Emunator

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

This is a slam dunk of an arrangement, it reminds me a lot of Pistolero by Juno Reactor with the fusion of western-style acoustic guitar and goa beats. It fits like a glove. Matt has mastered this genre and it's hard to find any significant fault in his execution. Having played Flowstone Saga a lot, I have an extra level of respect for what he did with this source! I don't have a lot of specific commentary to give here, but I'm happy to sign off on this without reservation. YES

Yeah, just hopping in for a quick co-sign with the judges above - this is a very interesting sound design experiment and I would encourage you to keep trying things like this, but it doesn't come together into a listenable final result for a couple of reasons that have already been broken down. I'd love to see you take some of these ideas and really work on the songwriting and production components behind it, but as it stands, this feels like an experiment that needs a lot more time workshopping before it's ready to stand alone as a solo piece. NO

Quick co-sign with Brad - this is surprisingly well produced, mixed, and mastered, but the arrangement hews a little too close to the original material for how short of an arrangement this is. There's a TON of potential here and the good news is that your production is already solid, I wouldn't suggest changing much about that at all. But the arrangement itself needs to differentiate itself more from the source material and/or add some more interpretive components to the mix. If you can do that, you'll have an easy winner here! NO (resubmit)

Yep, @prophetik music has the right take here, unfortunately. This is super cool and I feel like a live video of you running through this would pop off on Tiktok/Youtube Shorts, but it's not in line with our submission standards so I'm afraid this is a no. Really enjoyed the listen though regardless! NO

Artist Name: Michael Hudak I rented Sonic Heroes from Blockbuster 20 years ago, played it for one weekend and never touched it again. And yet - the main melody from Casino Park has been in my head playing on a loop for a considerable portion of these last two decades. It's one of the ultimate earworms. Thus, this ReMix. No deep dives down sound design rabbit holes here. This is the most conversative track I've ever made for OCR. I just wanted to not work on something for forever. Just get it a demo down, flesh it out with enough neat stuff to not have it be too vanilla, get the mix sounding good, and ship it out. I did end up spending triple the amount of intended time making tweaks to the drums and percussion. So it goes. I had the most fun writing the bassline, which is original. My initial ending to the song was a cartoony tape-stop thing similar to how the source tune loops back to the start, but I replaced it with a bass hoedown jig reprise. I guess it's more of a jazz bass, but at 174 bpm (same as the source), it becomes something else... The finished product sounds a little like a Smash Ultimate version of Casino Park. I'll take it.

Artist Name: Mel Decision I wrote this song for an 8Bit Music Theory discord weekly challenge to "make a mash-up arrangement from at least two SNES songs." I thought it would be kind of funny to go for two of the most widely-remixed SNES songs I could think of, Schala's Theme from Chrono Trigger and Terra's Theme from FFVI. Thinking about it, mashing up these songs felt appropriate—both Schala and Terra were women possessing vast magical talents, both used by powerful countries as weapons—Terra as a slave for the Gestahlian Empire, and Schala to power Zeal's Mammon Machine. I wanted each melody to get the spotlight, while still twining together underlying parts of each song throughout the piece. I transposed the songs into the same key so it would be easier to meld them together. I was feeling synths and a trap beat for this piece (idk why, vibes?), and I ended up experimenting with some new sounds and production techniques to fill out the arrangement. As always thanks to the amazing OCR discord community for ongoing feedback and support on this mix! Games & Sources Chrono Trigger: Schala's Theme by Yasunori Mitsuda. - Melody used 0:00–1:00, 2:30–3:03, 3:50–end - Accompaniment used throughout FFVI: Terra's Theme by Nobuo Uematsu. - Melody used 1:06–2:30, 3:03—3:51 - Accompaniment used throughout

