Emunator

As a proponent of shamelessly mashing up two extremely popular SNES source tunes myself, I tip my hat to your gumption here. There's certainly a lot about this approach that works - I do think some of that is simply the strength of the original compositions, but the blend of elements on a compositional level is pretty cohesive. I have no nits to pick with the arrangement here, and it doesn't surprise me that this was made for a composition-focused community challenge, because I think that's the strongest aspect of this piece! So the good news is that you've got a solid foundation. I hate to say this, but didn't find the sound design to be very engaging. Everything feels fine and competent, but compared to some of your other submissions where sound choice, I can't help but feel like the sound design component of this track is keeping it from being something greater. I find it very hard to quantify this feeling, so I hope you don't mind me being a little more unfiltered and subjective than I would normally be when voting. Everything feels serviceable, but nothing is really inspiring me. It's hard to say this especially because I can tell that there was a lot of work that went into fleshing out these sounds with different effects and selecting a wide range of patches - it's not like you just loaded up a couple of soundfonts and called it a day. I think this might be a level of personal preference for more unique sound design, so take it for what it's worth. All that said, I will express that I think the drums cross over from a matter of personal preference to a more quantifiable critique - these just sound bland here in terms of creative processing and programming. Trap drums live and die by unique fills and rhythms, and this feels like you leaned way too much on a single loop. It's extra-noticeable in the hi-hats because they poke through the mix so much due to their dryness, but it's basically doing the same short rhythmic pattern ad infinitum. At the very least, I think this aspect of the song needs to be reworked and expanded on in order for me to sign off on this. Brad also touched on some mixing critiques that I'll also cosign, but those never really escalated to the level of a dealbreaker in isolation. I know I'm probably putting off bad vibes with this vote, but I do think there's plenty of potential with this arrangement. If the drums were reworked to introduce more variety/fills and a processing chain that blended better with the rest of the song, I'd probably be able to sign off, but I also felt it was worth expressing the feelings that I came away with that were more subjective too, because you've submitted multiple songs that felt much more inspired and ambitious in terms of the sonic world you created with them and I'd love to see you lean more into those impulses here and on future songs. I hope this comes across in the spirit it was intended! :) NO

