Emunator   Judges ⚖️

Credits: Arrangement, production, keyboards, mixing: Emunator Mastering: Chimpazilla Comments: This track is a spiritual successor to Beginnings, which marked the start of my journey into lofi music production. Enter the Twilight Realm is a riff that would frequently worm into my brain, and on Christmas Eve of 2023, I finally decided to do something with it. Like Beginnings, I didn't listen to the source material during the creation process, simply pulling fragments from my memory and piecing them together like a warm patchwork quilt. Lofi music frequently feels like searching through a box of memories that I forgot I possessed, and this track sort of evokes that same feeling for me. This track was finished in two days and under 10 hours, with Kristina providing a beautifully lush master. Thank you for always helping my work shine, my friend ?

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.

You know, I came into this thread looking for an easy closeout, but I left feeling the same way as Larry - I think there's more to the source material than credit has been given for. The continuous rolled piano chords feel pretty directly tied to the source to me and are present throughout much of RET's arrangement. Without having ample time to timestamp it, I do think this piece warrants further discussion and that we've definitely had more nebulous source material, or more nebulous interpretations, than what I'm hearing here at first glance. Who wants to be brave and bust out the stopwatch here? EDIT: OK, so Rebecca was the brave one all along. The Hero of Time(stamping) that Hyrule has been waiting for! After checking the chords 1-to-1, it may not be exactly the same notes, but I'd be hard pressed to make the argument that this is not a remix of the Lightroot theme. The presentation of the melody as a sequence of sparse rolled piano chords is similar enough, and the intro sounds almost identical so it puts the source material clearly into the listeners head so that you're not left grasping for straws at the onset. The soundscape is fleshed out substantially too, so it passes the smell test in terms of expansiveness as well. When your source material relies so heavily on rests and space between melodic phrases, the usual timestamping approach is going to make it seem like there's not a lot of overt references to the original, but in context, I've argued that silence can be a form of source usage itself, and I think that especially applies here. The rolled chords are the lighted beacons that connect everything together and provide frequent enough touchpoints through the arrangement that you never stray too far from the source material. Thanks Rebecca for your diligence in mapping this out! This is good to go in my book :) YES

Chromatic percussion is one of the areas where I find Rebecca's work to shine the brightest, so right from the jump I was intrigued. The moody strings lend a sense of progression to the arrangement. There's a lot of noodling here, but there are a few moments where everything coalesces into some really lush, beautiful sweeps, particularly starting at 1:55, that really makes the whole listen worthwhile. Really beautiful stuff! Seconding the critiques about the mixing having some buildup in the lows/low-mids that could be cut out by some EQ dips in the low-mids and cutting below the fundamental frequency. I also hear some unrealistic sequencing in the velocity of the marimba during the last minute, particularly when you strike the same note twice in repetition. All critiques aside, for a piece like this, the mixing and sequencing gets the job done and accomplishes what it set out to do very nicely! YES

Messaged Jortio about this, he's going to make some tweaks based on Brad's conditional vote and Jack's feedback as well.

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.

Hey Josh, I’d love to chat! I’ll send you a DM with my contact info.

Artist Name: Sebastien Skaf Hello, it's been some time since I've submitted a remix! I was listening back to some of the piano arrangements I've made the last couple years and I thought this might fit the bill in terms of being transformative enough to constitute an OCRemix, I hope you agree. At the start of Majora's Mask you find a small tree with what looks like a face on it, Tatl comments that it looks sad, like it could start crying at any moment. It's just a passing remark on something you see for a second in the tutorial, but it's little details like this that really make Majora's Mask so special. There's a blanket of loneliness and desperation draped over the whole game, and I wanted to convey that in this arrangement. In terms of source usage, the entire original tune is there. The introduction to the piece is a 12 bar variation on the A theme which floats up and down the keyboard, eventually resolving to a pretty faithful rendition of the original piece. After spending a minute there I approach the theme again from the beginning with increasing embellishments and intensity: first in octaves, then in a 3-2 polyrhythm, and finally by layering the A and B sections of the piece on top of eachother, with the A theme played as a middle voice and the B theme soaring above in broken arpeggiated chords. I round off the piece with a restatement of the intro that finally fades off into an unaccompanied quote of the A theme. If you're curious, here's the score: https://www.dropbox.com/s/68lcafj4c2gtaje/Song of Healing.pdf?dl=0 Thanks for your consideration

