Emunator

Whaddup dude? Long time, no see! This is really excellent, the mixing is a bit rougher than I'm used to hearing from you (choir is pretty loud), but it's an awesome listen nonetheless. Always a pleasure to hear some new material from you. I'd love to hear a bit more deep lows from your pads, too - the whole mix sounds like the lows got scooped out. Polish this up and you'll have a winner

Hah, reading over these votes before checking out the remix, I was wondering just how bad those oboe notes could be... yeah, there's two notes in here that sound pretty rough. If nothing else, I'd love to hear that fixed if this does end up becoming a pass because of how distracting it is. The arrangement here is quite nice, constantly evolving and adding in new elements to keep things fresh. There's a lot to appreciate on multiple listens. There are some notable production issues stemming from the level of reverb that's drenching the entire track, and some instances of slightly less-than-realistic sequencing going on, but as Mike notes, they're mitigated for the second half of the track when the instrumentation is more fleshed out. On the whole, I'd even go as far as saying that your sequencing is pretty great here for *most* of the track, aside from a few jarring exceptions. To me, the strength of your arrangement tips the scales in your favor... I'd have a much easier time rejecting this if the arrangement weren't so fantastic or if the sequencing hiccups were more consistent throughout the track, but I think even in its current form, this mix is successful in spite of its technical shortcomings. YES

Listening through, I actually don't find this as unrelenting as Shariq's saying. To me, it sounds much more like a stylistic choice than an oversight in composition, and while the percussive, plucky orchestral style really isn't a favorite of mine, I think it's really well-executed here. I'm coming in fresh on this so I don't know what the original submission sounded like, but compared to the source tune, you went well above the call of duty in adapting an instrumentally-simple source into something so expansive and adventurous. I think the production quality is a huge step up from your previous submissions that I've heard! Reading over the old decision thread, it appears that there were some issues with dynamics, but I'm definitely not hearing any of that in this version. I'm more than happy to sign off on this. YES

I had high hopes for this track based on the opening seconds - the vocal chopping and general mood of the track was really promising. It has a very Blackmill-esque vibe, which I love a lot. I like your overall approach but ultimately this fails to click into place, primarily on the production side of things. As Kris pointed out, the glitching is haphazard and doesn't actually contribute to the flow of the track in a meaningful way. The core of your drum kit isn't working for me, either. The snares are indeed the most notable offender, but in general they just feel stiff and not totally genre appropriate. The hi-hat is also very sharp and relentless, and becomes distracting on repeat listens. That needs to be toned down. I'm trying to nail down what's making this sound so off to me, and I think maybe the lack of a prominent bassline is causing your track to feel aimless and too loosely-structured. The sections that do have a bassline use a very muddy and indistinct sound that muddles up the low frequencies without cutting through or serving as a solid foundation for the rest of your track. I appreciate the approach here but there's too many prominent elements that just don't gel together. I think you need to spend more time working in this style and hone your production techniques to get a better handle on what works and what doesn't, especially with your drum/glitch writing. NO

This remix feels like a solid starting point/proof of concept for a dance-y interpretation of the Brinstar theme, but there's a lot of things missing from this that keep it from reaching OCR's bar. First off, there's a huge lack of dynamics in this track once it picks up - you don't employ any breakdowns, beat switches, or changeups once the beat comes in, it's just a relentless 4-on-the-floor groove for the duration of the song. At almost 6 minutes long, you really need to explore other territory - this feels like a 1 minute idea copied/pasted into 6 minutes. A lot of your rhythmic synths are interesting but the mixing is also very muddy and indistinct, so most of the detail work gets lost. I can barely make out any of the secondary percussion other than the kick drum here, and your pad/bells are so resonant & delay heavy that they contribute a great deal of mud... Work with the decay times on a lot of your sounds in order to free up some space and let your sounds shine through. This needs a lot of reworking in my opinion, keep at it and experiment with new arrangement ideas to help keep things fresher and more engaging. NO

