Emunator   Judges ⚖️

Proph is right - there's a lot of great blocks laid out here - the synth selection, melodies and countermelodies, and overall arrangement are all pretty tightly executed! There is absolutely a passable remix in here, but the production is holding it back. First and foremost, the drums are lacking presence and punch, and thus leave the soundscape feeling underwhelming and lacking dynamics. I would go back to the drawing board on the drum mix to make sure that you've left enough room for your percussion and set the proper volume levels so that everything is audible. My second suggestion is to look at the different instruments in your mix and make sure you don't have any wild frequencies creating spiky resonances, or low-end buildup muddying the soundscape. For example, at 1:40, there's a strong resonance that comes in until about 1:59, and returns throughout the track. I think this might be from the guitar, but something is very obviously peaking above the rest of the instruments and needs to be tamed with some EQ. The other lead synths occasionally have similar issues - this can eat up your space in the mix and generally make it unpleasant to listen to. If you're not already, utilize a free analyzer plugin like SPAN or a paramedtric EQ which can show you where frequencies are peaking. Also check to make sure that your instruments don't have unnecessary frequency buildup in the bass frequencies (below 200hz) since these are going to severely conflict with your kick and bass and make them less distinct. These are the points I would start with to polish the mix, but this is by no means exhaustive. This would be a great candidate to hash out with the community in our Workshop forum or the Discord - we host weekly live WIP reviews on Discord as well that offer an opportunity to get into the weeds on mixing/mastering/production issues like the ones I'm hearing in your song. The good news is that the fundamentals are strong - so keep at it, we'd love to hear this one back! NO (resubmit)

Lovely arrangement and performance, it _feels_ very jnWake to me <3 This source feels like it moves in a way that reflects how you navigate chord changes and flowing melody lines in your other arrangements, so this is an obvious fit! Pretty much co-signing Joe's vote here - there's way too much spikyness in the low end of the piano that's eating up headroom and honestly sounds like it's being distorted when it hits the compressor. Is there some analog emulation going on or some saturation involved here? I don't think I love the effect it's having. If you want, I can take a stab at cleaning this up if you can send me MIDI! I have the same piano library you used, but I think some Soothe 2 could go a long way to reduce some of the sharp spikes on the low end of the piano. But if not, I do think that a gentle shelf on the low end of the piano to reduce that low end dominance, or maybe changing the microphone position in the library so that it's slightly further away, would be a good starting point. It sounds miniscule, but for a solo piano piece, especially one played this way, you're doing a disservice to your performance to have the left hand part taking up so much of the spotlight. I think this will sound a lot better with some cleanup! NO (resubmit!)

Just chiming in to mention that I've sent a finished mix of Resident Evil 4's Save Room theme to VQ, so that's at least one track down for this project! Excited to hear what everyone else cooks up ☺️

Well, last time I dinged this for lacking verve... I hear the verve now! It's been so long that I forgot what the original one sounded like, but I can't imagine levying the same criticism against the version I'm hearing now. It's really got a lot of spunk and personality. There's a solid groove in place, the synths and drums all feel like they belong to the same space, and everything feels quite warm and cohesive. I still find the arrangement and part writing a little weird, for lack of a better word, but thanks to the overhaul on the mixdown, it feels more like an intentional kind of weird, like I'd expect from a modern-day Earthbound recreation. Surprisingly clean result for how loud it's mastered - I'd ease up on the master limiter in the future, I'm hearing just a touch of crunch here but everything is very clearly audible. Nitpick - I think you've got some low-mid buildup due to some of the synths and bass peaking in some of the same ranges, so I'd be careful to not let that range get out of control. Great job guys, this is ready for primetime! YES

Not really listening with a super critical ear right now, but in case I forget to come back to this, I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed this! It started off feeling like a pretty straightforward cover but there was a lot of depth in the harmonies and buildup as things went along, I really enjoyed what you did with a theme that is very near and dear to my heart. Good to see you around again and I hope this one comes through the Judges Panel when you're ready for it :)