Primary Artist: Fox Ferrari This game has the best soundtrack ever

Primary Artist: AzureKevin Like most RPG fans who played games from the 90s, I absolutely adore the Chrono series. Last year I decided to experience Chrono Cross again via the new remaster. During my playthrough, a short 6/8 piano idea for the song, “Burning Orphanage” popped into my head, and after playing around with it, I decided to try building it up into a full song. It eventually evolved into this, what I think would be classed as a kind of haunting prog rock song with piano being the main driver, but also accompanied by the usual fair of rock drums, bass, synth leads, organs, both layered and lead electric guitar parts, strings, and mellotron choir. Some parts of the song are perhaps faintly influenced by bands like King Crimson, some of Steven Wilson's solo music, as well as stuff by The Black Mages. Once most of the first half was fleshed out (which was originally just going to be the whole arrangement), I realized one night that I could smoothly transition into the song “Silent Light” from Chrono Trigger, so I incorporated that as a slower second half. Eventually I figured out a way to transition it back to Burning Orphanage with a mellower tone to close out the song. The progression of the arrangement is recounting Kid’s trauma of fighting and surviving Lynx’s attack on the orphanage (first half with "Burning Orphanage"), but then wandering alone after her escape (second half with "Silent Light") and eventually finding peace (back to a slower "Burning Orphanage"), but not necessarily closure. Both songs, I noticed, were very underepresented arrangement-wise, as I don't believe I've ever heard an arrangement of "Burning Orphanage", so I tried my best to create an interesting one! Games & Sources: An arrangement of two songs: "Burning Orphanage" from Chrono Cross, by Yasunori Mitsuda: and "Silent Light" from Chrono Trigger, by Nobuo Uematsu:

Arrangers/Composers: Xaleph, Aeroprism Performers: Lead Guitar: Zack Parrish Vocals: Audiomint Rhythm Guitar: Xaleph The plan was pretty simple for us and it evolved into a much more complex song. I'd start off the song, Aeroprism would have the slower mid part, and then we'd combine things at the end. This worked great except we had a 15 minute long song. I spent a lot of time working with Aeroprism to move his parts to combine them with mine sooner. The goal was to follow the rules of the competition where it's a Mashup and not a Medley. Even still, there is a Red Wings part in the intro and a CoT part in the mid, where I put in some RW parts to keep the song cohesive. I kept true to the 7/8 (we notated 7/4) and 6/8 parts (we converted part of the CoT to triplets in 4/4 or just like 12/8 I guess... but the end part to 6/4), so there are several time signature changes throughout this song, which made it complex (but to be honest, I think it helps the song flow, so it ended being an added bonus). The main reason for delay of submission was that I had Audiomint use the wrong mic when recording the first time. With the correct mic, you can much more easily hear the words (plus some side chaining and transient shaper work). The words are very simple (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c8vdlApsoonfGoLU8cKiBewAL0MWmgw5/view?usp=sharing I recommend looking at the image because it's hilarious, that's Audiomint's handwriting - previous page was her playing with lyrics but we agreed to keep it very simple and not verbose. That's Korean for the "meow" sound for those who are curious): I keep the source RW rhythm moving in various parts (bassline, synthwork in CoT uses RW parts) I wanted to use guitar as a kickback to Powerglove's "Red Wings over Baron" which I've liked for a while The 7/8 part is a very abstract version of the 7/8 part of redwings but I think it fits well. Both Aeroprism and I use Reason so it made collaboration a lot easier than usual. We looked at possibly doing a synthwave version as we still have 9 minutes of unused content. More files / mp3s with id3 tags and project files can be found in the project folder: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-TaETOVchF09ghl83Goh7KViP6R8Tysa&usp=drive_fs Anyways, thanks to the collaborators, our team, our competitors and to DarkeSword for holding the competition. We had a blast with this song and it only took a few days to write. I find it interesting how some of the better songs happen when it's condensed focus time (or Compressed Time, lol) rather than spending months on a song. I do think to get to the point where it takes a few days, you have to go through some of the longer time in learning, but once you have a process, it's pretty fast and reliable. - Xaleph