Artist Name: Chimpazilla, Emunator Credits: Chimpazilla: Original concept and arrangement, production, mixing, mastering Emunator: arrangement, production, keys, mixing Artist Comments: Chimpazilla: Once again, I think Wes and I have created something magical. "Sidon's Serenade" began as my wip; I laid out the arrangement structure with the intention of collabing with Wes, and he loved it and ran with it. The style was intended to be lo-fi to match some of his more recent arrangements, but I think the lo-fi effect was lost as we went along. (That is my fault, I'm not sure I'm good at lo-fi!) The result is a gorgeous halftime chillout song full of glassy synths, organic bells and instruments, shimmery pads and tons of ear candy. Wes and I improved our collab protocols even further with this arrangement, and I think the result is extremely beautiful and cohesive. We hope you enjoy it! Emunator: Another week, another Chimp+Emu collab, it seems! We need to officially form a band. This is sort of a sister track to our Super Mario World 'Apparitions' arrangement, but in reverse. This time, it was one of Kris' old demos from years back that I pulled out from storage and decided to finish off. Zora's Domain, regardless of the iteration, is a tremendous piece of music that contains so many lovely riffs that can be arranged in an endless number of ways, but I ended up mainly sticking with Kris' original arrangement structure. The only totally new section I added was the guitar-led outro at 3:37. The rest of my contributions involved layering a TON of sounds and textures and spicing up the transitions. That said, I'm also pretty proud of the Fairy Fountain cameo that I played on keys at 1:20 - that was entirely a happy accident that Fairy Fountain worked over the Zora chord progression! Kris alluded to some workflow collab improvements that stemmed from this piece, so I'll take a moment to elaborate there. There was a period of time where we were seemingly at odds about how the song should be mixed, and had a bit of a communication gap that we didn't immediately pick up on. Turns out, I was pulling my inspiration from the Ocarina of Time version of Zora's Domain, which features a lead guitar motif present at :45 and 3:48 in our remix that, unbeknownst to me, wasn't present in the Breath of the Wild version that she was referencing, so she had no idea it was supposed to be a lead melody. Moral of the story - make sure you and your collab partner both know which song you're supposed to be remixing! All that said, I couldn't be happier with how this turned out and with the experiencing working with Kris. See y'all again next week... probably! :) Games & Sources Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Zora's Domain (Day) Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Zora's Domain Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Great Fairy Fountain

Artist: jnWake, Emunator Mastered by Chimpazilla K, so another DoD month ends which means another submission for OCR by me! This time, the monthly theme was "Franchise Fusion" and the requirement was to mix at least 2 games from different franchises. After pondering it for a while, I decided that a good idea would be to mix 2 themes that were popular, so that people could recognize the actual fusion of themes. I quickly chose Aquatic Ambience since it's a lovely theme and I already knew it on piano. Secret of the Forest then came naturally as another iconic chill theme from the SNES era. I had never actually noticed how similar both themes are and plenty of DoDers were surprised this idea "had never done before" (it surely has, but as far as I know there's not a particularly popular mash-up on YouTube or other websites). Anyway, so about the mix. Since the theme was fusion I made the arrangement with the idea of melding both themes together as much as possible. I even began the song using the actual soundfonts from the games. Most sections of the arrangement feature the backing of one of the tunes and the melody of the other tune on top, but I'll detail that later. Quickly after beginning the arrangement I realized having a strong sound design would be necessary for this to be a hit, so I contacted everyone's favorite judge Emunator (he describes himself that way, do not blame me!) for help on that front. My initial idea was for him to listen to the arrangement and mostly provide sound design feedback plus a few stems... BUT instead he got super motivated with the idea and added much more than that. First, instead of simply using the soundfonts like I had done he investigated the origins of the sounds and replaced some of the samples with the actual uncompressed sounds from the original synths! He also replaced some other sounds here and there, added a plethora of effects, extra drum fills and rewrote the ending part of the track... and if all that wasn't enough he even did the final mix! I had never had the pleasure of had so much work taken from me on a collaboration but it was awesome (as I may have commented before, I'm not a particularly big fan of mixing, I only do it because I have to). For the final touch, Emunator also contacted Chimpazilla to handle the master. I didn't have the chance to talk with her this time, so I'll take this opportunity to thank her for her work! As usual, now comes the source breakdown. Both sources are so popular that I'll be a little less thorough than my usual breakdown: 0:00-1:00: We begin with Aquatic Ambience's arpeggios as a tease, since the first melody that kicks in is from Secret of the Forest. Idea here is that the background (pads + arpeggios) are from DKC while the rest is from CT. Section B from Secret of Forest then follows with the same idea. 1:00-1:33: Chord progression from Section C of Secret of the Forest, melody is a variation of Aquatic Ambience's one but following the chords. 1:33-2:21: Surprise percussion! I thought it'd be fun to wait a bit before the drums enter, making the shift to a chill beat more impactful. Secret of the Forest harp and chord progression play here while the melody is from Aquatic Ambience. The combination works surprisingly well. 2:21-2:34: Aquatic Ambience arpeggios over a chord progression and melody of Secret of the Forest. 2:34-3:01: Flute solo! It can't be a song by me without a solo I guess? Chord progression is from Secret of the Forest section C. 3:01-4:04: Climax of the track, chord progression is "original", while the rest of the instrumentation has elements of both tracks. Synth is playing the melody from Secret of the Forest, while the accordion is throwing quotes from Aquatic Ambience. A fun fact (for me at least?) is that for the transition to double time I transposed the melody 1 tone below, when the usual is to transpose higher to create a burst of energy, that way I attempted to mantain the chillness of the track despite the increase of the beat. 4:04-end: A chance to relax after the climax, Aquatic Ambience's arpeggio and Secret of the Forest's main melody play and slowly fade out as the track ends. Again, thanks to Emunator and Chimpazilla for their work on this, as it'd have never been as good without them! The track ended up placing #2 in DoD, which was pretty cool. Hope you like it! Sources:

