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Emunator

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Everything posted by Emunator

  1. My fellow judges hit the nail on the head here, not much more that I can say. This shows a lot of promise for an early concept but there's a lot to learn about mixing theory to help you achieve a balanced, clean-sounding mix. There's a number of great resources on Youtube that can help you here - since this is FL Studio specific, I would check out In The Mix (https://www.youtube.com/c/inthemix). I've learned a ton about the basics of mixing and mastering a song from him. This will just be a matter of practice to get to the next level, but you've got a solid start. Hope to see you again soon! NO
  2. Cosigning the above gentlemen - nothing more to add here, I absolutely agree that deconstructing an original song and recreating it is a great tool for learning and understanding what makes an original piece work, but it's not what we're looking for here. NO
  3. I found a lot that I really enjoyed about this - your guitar tone is excellent, and for the most part, I thought your kit drums fit the style you were going for great. The weak link is definitely the kick drum though, and the bass is practically inaudible in the mix. Without any low-end presence for most of the track, it just feels imbalanced and doesn't set a solid foundation for the rest of your instruments. This especially takes the wind out of the transition at 3:55, which should pack a huge punch when the instrumentation drops back in, but it just falls flat. Source usage aside, I do think this warrants a resubmission on mixing grounds alone - the lack of bass presence is a dealbreaker, but if you were to resubmit this, I'd encourage you to include a breakdown of all the areas you used the original source and how it was adapted, so we're not potentially missing anything. NO (resubmit)
  4. Have to co-sign with the judges above - the concept is all there, it's a really beautiful fusion of melodies, but the impact of the arrangement is overshadowed by poor mixing and mastering. There's no impact to be felt because everything is slammed against the limiter so hard - everything is cranked up to 11, and because your arrangement is actually densely layered with so many layers, nothing is really coming through. While 2:20 is subjectively not too short for an arrangement, I do agree that this just fizzles out toward the end with no real climax or resolution. Especially since the original Ocarina of Time Title Theme basically hands you a perfect resolution on a silver platter, it's disappointing that this arrangement just stops mid-stream. There's a TON of potential hear, I would love to hear this back with cleaner mixing and better macro-dynamics, as well as a proper resolution to the composition. NO (resubmit!)
  5. Yeah, prophetik did a great job breaking down the specifics of why this mix is weird and where you should focus your efforts to fixing it. It was immediately obvious to my ears that something was off without even looking at a frequency analyzer. There's also a huge amount of unintentional distortion going on on the master track due to the loudness. I can't really sign off on this or give more specifics in its current form - there's a ton of energy present here and it certainly seems like you've got a lot of great ideas in the arrangement, but the mixing is actively bringing down the listening experience and needs some serious TLC. NO
  6. Professionals turning out professional-quality work. Who'd have thunk it? :) Great job Zack, even after all these years this holds up fantastically! Violin is a little shrill playing at that super high register, but that's my only beef.
  7. I'm into this! I am in the same boat as Lucas where I don't quite know what I want to do yet, but you can definitely count me in for *something* :)
  8. I found myself unfortunately siding with MW/Prophetik on this one, loving the concept but feeling like there's not quite enough connective tissue to link the bones together. Just a couple layers of texture or some additional flourishes would put this over the bar from a sound design perspective and keep it from feeling too plodding or static. Arrangement-wise, I think this could have been trimmed up and still gotten the point across, or if you were feeling ambitious, find ways to differentiate the second half from the first, but as it stands, the length isn't justified. I know project files were lost here and edits aren't possible, but hopefully the feedback can get implemented down the line in future stuff. You've got the creativity locked down, just need that last bit of polish til you're reaching that finish line with consistency! NO
  9. I've been coming back to this one many times and struggling to reach a verdict. There's a lot of things I do like about - the adaptation of the source material, the overall "vibe" of the track, and the arrangement itself, at their core, are really enjoyable. You did a great job making this into your own on the arrangement level. The tubular bells are a great touch. I can see how this won some judges over on that merit alone. I can't point to a singular issue that sinks this, but at the end of the day, I ultimately feel like the sound design and mixing lets this down. Many of the sounds used are so simplistic in tone, and the balance issues with the mix serves to accentuate these deficiencies rather than mask them. There's a lot of potential for a really groovy rhythmic cadence, but with the bass and drums being mixed so far in the background, it never feels like it locks into a groove I can really feel. The picked bass sample at :54 has a lot of potential, but it just draws attention to the fact that the bass in the rest of the track