Emunator

@Liontamer Great feedback, I re-mixed the song and scraped out some of the mud and I think we're in better shape now. Check it out!

Artist Name: Emunator, Hotline Sehwani Credits: Emunator: Arrangement, production, keys, mixing Hotline Sehwani: Arrangement, production, original concept, mastering Comments: Emunator: This track is one of four collaborations that Hotline Sehwani and I did for "Elden Ring: Tarnished Shadows," an album of lo-fi/chill arrangements from the Elden Ring soundtrack to celebrate the launch of the Shadows of Erdtree DLC. After a successful collaboration on our Undertale lo-fi release, we immediately jumped back in and got to work on some more. He sent me four initial demos with melodic ideas and rough instrumentation, which I then fleshed out into full songs, and passed back to Hotline for mastering. It was an extremely smooth collab process that yielded results that I'm super proud of! I hope you check out our three other collabs and the rest of the project, too! With this project, I wanted to explore the more acoustic side of lo-fi music, fusing traditional chillhop beats with a more melancholy, gothic sound palette. With Final Battle particularly, it was a challenge to transform such bombastic source material into something that respected the spirit of the original while still being something you could throw on as study music. I had to approach mixing differently than I would normally for an orchestral track, where you can confidently slam your peaks to the max.. I had to be a lot more delicate with the approach here, relying more on rhythmic variation to bring energy rather than massive sweeping orchestral statements. Arrangement-wise, we kept it short and sweet, with a rug-pull ending that is meant to mirror the experience of fighting in Elden Ring, where no matter how confident you are, you are always only one hit away from sudden death. Time to hit replay and try the battle again ;) Hotline Sehwani: Our goal for "The Final Battle" cover was to transform the triumphant battle theme into a more mellow and somber vibe. The song begins with subtle wind chimes, capturing the calm before the storm, and ends in a similar fashion. To listen to the album now on your favorite platform: https://music.hotlinesehwani.com/erts

Artist Name: The Vodoú Queen *RE-SUBMISSION* **Other Contributors / Credits: Zack Parrish - Mastering ALL INFO PERTAINING TO THE PREVIOUS SUBMISSION (Including the Original Remix from 'An OverClocked Christmas, v.16', the Old Version Submitted / Rejection Decision, Source Breakdown / Write-Up, and the Workshopping Process): # Hello all. . . This... I do not know how to properly express the journey and catharsis brought about in re-doing this remix over the lengthy span of time since its rejection (hell, since its inception)--however, my hope is that the differences between this version and the rejected version are as clear as night and day. It was...something, for sure. I am proud, no matter the decision, for doing a great deal of this venture solo, and learning so many new things every step of the way. And I pray for it, even though I am not a very religious person, (spiritual, yes, because damn did I feel the Spiritual Muse of Music flow through me in the last stretches of this...when, honestly, I was about to give up and throw it on the 'unsalvageable' pile.) Nothing more to say. Let Blizzard Buffalo be the Noble Creature of Snow he has always been; (yes, this is one of the very first MMX-related OCR remixes I heard of way back in the day [quite a few from Maverick Rising, I might add], and it has stuck with me so much to current day, it's possibly the impetus for creating my remix in the first place, outside of just loving the mood setting and tone of the source ever since a kid playing through X3 for the first > hundredth time.) I humbly am re-submitting this. Thank you for your time and consideration in re-judging it. Big shout out to the Sages, DJ Mokram, Emunator, and to all those who've helped me along the way for this finale, Judges included. ♥ --- REFINED LIST OF FOCUSED ON REFERENCES / INFLUENCES FOR THE REMIX: "Carol of the Bells" / "Sarajevo / Christmas Eve" by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, "Swan Lake" & "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy (The Nutcracker Suite)" by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and; "Fantaisie-Impromptu (Op. 66)" and Other Collections by Frédéric Chopin [Other Ideas and Leitmotif as References for Sound Design and Part-Writing are in the Workshop Link] Games & Sources 'The Frozen City (Blizzard Buffalo Stage Theme)' MEGA MAN X3 SOUND COLLECTION; Track 10 - Blizzard Buffalo (Frozen Buffalio) Stage; Artist(s): Kinuyo Yamashita; Release Date: 24 July 2018; Label: Capcom Sound Team

