Emunator   Judges ⚖️

This is a tough call, because your production is really spot-on here and I feel that there's a lot of potential with the adaptation here (despite the fact that Stickerbush Symphony in D&B style has been done a couple of times before.) However, I'm finding this to be remarkably underdeveloped from an arrangement perspective. Production-wise, you're on point, but aside from the addition of a D&B beat and the synth arpeggios that enter at 1:48, there is no original writing or personalization to be found here. The direct repetition in the second half of the song is also disappointing, since this is only 3 minutes long so it feels like I'm listening to a 1 minute concept on loop with only the slightest of variations introduced. I think this has a lot of room for growth and could be very successful with some original elements and more creative sound design introduced, but as it is this still feels like a proof-of-concept rather than a fully-realized remix. Not cutting it for me NO (resubmit!)

I don't think this counts as feedback, but... holy shit! You nailed it.

Holy hell man, this is great. I'm getting some serious Mario Kart 64 vibes (particularly Toad's Turnpike) from the chord progression, this is so silky smooth. For a track that was thrown together so hurriedly, it feels remarkably focused. If this is any indication of the rest of the soundtrack/remix album, I clearly need to check it out.

It's absurd up how talented you are, Timmie. With the amount of music that you output, and the fact that most of your music is made around the same chiptune sound pallet, it always blows me away how fresh everything sounds. You're working in a very saturated genre where it's difficult to stand out from the crowd, but you really go the extra mile on the compositional front to make something special everytime you submit. This is a really special piece dude!

This one is really growing on me with each successive listen, like most of Jon's stuff tends to do. It's mixed with just the right amount of distortion to achieve the desired effect without being rough on the ears. Granted, I don't really hear any of the post-rock djp is referring to in the writeup, but this mix does a great job seamlessly fussing multiple styles and aesthetics together. Excellent track!

Rexy! This is fantastic, far and away my favorite track from you so far! I'm constantly impressed with the level of beauty that people are able to extract from the source, which has a ton of potential but is difficult to fully appreciate with the limited sound quality of the Gameboy sound chip. This would be right at home in an HD remake of Donkey Kong Land, you really captured the source's essence.

I've been listening to this for years since I first heard it in Dwelling of Duels 3 and a half years back!! Flexstyle really had some spot-on judge comments with this mix that almost totally align with my own - the mixing on this shows its age, I don't think this is the best production work I've heard from either of you guys but the arrangement is grade-A work by both your standards and more than compensates for the shortcomings on the mix side. On a side note, this pairs so well back-to-back with OA's mix that was linked in the writeup. I love listening to the two of these in succession. Good stuff guys!

Only one review on this so far? Poppycock! I remember hearing a really bare-bones iteration of this back in the day and I'm sooo glad you brought Sir J. on to work some magic here!! The vocal stabs are tasteful, brass is excellent, and nothing feels overdone in the slightest, which isa risk that comes with trying to "jazz something up" - it's very easy to sound over-indulgent and this sidesteps that pitfall nicely! There's magic in the air when you two get together... I could listen to a whole album of your collaborations. I don't feel like the arrangement is as interpretive or ambitious as hush hour, but it's quite nice in its own respect. Please keep working together guys

Well this is really fascinating! I love the unusual style fusion, I feel like you explored a lot of new ground compared to your past work. There's a part of me that wants to hear a full arrangement of "The Goddess Appears" just based on the last 2 minutes of your track, but it bookends this nicely and gives the listener a relaxing reprieve if they make it to the end Really great, subtle integration of orchestral elements throughout the song, as well. Love the rapidfire heartbeat integration at 3:19, I felt so tense when I heard that the first time! If I had to critique anything on this, it would be the tape stop effects, which don't really seem to sync perfectly to the rest of the song every time and actually make this sound jittery in an unintentional/distracting way. For example, 2:39, 2:55, and especially 4:38 just seem... egregious, and break up the song flow without feeling deliberate, like a lot of the other glitches/fx in your song do. Also, most of the mix feels a touch dry, could very well be an intentional mixing choice but it leaves some of the more minimalist sections sounding just a bit too sparse. I've really walked away from this with a lot of respect for you as an arranger, and find myself absolutely captivated by what you've created here. Very glad to see someone like you doing something completely different from the rest of the crowd!

You're in good hands with Skrypnyk He's a master of glitchy stuff like this and should be able to do some nice polishing work on this to help it shine a bit more. Really love the groove you're working with, can't wait to see what comes of this collab!

