Emunator

Contact Information ReMixer Name: GreatBlakes Real Name: Chris Blakley Email Address: Website: gearside.com User ID: 12312 Submission Information Game: Pac-Man Name of Arrangement: Vice Name of Song Arranged: Main Theme Soundtrack: https://ocremix.org/game/142/pac-man-arc Song: Additional Comments: My goal was to create a dark/gritty '80s retro future inspired half-time remix of the Pac-Man theme song.

Dropping some quick thoughts here - there's a ton of dynamics in your arrangement, great instrumental variety, and an emphatic vocal performance. It's clear that you put a lot of effort into this! I'm intrigued and a little amused by the discussion spawned regarding the vocal performance; I agree with the other judges that the pronunciation makes it extremely hard to understand, but MindWanderer makes a great point that if you imagine this as a J-Pop song, the intonation actually isn't a big deal. This could still benefit from some more aggressive pitch correction and de-essing. The mixing on the vocals is much louder than everything else and dominates the soundscape whenever present. You could still maintain the vocals at the forefront of the arrangement without drowning out everything else as much - taking down the volume slightly would solve this. The orchestral production sounds great when it's isolated on its own (strings, choir, and especially the piano) but when the vocals are also mixed in, your instruments all occupy a narrow range of frequencies and sound quite muddy. The percussion barely cuts through at all and sounds thin as a result - I don't think the choruses have the intended dramatic impact because of how soft the percussion plays. There's a lot of creativity at work here, so I sincerely hope this is revised and resubmitted a second time! There's a bit of work to be done here, but I think it's worth it to get this concept ready for the front page NO (resubmit)

Not a bad effort for recreating this from scratch without any formal training. You did an excellent job capturing the airy, organic essence of the original source tune through some unique sound design and additional rhythmic patterns. The contrast between the gritty distorted textures and filtered percussion, with the smooth pads and chromatic percussion is a strong textural foundation. Overall, I found this to be a pleasant listen! There's a few things holding this back, however. You mentioned that you "altered the high and low cut" but I think ultimately you went way overboard with these effects. Namely, there's almost no frequencies below 200hz in the entire mix between :20 until around 4:45, when you finally bring in low strings and you realize what's finally been missing from the rest of the arrangement. Selective use of a high-pass filter can add drama and air to your arrangement, but when you leave it engaged without any movement throughout the entire track, it cuts out an essential frequency band and leaves everything sounding incomplete. Not sure if this was a stylistic decision or an arranging/production oversight, but this is the first thing that needs to be addressed. Aside from that, your arrangement also stays fairly static for the the duration of nearly 5 minutes without any major changes in dynamics outside of the intro/outro. It leaves this arrangement constantly feeling on the precipice of breaking loose and ramping up the energy, but it never comes. The arrangement relies heavily on looped patterns and comes across as very repetitive - without any changeups or significant additions/subtractions throughout the 5 minute runtime, I feel like I've heard everything this has to offer by the 2nd or 3rd minute. Lastly, although this was recreated from scratch, the end arrangement is still pretty conservative and sticks very closely to the structure, melody, and presentation of the original source even with the subtle additions you've made. I would argue that, production issues aside, this is still too conservative for OCRemix standards. Adding some original writing or breakdowns could solve this issue and perhaps even help you address some of the other critiques about the dynamics of the arrangement, as well. You've got a solid start of something here, but there's some fundamental issues from a production and arrangement standpoint keeping this from reaching full potential and meeting OCR's submissions bar. Either way, you've shown some chops and I'd love to see where you can take things from here on future submissions! NO

Dear OCR, I'm writing to offer a submission for OCR, which has been attached, as an .mp3 file, with 192kbps as per the guidelines. The necessary details are as follows; ReMixer name: TheJGG userid: 37426 Game arranged: Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest Name of arrangement: Stickerbrush Synthmony Name of song arranged: Stickerbrush Symphony It was created entirely from hearing, and arranged without any formal sheet music knowledge. I spent a week creating it, and then altered the pitch and tempo, plus high and low cut. Thank you very much, TheJGG

Hi! I hope you are doing well! You can download the .wav here : Contact Information Your ReMixer name : Phil Savlem Your real name : Philippe Savoie-Lemay Your email address : Your website : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL8kKDW2KN2Y2ga6Bei8ndQ Submission Information Name of game arranged : Zelda - Ocarina of Time Name of arrangement : Gerudo's Masters Name of individual song(s) arranged : Gerudo Valley Theme Your own comments about the mix : My goal was to use all the musical instruments I own and blend them together to build something epic! Have a good day!