OK, this is sounding remarkably improved from the last version I recall hearing. I think you've gotten to a point where the arrangement and creative production decisions are good to go, so I'll focus just on mixing here. I'll start by saying that I don't think this is at OCR level quite yet, and this is based on a gut feeling before I dove into any of the analysis I'm about to go into. It's close, and certainly as close as you've ever gotten with this arrangement so far, but there's a few distinct qualities that, when compared to other tracks that we've posted, sound noticeably strange and unpolished. The other judges have rightly called out the fact that everything sounds muffled, like it's coming from inside of a pillow. I'm guessing that this was done in response to previous feedback about the high end being too harsh. I think this was an overcorrection, and although it's objectively more pleasant to listen to, it leaves the clarity and crispness out of the equation that is essential for a well-balanced mix. It sounds like you might have just put a filter over the entire track, which is only very rarely a wise suggestion. I'd recommend dialing back some of those corrections and meet in the middle between this and your last mix. There is also a big dip around 200-300hz which might not seem like a big deal, but it's a very critical frequency range for giving your mix warmth and body. I found myself leaving a lot of holes in my mixes because I frequently heard advice like "cut the low end out of your non-bass/kick instruments" and applied it too broadly. If this is something you did on your mix, I'd encourage you to use a less steep slope on your filter cut, or consider layering in an instrument that plays within that frequency range to fill it out - it will have a huge impact on how the song feels. Conversely, I still think you have too much bias to the 400-1kHz range, where you have a lot of overlapping melodic elements that occupy the same frequency range. Some very subtle EQ cuts (I'm talking 1-3dB maximum) will help clean this up. Here's a screenshot from part of your track viewed through SPAN - while this is just a segment of the track, it looks like this for nearly all of the song so this should give you a nice visual idea of why the track is feeling lopsided. Moving on from EQ balance, I also agree with Larry about the stereo width of the track. I will give you credit for keeping your low-end focused and mono, which helps with stability, and there's definitely a nice wide stereo image on the rest of the track, which helps it feel lively. However, the L/R panning on certain instruments presents some curious choices - the most notable instance of this is the snare drum, which sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the drum kit because of the panning. Sometimes I'll do a ping-pong panning effect on my snare fills, but when you have it only panned to the left side, it leaves things feeling imbalanced. Overall, I think you could reduce the stereo width of many of your elements to bring some presence back to your mid-range - I tried this in my DAW by reducing the stereo image on everything above 200hz by about 25%, and it already had a notable impact. Lastly, the mastering is sounding better than previous versions, but there's still a lot of dynamic range here that is making large chunks of your song unnecessarily quiet. Again, to illustrate what I mean, I'm going to show a screenshot of your waveform: See how there's a bunch of very sharp peaks that are going way above the average loudness of the rest of the waveform? These can add a lot of unnecessary headroom during most of your track and limit the amount of loudness you can get during mastering if you're just normalizing your song's volume so that it reaches 0.0dB loudness. To counteract this, you'll want to shave off those peaks, either by reducing the volume of specific elements that might be causing those peaks (frequently, this is the result of sound effects/transitions that are too loud, or a kick drum/snare that's mixed much louder than the rest of your song, or in your case, likely both) or by applying compression/limiting to your overall song. This should usually be a pretty transparent process, so you'll want to set the ceiling of your limiter/compressor so that it's just grabbing onto those waveform peaks and reducing them, without having a noticeable effect on the overall character of the song. Once you've done that, you'll see that your waveform looks a lot "cleaner", which will give you more room to increase the loudness of the entire song without clipping. To demonstrate this, I ran your track through a limiter and set the input gain to +3dB, and this is what it looks like running through Fruity Limiter: The dips in the purple line show where volume is being reduced when it reaches above a certain threshold.There's very little being done, but if I bounce your song down with this effect applied, this is now what your waveform looks like comparatively (your original is on top, and with 3dB of limiting is on the bottom.) This is a very simplified example; in practice, it's better to do this on an individual track, or group level during the mix so that you're avoiding these peaks earlier on, but even doing this to your master track allows the volume of your song to be more consistent and bring up breakdown/outro so they're not so quiet by comparison. I think if you were to address these three issues - fine-tuning your EQ balance, reducing your stereo width, and properly mastering the track so that you don't have such a wide dynamic range - this would be good to go. Even dealing with 1 or 2 of these would probably be enough to push it over the bar, but since you're clearly willing to work through revisions and take feedback to heart, I thought I'd go into detail about each of the points. You're in the home stretch! NO (resubmit!)

The issues and merits of this track have been covered pretty well, so this is going to be mostly a recap from me. There is a lot of promise to the concept of a super mellow, soft electronic take on this source material, but the sounds being used are fairly basic, with the exception of some occasional vibrato effects on the lead synth, there's not a lot of effects or development happening on the sound design front. The sounds themselves are well selected and pleasant on the ears, but there's not much happening with them. When you start to explore automation of the various parameters in your synths and effects, you can do a lot to keep even the chillest arrangement engaging by gradually evolving and varying your sounds. The Workshop would be a great place to learn about some of the techniques you can use to spice up your sounds and arrangement. I also would suggest experimenting with different percussion sounds and layering different loops throughout the track, rather than relying on the same core beat unchanged for the entirety of the song. Using organic or unconventional sounds as a percussive element can bring your grooves to life and make them sound more unique. For lo-fi/chillout genres, this is especially important to find ways to keep your percussion interesting even if the beat itself is uncomplicated and slower. There's definitely a vision here and you can totally get to a point where you can execute on that vision, but I'm afraid this would require a lot of work to bring it to that point here. Keep at it and use the resources that the community has, and you'll get there! :) NO

