Jivemaster

Great instrumentation. Love all the bits. Those guitars, dat sax. You've done a lot with the source tune(s) here, although I'm hearing a lot more dead theme over rebel army. Very emotive playing the whole way through. Even when things get full each element is clear and audible. Some great changes over time, keeping things fresh the whole way through. Grasping at straws, I thought the choir portion near the end from 3:45 could've been a little clearer (considering the clarity across the rest of the track), but not a major problem. Not sure why this wasn't a direct post. No matter. YES

Nice work with this. Larry is right that the leads and rhythm guitar have some frequency clash, but it's not major - these are definitely audible enough for me. You have quite a clear production here my friends. Source was a problem for me in the original mix, I have no problems with this one, it's very clear to me. Awww YES

Firstly, we're not here to make you feel like quitting. Our advice is to help strengthen your current and future productions (regardless if you pass or not). Don't give up. The fact that you have some people in the Yes camp already shows you're on the road to success. A lot has already been said. Some of the things that struck me the most in your track: -Your arrangement is quite interesting, lots of little changes of notes and sounds throughout, and song length feels right. Nice work. -Your clappy snare starts out ok, but gets buried as more elements come in. I think it needs more body and/or more volume behind it so it doesn't get lost in the mix. Some EQ on the low end should do it. Layering another snare can also work. -Your drum patterns are very loop like - your kick, snare and hats are almost the same the whole way through the mix, almost like they're just along for the ride. Consider adding some variation to these patterns as you have with your other instruments. A great way of varying your drum patterns is to make them travel with your music - you have a bunch of off-beat groovy moments throughout that you could hit your drums in time to. -I thought your gated strings were cool but a bit too thick frequency wise and very dry. Consider a dip in their low-end EQ and a touch of reverb so they fit into the mix better. These are the points that stand out for me. If you could address the above issues (snare, drum patterns, gated strings), you're on your way to success. You're pretty close with this one. NO (please resub)

Smooth track, you manage to keep things fairly interesting most of the way through with minimal instrumentation. I enjoyed your use of effects during breakdowns, and your off-beat hits during your fills are woven in nicely. I thought the game SFX were ok but not particularly needed for this track, your interpretation of the source stood fine on its own. Arrangement wise, things are fairly basic, but you seem to have enough changes and slight variations to keep things interesting. Most elements in the track are very much to the grid across your production. This stiffness does take some of the life out of your mix, but it's not a major problem. Your biggest problem IMO is the amount of reverb across the track. Kristina has already mentioned the track could benefit from a HPF across the reverb channel. I would definitely recommend this, if just to bring clarity to the overall production side of things, as you have a bit of clash in the low end frequencies (especially when the song fills out). Also consider side-chaining your reverb (Larry always does this), which is an effective way of making your overall reverb level duck the more elements come into the mix - a useful technique. If these reverb/low-end production points are attended to, the mix is passable to me. NO (please resub)

Great guitar tones, nice playing. Mixing is ok, but could be clearer for sure - particularly the snare which sometimes gets lost in the mix almost in its entirety at times (especially at 1:39 onwards). I understand big overpowering guitars go hand in hand with the genre, but this doesn't mean other elements have to suffer. Giving your drums more clarity would really strengthen the mix. I was a little disappointed in the lack of variation in the arrangement. I think some lead guitar every now and then would help build more interest as the track progresses. I'm not saying this is an absolute must, but if I had heard this as a WIP that would've been my first suggestion. I'm not against the abrupt ending as much as some the others - these kinds of tracks lend themselves to a cut off ending, but building up more at the end before your cut off would be more impactful. Just another suggestion. Overall I'm going to lean towards the NO camp for this one. The arrangement to me is somewhat lacking in interest, but the main thing is the mixing. I think your mixing needs some tweaks to bring clarity to the mix before we can let it through. You might be able to achieve this by running a slight high-pass filter across tthe guitars, and make a dip in the guitar mids to let the snare through. I'm more inclined to be on board if things are more audible. NO (please resub)