Hate to say it, but I have to side with the two nay's above me. The foundational beats and sound design are really tight here, and the vocal chopping specifically reminds me of In Love With a Ghost, which is a favorite lo-fi artist of mine, and you executed that style well. However, I agree with Larry that the piano tone particularly takes me out of the experience. The sample is slammed super hard on the compression and has a bright, unrealistic tone and a lack of expression in the velocities that just doesn't fit with the rest of the soundscape. Sadly, since this feature is so integral to the arrangement, it does end up being a significant detriment to the overall presentation. The repetition was also a bit of a bummer, but I did find sufficient personalization in the beats and additional harmonies added to the second half of the song so that repetitiveness wasn't a dealbreaker issue. My main gripe is really just with the piano sample/EQ balance, which may seem nitpicky but ends up being significant enough simply due to how present it is in the mix. Hope to hear this again with some minor revisions if this doesn't pass as-is! NO (resubmit!)

Just dropping a quick word that this blew me away. Easily one of the best things I've heard from you, the guitars and vocals add so much to your production. I'm excited to get a chance to evaluate this properly

Hello! Please find our Life Force - Poison of Snake remix. We hope you'll enjoy it! - ReMixer name: LHEH - Real name: Riad "Slinkman" Hajjar & Anthony "Antox" Nemer - Email address: - Website: https://soundcloud.com/lheh - User id: 37330 - Name of game arranged: Life Force - Name of arrangement: Poison of Snake - Name of individual song(s) arranged: Vic Viper Serum Life Force original 1986 soundtrack composed by Miki Higashino for NES & Arcade. We decided to go for a mixture of Rock & Dark Synth for the remix because it just felt appropriate for that specific boss fight. Many thanks! Cheers Source:

Contact Information ► Arranger name - Serjo De Lua ► Email address - ► Website - https://www.youtube.com/c/ClassicGameOrchestra/ ► Ocremix userid - 37324 Submission Information ► Name of arranged game - Batman NES (1989) ► Name of arrangement - Epic Orchestral Arrangement ► Name of individual arranged song - Stage 4 Theme 'Laboratory Ruins' ► Composer - Naoki Kodaka ► Platform - NES ► Release date: JP: December 22, 1989 NA: February 13, 1990 EU: September 14, 1990 ►Comment - Batman for the NES It's an outstanding game and Naoki Kodaka is one of my favorite composers of all time!!!

Your ReMixer name - Charlie Atom Your real name - José Carlos Peláez Lazo Your email address - Your website - charlieatom.tv Your userid (number, not name) on our forums, found by viewing your forum profile - 37354 Name of game(s) arranged - Undertale Name of arrangement - Heartache (Charlie Atom Remix) Name of individual song(s) arranged - Heartache Additional information about game including composer, system, etc. (if it has not yet been added to the site) - I got more than 2.5 million plays on spotify, played as DJ in EDC twice and toured on China. My songs got support by big djs like KSHMR, Don Diablo, Blasterjaxx, Breathe Carolina and more. Link to the original soundtrack (if it is not one of the sound archives already available on the site) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xflkF-sqNaM&ab_channel=Misaki Your own comments about the mix, for example the inspiration behind it, how it was made, etc. - I want to make EDM gamer music, im trying to promote my name this way now. EDIT (7/18/23): We have an updated version in (with the title of "Toriel's Pain") from Charlie Atom: "Lower volume and added something new in the second part." referring to an added supporting part from 1:33-1:58

Remixer name: MusicallyInspired Real name: Brandon Blume Email address: Website: brandonblume.com Userid #: 10382 Name of game: "King's Quest VI - Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow" Name of Arrangement: "Sailing on the Vaporwaves" Name of individual song arranged: "Seagull Theme" Original composer: Chris Brayman Original Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuxCWvWBfhc Seagull theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU4Za2_fXZA (not included in above soundtrack link as it was only in the CD version of the game and not the floppy version) This was originally made for a community-effort King's Quest chillout remix album based on all the games in the King's Quest series. The remix follows the original theme but changes the time signature from 4/4 to 6/8 and features additional/alternate notation that's not in the original, though it follows the original melody very closely, which is what I love about the original song in the first place. It later changes the time signature and BPM trademark in vaporwave music to make it sound like a slowed down cassette tape or something. It's an experimentation in a genre I've not attempted before and I used some plugins that I don't normally use to get this sound. I'm very happy with how it turned out. Sounds very dreamy which compliments the relaxing nature of the original arrangement. It seemed like a perfect fit for this style and I was pleased enough with it that I thought it'd be a strong candidate to also fit the requirements for OC Remix. I hope you do as well. If not, thanks for giving it a listen anyway! -- -Brandon Blume

