Emunator   Judges ⚖️

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

Emunator: - Arrangement, Production, Piano/Keys, Programming, Mixing Biggoron: Organ, Orchestra Hits Chimpazilla: Vocal Chops, Additional FX, mixing, mastering Flexstyle: Additional Drum Programming, Beatbox jnWake: Additional Piano, Synth Bass OceansAndrew: Guitar (Solo) Zack Parrish: Bass, Guitar (Rhythm, Clean Lead) Credits: Another month, another Dwelling of Duels competition that I didn't plan on entering until FOMO struck, this time 4 days before the deadline. Once again, I decided to make this everyone's problem by going all-out on a megacollab that pulls together folks from both the OCR and DoD communities. Who's to say whether that cross-pollination is a joyous union of families, or an invasion of filthy technomanga tryhards who are spreading their untz-untz all over the place? All I know is that more OCR representation into the DoD competition this year has personally motivated me to work harder and faster, in totally new styles and franchises that I never would have pursued otherwise. All the love for that community and what they're doing over there <3 Because this track came together so fast, I found myself waking up every day to start on it and then realizing that the song had taken on a totally different style than what I had envisioned the day before. It started off as a DX7-laden new-jack swing groove, which Flexstyle brought to life with a custom Battery drum kit that formed the foundation for the rest of the track. However, when I connected with jnWake the next day, he laid down a ton of different improvised parts that brought the track into a more adult contemporary jazz-fusion style, like David Benoit or Bruce Hornsby. The lines were further blurred when Zack Parrish and OceansAndrew submitted their guitar parts, which, coupled with some brilliantly-placed vocal chops and sfx from Chimpazilla, inspired me to pivot towards a more modern pop vibe lifted straight from The 1975. On the last day, I received some lovely organ recordings (and orchestra hits!) from Biggoron that felt vaguely gospel-esque... so I ripped a page from Madeon's book and recorded some last-minute piano parts and added a gospel choir for good measure! In the end, it became an amalgamation of so many sounds that were important to me throughout my life, and it all slammed together so fast that I just had to see where my inspiration took me, and trust my collaborators in the process. Special shoutouts to Chipmazilla, who did the final mixdown and mastering that lets this track shine in a way I couldn't have done myself. I cannot possibly express enough gratitude to these 6 artists who dropped everything on such short notice (OceansAndrew told me he recorded his solo less than 3 hours before hopping on a plane for a trip) to bring their A-game to this little whim of a track. Thank you all for... err, bringing this song to justice?

Matt, your Maynard impression is pretty damn on-point, and you also came prepared with the FX processing to nail the iconic Tool sound. Major shoutouts to Seph on the screams too, I didn't know you had that in you! I remember commenting in the DoD listening party (before I knew it was you guys making the track - I should have known!) that there were some sections that felt particularly imbalanced in terms of volume, but that appears to have been totally ironed out in this version, because everything is crystal clear and sitting in just the right spot. The bass and guitar tone, in combination with the vocal processing, are the perfect mix of sludgy, aggressive, and clean at all the right moments. And it should go without saying that the instrumental performances are incredibly tight across the board - I can tell you all had a lot of fun with this. I have a few minor gripes with the mixing. I didn't really pick up on this before, but the vocal sibilance is really coming through hot on my current listening setup, and could use a bit of taming on the consonants. The kit drum, specifically the kicks and (to a lesser extent, the toms) feel mixed a bit too clean and clicky, almost like you would mix for an EDM track rather than a rock track. Everything is distinct and the clarity is excellent, but something doesn't sound QUITE right for the genre and I think the clarity on the kickdrum is the culprit. That's all I got for you though - the rest of the mix is really, really good. Easy yes on all fronts, you guys are powerhouses at your craft! YES

I'm coming into this fresh-ish, having not voted on the original track. What I'm hearing is a well-balanced, punchy mix with some really cool delay-based atmospheric effects that give this a totally unique feel, despite using a pretty traditional set of complementary instruments. There's a tremendous amount of personality and swagger here, and enough going on that, even though the beat is fairly low-tempo and unassuming, it still propels the arrangement forward and makes for a track you can really bob your head to. The arrangement breezes by, running through a lot of ideas but still managing to remain cohesive, and not feeling like you just threw everything at the wall indiscriminately. It's a really great piece that came together well. I find a few of the synth elements to be a little shrill, partly due to the octave that they're written in, but in the future this could also be mitigated with a dynamic EQ or compression to tame those frequencies. It's also worth considering lowering the range of bells and flutes specifically, which tend to have some of the most shrill high harmonic content, but this is hardly a dealbreaker - just a comment for the future. Great work on the resubmission!! YES

