Emunator

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

Just a quick co-sign on what the two gentlemen above have stated - there's a lot of great stuff going on here. The groove is fun, and you're tapping into a wide variety of synths that all sound great together, tonally. However, the mixing definitely needs a second pass to ensure that the right elements of the song are coming through at the right times. There's plenty of times where I can't tell what instrument is intending to be the lead melody because all of the melodic elements are mixed around the same volume level. I like the sound of your sub bass, but I'm not sure if it's filling out quite the right frequency range - it sounds strangely detached from the rest of the track. I think Brad is onto something by recommending some additional element to pad out the low-mid range and glue the bass/drums in with the rest of your instrumentation. Right now, there's some great tones and writing at work here, but it's not clicking quite yet. I'd love to see a second pass of this with the mixing tightened up and something new added to the second half to ease up on the direct repetition. Great start! NO (resubmit)

This is immediately serving up Deus Ex vibes. Those detuned FM bells that enter at 1:22 are juicy. The production here is immaculate across the board, full of texture and richness. The pacing of the arrangement is exceptional as well, absolutely nailing the slow build without ever lingering on one idea too long before introducing something new for the listener to enjoy. The fakeout ending at 3:40 was such a treat too, and the glitchy percussion that enters is tasteful and impactful. I can see myself coming back to this a lot - great work! YES

I will say that the piano sounds sequenced better than some of the previous submissions I've heard from you, so the improvement is definitely noticeable! This does feel locked to the grid to a certain degree, but almost in a "player piano" sort of way, so I won't hold that against this track too much. The lack of reverb and dryness of the arrangement overall is probably my biggest complaint, but Brad made a really insightful point about the lack of cohesion between the ensemble that I strongly agree with too. There just doesn't feel like there's a whole lot going on here and it never seems to coalesce into a full-bodied ensemble sound. It's a great concept but I just don't feel like it ever properly clicked together. NO

Hah! That Lost Woods BOTW theme really goes with everything, doesn't it? Right off the bat, I'm digging the adaptation of these themes into a darker electronic rhythm. You take your time building up to full steam but I appreciated the slow burn. The sound design throughout the first few minutes was perhaps smoother around the edges than I would have liked, but the gritty lead that enters at 2:37 gives this the necessary bite to carry the arrangement home. I want to echo Brad's critique of the kickdrums that enter at 2:36, which lacked nuance and didn't sound great to my ears. The other judges have correctly identified that this is a very bass-heavy mixdown and the master limiter gets pushed pretty hard during the choruses. It's less than ideal, and unfortunately features some of the same issues I had with your first submission, but like that one, I found that this was carried on the merits of the creative arrangement and sound design. I do hope you can take some of these critiques to heart for future submissions and use that to improve your mixing game even further! YES

The rhythmic changeups are off the hook!! It's certainly true that this doesn't stray far from the original source, but the way you changed the cadence of the melodies gives it a whole new feel. Your percussion is excellent too!

This is hot! Totally not what I expected out of Deedubs but this keeps getting better and better as it goes on. The production toward the back half is seriously rich. Love this!!

*UPDATE 12th Sep 2022* - HarlemHeat360 sent a new mixdown with no clipping and some slight changes to the drum patterns: Contact Information Username: HarlemHeat360 UserID:37144 Website: https://www.youtube.com/user/HarlemHeat360 Submission Information Arrangement Game: Final Fantasy VII Name of Arrangement: Hear Her Cries Song Being Arranged: Listen to the Cries of the Planet Comments: Originally, this song began as more of a transcription/remaster idea, but as i played more and more with the electronic aspects of the song, I really got into it. By the end I was giddy to make new interesting sounds while still trying to make an enjoyable sounding track. I think that was the most difficult aspect--trying to find beauty in the soundscape without creating a cacophony of sound. Overall, the concept is a cry for help that goes unnoticed. The track sort of shouts at you once more, pleading to be heard. That second half, in my eyes, is the planet showing you all those scars and taking off the cover from the first half. It's much more raw and emotional--not as docile. I hope that image came through during this arrangement.