Yup, I recognize the backing loop elements from the source - what you did sounds great, and I do hear the efforts made to chop up and personalize it, but it's not what we're looking for in terms of arrangement here at OCRemix. I'm sure this sort of thing could have an audience on Youtube or Soundcloud, but it's just not what we're looking for. Sorry! NO

OK, so I feel like I haven't heard this track yet, but I think this reflects a lot of the criticism I've given on your other synth-driven music lately so I hope you don't find this too surprising when you read this. I think the synth choices here are pretty bland and uninspired. The guitar and trumpet do add a lot of spice to the mix, and the arrangement is plenty creative and varied, but the synth sounds are just... there? :( I'm not sure what sort of vibe the introduction is supposed to be setting, especially with the awkward attack/release timing on the synth keys. Kris said this but I'll reiterate because this is exactly the issue: "The spacey pad has a similar issue; it is a sound that develops over time, and with each new note it retriggers, giving an awkward stop/start effect." The sine lead is similarly not really giving me anything to latch onto, and there's nothing in the way of expression to make it stand out as a lead instrument in the same way that TSori's trumpet does. The gradual variations in attack and decay, vibrato, and articulation is just not present. The next lead synth has a bit more harmonic character but still isn't doing much for me in terms of the way it's played or programmed. Even if you're writing with synths, think about the way it would sound on an equivalent instrument, like a saxophone or a violin. It would sound awkward without any sort of legato flow between your notes if you articulated everything as a marcato, for example, or played a violin with absolutely no vibrato (or, in this case, a completely consistent vibrato on every note) and it's going to sound similarly awkward if you articulate a synth instrument like that. The guitar is mega-quiet and the tone is fine but not really compensating for the issues I noted with the synths, either. I think there's room for this to stand out more in the mix and make more of a statement, although the performance is great and fits the bill just fine. Bass and drums are mixed weirdly too - it feels like the synth bassline doesn't have enough movement to it. Chimpazilla also touched on sidechaining and how this will really help your track groove, even with a static 1/8th note bassline and simple drums. Currently, the kick and the bass are sitting on top of each other. I can't tell for certain, but I also feel like the bass patch itself is a little too thick for this genre, and it's muddying up the low-end further. 1:38 also feels like a straight-up sour note, like Larry said. Definitely fix that as well as the drum fill timing at 2:07, it's off-beat. All this to say, this arrangement is great and I really have no notes to give on the conceptual front. I'm focusing on the negatives a lot, and I hope you know that I really do enjoy listening to this! I know we've already talked 1:1 about some of these issues and how to mitigate them, so I suspect that if this goes to a resubmission, you'll have a lot of tools in your belt to address it, but I don't feel like this is up to the bar at this point. NO (resubmit)

Quick co-sign from my fellow judges - this is a great start and nails the vibes you want from a Lavender Town remix, but there's just not enough substance yet. With such a slow pace and only 2:20 of runtime, you haven't given yourself enough of a runway for this song to take off and fully develop. There's absolutely a strong foundation with the sounds you've picked out, but you need to do more with the pieces you've laid down in terms of additional writing/countermelodies/fills, and in general finding ways to evolve the sound throughout the arrangement. The workshop would be a great place to take this as you develop further - you've got a great ear, now keep expanding what you can do with it! NO

Easily one of my all-time favorite sources, so I'm always eager to hear what folks have done with it. The panning in the intro is indeed awkward - I think it's okay to more intense panning in a mix but it's almost always going to sound awkward when there's nothing balancing it out in the other ear. It's not as big of a deal when the rest of the instrumentation kicks in, but you should really consider panning those elements closer to the center at least for the intro, and maybe reining them in more during the rest of the track. There's a lot of really cool sounds at play here - the big booming kick drums, the creepy mellotrons and bells... I love the sound design here. Around 2 minutes in, we get into even more interesting territory, but marred by some mixing issues that the other judges above me have correctly identified. Although you do a lot to add personalization to this arrangement via your sound design and percussive elements, I don't think there was quite enough done to the actual part writing to distinguish it from the original or keep it from becoming too repetitive. Some slight variations in the presentation of the melody would go a long way here - you don't have to go overboard with it, but the looping piano is just not holding my interest, considering how exposed and robotic the programming is. Apply some of that killer sound design creativity that you used for your bass and percussion elements to the piano as well! I really love the vibe here and wanted to pass this but it feels like it's at least one iteration away from the OCR bar. I have no doubt you can get it there! If you're having trouble, our Workshop forums are great for feedback or you can pop into the OCR Discord Server anytime - we even host weekly WIP reviews where community members can get involved with your track on an individualized basis and help you improve your craft. Hope to see you there! NO (resubmit!)