Artist Name: Xaleph, Zack Parrish, Audiomint Arranger: Xaleph Guitarist: Zack Parrish Vocals: Audiomint Mastering: Zack Parrish I wanted to have an acoustic psytrance song that used sfx from the game (provided by OceansAndrew) and was thankful that Zack rerecorded the acoustic parts I initially played (I'm not nearly as good!). I really had a lot of fun putting together this mix and I hope you can feel what fun I had through the energy in this mix! I'll look at getting the lyrics later as Audiomint is at camp (she recorded right before heading out). The vocals used (the climb), I worked with OceansAndrew to make sure it's an approved rearranged version that still encompasses his vision for that motiff. Also - I really wanted to support this game on release, I love the concept and I would love to see this succeed! Flowstone Saga - Standoff and "The Climb" (motiff)

Artist Name: Emunator feat. Zack Parrish, ParadiddlesJosh Credits Emunator: Arrangement, production, programmed guitars (acoustic, tremolo), mixing Zack Parrish: Guitars (leads, distorted rhythm), electric bass, mastering ParadiddlesJosh: Drums Artist Notes I've been beta testing Flowstone Saga for several months at the time of this submission, which has generally meant that I've experienced the first 5 hours of the game about 10 times. I haven't yet made it far enough to hear this song in context, but when I was scanning through the soundtrack, I absolutely fell in love with this piece and immediately knew I had to arrange it. It's magical and emotive in a way that evokes classic JRPG soundtracks like Xenogears, and I couldn't get it out of my head. I asked Andrew if I was too late to get in on the Flowstone Saga arrangement bandwagon, and he told me I had roughly 2 weeks left before the due date. Challenge accepted - nothing motivates me like an impending deadline! If this were a speedrun, I'd be gold splitting nearly every part of this project. I knew that, after years of toeing the line around this genre, I wanted to go full post-rock on this one, and OceansAndrew set the perfect stage for that to happen. I started off with a skeleton arrangement that I littered with programmed guitars and drums along with my usual ambient synth fare. The arrangement was locked in by day 2, but in order to really make it convincing, I had to enlist Zack and Josh to bring some live band energy. I shipped off parts after lunch, took a nap, and by the time I woke up a few hours later, I was already receiving recordings from both of them. Absolutely clutch guys, your work here is impeccable and SO much better than what I could accomplish solo. From there, I spent another 10 hours or so putting layers of polish in the form of synth layers, pads, and one-shot effects all over the track to glue everything together. It all happened so much faster than normal - I really hit my "flow state" on this one ;) Regarding the title: in-game, this song is used in a location called Eden Lake, which features a flow-touched sakura tree. In doing some research for potential song names, I came across the Japanese word "hanagasumi", which translates to "hazy curtain of flowers, cherry blossoms appearing from afar like white mist." I couldn't have asked for a better hyper-specific word to capture the overall vibe of this piece, and it helped me come up with the most over-the-top post-rock-ass title I could muster. Technical note: this is my first mix that I've made since acquiring a new pair of mixing headphones and calibrating my studio monitors, and oh man, what a difference it has made! I was able to complete this track in under 20 hours, and I think it sounds far better than songs I've spent 100 hours on. I finally feel like I can trust my ears and have my mixes translate to consumer grade speakers. Chimpazilla said that this "doesn't have any of the usual problems" so I'm optimistic that this will go over well! It's one of my favorite arrangements I've ever written, thanks again to the homie OceansAndrew for letting me be a part of this and for creating this wonderful music in the first place!