These are just going to be first impressions from voting, so take this all with a huge grain of salt! The City Is a Warm, Dead Waste: I love the variety here! It reminds me of Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin in some ways, it doesn't surprise me to see a few Team Whip alumni on this one! Guitars are kickass here, and there's a monster amount of synth variety too. There's a solid amount of cohesion with the sounds chosen here, though I'm somewhat less sold on the arrangement itself - lots of great ideas but I think it'll take me some time to grasp where the arrangement is actually taking me. I think there's some reverb fine-tuning to do here, a lot of the elements feel overly boomy, which takes away some of the bite from elements like the drums. Other than drums/guitar, I actually surprisingly can't pinpoint individual elements contributed by each artist - there's a lot of sounds that feel like they could have come from anyone, which is pretty neat! 🏆Duel of the Shifting Sands: Ooohhh, 8-bit plus! I'm not surprised at all by that, but I'm not used to hearing it with all the extra bits and bobs, and I gotta say... I dig it! A lot. I think there's untapped potential to process the chiptune elements a little more dynamically, but overall, the blend works pretty damn well. 3:02, hell yeah! This is a great way to drive this home. I was on the fence about which track would get my vote, but this section really clinched it for me. Overall, I saw a huge amount of potential and TONS of great ideas thrown out from both entries in this duel, but this track feels like like it has the edge in terms of focus and cohesion. 🏆Seven Fists Under the Sakura Tree: Motherfucker, you guys are not playing around. This hits IMMEDIATELY off the rip. That fill at 1:06, excuuuuse me? I think this has a bit of the same "washiness" that I noted in "Warm, Dead Waste" where there's just a little bit less clarity to the mix than I would like, but I don't think the track suffers too much as a result. Ok, and now we go into something completely different at the end that somehow also works? I was trying to write out my highlights as I went along, and I just couldn't keep up. The sound choices, writing, production... y'all are crazy for this one. This is going directly onto my Smash Bros. playlist. This is going to be hard to beat. Sakura Wa Karenai: Ok, so that's how you're gonna play this. The production on here is IMMACULATE right off the jump, I can hear some strong DJ Mokram influence on the world instruments, then some psytrance beats come in and I immediately know who's at the helm. The production on here feels a little tighter, but I'm waiting for the moments like Team Rage had in their entry that REALLY knocked me off my feet. Oh, there's 2:06 - that's more like what I'm talking about, but it still feels like you're holding back on the energy levels. We've still got time to go though, so we'll see where this goes. 2:42 really jumped out at me in a completely different way, but it was a powerful moment with the entrance of vocals and that beautiful FM piano. The sound design in this section is off the hook. OH BABY SHUFFLE RHYTHMS now we're cooking. Ahhh, this matchup is TOUGH. There's so many brilliant ideas here and there's actually quite a bit of connective tissue to bridge them all together, but will say that the energy management falls just a little short of my hopes. The mix is incredibly clean, from the instrumentation to the mixing/mastering, but it feels like there was room to push the intensity further. I still loved this a ton, and you gave the other track a serious run for their money, but Seven Fists takes the crown in this matchup for me. 🏆Only Trust Your Mix, Techniques Will Never Help You: this title sounds like something I would hear in an incomprehensible Youtube Short production tutorial, I'm curious what the title alludes to! This starts off with some pretty straightforward but catchy, bright rock that reminds me of old Sonic Adventure music, the lead performances are top-notch. I don't feel like this track was as ambitious as the other ones from Team Rage in terms of ideas, but it feels like perhaps the most cohesively-executed of the three, and just because it's more focused, doesn't mean that it's any less impactful. The seagulls are a nice touch too, reminds me even more of Sonic Adventure when we hit that part. Crazy breakdown at the end, this was really good! You Make the Sun Shine (In My Heart): Aww, so cute! This is definitely the hardest matchup so far just by virtue of the fact that each entry were clearly going for different things. The other two matchups, although executed very differently, ended up going for relatively similar energy, but this is the kind of diametrically-opposed matchup I love to see from GSM. The lead vocals are confident and fit the bill really nicely - some slightly awkward moments where the lyrics and the melodic phrasing don't perfectly sync up, but that's to be expected on a short timeline when you have to add your own lyrics to the equation. Across the board, I'm hearing brilliant synth riffs and excellent sound choices. I love the vocal harmonies that I assume colorado weeks contributed? 3:25 onward to the end of the song is when everything really clicked for me <3 The area where this struggles for me is the mixdown - it doesn't feel like it's quite baked yet, specifically in terms of relative volume levels. The lead doesn't always feel like the lead, and there's certain elements (like the synth bass at 2:40-ish, for example) that feel inexplicably louder than everything else. There's also several elements that don't quite feel glued together with appropriate level of bus compression or reverb to really give this a sense of place. When both tracks are full of great ideas but in totally different ways, I need to fall back to execution, and in this case, I have to trust the mix from Team Rage. There's no dead air this round, every team brought the heat in terms of concepts and energy! Execution was a little more of a mixed bag, ultimately I feel like any of these matchups could have been swayed with different levels of polish on the execution, which means that you all hit the mark in terms of blending the sources well. I am well familiar with the time crunch element of GSM, and it does tend to play out tougher for more ambitious, multi-genre concepts that will always take longer to polish. Even though I ended up generally voting for the tracks that felt tighter and maybe took a few less stylistic risks, it's not for lack of enjoyment of the more ambitious ones! If you didn't get my vote here, it just means that I thought the song needed a little more time in the oven - everyone did excellent work and I enjoyed it a lot!