Kristina definitely drilled down into the biggest problem with this mix - to be honest, until some of the bigger synths are tamed and balanced properly, it's hard to tell how this arrangement would hold up. There's a nice remix in here somewhere, but you need a serious mixing cleanup to help bring that out in order to clean this up and give certain elements in your track the time to shine. For example, I'm hearing some really cool bass and drum writing at times but it's so muddled in reverb and drowned out by other frequencies, it doesn't feel like it's even there most of the time. It actually took me 3 listens just to realize that there was a guitar in here, it's just so busy! :\ Other than that, the string outro felt like a nice stylistic change of pace but ultimately felt underwhelming because, again, the strings were blending so much that there wasn't always much distinct melody coming through. The sample set seems to be straddling the line between 16-bit srtings and high-quality strings, which is a bit strange, but again, the muddy production is hurting this part. This is a track I would HIGHLY recommend bringing to our workshop forums, we've got some talented musicians that frequent there that can give more detailed, specific feedback on how to get this working. I'd like to see this again sometime down the line! NO

Laguna Tides (Besaid Island) So, I think it's done! Thanks a ton for the kind words and feedback from everyone Timaeus, I did take a listen to your demo and, while I'm it would have been great to work together on this, all of my previous remixes have, in some way or another, been collabs with someone else or someone has come in to render/record a part for me in the 11th hour. With this, I kinda wanted to prove to myself that I could handle a remix start to finish without any assistance Some other time, though! Thanks for the offer. Anyway, I think this has come a long way from the last WIP I posted, and even further since the first iteration that I only shared with a select few people! I've been slaving away at this for hours a day, fine tuning the details and toying with different arrangements (ended up cutting almost a minute of dead-weight from the last version,) and especially struggling over the last D&B section. I must have sat down for at least 2-3 hours every day this week trying and failing to write that synth solo, but I finally came up with something I'm happy with tonight!! Hope those little details and adjustments add up into a memorable finished product - at this point, I'm open to making some small tweaks if something sounds really bad, mixing-wise, but other than that I'm pretty happy with this! Pretty much all of this track was done with Zebra2 synths, Omnisphere (that's where the opening pad was derived from, Dustin) and various percussion/ambient samples I had lying around.

I'm finding a lot more issues with this than Larry. That guitar sample is SUPER weak and honestly, the string sample isn't holding up much better and unfortunately, it's exposed for so much of the song. Both of these sound like low-quality soundfonts and I don't feel like they're used in a deliberately stylistic way, either, so they stick out like a sore thumb right off the bat. I agree with Larry that the 4-on-the-floor breakdowns are a weak point, the synth rhythms and drum patterns are very bland and don't carry the same level of personalization or ear-candy as the dubstep sections. I'm also noticing that the sub-bass gets very boomy and overbearing, maybe bringing that down just a touch would help. Your dubstep bass writing is neat and consistently varied, but there's times where you fall back on overused sounds from the genre that come across as really cheesy here (the "yaahhhhh" vocal-ish synth at :55 or 3:38, for example, is one of the biggest offenders.) Not a huge dealbreaker and I can see that it might boil down to a bit of personal taste, but in my opinion some of the synths and sound choices just seem generic for the genre. I like what you've done with the source quite a bit, actually, but there's several big issues with this that are keeping it from passing in my book. NO

Huh, this definitely threw me for a loop. You did a pretty great job of capturing the silly, free-spirited nature of Grant Kirkhope's original arrangement, I can tell you had a lot of fun with this track. Right off the bat, this sounds like it's mastered real quietly, so I have to crank the volume way up for this to have the punch that it really needs. That needs to be revisited for sure. Even at louder volumes the drums still seem weak to me. Your writing is pretty cool, but they're mixed very quietly and don't cut through the mix. I can definitely see how some of the more abrasive synth choices might rub listeners the wrong way, but personally I think that, for the most part, your instrument choice is appropriate for the level of silliness that this track is going for. Really loving some of the spastic bass writing, the unexpected chiptune break, and your trancey arps toward the end of the song. Horn samples are sequenced decently, some of the longer staccato melody runs start to sound more noticeably fake but I wasn't too bothered by that. To be honest, this is a tough track to judge because of how unconventional it is, but the volume and mixing of the drums definitely needs to be addressed. I think I could get behind passing this if those two issues were fixed - I could see how some of the other elements in this mix might be points of contention for other judges, but this strikes me as a very deliberate set of stylistic choices that hits the mark more often than not. Really curious to see what others think of this! NO (resubmit!)

