Emunator

Finbeard... the name rings a bell, I've seen you popping up every once and a while on various forums but I've never heard anything from you. Let's see what you've got... First off, really nice combination of instruments here, everything has a very nostalgic vibe to it. Your instrument tone is great. However, there's some sloppiness issues with the performances here. It sounds like things were played in via a keyboard and not really tweaked very much afterward (though I could be wrong on that.) That entire Fourside section at the end is where a lot of this comes up, but the accordion performance doesn't sound very realistic throughout the track, either. There's some little moments throughout the song that are minor and forgiveable, but the last section of the track feels extremely sloppy to me and needs some attention. In addition, the last part of the track feels underdeveloped, and at less than 2 and a half minutes, this remix doesn't really have much room to grow. Not necessarily a dealbreaker on this point, but it's worth noting that the track feels like it has room for additional development and progression. Not quite feeling this one, the unrealistic accordion sequencing and sloppy performance/writing are pushing it under the bar. Tons of merit here though, it's nice to finally hear something from you on the panel! We'll see how it goes with the rest of the vote. NO (resub!)

Y'all are also missing Gario from this workshop mod list here, unless something went down that I wasn't privy to: http://ocremix.org/info/Staff

No responses on this so far? For shame! I really enjoyed the overall mix here, the textures are extremely nice and everything is very easy on the ears. Not very many complaints on the mixing as far as I can tell on speakers... When you get more interpretive with the melodies and harmonies, this arrangement really shines. If you're looking to submit to OCRemix, my only gripe is that the intro and outro sections stay very conservative. Some additional texture and interpretation in those sections would likely bring this a lot closer to the bar, as far as I'm concerned. Even if you're not looking to submit, this is a damn solid remix. Cheers to both parties involved, I enjoyed it!

This is exceptionally polished and cohesive, especially considering how quickly this album was thrown together. I'm very happy to see more remixes of the Super Smash Bros. series coming out of this Apex album Definitely an album favorite for me as well, you killed it Mike!

Definitely reminds me of some old-school McVaffe grooves. Cool to see you still pumping out remixes Shariq, you've got a style all your own!

At this point I'd suggest that anyone who's interested in contributing to the project hold off for a little bit until me and Theophany have had a chance to regroup, unless you're okay with your track potentially not being used for the album. We're in the middle of trying to really figure out what sound we're looking for the album and our approach to the project in general, so I would personally suggest just holding off on submitting or developing any WIPs until we sort a few things out internally. This goes for artists currently on the project, as well! Thanks for your patience

I'll try and leave some more detailed feedback later when I get home from work, but when I listened for DoD, I really liked the mix of instruments, but the drums sounded WAY overcompressed and too loud, they seemed to drown everything else out. That's the biggest problem area from what I remember.

This is definitely on my list of things to do. I'd love to work with you on this one to help add some variations later on down the road once I get a better handle of the style I want to use. I know I need to spice up the lead melody too and get more layers in there, so it's not just straight notes played on the glass vibraphone. I think layering in some choir/vocals would help give the melody more depth. Lots to be done here! And Argle, yeah, this entire song is made with Omnisphere patches, except for the piano (which is Alicia's Keys) and the drums, which are all FL Studio default samples. Good ear!

Thanks for the honest feedback everyone So far, I've gone and revamped the mixing/samples on the percussion so the snare/hats are more dominant and have wider stereo separation. However, I've considered switching the percussion to a half-time trip-hop pattern instead, and maybe channel more of a Robotaki/Radiowar vibe instead. I think that might be a bit classier. I'll post an update when I have a chance to touch on this more and draft up an alternate version. All the comments/listens are greatly appreciated

Definitely your best mix to date Mansoor, I've been listening to this one ever since it showed up on the WIP forums and it's fantastic. Claire gives a hell of a performance that can hold its own against the original song, which is definitely saying something. You did pretty well with the sequenced instruments, and although it would have been nice to get those guitar parts performed live, this is still a top-tier OCRemix as is. Stellar!

Remix: https://soundcloud.com/emunator/serenade-of-water-wip Source: Just a little sketch I came up with to test out some IDM techniques... Is this worth seeing through to completion or is the whole thing a little too out there/unnecessary? Source doesn't come in til after the intro but I've got ideas on how to work it into other parts of the song, too. Would love any opinions on this one. Thanks!

