Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

For the negatives first, I could have definitely done with some more variety on the core beat; regardless, it did have some good heft and energy to it, so it's not like it was a mixed bag, but some variations or more audible fills would have been nice. The key change at 5:31 wasn't bad but also felt unnecessary. That said, pretty seamless and spirited treatments of these themes, and the levels didn't bother me in any way. Love it, bros, good to go! YES

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The mix was submitted without an original title, so djp was kind enough to hearken back to OCR days of old when he would personally name generically-titled stuff. Now we have a Spanish translation of "Castle Hustle" that's Sir_NutS-approved for accuracy!

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We love when music is focused on and celebrated within video games, so we're honored to team up with the devs and PR crew behind the new French indie title A Musical Story! And to help support OCR, there's a gorgeous custom Guitar Hero controller currently auctioned on eBay, featuring the art of A Musical Story! The auction wraps on Wed. March 23rd, and we’ve got 5 bids already -- DON'T MISS OUT! Bid and/or share, knowing the funds will go to a good cause – OCR's 501c3 organization, Game Music Initiative (EIN: 81-4140676). Thank you! Custom Guitar Hero controller, featuring the art of A Musical Story! 100% of the proceeds support OCR! • https://www.ebay.com/itm/125206049627 Get in for this one-of-a-kind custom Guitar Hero controller before the auction ends on Wed., March 23rd! ----------------------------------------------------------------- P.S. Tell 5 friends to tell their 5 friends! Be sure to check out A Musical Story, from Glee-Cheese Studio & Digerati, on all of the major storefronts! • Android / Apple / Epic / GOG / PlayStation / Steam / Switch / Xbox A Musical Story is a rhythm game set against a 70s backdrop. Explore the memories of Gabriel, a young man trying to come to terms with his situation through the connections to his musical memory. Rekindle Gabriel's memories with rhythmic button presses in time with the music... P.P.S. Listen to the soundtrack of A Musical Story by Charles Bardin & Valentin Ducloux (Inspired by the music and artists of the 70s, e.g. Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, and Led Zeppelin!) Purchase A Musical Story's OST! 26 tracks! • Amazon / Bandcamp / Epic / GOG / Spotify / Steam

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Many thanks to Michael for the comprehensive source breakdown. Was able to follow along easily with the structure. Weird track? I jump een it, son. Good stuff going for a creepy vibe. What's not to love? YES

Unlike proph, I didn't have a problem with Rebecca giving the source's unwieldy melody and percussion more of a fixed structure; IMO, that gave this more focus. No problem with approaching it this way. I also didn't have a problem with the vox humanization; it sounded realistic and fine to me; anything fake or stilted can be attributed to an otherworldly sound, but hey, being a non-musician heathen, maybe I'm just more permissive of something potentially sacriligious here. Hmmm... really odd mixing. The kalimba (or whatever this initial lead is) is so much louder than the flute and vox in places; it's not wrong, per se, but the balance among the parts feels weird. It's a subjective thing though; I'll get over that. The real killer here though: 1:21-1:43 essentially sounded like a cut-and-paste of :05-:27, then the vox from :27-1:08 was basically copied from 1:44-2:25. That's not to say effort isn't given to having the track and textures evolve; it's a cool track. But, IMO, the copy-pasta of the kalimba and vox parts like this ends up being too much wholesale repetition in the grand scheme of things. If you're willing to vary those parts up somehow, this would easily get my vote. I hate to potentially offer disjointed feedback when you look at what the 3 of us have collectively said. I didn't really agree with the others' core issues and found my own, so if you choose to revisit this, I feel like you're in a choose-your-own adventure scenario. I always enjoy your stuff and trust your judgement. That said, this concept with more development and variation within this length of time would be all systems go with me. NO (resubmit)