Jewbeiiii, it's so good to see you back in the fold and hear that you're doing well man <3 Life is good. This truly feels like you haven't missed a beat since your last trance submission. It's got all the things I love about your mixes - the production is rich and punchy, and you've got a great ear for pulling little melodic hooks out of a source and building off of that. That said, the runtime on this piece is pretty long and I think you've overstretched some of these ideas and sounds past their breaking point. I'm less of a stickler on repetition than most judges, I feel, but even this one felt like it was dragging toward the end. Without any chageups to the way the melody was presented, or any substantial breakdowns or changes in the arrangement structure, it's just trying to make too much. I'd consider approaching the OCR submission as a Radio Edit, or if you do want to keep it at more of a club edit length, the other judges have brought up a ton of great approaches that could add some spice without having to stray away from what you expect from trance music. Real close, I don't think this would require any major changes to reach the bar, but just a bit of fine tuning and variation will go a long way in keeping the song engaging all the way through. You got this! NO (resubmit)

LOL, I never thought I'd hear a Youtube Poop sentence mix in an OCR submission, but there's a first time for everything. I just played Wand of Gamelon for the first time this weekend... man, that is a bad game. As much as I appreciate the concept here, this feels sadly underbaked to my ears. The percussion lives on auto-pilot, and isn't a terribly compelling groove or set of sounds for most of the arrangement. The first half of the arrangement is highly simplistic, which is unfortunate because the back end of the arrangement proves that you do have some sauce, it's just that everything comes together far too late in the game for it to feel complete. If more of the arrangement felt like the last 30 seconds, this would be a slam dunk for me, because I really love the brass and synth noodling and the richness that they add, but it takes too long to get there. If you could beef up the first half of the arrangement, I'd love to see this on the site, but we're not quite there yet. NO (resubmit)

Yeah, super strong vibe from the rip. There's a ton of energy present here, I feel the Babymetal influence even though this is definitely more synth heavy. I don't think this necessarily needs to be reinventing the wheel with the backing track but I don't disagree that it feels autopiloty all the same. The lead guitar ramps up the energy significantly when it's present, and those moments are definitely a highlight for me. It does, however, feel jarring because it highlights how much is missing from the other parts of the arrangement. I wish there was more variety and ear candy during the bulk of the arrangement to make the disparity between the guitar solo and the rest of the song less staggering. Vocally, I don't have any gripes with the concept, but the mixing isn't really bringing them front and center, but also has them too prominent to pass as a backing element. They're existing in limbo that feels more distracting, so I would recommend either carving out some space in the backing elements so that the vocal can be more present, via EQ cuts or sidechain ducking, or embrace the vocals as more of a rhythmic textural element and mix accordingly. Right now it's in a weird middle ground that's not entirely working. Echoing the drum critique too - it's not terrible but a touch more presence and punch would help this feel more balanced. I appreciate the concept of the gating at 2:37/3:04, but I do hear a bit of a pop as it disengages on the last beat... it doesn't feel like it's quite timed right and maybe needs the slightest fade out on the volume envelope, or a timing adjustment. I don't disagree with Chimpazilla about using something different for the ending transition. There's a lot to like here, and it's definitely put together competently but there's a bit of a "death by a thousand cuts" feeling where a number of elements that only feel 75-80% locked in are adding up to a result that's not reaching its full potential yet. It can definitely get there, though! NO (resub)

What's there to say here? It's absolutely stunning - CA has become one of the most reliable collaborators in the community by delivering tight, well-recorded, and emotive cello performances, so it's no surprise that his solo work is held to an even higher standard of quality. The performance and technical engineering quality is unimpeachable. The entire mix and master sounds warm and present, with just the right amount of reverb. The arrangement, although fairly safe, clearly surpasses the bar for creative interpretation just due to the expressiveness of the performances, not to mention a myriad of other fills, dynamic changes, and harmonies that elevate it even further. YES