Did I already say how much I loved this album? Looks like I already did. Oh well. Yeah

YES. YESSS. I've decided that if my life had a main menu screen, then your music would be playing on it. I can't think of a better way to describe your style. <3

I'm not feeling as borderline on this as the rest of y'all. The intro was pretty weak, I'll admit, but when the koto came in I was actually feeling this quite a bit. It doesn't exactly progress in the same way as your traditional orchestral arrangement, which makes it feel a bit plodding, but the strong parts where there's a more dominant lead more than make up for the parts that didn't quite hold my interest. The ending is FANTASTIC. I guess when compared to the better-written parts (mainly the ones that feature the koto and more energetic drums) the rest of the song seems underwhelming, but I still like this one enough to give it a pass at the end of the day. YES

I hate to just copy/paste Vinnie here, but he's exactly right. This is the same criticism I keep coming up with for your mixes, Ben... you've got above-average arrangements/sequencing that's being brought down by poorly-chosen synths that don't really convey any personality. Take a listen to some older Ben Briggs mixes and compare the sound he's achieved with a similar set of samples and see what ideas you can pull. I can very easily see your track passing if you could utilize filters/automation/articulation better to achieve a similar level of production quality. Lots of promise here, as always, but there's something missing still. Hope you can figure out how to give this track that extra boost! NO (resubmit!)

I was a little shocked to see that this was even borderline in terms of source usage, but when I sit down and actually look at it, it's a lot more questionable than I thought initially. I still feel like the overt source usage, plus the bassline and guitar as well as the various solos that loosely reference the original, push this over the edge. Production wise, it's not perfect. I still don't like how the piano's sitting in the mix, but overall this is a pretty energetic performance that's true to the blues style. The guitar/bass tone sounds great, and the added percussion and vocal work is excellent. I feel like this one's comfortably over the bar now thanks to the production overhaul. YES

There's some parts of this that I really like. The overall vibe is quite neat, very cheerful. A lot of your sound choices, like the flute and lo-fi strings would feel right at home in a classic N64 or GBA RPG. The huge range of instruments and styles represented in your mix is pretty great. I love the arrangement. However, by modern standards, your sample quality falls short of what we generally expect for OCR's bar. Across the board, it sounds like you're using some pretty low-quality soundfonts, and I think just about every sample in the mix could stand to be upgraded. To name a few though, the piano and the lead synth could definitely stand to be replaced. The humanization on the piano could stand to be taken up a notch too. One thing that did sound pretty great to me was the marimba, I thought that was very well executed, and the writing for that instrument is pretty charming. Sound effect usage won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I found it quaint, too Palpable is also right on the money about the ending being too abrupt. At the very least, leave a longer fadeout at the end of your track. Overall, there's a big need for sound quality improvement in this mix. I'm not going to beat around the bush, it would need a bit of an overhaul in my opinion to bring it up to OCR standards, but truthfully I enjoy the arrangement quite a bit. I'd say that it would be worth the effort to get this up to par. Hope to see it again! NO (resub!)

Really couldn't agree more with Deia's critiques on this. I get what you're going for, and the mix is definitely a strong idea in theory, but the execution feels rather lackluster and lifeless, mostly due to sample quality issues across the board. The synths, piano, and drums all fall a little bit flat unfortunately :\ I'm not sure how much of that could be solved by mixing your existing samples better, adding vibrato/other effects to certain notes, or just replacing them with livelier samples altogether, but I don't think there's very many issues with your actual writing/arrangement aside from the minor moments timestamped by the other judges. But I have to agree, this doesn't have the necessary energy or life to carry the arrangement. Send it back our way after you've given it another pass! NO (resubmit!)

As much as I want to sign off on this one, I agree with the NO's on this track. Very chill soundscape, solid lead writing (the flute isn't exactly realistic but it's got an excellent, full tone to it) and the synth soloing is pretty solid. However, this feels more like a jam than an arrangement, there's very little going on in the way of dynamics or structure, which is a prerequisite for OCRemixes. I'm keeping this either way because it's very pleasant to listen to and it'll go great on my chill playlist, but this needs just a little bit more to help push it over our bar. I hope you can send this back our way, but if not, I enjoyed listening regardless! NO (resubmit!!)

I'm not particularly sold on this one as a whole. There's some solid ideas that work well with the source, but overall, I feel like this is underdeveloped and too sparse. There just needs to be more going on... some sort of harmony/countermelody, and DEFINITELY some more percussive effects are in order to help flesh this one out. In addition, Vinne brought up an excellent point about the piano that was probably the first thing I noticed about the mix. The sample sounds pretty low-quality and overcompressed. Since it's taking center stage as the main lead element for most of the song, you'll need to iron out your mixing treatment on the piano or switch it out for a higher-quality sample. There's some attitude to this track that I really like, it's a cool take on the source tune but there's some critical elements that aren't clicking for me. Keep at it! NO (resub)