Primary Artist: The Vodou Queen COLLABORATORS: Zack Parrish - *Live Steel Tongue Drum SableProvidence - *Live Dizi GameroftheWinds - *Live Alto Flute Originally done for the compo Double Dose round of Meat n' Potatoes - 123, "We Built an Edifice" has since grown and expanded into something I feel is much more than what was its original intent and drive. Based on a heavy influence by one of my favorite Experimental Electronica groups, The Glitch Mob, this version of the song leans more heavily towards its spooky main source roots ("Inner Darkside"), partially because the plan was to have this submitted for Halloween 2023 (but that fell through, sadly). It's as if The Glitch Mob meets 'Tubular Bells' (most famously known as the theme to "The Exorcist" franchise) meets the 'X-Files' / Signals from Space & Stephen King's The Tommyknockers...with a sprinkle of Asian aesthetics and a bit of orchestra. Rise of the Robot's "Builder / Prime 8" plays a hefty role in this remix as half of its bass arrangement, and also as some of the bell/arps structure and harmonic, pulsing Trance chords towards the end, at the key change. My hope is that people appreciate the vibe, and the emotions and metaphors present within, of a driving, unseen, demanding (evil?) entity or force turning one--or several people--into slaves of passion...building that epicenter, one's own Tower of Babel, to greater and greater heights, without rest; (hence the vox line that originates from the movie: Field of Dreams ;) ). In a strange way, it's very reflective of my own vices and artistic processes...and whether or not that's healthy or good is another story entirely. Creative approach-wise, this came half-spontaneously and half-experimentally, something that's grown and evolved over months of tweaking it here and there since MnP123. I just knew I wanted to kind of mimic Glitch Mob's unique style and approach when it came to their synths and bass/drumlines, and see what I could spark of my own flavors and spice to those techniques and facets of composition. Arrangement/part-writing-wise, it doesn't stray *too* far outside of the original source material, however, I did do quite a bit of shaking up the MIDI, changing some note structure for "Inner Darkside" at the midpoint of the remix, and incorporating more of "Builder / Prime 8"'s chords to match it. Hopefully the flow feels good in those spots, inclusive of the slow-down / chill-out after the high-strings riser / drop that drags us kicking and screaming towards that finale...still obsessively, and unrelentingly building on the 'dark tower' that's within every human soul. Every bit in this remix had a purpose, every brick being lovingly laid. This track was a joyful ride, albeit I'd be remiss to mention or say I was reluctant / scared to submit this...purely out of fear it might not gel with everyone's jam. But...nothing ventured, nothing gained--so we'll see, like with all my other submissions thus far. :) Huge hugs and thanks to my collaborators, and their immeasurable advice on how to write for woodwinds and ideas on how to bring out this piece to its fullest potential. I'm always glad and proud of every collab I do, with such a wide-variety of talented and gifted musicians. This one is no different. ♥ Thanks for listening. :D Source Breakdown: 1.] 01:33 - 01:56 = a pulsing bass/synth thump mix plays Builder's (C) content -- you can hear it *just* above the marimba part in the sound spectrum, where it "thumps", and there's a triple "thump" @ 01:44 & 01:55. Acts as a soft, subtle prelude to the heavier bassline coming up, utilizing the same (C) content 2.] 02:30 - 02:50 = primary fuzz bass and its sub-bass counterpart plays slightly modified (C) & (A) content, that rides with melody (**modified for better flow from Inner Darkside's bassline into it); chords and bass were split between the fuzz bass, sub-bass and plucky thump 3.] 03:03 - 03:25 = tubular bell synths play (B) Builder content, unmodified except for key transposition 4.] 03:27 - 04:11 = Hybrid 3 trance chord sequencing plays (A) Builder content, acting as pads and rhythm / harmony to Inner Darkside melody; the plucky thump of (C) content also returns here, transposed 5.] 03:49 - 04:11 = (B) Builder content / tubular bells return for Outro (key shifted 3rd major/minor down with the rest of the remix), until 3rd loop -> Finale