When I first listened to this I wasn't a big fan of the left panning of a lot of the instruments in the intro, to the point where I had to open the file in a wave editor to ensure nothing was wrong with my system. This has slightly grown on me though and I can appreciate the design concept behind this to make things slowly fill out the stereo space, and I do love the arrangement in the intro. I just would have preferred the percussion more central in the stereo space in that intro portion (it seems to fill out later on in the mix). Your instrument choices are solid, and I enjoy the orchestral arrangement of the source tune for the most part. Your mixing is decent enough - I can make out the individual elements quite well and there doesn't seem to be any major frequency clashes or overlap. Kristina has raised a good point with the drums being quite repetitive. I noticed the same as the track went along, and it's something that I'd like to see you explore more. They're almost on a repeated one bar loop. I do occasionally hear a different percussive element come in every now and then, but it doesn't happen often. I would really like to see some variation to the drums here. If we can see some variance in the percussion, I'm in. NO (please resub)

Great instrumentation in your mix. You have some nice talent here with them 'tars. Your arrangement is interesting, you've created an eventful acoustic/metal journey. The distortion guitar sections were done fairly well. I noticed there is almost no instrument fulfilling the role of the bass in these sections, with the guitars responsible for the low end. I don't want to say this can't be done, but it felt a little weird to me (I found my mind adding in a bassline mentally at times). Your drums could do with a little more humanisation but they weren't a huge issue for me as the production quality here is quite decent. I'm with the others that source is your biggest issue with this track and probably the one thing truly holding it back. Tying your mix here to the source is tough in places. It was easier to pick out of your metal sections. I really don't think it would be difficult to bring the melody out more in the sections that don't have it. A tiny lead line is all you really need to brings these sections into line. If we can get more source integration this is good to go. NO (please resub)

I'm liking the growling textures in your mix - some really nice sound exploration happening here. It's really easy for a mix like this to get muddy and things to become inaudible. I think you've done a fairly decent job here in mixing things into their own space. I thought the snare was a little weak and could do with some more body, but nothing else major stuck out to me. Arrangement wise I think more needs to be done with your track. As has already been highlighted, this really relies on the main riff of the source and uses it continuously without many/any changes to it. I think this contributes to things sounding fairly similar all the way through. I think this is a great concept, but needs more exploration of the source, particularly for this track length. NO (please resub)

Strong drums and nice use of stereo space. Straight up I agree with Wes that this is lacking fairly strongly in the bass department, except in those parts where there's a strong synth presence. I'd like to see this upped a bit. Apart from this I don't have any major production crits. Each instrument has its place, and reverb gives a nice sense of space. Arrangement wise your sources are fitting together well. There are some nice changes here, the change to half time works well to break things down a bit so they can be built up again. I think there is some room for development/exploration as far as original elements go in this mix. I'd love to see you take them further, but I'm not going to push it if others don't. I will say that this mix is playing it pretty safe from beginning to end. As a side note I think the last note fadeout cuts off unintentionally a bit soon. Might need to extend that ending marker an extra bar or so and reprint. Pretty close one for me. In the end the lack of bass low end requires a resub from me. NO (borderline)

Nice mix with a lot original soloing and riffage throughout. I'm completely leveraging off the source breakdowns of my fellow judges to give source usage a pass. As I often say in these situations - try and hit a home run with source usage to take the debate of it completely off the table. My biggest gripe with your mix is the overall production gets a bit too hot causing it to get crunchy in some parts. Specifically, the orch hits seem to fold a bit under that limiter, and the crash cymbals often waver when they hit that dynamic ceiling. I'm not going to hold the mix back for it, but I think tracks such as this would benefit from more headroom in the mastering department. The strong arrangement makes this easier to overlook. YES

I haven't heard the earlier incarnations of this mix, but I largely like what I hear here. You have a ton of energy and some great guitar playing including some tasty riffage. I mostly enjoy your piano runs, they add to the mayhem in a melodic manner. There are a few things to consider mixing wise: -I think the track would benefit from less compression overall. Whether that's dialling back the master bus comp a little bit or tweaking each individual track's compression is something to play with, but we want to try and unglue each part a bit more to make them breathe. -Your drums are quite audible and seem to punch through well, but are a little crunchy. Not really a bad crunch *but* when you have heaps of dirty guitar sections, your distortions will blur together. It's a fine balance to strike for sure. You will get more separation on the individual elements if you dial back some of your drive (guitars are fine IMO). Using some further EQ to avoid frequency overlap may be required but dialling back drive a little will go a long way to helping your mix breathe in the mid section. -You have a few moments in the track where there are a few too many things going on. You manage these bits surprisingly well considering the amount of stuff going on, but you have to be some kind of wizard to fit the amount of things you have going on in a single section and be able to hear them all. I enjoy your arrangement here - all the melodies and elements you have coming in and out are a strength to this mix, but you will have a lot more success clarity wise if you consider dropping the volume of certain unimportant elements when other things come in *or* even better - consider dropping a part or two altogether when something else enters. This will free up much needed frequency space for the new part to play in. I actually think this is super close. You biggest problem now is crowding and some overlap of distortion tone. NO (borderline)