Delightful! It's a medley of all the things that I love most about Rebecca's arrangements - delicate rearrangement and fusion of themes, a cohesive soundscape, and a cast of supporting instrumentalists that fills in the gaps where her programmed orchestra has historically fallen a bit short of realism standards. This whole suite of tracks is transcendent and beautiful, definitely one of the easiest RET submissions I've judged in a minute :) YES

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

I don't understand any of the time signature stuff Brad said, but the changes in rhythm can be immediately felt without even breaking down the time signature changes. The overall vibe is completely different without becoming unrecognizable. Your arrangement has a distinctly Yoko Shimomura style, thanks to the energetic piano writing, but the orchestra is programmed extremely tightly and professionally and pairs super well with that. It's clear that you approached this with a composer's mindset, as if you were rewriting this theme for a completely different context but still squarely within the Dark Souls universe. I really can't find any technical fault here that wouldn't be extremely nitpicky and unproductive - I think you accomplished exactly what you intended to do! YES

There's something about the Earthbound soundtrack that brings out the best in anyone who touches it. I admittedly wasn't familiar with this source prior to the submission, but it's amazing to see how much juice you've squeezed out of such a minimalist, deep-cut original. I think it's the juxtaposition of quirky, mechanical and often dissonant source material, along with an undercurrent of real human emotion that flows through the core compositions that makes an arrangement like this possible. It's a delicate balance to strike, but successfully threading that needle is what has yielded some of my favorite remixes on the site from artists like Rellik, sci or Ridley Snipes. Admittedly, this is much more organic and emotionally resonant than Shieldeater's previous submissions, but it doesn't fully abandon the psychadelic edge that was present there, either. There's plenty of ear candy and tape warble and out-of-left-field fills that keep you on your toes, but it's truly special to hear that merged with such warm chord progressions and touching performances. This will easily be a mainstay on my personal listening rotation, this one is a stunner! YES

I love when happy accidents like that completely end up changing the course of an entire arrangement :) I think it led you to somewhere fantastic in this case, because Zelda's Lullaby inherently leaves a ton of space between the notes that allow you to play around with improvisation without pulling too far away from the core melody. There was never a point where I doubted whether or not we were still in Zelda's Lullaby territory. Your palette of instruments is on full display here, and everything is in its right place - the recording quality is unilaterally warm and lush, and you handled the mixing and mastering with care. I do think that some of the parts feel a little too improvised, and this is felt particularly during some of the transitions when you add or subtract instruments from the ensemble feeling just a little bit sloppy. There's certainly potential for this piece to be a little tighter with a few re-records, but it's hard to deny the charm it has in its current state, either. I loved it and think the community at large will too! YES

It's hard to imagine a world where this track wasn't made without a little bit of tongue in cheek. OK, I hit the 1:45 mark with the "super ass zombie chicken" clip and I'm now convinced that CJ's tongue has gone directly through his cheek while making this. It's goofy as hell not just in the use of quotes, but even in the sound choices scan as humorous (see: the vocal-ish synth lead at :43.) The juxtaposition of the silly synth tones with heavy electro drums and bass. It's all so hysterical. Thankfully, you're not just memeing over a half-assed production - the mixing quality is punchy and appropriate for the style, even if I think you could have backed off on the master limiter slightly, everything is clearly audible without any unwanted distortion or pumping. It feels like something I'd want to listen to while playing Streets of Rage or Smash Bros to get me pumped up. CLUCK YEAH

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

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

Artist Name: tibonev This was arranged for Pixel Mixers's Earthbound Album "PM Rocking", my idea behind the arrangement was to make it a fun, bouncy, clearly 80s inspired version, but implementing different elements, like clean electric guitars, distorted lead guitars, lots of synths (backing and bass, for instance), basically making something that on parts would be out of place in a club in europe in 1987, but also, sounding unique enough to be completely out of place in that same enviroment. The name means: "For Sale", because i always found it funny that you can buy a "for sale" sign in the town of Twoson, also, it ends up being a shallow reference to The Beatles, which influenced the original OST. Breakdown: 0:00-0:33 - slightly changed version of chord progression from source 0:41-1:22 - original source melody 1:22-1:30 - altered chord progression 1:30-2:02 - new arpeggios with different backing and variation bassline 2:02-2:11 - original source melody 2:12-2:26 - new guitar solo 2:26-2:42 - original melody 2:42-2:50 - altered chord progression from source 2:50-2:59 - new guitar 2:59-3:06 - original melody 3:06-3:31 - new arpeggios over the original chord progression 3:31-3:50 - slightly changed version of chord progression from source

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

Artist: IdleJohn I've always loved this track from Unreal, so naturally I wanted to do it as my first attempt at a remix. The project started in 2016, and I've done more revisions than I care to remember... It's been a long road and a lot of learning, but now I think(?) it's finally ready to submit. I recorded electric guitar and mandolin and used a sample (nali chant) from the the original game in a couple of parts. I wanted to try and include all the elements from the original track (especially the funky bass guitar line) but it's been through so many changes now I might have lost some along the way...

