Emunator

What a lovely track. I'm finding myself particularly torn here, because the content that exists is absolutely stunning, and easily the most accessible track I've heard from Michael to date. When all of the instrumentation comes together, it's truly sublime. However, the track doesn't really kick into full gear until 2:20, and less than a minute later, it's over. This is a strange case where one section of the track sounds so excellent that it makes the rest of the arrangement feel underwhelming by comparison, and I would love to hear the arrangement developed and pushed further in the remaining sections. I'm struggling to come to grips with the structure of this remix - I've come to expect more of a deliberate, climactic buildup from post rock arrangements, whereas this track seems to be broken out into more discrete sections where the energy level jumps more rigidly. I can't tell if there's anything objectively wrong with this, or if I just have certain expectations based on my experience with post rock. After multiple listens and several days to stew over this track, I still can't quite put into words how I feel about it. At the end of the day, I think this is worth passing in its current form. The textures are beautiful, the live performances give a lot of life to the track when they come in, and there's plenty of source throughout. I feel like this could have been a much stronger showing with a more developed, deliberate arrangement structure, I can't deny the quality of what you've already laid down Good luck with the rest of the vote! YES

I agree with Rexy on pretty much everything here. You've got a super high-energy approach with some badass guitar performances and drum writing... like, I cannot understate how heavy some of these riffs are, but the mixdown is problematic. I'm also picking up clipping all over the place on this track, which absolutely needs to be addressed first off. I'm also wondering what happened with the guitar leads at :11 and 1:26? They sound so buried in the mix, but they are also too distinct and exposed to really pass as a backing element. If you're able to fix the clipping and address some of the other latent mixing issues, this would be an easy pass in my book! NO (resubmit!)

Very creative fusion of sounds, I've always been a fan of this 9-bit fusion style and I appreciate the creative liberties you've taken here! Your chiptune synths are all expressive and fun, and I didn't have any major issues with the quality of the acoustic instrumentation either. Not the most realistic samples in all cases, but they get the job done to me! This is close to a pass for me, but I have a few issues that I think need to be addressed before this is ready to post. First off, I thought the drums were a very weak point in an overall-solid package, primarily from a mixing standpoint. The samples you used seem anemic and just don't have very much energy to them, which could be remedied by way of compression, distortion, and some selective EQ boosts to allow certain formants to cut through better, or perhaps even swapping your samples out for better quality ones. The writing itself, while not totally on autopilot, does feel phoned in to an extent, so I would not be upset to hear a resubmitted version of this with some more prominent fills or more energetic, groovy riffs. The other issue I have is with the overall mixing/mastering of the track. There's a lot of headroom left on the track, and an apparent lack of master compression to glue the track together. I would normalize the volume of your track and add some compression to your master chain - perhaps this might even help breathe some life into the drums, too. Love what you've done here, just a few areas that could use a bit more TLC Hope to hear this one back again! NO (resubmit!)

Having not heard the original sub, I can say with confidence that this sounds GREAT to my ears! I'm loving the energy in the mixdown, each instrument is clearly audible and whatever loudness/overcompression issues may have been present before seem to have been ironed out nicely. Guitars sound punchy and thick. I am in love with the variety of synth leads and the energy they each bring to the table, and similarly, the drums are pulling their weight in a major way and always manage to keep things rhythmically fresh. I honestly can't find any major faults here - nice job ironing out whatever issues may have been present in the original submission, thanks for taking the feedback into consideration and using that to make something that sounds even better! YES

For as strange of a remix as this is - I will admit that I had to sit with it for quite a while before tackling it - it really makes a lot of sense how you got to this end result from the source you're remixing. It's weird, but it feels surprisingly natural. This is a track that I'm sure will not resonate with all listeners, but especially along with the context provided in your submission letter, I absolutely think this is the sort of musical boundary-pushing that we should be encouraging here, and perhaps it will expose listeners to a genre they might not have otherwise been familiar with. This is a challenging and deliberate effort and I appreciate what you've done here! I agree with the consensus here that the mixdown is very clean and there's not a lot that could be chalked up as "accidental" - the noise that others have called out at 1:45 is about as close as this track comes to that, and I will agree that the noise is a bit harsh, but it's not a dealbreaker. Nice work Michael! YES