Immediately I'm hearing some frequency clashing between the choir pads and everything else - this is a pervasive issue throughout the first few minutes of the song where the low-mids of your choir are occupying the same space as the rest of your instruments and nothing is willing to cede any ground to the other, so it's coming across as severely muddy. When you strip back the choir and lean into your more traditional atmospheric black metal palette, things click better, but there's also times where the lead melody is so buried, such as the Zanarkand melody, that I have to strain to hear it. Throughout the entire 4th minute of the song, the choir is back and muddying up the soundscape - I would selectively EQ the choir in certain sections to reduce the lower frequencies when you also have the heavy guitars playing. The programming of the choir and lead guitar leaves a bit to be desired, they are both very blocky and noticeably fake, which is fine when they are buried in an ensemble, but the whole intro felt awkward because of how stiff the timing was on the choir. This also feels like an issue during the outro. As a side note, I wish the last choir note sustained a little bit longer, it peters out unceremoniously right now. There's so much ambition here, I'd say this is your most bold arrangement to date, and the fusion of sources is honestly perfect... so I'd really love to hear this polished up, but prophetik is right - it's crumbling under the weight of its own ambition right now, and the mixing and sequencing is not always keeping up, and too many times I find that you've got conflicting ideas in the writing and instrumentation that are not working great with one another. I'd love to hear a second attempt at this! NO (resubmit!)

Shoutouts to the Zelda series for really encouraging people to make the most of these 15 second sources - gems like this are all over the place in the series and I love hearing what people can do with them! This is some classic Gaspode action right from the start - bright, crispy synths with some varied electro-industrial percussion loops and a meaty bassline. The big chord stabs give this more of a synthwave feel. The breathy synth lead at 1:45 was certainly a sound design highlight, which then leads into a really cool syncopated rhythm at 2:20 that also stood out to me. We're barely halfway through and you've already explored so many possible avenues to expand on the source, and there's still a brand new synth brass lead, some low piano bass notes, and a whole keychange, . None of this feels off the beaten path for you, but the way you brought it all together still feels ambitious and fresh. No notes, this is great stuff Gaspode! YES

This is definitely a huge upgrade from your previous submissions, so nice work on that! You should be proud of the rapid pace of improvement. I like the vibe you've set here, and generally feel like you picked all the right instruments to accomplish this vision. It's simple, but I can see a world where this is over the bar! There are a few lingering issues I'm still picking up on. First and foremost, the melodica is too loud in the mix, and honestly, I can't say I'm a fan of the tone either. It feels weirdly balanced to the mid frequencies without a lot of high end bite, but it still feels shrill because of how loud it is. This could be partially resolved with EQ balance but prophetik's suggestion of trying to switch up the instruments, or perhaps layer it in with another lead (I've personally layered a harmonica and melodica together before to thicken up the tone and found it to be a good option!) might be a better route. Overall, I'm hearing a lot of distortion on certain peaks, especially in the left ear. This tells me that you're running some of your instruments too loud into your master chain, and the mastering plugin just can't keep up when multiple instruments peak on the beat. Bring back the volume level of everything a little bit and gradually reintroduce some of that gain during the mastering process to avoid this - here's a great tutorial on how to do this in FL Studio that I've found tremendously helpful: The lead performance on some of the instruments comes across as overly simplistic and lacking in expression. You've done some variations on velocity and timing but there's a lack of things like grace notes in your performance that makes it feel like you're sticking too much to the grid. I'm assuming these melodies are written in with a mouse in the piano roll, so if you have access to a MIDI controller and have some basic skills with playing it, that could worth exploring to immediately introduce more of that human element to your instruments. Otherwise, I'd suggest revisiting your MIDI sequencing to see where you can add some variation to the writing to make it sound more humanized. If you listen to Dovakhiin in Jamaica, you can hear the difference - even though the songs are at a similar laid-back tempo without a lot of complexity going on, there's subtle things going on with each instrument to make it feel more alive and groovy. This is surprisingly close, but I think there's still a couple areas that need improving before this is ready to post. You should definitely consider bringing this to one of our Workshop Office Hours in the discord with the Sages if this ends up being rejected, there's definite potential here! NO (resubmit)