Add this to the list of source material that I only know because of Dwelling of Duels, though my familiarity with it dates back all the way to 2006's Silent Hill month when ansgaros covered the same song. Let's see what you can do with it! Starts with some excellent mood-setting ambiance, I can tell we're going to be in this for the long haul. Wow, this arrangement goes places. I was attempting to play-by-play this at first but I got so caught up in the journey that I had to just let it play out. Seph called out Bowie as a strong parallel, and I agree with that completely, but I'll also throw out Opeth as another reference - this feels like it lives in the same stylistic realm as their more prog-oriented songs like Burden. I can't stress enough how much I loved this arrangement, I think it's one of your best. Joe brought up some really well-informed critiques about the vocal mixing, and I agree at every step. However, if I was looking at this in a bubble, I don't think the vocal harshness is enough to make me say "if the artist was unable to make any fixes, this should not be posted on the site." There's an abundance of things you get right here, and the vocals are audible and clear, and there's much more to the arrangement than just that element. I would LOVE to hear some of Joe's critiques implemented, but I'd be hard pressed to make a case that it should be held back in its current form, either. YES (but maybe we can get some tweaks to the vocal mix if it's not too much trouble? no worries if not)

I vaguely recall hearing the first version from Dwelling of Duels but didn't listen with the most critical of ears. I'm approaching this resubmitted version with fresh ears. I love anything from the original Mario Party soundtrack, and you captured and enhanced the vibe really well! The mix definitely feels rough around the edges in its current form, which I think stems from multiple different issues. From the jump, the balance between percussion feels off, and this feeling persists through the rest of the song. The hi-hats, and later the shakers, along with the hand percussion (bongos? congas?) feel substantially louder in the mix than everything else, and they don't feel like they exist in a shared space with the kit drums. I can appreciate that this may be a stylistic decision to an extent when considering things like reverb levels and tone, but the volume balance feels off at a base level and that feels distracting. The percussion and performance, however, is great - I don't think there's any problems here that can't be fixed with some re-balancing. This is harder to articulate without seeing the project file, but I feel like the kick and bass are crunching a little too hard together. This might be a combination of overcompression or sub-optimal attack settings on the compressors, too much saturation on the kick/bass, or timing issues where the kick and bass are too synced up on the transients and are causing spikes when both play at the same time. As a nitpick, 1:58 feels like we get a brief moment where the kick and bass stumble and have a sloppy rhythm, but it bounces back quickly. I love the guitar tone and performance here, it adds a ton of life and movement to the piece that I think is essential to keeping a song at this tempo from feeling plodding. The marimba also contributes to this positively when it appears, with the lone exception of 2:35, which just doesn't work well as such an exposed lead instrument from a writing level. Unfortunately, the electric piano in the intro and later at 1:53 is underwhelming - it feels notably programmed and stiff compared to the other instruments around it and is also extremely quiet in the mix. This unfortunately does not start the track with a positive impression and feels like a weak link overall. I'm not totally sold on the execution here, though the concept is surely one that is well-suited for OCR. If this doesn't pass in its current form, I'm 100% certain you can get it there - at the very least, tightening up the balance on the percussive elements and cleaning up the e. piano would be enough to push this over the bar for me, but I think there's other things you can do to bring out even more of the potential here. NO (resubmit)

This one starts off with some classic Omnisphere bells and synths that gel together flawlessly. Everything is buttery smooth about the pads, bass, and melodic elements. I can see how each of the decisions you made in the reworking process contribute to this feeling. Then, around the 1 minute mark, you slide in some incredibly fun shuffle rhythms that feels completely different from the intro, but goes down smooth all the same. No chaser needed :) The only beef I have here is the piercing high-end percussion lines, I'd love to hear that (or, not hear that?) tamped down with some high-shelf action. I also would have liked to hear a little more sound design/effects to lead into the final resolution at the end of the song, but it already works well enough as-is, so that's more of a "I would have done this differently" approach. Nice work! YES

Yerp - pretty much what my two esteemed colleagues above said. It's a wonderful concept and I have no argument that you didn't achieve exactly what you set out to do with this track. It's a brilliant demonstration of the concept of phasing and it works perfectly with this source material, but from a sound design and arrangement development perspective, this is too abstract for our catalog. I could see this concept laying the melodic groundwork for a remix that IS viable here. If you were game for that, it would be sublime - I'm sure of it. If not, this piece already does exactly what it needs to do, it would just need some sonic expansion beyond what's presented here. NO

Huh, I thought that I voted on this when it was on the panel. I definitely listened to it many times, and really enjoyed its simplicity. It leans into all the elements that I enjoy most about your music, and the extra context from the writeup makes it feel all the more special. Lovely work!

