Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

Download A Knight (for a Knight): https://knight.ocremix.org Full album on YouTube: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Hzwog2S6PVA&list=PLWk40K1PeZwEWrulLOA2Ms4wbX099KeCx&index=1 Torrent: https://knight.ocremix.org/downloads/A_Knight_(for_a_Knight).torrent This whole project initially started as just a single short lo-fi-ish remix just to mess around, about two years ago I think. And just as it so often does, it spiraled almost out of control in the classic loop of "just a little more", until it became the 4-track EP that it is now! Hollow Knight holds a very special place in my heart, because playing that game was a very crucial moment in my recovery from pretty severe depression. Working in a big game company had been siphoning out my passion for a while, and Hollow Knight was the game that reminded me why I was doing what I was doing. I will forever be grateful to Team Cherry for essentially saving my life! Now, enough with the heavy stuff. - DaMonz

Relatively minimal, yet occupies the space well. Good punch to the beats and kicks, even with such straightforward patterns, and a good amount of fuzz and muddiness to add some stylistic grime without undermining the presentation. Very smart arranging of the source, having it present with multiple lines of instrumentation at different speeds and constantly sprinkled in; when I caught that slowed down backing line functioning almost like a pad (first at 2:55), that was a tip of the cap from me in terms of low-key and sophisticated source usage, which I always enjoy spotting. Nice work, Lucas! :-) YES

The track was 3:12 long, so I needed to hear the source tune in play for at least 96 seconds for the source material to be considered dominant in the arrangement. :30.5-:44, :45.75-:59.5, 1:00.75-1:14.75, 2:02.5-2:16.5, 2:18-2:31.5, 2:33.5-2:47 = 82.25 seconds or 42.83% Some percussion patterns, as basic as they are, are also taken from the source (and expanded on), for example from :15-:30 before the start of the melody, so that more than pushes the source usage into the majority of the track length. Great job also having original beat-writing that was obviously inspired by the overall flow of the original track; everything fit like a glove. The sax sample from 1:32-2:02 was limper than a wet noodle, but it was the only thing I would have changed about this piece. Otherwise, the sound design was awesome; loved the scratches, voice FX, vibes, beats, shakers, everything about this. What a commendable job giving such a minimal theme -- only 16 beats -- a coat of personality [sic]. Boom bap goes the dynamite. Ridiculously good, Garrett. :-D YES

Artist Name: moebius Credits: Euridice (Vocals): Azmodea (no profile yet) Orpheus (Vocals): metamoogle (https://ocremix.org/artist/18634/metamoogle) Drums: Moebius/paradiddlesjosh (https://ocremix.org/artist/18711/paradiddlesjosh) Mastering: Cyril the Wolf (https://ocremix.org/artist/5473/cyril-the-wolf) I wanted to give “Good Riddance” a metal twist, so I reharmed the whole thing and basically kept only the sung melodies. I also slipped the title track “No Escape” in as a short intro to lead into the song. Structurally I added a second chorus between verse 1 and 2, and dropped a solo in before the final verse. Once the arrangement was nailed down I brought in two awesome singers who totally delivered. Big shoutout to paradiddlesjosh — he helped me sort all the drum kinks and his input was huge, so I gave him co-credits on drums. And Cyril got the mix into mastering shape and absolutely crushed the final master. Technical Notes: Guitars (all Shreddage 3.5): Lead - Serpent Rhythm L/R - Jupiter / Hydra Dreamy chords - Archtop Bass - Abyss All guitars went through Guitar Rig 7 Drums (all Ugritone): Kick - FLD Prestige Pearl Session 22 open Snare - AR Ludwig Supraphonic Rest of Kit - Ugritone Manik Mercinary House Pearl Other VSTs: Scarbee Clavinet Games & Sources Hades - No Escape (only in the Intro) Hades - Good Riddance