Artist Name: Emunator, Chimpazilla feat. Pixelseph Credits: Emunator: Original arrangement, production, mixing Chimpazilla: Arrangement, production, mixing, mastering Pixelseph: Guitars (rhythm, lead) Artist Notes: Emunator: This submission is a completely reimagined version of a my contribution to "VGM Essentials: Drum & Bass" on Firaga Records - the original version of this arrangement is available for streaming now! When I finished that track, I sent it to Chimpazilla to share, and she loved the potential of it but wanted to see it done in a harder-hitting, modern drum & bass style. I sent the stems over, and about a week later, she came out of nowhere with this absolutely killer VIP edit that is way too kickass to not share. The original intent behind this concept was to remix Lower Brinstar in the style of Deus Ex. This inspiration still shows through in the atmospheric sound design throughout the song and the cyberpunk-style synth plucks (as well as the title, which is a literal translation of the phrase Deus Ex Machina) but along the way, it doubled in tempo and got way heavier than I'd originally planned! This ended up being a perfect blend of influences - I was captivated by the more rock-oriented, traditional D&B stylings of artists like Pendulum, and Kris brought that modern flair and beefed up the production beyond what I could accomplish alone. Pixelseph came in clutch with some really badass guitar chops that amp the arrangement all the way up to 11. This now marks my 11th collaboration with Chimpazilla, and the 7th in the last year, and I don't think we're showing any signs of letting up. I'm so lucky to be able to have a true collaborative partner-in-crime that is down for literally any genre, any time - you saw potential in this track and ran with it, and I'm so grateful that this version of the remix is able to exist because of you. Chimpazilla: When Wes first sent me this track in nearly-finished wip form, I thought, oh gosh yet another Brinstar arrangement. (I'm not sure what planets aligned in the last couple of months but around 50 Brinstar arrangements were submitted to OCR; was there a memo sent out that I was unaware of?) But I adore this theme, and the massive amount of Brinstar submissions had motivated me to think about doing one myself at some point. And then Wes sent me his fabulous wip. I loved his concept so much, and Seph had already added the aforementioned badass guitars when I heard it. Wes had some killer neurobass, great synths and a lot of DnB drum detail, and the track had a lot of positives to it, but my big gripe was the arrangement. The way the song was structured, it seemed like there were builds but no big payoff. I felt super strongly that it needed a proper build into a very heavy/badass DnB neurobass drop. I am guilty of harping on this to Wes until he said "FINE, here are the stems, do your thing!" I definitely had my way with these stems; I reworked the first two minutes quite heavily, extending the intro and adding the drumless buildup and then the big drop. I made many more changes and additions to the rest of the piece, mixed it for maximum badassery, and mastered it. Pixelseph's guitar work in this track is so tasty, and goes so well with the heavy DnB drums and basses. I really like this track, it turned out to be one of my favorites of our many collabs (wow, 11 so far did you say?). Wes is right, we will not be slowing down on these. We have so much fun working together exploring new genres and production techniques. Our work always fits together so seamlessly, working with Wes is joyous and effortless, and I feel like the results just get better and better each time. Wes, thanks so much for trusting me with this! I am grateful to you for your incredible friendship and for being the best collab partner ever! Games & Sources Super Metroid - Lower Brinstar