Oh hell yes, I remember Kuro's last submission from 4 years ago as a fond favorite of mine, so let's see what we've got here... ... Yep, this is just as good as I expected. You haven't missed a beat. There's a number of different rhythms and layers going on here, making for a deceptively-complex mix that holds my interest the entire time. There's really so much to unpack here, but the mix never feels overcrowded. Special shoutouts to the transition at 3:25, you knocked that out of the park!! The vocaloid lyrics keeps things fresh as the track progresses, although I will say that the choice to introduce that element so late in the remix felt curious to me. I would have possibly preferred to hear the vocaloid brought in earlier and trade off parts with the lead guitar, though this is certainly not an explicitly wrong decision - just a personal preference. The fadeout might bug some judges, but I didn't take any issue with it - it seemed like a deliberate creative choice to end on a guitar solo and let the track slowly fade away. Source usage seems to check out with no issues. I'm not hearing anything that would hold this back from posting - nice work and great to see another submission from you in the queue Brendan! Keep 'em coming! YES

Pretty neat! I was worried that the sound palette would not be sophisticated enough based on the intro, which was pretty simplistic, but this fleshed out quite nicely as it went along. The adaptation of the Lost Woods melody to a different key was handled smoothly, and I particularly love the melodic climax at 1:45, really tasteful stuff! After that, you introduced some new mallet and guitar textures which were certainly the highlight of this mix for me, that section sounded awesome! My main concern with this arrangement is that there's not really anything unique after the 2:32 mark. 2:32-3:17 is just a retread of 1:05-1:50, and 3:17 to the end of the track is basically the same as :38-1:05 with some extremely subtle changes. Between that, and the introduction taking so long to build up to the Lost Woods melody, it left me questioning how much is really here and if there's enough to consider this a substantial arrangement. My impression after a few listens is that the song effectively runs of out content at 2:32, which is really unfortunate because that Navi transition sounded like it was leading to something really high-energy. My gut tells me that this mix is very close to the bar, but would benefit from some additional layers to help the first minute of the mix sound more interesting, and to re-write everything after 2:32 so it's not a straight repeat of content that you covered earlier in the song. I wouldn't be upset if this passed, because I really enjoyed what you have so far, but I feel like this could be a much stronger mix if your arrangement were developed further! Good luck either way NO (borderline/resubmit!)

Thanks everyone! ♥ Let me chat with Brad and see if we can't figure out the bass issues before this gets posted. Basslines are NOT my strong suit and I would love to iron out anything that sounds wrong before this goes live.

A lot has been said about this, so I'll just quickly cosign this as a formality. Really innovative arranging from Rebecca, there's a few instruments that sit in the uncanny valley of realism but this time, it felt entirely in service of the creepy mood. I still find this to be on the quieter side of acceptable, but I can accept that an unconventional mixing style befits an unconventional arrangement such as this. Nice work! YES

Gotta agree with the others that this has a very "demo" quality to it. That's not inherently a bad thing - there's some wonderful ideas here, and even more diverse of an instrument selection than normal for you I listened to the remix before the source, and I was not expecting what I heard at all, which means that you did a pretty good job creating an arrangement that is unexpected I'm not going to rehash the same mixing critiques other than co-sign Bev and Brad, but this suffers from the same lackluster mastering and production as some of your other recent mixes. Thankfully, I don't hear anything majorly wrong with the recording quality, but the production could be so much more punchy and energetic to match the performances you have going on. Practice A/B comparisons between professionally-mastered tracks that you enjoy and I think you'll hear the difference in a way that can be actionable for your future mixes! I noticed prophetik called attention to the opening piano riff and its repetitiveness, and I also wanted to highlight how that part felt pasted on and lacked cohesion with the rest of the mix. The piano riffs elsewhere in the song sound much better integrated, but that particular riff just sounds awkward and dry. This one has great potential and is one of the most energetic, fun arrangements I've heard from you, but now it needs a mixdown that does justice to your performances. I hope this feedback is helpful, I am excited to see how you improve and keep mastering your craft! NO