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Artist Name: Matt Frequencies It's been 6 months since I last had a go at submitting - in the meantime, I've been refining my style, and a lot of life stuff has happened, so feeling brave enough to have another bash. This track is kind of a 'magnum opus' moment of all the things I've learned in the last period - everything is new, synthesiser wise, no sampling of the original track. I've leaned into writing 'stories' in music, and this song was a prime candidate for that - a very dual natured song, a hostile dangerous theme contrasted against a heroic moment, I've always seen it as a tug of war between Sonic and Robotnik - so I decided to extend that out, instead of looping it, this song tells the story of that massive clash up on the Death Egg with each main section having a different focus and meaning. I've called it "Massive Arms" because of the epic cinematic vibe I was going for. Technically, this was made in Reason 13, with the main organ, choir and bass tones coming from my 1991 Yamaha TG100 I inherited from my brother. The lead square and guitar tones are the Europa rack instrument, and the drums are a combination of sets that I've enjoyed using in my other songs, one a bit darker/meaner than the other. Lots of sidechain and automation going on in here. It's still a very highly compressed song as I made it to use in my DnB sets when I DJ live, and it needs to stand up against some of that really intense music from the likes of Doctor Werewolf or Pendulum, both of which I used as references for mixing, but hopefully this time around - a bit less fatiguing to the ears. The biggest technical shift for me has been learning to use the stereo field to really help things stand out where they need to, and there's a LOT of that going on in this track, so I hope you enjoy the ear candy! Games & Sources Sonic 3 - Big Arms (Final Boss) -

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Should be good now, thanks for the catch!

The track was 3:49-long, so I needed to hear the VGM used for at least 114.5 seconds to consider the source material dominant. :00-:33, :42-:48, :53-1:44, 2:03-2:37, 2:46-3:48 = 186 seconds or 64.35% source usage A good clip of the source usage was from the bass as a supporting part, but this was the only track among the 12 that invoked the source tune throughout most of the track. If you further explore (presumably human-made) music-making further, this was a more connected end result, relative to the original VGM, and thus the most cohesive piece of music among the group. Dynamically, the sections still felt fairly repetitive aside from different lyrics (though the GenAI vocals do a decent job of creating different variations and inflections, all things considered), all of the instrumentation and vocals had a warbly/buzzy quality throughout so the mixing quality's not strong, and the lyrics come off like trope-y GenAI again (including the spoken-word aside as a conclusion, enough already). NO ----------------------------------- Checklist: - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music. ----------------------------- Alright, so I've listened to all 12 tracks and wanted to give some other thoughts that go broader than the submission. 1. I can't take Craig's claim at face value that these tracks weren't substantially, majority, or totally GenAI. That means compositionally, not just the lyrics or vocals. 2. I recognize that people will want to use it as a creative outlet, it makes music "creation" more accessible, and it can be made with good intentions, and we'll potentially get more AI-related submissions in the future. 3. We have already approved a track using AI elements. Synthesizer V was used for the vocals in https://ocremix.org/remix/OCR04711. That was a case where a musician licensed their voice for the product (rather than AI being trained on stolen content). The arrangement had been previously made/submitted a decade earlier (the first version's linked in the writeup), and this was an upgrade in the sampled vocal quality, not generative writing. There can be ethical instances of AI usage within a product. That said, context is everything. 4. GenAI content is against the spirit of music I personally want to hear, even though it'll continue to improve and evolve. I've gone down the rabbit hole some to find VGM arrangements involving GenAI. Some sounded promising from a music quality standpoint and were, structurally, more in line with VGM arrangements we'd accept in terms of source theme usage. Even this Animal Crossing submission sounds like a viable enough concept. 5. GenAI content could eventually become sophisticated and/or ubiquitous enough that it cannot be effectively screened or identified. (What about cases where someone claims to have referenced GenAI music for creative ideas or as a mockup that's then performed by real musicians? I suppose we cross that bridge when we get there.) 6. Even if there came to be ethical GenAI music (i.e. that only legally trained on approved/licensed/permitted content and was transparent in sourcing/crediting), that wouldn't be a human-created work. 7. IMO, we should explicitly add a clarifying bullet to part 2.1 of the Standards to say that we don't want tracks involving generated part-writing, composition, or arrangement, that we only want human-created music. 8. I'm disappointed at a future where we'll need to be more forensic, more skeptical, and less trusting about the steps used to create music.