This was quite a fun arrangement to listen to, I've heard jazzy arrangements and piano arrangements of Wind Scene many times before but nothing quite like this. Cool interpretation. Here's a quick source breakdown (being generous with the little bars of improvisation sandwiched between melodies, so your mileage may vary.) 0:00 - 0:54 [54s] I'm hearing a repeated melody between 0:54 and 1:54 that sounds kinda Chrono-esque, but since there's no other source mentioned in the email and I can't figure out how it's derived from Wind Scene, I'm not counting it. 2:07 - 2:24 [17s] 2:46 - 3:03 [17s] 98 sec. source / 193 sec. total = 45.6% source usage Arrangement wise, this would be a pass for me if the melodies during that long period in the middle of the track could be tied to something in the Chrono soundtrack, but as it is, that's below the line where I'd give the benefit of the doubt on source usage. Someone help me out here? There's a couple other points I'd like to make aside from the arrangement. Your piano/bass/strings/brass samples sound fine for this style and are appropriately expressive to work for a jazz arrangement. However, the drum sequencing is a weak link in the chain. The samples themselves sound a bit low-quality but serviceable at the end of the day, but the rigid sequencing becomes really noticeable when the cowbell, snare, toms, and ride cymbal (to name a few) come in and sound like they're playing the same velocity for each note. See :22 - :30 for the ride cymbal, 1:57 - 2:08 on the cowbell, and pretty much the whole entirety of 1:00 - 2:00 on the toms for a few particularly noticeable examples of what I'm talking about. The drum writing itself is fine but the way they're sequenced kills the illusion of a live jazz group and takes me out of the piece. I would scale back and/or vary your tom writing during the second minute of the track, it's pretty unrelenting and I thought it was worth pointing out. I definitely get what you're trying to do with the low-fi filter on the piano toward the end, and I think it's a stylistic good choice, but I'd recommend easing up on whatever filter/crusher you're using just a bit, because after 2:46 the distortion starts clipping and just sounds unpleasant to me. To be clear, even if that middle section does turn out to be Chrono-inspired material, I would still send this back on the basis of the drum sequencing and ending distortion, which I think is a dealbreaker, but if the source usage checks out I think this could be a pretty easy resub, as I think your source interpretation and performance is well above the bar otherwise. NO (resubmit)

I'm not sure what you did but you got Alicia's Keys sounding GORGEOUS. Perfect sample choice for this genre, I wish I could get that library sounding as nice on my own arrangements. 1:26 sounded kind of stiff on the lead melody, but I can see how that might be a stylistic choice. Other than that, I really can't find much fault in this - it's a delicate, lovely, and personalized take on a beautiful source. You nailed it YES

I have to disagree with Kristina - to be honest, this feels underdeveloped to me as an arrangement. Your performance is nice, but it plays super-close to the source until 1:13, at which point it doesn't bear any resemblance to the source at all until 1:48, when it retreads a simplified version of the main melody. The only significant variation during the source sections is in the chords, which are pretty simplistic and don't vary much in rhythm. The most interesting part of this remix to me is the improvised solo section, where your dynamics become more pronounced and your playing is much more expressive. It's not a bad cover by any means, but I feel like the interpretation on this is too basic for an arrangement that only runs 2 minutes long. I feel this needs a lot more development in terms of length and reinterpretation of the source. I also agree that the sample might be contributing a bit of rigidity to this piece, but I think with a stronger arrangement that wouldn't be a dealbreaker. Sorry to come down so hard on this, but I really don't think it's ready for primetime in this state. NO