Opened up sounding pretty cramped on first blush, but this sure has a lot of power, and I'm able to make out the different parts well enough. Nice chaneup in the textures at 1:15. Great treatment of the theme; melodically conservative but an extremely personalized and well-designed sound palette, along with great dynamic contrast employed in the arrangement. Ah man, basically a cut-and-paste of the buildup from :12-:24 again from 1:21-1:33 with a little more texture to it, then :24-:49 wholesale repeated from 1:33-1:58. Damn, that's a shame. Vary up 1:21-1:58 in some subtle but substantive ways and this would be a shoo-in for me. Very minor thing, José, but somewhere after 1:59 into the fading finish, there's something causing a light pop every bar until the end that would need to be fixed/removed. Nice work otherwise! Right now, it packs a lot of punch, and I'm not even bothered by the volume. No hate from me if this passes as is, as I can understand the case being made, but there's just too much unvaried repetition for such a short piece, IMO. NO (resubmit) EDIT (7/19/23): I just needed some variation for the final section instead of the pure copy-pasta. Awesome; really appreciate you taking a look and adding in those subtle countermelodic lines for the final verse! It's those subtle touches there, where it's not a drastic overhaul, yet it's just enough to give a different feel for the finish. Nice work, José! YES

Opening synths and beats sounded kind of generic, but have a solid sound, with good delay effects to create a nice texture and and density to the soundscape. I liked the soft original countermelodic stuff going on underneath the melody as soon as that started (you finally hear it isolated from 1:44-2:00). The ticks & glitching stuff supplementing the beats was a touch that subtly created complexity around some pretty simple percussion. Oof, the string articulations and sustains from 2:17-2:51 sounded brutal and beginner-ish; man, why??? :'-( Need some additional or different effects on there to help mask the fakeness of the sound. There's a pretty obvious quality disparity, and one that's harder for me to look past. With such a texturally thin C64 source, putting some meat onto the instrumentation and adding original composition ideas goes a long way in presenting it in a different way. I agreed with MindWanderer and XPRTNovice about the strengths of this arrangement and how it evolved & didn't feel overlong; props for being able to do that in a pretty low-key and understated way. I'm going to be the bad guy; I'd love/need to get an updated version with non-shitty string samples. I asked myself, can I live with that part not being addressed if it weren't possible, and my honest, nitpicky-yet-sincere answer is NO, so I'd love to hear a resubmission or adjustment to this so that I could vote YES. Strong stuff otherwise, Marek!

Lots of light crackling from 1:04-1:21, mostly heard on the beats from 1:12-1:21, and it didn't sound purposeful. Strumming in the background from 2:22-2:39 is out of tune. The ending is indeed sudden, but the last guitar note trails off, so while it might not satisfy everyone, this is an acceptable resolution to me. Aside from that, I actually though the structure was fine and fit an interesting and unconventional sound; once you listen through to it several times, the textural changes feel pretty chill and smooth. IMO, this evolving style doesn't need to change, and I would have gone YES if this were just about enjoyability. As far as DarkSim saying the track wasn't bright/hopeful enough given Juliano's title, why allow the arrangement title to influence your perception of the track? If it were called "Olivine Ennui", maybe you wouldn't question the permissibility of the tone and energy. The title's not relevant. However, and here's the wrinkle... I was coming up pretty light in terms of hearing the "Olivine Lighthouse" theme referenced in this piece, so I'm either overlooking something major or I'm the only one paying attention to the source usage. I'll list what I had and would appreciate another J verifying or debunking what I heard. The track was 2:57-long, so I needed to hear the source tune in play for at least 88.5 seconds for the source material to be dominant in the arrangement. :28-1:04, 1:30-1:46.5, 1:47.5-1:48.25, 2:22.5-2:38 = 68.75 seconds or 38.84% overt source usage Unless there's something major I'm missing or another source tune also being invoked, I don't see how I could pass this due to a lack of source usage. I'll reserve judgement until someone else clarifies their POV on source usage. But other than the off-key background strumming from 2:22-2:39, the performance and structure of this was fine and I think the arguments that it was too disjointed are both off-base and closed-minded. Spin it some more, this is transformative, this is cohesively structured and presented, this is fine. But I need me some more "Olivine" identified in this to get on board. EDIT (5/3): Seems like no one's able to ID more source usage, so I'll also side with the NO votes (but happy to revise my thoughts if there's more identification of source usage that we overlooked). I hope, tibone, that you'd be willing to revisit this one; I dug it!

