Emunator

I would disagree with MindWanderer that there's a lack of ideas here. There's a characteristic iterative buildup of layers that is a staple of house arrangements, which is what we see here, but within those bounds, there's actually a lot of good ideas flowing. The tropical house soundscape is pretty unique, especially when you consider the snowy source material, it's a great adaptive spin. There's lots of clever transitions going on here - I'm surprised no judge has called out the writing at 1:29, which was easily a track highlight for me. There's so much variety in the sounds you used that, even though the core 4-on-the-floor groove holds down the fort for nearly all of the track, it feels like things are always staying fresh. There are indeed some balance issues present in the overall mix. It sounds like you tried to get the kick drum to cut through by cranking the volume up really high, but you could also achieve a better balance overall by reducing the level of the kick and increasing the amount of sidechain compression that it's applying to other elements in your track. I would start by sidechaining the kick to the bass and background arpeggios first, but you should really be doing this to some degree to nearly all of your instrument chains. This is going to allow your kick to cut through when you need it to, but let the rest of your instruments cut through during the space between beats, and it's also going to give your track a much greater sense of groove. From there, once you clear up more space, review the relative levels of each of your instruments and make sure that your leads cut through when they're supposed to and lead the track, and your background instruments are present but not dominating. I also agree, those vox at :23 just sound cheap I generally liked the sounds used here, even if they weren't super realistic or high quality, but this stuck out like a sore thumb. The ending also feels like it fades out really abruptly, I'd give that a longer fadeout time and let the delays ring out for a bit. There's a bit of a "death by a thousand cuts" feeling with this vote, but honestly it's really close to where it needs to be. I think sidechaining will get you over the bar alone, but there's other areas for small improvements that will make this a much stronger product! Hope to see this one again soon NO (please resubmit!)

I actually am hearing a fair amount of sidechain compression on the lead synth in here - especially the release tail on the lead synth, I can hear plenty of pumping. It's most prominent in the final chorus of the arrangement. I think it might just be a volume issue, like Chimpazilla said, and that the synth is occupying a similar frequency range to much of the other instrumentation. It could probably do with a little more sculpting and some volume drops on the lead. That said, there's a lot that IS working about this track. The sound choices are all cohesive and gel well together in a retro OCR fashion, but with a bit more body and depth than I would expect from something from that era. The piano adds a lovely throwback electronic character. The beats are meaty (protein-rich is something I've never heard used to describe drums before but am in LOVE with that turn of phrase). The overall mastering is beautiful, even despite the balance issues. I ultimately came out on the affirmative side on this vote, and honestly it wasn't even borderline for me. This is good stuff! YES

Hi i want to send to summit this mix My name remixer : AdriánDBAremixes My real Name : Adrián Fernández Sanmiguel My Web Adress : My user rid 38736-adriandbamixes Super Mario 64- Bowser Road I am from Spain i do not speak english well this topic has been reviewed several times by Chris Roman (Hemophiliac),he help me to improve the mix , it dosn´t matter if i have to change anything to improve the mix, please tell me anything. Thanks

Previous Decision Contact Information Gario Gregory Nourse Your userid: 18482 Submission Information Final Fantasy 8 "Witch Hunter" Source(s): Man with the Machine Gun, Succession of Witches https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHl0ofVs2-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BQw3qZ9H8A Comments: I bet you didn't expect a resubmission to come in thirteen years later! Always enjoyed this source, so when the opportunity came up to arrange this one for the FF8 album years back (before even the excellent DarkFlameWolf took control of the project) I jumped at the chance to give this another shot. While it's remade from the ground up, there is a lot of material from that old arrangement that I used to pull the track together (which folk can still listen to here, if they're curious: https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/355474 ). I had the idea to blend the Succession of Witches themes and vocals to this source because the thought of Laguna huntin' witches is obviously cool (with vocals done with the program Alter/Ego), and got something pretty dang cool finished for the FF8 album. Hope folk enjoy it! Sources:

Stunning arrangement! If you told me this was a song from the actual Ori and the Blind Forest soundtrack, I probably wouldn't bat an eye. This is close to professional grade production and orchestration that exists in the same sonic realm as the original material, but distinguishes itself with the heightened focus on strings and a seamless fusion of multiple sources. The chromatic and untuned percussion propels the arrangement forward and is perfectly balanced. The only nits to be picked are the volume of the lead cello at 1:28, but aside from that? You nailed it. I suppose if you're going to commit to that many emojis in your submission letter, you gotta bring the heat to back it up YES

Ooohh, now THERE'S the bass! One of your most recent submissions felt sorely lacking in low end frequencies, so I'm happy to report that this nearly approaches "Oops, All Bass!" territory and really explores those sub frequencies more fully. You've got some seriously squelchy sounds going on. The sound design is off the charts. For as insane as your mix is, you manage the levels and balance quite well. Crazy stuff. This was clearly written to loop rather than end on its own, so I would have liked a stronger ending, but it is what it is. Let it fly! YES