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The track was 3:14-long, so I needed to hear the VGM used for at least 97 seconds to consider the source material dominant. :01.75-:25, :26-:33, :39-:45, 1:07-1:19.75, 1:25-1:29, 2:01.5-2:03.75, 2:36.25-2:38.75, 2:48.75-3:09 = 68 seconds or 35.05% source usage The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO This one was, to me, the clunkiest piece of the set. "Bros." not being pronounced "Brothers" at :52 feel like an AI giveaway, but I digress. Choppy flow on much of the lyrics, and the shifts from occasional VGM references to all this unrelated stuff didn't flow together well at all. ----------------------------------- Checklist: - Minimal VGM arrangement, mostly unrelated composition - Any direct VGM arrangement is very straightforward and brief - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

The track was 4:30-long, so I needed to hear the VGM used for at least 135 seconds to consider the source material dominant. :00-:50.5, 1:35-2:12, 2:56-3:03.5, 3:20.5-3:42, 4:17.5-4:28.5 = 110.5 seconds or 40.92% source usage The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO Easily the most interesting genre transformation and another rarer example where the music during part the verses at least sounded adjacent to the source music, with backing patterns from the original in play on bass even when lyrical melodies weren't related to the source. This one's actually also the only example where I heard the vocals partially arranging the source theme. Much more of the source usage was from the bass usage rather than melodic arrangement. No surprise the chorus was disconnected from VGM, given the precedent of the other music. Aside from the lyrics feeling tired (because it's the same meta-narrative concept every time), this was the most interesting result, so that's something. ----------------------------------- Checklist: - Minimal VGM arrangement, mostly unrelated composition - Any direct VGM arrangement is very straightforward and brief - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

The track was 4:16-long, so I needed to hear the VGM used for at least 128 seconds to consider the source material dominant. :05-:17, :30.5-:40.5, 1:39-1:45, 2:02-2:08, 4:00.75-4:13.75 = 47 seconds or 18.35% source usage The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO This is still interesting tech, but there's still a soullessness to it at this stage. 8 tracks in, my patience is thin. :-D /rhymes ----------------------------------- Checklist: - Minimal VGM arrangement, mostly unrelated composition - Any direct VGM arrangement is very straightforward and brief - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO Probably the most warbly instrumental this time, it's very rough. Drums were particularly quiet and bland in this one. Instead of "Who's that Pokémon?", it's "Where's the Pokémon music?", since it's only in the intro (:04-:21). -------------------- Checklist: - Minimal VGM arrangement, mostly unrelated composition - Any direct VGM arrangement is very straightforward and brief - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

The track was 3:18-long, so I needed to hear the VGM used for at least 99 seconds to consider the source material dominant. :05-:20, :41.5-:53 (-ish), 1:16-1:28, 1:50-2:01, 3:01-3:04, 3:06-3:12 = 58.5 seconds or 29.54% source usage The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO Punk pop this time. For seemingly-generated music, it has solid enough pop fundamentals/tropes, and it does create variations on the repeated elements. But as a formula, this album's functioning like a one-trick pony (see: checklist). Will restate there's 0 chance these aren't generated lyrics as well. I dunno why Craig claimed he wrote them. ----------------------------------- Checklist: - Minimal VGM arrangement, mostly unrelated composition - Any direct VGM arrangement is very straightforward and brief - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

