his entourage had a stretch Hummer with them and the chick on his arm had Chanel earrings on. Some peeps got all the luck. Then some SMB Underground BGM stuff was thrown in at 2:41 for good measure. That was actually better stuff than the Ruins material here. Stop overdoing the cymbals at 3:22; tacky. Don't mean to be a wet blanket on shit, but you need to beef shit up. You got some of the Dirty South style in you, Cedric, I can definitely here that. Do like Harmony says and swing by the ReMixing forums for info on how to make your programs work harder for you and the WIP forum for fan feedback. I'd say move to the next project and just treat this one as a learning experience, but feel free to work on this one further to see where else you can take it. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/kss.rsn - "Battle with MetaKnight" (kss-45.spc) & "Taking Over the Halberd" (kss-43.spc) Synth guitar stuff typically doesn't sound good. Very plain-jane choice of sounds the whole way through. Production was alright. Plain-sounding drum sample arrived at :32. Not much in the way of processing or effects to create any unique sounds here. Orchestral stabs joining in at :57 were tacky. I've only heard them actually work in the GoldenEye soundtrack, and in the source tune here, they weren't so loud. Finally some melody at 1:10. Bring it in sooner than that; the buildup was too long for a 3:12 mix. The lead synth guitar for the melody was lame as hell; the note-to-note movements were so robotic and unrealistic; every note was at the same intensity and duration. More of the same feel and flow at 1:55, though there was some freestyling and so forth. The arrangement on the Battle with MetaKnight melody was decent I suppose. I liked the delayed whatever-that-doohicky-was on support at :56. Dunno what "Halfmoon" is since neither the Zophar's or Alpha-ii packs had a track with that name, so check that stuff more thoroughly next time. Anyway, time to take your sounds to the next level. I know everyone has to start somewhere, but this stuff ain't ever cutting it. Hate to bleh on the effort, Brendan, but you gotta get a lot more creative with your synth stuff. Hit the ReMixing forum and research how you can do more with the sounds at your disposal. Everything now just sounds so generic and plain. Change the tempo and flow here at some point as well to create some dynamic contrast throughout the 3:12. NO

http://www.tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/FF9_psf.rar - 101 "The Place I'll Return To Someday" Just listening to the first part of things, most of the work done in manipulating this one was done with support work. I'm not put off by the style, but felt this one wasn't very interpretive to start. Light, crackly audio deformations at :55 and 1:00-1:10, and later on. New ideas were there at 1:08 with some original work before briefly moving back into the source at 1:29-1:46, then another original section, then the source tune again at 2:18, then an original section to close at 2:45. Hard to create dynamics with a piece like this, but you tried when things got fuller at 2:18. Didn't like how the additional organ arriving at 2:18 droned on until 2:45. Some organ freestyling at 2:53. Basically had source/original/source/original sections alternating. Would have liked to have heard the original and arranged sections integrate here. Don't mind the very dense atmosphere of the production, but need the audio glitches fixed as well. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff6.rsn - "Mt. Koltz" (ff6-109.spc) Oy, production was rough on this one. WAY too trebly. C'mon now, bro, you had to have noticed the treble was too bright. A clippy disaster. At :40 the lead came in and sounded almost exactly the same as the original. The rhythms were changed up and so forth, but the strings on melodic lead didn't exactly help distinguish this from the original. I heard a lot of breakbeats formed around the original, but not quite enough was done to interpret the melody itself. Some harmonization was heard, but not much. Lots of supporting instruments here, like the harp, were nearly being obliterated by the beatwork being so trebly, rough, and abrasive. We hit a slower section at 1:46 that sounded alright. Whatever blippy electronic thing came on as support at 2:26 was annoying; it sounded pretty pasted on. The tambourine there was too bright and trebly. Oh man, that section from 2:40 was not a highlight. The bass work wasn't smooth at all, and the transition around 3:09 to the heavier stuff was weak. The guitar underneath the melody at 3:21 just didn't fit properly and created a poor contrast of bright and dark sounds (the guitar & the string lead). Some nigga crazy breakbeat stuff showed up at 4:00, and it was a little too out there. The shoddy production was really holding this back. I dunno why this got subbed in this condition, frankly. The Ikaruga subs were much cleaner sounding, but this sounds muffly the whole way through. Interpret the melody more, tighten up the awful production for a cleaner sound, change some of the synths/sounds so the guitar work actually meshes well here, and make some of the breakbeat work more integral in actually rearranging the source tune. This needs a huge overhaul to even be a contender, bro. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/megaman1.zip - Track 8 (Elecman's Stage) Noticed Polar's name around VGMix recently. Pretty cool offering. Let's keep it fairly short and sweet. More interpretation on the source material is needed. Desperately. Cool percussion/beats, but provide more variation. You had some good ideas there beyond 1:45 but never really realized the potential within the rest of the track. Just went back to the plain-jane stuff at 2:42. 1:36 had a nice original breakdown section. Ok, but how about some rearrangement of the Elecman theme now? Weave and integrate the source tune into your own original ideas. Some realtively minor harmonization ideas for the lead finally arrived at 2:55. Kind of annoying to get some possible arrangement ideas for the end at 3:36. Wasted potential there. Needs more work, Eivind, but I like it so far. See what else you can do to present a more interpretive arrangement. NO