Interesting mix. Smooth intro. The amount of content and change ups make this mix hugely varied and a lot of fun to listen to from beginning to end. In particular, I enjoy the changes when the mix drops to half time and back to full speed, giving everything a nice change of pace. You have also done some excellent drum work as far as your arrangement goes - lots of different change ups and different hits used along the way. I had to give the source a listen a few times and A/B between to fully comprehend your source usage, but it seems ok to me. My analysis: -The mixing feels a little off on some of the instruments. Some of the leads when they come in are a lot louder and more powerful than the other elements and tend to drown things out. As we go along, the drums get lost fairly consistently, which is a shame because they have some great sequencing to them. Some of your leads have a bit too much low end. A HPF and some volume tweaks may be all you need to fix this. -Sometimes your drums sound a little hollow. EQ'ing in some lows/lower-mids would strengthen these elements. -Your kick drum would benefit from being louder. In the busier sections it gets lost. The removal of some of the low end from the leads as mentioned above may help the kick stand out more. Play it by ear. -The extreme panning on the snares didn't quite work for me, but you do alternate their placement across the mix. It's not a major crit. -Your changes between different sections don't feel too abrupt to me, but could be a little smoother. You do however make nice use of sound effects, tape stops, stutters and white noise to break things down and build up again. -Some of the high frequencies across the mix could be tamed just a little (on the leads and hats more than anything). They're not piercing but could be smoothed out to be easier on the ear. Overall your mix while not overly long, is certainly a journey. I feel your mixing could definitely be improved more than anything else, keeping your drums front and centre, and carving your leads around them would help immensely. There isn't enough clarity (particularly in the more frantic sections) to approve this yet. NO

Many thanks to Kristina for the breakdown, it helped me immensely. I'll admit I had some trouble hearing the source in your mix at times. While you scrape through with enough usage, I would encourage you in future mixes to hit a home run with source to prevent us from having to get out the calculator. Length wise you also scrape through and thats ok, however I felt it ended before things could get interesting. In particular I was itching for a breakdown moment or something similar to build back up on. I felt this mix got to "the drop" a bit too quickly and never let up. For this kind of electronic genre you really need to play around a bit more with the arrangement to really make them want that chorus. For example, use of white noise drops and opening/closing filters on your synths could be effective in building up that much needed anticipation. Your synth sounds are ok. I found your bends to be creative but a bit overused. You did some nice riffing here and there. The patches did become a bit bland after a while, likely because they don't really evolve too much sonically. In this kind of genre it pays to evolve your patches a bit with some modulation, and/or drop some instruments in and out to keep things fresh. Even throwing a different lead in here and there can change things up. I have no huge production gripes. I like the concept but I think this needs more work. You have your main chorus but you need to build up to things more. NO

Boss intro bruh. I'm liking the concept of this very much - it's like a salsa/island vibe. A great original take on the source tune. You're not playing it safe here which is what I like to see - artists getting out of the comfort zone and exploring different genres. This first thing I'm having trouble with is the piano is super rigid - locked to grid tightly, and hitting what seems to be the same velocity over and over. This kind of style would really benefit from piano which is more organic and emotive as far as going to soft and hard velocities. Loosen it up, I think it'll fit a lot better. Guitar for me was great. The timing change in that part fit ok to me, but the guitar and piano could certainly "talk" and feed off each other better. This comes back to the piano rigidness I was talking about above. The guitar is also a lot quieter than the other elements - it feels separated from everything else and is drowned out a bit. Making it front and centre with some more body would make it work better. Things got a bit chaotic near the end at 2:20, breaking the mix for me. I think you percussion works with your theme, but needs to be more humanised by (again) experimenting with changing velocities and perhaps mixing the individual hits up a bit more. I believe this concept can work if you're willing to stick at it. The arrangement seems ok but your mixing and instrumentation definitely need to be revisited. This is one of those styles where the parts really need that genuine human feel for the mix to work. Too robotic and the vibe is lost. NO (please resub)