This is really lovely! Perfect marriage of styles, your original harmonies fit flawlessly. I'm not listening to this on my mixing headphones so I can't provide much feedback there at this point, but I wanted to chime in and let you know how much I loved this! Will definitely be following this thread as you update

Having not heard the original submission for comparison, I must say that I love what you did here! Your production sounds fantastic to me, I particularly appreciate how you handled the string stabs and percussion. You've got a really cohesive sound pallet matched with a triumphant, brisk arrangement that takes a very difficult source and reigns it in rather nicely. I think the pure-Penelo sections are the strongest part of this arrangement, there's some residual awkwardness from the Edward melody at times, but overall it's a very smooth, enjoyable fusion. And yeah, it bites a LOT from Diggi Dis' style so I appreciate you being up-front about your inspiration, though you put in enough detail work to make this your own. Definitely my favorite track from you that I've heard so far, this will be seeing some airtime on my own personal playlists Great work T! YES

Easy call for me now - the only concern I had with the initial sub was the first minute and a half, and that section of the song is now showing sufficient development and personalization. The switch to a swing-rhythm was a huge highlight and very smoothly executed, and the production is just as rock-solid as last time. I'm happy you sent this back so swiftly! YES

1. Rosalina 2. Banjo-Kazooie 3. Eevee

Oh hell yes, I've been dying to hear this song remixed! No critiques here, just wanted to chime in and say that you made me a very happy listener with this track! EDIT: Upon further inspection, it turns out that all of your contributions to this album are really awesome. Keep sharing and submitting this amazing work with us, Zack! You're definitely one of the most promising up-and-coming remixers I've seen on the site in quite a while.

I like the vibe you've created here, it's a solid improvement on the original source. Good drumwork and production overall. However, this feels like more of a 1-and-a-half minute sketch that has been looped twice and fades out. I don't feel like any new ideas or anything are introduced past the 1:30 mark. This makes your remix feel more like background music to a game (which, to be fair, it would work perfectly for) than an actual arrangement. For OCR standards, you need to introduce more ideas and vary the structure of your arrangement to keep it fresh the whole way through. The fadeout at the end also doesn't do much to help this feel like a standalone arrangement. In addition to that, the sequencing on many of the melodic elements in the track seems rigid and heavily quantized. This applies mainly to your leads, but when the bassline or the e-piano chords are more exposed, the velocities feel like they need more variation so they don't feel as static. Lots of work needed on this, but you have a solid beat and a good foundation needed on this, I wouldn't be surprised to hear this at a more passable level with some more work put into the arrangement and the sequencing of some of the other instruments. NO (resubmit)

Love this theme, it really lends itself well to the anthemic metal style you chose here. I love your lead tone and performances across the board. Production sounded quite nice to my ears, not overcompressed with a lot of room to clearly hear every part of the song. Unfortunately I'm not hearing much interpretation in terms of melody or structure from the original - while it's true that there's a level of expressiveness and intensity added in the rhythm guitars, lead performance and drumwork, this does not do much to differentiate itself from the sources, either. I could see how some judges might find that sufficient enough to make this work as a ReMix, but I feel like the level of personal interpretation on the original is not quite sufficient here. A couple of other nitpicks - the strings in your intro sound SUPER fake and completely lacking in articulation, and don't really get this track off to a good start. Also, there's a weird fadeout on your synth at :09 that sounds awkward on headphones... that buzzy synth needs a longer, smoother decay so it doesn't drop out of the soundfield so suddenly. Lastly, your fadeout ending sounds lazy and inconclusive, I would have loved to see a more climactic, definitive closure to the track. I can see how this one might swing either way, because your performance and metal adaptation is one of the better ones I've heard recently, but I personally don't think there's enough rearrangement or interpretation from the original to make this work by OCR standards. Solid track either way, though! NO

In your submission letter, you mention that this was created in the span of a few hours, and unfortunately it shows here. There's a solid arrangement underneath this, but there doesn't appear to be much effort put into making your instruments sound like they're actually played by human performers, which is critical for an orchestral arrangement. Not to put you down, but I really think you need to devote more time to polishing and fine tuning your orchestral arrangements in the future, because this sounds very rushed and underwhelming to me. I know I've heard more expressive, refined arrangements from you in the past, so keep at it! This one's not doing it for me, though. NO

