Emunator   Judges ⚖️

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

This is certainly an improvement over the last version! The piano has been reigned in a LOT better, and there's a lot of original writing and variations to carry things along in the second half. Your drums are also improved quite a bit, though I agree with Larry that they're just a touch too loud across the board, and the rapid snare hits need a bit of velocity tweaking to sound more natural. Overall, your arrangement still utilizes a subtle dynamic curve but it's holding my interest better than the first iteration. I see what the other judges are saying about it being pretty repetitive, but I think you do plenty to expand things as you progress... there's no "in-your-face" changeups but I think you did well with gradually ramping up intensity. I still don't love the synth patches you are using though, and I'm definitely agreeing with what Larry's said about them clashing... I think the slow-attack/long-decay on most of your synths is still contributing some muddiness and not really adding much to the arrangement. At 1:22, the patch used isn't distinct enough to really carry a melody and is heavily sustained... it doesn't really fill out the soundscape enough to function as a pad, and isn't sharp enough to cut through as a harmony, so it just seems... there. I didn't really touch much on this in my last vote but it's definitely an issue that's still present. Still not totally cutting it for me... it's very close in my mind, but the synths stick out as a weak element that could stand to be revisited. Good luck with the rest of the vote, either way! You've got some great material here. NO (resubmit!)

Well this is pretty neat I actually found this to be one of the most fun and interesting of your submissions that I've heard so far. The guitars contribute a nice foil to the predominantly-chiptune soundscape, and is appropriately crunchy to complement the rest of your bitcrushed sounds. Fun groove, bouncy and active melodies... no major production or source use issues... it's not blowing me away necessarily but I dig it nonetheless YES

This is pretty much the last thing I'd expect to hear from the two collaborating artists, given their previous musical styles, so hearing this was such a fantastic surprise. Like your other collaborations that I've heard, the end result is a totally natural fusion, and this piece in particular does a great job showcasing the distortion effects you were trying to demo without ever feeling like a sales pitch that lacks any heart or fun behind it. Good work guys YES

Posting here just to remind myself to comment on this when I get a chance. Your past work has showed a ton of promise and I'm eager to hear what you've cooked up Feel free to fire a PM my way if you don't hear from me in a couple of days. ===== OK, listened to this one First off, I've got to commend on you on something... one of my primary critiques of your previous work has been your drum kit, which I've never felt fit the styles you were going for. The more unique, ethnic percussion you have going on here fit MUCH better, tonally. The only downside to this that you have such a unique percussion sound that it becomes a lot more noticeable how repetitive your drum writing is... The actual drum variation is sticking out like a sore thumb, but the samples themselves are so much better of a fit I like your piano tone that you've built this around. That element seems solid and helps this feel unique as an orchestral arrangement. Some of the orchestral elements still don't sound realistic to me... the cello and flute particularly could use a good dose of humanization. I think the cello line works great as a lead but the sample you're using or the octave you're playing in just doesn't feel realistic. Tremelo strings sound nice, and the plucked instrument (koto? can't tell for sure...) also holds things together nicely. Harp runs are well-utilized here. Arrangement-wise, it does start to all blend together on repeat listens. I really like what you do after 3:10, as you shift to a more uplifting vibe. The ending is great, too. Some of the earlier sections of the track begin to feel repetitive, but I haven't really given this TOO much time to really appreciate some of the nuances of the arrangement, so take that feedback with a grain of salt. I also think that some additional ambiance/sound design would make the ending more memorable. Looking forward to that! I really like this approach, I think it's a significant improvement over some elements from your older remixes that weren't working for me. I'm going to keep an eye on this

Real slick stuff, Duane. At first I was a little bit off-put by some of the unrealistic-sounding instruments and a few production things, but I was quickly swept away by the overall vibe of the track and found that the mood alone really carried this piece, and I stopped noticing any of the things I initially nitpicked in my head. Now, I can just listen and float away into sonic bliss...

