Emunator

Have to co-sign with the judges above - there's a very washed-out quality about the mixing that is not sitting right with me. The overdone reverb levels, the boominess of the bass, and the overall blending that affects the whole soundscape causes this to sound very underwhelming for an arrangement with so much energy. This is a really solid effort for a first attempt at metal, and especially since it was done so quickly, but I don't think I can sign off on the mixdown as it stands :-\ Hopefully Nabeel can make some tweaks here on short notice and get a revised version in our hands. NO

First time hearing this one - you really did an incredible job expanding on the simple melody from the source and breathing new life into it with your unique chord changes and harmonies. I like this arrangement a lot. The repetition that Chimpazilla mentioned did not bother me, to be honest - in my opinion, there's enough sonic additions and development throughout the track that the arrangement doesn't really need to be touched. Production feels lacking on several fronts, however. Most significantly, your piano tone is extraordinarily bright and tinny, which surprised me because I thought the piano sample used in your previous FF6 submission was quite full-bodied. It makes me think that the way you chose to mix and produce the sample in this remix just isn't working, and that it's not a sample quality issue. I understand that you don't want to use the same production treatment for a solo piano mix as you would for a more upbeat electronic track such as this. However, I think you went too far in EQing frequencies out of your piano sample and that you should shoot for a more full-bodied tone. Kris nailed it with regards to the drums - your kick and the occasional cymbal crash are really one of the only audible percussion elements in the song, with pretty much everything else being drowned out. The beat and the bass aren't sitting where they need to be in the mix. I think you would benefit from taking this to the Workshop forums for some more specific feedback. You've got a stellar arrangement but this still is not ready for primetime due to mixing issues. NO (resubmit!)

This is yet another quality addition to your growing body of work, Brad. Your music always has a very professional, cinematic quality to it, which is impressive because every one of your submissions seems to tackle a completely new genre. Your arrangement maintains the solemn feel of the absolutely-gorgeous source tune, but expands the instrumentation in a very natural way. Merrigan's superb vocals feel like a perfectly natural addition, I was truly surprised to find out that the original source didn't already have vocals included in the first place. Very easy call YES

I'm going to agree with Palpable, he really did a good job highlighting the strengths of this arrangement. Very cool harp runs throughout the track and a creative, expansive take on the Stone Tower melody are some of the high points for me. He also touched on a couple of major issues. The drum writing is not all that exciting to me, you could explore some more fun rhythms and fills to prevent the arrangement from becoming plodding. I also agree that the drum machine sounds were very out of place. OMG, the flute lead is extremely shrill and absolutely drenched in reverb. It's making parts like 1:28 - 1:44 and 1:48 - 2:08 almost unlistenable. There's some major audible distortion around 2:04... you've gotta look into that. Truthfully, I'm also not sure what's going on with the low string instrument at 2:08 or elsewhere throughout the track. The sequencing exposes some very odd decays/attacks and does not sound natural at all. The riff that the instrument plays also sounds aimless and doesn't add much to the arrangement, in my opinion. It has a very cool tone but the unrealistic sequencing and directionless writing is not clicking for me There's a lot of work to be done on this track, but I think you've got some great potential here as well to build off of the elements of the track that are working. NO (resub)

This is an extremely competent mix with solid production and sound design, but I found myself mentally checked out of your arrangement about halfway through. When you drill in and pay close attention, there's a lot of subtle detail work that makes this a substantial improvement on the original track, but I agree with Palpable... while it works exceptionally well in the context of background music, as a standalone arrangement I just don't think there's enough variation or attention-grabbing ideas. I can't find much fault your effort on the track, it sounds like you achieved what you set out to do and the co-sign from the original composer is always a plus, but at the same time I don't think this really satisfies the criteria for what we're looking for on OCR. Sorry! Would love to see something more from you in the future. NO

Source usage is super-easy to make out on this track, but it's sufficiently personalized. Not going to dwell on that portion of the track. Arrangement-wise, I'm somewhere in between Larry and Kris on this... It's true that you retread a lot of ground, but ultimately I think you introduce breakdowns frequently enough that it falls into a fairly traditional song structure that works without feeling too static, especially when working with a repetitive source tune. If you go by the numbers like Kristina did, this is a repetitive arrangement, but just going with my gut, I think this has enough variation in its current form. Mixing is causing problems here during the busiest parts. There's really nothing I can add on top of what Larry said, so I'll quote him again: This all rings true, and I don't think I could actually get more specific than he did, it's just something you'll need to spend a bit of time tweaking and ironing out. Perhaps you'll have some luck on the workshop forums but my best advice would be to pick out a couple of mainstream/professional reference tracks that sound similar to what you're trying to achieve here, and do some A-to-B comparisons in your DAW and experiment with different mixing/compression settings until you achieve results you're happy with that keeps the intensity of your current mixdown without becoming overcompressed and too loud. Good luck dude! Hopefully this should be relatively easy for you to revise and resubmit! NO (resubmit!)