Name: Michael Hudak Games arranged: Resident Evil Remake (GCN, 2002), Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil 4 Songs arranged: "Save Theme" from all three games. An alternate title for the RE0 Save Theme is "Rest", according to Discogs. I've also seen the RE Remake one titled "Safe Haven", but I think that's probably a fan re-naming. Name of my arrangement: Mansion of Delete (No Sleep Demon) Link to originals: REmake- https://youtu.be/Ur9YfB31cPI?t=302 / RE0- https://youtu.be/Ur9YfB31cPI / RE4- https://youtu.be/Ur9YfB31cPI?t=1273 Link to ReMix: My 3 favorite save themes from the RE series (the original PS1 RE had a slightly different arpeggio in its save theme that sounded less sinister to me; I prefer the REmake version). Inspired by the waking dreams (hypnagogia) I've been frequently experiencing over the last year. Almost like dreams within dreams, or maybe several dreams spiralling together, kind of like a 5-pronged DNA strand. Bizarre stuff. That's the feeling I wanted to capture here, rather than just aim to do a simple ambient piece, because there's enough of that already (you can go to YT and listen to whole playlists of RE save music with rain storm effects in the background). The strange, filtered, bass-only beat from 1:40 to 1:50 represents the cars going down my street blasting music at 1:30 am. "No Sleep Demon" was the working title, but towards completion I realized that I copped Oneohtrix Point Never's style from his album Garden of Delete pretty hard here, so that explains the title. I think a little bit of the very old OCR ReMix called "Of Transformants and Brevity" by zykO crept in here, too. I listened to that dozens of times in high school. If this passes, I'm sure some people will hate it...I don't even know if I like it! I very much enjoyed making it though. Cathartic experience. It's mostly source material aside from the final 30 seconds or so. Slowed down a lot using multitap delays, though. Here are time signatures indicating where I used each source. REmake Save Theme: 00-0:19, 0:24 - 1:00, 1:21 - 1:37, 1:50 - 2:00, 2:06 - 2:12, 2:38 - 2:50. RE0 Save Theme ("Rest"): 1:00 - 1:15, 1:42 - 1:49. RE4 Save Theme: 1:38 - 1:42, 2:17 - 2:32. The "whattaya buyin'" is a voice clip from RE4 that I chopped up a pitched down. Other voice clips are of me and a friend messing around with instruments. Thanks in advance for slogging through this one. I'll send a more regular one next time. - Michael

Hello OC Remix, my name is Daniel Ruiz and my remixer name is Mithyka you can contact me at this same email address and here is my userID: 37288 Remix information: - Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom (NES) - Downtempo/lofi/trap - Level 1 I've been a fan of the channel for years so I thought I deviate from my usual productions and throw my hat in the OC Remix ring. It's a pretty obscure game but this song's melody has always intoxicated me so I wanted to give it a modern lofi treatment. Hope it's to the judges liking! Cheers! Source:

Remixer name : jmabate Real name : abate jean marc Email : website : https://www.youtube.com/user/jmabate userid : 35644 Name of game(s) arranged : Final Fantasy IX Name of arrangement : It’s an Ambush Name of individual song(s) arranged : Ambush Attack Composers : Nobuo Uematsu System : Sony Playstation Original : https://youtu.be/DGbGtlixygA Track infos : arranged and performed for the Pixel Mixers Final Fantasy IX Tribute Album "Beyond the Mist". Hope you will enjoy this cover. Best regards Jmabate

RebeccaETripp Rebecca Tripp http://www.crystalechosound.com/ ID: 48262 Game(s): Breath of the Wild Song Title: It’s So Chilly Songs Remixed: Cold Here’s a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGLbMVh59z0 It's the theme that plays when you step onto the kitchen floor with bare feet during winter (at least if you live in Canada). Source:

Contact Info: J-BHarmonized James High Soundcloud.com/jbharmonized 33741 Submission Info: Pokemon Black/White Version Tower of Break it Down Original Composer: Shota Kageyama, GAME FREAK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4u6ht7TtVo