The Good Ice! You don't even belong here, Good Ice. I'm not even going to listen to this. Watch this... YES OHOK, gotta listen first. Hold up... Agreed with Joe in that you don't need to reinvent the wheel, this'll do just fine. I wasn't bothered by the kicks, but maybe it's because I was on headphones. Nice and chill. YES

Definitely digging and the vox and other instrumentation to start. The sampled electric guitar from :25-:51 sounds pretty fake, but it's initially mixed in a way to mitigate (albeit not mask) the realism issues; less so from 1:27-on; the same exact issues are still there, but once the Zeal melody is dropped out, it's hard not to focus more closely on the guitar and be as forgiving about the robotic tone & sound on the second dose. About 1 minute in, the core beat felt repetitive, but we had some textural changes at 1:22. A-ha, at 1:25, I immediately hear how this started getting NO votes. The splashy drums and overall drumkit sound don't fit this new age-y soundscape, IMO. Weird, fake, behind-the-beat, robotic-sounding, exposed string samples introduced at 2:21; it joins in at a super-blaring volume that also didn't make sense. The strings sustains are probably the worst offender production-wise. Yeah, there's no synergy with this instrumentation beyond the first minute. For the final minute in particular, there's not enough care put into whether the textures sound cohesive, and there's nothing to melodically focus on, at least until 3:09, though the guitar also quickly veers into noodling/comping territory. The piano at 3:09 also sounds very fake; another instance where it sounded complementary in the background (from 2:29-3:09), but then was later more exposed as mechanical (3:09-end) and came off much worse. From 1:25-on, the Zeal theme's also very deemphasized here; that's not inherently a problem, but there's also no melodic direction for most of the rest of the piece. It may be too subjective, so take it or leave it, but consider making the Zeal line more audible for brief moments and/or varying the instrumentation of it in places to ground the arrangement and give the track more direction & dynamic contrast. IMO, you need to either have richer, more realistic sounds for the guitar, bowed strings, and piano OR mask/obscure the issues better when they're isolated or used more in the foreground. Then it's a matter of making sure all of the instrumentation clicks together with the proper tone and balance for everything, which is more difficult, but worth the effort. This has some YESs, but I'mma firmly be right here in the NO (resubmit) column, and it's not a close call for me. There's so much good energy in the arrangement, you're going to think I hate it due to the criticisms. This has so much potential, but the execution's very messy at the moment. C'mon, Harlem, let's see what more you can do with it!

You're gonna feel I dislike your work in a blanketed way. There's genuine skill, but the current mixing/production is needlessly killing this off. The vox at :24 genuinely stinks; it's both quiet AND extremely fake-sounding, so it doesn't add anything. Theme kicks in at :40. The source countermelody is in my left ear (only) from :58-1:15, but it's extremely quiet and slightly behind the beat. From 1:32-1:42, the panning stuck out as being too wide; there was a lot of mud (powerful mud, but mud) that was just blaring in the right ear, but none of that was in the left, so you've gotta watch the balance there. The vox at 1:42 again had an odd quality of being distant and quiet, then it cut off in an unnatural way at 2:00. Anything you can do to improve the vox realism and depth would benefit this piece. Guitar panning was too wide again from 2:09-2:27 (and continued like that during the denser sections, where the cymbals were also panned far right until 3:10). The arrangement's creative and solid, and the final couple of minutes has the epic orchestral metal feeling down pat, Jean Marc, but I'm sincerely not understanding why the mixing and panning's like this at all. From 2:28 until near the end at 3:55, the entire soundscape is just cramped and everything turns into mud. Maybe it's because I'm listening on headphones rather than speakers/monitors, but while the arrangement and energy are all sorts of good, the mixing still needs another pass from me; too much descends into being indistinct for too long. NO (resubmit)

I asked Woody about a possible louder version and he feels it's dynamic enough, just FYI.