I actually found myself very impressed by this arrangement after coming into this with some reservations based on Larry/Kristina's comments, but I found myself engaged and interested with your arrangement all the way throughout. True, everything sounds tonally similar and utilizes mostly the same instrumentation throughout, there are some significant changeups such as the introduction of some light percussion around the 2 minute mark, or the transition into "Chasing The Black Caped Man." To me, when you consider how many different sources were pieced together across multiple different soundtracks, the fluid arrangement and consistent mood you were able to achieve is actually even more impressive. Your sample set is decently strong, thankfully the harp sound that you've built much of the arrangement around is a strong, emotive sample. The flute is a little bit less convincing but it's not bad... everything else is more than enough to get the job done No real complaints there or on the production front whatsoever, you did a very nice job there. I really want to YES this track, and this might be an instance where Larry yells at me for "making perfect the enemy of the good" () but once you pick up on the chimes, it's really distracting. Like, enough to push it to dealbreaker status for me, and I hate to do that on such an otherwise-strong track, but it's debilitating to a point that I really think this needs to be sent back to deal with the constant chime hits. It's definitely overdone here and it does impact my ability to enjoy this remix fully. Regardless of how the rest of the vote goes, what you got right here was done very well and I have to give you major props on that Good luck! NO (resubmit!)

This is a pretty unorthodox arrangement, spending nearly a minute to build up steam, catching a groove for a very brief period of time and then dropping out for a very extended period of time before finally bringing the beat back to full intensity around the 4 minute mark. It's a bit of a tease, and admittedly there's some points of the track that start to test my patience, but I think the payoff with the track is decently rewarding and interesting. I really like the ending synth solo, definitely worth the wait for that. Overall, you have a lot of ideas at play, and when everything goes into full swing, it clicks. However, the slower breakdowns are underwhelming and it doesn't always feel like you utilize that time to its full potential. I would strongly suggest experimenting with those parts particularly and either shortening them (if you feel appropriate) or, more preferably, adding in more layers and sounds to flesh those parts. The length of that middle section can be justifiable but it's not quite there. And yeah, those repeat club sirens need to be swapped out. It's such a conspicuous transition that you REALLY notice that it's being re-used. I see a lot of potential here and I admire the unconventional structure you used, I think this just needs another detail pass to get it up to par! NO (resubmit)

What Larry said. His vote nailed all of the points I wanted to address with this track, the overly-compressed and loud mixdown makes this difficult to listen to from the onset. Past that, I'm just not finding much to latch onto with your interpretation. Everything plays pretty safe to the source and doesn't insert much personalization to the track other than the conversion to D&B. Some cool beats and glitching are present, but I don't think this is the level of interpretation we're looking for on OCR. NO

Very cool, ambitious arrangement ideas here. I love the idea of producing dance tracks with more of an orchestral spin and a progressive structure like this. As a whole, I thought your orchestration and samples were pretty solid, and I was impressed with your use of the various cinematic risers/transitions throughout the track. The reaper horn sample is really cool but I also found it a bit hamfisted in the intro when it was used so many times in quick succession. Maybe cut back to just one or two of the horn hits in the intro? Larry nailed the big problem with this track; the electronic sections lack sophistication to match the orchestral components. The beats are too simplistic, the synth design does not complement the orchestral instruments, and in general those section feel underdeveloped. For starters, you really need a bassline in those parts to help fill out the soundscape. I think part of the reason that those sections sound so out of place is because of that omission. In general I would suggest trying to flesh out those dance portions with additional synths, textures, and sounds so that they don't sound so hollow by comparison. I think this is a really ambitious concept and, while it might take a couple of attempts to nail it, you've got some very strong elements present already and I don't think it's outside your reach to get the electronic sections where they need to be. Ultimately I think this is a song worth taking the time to revisit. Good luck! NO (resubmit!)