I'm familiar with Cry in Sorrow, not so much with Sazh's theme... after listening to the latter, I came away with a bit more of an appreciation for your approach here. That's DEFINITELY not an easy source to work with. I actually really love the deep house groove you have, and how the overall arrangement flows. It ebbs and flows in a very pleasant, club-friendly way. Lots of very cool backing writing and rhythmic synthwork across the board. The mixing issues actually aren't the dealbreaker for me - I think it works for the style you're going for save for a few places. Could it stand to be EQ'd more cleanly? Sure, but that's not what really bothered me about this piece. Shariq touched on this and I have to reiterate that I really don't think the lead synths work for this track. From the onset, none of the lead patches are very expressive, and some (such as the one that appears at 2:02 and elsewhere throughout the song) are thin and quite frankly, not very interesting. The writing writing itself doesn't always jive with the rest of the arrangement, and feels almost like a placeholder that just hovers over the track doing it's own thing a lot of the time. I would recommend revisiting that part of the track and experimenting with some other lead patches As I said earlier, for the most part I like your pacing here, but I found 2:32 - 2:46 to be pretty jarring. There isn't enough of a noticeable drop or transition for it to really feel like a breakdown, so it just comes across as an untimely break in the beat at a time when it seemed ready to settle into a groove for a while. Kristina caught onto the issue with the drumfill and I have to agree that it felt pasted in toward the end. It works, but because of how different it is from the rest of your instruments, it's really noticeable how often it repeats throughout the arrangement. Really dude, I think this has a lot of potential, but I don't think this has had enough time to incubate and develop... I would love to see you take another pass at this when you don't have the pressure of a competition looming, so you can better assess what's working and what's not here. Would love to see a resub, but for me, it's a NO(resubmit!)

Oh my. This entire mix is such a triumphant tidal wave of 90's-era nostalgia, I had to listen to this a few times through just to get the excitement out of my system before I tackled this with a critical ear. Like your previous Xenogears submission, there's an unbridled positive aura radiating from this arrangement that puts a HUGE smile on my face. Fortunately, this track holds up under scrutiny from a technical standpoint, as well. Your drums, guitar tone, all of the synth patches, and live performances are extremely well-selected and produced with the kind of shimmering polish you'd expect from this genre. The live bass kicks ass - you could have easily gotten away with using a sampled bass but Wild_Cat's contribution makes this sound all the better. Joe's contribution is a really wonderful wildcard that just totally clicks for me, stylistically. All of the little details make this even more enjoyable on repeat listens. There's a few minor nits I have to pick, but they're super minor. I'm actually not a fan of the synth riff from :18 - :35; the performance and writing/articulation feels clunky and I actually think it's a shame to start the track off with what I feel is the weakest component overall. Fortunately the synth writing is much smoother for the rest of the remix so I'm not going to dwell on it too much. Also, I can't tell whether this is due to the mixing or the actual performance, but I wish Joe's saxophone had a slightly sharper tone that cut through the mix better and gave it more energy. It seems most noticeable the first time it enters at 1:55, and seems less of an issue when it comes up later in the mix. Maybe another judge can help articulate what I'm getting at (or confirm that I'm crazy!) but again, it's practically a non-issue for me in the grand scheme of things. This is very clearly a YES for me, wonderful effort to all involved YES

Really exceptional take on a fantastic source, this shows a tremendous amount of growth beyond your previous arrangements... not that your previous solo piano takes were bad by any means. However, the subtle use of ambiance and effects that helps highlight and support (but never overshadow) your performance really sets this apart from your past work and makes it so memorable. Excellent work!

Remix: https://soundcloud.com/emunator/moonlight-meditations-secret Hey all, I've been hard at work extending/revising/wrapping up many of my old remixes right now, but in the meantime, I wanted to post something older that I never shared here before. This was recorded around a year ago in one take, 100% improvised, so there's an inherent degree of roughness/sloppiness to the performance because I was coming up with chords, melodies, and arrangement as I played. I was in a dark place for most of the 2nd half of 2013, and this was the one of the only real pieces of music I was able to produce that year. I feel like it channeled a lot of the melancholy that I was feeling at the time, and ended up being very cathartic to record. Throw this on late at night and enjoy the vibes, hopefully it's not too boring! I promise I'll have more new music incoming soon!

