Emunator
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Posts posted by Emunator
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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
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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
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@MindWanderer @prophetik music @Liontamer New version of this mix is up, with massive shoutouts to @Chimpazilla for working with me to clean up the mix and master and really get this to shine! Please check out the latest version and let me know if you hear anything weird
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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!
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Dammit, fine. I’m in for Team Metroid
- Ridley Snipes, pixelseph, paradiddlesjosh and 2 others
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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
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ReMixer Names: Ridley Snipes, TreytReal Names: Trevor Burch, Trevor TulsID: 17937, 18602Email:Game: LOZ Majora's MaskSong: Stone Tower TempleComposer: Koji Kondo, presumablyArrangement Title: DRWNXDLast-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 -
Whatever FINE I'm going to fix it. Pls hold on anymore votes.
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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
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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)
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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)
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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 -
Absolutely stunning sound design. This is absolutely brimming with vibes and texture, and you literally could not have picked a better set of source tunes to make this idea come to life. The mixing glues everything together with just the right amount of reverb and delay without feeling indistinct, and there's never a moment where it feels like you've exhausted your creativity and are just coasting on repeated ideas. The evolution across the arrangement is subtle but effective. Wow, I love it. Incredible work!
YES
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Completely agreed that the sampled instruments are not cutting the mustard here, and everything feels really locked to the grid. This applies to nearly all of the instruments - piano, drums, and especially the rhythm guitar chugs. It's like there was no velocity or timing changes on anything in the arrangement whatsoever. I don't mean to diss the arrangement as a whole, because it's really a great take and I can absolutely see this passing without any fundamental changes at all, but the sequencing feels robotic as if this was meant as a reference track for live performers.
The sound stage overall feels dry and lacking a sense of place, too - more reverb and some tasteful distortion/saturation, especially on the guitars, where it would really benefit to have some more life and movement to the tone, would make this come to life!
I rarely ever suggest "find a live instrumentalist" as a solution for fixing remixing issues because I do believe that with enough work, this could easily pass as a solo endeavor with purely sequenced instruments, but I do think that would be the fastest path to success here. Given your proclivity for collaborations, I don't foresee this being a problem
NO (resubmit)
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Zack reached out and asked about this track, so I'm going to drop my thoughts here as a vote, albeit a rushed one.
I love love love the arrangement and sequencing here - this feels so on-brand for Yoshi's Island, and I love the original countermelodies and harmonic expansions on the source. The harmonic changeup around the 3 minute mark was a highlight.
The mixing kinda sinks this though - there's a huge amount of mud created between the drums, piano, and bass in the mid/lower-mid ranges, and I think a lot of it has to do with the drum kit used. Whether it's a sample issue or EQ issue, the tone of the drums feels more aggressive than what is called for in this arrangement. I'm also picking up on some balance issues - if everything is loud, nothing cuts through, and I think that's what's happening here. The drums are the biggest offender and I also agree with the points MindWanderer made about the frequency balance being a little on the hot side.
I don't think this is something that can simply be fixed with a remaster, since I think there's drum-specific EQ issues that would need to be addressed at the stem/mixbus level, but that would be a good start. Aside from that, kickass track so whichever way this falls, I enjoyed it on a personal level and it's ALMOST enough to tip my vote over the edge, but I really think the mixing is doing this a disservice in its current form.
EDIT 11/4/2023: Wow, A/B'ing this track with the original master really shows how slammed the first version was. Giving it a little more breathing room helps it go down much smoother. I still think there are balance issues I would have loved to see addressed at the mix level, but since that's not possible, this new master at least does enough to push it over the bar.
YES
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I want to put this briefly on hold before it goes any further, I think the drum mixing needs some love. I've been listening on different setups and the drums are barely audible to me! Glad y'all are digging the rest of this, hopefully I can make it even stronger with a bit of TLC!
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Gotta agree here, this really feels like a level-up for Lucas in terms of mixing and production quality. I always expect the arrangements to be ambitious and creative, which this delivers on, but the mixing is super tight and definitely sets a new bar for your work! Super good stuff all around.
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It's interesting to see how you handle an arrangement that's not as explicitly in the realm of black metal as your previous submissions, but still applies many of the same principles of arrangement to something a little more delicate and emotional. One of the core tenants of black metal, dramatic dynamic shifts, is definitely in play with this arrangement, and perhaps unsurprisingly, I really enjoyed the sudden swings in intensity. I do agree that, with some more nuance to the sound design and some transitional signals (pick slides, drum fills, crashes) you could retain that same impact but slide into the heavy sections with a bit more grace. That said, there's beauty to be found in every corner of this piece, and even with the areas where the execution could have been tightened up, it's hard to deny that this is an inspired and tasteful take on the FF9 source material.
YES -
I agree with the YES votes here - the sequencing feels a little phoned in but the sample quality is excellent and there's enough expressiveness and round robin variation baked into the samples that it still sounds great to my ears. I wouldn't have pinpointed the stereo spread issue myself but I do hear it now that it's been pointed out, good call to @Chimpazilla for identifying that!
Ultimately, this does feel like a sketch to a certain degree, and I think would benefit from another layer of polish, but the strength of the arrangement and the sample quality is sufficient to put this unconditionally over the bar. Good luck with the rest of the vote!
YES
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I dig this - it's not the most ambitious arrangement and definitely feels like something that would play in a training arena before the actual big battle, but for what it is, it works! It makes me feel like the lack of more chiptune-hybrid arrangements like this in the actual Smash Bros soundtracks was a missed opportunity, because this would fit right at home in game.