I agree that this would involve a LOT of reinvisioning and tweaking in order to meet our bar. The arrangement itself is more or less a cover that largely follows the same structure as the original. The square arps that play throughout the track are a cool touch that begins to hint at some original writing and ideas, as well as the unique harmonization with the choir and brass, but I want to hear more of that! I think there's a lot you could do to personalize this arrangement with original writing and ideas so that it doesn't feel so cover-ish. The sequencing on all elements of the mix, synthetic and organic, is very rigid and doesn't sound like much attention has been paid to the note velocities in order to give them a more natural, humanized flow. To your credit, the fusion of electronic and orchestral elements has some merit to it, but I don't feel like the execution is up to par here. My best suggestion to you would be to continue to practice making new songs and I think you will naturally improve with time. Right now, this arrangement isn't where it needs to be for OCRemix but you've clearly got some good ideas in mind - share more of your stuff on our Workshop forums and keep working at it NO

Thanks for submitting and for keeping an open mind to feedback That's the kind of attitude I like to see in a submission letter, and I hope you continue to send stuff our way! Onto the mix... March-style orchestral arrangements are especially susceptible to feeling repetitive, in my opinion, and unfortunately this one really relies too heavily on a single beat/snare roll pattern and ultimately feels like it never truly takes off. There needs to be more ebb and flow in order to create a really compelling arrangement based on such a short source. Your sample quality is passable, in my opinion, but the articulations are also a little stiff (especially noticeable on the harp, as the other judges have noted. The lead violin also sounds a bit unrealistic.) The main issue that needs to be addressed here is the arrangement, which feels stagnant. As Chimp/Larry have suggested, try experimenting with dropping out the drums or changing up your patterns for a section to see how that helps the flow of the track. Alternatively, you could even try integrating another source tune to spice things up, if you find the inspiration for that. Anything to help break things up would be very welcomed here! Hopefully this feedback was helpful and you continue submitting to the site! Good luck NO (resubmit)

Hmmm... I don't really find this to be an improvement over the original submission - in fact, the flute sounds even MORE isolated and sticks out like a sore thumb moreso in this revision. Now that the flute is balanced a bit louder, it actually draws attention to the unrealistic sequencing/sample quality. Not sure what to say, this just isn't clicking for me and I'm not sure what can be done with it. Very pretty interpretation of the source that I really liked when I heard it on the album, but from a critical standpoint I don't think you'll be able to get this where it needs to be without some more in-depth work NO

I don't think there's any video game source that's more prone to being covered in one specific style... I've heard at least half a dozen attempts at translating Chemical Plant Zone into a house style, but they always seem pretty fresh regardless. This one is no exception - I found the rhythms and your own personal way of interpreting the source tune to be original enough to set this arrangement apart from the myriad of other remixes in this same vein. I thought it was odd that you took almost a minute and a half into the song before actually getting to the source tune, but fortunately the rest of the track checks out source-wise, so we're good there. I feel that your arrangement is pretty long, but at the same time you do have plenty of breaks and fills so it doesn't end up being too repetitive. Overall this one keeps a pretty steady rhythm but your melodies and beats change up with each repetition, so I actually feel the length was justified in the end. Production is where this track hurts a bit. Those resonant pads and lead synths are super loud and busy, so they start to eat up everything else in the track... it's all pretty audible but I feel you could tame those synths with some minor EQ work and give everything a bit more breathing room without losing the full-bodied sound your track currently has. The bassline is also pretty loud and constantly feels like it's competing with the rest of the track. This track is really growing on me as I listen to it and if the production were tightened up just a bit, I could see myself throwing a YES on this track, but there's some sounds that are dominating the mix too much that need to be reigned in. I'm going to ping Flexstyle and see if he can chime in on this track specifically, he could likely have some more specific feedback on how to improve this. NO (resubmit!)

