Jivemaster

As the others, I am a fan of your execution of this piece. I enjoyed your choice and placement of sounds and the ambient textures. Your arrangement is the main thing in need of work here as far as an OCR submission goes - your track felt like it was beginning to build up to something more. It would've been great to hear you take things further and experiment with the source with some original ideas. As it stands, there doesn't feel like there's enough substantial content here for submission. If you consider submitting an extended version for OCR, I'm all ears. As far as it stands however, it's a NO

Definitely a solid take on the original source tune, you've certainly made the song much more listenable and it's great to hear people take a chance on a track like this which wouldn't normally see a remix. Your intro is a nice orchestral/synth modernisation of the original and really sets the mood for the rest of the track. Your arrangement while not straying too much from the original has some decent original ideas peppered through. A couple of problems for me. First off your panning. I found that the harpichord and your other lead parts tend to lean towards the left or right hand side and should really be centred considering not much else occupies the centre of the mix. There are some other instruments in there (including a bass) that occasionally sit left or right, which IMO makes the mix feel off balance in the stereo spectrum. The strings in your mix sound robotic in places, and do get a bit messy during the mix's outro. I don't mind the samples used, but it would be great if these were humanised a bit so that they fit in better. I'll echo Emu' and OA's sentiments that your hats are a bit loud, but if re-balanced against your leads, they should fit in fine. Your production otherwise is pretty decent. Certainly a good start and I'm quite a fan of this mix, but I think this requires some more polish in the mixing department before it gets a green light. For me personally, if you re-evaluate some of your panning decisions, you'd be in a pretty good place. NO

Your mix comes in at a relatively a good start. Bit crushed percussion and a choir set the mood, with an accompanying synth apprego of the original source bringing that spy like tension. Your choice of sounds here are serviceable, although some of your synth lines would benefit greatly from some tweaking over time to keep them fresh. Other parts like your strings are very rigid and feel unnatural and could do with some humanisation. Arrangement wise, there is a bit to be done here - your mix is close to a straight up cover of the original track, with not much original material thrown in. Your drums also stood out as being repetitive, playing close to the same pattern throughout the entire track when they're present. In comparison to the other track elements, the drums in your mix are quite low in volume, and sound somewhat muffled compared to the surrounding instruments. As far as the mixing goes for the other parts of your track, things are pretty clear, good job with that. Your main challenge with this mix really is varying up your arrangement from the original, and adding in something new of your own creation. At present this is too straight up cover like for OCR. If you do decide to make some changes and resub, remember we need an MP3 and not a WAV file for submission. As a side note, this also may fall outside of the acceptable source material guidelines due to the bond theme being fairly prominent for half the track (which I did note the original source contains), but we'll see what the others say. NO

I mostly enjoyed the sounds you used here. I will say some like the trance synth were are a bit too "shiny" for my taste (too much high end). This made the track feel a bit unbalanced in the sense there was more happening in the top than the low end, but after a few listens your bass was compensating fairly well. Your kick is noticeably strong which is needed for a mix like this, and from a mixing standpoint all of your parts are audible. Your biggest issue here is the arrangement is very repeaty - which in the mix's current state, doesn't justify the length. When things break down and build up again, the same ideas are used like your synth drops and white noise tails. I would've really liked to hear you play around with some different ideas when transitioning between your sections as you go along. This along with some general synth tweaking over time would break the repeating nature of the track. Definitely a good start but this needs more development. NO

A punchy mix with a lot of energy. Nice use of alternate panning of voice samples and accompanying synths. I also particularly enjoyed the switch of pacing of your drum arrangement between different areas, which I think this track really needed, as the energy is high throughout and it would've been easy to fall into the trap of assaulting the ears right through to the end of the mix. I would've liked to hear some additional breakdown sections for the duration to give the listener a rest, but it's certainly not a dealbreaker here. I'm with Chimpz regarding the bass levels. The bass is very big, occupies a good chunk of the dynamic range and is noticeably boomy - especially in the less busy sections. It's the main thing that sticks out for me on the production side of things and it would've been great to hear this toned down a bit. It drew me close to a borderline vote but we'll just leave it as a YES