OW! Please make sure to put a limiter on your master track to prevent clipping, there are a few points in this arrangement where your track clips over 0.0dB and it's extremely harsh on the ears. Aside from that, there's a real charm to this synthetic surf rock thing you've got going here! I'm usually put off by all but the highest-end synth guitars, but this actually worked for me in many ways. The distorted organ was also pretty cool sounding. Aside from your lead instruments, however, the sequencing on this track is incredibly robotic - they're quantized hard to the grid, coupled with a lack of variation in velocity for the notes. I would love to hear a version of this where the drums/bass/other rhythmic elements were sequenced more like a human would play them. You could have also gone a lot further to spice up moments like 1:58 by writing a more energetic drum fill. Breaking down to just drums is a great choice to let the track breathe before the solo that follows, but the drums feel too basic to hold my attention as a solo element. This is a pretty cool take on the Mach Rider theme, but the production and sequencing needs some work. Thanks for the submission though, good luck! NO

I've always wanted to hear what Rebecca could do with a Pokémon source. This is whimsical and nostalgic at the same time, it captures the duality of the original source material while expanding on the instrumentation a great deal. I'm certainly no classical music expert, but I'm feeling a little bit of Debussy in the string writing at times, which is frequently both complex and unconventional but also utterly serene. I can tell that this is a little bit dated on the sequencing side of things, especially with the articulations on the strings and woodwinds which can't quite keep up with the melodies at times, but overall this hits the mark well enough. Hearing Kristina's mixing/mastering job really showcases how much of a different strong production can make, I would love to hear future submissions from you reach this caliber of production, I think this is a very attainable bar for you to reach on your own! There is a really pervasive crackling that does not sound intentional that I would love to see addressed. I wonder if this is related to the sample rendering issues we're hearing on some of Rebecca's other tracks? That and the sudden ending are enough of a showstopper to work on getting a fix, but other than that, I'd be happy to see this grace the front page! YES (fixes check out, this is good to go!)

Ruku! This has all the vibes I expected from his previous work. Love love LOVE the drumwork and the slightly wonky piano on this, and the periodic phaser sweeps are crisp. I strongly feel like this arrangement could be cut down to be a little more concise and still have the same effect. At nearly 4 minutes without much change in instrumentation, it sounds like this was almost meant to be more of a beat than an actual song arrangement. Not saying this NEEDS vocals or anything to pass, but without some a more salient hook to grab onto, I don't know if the length is justified. The bigger concern is the mastering. I don't think a high level of compression is necessarily a bad thing - I A/B compared this with some Nujabes and Uyama Hiroto tracks and those are also mastered with pretty heavy compression. You're honestly not far off the mark. I think part of the issue here is that the lower piano chords start to bleed and lose definition when they're hit hard by the compressor, and since the chord writing is so thick and there's so many additional instruments, everything starts to become indistinct and muddy - much moreso than you would experience using the same mastering chain on a track with more breathing room in the instruments themselves. I think relaxing your master compression and opting for a slightly faster attack, as well as looking at compression levels on individual instruments like the piano, will make a world of difference, even if it's done subtly. This was a close call for me, and I want to stress that I *really* want to see this sent back to us. I love this genre and would love to see more representation on OCR! NO (please resubmit!)

Really astute observation from Rexy on the piano tone - I don't know if I would have been able to articulate it as well as her but it really does function oddly here. It feels too subtle to truly be experimental, but also too unusual to register as a normal piano. My impression as a listener is that you were trying to go for something with a more experimental tone. If that's the case, I would recommend letting the formant of the piano sound more natural and really let the notes breathe and express themselves through reversed effects, delays, reverbs, other layered instruments with more of a natural attack/tail, or any number of other creative effects. There's a lot of ways to get the effect you may have been aiming for, but whether it was a stylistic choice or an error, it just doesn't sit right with me. I also agree that the mixdown is not where it needs to be. The accordion and winds sound great, but as a whole the track is undercompressed and you have certain instruments (i.e. bass drum) muddying up the soundscape and clashing with some of the mid-frequency winds. There's a lot of headroom left in the mastering, so I would strongly recommend normalizing your track levels and adding more compression to your master chain. As with many of your other arrangements, the arrangement is solid but the production quality is holding it back from achieving its true potential. I hope you can take this feedback to heart and continue improving on the technical side of things, because you're a really talented instrumentalist and you clearly have a strong artistic vision with your body of work as a whole. I'm confident you can get to the point where your submissions are hitting the mark every time NO

I think Rexy/prophetik hit the nail on the head with all of the issues present here, but I really want to stress that there's great potential here, whether it's this arrangement or another one in a similar style. I admire the bravery to tackle a source like this, and I found it to be an enjoyable listen overall! The choir was really the only part that sonically stood out as weak, the main issue is just the lack of development. The arrangement doesn't need to kick into a higher gear, energy-wise, but more variation and one-shot sounds to keep the listener engaged would go a long way here. Would love to hear something like this from you again, you've got a great sense for ambient new age, there's just a few things holding it back currently. NO (resubmit!)