Very nice job on the arrangement and dynamics of the piece - your orchestral elements ebb and flow around the consistent piano arpeggios in a way that reminds me of the work of , one of my favorite pianists. The string work in your track is gorgeously articulated, and the winds, while not quite as convincing, don't detract your mix in any significant way. I found this whole piece to be very moving A few production notes - I thought your piano sounded the slightest bit overcompressed in the intro, and the wind instruments tend to get piercing to the ears when they hit the highest notes (the clarinets moreso than the flutes.) The strings are definitely the strong point of your orchestral pallet here. None of that is a dealbreaker by any stretch of the imagination... this is a clear pass to me. Just some things I thought worth pointing out! Excellent work YES

I appreciate the effort you put into going out of your box on this track, it's clear you put a lot of effort into crafting your arrangement, but I have to agree that the mixing is causing some major problems. The live instruments sound needlessly muffled and do not fit nicely with the soundscape at all, I'm not sure what you did to them in processing but Chris is barely audible and ilp0's rhythm guitars are too up-front and the leads are too buried. The sequenced orchestral elements are a mixed bag as well - the lead oboe sounds extremely fake and rigid, and various parts sound too dry, as Larry commented on. I'm having a hard time nailing down the issues with this mix because truthfully, the mixing just doesn't work :-\ It makes this piece very hard to listen to and enjoy what you've created here, and I think that would need a complete overhaul in order to pass. There's a lot of great writing and dynamics to the actual orchestration but I can't sign off on this in its current form. NO

Ocean Lanterns *FINISHED!* Thanks for the feedback, T! I definitely see where you are coming from with the strange shift in keys toward the end... I don't know how Dave Wise made it sound so smooth in his original track, but that's actually more or less the same progression he follows in the source. In the end, I experimented with a bunch of things but I kind of like the sudden-left-turn that that section brings to the track, even if it does interrupt the chillout mood set up by the first half of the track. Even though I didn't end up going with your suggestion, I do appreciate the time you spent sharing your thoughts here And I do have your bell sounds, while I ultimately felt like I was maxed out on bell sounds for this particular mix, I'll keep them in consideration for any future tracks... as you know, pretty much everything I write has bell sounds in it, so this should be nice With a couple of tweaks and some modifications to the underlying chord structure to a couple of the parts, I think this is ready to submit. I'm going to leave this here for a few days to see if anyone catches any particularly egregious mixing/writing errors, but I've gotten a lot of feedback from friends off the forums and nobody's caught anything major so far. Please enjoy and feel free to share any other comments at this point, I appreciate any feedback!

Ocean Lanterns Sources: / Update 4/19: Finished! Over the past year I've spent a lot of time exploring the world of modern alternative R&B (FKA Twigs, Drake, The Weeknd, Banks, James Blake, etc.) and found myself pulling a lot of inspiration from that aesthetic. I wanted to merge that style with my more traditional chillout pallet... so, lots of bells and pads and the usual fare here I think it's got a bit of a different, darker tone than what I usually write, though! The middle section of the track is still a little underwhelming, I have some work to do on dynamic control with the rhodes, and there's a couple sections that are not fully fleshed out, but for the most part I'm happy with where this is at. Will likely tweak this endlessly before I call it done, but I think it's at a good point to share! As always, any impressions or thoughts are appreciated!

Hey brotha, a little late on the uptake here but I gave this a listen and it reminded me how much I love your vocal tracks. The live album format really channels the rawness of your style well. Unplugged Rime of the Wanderin' Seafarer is particularly dope

Definitely a big fan of the djenty style you approached this in! I have to draw the obvious comparison to Periphery, one of my favorite metal bands, so this was cool to hear. Very technical playing and soloing, it took me a few listens to fully appreciate the intricacies of your arrangement but there's a lot to like here. From a critical perspective, there's a HUGE amount of clashing in this mix. The mixing is seriously crowded and you need to bring down the volume and selectively apply some EQ cuts to give everything more breathing room. Compare your mixdown to this similar-style track, and I think you can hear the difference in how much room there is to breathe without sacrificing the intensity of each instrument. The boominess of the drums (especially noticeable during the fast sections) and overall reverb levels are contributing to this muddiness as well. Mixing-wise, this just isn't where it needs to be. I took a look at your Youtube channel and listened to some of your more recent uploads, and I really think that you've improved your mixing skills since this was submitted. I don't think I need to get too in-depth on feedback but I want to stress how much I feel that djent and progressive metal is underrepresented on OCR and that this track needs to get resubmitted! Hopefully you'll be willing to take another pass at this. NO (resubmit!)