Contact Information: - ReMixer Name: Nynja - Real Name: Kyle Walter - Email Address: - Website: soundcloud.com/nynjamusic - Forum User ID: 52762 Submission Information: - Name Of Game Arranged: Sonic The Hedgehog 2 - Name Of Arrangement: ソニック - Name Of Individual Song Arranged: Chemical Plant Zone Source:

Link Title: Killer Toe Funk Remixers: ffmusicdj and Geoffrey Taucer Game arranged: Toejam & Earl Songs arranged: Toejam Jammin' Haroon says: I haven't composed a remix in quite some time. I haven't submitted to OCR in ages. I want to fix those two things. The song originated as a test song for a Phaser plugin I developed for guitars and synths. The song just kept growing from 4 bars, to 8, until we had about 20 bars of content and wanted to continue making it into a full song. Me and Jeremy just kept going for a month or more until it was finished. Production was fun and the content we recorded will hopefully be available soon for Reason users. I think Jeremy did a great job with the guitar, and I honestly can't wait to do more work with him in the future. I really miss making music, and I'm glad to be back. Taucer says: OH MY COSMOS IT FEELS SO GOOD TO BE MAKING MUSIC AGAIN! This started out as a short demo for Haroon's distorion and phaser plugins (which everybody should buy right now: http://thatmusiccompany.com/) and evolved from there. I did the guitars, Haroon did everything else on the production side (percussion, badass organ work, and making me sound like a much better guitarist than I actually am), and the overall arrangement was very much a collaborative effort. I pulled a few ideas from live jams I've done of the same source at MAGfest, so while they didn't contribute directly to the mix as recorded here, I want to give shout-outs to Jay "Audio Fidelity" Yaskin, Brad "Prophetik" Burr, Sam "Shnabubula" Weiss, Noah "Escariot" Luddington, and Sid "Sid Meier" Meier. At any rate, this mix was a blast to work on, and I will hopefully be doing many more collabs with Haroon in the future. -Taucer Source:

Hey mate, I'm afraid I can't really offer a proper review on the merits of this album because of how unfamiliar I am with chiptune music, but I like what I hear! Really diverse, adventurous melodies that keep things fresh within the confines of the sound chip. Track 6 was probably my favorite, those crazy arpeggios really did it for me Production-wise, this really caught my attention, it sounds a bit bulkier and bassier than your average chiptune track... Forgive my ignorance, but what was your process for producing this? Did you take the purist approach to producing these or did you take some creative liberties with the tracks? They sound great!

*1 Year Later* As a few of you may know, I've been actively working on this project tirelessly for the last month, putting in a bit of work just about every day, sometimes for hours at a time. What I've got is nowhere near complete, by any means, but it is a SIGNIFICANT step up from where I was at this time last year and, at the very least, listenable enough to share. What's changed: + Added ~3 minutes of arrangement, including... - Expanded intro - Much slower build - Extended piano breakdown/solo section - New source for final "chorus" - Hot Head Bop + New instruments (piano, shakuhachi, sine lead, boy's choir, orchestral percussion) + Cleaned up production quite a bit/preliminary mastering + A bazillion tiny tweaks. What's left to go: + Drums will completely be replaced + Do something cooler in addition/in place of the first synth solo (particularly 1:01) + Expand ambiance/pad writing throughout the track, particularly in the piano breakdown + Flesh out final Hot Head Bop section (right now is just a concept/placeholder) + Figure out what to do from 3:45 - 4:24 + More interesting transitions/sfx work + Live instruments (brainstorming for vocalist and violin/viola players - any interest?) + Additional harmonies/flourishes/transitions throughout the track Please feel free to share any thoughts - keeping in mind that there's still a long way to go before I'm really satisfied with this. Hope you all enjoy, I've been working extremely hard to move this one along https://soundcloud.com/emunator/bramble-blast-wip-2

Fucking awesome guys. I know I raved a lot about this in the judge thread but I really, really, REALLY love everything about this track

I feel that most of the strength of this arrangement lies in how you adapted the source tune into so many melodic contexts and got so much mileage out of essentially 8 notes of material. I like the Deus Ex-esque vibe you chose to go for, and the chaotic melodic crescendo you ended the song with was actually a pretty nice touch in my opinion - it didn't come across directionless to me, as Kris said. I will concede that 1:59-2:15 felt pretty out of place, but no big deal for me. The snare was a bit up-front and loud, it sounded like you were going for a chopped breakbeat sound with that but I don't feel that it totally worked. The last crash at 2:46 was a big letdown, I think if you replaced that with a crash with a longer reverb tail and let it die down more gradually, it would feel much more natural. Overall, I feel that this is competent enough to get by despite the aforementioned issues. It's a close call and I would love to hear some simple improvements, but I'm comfortable giving a nod to this one due to the strength of the arrangement. We'll see how this goes! YES (borderline)