Definitive? Pssh. You're missing two of your recent Sonic Zone tracks, which is actually the main reason I checked this out - because I don't have those downloaded to my HD yet! Also, not sure if this counts, but your bootleg remix of Banana Revolution from the DKC3 bonus disc isn't on here either

Remix: Laguna Tides (Besaid Island) Hey all, it's been a while since I've poked my head in here! I've had this remix cooking for a while, working on it in chunks during what little spare time I have left in my life... At this point I feel like it's far enough along to share for some feedback What I've got here is a semi-developed skeleton that's still lacking in detail work, but I think is pretty far along in terms of sound design. I'm curious to hear what everyone else thinks - there's a couple of aspects of this WIP that I'm really proud of! Some things I still need to touch on: - Expanding the piano/pad chords throughout the song to make everything more lush - Adding variation to the drum loops - Some sort of lead instrument/synth solo in the last section - Additional sound design throughout the song, but especially during the intro - Other variations throughout the song Thanks in advance for listening, I'm excited to post something here again... it's been forever!

I loved the spontaneous Mitch Hedberg recitations in the elevator

Ahhh, you caught me! I was definitely trying to mimic Mum's style here. Green Grass of Tunnel is one of my favorite songs and I thought that style fit so perfectly with Stickerbush Symphony. And regarding the e-piano, I specifically selected that for the bass because it got such clean chords and I could work with the harmonies more than I could with a regular bass. That said, when I hear the phrase "sigur ros-esque electric bass," it makes me reconsider that choice... Hopefully gonna have some progress on this soon! Thanks everybody for taking the time to listen/comment!

I'm floored by your unique interpretation of the Marble Zone theme, your phrasing and performance is nothing short of incredible. Ace production here, nothing unexpected there I've been a huge fan of your last 2 submissions and this one lives up to the reputation you've set for yourself. Submit this! I'm not listening with the most critical ear right now, but I love what I'm hearing. Good to see you posting more work!

Bramble Blast - WIP 2 Sources: / Update 2/16/2015 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 ==================================== 12/08/2013 WIP 1: https://soundcloud.com/emunator/donkey-kong-country-2-bramble Don't think I ever posted this one here. I'm interested in potentially picking up production on this one again. I'm very interested in any feedback on the sound choices (particularly that chiptune synth, not sure if it fits) and the drums (too hollow? Is the dBlue Glitch abuse too egregious?) Thanks for listening!

I totally forgot to drop a line in here that I'll be attending this year Can't wait to meet everybody!

This is blowing me away so far with how cohesive the album is, without relying on the same style for each song, either. Lots of newcomers coming out with some amazing work here, I'm really impressed with the first disc so far EDIT: Listened to just about all of the album (missed a few tracks here and there and the last half of disc 3) and my initial assessment stands. You guys really exceeded my expectations here! Funk Fiction's track is incredible.

Just wanted to chime in and mention that Theophany and I DO have plans for this album and definitely intend to continue it, but the timing isn't right for either of us to really give it the attention it deserves and truly see our vision to completion. I'm in my final year of college while working full-time, and Jason is pretty much the busiest mo'fo in the universe between his job, personal life, and the Majora's Mask project, so we both have a lot to clear off our plates. We've got a very definitive concept of how we want the project to play out, but we need to clear up some things in both our lives before that can really become a reality. I really can't speak for Jason on this, but if anyone is really interested in starting up a new Ocarina of Time project, we can't really stop you, and more OoT love really can't be anything but a net-positive in the long run, but we don't intend to discard or walk away from our particular vision for an Ocarina of Time remix album either. I think if another project was to be started, it would be better to just start from scratch with a different concept & vision, rather than trying to revive this particular one. However, if anyone's feeling particularly motivated, you're free to go for it and start something up. Just my two cents!