1st RESUB Original Decision Mel Decision: arrangement, production Zack Parrish: alto saxophone, guitar, bass, piano, mixing, mastering GameroftheWinds: bass clarinet Emunator: percussion Lucas Guimaraes: effects, foley This track was a labor of love! What started out as a last-minute bonus track for Final Fantasy VIII: SeeDs of Pandora has evolved quite a bit with the addition of live guitar and bass, rerecorded saxophone, an entirely rewritten percussion section, and brand new effects to bolster the lo-fi vibe. I love writing lo-fi music, and when I was exploring songs from the FFVIII OST to rearrange, Fisherman's Horizon immediately stood out to me as a track that would fit the genre with it's softer, comforting feel. I felt like I could make it work in the short amount of time I had to create a track for the bonus disc on the album. With the help of Lucas Guimaraes and GameroftheWinds, I was able to include some live winds on the track. Since the release of the album, this rearrangement has gone through several iterations. Most recently, I've had the pleasure of collaborating with Zack Parrish and Emunator, who hopped in to expand on the existing parts. Zack especially jumped in head-first: he re(-re)-recorded the saxophone section, and played live guitar and bass for the track, replacing my previous virtual instruments. He also added some piano in the background to counter the winds. Emunator rethought the entire percussion section, bringing in a more dynamic beat to help move the song along while still keeping you in the groove. Finally, Lucas topped it off with some additional sound effects that brought in the right amount of ear candy. Zack hopped in on this latest version to completely redo the mix and master the track. I can't thank these guys enough for all the work they put into the track, along with multiple rounds of feedback to get the mix balanced just right. Their expertise and advice really helped me hear where this track needed to go in order to succeed, and Zack's efforts almost single-handedly pushed this to the finish line.

Primary Artist: jnWake Collab artist: Jabo, on guitars. Yet another tune from DoD! This one was my submission to 32 bit month on December 2023. I've always loved the music in Goemon games so I took the opportunity to remix one of them. Source I picked is more of a funky tune (dat bass) so I went for a funky approach rather than my usual metal one. Original track is actually 4 different tracks on the game, each one layering some extra stuff to the main sections of the song. Anyway, similar to my last submission this started as synth only but I eventually decided to add guitars so I contacted Jabo, who did an awesome job. The track ended up placing 2nd on this particular DoD contest so I think it ended up fine! K, so a little about the source before the breakdown. It basically consists of 2 sections, first a bass riff on E minor (with some G# and C# for funkiness), which lasts from around 0:00 to 0:17 in the video I linked and, second, a part that alters between E minor and C# minor chords (0:18 to 0:35 on the video). Repetitions of each section add new melodies like a synth melody on the second repetition of section 1 (between 0:36 and 0:53), a very pentatonic melody on the third repetition of section 1 (1:09 to 1:27) and a synth melody on the third repetition of section 2 (1:44 to 2:02). I use all of these in the remix! Now, I didn't use that many of the parts without modifying them so I hope this doesn't run into source usage problems... Anyway, here's a breakdown: 0:00 - 0:20: Bass riff based on the main one from the source, synths are somewhat similar to some from the source. 0:20 - 0:40: Synth lead based on the synth melody of section 1. 0:40 - 0:56: Based on section 2, somewhat straightforward but in 6/4. 0:56 - 1:17: Melody on synths is taken from part of the synth melody in section 1. 1:17 - 1:26: Bass riff returns! 1:26 - 1:47: More bass riff + the pentatonic riff on synths, 1:47 - 2:17: Same pentatonic riff but now played on straight 8ths. Lead guitar plays the same melody from 0:56. 2:17 - 2:36: Return of the chords from section 2, followed by a transition. 2:36 - 3:07: Synth solo! Bass riff uses many ideas from the main bass riff of the source... there's also a tempo bump. 3:07 - 3:24: Riff based on parts of the melody from section 1. 3:24 - 3:53: Repeat of the 0:56 - 1:16 section but with lead on guitar now (and higher tempo). 3:53 - end: Bass riff from synth solo repeats for the ending. Hope you enjoy! I had a ton of fun building the arrangement and playing the keyboard solo!