Absolutely stunning expansion on a source that I actually happen to like a ton. Metroid Prime 3's soundtrack didn't resonate with me in the same way as the first two, but this is definitely a standout, and your arrangement takes the atmosphere that was present in the original Skytown and takes it on a proper cinematic journey. The massive swell at the 2 minute mark, and the organic percussion loops that follow is easily a highlight for me. Psamathes vocals blend perfectly with the orchestral elements, feeling ethereal but not totally detached or formless. Live contributions from Harpsibored and CA also elevate this even further in my book. You did this one justice Zack! YES

This track is also going on the "I can do better on the mixing" pile, I forgot to mark it earlier but I will re-open this when it's ready! I'll also see if I can address the issues that Brad brought up too!

@DarkSim @Liontamer @Chimpazilla @prophetik music @MindWanderer Zack provided a newly mixed version, please check out this new version and adjust your votes as you see fit!

New version up! Zack wasn't able to find the original files so he did what he could on the mastering front. @DarkSim @Gario @XPRTNovice @Chimpazilla @prophetik music @MindWanderer @Liontamer - please review this and update votes as necessary! My vote flip technically closes this out but I'd like to leave it up for discussion before officially closing anything, in case there's something about the new master I'm overlooking!

Zack will be making updates to this one, please hold on any further votes for now!

Emailed Zack with feedback up to now - hold on anymore votes until we hear back!

Remixer: LXE Name: Alexis Gelinas Email: Website: 38753 -- Super Mario RPG Geno Hop Beware the Forest Mushrooms I used hammered dulcimer and recorders to create a medieval lofi hip hop song about traveling through some spooky woods. Hope ya dig this arrangement Source:

Submission Details: Colin Sandquist www.colinsandquist.com Game: F Zero Music: Fire Field Looking For Work and Getting into the Video Game Industry. Best. Colin Sandquist: Game Developer + Graphic Artist + Music Composer and Performer Sandquist Games I Composer Site I Vimeo I Twitter I Soundcloud I Bandcamp Obersync I Swift Gorilla Thunder I Wakeraft I Music IMDB I Linkedin I Artstation Phone: TBD Email: Source:

Contact Information Your ReMixer name: Mel Decision Your real name: Mel Choyce-Dwan Your email address: Your userid: 18632 Submission Information Name of game(s) arranged: Final Fantasy FVIII Name of arrangement: Net Fish and Chill Name of individual song(s) arranged: Fisherman's Horizon Your own comments about the mix: When approached to see if I was interested in participating in the last-minute bonus disc, I jumped at the chance. I wanted to rearrange something in a style I was comfortable with given the time crunch. I trawled through the OST, and when I realized Fisherman's Horizon already had a relaxed vibe, I knew that would be the one. Lofi felt like a good fit, and it's a genre I felt like I could pull off in the allotted time. Sax by Lucas (Thirdkoopa) and Bass Clarinet by GameroftheWinds really brought this to life! Credits Mel Decision: arrangement, production, mixing Lucas Guimaraes: tenor saxophone GameroftheWinds: bass clarinet

Wow, the orchestral and percussive bones of this track are SOLID. Some truly cinematic-quality orchestration, and the percussive groove really gives a sense of movement to the arrangement. This really boils down to volume balancing for me, and it pains me to do this to such an amazing arrangement, but there were multiple points in time where I found myself startled by the volume of various elements, and not in a good way. The spoken word vocals specifically feel like you tried to crank them up loud because they were unintelligible, but really they just need more of the dry signal in the mix, as they're getting washed out in reverb. Similarly, the lead guitar solo and acoustic parts at the end are way too boosted compared to the backing instrumentation and are jarring to me on first listen. As someone who's also been accused (and not without cause) of putting too much distortion on my tracks, I took issue with the guitar and distorted elements around the 1 minute mark. In my view, the distortion itself isn't the issue, but the fact that many of the distorted elements are hard-panned or have an otherwise wide stereo spread, and there's not always a good balance in each ear of how much distortion is happening at any given time. This is where the physical discomfort is coming from - if you were to center those distorted elements or reduce the stereo width, at least both ears are being assaulted with crunch in relatively equal proportions. Ugh, this arrangement kicks all kinds of ass but especially on headphones, these issues feel quite evident and would be worth addressing before posting. I had a lot of visceral reactions to this track, but too many of them were of the "oww, my ears hurt" variety, which puts a damper on the reactions that were "damn, that was COOL!" If you can do things to mitigate those unintentional reactions, you'll be golden. EDIT 11/4/2023: This new version fixes all of the issues I had, it sounds SO much cleaner and well balanced in the stereo field and in terms of volume leveling. Cutting out the static cleans up the mix without losing any of the impact, and the vocals are much more audible! I think you course corrected too hard on the vocal levels after the 3 minute mark, those now sound TOO loud but it's the only gripe I have. This is clearly a pass for me now, thanks for the extra work Zack! YES