This is super slick! I don't really have anything to add to what DarkSim mentioned but I wanted to chime in and give this my thumbs up as a causal listener Would love to see this submitted to the site if you're keen to do so!

I'm finding myself in agreement with Brad - at first, I wasn't even sure how you'd attempt to arrange this, but I left my first listen pleasantly surprised at how you kept things recognizable and explicitly tied back to the original BOTW theme, even with so little to work with. I'm always impressed with how brave you are to tackle sources like this From an execution standpoint, I just don't feel like there's enough going on here. The soundscape is very thin and therefore exposes all of the imperfections in the sequencing. There's almost nothing in the way of low-end frequency for much of the arrangement until we get to the end of the arrangement, so everything sounds very skewed on the high end and the end result is not very lush. The high harmonic violin is also very shrill when it doesn't have anything to balance it out in the rest of the frequency spectrum, and Brad also correctly identified that the decay on the strings cuts off unnaturally. I think this functions well for what it is, but the soundscape is just too barren in my opinion to really maintain interest outside of a purely ambient/foley piece. I think there's absolutely potential to arrange a source like this, but I do think the instrumentation and tonal balance needs to be fleshed out more in order to achieve that. NO

I'm also throwing my hat behind the above two votes - the bassline definitely deserves at least partial credit for its relation to the source progression, even if it is heavily jazzed-up and far more frenetic than the original. I'm generally more forgiving on liberal arrangements in general and like to give the benefit of the doubt, but this is pretty clearly recognizable and stays grounded thanks to the bassline. Jazz, to me, is all about expression and interpretation, so I love how you chose to run with the hot/cold motif in your instruments. Your organ sample is dirty and carries the lead melody so well, but I also want to highlight some of the auxiliary instrumentation like the drums and bass, which are well-sequenced and full of life. The light synth pads that enter at 4:04 are also a highlight - they come in to cool things down at just the right time. Overall, this is a super-solid package from Markus, just as I've come to expect! YES

Well, this is... something! ? As much as I don't consider myself a polka aficionado, this sort of off-the-wall experimentation is exactly what OCR is about and has always encouraged. The arrangement is a ton of fun, I love the fakeout intro in the proper key before taking it somewhere completely different. The samples are serviceable but not going to be winning anyone over in terms of realism. The fast upward runs on the clarinet and strings are noticeably unrealistic, and in my opinion, the biggest gripe I have with this track overall. It sounds like it would have felt right at home in a Nintendo 64 game, but most sample libraries should have some sort of advanced articulation or legato that would smooth those out. I'm taking Brad's side on the drums - while they might be mixed a bit too far forward, the simplicity absolutely checks out for the genre so I'm not going to ding you for that. This may be delving into some subjective territory, but I don't feel like realism is necessarily a primary objective for this arrangement - polka is a naturally silly-sounding genre and the MIDI quality on the sequencing doesn't really have a huge impact on the overall product in this context. The actual mixing and production is competent and well-balanced, so at the end of the day, none of the gripes with sample quality are enough to override your incredibly creative arrangement. I'm willing to give this a pass, good luck with the rest of the vote! EDIT 11/20/2021 - Upon further reflection, the sequencing issues are more significant than I initially acknowledged, and this really could benefit from a second pass to smooth out the humanization, sequencing on the snare drum, and reduce the dryness of the overall mix. There's so much potential here so if this doesn't end up going your way, let's make sure this one gets back to the panel as a resubmission! NO (please resubmit!)