I'm going to put this one out of its misery quickly, since I know the twins are already looking to revisit this. The mixdown and especially the mastering feels incomplete and doesn't do justice to your fantastic arrangement, I know you guys can nail it better than this. See you on the other side! NO (resubmit)

PrototypeRaptor's take on this same source is an all-time classic, so let's see what you've done with it... We're treading a lot through the same 4-on-the-floor hard electro territory but you've definitely managed to bring something unique and groovy to the table. A little less hard-hitting, a little more vintage synth design. Unfortunately, the repetition at the end is too wholesale to pass the smell test - there's plenty of room to add some more substantial variation to the structure here, especially when the overall track length is so short - you've gotta squeeze a little more out of the concept here. Chimpazilla broke it down perfectly! NO (resubmit)

Any track with this many borderline votes already is going to be a challenge, so I'm going to do my best to approach this objectively without the weight of my own expectations or previous feedback I've given on Queen's other tracks. We start off with a pretty good soundscape but the mixing is very puzzling - I don't feel like there's much substance in the low end throughout much of the track outside of the kick drums, or the basses that are present are so low that they actually don't come through at all to the human ear. Make sure that you're selecting your basses strategically based on which patches work with the range that you're writing in, and keep an eye on where your bass fundamental is falling. Adding in upper harmonics by layering in other patches (being careful to cut out the lower frequencies from all but your sub, so you don't encounter phase cancellation issues) or by adding saturation to your existing bass can also help that bass come through audibly. Human hearing can span from 20Hz-20kHz, but in reality if your bass only exists down in those lowest registers, or it's not mixed properly, it's not going to be heard by most listeners on most setups, and I think that's what's happening here. The stereo spread is also problematic, and I'm definitely in agreement with Liontamer that it's sort of intangible and probably can't be diagnosed without looking at your project file. That said, it feels imbalanced at multiple points, and I also suspect that there might be bass elements like your kick/synths/snares that are panned off to the side. As a general rule of thumb, you want your low end presence to be pretty much mono, and the higher up the frequency range you go, the more you can pan to the sides without causing issues. This is where you'll need to use your tools to analyze what's going on on your bus and master level to see if things are generally balanced - currently, it feels like they're not. I also need to echo the overall balance issues that I've brought up on previous submissions and I'll say again here - you have so many great ideas but you can't have them all fighting for attention and retain that same impact. 2:55 is a great example of this - you have so much going on and so many effects that the big supersaw has to be cranked up so loud just to cut through, and that's not really the approach you want to take. 4:48 also suffers from this - some of your synths are awash with so much reverb and effects, not to mention being a heavily-harmonic synth from the start, that they leave no room for anything else. If you compare this to melodic dubstep tracks by artists like Seven Lions, for example, they use supersaws to great effect, but there's almost nothing else going on when those synths are present. Dropping out other elements through gain reduction, cutting layers, or sidechain ducking to make room for what you really want to highlight is a much better move than simply increasing the volume on your synths even further. All that said, your arrangement is really good here. There's a ton of compelling effects and sounds, and like many of your other pieces, you have a wealth of great ideas that you brought to the table. I actually find the arrangement to be pretty coherent and strong, even compared to your usual tracks - the use of chiptune sounds is well integrated, and the drum writing is strong too. On a fundamental level, if I'm not looking at production quality, this is a pass every day of the week, but the overall listening experience feels unpolished in a way that ultimately has a negative impact on my listening experience. I want to stress this - this one is absolutely salvageable and I think would take significantly less work to polish than many of your other tracks that haven't passed. I don't think this is a lost cause, but after a lot of contemplation, I think this needs another round of polish to sand off the harsh edges and achieve a better balanced mix, so that your wonderful arrangement can shine. NO (resubmit!)

The stereo spread on this is wild, it feels very intentional and meticulous even if it's not. The more heavily reverbed elements work with the more dry kit instruments in a way that I wouldn't have expected. I don't have any constructive criticism to add beyond what you already know and what's already been mentioned, but you gotta finish this guy! YES (please)

I'm abstaining from voting on this due to my participation in the track, but in my heart of hearts, I think this would have been a yes - the dealbreaking aspect that seems to have pushed people over the edge - the atonality/disharmony of the bell arpeggio, just didn't bother me in this track as much as it has in many of Queen's other submissions. I outlined my reasoning in my YES vote on the original version of this track, where I was perhaps not as critical as I could have been, but I still stand by that rationale here and would vote YES.