Having voted on a few of Neon X's pieces now, he's got a formula of sorts for his stuff -- i.e. melodically conservative but personalized genre adaptation bookends with a more interpretive middle -- but it's fairly effective. That said, the copy-pasta of :23-1:07 from 2:10-2:54 was too much repetition without variation for a relatively short piece, IMO. This piece was less interpretive than his past ones, and I thought the copy-pasta hurt it. No less energetic, and a case could certainly be made that the genre adaptation is substantial enough to survive a ding on repetition and thus a lack of development, but I'm not there. Really awesome so far, and if you're willing to see what other variations and techniques could be employed to differentiate 2:10's section from :23's, then this would be an easy call, even if it were just several more subtle things; anything varying up the instrumentation, melody, rhythm, and/or tempo could be a welcome evolution without feeling like you have to overhaul anything. See what more you can do, Neon, but nice work thus far! NO (resubmit)

The track was 8:38-long, so I needed to hear the source tune in play for at least 259 seconds for the source tune to be dominant in the arrangement. Thanks a lot to proph for his thorough breakdown explaining the arrangement, which definitely made things clearer. The B and C sections of the source were so much less memorable, but the arrangement mainly deals with the most known melodic portion, so it thankfully wasn't difficult to wrap one's head around. :00-:37, :47-:57, 1:13-1:35, 2:30-2:47, 2:58-3:10, 3:24.5-4:21, 4:38-5:08, 5:15-5:36, 6:23-6:52, 6:59-7:22.5, 7:53-8:00, 8:03-8:06 = 268 seconds or 51.73% overt source usage I'm sure there's other times one could count, I'm just IDing what I could to justify my vote re: acceptable source usage. Great concept, strong sound. IMO, it's mixed too quietly and it could have a cleaner less muddy sound, but those aren't huge issues for me, and the arrangement easily carries it. Nice job, Woody, and congrats on attempting a new submission with what was clearly a lot of personal growth under your belt since the last time you tried. Very impressive! YES

Mixing of the lead guitar at :47 makes no sense being so far back and practically swallowed into the soundscape. Electrosynths from 2:17-2:33 were super bootleg, but at least they're decently produced. The organ from 2:48-3:00 was also pretty fake, but used in a way where the sound just came off as stylistic. Less so for the fakey strings from 1:52-2:01, but those were very brief. The ending from 3:48-4:21 with the repeating bars and fadeout went on so long that it ended up hurting the finish and feeling too much like a cut-and-paste way to end it. It could have faded to 0 around 4:07 and saved it from becoming overlong. Spirited and expansive metal adaptation that easily clears the bar on that level, IMO. No idea why the encoding's so low at 128kbps, though unsure how much better this would sound at 192kbps or above. I'm going to say YES on arrangement, with a tentative NO on production/mixing. Right now, too many parts are blending together at similar levels and panning, so something's gotta be tweaked and improved there. We'll see if any of the musician Js agree, but bolstering some of the faker-sounding parts (e.g. strings at 1:52, synths at 2:17) would be nice, and figuring out how to restore some higher frequencies and get the overall mixing sounding more balanced would be great. Nice job so far, Marc, and would love to see this posted in some form. Don't forget to submit a WAV or at least a 192kbps MP3 (rather than 128kbps). NO (resubmit)

Cool original opening. Very comfortable fusion of the source tunes alongside Peter's original composition ideas working countermelodically and adding texture. Such great execution here, I love it. Timing it out to show Super Metroid's Brinstar theme as the primary source. :31.5-:55, 1:03.75-2:28.5 (SM); 2:29-2:47, 2:50.5-3:35 (M); 3:38.5-4:21 (SM); 4:21-4:39.5 (M); 4:42-5:01 (both) Happy to give this feedback of course, but man, what's this track doing on the panel? One could argue it's overlong, but I enjoyed it; the sounds, textures, and density of the piece morph and evolve over time. Nice work, Peter! YES

OK, slowed things down and went for some cinematic Avengers-like orchestration, you've got my attention. The mixing's not great in the sense that many of the parts other than the booming drums seemed to bleed/mud together into an indistinct mass (e.g. 2:13-2:29), but the overall presentation was strong and the arrangement included tons of dynamic contrast and creative variations on the source theme. :02.5-:09, :11.5-:18, :21-:34, 1:08.5-1:56, 2:02.5-2:10.75, 2:13-2:29 (adapting rhythm of opening backing pattern), 2:34.5-4:20 Just timed it out to make sure I was hearing the "Mute City" usage in most of the arrangement and was not being swayed by the unique concept. The brass articulations from 3:04-3:42 were a low point for me, because the samples were pretty exposed, but I'll live given the relative strengths of everything else. The way things faded after the final note at 4:24 wasn't completely abrupt, but it was still too fast and that final note should have trailed off for longer to make it sit like a real resolution. The mixing's not ideal, so I could understand NOs on production and wanting another pass at it to clean it up. That said, on the seesaw of what works vs. what doesn't, this tilts toward YES. Creative arrangement with less than ideal mixing, but that's all good with me. Very cool approach, Vijay! YES