Oooohh, the opening phasing is a treat for the ears on headphones, this is starting off strong. Excellent mood setting and sound choices across the board, it was very immersive. The guitar tone is especially good here and, as I've noted on your previous submissions, is a highlight of the track, but the synths aren't slouching either. I think this is one of your most effective sound palettes that I've heard to date! When we hit 1:07, some of the problems with the mix jump front and center because you've left the problematic elements completely exposed, and once I hear them in isolation, the distracting effect persists through the whole song. I'm talking about the room reverb on the kick and snare, and how you can hear the reverb on every single hit. It ends up feeling like the reverb is its own percussive element that offsets the groove, rather than blending it with the rest of the instruments like reverb should be doing. I also agree with the drum compression issues noted by XPRTNovice, and would also agree that this critique applies to the bassline just as much. It's hard to tell precisely what's going on, but the bass presence in the song feels skewed toward the transient, and conversely feels deficient in the actual bass frequency range. It ends up with neither of those instruments doing what you really want them to do in the mix - maintain the pulse of the song and fill out the low frequency spectrum. The transitions are ambitious and, unfortunately, seem to miss the mark more often than they hit. There's already been some good advice shared to button those up with drum fills or effects, and I second that wholeheartedly. Oftentimes, I think the issue is simply that you cut off the leading elements from the previous section too quickly as you jump to the next section, and it would help glue the parts together better if you let those sustain for longer as you transition between time sigs. I'm not the expert on mixed-meter so I'll mostly defer to the other judges on the specifics here, but it's definitely an issue I felt before I even got into analysis mode. Ultimately, you've crafted a really ambitious, creative arrangement using some of your best-designed synths to date, but some of the foundational elements are letting this down. The issues with the drum/bass mixing and the transitions, unfortunately, are spread across nearly the whole track so it's harder to handwave their impact as isolated nitpicks. I do think these elements need some TLC before this reaches its full potential. NO (resubmit)

This is not at ALL what I was expecting after what I've heard from your other submissions - I'm impressed to hear you step out of your comfort zone like this and execute so well on the first pass. Overall, this was a solid effort and I can see why this has split the panel. This starts off with some very immersive orchestral string swells and a well-used vocal sample to draw the listener in. No issues so far, this sounds great. To touch briefly on the arrangement, I think jnWake correctly identified that it's close to the source, though I don't think I would have immediately noticed that myself because of how much you transformed the original through different instrumentation and flourishes. I think this is a definite pass on the arrangement front. The elephant in the room is the flute - sampling yourself into a virtual instrument is a bold choice, and although it certainly lends this piece a certain "vintage rompler" quality (I've affectionately referred to this as "Playstation 1 orchestra" in the past) there's an uncanny valley feeling that we're left with that unfortunately takes me out of the experience. It's not quite synthetic enough to feel intentional, but not hitting the mark for realism on the faster runs and embellishments, or the vibrato, to pass as realistic. I could forgive the vibrato, but honestly, the grace notes sound really awkward and immersion-breaking. Would it be within your capability to record those runs directly from your flute so it captures the natural legato between notes that help blend those effects more smoothly? I think even if you went for the sampled approach for the lead instruments, patching those runs in with a live-performed sample would be a huge improvement. The mixing is also a concern - there's no MAJOR missteps, but there's some consistent volume imbalances that, if dialed in by a decibel or two, would blend the piece a lot better. The flute is loud, and I think there's probably some of the saturation automation you mentioned that's causing the flute to crunch even harder. The end result is that the flute feels abrasive in the mix when it should be feeling more smooth, so I would ease up on that effect slightly. Other than that, I agree with the balance suggestions jnWake called out. This is really close, but because the flute takes such a central role in the piece, the rest of the track would need to be really ironclad to make me willing to forgive the issues present with the flute, and it's unfortunately not tight enough to tip the scales for me. Really cool approach though, and it was great to hear you try something so different from your usual fare! NO (borderline/resubmit)

Proph has the right call on this based on our source usage guidelines, but this was wickedly enjoyable. "Yami Yugi, big piece up on the neck" killed me, love that that line made it into the chorus so I got to hear it multiple times 🤣Great delivery, great lyricism, excellent sample flip and production on the beat. Because the source usage is based entirely around direct samples from the source and isn't terribly recognizable as a Wario Ware arrangement in this form, this isn't the kind of submission we're looking for. It's a shame because I thoroughly loved listening to this, and Brad is right - if not on OCR, this will find a home elsewhere online and people will love it. If you guys are able to put together something that doesn't rely on direct sampled audio from the original game and has more substantive development on the instrumental side, I'd personally love to hear it. NO

This is a no-brainer closeout. This source material adapts PERFECTLY to this small ensemble format, which allows both the rhythmic and melodic elements of Hollow Bastion to shine equally. The performances are tight, the mixing gives it a lush sense of space while still retaining a feeling of intimacy. I'm not as picky of a listener as Brad is, so if the technical performance aspects pass his bar, it solidly leaps over my layman's expectations as well! YES