Dreamy intro. Production is decent enough, each of your parts are fairly audible. Kristina is right - this is pretty smack bang in the midst of Enya territory. Nice pacing, initially your arrangement progresses well considering you don't have too many instruments across the mix, but things started to feel a bit samey for me by the time we reached the end. If it was any longer, I wouldn't been much more hesitant in passing this. I would've really liked to hear some more variation and a further explorative original take on the source, but as it stands I think things are ok. YES

Nice mix of instruments and your mix certainly oozes creativity on a production level, where your instruments share pan positions and focus. I'm quite a fan of panning provided it's done well, and this is a mix which exemplifies that. Arrangement wise this definitely feels a bit coverish - there are the obligatory extra notes here and there, but not any major original sections or deeper exploration of the source that would've been nice to hear here, considering the amount of effort elsewhere. Overall though, a very nice organic mix with a lot of character. YES

A good foundation to a remix, but there is more work to be done. Your arrangement is very cover like, and tends to repeat its ideas, especially when we hit the halfway point. Mixing wise, most of the elements across your mix are missing high frequencies except your lead synth and percussion. Your organ and rhythm guitars in particular. When the lead synth leaves, the hats and snare are really the only part occupying the top end, which makes the entire package sound a little bottom heavy. Your track is also quite dry and doesn't have much discernible ambience/reverb going on. A great way to get some ideas on how to elaborate on your arrangement and get some mixing tips would be to hit the workshop here in the forum and throw around ideas with the community. For now as the mix stands, it's a NO

Freakin awesome take on the original. Great tones. I enjoy the genre choice, the performance of the various parts, and the production makes everything feel it's in the same physical space. I can't really fault anything here except for the duration, which has already been raised by everyone else. Don't do this to us - as heart breaking as it is, a slightly more extensive arrangement is needed for OCR. Get back to us with this and you're gold. NO (borderline)

Some interesting ideas in your mix. You don't waste any time and jump straight in with a thick intro. Personally, I would've liked to have heard a slightly more progressed introduction on this one, but it's not a deal breaker in its own right. I would say the mixing is mostly passable. I found the combined power of the guitars and lead a bit overpowering to the other elements, which crowded portions of the mix (and even more so when the brass and lead hit), but most portions were relatively audible. The lead portion at 1:14 sounded a bit weird to me too, I couldn't quite make out the instrument playing, and it was very low in volume compared to the other elements. I would've like this lead to have been more pronounced. The big one for me here that I'm not sure about is arrangement of the drums and the guitar playing. I'm personally finding it difficult to get into the off beat snare portions across the mix - they feel really out of place to me when coupled with the guitar's rhythm, almost as if parts in the song are stopping and starting at different times. They feel like they are combatting each other instead of working together. I also felt the guitar playing could have been tighter, which may have contributed to the former problem. I'm not sure what amount of work would be required to deal with this, but these issues are niggling at me, and I don't feel I can pass this yet. NO

Lovely production, and an enjoyable arrangement. The sections feel cohesive, and fit together nicely. I can certainly hear parts of the original source in your track, but not in all the areas that have been identified above. On first listen I thought there were good chunks of source littered throughout, however saying that I'm not going to go against the source math above, because it did feel like a lose 50/50 to me. The source usage ratio is always a tough one - this is one of those times where it'd would've been safer for your track to lean on the side of caution and make more clear use of verbatim source here and there to break any doubts on source usage being met. At this point, I agree with the others that source is really the key element holding this back (unless proven otherwise of course), which is a shame as this is a great mix deserving posting. NO

First off, I like your production here, things sound quite polished. I'm by no means an orchestral expert, but your instrumentation sounded believable to me. Source usage is clear and you have made some good choices in your writing to make the original far more adventurous. Your arrangement starts off quite similar to the original, although I enjoy your version a lot more. Some nice errie thuds, and then we begin to venture into a mix of cinematic proportions (at least for a few moments). Your build up is incredible, but feels like an introduction to something. I can't help but want your ideas explored further, as this does feel like an extended intro to me. Pretty much everything else fits, if there could be some additional meat in the middle of this mix, it'd be a green light. NO