I feel like the guitar is fine here - I think there's sufficient movement and articulation, the problem is just that the slides/fret noises on the guitar, where a lot of the movement seems to be happening, is masked out by the percussion so the dominant frequency cutting through is in the mids. Could be totally off base and maybe it is just sub-par samples/sequencing, but regardless, I didn't find that to be a terribly prominent aspect of the track in the first place so I'm fine signing off in spite of a (in my opinion) pretty mild shortcoming.
YES
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This is deeply ambitious and very well well executed, brimming with atmosphere and personality without foregoing the vibe of your original source material. We had a conversation over Discord at one point where you were questioning what your strong suits were as a remixer, and I'd argue this arrangement exemplifies so many of the things that make you stand out as an artist. You are a very talented arranger and know how to synthesize many disparate ideas into something that actually flows and takes you through a journey. You have a gift for throwing everything at the wall in the name of ambition and experimentation and making it stick. You play nice with collaborators and know how to come in with a clear vision that others can actually work with. You are bold and brave - there's really no other way to pull off something this grand without a good amount of fearlessness.
All of it comes together to make something that's extremely satisfying from start to finish, even if there are some technical wrinkles in the execution. Bravo!!
YES
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Just a quick cosign to close this out - the vocals registered as rough when I first listened to this in the inbox and upon further scrutiny, they need some TLC in terms of pitch correction and the way they sit in the mix. I agree that the vocals feel more natural during the heavy parts, and the last chorus sounds especially powerful when you start hitting the high notes. Other judges have already covered what needs to be done here.
Additionally, I want to suggest revisiting the mixing on your drums/bass/guitar, right now it just doesn't seem to match the punch that you're going for. The kick feels like it's lacking punch and has too much bass, and the snare feels like it's had the high frequencies scooped out to the point where it barely cuts through, especially in the final section. It just feels weak. The rhythm guitars often feel like they get buried in the mix. Without hearing your stems, it sounds like you've got a lot of frequencies building up in the low-mids/mid ranges that is causing a lot of masking, and I'm not always sure that the instruments that should be standing out are actually cutting through.
I would suggest looking at the dominant/fundamental frequencies for each of these instruments and making complementary EQ cuts/boosts depending on what you want to cut through. These can be relatively surgical and minimal, following the same advice that Chimpazilla suggested. This will do a world of good for the clarity of your mix.
Not there yet, but there's a lot of promise and heart and I would really love to hear a resubmission!
NO (resubmit)
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Credits:
Emunator: arrangement, sequencing, piano, mixing
Chimpazilla: additional mixing, masteringName: Infinite Collapse
Game: Final Fantasy 8 (primary), Final Fantasy 4 (secondary)
Sources: Compression of Time, The Red WingsComments: This is my round 2 entry for Darkesword's Game Set Mash!! competition. Once again, I had 1 week to take a source of my choosing (in this case, Compression of Time) and create a mashup with a source chosen by the opposing team. I used this as another opportunity to do an arrangement in a style that I've always wanted to tackle; the resulting effort was a direct homage to Jon Hopkins, one of my all-time favorite producers and a huge personal inspiration in the way he approaches sound design.
I feel that anything pertaining to Jon Hopkins requires a bit of context, since his music is not the most immediately accessible. Typically, his songs are very long explorations of an extremely simple chord progression, frequently only 1 or 2 chords for the entire duration. Nearly all of the development is accomplished through sound design and subtle evolution as the arrangement progresses. He makes heavy use of distortion and glitch effects juxtaposed with beautiful melodic tones in a way that is paradoxically beautiful and visceral. The two tracks I found myself referencing most during the creation process were "Everything Connected" and "Feel First Life".
With these references in mind, I basically threw as much against the wall as I could possibly within the span of 1 week, and I'm extraordinarily proud of the results. While I mostly want to let the arrangement speak for itself (preferably enjoyed on a nice pair of headphones or a big booming subwoofer,) I did want to particularly highlight the transition section from 3:27-4:16, which was a monumental task in and of itself to get to work smoothly. I automated tempo, reverb and delay on the master chain, and even added some random automation to the master swing levels on all sequenced instruments to introduce some off-kilter polyrhythms before diving back into the final chorus. I wanted this transition to feel like being sucked into a black hole and being split apart into atoms, and then being spat out and gradually falling back together again. The whole song is written as an endless loop, starting off with a singular piano note and building up to infinity before collapsing back down to that same singular note.
Who knows if any of this will translate to a pleasant listening experience, but everything about this was very deliberate - hopefully you find something to like here!
... or maybe I spoke too soon. In revisiting this with some fresh ears and some outside help from Chimpazilla, it turns out that my original mix/master WAS too heavy on the needless distortion and was pretty painful to listen to. So she helped me get a fresh coat of paint on this one by walking through the project file with me track-by-track, and then helping with some additional mixing and a fresh master that sounds LOADS cleaner without sacrificing any of the grit
Reference Tracks:
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Stealth updating to remove an audio clip in the middle of the song that wasn't sitting right. Shouldn't fundamentally change anything here but posting for transparency in case anyone's downloaded the earlier version or if Larry wants to revisit.
*NO* Final Fantasy 8 "Net Fish and Chill"
in Judges Decisions
Posted · Edited by Liontamer
closed decision
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