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/dkc.rsn - "Aquatic Ambiance" (dkc-08.spc) Decent opening, playing around with some sweeping sounds. and 1:03 lays it down with the BEEtZ! Man, these ambient sounds sound lifted from the SPC if you ask me. It's like Protricity always said, if you didn't copy the sounds and they still sound the same as the original, you might as well have copied them anyway. I suppose they can be recreated pretty easily. 1:19, the beat gets all off, and you can just tell this will be uninterpretive and not innovative. And just as I'm typing that, the melody kicks in at 1:51; it's definitely a NO-go. The sounds supporting the lead coming in at 1:51 were detrimental choices, IMO. Listened to the whole thing. Great for the undemanding "gimme a cover" DKC music fan. Not bad, but the structure, style and compostion of the source material carries it. Gotta be more innovative nowadays. NO

Thanks for the question/interest, sir. Except for #56, #51-#60.99 have to be edited, tagged and released, which'll progressively happen over the course of the summer. In the meantime, I'll be bringing back the weekly VGF Pimp Sections fairly soon. So in closing, Queen Caramella has some nice cans.

http://www.zophar.net/gbs/zelda.zip - Track 47 The original melody with a very whiney lead and some electronic/trancy stuff pasted underneath it not even derived from the source. Looking for a bit more involvement in the arrangement than that when it comes to the supporting elements. This at least had a slight change in dynamics at 2:28. Yep, went to a higher key at 2:46. Some layering of the melody at 3:40. Melody never changed up once. Not bad for the undemanding Zelda fan at all, but you need a lot more here. NO

Thanks a lot to Robbie for sending us a copy of the source tune. Played this back on VGF49 and was just waiting for it to finally make its way over here. Thank God we've got something to represent Bust A Groove instead of that lousy "BlueKnife SignofZeta Dub". I was shakier on "The Devil Inside (Italo Disco Mix)" because that was a lot more straightforward, but this was just an incredibly skilled genre adaptation of the original with tons of Disco Stu flavor and style. It's pretty cool hearing the original with its futuristic overtones being given a total retro overhaul. We don't have a true-to-form disco style anthem at OC, so I'm proud that this'll add that kind of depth to the site. Loved all the little touches here and there; the piano was nice, the electric guitar synth actually fit, and the phasing stuff in the background was hot. A little too trebly on the production, but it was negligible to me. There were some beatiful subtle supporting touches that were a little too muted, like that little SFX under the vocals from 1:43-1:45, 1:50 & 1:58. Continuing on the plus side, the breakdown from 2:29-2:58 in particular was icy hot in its synthetic goodness, a rare case where overly synthetic textures from realistic instruments like piano or strings work. Stephanie's vocals sounded a little too distant to me, but they were still superlative and I liked the delay and harmonization she did as well. Bring your cousin back for more mixes, bro. Some people won't like the key change at 3:08, but I can live with it. Pretty good execution on it regardless. Watch that decay on the lead synth fading out at 3:51, as it cut out way too quickly and got exposed as a result. Don't overlook details like that. Some asshole bitched about Robbie's backing vocals at VGMix and actually gave them a "0/100". JonathonStriker? You've gotta be fucking kidding me. The last thing I wanna hear is a no-talent scrub like that guy trying to tell anyone what's good music. Don't even listen to haters like that, Robbie. You did some great work, while that guy will be pumping out crap until the day he dies. Disco isn't dead, baby! I'm guilty of Bust This Groove Bias! Hell YES