This starts off super heavy on the ambiance before jumping into some Noisia-esque bass swells that feel incredibly cinematic. I admittedly had high hopes for how this would progress, and to your credit, I think you've brought some excellent sounds and ideas to the table. For a lot of the track, it works well, but Brad correctly identified that there are some production choices on the beat-driven parts that are holding this back. The lack of sidechaining from your kick drum to the secondary elements is preventing this from truly locking into a groove, and also contributes a tremendous amount of mud. Whenever you have your kick going, you need to be doing some level of ducking on your pads, strings, bass, and even a little bit to your leads - otherwise, there's simply too much going on in the frequency spectrum. There's also a noise layer that appears to be present in the background for those sections that I would back off on significantly - at the very least, throw a high pass filter on it so it's not competing with the bass/kick so much, but ideally that should also be receiving some sidechain treatment. The guitar sounds fine to me but is also VERY loud - I think you need to be more surgical with the volume level adjustments on each element in the mix. Be deliberate with which instruments you want to be front and center in each section and back off on the gain for the other parts. I actually don't really have an issue with the sound choices overall - I think with the right mixing treatment, this could absolutely work as-is. Although I don't think the synth elements are necessarily more engaging than the original, you do substantially differentiate your arrangement through texture, orchestration, and atmosphere. It feels very ambitious and cinematic and I enjoy the concept tremendously. At its core though, the mixing needs work so that the sounds gel with each other and contribute to the groove, rather than stepping on each others toes. NO (resubmit!)

Artist Name: MET∆TRON I was set to perform for the first time ever at VGMCon 2023, but my car broke down on the way there and I was forced to go home. The theme of that year was Zelda and I thought it would be fun to do something from the dreaded CD-i games. I wanted it to sound like something that would have been made around that time, so it's got a lot of Korg M1 in it for maximum 90's cheesy goodness.

I couldn't have said it better than Prophetik did, so I'll keep this brief in agreement. There's some lovely synth tones and a solid foundation here. When you got more expressive with your solo around the 3 minute mark, things really came alive! It's abundantly clear that you've got the chops to make a bangin' synth ballad based on that section alone, but I think this track needs some trimming for length, and further development on the backing elements that make up the bulk of the song. When you're working at such a slow tempo, you've got to find smaller ways to add that flair through drum fills, texture, or one-off riffs that keep things engaging throughout the duration. There's absolutely a passable track here, but it's not there yet! NO

I agree right off the bat that this is a track that would really benefit from the chiptune++ treatment. I am certainly not suggesting that you HAVE to do that if you want to retain a purist approach, but I do think the impetus is higher to work around those limitations with a more ambitious arrangement or more dynamic programming, and unfortunately what I'm hearing doesn't really cross my threshold for that. It's close, and there's a lot to love about this, but the whole track feels very constricted and never really takes off as a result of this. The drums lack depth and impact, so even though you're clearly going for an EDM-esque drop, I don't feel the dynamic contrast compared to the buildups that come before it. It's missing that chest punch, wall-of-sound that I know this could have achieved. The repetition doesn't bother me as much as the other judges, but I also don't think this particular track brings quite enough to the table to make up for the lack of depth that is inherent in pure chiptunes. I know you have it in you, your PVZ track feels like it achieves what I'm describing perfectly, as well as some of the tracks you've shared in Workshop hours (get that Sea of Stars track to us, stat!) However, on this piece, I just can't sign off on it without further development to the arrangement or sound field. NO

The track is 404'd now but I happened to have it downloaded from a previous judging session - in the future, if you're using the upload function, please make sure that you don't do anything to move it until it's done! I do feel like there's some meaningful progress made on this iteration, but unfortunately the balance is still terribly skewed toward the high frequencies in a way that's very unpleasant. Are you using any sort of monitoring software like SPAN to look at the frequency distribution in your mix and check your overall loudness levels? Even if you don't have the most ideal listening setup or can't afford a perfectly treated room or expensive pair of headphones, you can compensate for this by using reference tracks from professional sources that you trust are well-produced and you like the way they sound. I start nearly every project like this, and keep a downloaded copy of reference track(s) in my project file at all times so I can see if I'm on target in terms of frequency balance and loudness. The mixing and mastering is unfortunately still a dealbreaker and is going to require some further learning on your part to get the actual mix sounding right. Here's one possible resource that might help: I admire your persistence! There's still some learning and adjustment that needs to happen before this is sounding ready for primetime. NO