I have to admit, the adaptation of the Chocobo theme sat very weirdly with me at first, and I imagine this will take some warming up to for many listeners, but by the end of the track I found myself nodding my head and really feeling the groove you put down! This remix succeeds on the strength of your saxophone performance, which is thankfully very strong. I would have liked to hear a different instrument take the lead to offer some variation, since each instrument stays relegated to its own role throughout the entire runtime, but thankfully there's enough subtle variation in rhythm and melody to prevent this from feeling totally on autopilot. Some additional variation would probably have helped this feel fresher, but thanks to some really interpretive writing, genre-appropriate performances, and solid production, this feels ready to go in its current form! (We good on the headroom issue now. This is good to go!) YES

Just going to throw a quick cosign here. Your instrument quality is awesome and you've sequenced with a high degree of realism, excellent use of dynamics, and very competent production. The vocals were certainly a highlight. I see no reason whatsoever to hold this back, nice work! YES

Wow, this ALSO slaps! jnWake is killing it today Really ambitious take that never felt too big for its boots, it felt cohesive and enjoyable to listen to at all times.

Damn solid! The live instruments and the sequenced ones gel pretty well together, and the production is on-point. Paper Mario is such an underrepresented franchise from a remixing standpoint, so I'm grateful that this mix saw the light of day even though the project never came to fruition.

Hey, congratulations on the first submission! I was eager to listen to your track based on your description alone, I knew this was going to be an ambitious fusion of styles, and I think you lived up to the expectation. I like the retro lo-fi intro off the bat. I know this may have been a stylistic choice, but the tape hiss that peaks at 15Khz is just a bit too harsh for my ears. I would recommend bringing that specific frequency down in volume or maybe replacing it with a more tonally-neutral sound effect that gets the same effect across without sounding like tinnitus ringing in my ears! Starting at :13, we segue into an amped-up but very conservative take on the original Gambit theme. The rhythm guitars add a lot of energy on top of the original, but I'm not hearing a lot to set it apart in terms of instrument writing. It sounds like a modernized cover of the original source with an original intro and a brief break from the original song structure around the 2 minute mark, which is awesome, but for OCRemix's standards, we're looking for a bit more of a personalized approach that plays with the melody, structure, or sound of the original and turns it into something new. Listening to your mix, I see a lot of potential to achieve this with a breakdown section of some sorts. From :13 to the end, you're in high-gear and there's very few points where the arrangement drops from this maxed-out energy level. You could hit two birds with one stone here by adding some sort of original or modified breakdown, and also introduce some dynamics into the arrangement and give the listener a bit of time to breathe. Just one potential idea, but in order to meet OCR's standards, I feel that the arrangement needs a bit more to differentiate it from the original. From a production standpoint, you're off to a great start but this is rather muddy and overcompressed. The reverb from your synth leads tends to bleed into the rest of our sounds, and the drums feel muffled and lacking in high-end crispness. More than anything, I think you're pushing your compressor too hard and trying to squish too much into your mix. Ease up on the compression a bit and you can start to selectively EQ your various instruments so they don't compete with each other quite as much. You've got a great amount of potential here and I really enjoy the hybrid metal/synthwave approach, but this is not OCR ready yet. Best of luck if you choose to revisit this, and if not, I hope there are more submissions from you in the future! NO (resubmit)

I have to say that this floored me on first listen. From a production standpoint, I'm impressed at how spacious and open this feels when considering how much you have going on and how heavy some of your riffs are. When mixing metal, it can be tempting to just smash the volume of everything as loud as it can go and brickwall your master, but I admire your restraint in choosing to leave some room to breathe, and I think your end result is all the better for that decision. Arrangement-wise, this reminds me quite a bit of SixteeninMono's debut mix from 2016. Like that submission, your arrangement feels like a slow burn towards an intensely-satisfying climax, but the journey to get there is just as fulfilling. The whole song is full of beautiful textures and nuanced but powerful guitar performances. Some personal highlights include the harmonies from 1:09-1:15, as well as the entire breakdown and build that starts at 2:05, which went in a really unexpected minimalist direction but makes perfect sense in context of the rest of the arrangement. And I can't sing enough praises about the climax at 3:06, which provides an incredible emotional catharsis to cap off an already-stellar mix. I know I spent my whole vote basically gushing over this, but it really is one of my favorite songs I've heard since returning to the judges panel. I really hope you send more our way soon! YES

