Emunator

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

I found this to be comfortably above the bar. The guitar performance is incredibly tight, and Psamathes adds a ton of character to the sound palette. As always, I love your ambition with changing up rhythm at a moment's notice while never feeling like you're just tacking disparate concepts together without any glue between them. The mixing felt serviceable and never obscured my ability to hear anything important, even if the frequency balance felt imperfect. YES

I find myself agreeing 100% with Deia on this - it's very anticlimactic to end the arrangement on a 1-for-1 repetition of a section that was already run through earlier in the track. Even a little arpeggio/countermelody or a change in synth patch to offer some variation is all this needs. It's so close, but the way it's currently presented feels like a letdown. And I also agree that the vocal clips could be better integrated into the mix with some reverb/leveling. This should be a super-easy resubmission if this doesn't pass - love everything else you've got going on here! NO (resubmit!)

I've been holding off on this one for a while because I hate to reject a track that is clearly well put together, well-performed, and by all measures an enjoyable listen, that doesn't meet the standards of interpretation that we're looking for at OCR, but I don't want to keep this languishing for any longer. I love this in a bubble and want to commend your musicianship, but the two judges who have already chimed in have the right call. No shade intended, and I certainly hope to hear something from you with a bit more of an interpretive take in the future! NO

I have to agree the gentlemen above - this has a ton of potential and it's clear that you're doing some fun stuff with the original source material. Prophetik hit the nail on the head that the lack of attention paid to volume is hurting this track a lot. It gives the impression that there's not enough dynamics or "breath" in your arrangement. This is a simple fix that could be accomplished with more selective volume automation, or if you want to give it even more character, filter sweep automation with a bit of resonance baked into your filter. This will help the dynamics of your mix match the natural rise and fall of your arrangement, and also clear up some room so that the synths you really want to highlight at any given point are front-and-center. It will also help some of your synth lines from sounding too vanilla, and add that extra touch of texture to the track overall. Solid stuff overall, but the mixing still sounds like it's unfinished. Hope to hear this again! NO (resubmit)

I've been sitting on this one for a long time. I don't really have a lot to say because I'm not really a fan of this style on a personal level, but the execution is solid enough in my book and is certainly bolstered by the ambition of the arrangement as a whole. Cyril and HeavenWraith both gave spirited performances that carry the track in spite of the technical issues that have been covered, and the mixing is honestly pretty good overall too! The main issues I see are timing-related and some inconsistent reverb levels, but none of that sinks the overall product for me. I'm happy to sign off on this in its current form. YES

This resubmission certainly fixes the issue with the harshness of the original mix, so my ears are grateful for that! However, as a result, you've backslid a bit too far in the other direction and taken all of the bite out of the high end entirely and now the mix sounds muddy and imbalanced toward the low end. When evaluating this, I have your new version and old version lined up with each other, and when A/B comparing, one mixdown is clearly treble heavy and one is bass heavy. Curiously enough, when I play both of the tracks in tandem at 50% volume each, the track actually sounds way better, to the point where I literally think you just need to find a midpoint between these two mixdowns, and you'll be golden. I hate to bounce this back without a ton of new input, but if you want to get in touch with me directly, I'd love to workshop this with you and get into the weeds, because I want to see this track posted! Your arrangement and performances are, and always have been, very strong. Keep at it! NO (resubmit!)

I love the palette of instruments you chose to work with here! The eclectic mix of plucky, whimsical instruments, mixed with a wash of chimes and shaker effects all comes together quite nicely. I also appreciated the very sparse use of vocals for additional texture. The only weak link, sequencing-wise, would be the panflute, which has a very unnatural release that causes the notes to cut off abruptly and not join together naturally. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Great expansion on a relatively simple theme - you managed to give it a totally unique character while still keeping the spirit of the original track present at all times. Nice work! YES