This is an easy close-out. I have no idea what was going on with the first version that was holding it back, but nothing seems to have made its way into version 2. This isn't nearly as sophisticated as some of your more recent work, and I'm sure some of that can be attributed to writing and sound design decisions that were made with 10 years less experience, but in spite of its simplicity, your production quality and the performances (actually, I just read the original submission letter and the vocals were apparently done with some sort of plugin? Never would have guessed this wasn't a collab!) bring it all together now. Better late than never! YES

This is a slam dunk of an arrangement, it reminds me a lot of Pistolero by Juno Reactor with the fusion of western-style acoustic guitar and goa beats. It fits like a glove. Matt has mastered this genre and it's hard to find any significant fault in his execution. Having played Flowstone Saga a lot, I have an extra level of respect for what he did with this source! I don't have a lot of specific commentary to give here, but I'm happy to sign off on this without reservation. YES

Yeah, just hopping in for a quick co-sign with the judges above - this is a very interesting sound design experiment and I would encourage you to keep trying things like this, but it doesn't come together into a listenable final result for a couple of reasons that have already been broken down. I'd love to see you take some of these ideas and really work on the songwriting and production components behind it, but as it stands, this feels like an experiment that needs a lot more time workshopping before it's ready to stand alone as a solo piece. NO

Quick co-sign with Brad - this is surprisingly well produced, mixed, and mastered, but the arrangement hews a little too close to the original material for how short of an arrangement this is. There's a TON of potential here and the good news is that your production is already solid, I wouldn't suggest changing much about that at all. But the arrangement itself needs to differentiate itself more from the source material and/or add some more interpretive components to the mix. If you can do that, you'll have an easy winner here! NO (resubmit)

Yep, @prophetik music has the right take here, unfortunately. This is super cool and I feel like a live video of you running through this would pop off on Tiktok/Youtube Shorts, but it's not in line with our submission standards so I'm afraid this is a no. Really enjoyed the listen though regardless! NO

Artist Name: Mel Decision I wrote this song for an 8Bit Music Theory discord weekly challenge to "make a mash-up arrangement from at least two SNES songs." I thought it would be kind of funny to go for two of the most widely-remixed SNES songs I could think of, Schala's Theme from Chrono Trigger and Terra's Theme from FFVI. Thinking about it, mashing up these songs felt appropriate—both Schala and Terra were women possessing vast magical talents, both used by powerful countries as weapons—Terra as a slave for the Gestahlian Empire, and Schala to power Zeal's Mammon Machine. I wanted each melody to get the spotlight, while still twining together underlying parts of each song throughout the piece. I transposed the songs into the same key so it would be easier to meld them together. I was feeling synths and a trap beat for this piece (idk why, vibes?), and I ended up experimenting with some new sounds and production techniques to fill out the arrangement. As always thanks to the amazing OCR discord community for ongoing feedback and support on this mix! Games & Sources Chrono Trigger: Schala's Theme by Yasunori Mitsuda. - Melody used 0:00–1:00, 2:30–3:03, 3:50–end - Accompaniment used throughout FFVI: Terra's Theme by Nobuo Uematsu. - Melody used 1:06–2:30, 3:03—3:51 - Accompaniment used throughout