http://www.zophar.net/gym/SK+SONIC3.RAR - 22 "Lava Reef Zone 1" & 23 "Lava Reef Zone 2" http://www.zophar.net/gym/sonic2.rar - "Hidden Palace Zone" I'm gonna put it fairly short and sweet (for me, anyway). Like Malc, I liked the arrangement but I also thought that the production and sounds were lacking. The cymbal activity in particular was way too trebly and prominent. Using Lava Reef Acts 1 & 2 directly 1:30-2:00 & 5:31-6:17, I felt the arrangement there was too straightforward with just a whole bunch of muddy sounds surrounding it. (1:30-2:00 was the real culprit regarding clutter.) The guitar work at 2:00 was too muffled and needed to be more prominent, IMO. I don't mind an airy atmosphere here, but I needed a greater measure of sound separation and clarity. Obviously on the arrangement side though, there was a lot of time to go in other more interpretive directions, so I wasn't worried about that since the other ideas made up for it. The arrangement was there, and I liked how the style changed up so often here, including Lava Reef Act 2 at 5:31 (though I didn't like the thin texture again). Some may say it dragged a little long or whatever, but I felt it was fine. Based on what I heard though, the sounds were a bit too thin sounding and default-ish, creating a relatively sparse atmosphere most of the time that I felt was overcompensated for with too much reverb. Lots of these sounds sounded as if they should have been fuller and more impactful. I know it's mostly a different genre, but I felt something like Battletoads and Double Dragon "Enter the Toad" had a cleaner presentation and richer sounds. Sorry to NO, Joel, but it sounds like things need refinement/tweaking on the presentation side to give the atmosphere a little more clarity and the sounds a bit more depth. Hope you resub it, bro. As someone who appreciates the old school and the return of a former judge also, I certainly hope you're not discouraged over looking at it further, since I'd like to see you return to the front page. NO (refine/resubmit)

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/shatterh.zip - Track 4 Shatterhand has a badass soundtrack; check out Track 2 of the NSF as well, for example. A lot of the early 90s Nintendo game soundtracks did a great job of pushing the NES's sound capabilities to their limits. Stuff like the Shatterhand, Treasure Master, and Megaman VI soundtracks had lots of delay and harmonization present resulting in much denser-sounding material. Played this mix while highlighting the top entires for the Dwelling of Duels March Free Month on VGF56. This one got retooled a little bit along with an assist in the intro from OCR old-schooler Majin GeoDooD. The transition away from the intro had an abrupt key change, but didn't bother me much. I first heard the source tune when Homie subbed his own take on the track about half a year ago. Wish that guy would resurface; he got banned from VGMix for some reason, but I liked his stuff. Anyway, this track excelled where Homie's failed in that there was a lot more expansion and personal flair (2:00-2:38) present in this arrangement along with some nice rearranged sections (1:42-1:59, 2:39-3:09). Fairly straightforward coverage, but great shit from Rubbler adding a new dimension to things with his rhythm guitar work. Wish I could have heard it a little bit more clearly, but I could certainly hear and appreciate his backup contributions. The abrupt cut out of recording hiss at 3:43 & 3:45 was pretty weak and should have been fixed up. At least fade it out or something. In any case, solid fast-paced work per the usual from Andreas, great additional contributions from Allan, and a nice cameo intro from Brandon. Great collab work. I can see he doesn't release much material, but I'll be checking out Rubbler's other VGMix releases and hope to see him submit here again, as well as stay active over at DoD. YES

http://www.snesmusic.org/spcsets/ff6.rsn - "Relm" (ff6-219.spc) Never heard the old version, but I enjoyed this one. I see you didn't scrap the drums! Very light but militaristic feel. It's cute and upbeat in its way. Heard a really obvious flub on the support from 1:37-1:38, but otherwise everything was engaging and flowy. The arrangement was put together nicely and the prodcution was beautiful; everything was well-seperated and clean and layered together nicely. Short and sweet take on Relm, Adam. Subtle and quaint, yet ultimately impressive. Other Js may have some comments/suggestions on where to improve, but I've got nohing particularly negative to speak of. Very capably performed. YES