feels phoned in and doesn't have nearly the same amount of character. The rhythmic elements feel detached from the melodic ones rather than working together. The lead bell tone is very plain sounding, so coupled with the fact that they are sequenced pretty rigidly and frequently play long uninterrupted stretches of melody without anything else going on to pad it out, you draw further attention to an aspect of the track that is fundamentally not very strong. I think Rexy's suggestion about other pads/arps/keys is also one to explore. It's a lot easier to get away with using stock-sounding samples when your instrumentation is fully fleshed out. But I also think that finding ways to add more interest to your part writing, especially the lead melody, would go a long way. Here's just a few ideas that come to mind, none of which are "must-haves" but just different approaches you could explore: Listen to your drum groove and explore ways to get them to work together rather than just coexisting in the same space but never really talking to one another. Be more intentional with your velocities on a micro scale - first look at the groove you want with your beat and accentuate the on-beats and off-beats, then you can subtly track your bass and melodies to that rhythm so that there's more of a cohesive pulse to the track. Change up the lead sound occasionally with some call-and-response action with other instruments - Flexstyle said it best about music being a conversation rather than one instrument standing up and speaking their peace uninterrupted, and I will second this suggestion wholeheartedly. Selectively layer in additional belltones/keyboards during certain sections of the song. Try to put yourself in the headspace of a pop song and visualize your arrangement from a verse/chorus perspective, where you want the verse to be more subdued and the chorus to hit a little harder. Punching up certain sounds and adding or removing layers with intention can help signal to the listener where they are in the arrangement. Get a little wilder with your delay - for example, using dotted delay patterns or a stronger ping-pong effect, or automating your feedback amount toward the end of melodic phrases, for example, is a great way to add some spice to your melody lines. Just because it's a sequenced melody line doesn't mean it has to be stagnant, there's a LOT you can do with processing even the simplest of synth sounds. This same philosophy can apply to nearly any creative effect. This is one of those tough votes where no singular issue is bad enough to drag the arrangement below the bar, but there's also nothing especially captivating that pulls it up over the bar, either. I think my final verdict is that this concept absolutely has potential, but it requires more boldness, ideas, and, perhaps most importantly, intention with what it's trying to do. I do hope we see this again and I'm wholly confident you can bring this up to par, Troy :) NO (resubmit)
  10. I hate to be that guy, but that long of a stretch with audio only in the left ear is a non-starter for me. Mono/lo-fi is totally fine, but this is just painful to listen to. The rest of the track has some great bones, but the frequency spectrum does not feel like it's filled out properly in the low end, like the bass is an octave up from where it should be. All of the core components sound very good and appropriate for the genre but those two aspects are immediately putting me off here. There are other nitpicks to be had, and I think Brad did a good job covering them, but the frequency balance and (especially) the left-ear panning is enough to sink this sadly :( NO
  11. It's... fine? Yeah, I feel like I'm coming to the same conclusion on all of Jordan's submissions lately. The underlying production quality is absolutely undeniable, and the adaptation of the source material is brimming with creativity at its core, but the arrangement is phoned in. It's very obvious when making comparisons to his older tracks, where the arrangements were much more unpredictable and high-effort. I'd love to see a return to that, but all that said, there's a lot of greatness here that can't be ignored. I'm also a lot softer on repetition than some of the other judges, so at the end of the day, it passes the vibe check. Barely! YES (borderline)
  12. Astral Tales has provided a new version. @XPRTNovice @Gario @Chimpazilla @MindWanderer @prophetik music Let's see if this is enough to flip anyone's vote! I was a YES on the previous version but this one sounds even better to me.
  13. Aritst: Lunios This is an acid house spin on Lower Norfair fitting with the era of the game being the mid to late 90's.
  14. Primary Artist: Fox Ferrari This game has the best soundtrack ever
  15. 100% this. There's so many great ideas brought to the table by the arrangement, but the mixing feels like a first pass because of frequency buildup in certain low-mid ranges that is creating an unpleasant balance in the mix. Additionally, I'll also cosign that the level of certain lead instruments/vocals is causing them to sound disjointed from the rest of the soundscape, which could possibly be exacerbated by reverb levels not being dialed in appropriately across your instruments. The only other thing I'll add is that the sweep up around the 2 minute mark didn't quite hit the mark for me in terms of the way it cut off abruptly. I think if you play with your volume envelopes on your sample or layer in something with a bit more of a tail, it could be more effective. This is more of a personal suggestion than anything and certainly not a dealbreaker. Great concept and a lot of daring ideas here - just a few technical miscues that you should be able to iron out with little problem. Let's see this again! NO (resubmit!)