Artist: jnWake, Emunator Mastered by Chimpazilla K, so another DoD month ends which means another submission for OCR by me! This time, the monthly theme was "Franchise Fusion" and the requirement was to mix at least 2 games from different franchises. After pondering it for a while, I decided that a good idea would be to mix 2 themes that were popular, so that people could recognize the actual fusion of themes. I quickly chose Aquatic Ambience since it's a lovely theme and I already knew it on piano. Secret of the Forest then came naturally as another iconic chill theme from the SNES era. I had never actually noticed how similar both themes are and plenty of DoDers were surprised this idea "had never done before" (it surely has, but as far as I know there's not a particularly popular mash-up on YouTube or other websites). Anyway, so about the mix. Since the theme was fusion I made the arrangement with the idea of melding both themes together as much as possible. I even began the song using the actual soundfonts from the games. Most sections of the arrangement feature the backing of one of the tunes and the melody of the other tune on top, but I'll detail that later. Quickly after beginning the arrangement I realized having a strong sound design would be necessary for this to be a hit, so I contacted everyone's favorite judge Emunator (he describes himself that way, do not blame me!) for help on that front. My initial idea was for him to listen to the arrangement and mostly provide sound design feedback plus a few stems... BUT instead he got super motivated with the idea and added much more than that. First, instead of simply using the soundfonts like I had done he investigated the origins of the sounds and replaced some of the samples with the actual uncompressed sounds from the original synths! He also replaced some other sounds here and there, added a plethora of effects, extra drum fills and rewrote the ending part of the track... and if all that wasn't enough he even did the final mix! I had never had the pleasure of had so much work taken from me on a collaboration but it was awesome (as I may have commented before, I'm not a particularly big fan of mixing, I only do it because I have to). For the final touch, Emunator also contacted Chimpazilla to handle the master. I didn't have the chance to talk with her this time, so I'll take this opportunity to thank her for her work! As usual, now comes the source breakdown. Both sources are so popular that I'll be a little less thorough than my usual breakdown: 0:00-1:00: We begin with Aquatic Ambience's arpeggios as a tease, since the first melody that kicks in is from Secret of the Forest. Idea here is that the background (pads + arpeggios) are from DKC while the rest is from CT. Section B from Secret of Forest then follows with the same idea. 1:00-1:33: Chord progression from Section C of Secret of the Forest, melody is a variation of Aquatic Ambience's one but following the chords. 1:33-2:21: Surprise percussion! I thought it'd be fun to wait a bit before the drums enter, making the shift to a chill beat more impactful. Secret of the Forest harp and chord progression play here while the melody is from Aquatic Ambience. The combination works surprisingly well. 2:21-2:34: Aquatic Ambience arpeggios over a chord progression and melody of Secret of the Forest. 2:34-3:01: Flute solo! It can't be a song by me without a solo I guess? Chord progression is from Secret of the Forest section C. 3:01-4:04: Climax of the track, chord progression is "original", while the rest of the instrumentation has elements of both tracks. Synth is playing the melody from Secret of the Forest, while the accordion is throwing quotes from Aquatic Ambience. A fun fact (for me at least?) is that for the transition to double time I transposed the melody 1 tone below, when the usual is to transpose higher to create a burst of energy, that way I attempted to mantain the chillness of the track despite the increase of the beat. 4:04-end: A chance to relax after the climax, Aquatic Ambience's arpeggio and Secret of the Forest's main melody play and slowly fade out as the track ends. Again, thanks to Emunator and Chimpazilla for their work on this, as it'd have never been as good without them! The track ended up placing #2 in DoD, which was pretty cool. Hope you like it! Sources:

Artist Name: Xaleph, Zack Parrish, Audiomint Arranger: Xaleph Guitarist: Zack Parrish Vocals: Audiomint Mastering: Zack Parrish I wanted to have an acoustic psytrance song that used sfx from the game (provided by OceansAndrew) and was thankful that Zack rerecorded the acoustic parts I initially played (I'm not nearly as good!). I really had a lot of fun putting together this mix and I hope you can feel what fun I had through the energy in this mix! I'll look at getting the lyrics later as Audiomint is at camp (she recorded right before heading out). The vocals used (the climb), I worked with OceansAndrew to make sure it's an approved rearranged version that still encompasses his vision for that motiff. Also - I really wanted to support this game on release, I love the concept and I would love to see this succeed! Flowstone Saga - Standoff and "The Climb" (motiff)