Considering you've said that you're not a musician by trade, this is a pretty solid first attempt! There's a good deal of interpretation in how you adapted the original source to a slowed-down, vibed-out synthwave style, and there's a lot of creative sound choices to drive home that mood. I thoroughly enjoyed the bones of this track! However, the production side is not living up to the potential of your arrangement, as I'm immediately picking up on several mixing/sequencing issues that could be addressed. First off, let's talk about the overall mixing on the track. This is VERY heavily compressed beyond what the genre calls for. I think I can best illustrate this with a screengrab of the overall track waveform, which can be helpful to evaluate the overall dynamic curve of your track... What this immediately tells me is that you've slammed the levels of your instruments as loud as you can go, and you're engaging the limiter on your master track way too frequently. Especially when your waveform looks like this during sections like 1:40 or 2:49, where there's really only a few instruments going on, it's immediately obvious that the levels of your instruments need to be brought down so that there's some breathing room for the natural dynamics to show through. This especially becomes an issue with some of your high pitched bell samples, or the sound effects that bookend the track on the front and back - these are mixed so loudly, the high frequencies are physically painful on the ears. Rebalancing each instrument in your arrangement, and adding some high-end EQ cuts to certain patches would be an excellent starting point. Aside from that, the second major issue I want to bring attention to is the velocities. It sounds like nearly all of your instruments are rigidly quantized to the beat and play at the same velocity for each note, with the exception of your plucked synth arpeggio and the bass. Now, I wouldn't expect the humanization in a synthwave arrangement to be totally realistic, but for example, the piano at 1:00 sounds excessively rigid. Even some slight variance in the timing/velocity of the notes would help that melody blend better. Lastly, for lack of a better word, the kick drum just sounds weird in this context. It sounds like it may have been heavily time-warped, but the sample used is just not cutting it for me. For the first few bars when it is first introduced, it actually sounds kind of cool, but for the remainder of the track, the sample just seems like a strange choice that doesn't have an ideal frequency balance for this style. Consider trying out some new samples to see how it affects the overall sound of your mix. I am definitely impressed with what you were able to put together here, so please don't take the feedback negatively - this is an excellent first take. However, the mixing and sequencing need to be polished before this is ready for primetime. Good luck! NO

I'm not quite as sold on the execution as Gario, but I will solidly agree that this is a unique, atmospheric electronic track that captures exactly the feel you were going for. When you go for a more explicit dubstep style at 1:34, it all comes together. Very tastefully done. I love the saw chords going on at 2:03, but I can't shake the feeling that simply automating the volume to make it more prominent in the mix (which is what I'm assuming you did) wasn't the right approach, since it currently sticks out as unnaturally loud. A filter sweep with a high resonance or a riser sweep would likely achieve the same effect, but sound more natural. I'm also not in love with the snare sound in the first minute of the track; again, it simply sounds too loud and dry and it feels mildly distracting. Also seconding the notion that the track should probably cut off at 2:50. All these things aside, this is clearly above the bar, but I did want to note some of these small details to keep in mind for future submissions. Nice work! YES

Props to you for pulling something out of the vault and sending it our way! There's always a risk of something sounding dated, but it's also really unfortunate when a great arrangement languishes in the vault, unheard by anyone. I am fond of this throwback style of trance! Your production is pretty good across the board, although there's a few builds/transitions that are noticeably slammed against the limiter and causing some unwanted distortion (for example, :27, 1:23, and 2:58, it sounds like you have a kick that might be double-layered and not balanced correctly.) The ending also cuts off extremely abruptly and would need a clean fadeout. My bigger gripe with the arrangement is unfortunately the repetitiveness of it. Listening to the source, I understand that there's really not much to work with - the original essentially rides the same bass note for the entire duration. Unfortunately, I feel that this works better for a short looping track than a full-fledged arrangement. When I scan through random points in your track, no matter where I click, it always seems like most of your instruments are doing the same thing at any given point. The breakdown at 1:50 was an excellent reprieve, but for the most part, the meat of this track feels like it's based around a few simple loops without a lot of growth or dynamics throughout the arrangement, bookended by some traditional trance intros/outros. With the drums staying fairly static outside of major transition points, this ultimately feels like it was built as a short loop and not fully realized as a standalone arrangement. Great work in a bubble, and I'm glad that you chose to share this, but for the standard of arrangement and interpretation that we're looking for at OCR, I don't feel that this quite hits the mark. NO