The track was 3:09-long, so I needed to hear the VGM used for at least 94.5 seconds to consider the source material dominant. :05-:14, :16-:19, :22-:23, :26-:28, 1:20-1:22 = 17 seconds or 8.99% source usage The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO Goes for some quasi-Pentatonix vocals this time. Still the same creative formula, though for this one, the second half never circled back to the VGM source tune, even for a small piece. No matter the genre, the tropes end up being the same. ----------------------------------- Checklist: - Minimal VGM arrangement, mostly unrelated composition - Any direct VGM arrangement is very straightforward and brief - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

The track was 4:47-long, so I needed to hear the VGM used for at least 143.5 seconds to consider the source material dominant. :00-1:16, 2:30-2:55, 4:33-4:42 = 90 seconds or 31.35% source usage The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO Opens with a spirited rock cover, clearly not a real guitar, but a serviceable sound. Definitely the longest stretch of invoking the source material, and then the non-VGM arrangement at least sounds similar enough to the source material that it doesn't feel as disconnected from the VGM as the previous tracks. Not to be outdone though, the dropoff at 3:33 was absolutely in a different mood/style from the rest of the song before going back to an even more intense original/non-VGM section at 3:57. Part of the problem of doing all of these tracks using the same voice across multiple tracks and the same basic song construction is just creating a samey feel to all these concepts, even with different sources & genres. ----------------------------------- Checklist: - Minimal VGM arrangement, mostly unrelated composition - Any direct VGM arrangement is very straightforward and brief - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

In a vacuum, this is an interesting concept, but it's not a VGM arrangement, it's unrelated to the source. Not sure in what circumstance you believe we'd post original music about a VG character, as opposed to a VGM arrangement. Checklist: - Mostly unrelated composition, practically 0 VGM arrangement - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume NO ----------- Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

Boy, banjo's gonna be tough to arrange. You pretty much need to either keep the bassline persistent or straight up stick to banjo as a lead instrument. Not that I'm expecting that here... I've definitely heard this AI voice in other AI-generated stuff, so I'm not even sure this would be from Ace Studio AI as much it's from Suno; wouldn't be shocked if it can be found in multiple AI music generators. Three tracks in a row, this again seems to have the formula of briefly but straightforwardly referencing the VGM, then completely going disconnected from arranging anything from the source theme, not even worth timestamping this time. The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO Checklist: - Minimal VGM arrangement, mostly unrelated composition - Any direct VGM arrangement is very straightforward and brief - Warbly vocals - Lyrics also feel AI-prompt generated, too on the nose with the rhyming, always extended character meta-narratives - Staid, limited drum writing - Dynamics possibly undercut by limiter on volume Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.

The track was 4:33-long, so I needed to hear the VGM used for at least 136.5 seconds to consider the source material dominant :03-:41, 1:32-1:42, 1:45-1:52, 2:47-2:49, 4:01-4:19 = 78 seconds or 28.57% source usage There's likely some progressions I'm overlooking re: counting source usage, but it's not a close call. The lack of direct source usage & substantive arrangement is an automatic dealbreaker for me. NO On a production level, these vocals always sound warbly, so that's definitely not ideal; since these are AI-generated vocals, that's gonna have to wait for the tech to catch up. It's difficult for a non-musician like me to articulate, but while the instrumentation sounds pretty serviceable, but it very much sounds like it has genre pockets it falls into. Drum writing once again doesn't sound bad, but feels very staid. I know Craig claimed he wrote the lyrics for these, but once again, the lyrics seem generated by prompt, not written. And two tracks in now, this again seems to have the formula of briefly but straightforwardly referencing the VGM, then completely going disconnected from arranging anything from the source theme. ----------------------------------- Sorry if my perception of this undersells how much actual human-generated content is there, Craig. If I had to bet on it though, this comes across like prompt-generated lyrics and the song structure isn't dynamic enough or connected enough to the original VGM to feel like it's mostly Craig's direct input on this. I definitely don't want a trend of people sending AI-generated content here, no matter how good it ends up being. The aim is to highlight skill, intention, and creativity with human-created, human-written, human-produced music. When you take human decision-making out of the equation, even if the end result sounds good, it wouldn't be people genuinely creating the music.