Artist Name: Emunator feat. Zack Parrish, ParadiddlesJosh Credits Emunator: Arrangement, production, programmed guitars (acoustic, tremolo), mixing Zack Parrish: Guitars (leads, distorted rhythm), electric bass, mastering ParadiddlesJosh: Drums Artist Notes I've been beta testing Flowstone Saga for several months at the time of this submission, which has generally meant that I've experienced the first 5 hours of the game about 10 times. I haven't yet made it far enough to hear this song in context, but when I was scanning through the soundtrack, I absolutely fell in love with this piece and immediately knew I had to arrange it. It's magical and emotive in a way that evokes classic JRPG soundtracks like Xenogears, and I couldn't get it out of my head. I asked Andrew if I was too late to get in on the Flowstone Saga arrangement bandwagon, and he told me I had roughly 2 weeks left before the due date. Challenge accepted - nothing motivates me like an impending deadline! If this were a speedrun, I'd be gold splitting nearly every part of this project. I knew that, after years of toeing the line around this genre, I wanted to go full post-rock on this one, and OceansAndrew set the perfect stage for that to happen. I started off with a skeleton arrangement that I littered with programmed guitars and drums along with my usual ambient synth fare. The arrangement was locked in by day 2, but in order to really make it convincing, I had to enlist Zack and Josh to bring some live band energy. I shipped off parts after lunch, took a nap, and by the time I woke up a few hours later, I was already receiving recordings from both of them. Absolutely clutch guys, your work here is impeccable and SO much better than what I could accomplish solo. From there, I spent another 10 hours or so putting layers of polish in the form of synth layers, pads, and one-shot effects all over the track to glue everything together. It all happened so much faster than normal - I really hit my "flow state" on this one ;) Regarding the title: in-game, this song is used in a location called Eden Lake, which features a flow-touched sakura tree. In doing some research for potential song names, I came across the Japanese word "hanagasumi", which translates to "hazy curtain of flowers, cherry blossoms appearing from afar like white mist." I couldn't have asked for a better hyper-specific word to capture the overall vibe of this piece, and it helped me come up with the most over-the-top post-rock-ass title I could muster. Technical note: this is my first mix that I've made since acquiring a new pair of mixing headphones and calibrating my studio monitors, and oh man, what a difference it has made! I was able to complete this track in under 20 hours, and I think it sounds far better than songs I've spent 100 hours on. I finally feel like I can trust my ears and have my mixes translate to consumer grade speakers. Chimpazilla said that this "doesn't have any of the usual problems" so I'm optimistic that this will go over well! It's one of my favorite arrangements I've ever written, thanks again to the homie OceansAndrew for letting me be a part of this and for creating this wonderful music in the first place!

I feel like any Mazedude track with the word "Tangerine" in the title is going to be have high standards to live up to, but immediately I hear that he's up to the task. I've been diving into a bunch of retro-inspired romplers myself this past week, and it's given me a really deep appreciation for some of these quirky sounds that haven't exactly maintained their foothold in the soundscape of modern pop music. The deeply gated drums, impossibly expressive lead synths, the gurgling basslines, and... orchestra hit synths? Is that what those are? I can't even tell, all I know is that it scratches my eardrums in a way that only Mazedude can. The arrangement is respectful of the original and expands on it. I couldn't have asked for more, we're sure lucky to have you around after all these years! YES