There's an absolutely tremendous amount of ambition on display here, good lord. I appreciate the reference tracks that you provided that show how you brought influence from Japanese city pop and funk-fusion together along with some heavier rock/metal riffage and solos on the guitar into something entirely unique and original. For everything that falls ever-so-slightly off the mark, there's a dozen others that absolutely nail it, and the miscues are heavily outweighed by the ambition and creativity at play. Man, if something like this can't pass our bar, I don't know what chance the rest of us have. I don't think any of the feedback provided here is inaccurate, and especially on the performance side, there's some room to tighten it up, but I think it needs to be weighted in context of how much the track gets right. Nothing I hear is egregiously bad enough that it sinks my listening experience, not by a long shot. Sure, in a perfect world, it would be great to get some of these issues resolved, but let's imagine that the source files were lost and the artist was simply unable to make these changes, which is how we need to consider each submission. Would it be better for this to never be heard by the rest of the community because the technical side isn't perfectly executed? I think rejecting a track like this would signal that it's better to just play it safe and stick fully within your comfort zone rather than try anything remotely ambitious or out of your comfort zone, and I strongly believe that OCReMix is a better place when we encourage people to shoot for the moon. YES

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!)

This is a banger. Your voice and flow reminds me a LOT of El-P. From a pure technical perspective, this is some of the best rapping I've heard in a hot minute on the panel. The pop-punk vocals add a very fresh, modern flair, I really wasn't expecting that but especially on repeat listens, I enjoyed it. There's a lot to love about this arrangement, and there was a lot of care put into making sure that both the beat and the vocal performance is dynamic and cohesive, never feeling like you just dropped some unrelated bars over a beat that happened to sample a Castlevania. The extra effort goes a long way. There's a few technical issues I've heard - the snare feels significantly louder and sharper than the rest of the percussion, and the piano sample feels exposed and weak, but that's not a huge deal. I think the detuning that MW called out feels like a feature of the genre, I've heard plenty of beats that apply a slow pitch envelope to the 808 like this and although it's definitely (intentionally) detuned, it doesn't feel like it's written out of key at all. Good stuff!! YES

With respect, I think this suggestion is a totally valid approach to arrangement that would also yield good results, and this feedback could be really helpful during the workshopping phase. But that's not the approach the artist chose to go with, and I don't think there's a case to be made made that the approach that Matthew did use is somehow objectively bad. It's progressive and unconventional in the approach, and there is a level of "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" to this track, but I think it's a totally valid creative decision. Even if it's not how you'd approach arranging this yourself, I feel like this sort of feedback is veering way too far into "subjective preference" territory and I don't think that's what our job at the panel is or should be. This feels clearly above our bar to my ears. There's a wealth of talent on display with the live performances and programmed instruments across 6 and a half minutes. There was clearly a great deal of effort put into the transitions so that, despite the many different ideas brought to the table, it doesn't feel like completely different songs pasted together haphazardly. The mixing is also handled competently, with no single idea or section ever feeling like it comes up short on technical merit. YES

@MindWanderer Check out the new version here and see if this addresses your concerns!

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

Wow, there's some black magic piano production wizardry at work here, this sounds fabulous now! There's a limited number of moments where the piano still falls into the uncanny valley, but at this level of polish, we're just taking minor pitstops into the valley rather than living in it. Much improved, my friends! YES

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

@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

Sent these votes to Ivan to see if he's interested in making any tweaks or proceeding with the vote as-is! EDIT: Ivan wants to let the vote proceed as-is.

I told myself I wasn't going to vote on any GSM tracks due to my participation in the competition (and the fact that this track solidly beat my entry in round 1...) but since this seems to be lingering without any votes, I think it's been long enough that I can be objective. Let me put on my objective hat... ...it's lit. This is an easy, easy vote, Zack brings his usual level of high-quality cinematic sound design, with a heavy emphasis on texture and rhythmic movement throughout the arrangement. The fusion between the two themes is creative and seamless. Especially for a 1 week endeavor, this is truly impressive and speaks to Zack's abilities as an arranger and producer. YES