Yeah, this is much more a Thriller arrangement/cover than being a soundalike, and it's also at the expense of referencing the GnG source. Loved when things focused more heaily on GnG from 2:19-on. I enjoy it in a vacuum, but it's still too referential to Thriller for our guidelines, so MindWanderer's quotation of the Standards is accurately applied here. NO Override

It's a pretty bread-and-butter genre adaptation to start, but hits hard and personalizes the sound well. I liked the original writing ideas introduced at :47 as well as 1:04 and 1:20; subtle things that nicely helped put your own stamps on this treatment of the theme. Cool liberal variations of the melody 1:36 followed by some original vamping afterward. Bro, just great ideas throughout the middle to make this unique while surrounding by the more conservative parts at the beginning and end. Nice energy throughout! YES

Source tune is fuckin' sick, I love this kind of stuff; great tone, nice oomph to the percussive and bass elements. With this arrangement, there's a softness to the instrumentation that's majorly holding this back. Texturally, this is much emptier than it should be once things kick in at :27; I'm sure the musician Js can better elaborate on it. The drums just have no oomph at all, the padding-style background flourishes first used around :45 are too quiet, and while there's several parts active, the track still sounds hollow throughout. The sequenced guitar is serviceable though exposed, but it had a strong tone and was an overall solid sound to it; ensuring the instrumentation around it adequately fills up the soundscape would help the sampled guitar not be as exposed. When the organ takes over at 1:53, it almost sounds like the other instrumentation was globally reduced in volume. Maybe it's actually the guitar levels dropping after the change from the chorus back to the verse at 1:35; maybe my ears are playing tricks on me and it's just the bassline levels sounding more subdued, but something's going on there and the organ sounds way too loud and stapled on top of the other, much quieter instrumentation. It's less of an issue when the organ first appears at :45 though, but the organ does occupy a lot of the space at the expense of other instrumentation having the full impact. It may seem like I'm shortchanging the substance of the arrangement itself; it's a strong concept that carries over the energy of the original while also comfortably integrating some original writing ideas and vamping to personalize the approach. My sole issue is a pretty significant one though, i.e. properly fleshing out the soundscape, which may also involve changing how various parts are mixed relative to one another. Happy to have another more knowledgeable (read: actually knowledgeable) judge expand upon that POV. Keep at it, Chris; lots of promise here. Even if this isn't the track that would get you posted, you're well on your way with output like this. NO (resubmit)

Odd little source tune; cool, but odd composition for the first 30 seconds before settling into a nice reprise. Lots of tension in the original, so I'm curious to see if it's retained in the arrangement. String articulations were definitely too exposed as very fake in the intro from :30-:42; obviously, everything here's sequenced and there are similar realism issues with the brass and vox as well, then the piano sounding pretty bad with its cameo from 1:49-1:50. Aside from those issues, the instrumentation was serviceable and above the quality bar; the smaller detail/realism issues do needlessly ding this though. Structurally, this could stand apart more from the original vis-a-vis our arrangement/interpretation standards; this does have a somewhat different tone than the source because it's not beat-driven, and there's additive orchestration to help flesh this out and present somewhat different texturally, but this orchestration nonetheless doesn't feel interpretive enough when you listen side-by-side with the source. It's a solid orchestral cover approach, but I'd love to hear some additional ideas (either interpretive or wholly original) to help complement this. That said, the concept just seems to be a straightforward orchestration approach and there's nothing inherently wrong with that, it just isn't a fit with the level of interpretation we're looking for. Good stuff, Chris, and if you're willing to revisit this, I'm sure you could add to or expand on this in a way that could get it above OCR's bar. No matter what, looking forward to what you've got cooking in the future. NO (resubmit)