  16. This is an easy one for me, this was one of my favorite entries from this Dwelling of Duels month. The first couple of minutes introduces an already fresh spin on the source material, and it only gets stronger as the track progresses and you cut into a more progressive jazz fusion style at 2:17 that reminds me of David Benoits 'Urban Daydreams'. From there, it's smooth sailing through incredibly fluid soloing and unpredictable funk progressions. The breakdown at 3:42 was a contender for the most memorable moment of the track, but honestly, this thing is chock full of them. I think DarkSim hit the nail on the head with the hi-hat - it's just a very sharp sample so it cuts through the mix, but if you used more of a brushed jazz kit, I think it would have sounded fine. On repeat listens, I do think the cut at 4:06 was a little disconcerting but I can't argue that the additional noodling you introduced during the last minute of the track wasn't worth the extra runtime - it totally was. HELL YEAH
  17. Artist: Troyificus *RESUBMISSION* OK, let's try this again. As before, this has been made for 'An OverClocked Christmas v.XVII' I took the judge's comments on-board, had a sulk about it, got over myself and returned with a righteous fury! And promptly fell flat on my face again when the wonderful @Hemophiliac told me in no uncertain terms that it still wasn't up to standards. Following which, after so much back and forth that the poor guy is probably sick of the sight of my name, it's reached this point. I'm happy with it, he's mostly happy with it, this is the version that's being submitted to the album, so I'm trying again with the illustrious judge's panel. Happy holidays! Source breakdown: 0:00 - 1:16 source 1:17 - 1:35 original, with source elements added 1:36 - 1:53 original 1:54 - 2:12 source 2:13 - 2:48 source, with interpretation and embellishments added 2:49 - 3:06 source, but it's a repeat of the intro with the descending arpeggio added in
  18. @Liontamer @DarkSim VQ provided a modified version here, please review to see if it changes your votes or introduced any new issues! It's still good for me
  19. I definitely feel like this is an improvement overall, despite not fully hitting the mark on the mixing. On future attempts, I would employ more surgical volume automation on your backing parts, or sidechain your leads to your rhythm synths more, because there's moments where your leads still don't feel like leads (the flute especially gets buried) but you don't really have anymore headroom to work with to make those louder - you need to make sacrifices elsewhere. It's loud and a bit overcompressed, so if you wanted to keep working on it, there's gains to be made. All criticisms aside, this is definitely still a super-fun twist on the source material, adapting it to a new stylistic palette and introducing a ton of fresh ideas. It's a fresh spin that feels totally fresh. You've peppered a ton of creative ideas throughout the arrangement, including the walk-down at 1:29 which is incredibly engaging and snaps me back into the moment before leading into a powerful presentation of the chorus. There's tons of spirit here, and that ultimately prevails over any technical hiccups. YES
  20. This starts off with some beautiful wintery bell textures before you chop it up into something decidedly groovier! I was thrown off at first by the sharp cutoff on the bell sounds but once the beat comes in, it works really well in context. There's a lot going on here within the 5 minute runtime, but none of it feels superfluous or overstuffed at any given point. The mixing is some of the clearest I've heard from you. It helps that the source samples you're working with are also very high quality, but this feels hi-fi in all the right places, and the lo-fi textures are used deliberately for creative effect and never come across as a shortcoming in the mixing. There's a few issues that I'll go into, but this hits far more marks than it misses, and the marks that it hits are right on target! You've created a very beautiful, unique soundscape that is brimming with creativity. I've come to expect nothing less from the artists involved! My main beef with this track is the lack of beef in the 808/bassline throughout - I totally get what you were going for, but it feels like it's playing too high on the octave to really function as a bassline and fill the role it's intended. I also appreciate the creative idea of the call-and-response panning starting at 2:11, but the sample is mixed loudly and it ends up feeling more disorienting. I also noticed that the cello in the intro felt strangely distant due to the heavy reverb, and didn't blend super well with the rest of the soundscape, in addition to being panned quite far off to one side. Not a dealbreaker but worth noting. The acoustic guitar also doesn't quite feel like it lives in the same space as the other instruments. Easy vote for me at the end of the day, despite my reservations about a few elements not blending into the soundscape quite as cleanly as I'd like. Nice work! EDIT: 12/17 - still good for me! YES