Hard hitting track. I like the ideas here, you've taken the original to another level. Colourful chirpy synth usage, appregos, lots of sound changes. I feel you're in a pretty good place here with your instrumentation. Production is solid and I don't have any major crits here. I like what has been done, decent use of stereo space, mixing would have been difficult in this one due to all the different sounds. Good job with that. On the arrangement side, the track is quite long, and while entertaining doesn't change up too much on an arrangement level. I'm verging towards the camp wanting a breakdown in the middle. Exiting with a tail of white noise and slowly building the layers up again would be a great and relatively easy way to build up the hype again. When a track is at a constant level of hype, it can begin to lose its impact over time. This also tends to make things sound a little samey as the track progresses, even when different things are actually happening in your arrangement. The mix is not bad by any means, but I feel even a short interlude would make an enormous difference here. NO (borderline)

I like the soundscape you have created across this mix. I enjoy it when a remixer challenges themselves by working with material using a method of execution that isn't completely predictable. I like to hear people taking chances. The arabic flute playing is very nice, but it certainly feels robotic. A great way to add realism here is to drop a note here and there so the "performer" is not on an infinite breath. The melody line self is nice, but does conflict with your backing elements on some notes. If you feel something is clashing, it doesn't hurt to slightly deviate from the source tune to reduce dissonance - be it changes to the main melody or any backing elements that require it. I think your backing elements could do with some general humanisation so they fit in better across the board. I felt the arrangement was a bit samey most of the way through too, mainly because it maintained the same pace, and never really broke down and built up again. It would've been nice to year a bit of variation there. Production is relatively solid, and I didn't have any major deal breaking issues with your mixing. I think this is a solid foundation to build from, you could go far with this one with some more work. NO

I enjoyed your take on this track, very original. The production displayed here is decent enough. The main faults are shared between the arrangement and mixing. The portion that begins around 1:08 is quite low in volume, which I understand is purposeful, but it goes on a bit too long at that volume. Things don't pick up much at all before the change around 2:04, where things soon get quiet again. I think this mix has a lot going for it, given the concept and the execution. If half the track wasn't based off overly quiet sections I would've been mostly inclined to passing this, despite some of slightly rigid orchestral sequencing. I think you just need to work on the arrangement here a little more, and use the silent sections more sparingly, which would consequently give them more impact. NO

Nice take on the original, and largely authentic to the chosen genre. Your intro set things up nicely and got me into the grove straight away, but as the track goes on we hear some repeated sounds and ideas which begin to bring a dampener on the track over time, which is a shame because you're pretty much there as far as the overall feel of the mix goes. I really enjoy your piano work. I'm not as bothered by the guitar as the others, but it is still noticeable that it's the same thing each time. Even playing the guitar melody with different timing in between the notes would suffice. I think the mix is decent as is, but would be a shame to pass it now when it could be made substantially better with a little variation thrown in. NO

Not a huge fan here of the extreme panning in the intro either, at least for this duration. It'd be more acceptable if the portion was shorter or was balanced with something on the other side. You could possibly use a reverb or delay line panned to the other ear for those parts. The mixing here is ok, although the rhythm parts do drown out the drums pretty significantly. I'd really like to hear the drums a bit louder in comparison to the other elements. The bass is also regulated to being a discernible rumble at times. You will always have this issue with heavy guitars, but it would've been nice to hear the bass more. I found the arrangement here ok, if a little safe. The last 3rd of the track began to feel samey to me, and the lack of a lead made some sections feel like they went on longer than they needed to. The combination of these factors tips me to the No camp. The mix is pretty good overall, but there are a couple challenges I'd like to see overcome before we can see this one through. NO

Great work here. Believable expressive instrumentation and solid detail in arrangement. I don't really have anything to critique with this, the track is solid. I'm on board with the others about adding more volume if need be. YES

I'm not an expert of the Chrono soundtrack, but I think I'm hearing enough source usage here. The lead really makes you forget about some of the other elements (in a good way), due to the face meltingness of the almost nonstop solo. Great production, everything has its place. Nice use of breakdowns with varied ideas each time. I wish the bass was a little louder cause there's some nice little licks in there, but I think this is good to go. Great playing, definitely brings the feels. YES