Artist Name: Emunator feat. Ergosonic, Pixels & Paradiddles Credits: Emunator: Arrangement, production, orchestration, sequenced bass/guitar/percussion, mixing, mastering Ergosonic: Additional arrangement, guitars (acoustic) Pixelseph: Guitars (rhythm, lead distorted) ParadiddlesJosh: Drums (kit) Artist Notes: This is now my third time covering Sips River since Chicory released - the original has become my top-listened to song of the last 5 years and has truly become my comfort song. It's such so simple in its beauty and infinitely fun to play along to. This arrangement is based off of an arrangement that was done for the second installment of my Cozy Games LoFi series with Curaga Records, which should be released by the time this song is submitted. It includes 3 brand-new chill/lo-fi arrangements from Chicory, featuring a relaxing version of this piece that more prominently features Ergosonic on the acoustic guitar, and a stunning vocal performance by Laura Intravia. They're my favorite lo-fi productions to date, so I'd love for you to check it out! During the Cozy Games Lo-Fi production process, I had a studio session with Ergosonic, who laid down some impossibly beautiful guitar parts that formed the basis for the lo-fi version of this. He recorded so many good takes and the fires of inspiration were still burning, so I wanted to craft an alternate version that was unbound by song length or genre requirements. It so happened that there was a Dwelling of Duels Free Month competition going on that had a few days before the deadline, so I challenged myself to see how fast I could actually do this. It's no secret that I love post-rock at this point. In fact, on my first remix of this theme, I remember @DarkSim commenting that the track sounded a lot like Untitled 3 by Sigur Ros. And I took that personally - I'll show you what it sounds like to really go full Sigur Ros! To do that, however, I needed some extra muscle from the Pixels & Paradiddles team, who are always down to accommodate my rush deadlines. You guys made the track come to life in the second half and gave me everything I needed to make it a true wall of sound. On the morning of the deadline, with about 3 hours to go, I decided to add orchestration to the arrangement and quickly knocked out the string and brass section, gave it a quick mixdown and finished in the nick of time. All said, this song came together in 4 days, and it ended up placing 9th out of 32 entries against some very fierce competition. The title is an Icelandic phrase that literally translates to "lay your head in the water." It essentially serves as an invitation to slow down and let life flow over you, and just take a moment to reflect in peace. When I was working on this song, I had a picture in my head of laying down on a rock in the middle of Sips River. You are the only constant in an endless stream of fleeting thoughts and turbulence, and I wanted to capture the feeling of being surrounded by chaos and noise but still maintaining your peace regardless. This idea is also reflected in the arrangement itself - the iconic Sips River arpeggio is present throughout the entire song without much alteration, but in the periphery, everything is awash in a stream of reharmonization and noise and evolution. It's an ode to maintaining your sense of self even when everything around you is conspiring to disrupt you. Games & Sources Chicory: A Colorful Tale - Sips River

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

Right off the bat, I love the tone of the cymbals and the tremolo guitar - it gives the track a very airy, ethereal quality to start and sets up a fantastic amount of tension. The problem I'm hearing is that the feeling of being in "intro" mode never seems to go away, and I don't think that's how you intended your arrangement to come across. It feels like an energy management issue that stems back to a lack of bass presence - at :15 when the heavier drums kick in, the track feels like it's supposed to kick into the next gear, but then the next minute and a half feels like it's still building up to something. A deeper bass tone or a sub bass layer that engages strategically when you want your song to have impact would make this function more coherently IMO. Around 1:50 things finally ramp up a notch with some extra layers, but the lack of a true bass presence is really diminishing the intended impact of your arrangement choices. I'm mindful of the fact that I might be hyperfixating on this single issue and missing the forest for the trees, so I'm going to try to reset. The rest of the elements of the track sound really good to me, and I would argue in favor of Gario's perspective that there's a lot of personalization added through the performances and tone shaping decisions. Aside from what feels like a slightly-too-loud snare drum with a bit of low end buildup that could be tamed with EQ, the rest of the production decisions sound great. After multiple listens, I think this is feedback that would have been better suited for the workshop phase, and that overall this one element is not enough to diminish the good work you've done everywhere else. I'd love to hear the bass thickened up before we post, in the event that this passes, but I can't quite justify rejecting the track outright on those grounds. Good luck with the rest of the vote! YES (borderline)

Ah man, here we go again. I've been making the case emphatically for this type of music before, and this feels like it boils down to the same philosophical debate. For me, the beauty of this track is in the feeling of it - I don't think that trying to approach this genre from an academic perspective or through the lens of a traditionally "clean" mix is appropriate here. The climaxes are intense and visceral without becoming colorless - the chord progressions maintain the source connection and carry the emotional weight of the track, even if the individual elements are indistinct. (I don't even think this is THAT out there compared to other bands I've listened to. I think there's a lot further that this could go toward a true black metal wall of sound, whereas this arrangement skews more to the atmospheric side.) I will say that, in general, the programming felt pretty rigid and locked to the grid in a way that wasn't entirely convincing. I could stand to hear more variance in the velocity and performance of the synth leads especially - they feel relentless in a very different way than I described above, where one might use the word "plodding" to describe the feeling. The sonar ping synth is also mixed quite loudly compared to everything else, so it feels pasted on top of the mix rather than living in it. That element is probably my biggest gripe. Additionally, the transitions between sections occasionally felt sloppy. For example, the drop off at the end didn't really have a smooth buildup or fade at 7:13. It sounds like you just cut the audio tracks arbitrarily, which I found disappointing. Kris also alluded to this with the lack of transition or buildup to the heavy sections, and while I understand that can be a valid approach, it's not exactly suited to my tastes either. Overall, still a very compelling arrangement with wonderful macrodynamics and tones throughout. I don't think it's your strongest piece, some of the details just felt sloppier than usual but it's well above my bar, personally! YES