  21. Version 2 update notes: <**ADDENDUM: New 808 Bass VSTi, Violin VSTi and their associated written parts courtesy of Zack (once again saving my ass, LOL). TYVM for the feedback. Hope the quick turnaround and adjustments made help. ♥> COLLABORATORS [FEAT.]: Zack Parrish = *Live Acoustic Guitar, *Fretless Bass VSTi, *Glass Harp / Armonica VSTi, *Cello VSTi *Children's Choir VSTi & *Pipe Organ VSTi # Festive greetings, J's! Originally done for The Coop & Dyne's *17th* "An OverClocked Christmas" unofficial album, this is my chill take on NieR's Snow in Summer, with quite a few very appreciated, last minute collab additions courtesy of Zack. Although this will be my third year contributing to the album, (the previous years done with tracks from Snowboard Kids, Secret of Mana, and Mega Man X3--respectively), I have been wanting to remix this song since the first time I participated back in 2021. It had taken years to finally conceptualize it in full, (and giving up on a couple of not-so-great mash-up ideas for it,) but I am happy it has finally come to fruition in 2023, where now I can feel confident in creating and mixing its transformative content and executing the plan to do it with. And, honestly, I am glad I finally put my mind to the fire and kindled the courage to open up the source MIDI and take a look, otherwise I would have never known just how thoroughly complex and harmonically-driven the source was. With source usage, it is throughout the whole song, start to finish, with no repeats. I said to myself..."why break and recreate something that is already beautiful?" Instead, I elected to *add* to it, rather than *subtract*, starting by changing the instrumentation entirely to fit a whole different genre bend. This arrangement is akin to the relaxing vibes in my remixes for "A Wish" (Secret of Mana) and "Big Snowman" (Snowboard Kids), yet it is not as somber as "The Frozen City" (MMX3). I am not a huge Christmas-y person, however, I love many things that are "Christmas-spirited / adjacent", as well as a few fairly traditional ones that make an exception (e.g. "Carol of the Bells"). I tried to encapsulate those aspects of Christmas songs I do really enjoy in this mix, such as: lots of strings, pretty bells & chimes, choirs, plenty of percussive elements, pipe organs, ritzy piano, jazzy bass, etc--but, employ them with a bit of a twist; a nice undertone of Lo-Fi / Hip-Hop, indicative of the snappy percussion and plucky bass, as well as the low flute / whistle-y, whiny / minimoog saw synth that has an East-West Coast/90s flair (i.e. that "oooo-weee-ooo" you hear in a lot of Oldskool Rap tracks, such as "Big Poppa" by Notorious B.I.G.) There...wasn't really much to my creative approach this time around, as my focus was mainly considering what I could do to showcase a different spin and feeling from its original incarnation without "breaking the mold". An...iteration that had equal parts the feelings of hope and happiness, and solemnity and loneliness that could be invoked during the (generally) joyous holiday season, against the original's more depressive emotion, that filters up and crescendo into the feeling of almost...oppression--religious fervor turned into militaristic battle music midway through the song. I never got to play NieR (although I own the original and Automata), so this is me taking the raw emotion I felt from the source alone, without context or ties to the game, and changing it into something very..."me"...I suppose. I just know the first time I listened to the source, the choir pulled me in and the drumbeat lulled me to stay till the end, and I wanted to simply mimic that ebb and flow in a "me" manner. This one is probably one of my more "conservative" remixes, but I'm a firm believer in not all songs being created equal nor should get the same treatment, and I did not feel this one needed to be bombastic or as over-the-top with the sheer insanity some of my other pieces of work came to be. It's subtle, it's Xmas-inspired, and my hope is that this one can make it in for the holidays. I know I had only submitted one other Christmas-related track, and sadly MMX3 / Blizzard Buffalo was rejected and did not make the cut. I will return to it shortly, however I hope people enjoy this one, and this one has a chance. Have a Merry Christmas and thank you for the time and consideration to give this track due judgement. I pray for the best. Games & Sources: NieR Gestalt & RepliCant Original Soundtrack; Track 1 - 夏ノ雪 Snow in Summer; Composer(s): Studio Monaca & Keiichi Okabe et. al.; Release Date: 21 April 2010; Publisher / Label: Sony Music Distribution; Producer: SQUARE ENIX
  22. Beautiful blend of acoustic instruments covering a lovely selection of source tunes to start off. Everything about this is nearly perfect, with the exception of the percussion, which just isn't working for me on any level. The drums are way too loud, not sequenced with a lot of humanization or variation, and the samples themselves are immersion breaking. If you could fix (or hell, even remove the percussion) this would be an easy pass! NO (resubmit)