Gah, this is killing me! Your vocals and concept is sooooo good, but the rest of the backing track is just not up to par. The odd panning on the guitars/drums, repetitive backing writing, and the poor-fitting bass patch is bringing this down. I'm also hearing some distortion/overcompression on the lead guitar and organ when it pops in. I think this needs another pass at mixing and working with the rest of the track, but it definitely deserves the extra attention because the vocals and guitar performance is so great here! Love what you've done with the source, too. Bring in a collaborator if you need to, just do what it takes to get this where it needs to be, it'd be a crime to not revisit this awesome idea NO (resubmit!)

Wow, your bassline is loud. I know the Mystic Cave bassline is fun, but let the rest of your track breathe a bit! There's some fun parts to this track with a lively groove and some cool synth flourishes, but ultimately this is a pretty conservative approach that doesn't expand much on the original source's ideas. In addition to that, there's some serious mixing/sequencing issues with the bass/drums that need to be reigned in - while the drum groove is fun, the way your drums are sequenced is not very realistic, and the bassline is just too up-front and crowding out everything else in the mix. Solid attempt for a first submission, and it's cool to see the video accompaniment to get an idea for your creation process, but I think you need to refine your mixing skills on this track so that the parts are better balanced, and introduce more personalization and original ideas to the remix overall. NO

Something about this track sounds off to me... are you throwing compression on top of your reverb? Something's causing a lot of elements in this mix to sound "boomy", for lack of a better word. Is anyone else hearing this? The mixing is pretty loud for the style and I don't think the mixing treatment is appropriate. Some of the lead instruments sound very shrill - I can't tell if any of that would be alleviated with a different mixdown, but your high strings and the clarinet/flute (?) are painful on the ears when they hit high notes (example: :57, or 3:47, just to name two.) The sequencing across the board is decent but not especially convincing. With stronger mixing I think you could get by with what you have, but the wind leads, piano, and backing harp all stick out as more noticeably fake. Your arrangement is pretty nice, lots of interesting countermelodies and harmonies that work well with the basic foundation of the Omen source. For most of the track, there's not much of a low-end presence, but there are times where you've got 3-4 or even more instruments occupying the same mid-high frequency range, and it becomes too imbalanced very quickly. I would suggest reconsidering how you distribute your harmonies to different instruments in order to achieve a more balanced mix. I actually think there's a lot of potential in this arrangement but there's several critical things that aren't jiving, as well as a reverb/mixing issue that I can't quite pin down, that's making this fall short to me. Curious to hear what input the other judges have here. NO (resub)

This suffers from a lot of the same issues that I've commented on with some of your previous tracks... To get the biggest offender out of the way, that first lead synth is just really bad, no point in beating around the bush. That's not working for me at all The second lead synth is pretty great actually, and the third one is a pretty fun retro-sounding patch but it's mixed very quietly. It doesn't feel like a lead to me with the way it's sitting in the mix. Structurally, I'm not really sure what this track is doing. The backing bass pattern and chords are static throughout the entire track. The drums are pretty much on autopilot, and are so buried in the mix that they don't really give any indication of song structure. The bass is mixed quite loudly, so it drowns out any variation that you might have written into the drums and backing elements. Mixing-wise, this is not where it needs to be, unfortunately. Your lead volumes are all over the place, and the bass is crowding out pretty much everything else. As a judge, I hate to come across this blunt in my votes, but after voting on a couple of your SZRC tracks, I really think you need to take more time to polish and refine your competition tracks. Simply put, I don't feel like they're getting the TLC they need during the short time you have to create them. There's some solid ideas tucked away in here but I'm consistently hearing the same problems in nearly all of your submissions lately with regards to mixing, lead synth choices, and lack of structural definition/variation :-\ Competitions are a great way to come up with full-fledged songs in a short time frame, and it's easier to let production issues slide in that kind of environment, but this needs a lot of fine-tuning and revising to pass OCR's bar. NO