I have to agree that the mixing comes across as unfinished on my first impression. As you start to add heavier guitars, the choice of patch for the bass and drums makes a lot more sense, but for the first minute and a half, the tone of the bass and drums just doesn't match with the rest of the instrumentation. Because you're using the same drum pattern throughout the whole track, it also feels very repetitive and by the time you actually bring in the rhythm/lead guitars, the pattern starts to feel extremely stale. I would consider revisiting your drumming and adding in variation/fills throughout the track, rather than just at major transition points, and developing some new base patterns that are better suited for each point in the song (more relaxed/ethereal for the first half, and more intense later on when the guitars kick in.) My overall impression is that this is a pretty strong concept once the guitars are introduced, but up until that point, the soundscape feels underdeveloped. Gario has some great feedback on the mixing side, but I would also like to see more sounds and textures added to keep the first part of the arrangement more engaging and cohesive and give the listener more to latch onto. Love the bold concept, but the execution needs another pass or two to get it up to par. Keep at it! NO

I love what you're going for overall and think you picked a perfect source to execute it with. This melody adapts perfectly to synthwave, and I appreciate the decision to go with a less-common Mario World theme. I hear where Gario is coming from with regards to the back-half repetition, and I will say that I think the track is weaker for it. I think you could have ramped things up in the final section a bit more with some additional countermelodies or even some original writing to close things out in more dramatic fashion. The shift to double-time prevents this from being a straight-up copy/paste scenario, but once I noticed it, it did sour my overall impression of the track. It seems like an especially curious choice when you already have an alternate melody/chord progression at :57 that would fit right in and offer a counterpoint to round the track out more wholly. On the mixing side, there's a bit of muddiness that's endemic to the synthwave genre, but aside from that, the production does feel slightly sterile. Some of your individual synths could use more bite, possibly by way of saturation or very subtle distortion, as well as some overall compression to glue everything together better. This is more of a "want" than a "need", but I felt it was worth mentioning anyway. Ultimately, I think the repetition could be forgiven if there was more content in the track overall, but when it's such a large part of a short arrangement, it sticks out like a sore thumb and leaves things sounding unresolved. It's very close and I wouldn't be torn up if this does eventually pass, but addressing it would certainly make this a much stronger package. NO (borderline, resubmit!)

YES! I wasn't sure if this would ever see the light of day again. I love this, you have at least one person eagerly awaiting this track's completion!

The two J's above absolutely nailed this and hit on a few specifics that could tighten this up, as well as the assessment that your orchestral sequencing is steadily improving with each submission. The mixing and mastering during the main section of this track, aside from the rumbling in the atmospheric effects that can easily be highpassed out, is quite good. However, the lack of any game-related content late in the arrangement is more of a dealbreaker than the length of the outro itself. In fact, I like the very slow wind-down, but if there was a bit more of a connection to the source, or any Zelda tune for that matter, it would seal the deal for me. NO (resubmit)

I can fully sympathize with your difficulty keeping a Celeste remix to just one source - the songs all weave together so easily that it's hard not to turn every arrangement into a full-blown medley! I personally think your arrangement is all the stronger for it though, keeping things fresh and dynamic over the course of 6 minutes. The mixing is loud, but thankfully nothing gets lost in the sauce at any point and all of your instruments come through clean. The Scattered and Lost breakdown provides a bit of a reprieve before jumping back into full force with some of the heaviest metal riffs I've heard in recent memory on the panel! My only nit, and it's a VERY small one, is the artifact at 1:35 when the song cuts to silence, there's a slight echo from the guitar that sounds awkward. I'm not going to go conditional on it, but if that could be ironed out before posting, that would be much appreciated! YES

This is a fabulous example of a resubmission done right! While the humanization still isn't perfect on the piano and some of the more exposed legato leads, it's more than enough to get the job done! The orchestration is still lush and dynamic on the mixing side, but your sequencing is far more lifelike now. This reminds me strongly of Nutritious' grandiose orchestral arrangements, which I consider the gold standard for full-ensemble orchestral arrangements. Excellent work! Excited to hear more from you in the future YES