Prophetik did a great job breaking down the adaptation to a different instrumental palette and scale, but I also want to commend you on the really high-quality instrumental programming and mixing too. There's a great deal of this that genuinely sounds like a live recording, and the sense of space created is extremely immersive. I found myself lost in this piece and almost forgot I was supposed to be listening with a critical ear a few times. I say this in a positive light - this felt a lot longer than 3 minutes. Choosing to limit your sound palette was a good choice here in this case - sometimes the best creative results can come out of applying limitations to yourself. Can't find a hole to poke in this one, your concept, arrangement, and execution are all among the best I've heard from you! YES

I have no idea how you found this original but here we are! Honestly though, the translation to sax-infused heavy metal works pretty damn well, and the source connection was instantly apparent. 1:16 is indeed boomy as hell, but it's about the only issue I can find with this piece - everything else is mixed super tight, the performances are on-point, the transitions are well-executed but certainly not stock or phoned in, the saxophones are mixed and recorded perfectly. No reason to hold this one back! YES

I feel like any Mazedude track with the word "Tangerine" in the title is going to be have high standards to live up to, but immediately I hear that he's up to the task. I've been diving into a bunch of retro-inspired romplers myself this past week, and it's given me a really deep appreciation for some of these quirky sounds that haven't exactly maintained their foothold in the soundscape of modern pop music. The deeply gated drums, impossibly expressive lead synths, the gurgling basslines, and... orchestra hit synths? Is that what those are? I can't even tell, all I know is that it scratches my eardrums in a way that only Mazedude can. The arrangement is respectful of the original and expands on it. I couldn't have asked for more, we're sure lucky to have you around after all these years! YES

@Liontamer Great feedback, I re-mixed the song and scraped out some of the mud and I think we're in better shape now. Check it out!

Artist Name: Emunator, Hotline Sehwani Credits: Emunator: Arrangement, production, keys, mixing Hotline Sehwani: Arrangement, production, original concept, mastering Comments: Emunator: This track is one of four collaborations that Hotline Sehwani and I did for "Elden Ring: Tarnished Shadows," an album of lo-fi/chill arrangements from the Elden Ring soundtrack to celebrate the launch of the Shadows of Erdtree DLC. After a successful collaboration on our Undertale lo-fi release, we immediately jumped back in and got to work on some more. He sent me four initial demos with melodic ideas and rough instrumentation, which I then fleshed out into full songs, and passed back to Hotline for mastering. It was an extremely smooth collab process that yielded results that I'm super proud of! I hope you check out our three other collabs and the rest of the project, too! With this project, I wanted to explore the more acoustic side of lo-fi music, fusing traditional chillhop beats with a more melancholy, gothic sound palette. With Final Battle particularly, it was a challenge to transform such bombastic source material into something that respected the spirit of the original while still being something you could throw on as study music. I had to approach mixing differently than I would normally for an orchestral track, where you can confidently slam your peaks to the max.. I had to be a lot more delicate with the approach here, relying more on rhythmic variation to bring energy rather than massive sweeping orchestral statements. Arrangement-wise, we kept it short and sweet, with a rug-pull ending that is meant to mirror the experience of fighting in Elden Ring, where no matter how confident you are, you are always only one hit away from sudden death. Time to hit replay and try the battle again ;) Hotline Sehwani: Our goal for "The Final Battle" cover was to transform the triumphant battle theme into a more mellow and somber vibe. The song begins with subtle wind chimes, capturing the calm before the storm, and ends in a similar fashion. To listen to the album now on your favorite platform: https://music.hotlinesehwani.com/erts