What a lovely, dynamic mix! The intro makes a powerful statement right from the start with colorful, deliberate instrumentation that ebbs and flows with care. The vocals were a particularly beautiful focal point. Around 1:19, things open up and give way to briefly-playful cadence before the arrangement kicks into full gear. I was impressed with how much mileage you got out of this - you explored so many different ideas and motifs without ever cutting yourself off prematurely, I was shocked to pull up the clock and realize that only 3 minutes had elapsed. That's definitely a sign of an engaging arrangement! If I had to critique anything, it would be the hard-panned snare drum that enters at 1:40, which, for lack of a better descriptor, had an unnatural rubbery tone that I found distracting both due to the placement in the mix and the tone of the sample itself. Not in any way a dealbreaker, but it irked me enough to mention it. Well done! Can't wait to see this posted. YES

Truly a lovely arrangement! With such a short, repetitive source tune, I appreciate the lengths Nestor took to both keep things from being repetitive and also never let it go too long without a recognizable callback to His Theme. I've come to expect nothing less from Nestor at this point, but it's refreshing to see him branch out into adjacent genres like indie rock that still allow him to indulge in his signature lo-fi aesthetic. As a fan of both Arcade Fire and Clairo, the inspiration is evident (I'm picking up strong Suburbs vibes specifically from the guitar tone, and the lo-fi beats fall more on the Clairo's side) but at the end of the day, this sounds unmistakably like a Tune In With Chewie remix! You've got a style all your own. YES

This mix is unrelenting! This is absolutely the definition of a waveform sausage, and I can tell before I even pressed play that this is going to be loud and lacking in dynamics. That said, there are actually a lot of really cool things going for this remix. The energy level is off-the-charts and suits the source tune well, and for the most part, this is pretty well produced, even if the mastering is very heavy-handed. The guitar solos add some excellent texture and interest to break up the source usage. My biggest complaint right now is in the structure, length, and static nature of the arrangement. This goes on for nearly 4 and a half minutes at max volume with nothing even remotely resembling a breather - this is not sustainable as a listener and I found myself fatigued within the first minute or so. I am also picking up on the fact that the drums ride autopilot on the same groove for nearly all of the song - I skipped around in my DAW to random places in the song and the drums almost always sound identical no matter where I am. My suggestion to you would be to trim down the length of this arrangement by about a minute or more, and rework the structure so that there are some points in the song where the energy level drops down below 11. Right now, there's simply no dynamics present and it's hurting an otherwise-strong concept for a remix. I would be interested to see this sent back to us with more attention paid to the pacing of your arrangement, and a slightly less compressed mix. These issues are definitely dealbreakers in my eyes, but there's a lot of things that you got right here that deserve to be heard so I do hope you revisit this! NO (resubmit!)

Right off the bat, there seems to be a load of timing issues on this track. I will admit that I'm not the best at articulating issues with timing, so I hope some of my fellow judges can elaborate on this, but the rhythm on the ride cymbal feels like it's on a completely different swing timing from the rest of the instrumentation. The piano was unfortunately not a strong way to start off this track in general - the sequencing felt rigid, the sample was not particularly strong, and it felt out-of-time with the beat. It almost sounds as if you tried to add some humanization to the groove by manually shifting certain notes around, but went too far and ended up causing it to feel sloppy. Things definitely came together better once the guitar and e-piano came in. Your guitar tone and playing is excellent for this style, the rhodes piano is a much more complementary sample to the rest of the instruments, and you reigned in your timing better. This sounds really pleasant. At 1:12, the problematic ride cymbals and piano come back again and it makes it very obvious to me that this next section is just directly copied and pasted from earlier in the song. I did a side-by-side comparison and everything from 1:12 through 2:20 sounds almost identical to earlier in the song. I don't mean to be harsh here, but there's still a ways to go on this arrangement before it's ready for the OCR front page. Love the vibe you've laid down, and your guitar chops are great, but the rest of this is not clicking as well for me. It's not bad at all for a first attempt in this style though, so as you hone your skills, I do hope we hear more from you NO