Was busy with finals, but the mix seems to be presented as finished as is, so while Don may revise it if needed, I'm gonna vote on it as is. Pretty short and sweet, the arrangement is no longer a problem in any way, and I really liked the new twists and turns Don threw in. Very creative and catchy. Still gonna have to stick with my post above about the problems I had with production/clutter and also the way the drums don't drive the song forward and sound pasted on top. Those really seemed to hold the mix back, IMO. Otherwise, I thought it was great and have no problem with it passing. Please dont be discouraged at the votes on criticism. Frankly, I'm surprised you aren't posted already given how many excellent VGMix tracks I've heard from you. Definitely keep subbing here and work on this to just tweak it a bit further if possible. NO (borderline)

The original definitely isn't my style, but I can definitely respect it. Jennifer Stigile did a nice job on it, and I also liked the light guitar at 2:33 reminding me of zyko's performance style. The arrangement was enjoyable, but :54-2:40 went into cover mode, replacing Stigile's vocals with strings & winds. I liked the track; played it back on VGF56, and genuinely was feeling the light atmosphere, but the cover-focused aspect was too conservative. The support instrumentation had some noteworthy differences with the original, but not too much felt different in the presentation overall. On a side note, I heard some very light brass from around 2:12-2:40, but it didn't sound very realistic moving from note-to-note and was a bit too subtle. I liked what was there so far, but it needs some more interpretive and unique ideas vis-a-vis the source material to pass. If you wanna keep the melody intact, expand and change the supporting instrumentation more substantially and make things sound more unique that way. I listen to original stuff of yours like "Free as the Wind" (thanks for sending it my way, BTW) and know that creative, original composition isn't an issue for you. Knowing you don't like the system, Tim, I'm not necessarily expecting a resubmission, but frankly I'd like to see one, because I think this has the potential to interpret the source material more substantially. NO (rework/resubmit)

http://exotica.fix.no/tunes/archive/Authors/Game/Obarski_Karsten/Crystal_Hammer.lha - mod.crystalhammer Make the filename .MOD in order to play this in Winamp. Too much of the boom-tss foundations never changing up at all until 2:36-2:50. Though the production was solid and the sounds were used well, the sounds were also very generic/stock selections. The mix doesn't do a thing to distinguish itself from tons of other Euro-style techno Commodore remixes. The arrangement was too repetitive on account of sticking so steadfastly to the source. Aside from some changes in the supporting elements, the arrangement retread itself from :28 at 1:11 & 3:04. At least the intro here (00-:28) was rearranged from the first :22 of the source. Some very natural and agreeable genre adaptation ideas in there but basically nothing significantly interpretive, which to be honest is about what I expected given the track record of Commodore submissions we've gotten on the panel during my time. NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/solstice.zip - Track 2 Heh. Tim Follin is so damn good. You have to get to :22 of the source tune to get the connection. I liked the ethnic drumloops more than I should have. Certainly hope you made those on your own, but who knows. Yeah, Izz is right, you can't sub stuff with terrible sounding audio glitches like :27. The freestyle-ish stuff from 1:57-2:17 sounded way too jerky and inhuman. The synthetic texture COULD have worked, and Israfel would certainly be familiar with making things like this work, but for this section the composition simply sounded too unwieldy. Actually, those light wind instruments there could have been louder and a bit less dry throughout the whole track. The ending was a bit abrupt also, so look into slowing it down or having it trail off for a longer period of time. But in any case, the arrangement wasn't interpretive enough compared to the source. Sounded like a good upgrade of how Follin may have wanted the original to sound, but you've got to rearrange things more thoroughly, bro. Pretty cool and not a cover/upgrade the whole way through, but this needs to be more personalized through more new composition ideas. I'mma keep it. NO (rework/resubmit)