What an incredible source tune - I believe that Dave Wise's work for Star Fox Adventures is some of his most underrated work, and I'm so grateful that others are inspired by it! Starting off, the synth patch that you used in the intro doesn't have enough movement or depth to function as a drone, and in general doesn't feel adequate enough to set the mood. I would experiment with either layering in other synth sounds, adding in octave harmonies to give it more of a full sound, or simply trying out some different patches. The bawu is a very interesting choice that carries your melody well! I do notice certain points where the volume of the instrument tails off and it gets lost under the rest of the instruments, such as the 1:10 mark. Some compression to normalize those quieter notes will fix that up with no problem. Similarly, the synth lead at 2:11 is pretty quiet in the mix. The guitars sound great, both in terms of mixing and sequencing. They wouldn't have even registered as VST instruments if you didn't specifically mention it. Everything clicks into place when those enter - this remix is at its best when the guitars are present, in my opinion. The only issue that jumps out to me during those sections is the drum mix, which noticeably lacks much high-end presence and could stand to be EQ'd or saturated to reintroduce some of that high-end crunch. At the end of the day, you've got a very strong arrangement but a number of technical miscues that warrant a second pass in my book. If this ends up not passing, I'd be happy to work with you directly to help iron out some of these issues so we can get this posted. The world needs more Star Fox Adventures representation! NO (resubmit!)

Certainly very close to the original source material, but with some subtle additions. This is on the edge of what I would consider too conservative, but the small changes and additions you brought to the table aren't lost on me! However, the instrumentation and sequencing is another aspect of this track that I feel falls slightly short of expectations. Most of the instruments have a very rigid feel to them that belies the warm, organic soundscape you're looking to create. The biggest offender in my book is the electric piano, which has almost no expressiveness whatsoever and plays heavily quantized to the grid. The piano is definitely the most natural sounding performance of the bunch, and the rest of the instrumentation falls somewhere in between. I find that realism in sequencing is especially important in an arrangement like this where you're working with so few sounds, and everything is so exposed. I have no problems with this conceptually, but the execution in creating a realistic, organic soundscape is not quite there yet, but could easily get there with little effort! NO (resubmit)

This truly does feel like a natural evolution and expansion of some of your previous piano-centric experimental arrangements. It's fascinating hearing some of the same techniques applied to a different palette of instruments. The string ensemble that enters at :40 offers excellent padding for the numerous plucked textures and field recordings that are going on around it. When we transition in the back half to a more synth-driven take, there's still subtle sound design that keep this grounded in the same realm that you've established thus far. It's something clearly different, and the symbolism of the turning of a page is certainly not lost on me, but it still feels like part of a cohesive statement. Keep doing what you're doing... which is, of course, doing something completely different and unexpected every time! YES

Gario nailed it - this is a fantastic take on the source, but less than a minute simply doesn't give you enough time to substantially expand on the concept presented. If this were double the length (obviously without direct copy/pasting) so this could feel like more of a fully-developed musical idea, it's an easy pass - your guitar chops and the way you've expanded on such a short melody so far are A+. No shade intended to you as a musician, just that this doesn't feel substantial enough for the standards that we've established for OCRemix. Hope to hear more from you in the future!! NO

I agree with this take 100%. Rests and space between notes are still an integral part of how a source melody can be transformed and presented in a unique way. Another angle I like to look at source usage from, when we're so close to the 50% mark, is how it is distributed throughout the arrangement. If there was 100% source usage for the first half of the arrangement and absolutely none in the second half, I would judge that more harshly than what I see here, which is a recognizable motif that is used frequently throughout the remix. Although the source is not strictly present at any given moment, you revisit it frequently enough that I never forget that I'm listening to a TMNT remix. Not trying to skirt around the standards here, but in my book this is so close to that 50% mark that it really does come down to a gut feel, so this is my attempt to explain what goes on in my head in a scenario like this. In this arrangement's case, I think you come out on the winning side of the debate. Source usage aside, this is a bangin' track with a rich soundscape, meaty bassline & drums, and a satisfying dynamic curve to keep things from growing stagnant. I dig it! YES