  23. Right off the bat, I'm hearing some cool textures and modulation, and the cool sound design continues throughout the arrangement. There's a cool sense of dread in the pacing of the arrangement, it feels like it's constantly pulsating and brewing towards something, but never fully explodes (this is something I really appreciate, and not a critique!) The drums are probably the weakest part of this arrangement, they are mixed very dry (especially the toms!) and up-front in terms of volume, so it highlights the fact that you're working with some pretty basic samples that are not sequenced with a ton of nuance either. I notice that your tom fills consistently don't resolve to anything on the downbeat, like a crash or an impact, so they feel detached and lackluster. I also found the glitch fills, such as the one at 3:00, to be not particularly effective because the fill doesn't lead into anything - it just happens and then the track returns back to the same exact energy, with no impact or resolution. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this right, but although I like the idea, I don't think the execution lands. The mixing feels rough around the edges, particularly in terms of volume. The intro bass comes in loud and hot, and in general it feels like your levels are cranked up too high and the elements are competing with each other. Although everything is generally audible, I feel like that's more because there just isn't a lot going on in the soundscape, so it's not the most effective way of filling out your frequency range. Arrangement-wise, this is actually really good, exactly in line with what we're looking for in terms of expansion on the source material and giving it your own personal touch. But the mixing and sound choices, as well as the implementation of the drum and filter fills, leaves a bit to be desired before this is ready. Really strong start though, I hope you find the feedback useful and get this back to us! NO (resubmit!)
  24. Link Main ReMixer name: TheManPF (User ID: 35318) Additional artists: Zach Chapman; Ian Martyn Submission: Game: 3D Pinball: Space Cadet Name of arrangement: Into the Black Hole Songs arranged: Main Theme (https://youtu.be/Zyyn5rvmJ9I) Original composer: Matt Ridgway System: Windows Year: 1995 Comments: Ladies and gentlemen, brace yourselves... we're going to SPACE This track was arranged in October 2022 for Dwelling of Duels, theme Maxis games, I thought it would be fun to try to cover something that doesn't have "Sim" in the name, then I found out Maxis developed the space cadet pinball game that came with my Windows pc all the way back in the late 90s, I used to be a computer games kid, so I played this a lot, along with a lot of other small, shitty computer games. I never knew this game had music though. I expanded on the original motif a lot, and even sprinkled a few references to other pieces of music, namely "Also sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss (more commonly known as that one song used in 2001: A Space Odyssey), and "Sun of Nothing" by Between the Buried and Me, I only changed the key so as to fit with the space cadet's theme (SIKE, they're actually in the same key already, what are the odds????). Everything else in the arrangement is developed from the motifs of the main theme of the space cadet, the melody is very fast, so in a lot of parts I break it down into smaller chunks or use it as a background element so as to not overwhelm, since I try to go for more of a slow burn with this. I also used a bunch of NASA recordings (they're publicly available on their website) for the intro and outro. In this story, an astronaut is tasked to explore the first ever black hole, and slowly starts up their spaceship, and blasts off into the void of space. Slowly but surely, they get closer and closer to the black hole, but just as they're about to make it, they get scared, and decide to turn around and float into the sun instead (where Sun of Nothing comes up). During this reflective moment, they try to collect themselves and decide if this is a task worth doing, but eventually, they get motivated, and regain their strength back, turning around and once again flying into the hole, getting closer and closer until everything gets distorted into a big crunch. The ending reflects that this astronaut reached the black hole, but whether they survived or not is up in the air. I actually came up with this story long after the song was done, which is a super fascinating thing to me, how you can come up with interpretations for pieces of music that weren't necessarily thought about when they were made, this is the image this song brought to me, but anyone else is free to have their own interpretation! Yay! This song placed 3rd out of 13 tracks in Maxis month, with the help of my awesome friends Zach and Ian, who played bass and synths respectively. I did everything else aka arrangement, sequencing, mix, and electric guitars.
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