Overall, I'm a huge fan of this style, it sounds like you're channeling your inner-Joshua Morse in a lot of ways. Excellent rhythmic variation that breathes new life into the slower, simpler groove of the original source. Your chords are killer, really slick work there. I'm not going to mince over the source usage in this track - it was a risky choice to go over a minute before introducing any of the material from the original track, but once you get to the meat of your mix, the source is present quite a bit and at the end of the day, this certainly feels like a proper remix, regardless of whether it checks out based on stopwatch. Can't say I was a huge fan of some of the stylistic choices on this mix. The lead synths across the board were underwhelming and lacking in life compared to how exciting the bassline and chords were... I would have preferred to hear something with more vibrato and expression to match what you've done with the rest of the track, since the lead writing itself is very spirited, but your patches don't really asjustice to it. The drum style was pretty nice, I liked the groove but the loudly-mixed hi-hats felt like a bit of a faux-pas. Not a huge deal. I think this is a track that you could theoretically revisit 2 years down the road with additional experience under your belt, and be able to make some significant improvements on, but after several listens, it's clear that what you got right, you got really right, and that's enough to overshadow some of the stylistic choices that fell a bit flat. Good work dude, keep sending more stuff our way YES

Some really cool things going on with this mix that I didn't really catch on my initial listen when I hit this in the inbox. Your percussion changeups are really nice, and the spastic hand drumming was a really interesting choice that works great here. The guitar also adds a lot of flavor to the mix. Aside from that, I feel that this retreads a lot of the same ground as the source, sonically and arrangement-wise. I don't want to devalue the personalization that you did incorporate here, because you did make plenty of interpretive decisions that give this mix its own flavor. Beatdrop did a great job covering some of the things you did well here, so I definitely want to give credit where credit is due. There are some production issues with the track that I'm noticing. Nothing too major, but the overall mixing imbalance toward the mid-high frequencies sounded off to me. Specifically, I feel like transitions such as the one at :17 would have more impact if you beefed up your kick drum post-transition with a layered sub that helped fill out the lower frequency ranges. Right now, there's not enough of a difference between the intro and the meat of that verse, so the transition doesn't really work as intended. Also, the theremin-style leads are mixed a little loudly, as Kristina pointed out. And the ending is definitely a weak spot, I don't think that worked at all :-\ The production issues definitely don't add up to a rejection in my book. However, for a mix that only runs 3:00, I find myself rather underwhelmed. To be blunt, everything from 2:35 onward felt like a copy-paste from earlier to achieve the looping effect, so I'm effectively viewing this as a 2:30-long submission... for a track that short, I just don't feel like this takes enough risks with the source material or covers enough ground to pass muster. Truthfully I'd likely be borderline-okay with passing this mix if the production was tightened up and the ending were replaced, but I'd REALLY like to hear more exciting writing and ideas like you demonstrated in 1:31 - 2:04. I think there's a lot of untapped potential here, and it would be a lot easier to justify the short length of your mix if the ideas that were present were more ambitious. This is a close decision for me and I can totally understand why you got a YES vote, but my gut tells me there's enough room for improvement here that it's worth sending back for revisions, at least on the production/ending if nothing else! Good luck with the rest of the vote! NO (resubmit!)

Have my babies, Hakstok. This track captures pretty much everything I love about your style, I feel like a broken record on most of my votes but you have an impeccable taste for source tunes that complement your style. Once again, you've added enough personality to the original while keeping intact everything that already clicked about the original source. Guitar work is exciting and tasteful and comes in at just the perfect time to keep things fresh. I actually like the saw lead that Kris is harping on... not sure how to really qualify my feelings on it, but it works for me! YEAH!

No need to spend a lot of time rehashing what was said above - the lady and gentlemen gave some really great, detailed feedback that really rings true for me. I will recap - the arrangement is sweet, the parts that are more drum/guitar focused are REALLY clicking for me. I'll echo the Dream Theater comparison, it works great for the chosen sources Sequenced and sampled instruments/synths are where this one falls a little bit short, but the issues pale in comparison to what you got RIGHT here. No qualms about passing this at all, see you on the front page! YES

Kris's vote reads a bit harsh, but after listening again I really have to agree with everything she said. To be honest, the production choices on this track are just... not pleasant to the ears Everything is squished toward the midranges with very little bass frequencies coming through on the kick or anywhere else. The piano sample does not sound realistic to me at all (the sequencing and the sample quality itself.) Synths are super-dry. Really, everything in this track sounds like it's had some weird EQ filter put on it... I could see that maybe you were going for more of a lo-fi aesthetic, but I don't think it was executed as well as it could have been. Some cool arrangement ideas and generally a solid groove are present here, but the production, sample/synth quality, and sequencing are all sounding pretty unrefined. Not doing it for me Sorry. NO