Haha, your influences are , you did an excellent job emulating and expanding upon this style. I've been going back and forth on this a lot... the other judges make a very valid point regarding your sequencing and overall repetition. I expect this will likely get kicked back for a resubmission, but I'm going to go against the grain here because I think it's fully enjoyable in its current form. I know that a lot of synthwave artists utilize rigid synths with little to no articulation, which makes me feel that the way this was written was a deliberate stylistic choice, and not a oversight. On the one hand, I can imagine how amazing this would sound if the synth guitar was replaced with a more emotive, live guitar performance. However, I actually feel like the leads are genre-appropriate and have a very pleasant tone that doesn't detract from the rock-solid foundation you've built beneath it. I've listened to this about a dozen times now, and I only find myself enjoying it more and more with each listen. I gotta go with my gut here. If this does ultimately get rejected, PLEASE RESUBMIT! This is a really, really good arrangement. Best of luck either way! YES

Some of the criticisms that Kristina brought up definitely irked me a bit - the length of this track coupled with the overly-catchy nature of the original melody really grated on me over time. I think this would have been better off being about a minute to a minute-and-a-half shorter, but that may come down to personal taste, on some level. That said, I appreciate the lengths you went to keep the details varied throughout the song, there's a lot of wonderful personalized tweaks keeping this fresh. You have a ton of great ideas laid out here, and the production is only slightly flawed and more than does justice to the arrangement at the end of the day. Definitely not my favorite mix from you, but I admire what you did here and I have no real problem signing off on this! Good to see you submitting again. YES

Thanks to Chimp for the detailed breakdown, it definitely helped make this vote a bit easier! Yeah, I'm digging this.. The relentless hyper-D&B isn't my favorite style, but you executed it with a lot of finesse and managed to pull off the glitching and insane melodic wankery with a good amount of tact. Mixing is super-clean, which must have been very hard to achieve here, but you did good. I think this track was designed to melt faces and it does a pretty good job accomplishing that - not much more I can say! YES

I haven't submitted any of my own remixes in over 3 years now, but I have been slaving away at this track on a semi-regular basis since December 2011, trying to get it to a point where I'm happy with it. It's come a long way, and admittedly after such a long gestation period, there are some areas where I'm still not totally satisfied, but at some point you have to call it a day and say "I've done enough." This likely isn't the last time I'll touch Phendrana Drifts... there's really so much content to be pulled from the original, I can't possibly fit all of my ideas into one remix! Stylistically, this plays similar to my previous submission, Footloose Falls, by incorporating a house/electronic groove into an ambient/ethnic foundation, but this time I tried to flesh this out into a longer, more diverse arrangement that covered a lot more territory. This includes an extended ambient intro, solo guitar outro, and a cameo section from Super Metroid, integrating the bassline and a brief melody from 'Brinstar: Plant Overgrowth Area' during one of the breakdowns. BIG PROPS to Ergosonic for coming through at the 11th hour to provide live recordings so you all don't have to listen to my crappy sampled guitars He's such a talented guitarist and it's always a pleasure working with him. I've gotten endless feedback from the likes of Flexstyle, Chimpazilla (sorry I still left in the crash cymbal that you hate so much!) Radiowar, Theophany, DjjD, timaeus, Phonetic Hero, Will, DaMonz... and so many others. You guys rock. It feels good to put this track behind me after so many years, hopefully it's up to par! I promise to try and ramp up my musical output in the coming years. Sources: - Phendrana Drifts (Deep Space Area) - Phendrana Drifts - Brinstar

Definitely one of my favorite remixes to be posted recently. I love that Shaun has broken out and experimented with different styles and approaches lately, but at the same time it's always such a treat to hear a return-to-form such as this. You're so good at this style

Hey dude, thanks for all the feedback you've been doling out on the workshop forums! I checked out your soundcloud and you've got a lot of really cool, diverse pieces in there. Hoping to hear a lot more from you in the future! What DAW are you using to produce? Overall this feels about 95% there, in my opinion. Mixing is sounding beefy and genre-appropriate (as far as I can tell - I'm not listening on my judging headphones at the moment) and your guitar tone kicks. Great rhythm guitars and drumwork, no complaints there. The only real issue I have is with the leads, I feel like you held back on that aspect of the track. 2:46 - 3:33 is one place that jumps out at me as needing some additional melodic flair on the lead guitar. You had some cool stuff going on for the first part of the song, but it feels like you missed an opportunity to get a bit wild and interpretive with the source material during this section. The ending also came just a bit abruptly for my tastes, I think if you were to submit this, getting a cleaner fade to let everything decay naturally would be awesome. Love what you've got regardless of the critiques, but I feel like you could have pushed this just a bit further to make that last section more awesome!