Some nice ideas in this mix. Your source is upfront and noticeable. I think the arrangement across the track could do with being a little more interesting as far as changes and different elements coming in/out, however for me the majority of the problems sit with the mixing and instrumentation. My thoughts: -Definitely in the same camp as my main gal Chimpz. The brass is definitely letting down this mix. While not very realistic, the main issue is it's very loud and overpowering to the other elements, and some notes during the theme sound out of tune (or at least clashy with other notes). -The bass is squelchy and kind of evolving which is nice, but has a bit too much high end bite which is clashing with your other elements. Some EQ and/or a LPF will help tame this. I also noticed it sounded a bit "farty" in places, easing back of the resonance should solve that. -The apprego starting at 2:00 sounds a little hollow sonically, and becomes inaudible as more elements come in. Perhaps peel some of the layers back or alter the patch to give it more body and stand out more. I'd also be great if the notes there varied a little more. -Drums could do with some work to make them less loop like, adding in some extra fills here and there would be the ticket. Definitely a good start, the concepts are there but we need to refine the parts to make them sit better together. NO

There are some nice ideas in this mix. I like your choice of instruments. Production quality is decent, the mix is loud and all the parts are mostly audible. The only patches that could do with some improvement in my opinion are your synth choices, there are very static sounding - playing with some modulation would work wonders. Some parts could also do with more separation using a bit of EQ, but nothing major is needed. Two things come to mind that ultimately let this mix down: -Piano patch is ok but feels like the same velocity the entire way through the piece. This is exacerbated by the fact that the piano is a major part of the mix, almost playing the entire way though. A piano driven lead really needs to be humanised, changing in velocity over time, loosening the quantisation would be really beneficial too. -The song's elements feel very loopy in nature. You do change things as the song progresses, but the lack of note/velocity/modulation changes make each part of each section of the mix feel very similar. I think the main arrangement is interesting enough, but to make it work each instrument needs more variation. You've represented the source nicely. To me your mix feels like it's at a point where the major part of the arrangement is done and it is now time to get into each set of bars and give the parts more life. NO (please resub)

Moody tracks can be incredibly tricky - you can easily fall into the trap of the original source tune being lost, or things can become too dissonant to be enjoyable. As far as your track goes, I feel you have walked that fine line and hit the mark on multiple counts. I was initially worried when I couldn't hear any source tune for the first half minute or so, but once various source elements entered, my worries were lifted for the most part. While some of the sounds could be better (some parts such as the piano don't sound as realistic velocity/quantisation wise compared to the other instruments), the sum of all elements creates an interesting soundscape, and you have placed your mark on the source in a different way to your previous work, which is always a great thing IMO. To me this mix is a great example of a remixer taking the unsafe route to a remix and managing to pull it off. It would have been very tempting/easy to go for a more predictable heavy rock style mix for this source, so it's refreshing to hear a more creative slant on the original here. Production wise everything feels pretty solid to me. When the different elements come in and out I found the panning to be sometimes a little off for my taste (too far out or too close to centre), but nothing I would mark the track down on. Overall I find this mix to be a very interesting experiment. YES

I enjoyed this track. Your mix is very creative with a lot of changes in instrumentation to keep things fresh. Orchestral elements, guitars, winds, vocal samples, synthage, piano - the textures blend into each other well and the transitions are very smooth and seamless. Your performances of each of these elements is done realistically and nothing stood out as fake. The main concerns for me: I thought the mix was glued together a little too much, causing some elements to not be as clear as others. In particular, some of the low end elements lack clarity. This may also be due to what Chimp has mentioned with regards to the lack of the lower frequencies. There were also a few isolated moments where the mix got crunchy like the limiter was slightly overloading. However I'm not going to hold the mix back for these points - the overall quality of the production is decent and the arrangement is very interesting doing the original source a lot of justice. Just some things to think about for future productions. YES

Well what a year! Firstly, I wanted to pop in and express my gratitude for all the community support you guys have given me this year, including your support for my debut remix album the Green Hill Sessions which dropped a few months ago. It was a great response and has motivated me to carry forward with some future project ideas. If you haven't picked up the album yet, it is now available at more outlets. Give yourself the gift of the Green Hill Sessions this Christmas! • Loudr: http://ldr.fm/HBUPF • iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/green-hill-sessions/id935029152?uo=4 • Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/music/album/Jivemaster_Green_Hill_Sessions?id=By6hetoal5kmdhsu66r4bcwpvou • Amazon MP3: http://www.amazon.com/Green-Hill-Sessions-Jivemaster/dp/B00P1K3IGC