I think your track has a lot going for it, you have a great arrangement. I didn't have too many problems with the patches/samples used - of course they could be better (I particularly thought the sound of the horns damped the realism for me somewhat), but overall I think your sounds are serviceable. Your mix is fairly well balanced, you have used your stereo space fairly well and things aren't too boomy in the low end. As the other judges have stated, the main place where the mix is lacking is the humanisation department. When you build a mix predominantly on patches/samples of real instruments, you'll always run into the problem of matching that with a realistic performance. I believe you have a solid foundation here to build off, and really all this needs is some humanisation across the board, being tweaks to note start and end times, note triggers, and a bit of a play with velocities. I think that would satisfy most of us here. NO

Nice take on the original. Kick is loud as it should be. I actually kind of liked your fade in transition after leaving the intro, not many people transition with that (but best used sparingly). I'm finding your synths quite generic here - not always a bad thing, but you need to tweak the sound over time to maintain interest if you go this route (like playing with cutoff and resonance for example). The main bass synth that hits at 0:53 and is used for most of the mix takes up a lot of your sonic space, drowning out most other parts, including your lead. It could do with a volume adjustment or some EQ dips to give the other parts space. Arrangement wise I think more can be done - by the last third of the mix I began to hear some recycled elements/ideas. It would be great to hear you explore some more ideas here. Not bad so far, but arrangement above all else needs work. NO

The first thing that I'm hearing in this mix is quite a bit of crunch, like the track is smashing against master bus compression or a hard limiter at too strong a level. This is most apparent when listening to the quivering of the crash where it wobbles with no room to move, and in the harder snare hits. I'm away from my audio analysis software atm, but if this is confirmed, we'd certainly need a version mastered less hot than this to post. This aside, I had a few problems with the mix having a bit too much bass across the board, where parts were verging of the brink of cloudiness in the low end. It's not a deal breaker on its own, but it is messing with the mixes clarity. Arrangement wise I like what you've done here, things are interesting for the most part and you have broken the soundscape up nicely with varied instrumentation. While the mastering is where it is (at least fore me), I cannot green light this. If it was mastered less hot so the mix could breathe, I'd be on board. For now it's a NO

Intro and first section are off to a great start. I enjoyed your choices of synths, dropping things in and out to play different parts. It made things feel fresh when initially listening. I felt the growly synth just after the intro took up a bit too much of your sonic space and drowned out a lot of the other elements playing at that time. I understand it's a growling synth - there to catch focus, but the sections featuring it could have done with some peeling back of your other instrument layers. I also felt each of the parts felt a little thin (possibly due to EQ or multiband compression), but nothing I would go back and re mix the track for. The sax was great addition near the end of the mix, it felt like a nice breakdown built to change the mood of the track... and then things kinda ended. I had to check the clock just to confirm for myself how long the track went for. Being surprised that a song is already over is often a good thing, as it means you've left the listener wanting something more. But I did feel it ended a bit too quickly. All of the above wouldn't be as much of a problem if the arrangement did more to the original source tune, which is where I think this is lacking. I'd love to see some more of you in this mix than just a few extra notes here and there, as the other judges have already noted. You're awfully close though IMO. A bit more you, perhaps a stronger outro, and you're good. NO (borderline)

Great mix production wise. Solid choice of instruments and excellent balancing between parts. Everything is clear. The arrangement on this is interesting, if a bit short. I enjoyed the changes here but felt it could've gone longer, which would have given more opportunities to add in verbatim source and put the source usage argument to rest. I'm borderline Yes on this one. There is a lot of original interpretation of the main melody here - maybe a little too much, but I think this interpretation is near enough to the original to be considered source based. Regardless if this passes, this is truly an impressive first mix, nice work. YES (borderline)

Really enjoy the instrumentation and variation in the arrangement of this mix. Many transitions with nice fills and interludes throughout. The mix is quite minimalistic in nature in a lot of portions, but you have been creative enough to keep the track progression running strong without needing to overcrowd the mix. That said, my main gripe is that I felt the song went on a bit too long to be sustained by the ideas being used. It didn't do this to the point of overstaying its welcome, but it was verging on it for me. Production is solid with good use of stereo space, and everything can be heard across the mix. YES