This remix rides on the strength of the underlying groove and the sheer variety of instruments as you saunter through this arrangement. There's a distinct early PS1-esque character to the sample and production quality here, but not to your detriment - rather, it evokes a nostalgic, quirky quality that is mirrored in the arrangement. Throughout the track, you employ plenty of sequencing techniques, such as pitch bending and vibrato, to breathe life into each of your samples and make the most of what you have. I'm really surprised by how much I got lost in this on repeat listens - without needing a lot of high quality samples or effects, you crafted a wholly immersive experience full of life and character. 16 years since your last submission and you haven't missed a beat YES

Hell yes, we finally get a Cory Johnson submission! I've been a huge fan of your work ever since your post-rock Zelda album ages ago. The sound design here is absolutely off the hook, and the way you've integrated it with more traditional rock instrumentation is incredibly seamless and well-produced across the board. A lot has been said about the guitars and the various effect chains you've employed here, but I also want to comment on the drums, which are written with a lot of finesse and nuance as well and always suit the energy level of the track at any given moment. There's a great ebb and flow throughout the entire track while always pushing toward a final climax, which finally comes at 5:22 - while I was expecting something to happen, the absolute ferocity of it caught me totally off guard and REALLY sold me on this arrangement as a whole. Way to bring it all home! There's a lot of good to speak about this arrangement, and I'm glad you've chosen to send it our way. I sincerely hope we hear more from you in the future!! YES

This starts out with some very quality cinematic textures that would sound right at home in a modern film or game score. The first two minutes don't deviate far from the original source, melodically, but there's plenty of ear-candy and textural enhancements to keep things engaging during this initial buildup. At 1:55, we suddenly jump to the meat of the arrangement and things definitely start to click. The iconic "Cries of the Planet" arpeggio is ever present throughout the arrangement, but the way that you build up content around that riff through sound design, vocals, and additional original melodies prevents this from ever feeling like a cover. I did notice that some of the cinematic transition effects (such as 2:39 or 3:01, for example - are these from Hybrid Tools by 8Dio by any chance?) were mixed quite loudly. I tend to fall into this trap when using transition sound effects in my own work, since the original samples tend to be mixed so loudly, and it's easy to mix your transition effects WAY louder than the rest of the track. You can definitely still have the dramatic impact you're trying to achieve without being as blown out as they sound here. That's my only major gripe on the mixing and arrangement - aside from that, I really enjoyed this! I'm really keen to hear where you go next with this style as you hone your skills and get more ambitious with your arrangements. Nice work! YES

Triumphant, euphoric, and unapologetically upbeat, just as I've come to expect from the artists involved! The combination of sources was adapted flawlessly to the genre, and although it's been correctly pointed out that this is essentially 6+ minutes of non-stop melodies, there's still enough strategically-placed slowdowns to give the listener a moment to catch their breath. I've got to give a special shoutout to the Suburban Museum cameo at 4:10... what an absolute banger of a breakdown to shake things up before you drive it home with the final build and chorus. From an arrangement and performance standpoint, I truly believe this is some of your finest work to date, gents! From a mixing standpoint, this is pretty hot in the mids/highs - I am not catching any full-blown clipping that MindWanderer is pointing out, but you are definitely making that limiter work. Those transitions get crunchy and painful on the ears, but they're sporadic enough that I won't go conditional on it. Also agreed that the drum mix is a bit too loud across the board. Nothing that sinks the final track by any means, but I am hearing some of what the other judges are pointing out. YES

Damnnnn I love this source tune so much. Honestly one of my favorite Pokémon sources ever, it has a very Chrono Trigger/Yasunori Mitsuda feel to the arrangement. I was fairly ambivalent about the opening minute or so of your arrangement - the samples and sequencing aren't bad, but the adaptation lacked any personal touches or flourishes that really made the orchestration feel unique. I think part of the issue is that the part writing is very static, as Brad mentioned - there's just not a lot of dynamics to that part of the arrangement. I wouldn't necessarily consider it bad but I did feel underwhelmed, compared to the more dynamic, mysterious nature of the source tune. ... which made me all the more surprised by where you took this remix next! After listening fairly extensively on loop, I'm finding myself more and more enamored by the approach with each listen. The groove is simple but effective, and despite all of the instruments having a General MIDI soundfont-ish feel to them, you use them to great effect. The pitch bent guitar really shouldn't work this well, but it absolutely does. On a conceptual level, I can't say enough good things about this - incredibly creative, unexpected stuff. Mixing-wise, I think this could use a cleanup to give a bit more separation between instruments. Especially whenever your woodwind instruments are playing (for example, :18 or 1:45) the whole song sounds very muddy and lacks clarity. I had to actually listen a few times to realize there was even a lead melody at 1:45. Automating the volume of some of your backing instruments ever so slightly, or doing some selective EQ cuts where you have overlapping frequencies can help you clear this up. I also agree that the arrangement just doesn't feel totally complete at just over 2 minutes long. There's a distinct intro, middle, and ending, but neither of the two disparate ideas really feel like they're given enough time to fully develop. Just when I'm really starting to get into the second half of your arrangement, it ends. There's a few angles you could tackle this from, but I'd like to personally see some combination of: Mixing cleanup, more fleshed-out arrangement, and/or something to make the first minute of the song measure up to the creativity and execution of the second half. Any combination of those should put this over the bar in my book! NO (resubmit!)