OK, so I've been holding off on voting on GSM tracks because of my involvement in the competition, but since we're limited on judge bandwidth and this is still sitting here with one vote on it, I'll jump in and give my two cents. Yeah, this source is cursed for SURE. Fair enough though, we hit you with Environmental Mystery in Round 2 and that's just as unwieldy in a different way. The source usage checks out even if it's obviously not the catchiest material from the Castlevania side, and the triumphant Super Metroid melody makes for an insanely rewarding payoff. On the production side, this goes all-in, and you're quickly proving why you're one of the most promising up-and-coming electronic artists in the community. You really don't hold back on your processing, and it's abundantly clear that you put a lot of love into every little detail, fill, filter sweep, and transition so that you're never just coasting on autopilot. There's an inherent challenge to mixing a track like this, but when you're doing the DOOM thing, a little bit of crunch and mud in the mixing isn't always a bad thing. Let's ship this one off, this is clearly strong stuff by Treyt as the ringleader who also made really brilliant use of the contributions from the rest of the team, as well. Great work! YES

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

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

I'm coming in blind to this one, having not heard the original version. I can see why this is divisive - the highs are very high, and the lows are definitely noticeable and have an undeniable impact on the overall listening experience. On the positive side, the arrangement here is really beautiful, emotive, and dynamic. It feels like you've gone to a lot of lengths to integrate past feedback here and push your sample quality up a notch, and overall I would say that you stuck the landing in terms of programming orchestral instruments, at least within the scope of what we can expect from a hobbyist community. It's not perfect, and I'll get into the specifics later, but this is not an easy task to pull off so you've got my respect for getting as far as you have. The string programming sounds pretty nice across the board, and the choir fits great. It's AI, but it sounds like it was utilized in a way more similar to Vocaloid software so I don't have an issue with that specifically. Now for some of the issues I'm still hearing with the present version, which I'll bullet point to make it a little more digestible: The piano sequencing is quite rigid in terms of timing. It sounds like every note is quantized pretty heavily to the grid, which is not how it would be played in by a real pianist. You'd have subtle timing variations to your chords and arpeggios that would fall off the grid and give it a more natural flow, even when you're playing block chords. This is unfortunate because of how exposed the piano is in the intro (on the plus side, the tone and sample quality is fantastic, so this should be very fixable with your existing resources.) The cello tone sounds great, but I agree with Chimpazilla that the articulation feels awkward. It's funny, you mentioned that you controlled it with an EWI, and I actually can hear how that line would sound better on a woodwind instrument the way it was played. Do you have control of the vibrato or sample start on the SWAM cellos? If that's not already baked into the performance, I'd look into that and see if you can vary the way that your cello notes trigger with each note. Not a dealbreaker but worth noting. The overall mastering/mix is interesting - if I had to guess, you used a streaming-based mastering preset, which sets your peak headroom quite a bit lower than CD quality. Ideally, in order to sound good within the OCR catalog, which is based on CD mastering standards, it should be peaking anywhere between +0.0 and -.5dB, so if nothing else, normalizing your volume to CD standards is a must here. Brad picked up on the use of a master volume automation to control dynamics, which is really not the way you want to do this. It sounds very unnatural even without looking at the waveform. You'd want to control these with individual volume automations or, since you're using high quality libraries with dynamic control, use MIDI CC1 or the mod wheel to control the built in dynamic layers with your instruments for much more realistic dynamic swells I've listened to this about 5 or 6 times and can't help but be struck by the quality of the arrangement in spite of these issues above. At the very least, I think it's worth going conditional over a track that's mastered with such a drastic headroom dip compared to the rest of our catalog, especially when "quiet" doesn't seem to be what you're going for intentionally. I think the rest of the issues are "nice-to-haves", but I would love to share this feedback with the artist if this eventually does pass so that they can have a chance to integrate some of the other feedback, since this is very borderline as-is and I don't think it has to be. Curious to hear how this shakes out! EDIT 11/23: Changed vote below. NO (resub)

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