I approach repetition the same way I approach source usage - instead of timestamping, I typically opt for a "vibe check" to see if a track feels like it's dragging. I actually find myself in total agreement with DarkSim on that front - it feels like a missed opportunity to do something different and exciting to cap off the arrangement, but on the whole, you switch back and forth between the repeated passages frequently enough with enough variety interspersed that those loops don't feel that bad to me. Plus, it's a short enough arrangement so it doesn't drag on in terms of length. If this track went on even a few measures longer, we'd be treading into "too repetitive, plodding" territory, but for my tastes, you fell on the right side. It helps that the synth design is all very cohesive, the groove is infectious, and the production issues that were called out don't tremendously impact my listening experience. It's closer than I'd like, but what I'm hearing here works well! YES

Hey, director here - these were unfortunately tracks where a lossless version was not available, so that's why they were not included in the torrent!

Dammit, fine. I’m in for Team Metroid

I was wondering how long it'd be before this goofy niche meme genre made its way onto OCReMix! I'm fascinated by the recent explosion of phonk as a genre - it feels like a haphazard mashup of big room house and trap with the production quality of witch house, so nothing is REALLY that unconventional here that nobody has ever heard, but for some reason it almost immediately landed squarely in the category of "meme music." If I wasn't personally familiar with the phonk phenomenon, I wouldn't have even identified it as a unique genre at all. But y'all clearly found inspiration in this niche subgenre and, shitpost or not, did a really great job of translating Stone Tower Temple into this style, and even improving upon it in a lot of ways. It's short and doesn't really veer too far away from the source material, there's plenty of personalization that ensures this arrangement lands as a fully-realized idea and not just a 30 second TikTok shitpost that was lazily stretched to make it ready to cash in on those streaming royalties. I actually think that the production quality here does a good job embracing the quirks of phonk while making something that sounds like it was mixed and mastered by professionals. The textures are thick and rich, the bass is booming, and the distortion and compression feels clearly like a stylistic homage and not an oversight. I once again find myself diametrically opposed to Larry on the "too much distortion?" argument and will fight to the death on this point. Easy vote for me! YES

ReMixer Names: Ridley Snipes, Treyt Real Names: Trevor Burch, Trevor Tuls ID: 17937, 18602 Email: YT: https://www.youtube.com/@ridleysnipes Game: LOZ Majora's Mask Song: Stone Tower Temple Composer: Koji Kondo, presumably Arrangement Title: DRWNXD Last-minute spontaneous shitpost turned banger? Let's find out ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So you may or may not have heard RAVE by Dxrk ダーク. This is just that, but Zelda. Phryigian cowbell phonk house nonsense crushed into oblivion. A polarizing genre perhaps, but 300+ million spotify plays says a lot. While initially just a dumb idea, it sort of became a personal production challenge learning how to crank out ridiculous loudness while still maintaining some semblance of dynamics. Takes a lot more than a clipper on the master if you want it done right, and there are plenty of artists that take the concept to an even further extreme (cough Kordhell). It could have been worse, sorry not sorry Hemo! I don't have too much else to say; the source is pretty simple and I wanted to keep this simple as well. Spooky, tribal, visceral. Props to Treyt for being so readily available and helping me crank this out in 8 days; he's a certified gamer. Cheers! something something Ben Drowned creepypasta

This is an interesting case - I absolutely think the minimalist arrangement approach is valid, and there's some really cool synthetic textures at play. I love the sound design and palette that you've created here, but I'm identifying some balance issues that are a showstopper for me. The frequency balance is curious here. Chimpazilla correctly picked up that there's some inexplicable 20-30hz rumble but then almost never anything in the 30-60hz and very little going on from 60-100hz, so the low end feels almost completely ignored here. Conversely, there's resonant frequencies that build up heavily at specific points around the 400-800hz range that feel downright painful on headphones. This is compounded with the fact that many of the instruments are panned hard to the sides. There are definitely examples on OCR of ambient tracks with a better frequency balance out there that still feel minimalist, but still maintain a better balance in the frequency range. This can often be addressed at the arrangement level, simply by adding a sub/drone in the low end, or some backing pads/textures throughout the rest of the spectrum that hold a static note throughout certain sections and only exist to add back some frequencies in areas that are deficient. This will help prevent your most prominent instruments from feeling too sharp or painful on the ears and give them something to blend into. On a side note, the percussion also feels lifeless. There's not a lot of texture or nuance to it, and when it's this exposed and dry, you really notice the lack of velocity dynamics or round robin samples and every percussive hit sounds nearly identical and ultimately unrealistic. If you wanted to revisit this, I would encourage you to download a program like SPAN, which is a free frequency analyzer that helps you see the balance of your mix at different points. I'm certainly not saying every frequency band needs to be perfectly balanced with one another, but a visual reference can help you pick up on potential problems with an arrangement and guide you to possible solutions. NO