Really cute selection of sounds going on here, I particularly like the contrast between the playful electronic lead and the more organic backing instrumentation. Slowing down the source into this lazy, hazy groove definitely personalizes it to great effect so that you're not just retreading the same ground as the original song. The pause sfx cutaway was a clever stylistic choice that anyone who's played Yoshi's Island should appreciate (on a totally personal level, as someone who's extensively played Yoshi's Island myself, the repeated use of the crying sfx throughout the whole song actually took me out of the chillout feel of the rest of the song because of the ingame context. I would have liked to hear that used at max once or twice, but that's totally a matter of personal taste.) The main downfall here is that the arrangement sounds incomplete, or intended to function as a loop, which unfortunately doesn't vibe with our submission standards. If you could flesh this out with at least another minute of content and development, I think it would have a much stronger case, but right now this sounds like a strong first demo that needs some more time in the oven. Would love to hear an expanded version of this if you're up for it! NO

I found my opinions to be right on point with @djpretzel in terms of really enjoying what you've laid down here, but finding that it fell just a bit short during the 2nd half of the song. The use of live bass really brings the groove to life, and capitalizes on the funkiness of the original source but in a wholly unique way. This works so well as a lo-fi arrangement, but the concept loses steam as a standalone arrangement when it essentially repeats without adding anything substantial during minute #2. I don't necessarily even think you need to extend the arrangement much, just adding more in terms of embellishment before closing out the track would also achieve the same result. Either way, I dig this a lot but it feels like this could be fleshed out further without sacrificing the dreamy lo-fi feeling you went for. Very close call for me, I don't think this would take much to push it over the bar! NO (please resubmit!)

Just a quick cosign here - the proggy guitar and organ tones are tasty, and lay a solid foundation for quite the sprawling arrangement. The tonal cohesion helps glue together an arrangement that is marked by some awkward transitions, so even though some of the individual links between sections are sloppy, the overall piece still feels cohesive enough! The changeup at 3:55 was a breath of fresh air before getting back into some heavier guitar chugs and eventually Capt'n Shred's badass guitar solo. Agree with Larry about the clipping on the thunder sfx, that sounds very unnatural, but that's my only hope in terms of fixes. Aside from that, this is ready for primetime! YES

There's some really lovely writing here! It feels distinctly out of the Pokémon D/P canon, full of nostalgic warmth and unconventional chord changes/melodies, but elevated by a more organic, high-quality sound palette. The sequencing is a mixed bag for me, with most of the leads feeling just a touch robotic but nothing standing out as a major dealbreaker, either. The samples themselves have pretty great tone across the board, so despite the flaws in the sequencing, it still sounds quite pleasant to listen to. Brad touched on the copy-paste section at 1:55, but the addition of the percussion keeps the arrangement progressing overall. Is it the most sophisticated, nuanced choice? Probably not, but certainly nothing that can sink the arrangement for me. I'm sold on this! Good luck with the rest of the vote. YES

Brad did a great job covering this from a theory/writing standpoint, so I won't try to retread that same ground. I will say that the arrangement felt properly dynamic and expressive and I had no qualms from that angle! 3:25 was a jarring transition but the section that followed was properly dramatic. I wished that the ending had a little more time to tail off, the fade felt quite abrupt. This definitely had a "keyboard sampler" quality to the instrumentation, but I have to commend the work you did with what you had. The piano tone, while it wasn't the most realistic, was very responsive to the dynamics of your performance and felt very dramatic. The rest of the instrumentation took on a supporting role and as such, the lack of realism didn't hurt things as much. I feel like if @Liontamer were to vote on this track, he might say something about "not making perfect the enemy of the good" and I would wholeheartedly agree with him! This arrangement is ambitious and grandiose, and it's clear that you put a lot of thought and effort into executing it as best as possible within the limits of your sample libraries. YES