I like where this track is going. Production is quite good, your guitar is audible which is good. I'm happy with source usage. As my fellow judges have already mentioned, your main synth lead needs work. Volume wise, it's lost in the mix. From a lead perspective, I think a more interesting tone is needed. I would actually consider changing this to something a bit fuller and play with cutoff modulation rather than solely relying on portamento to evolve the sound. My second suggestion is to vary the second half of the track a bit more, because at present it sounds fairly similar to the first half. You could take the opportunity to drop some kind of breakdown in there, or switch the lead up, something to keep things varied. If you can do this, we're closer to the mark. NO (please resub)

Pretty torn on this one. I think the main issue holding this back has already been covered - it sounds too much like an upgrade of the original tune as opposed to an rearrangement. There is some original stuff in here (the second half of your track is stronger than the first half in this regard), but I think we need a bit more you to get this past. I honestly don't think it'll take much - some original interpretation of the source via licks or some soloing would work very well. I'm not as concerned with the instrumentation because when you're remixing chiptune in chiptune, you're always going to have some problems with your instruments sounding like upgrades of the original due to the limited waveforms available, but it couldn't hurt to switch up some sounds along the way. Overall this is a great track that belongs on OCR, we just need some more you in there to get through. But lets see what Larry says. NO (borderline)

This is a tough one for me because I enjoy the arrangement and performances very much. Your musical choices here make for a more folky take on the original source tune. I agree with my mates in judgedom that the sum of performances causes the mix to feel too jumbled. The percussive elements for me in particular didn't quite feel tight enough. Is each performance on its own track? I ask this because if so would it be possible to run a smidgen of audio quantisation over the parts or even some selective nudging to get things where they need to be? IMO getting some collective tightness across the parts is the major thing to fix this mix. The secondary issue which has already been mentioned are some clashy notes. These shouldn't be too hard to correct either, there aren't many. If you're able to do this I'm on board. NO (please resub)

Wickid intro bruh. Like those vocal samples. I don't mind the direction of this track overall, but there are some improvements that should be made to polish this up. Let me begin. -When your snare drops, it's loud, but I quite enjoy the sample and the pattern. Your second snare isn't as loud, but still sticks out. I'm of the opinion that these snares can work - what I would be doing first is dropping their levels to fit more in the mix. I would also add some reverb to them, particularly the second snare. My advice would be something with a slightly longer tail than usual to fit the ambience you have going on, possibly a gated reverb if you have it. -The hat is very resonant and should be tamed with EQ. -I think your synth lead playing the main melody should be louder. The drums could be overpowering it but I think it should still stick out a bit more even with your drum adjustments. I also think the filter on it could be opened a bit as it lacks a lot of higher frequencies. Something cool would be if you played with the filter over time to evolve the sound. -Your glitching at 1:43 is cool but overused. My advice is to leave more gaps (don't glitch continuously), and do it a little more rhythmically. A little trick is to think how you want it to sound and then beatbox it with your mouth, record that and then try to imitate that glitching in your DAW. I would also consider running the glitching through a separate bus and let some instruments through unglitched (sounds like you're stuttering the entire master bus here). -Your dubstep at 2:26 is not a bad starting point - IMO the glitching here is more creative and rhythmic than your earlier section. You do have some issues here though, primarily with the instrumentation. You have a very similar synth the whole way through, doing very similar modulation. Explore your wubs a bit more by throwing in some longer growls rather than bunching together lots of quick wubs. I would also recommend dropping in another lead or two here to alternate with, which is common for the genre. Finally, you should consider dropping a separate drum kit in for this section to give it more that break from the rest of the track feel. -As you close out, you give us some more glitching, which is almost overdoing it again, but I think it's ok. One further thing I would mention is to back-off on the amount of tape stops as they are easily audible and can become stale quickly. -I noticed your track doesn't quite get a chance to fade out, may need to extend that end marker another couple bars. -Throughout the track, your bass is quite shy. I would consider dropping a different bass in from the 1:02 mark which is thicker and has more body, to drive the track forward. For me, source usage is ok and arrangement is interesting enough - it's mainly your production and instrumentation that need some work. Have a visit of the production points above, I think you can improve this mix and get it past the line with a bit more effort. NO

Mike has advised he has a remastered version of his track coming in a couple days, perhaps we should hold off til he subs that version. EDIT: new version subbed. Link above.

Lovely piano work. Lack of length hurts this the most, preventing the mix from truly escaping cover territory. Everything is well created and presented. The part where things pick up at 1:12 is the most enjoyable bit, quite emotive. I think the mix needs a little more length and more you in it to cement a Yes. Super close with this one. NO (borderline)