@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

Cover Track Information Arranger: Chromatic Apparatus Performers: Cello: Chromatic Apparatus Piano: Flávio Teles Description: Broken Reflection (a cover of "Promise" from Silent Hill 2) is a track featured from the new Silent Hill tribute album Monochrome Dreams by Pixel Mixers. I confess I haven't played any of the Silent Hill games--horror games aren't my cup of tea 😅 but when I was perusing the tracks to see if I could work with something to participate on the PM album, this one track immediately jumped out to me. The simple, plaintive melody that the synth/guitar picks out over the rhythm guitar's ostinato, got stuck in my head! I could "hear" an adaptation of the soft rock vibe into a more melancholic version, both more placid and more intense, featuring two live cellos (performed by me) and a piano (many thanks to Flávio Teles for his performance on keys). The feeling I was attempting to capture is the sense of solitude and self-reflection, and the intense, spiraling self-doubt, fixation, and turmoil that can come from being alone with your own thoughts for too long. Arrangement Details The original track featured a standard Soft Rock instrumentation, with electric guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, keyboard, and drums. I reduced the band to just two cellos and a piano to give it a more intimate, pensive quality. 0:00 - The original's guitar-peggios, are the left hand of the piano--this ostinato will run through nearly the whole piece. There are no drums anymore, the piano functionally takes over the rhythm role--this changes the vibe from a restless, bar-room melancholy, to something more isolated and self-reflective. I left the tempo alone--it's one of those illusions of comparison, it feels subjectively slower (to me, at least), but it isn't. 0:13 - One cello enters, playing a short 4 bar introduction. 0:26 - The main melody begins with the cello. 0:47 - The cello is playing in its tenor range here, I intentionally tried to keep the vibrato down here, even including open A string notes (which gets beaten out of you when learning to play the cello) because it matched the raw, almost "pleading," sound I was looking for. 1:16 - In the original, the intro and melody is repeated again, with the guitar reprising its starring role. Instead of doing that with the cello, the baton is passed to the piano, and the cello pads (now with a buddy to fill out the acoustic space) during the tail end of the bridge. 1:39 - After the bridge, the main melody repeats again, the celli drop out here and the piano solos for a bit. 2:01 - One cello re-enters, playing in unison with the piano (albeit two octaves lower). 2:12 - The second cello enters during the second repetition of the wandering melody, harmonizing with the first cello. 2:24 - The big crash. In the original this transition is less of an Event than I wanted to make of it, with the introduction of distorted guitars, and more crash cymbal--the acoustic space is fuller, but burying the lead a bit. I took it in a slightly different direction, by punctuating it with an accent across the board, using intense vibrato in the first cello to draw focus, and having the piano pound away in the lower register (to keep some of that full distortion from the original). 2:44 - I loved the little gliss the bass guitar played in the original and gave it to the second cello here. 2:49 - The E section has the first cello copying the original guitar line, with the second cello providing a staccato chug just to maintain the intensity. 3:10 - In the original, the guitar starts harmonizing in thirds with itself, the original maintains this intensity through to the end, but I wanted to start backing the drive off a bit here--instead of the punctuation heard in the piano and second cello from earlier, this is section is calmer, and more legato. 3:22 - I added a little four bar piano solo here on top the repeated phrases, just to add some contrast and interest as the cellos decay. 3:34 - The piano reprises the figure it was playing so intensely at the big crash (2:24), but now it, too, is calmer and more distinct, more haunting, being played in a higher register rather than deep in the bass wires. 3:46 - I love the little harmony the second cello plays here. 4:00 - We end as we began, with that arpeggio pattern. I decided to keep the stepped slowing of the original, rather than smoothing the ritardando out because I liked the mechanical-ish wind-down--like a machine running out of steam. Links: Chromatic Apparatus Web: http://www.chromaticapparatus.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3xl7t4KyN89GYzwwPET0Dq YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/ChromaticApparatus Flávio Teles Instagram: https://instagram.com/flaviotgt Gear Notes: Mixing done by Chromatic Apparatus in Studio One 6.5.0 Album mastering done by Erika Richards in Studio One 6.5.0 Cello: - 2007 Romanian Euro "Standard Antique" (Peter Prier & Sons) - Recorded using two AKG C414 XLS in mid-side configuration through a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 Gen 3 Piano: - Recorded on a Roland FA-08 - Studio One 6.5.0 Stock VSTi, Presence: Acoustic Piano