Giving this one a listen too. I appreciated reading the artist's follow up email. I'm always scared to see an email that long in regards to a rejection, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was well-articulated and respectful, and ultimately gave helpful insight when evaluating this track. Based on the votes above, I was honestly expecting the instrument quality to be worse than it is. I think the issues with the track boil down more to mixing and balance issues, with many of your instruments competing in the same space, and some of your ensemble sounds are very thick and have longer releases, so they can muddy up the sound stage excessively. This is especially noticeable on the staccato strings and brass - I would wager that they would sound a lot better with a sample that has a tighter attack and release, and perhaps some surgical EQ to avoid frequency masking with other instruments. I also strongly agree that the keys, organ and synth parts are way too quiet relative to the orchestral instrumentation. There's also a solo flute that pops up at 1:28 and again at 6:19, among other points, that is literally barely audible. The brass and strings step all over the rest of your instrumentation in a way that feels unnecessary - I absolutely understand keeping the orchestral elements at the forefront of the mix, but you can still achieve this with some minor tweaks to the levels and avoid overwhelming everything else you've got going on. If there's any reason I would outright reject this, it would solely be because of balancing issues. I think the repetitiveness in the arrangement and actual sample quality/realism in sequencing are worth noting but not dealbreakers in my book. As of now, I'm squarely on the fence about whether the smaller gripes are enough, when combined with the more significant mixing and balance issues, is enough to warrant a resubmission or not. I think DJP put it best - if the artist is willing to rework this, I think there's a much stronger version of this track out there, but there's so much good going for it even its current state that I'm inclined to agree that it's just barely over the bar. Going to think on this for a while longer, but ultimately, there's definitely actionable feedback to be found in these votes that wouldn't compromise the artist's vision or conflict with any of the things mentioned in the artist's email. I think solely addressing the volume levels by raising the keys/leads/flute and lowering the brass/strings, without any other surgical mixing, arrangement, or sequencing edits, would be enough to push this confidently into YES territory, but right now... YES (very borderline)

It pains me so much to say this but I agree with MindWanderer still. The unintelligible quality on the clean vocals is something I can look past, but some of the specific modulations that he timestamped are just not working for me at all. I think it might turn off some listeners who would then be missing out on the rest of the track, which is REALLY good. I think you need to ease up on the flourishes and bring the clean vocals back to basics, then let loose in the heavy rock section where it clearly plays more to your strengths as a vocalist. It's hard to provide critiques on vocal performances because of how inherently personal they are, but to be totally blunt here at the risk of being offensive, it sounds like you're overcompensating during the clean sections and it just comes across as awkward.The pitch work that was done with Brad definitely helped improve this, but I still don't feel comfortable signing off on this on the basis of the first minute. The rest of the track shows that you are an incredibly talented vocalist that can absolutely rip through those higher-energy passages, so I don't want this to scan as a critique on your vocal abilities overall, but stylistically, I think you need to revisit your approach to the performance during the first minute of this song. Also, the opening guitar notes from :04 through :12 feel... comically loud and forward in the mix, it was super jarring to me and a weird way to start the track. There is an incredible track here that is worth the effort you've been putting into it, but I think it needs one more pass. NO (resubmit)

I was a YES before, although somewhat reserved, and I find that this resubmission clearly addresses all of my main concerns and adds some more flair to the back half to boot. I did want to push back on the idea that the fact that it's too conservative. I do think @prophetik music correctly characterized the nature of the arrangement, but why would that not be a valid approach? H36T weaves a new set of melodies and improvisations into the melodies of the original in a complementary fashion. I think this, coupled with the dissonance introduced in the outro and at the 2 minute mark and all of the subtle flair introduced throughout the rest of the track, is enough to push this squarely into the realm of "interpretive enough for OCR." Especially since the original sections are now more closely tied to the source tune, I think it builds an even stronger case for passing. It's an unconventional approach and maybe not the most bold or ambitious, but I wouldn't identify this as simply a MIDI rip with nothing added to the equation just because the additions are largely original writing. I do agree that the leads that cover the source material are still lacking in expressiveness compared to the whistle phrases, which is a bummer, but I feel like Brad's vote undersells the additions that are present here. I'm happy to maintain my YES from last time around, but now with 100% less (borderline!) YES