Cover Track Information Arranger: Chromatic Apparatus Performers: Cello: Chromatic Apparatus Piano: Flávio Teles Description: Broken Reflection (a cover of "Promise" from Silent Hill 2) is a track featured from the new Silent Hill tribute album Monochrome Dreams by Pixel Mixers. I confess I haven't played any of the Silent Hill games--horror games aren't my cup of tea 😅 but when I was perusing the tracks to see if I could work with something to participate on the PM album, this one track immediately jumped out to me. The simple, plaintive melody that the synth/guitar picks out over the rhythm guitar's ostinato, got stuck in my head! I could "hear" an adaptation of the soft rock vibe into a more melancholic version, both more placid and more intense, featuring two live cellos (performed by me) and a piano (many thanks to Flávio Teles for his performance on keys). The feeling I was attempting to capture is the sense of solitude and self-reflection, and the intense, spiraling self-doubt, fixation, and turmoil that can come from being alone with your own thoughts for too long. Arrangement Details The original track featured a standard Soft Rock instrumentation, with electric guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, keyboard, and drums. I reduced the band to just two cellos and a piano to give it a more intimate, pensive quality. 0:00 - The original's guitar-peggios, are the left hand of the piano--this ostinato will run through nearly the whole piece. There are no drums anymore, the piano functionally takes over the rhythm role--this changes the vibe from a restless, bar-room melancholy, to something more isolated and self-reflective. I left the tempo alone--it's one of those illusions of comparison, it feels subjectively slower (to me, at least), but it isn't. 0:13 - One cello enters, playing a short 4 bar introduction. 0:26 - The main melody begins with the cello. 0:47 - The cello is playing in its tenor range here, I intentionally tried to keep the vibrato down here, even including open A string notes (which gets beaten out of you when learning to play the cello) because it matched the raw, almost "pleading," sound I was looking for. 1:16 - In the original, the intro and melody is repeated again, with the guitar reprising its starring role. Instead of doing that with the cello, the baton is passed to the piano, and the cello pads (now with a buddy to fill out the acoustic space) during the tail end of the bridge. 1:39 - After the bridge, the main melody repeats again, the celli drop out here and the piano solos for a bit. 2:01 - One cello re-enters, playing in unison with the piano (albeit two octaves lower). 2:12 - The second cello enters during the second repetition of the wandering melody, harmonizing with the first cello. 2:24 - The big crash. In the original this transition is less of an Event than I wanted to make of it, with the introduction of distorted guitars, and more crash cymbal--the acoustic space is fuller, but burying the lead a bit. I took it in a slightly different direction, by punctuating it with an accent across the board, using intense vibrato in the first cello to draw focus, and having the piano pound away in the lower register (to keep some of that full distortion from the original). 2:44 - I loved the little gliss the bass guitar played in the original and gave it to the second cello here. 2:49 - The E section has the first cello copying the original guitar line, with the second cello providing a staccato chug just to maintain the intensity. 3:10 - In the original, the guitar starts harmonizing in thirds with itself, the original maintains this intensity through to the end, but I wanted to start backing the drive off a bit here--instead of the punctuation heard in the piano and second cello from earlier, this is section is calmer, and more legato. 3:22 - I added a little four bar piano solo here on top the repeated phrases, just to add some contrast and interest as the cellos decay. 3:34 - The piano reprises the figure it was playing so intensely at the big crash (2:24), but now it, too, is calmer and more distinct, more haunting, being played in a higher register rather than deep in the bass wires. 3:46 - I love the little harmony the second cello plays here. 4:00 - We end as we began, with that arpeggio pattern. I decided to keep the stepped slowing of the original, rather than smoothing the ritardando out because I liked the mechanical-ish wind-down--like a machine running out of steam. Links: Chromatic Apparatus Web: http://www.chromaticapparatus.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3xl7t4KyN89GYzwwPET0Dq YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/ChromaticApparatus Flávio Teles Instagram: https://instagram.com/flaviotgt Gear Notes: Mixing done by Chromatic Apparatus in Studio One 6.5.0 Album mastering done by Erika Richards in Studio One 6.5.0 Cello: - 2007 Romanian Euro "Standard Antique" (Peter Prier & Sons) - Recorded using two AKG C414 XLS in mid-side configuration through a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 Gen 3 Piano: - Recorded on a Roland FA-08 - Studio One 6.5.0 Stock VSTi, Presence: Acoustic Piano