You have some really cool sound design at play here, but ultimately I feel like the track never develops much past that. There's not much in the arrangement/melody to differentiate this from the source, and the arrangement itself ends up being very repetitive. Outside of the sound design and instrument upgrades, I'm not hearing much you in this track. The structure is very much by-the-books without much of a cooldown/outro, as well. I like the sounds you're working with for the most part (the guitar sequencing is a lot more noticeably stiff at the end when it's exposed) but you would need to revisit this with a more interpretive approach to the arrangement in order to pass. NO

I can pretty much 100% cosign with Kristina on this. Solid arrangement and lots of unique sounds floating around, but the production and level of variation throughout the track is not where it needs to be. Right from the onset, most of your samples sound very low-quality - the piano and flute lead are probably the most notable examples, but those sounds just aren't cutting it in terms of realism. It sounds like you did a bit of work to mask the piano with reverb and EQ, but I honestly feel that sample needs to be replaced with something less tinny. I understand that you were going for a chillout vibe and probably wanted to avoid a beat that was too busy, but at the same time I think you didn't do enough to make the drum work engaging and varied throughout the track - you've got a lot of room to experiment with different rhythms and keep things fresh, especially for a 5 minute track. Lots of room for improvement but I do appreciate the attempt, this is something different than I'm used to hearing from you, so kudos for that! Keep at it and continue improving your production/arrangement skills, you've got some solid components in place already but just need to take the sound design and variation to the next level for this to be a pass. NO

This is one of those remixes that really doesn't seem like it should work on paper, but once I actually heard it, everything felt so natural. The saxophone solo was a bold call but it paid off in a huge way, adding an extremely memorable component to an already-solid mix. I was also fond of the latin prayer integration and how it contributed some extra character to the mix and also helped make the transition into the Rebel Army theme a little less jarring. Overall, really ace work from all involved that effortlessly stretched such a short source tune into something so expansive. Topped off with some of the smoothest production work I've heard from Brandon to date... this is a very easy call in my book. YES

Hmmm... I appreciate the effort put into recreating this old-school synthwave vibes. But I can't shake the feeling that most of your lead synths are just not working in this track for the most part, for a variety of reasons. The synth at :28 seems to be playing to its own rhythm and doesn't really mesh well with the rest of the track. At 1:00, I'm hearing so many synth patterns competing with the vocals, everything occupying relatively the same frequency range, so it all becomes very messy and incoherent. I also hear the off-key notes that Deia pointed out... altogether, the synth writing here just doesn't seem to have any synergy with the rest of the track for most of the time, and many of the various melody lines often clash with each other. After listening to the sources, I can see why - Oil Base Act 1 is a mess of a source to work with. The parts that use the main Scrap Brain Zone melody fit a lot more naturally, in my opinion. I wasn't bothered quite as much by the repetitive structure, it's still something that I feel should be addressed but in my opinion, the lead writing was a much bigger factor that did not click into place. NO

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30282979/Laguna%20Tides%20%28Besaid%20Island%29%203.mp3 https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/30282979/Music/WAV/Laguna%20Tides%20%28Besaid%20Island%29%203.wav Fixed the shaker and a sour note in the solo - better, guys?

And now for something completely different! Like your last sub, this eclectic fusion of disparate elements is just crazy enough to work The saxophone is well played, if a bit rigid, and carries the track nicely while the rest of the instrumentation evolves around it. You're really crafting an unmistakable style with your work. I second Chimp's criticisms about the overall mastering being super quiet, there seems to be a lot of empty space that could benefit from slightly more master compression. Maybe we can look at getting a remastered version before posting if this passes? Additionally, as I mentioned before, there is a level of rigidness to just about everything... the timing is almost too perfect, giving this a bit of an inorganic feel despite being a live performance. I suspect that this was an intentional choice, but it stuck out a little sorely to me nonetheless. Easy call though, keep 'em coming! YES