Emunator

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)

I remember evaluating this for the FF1 album, and this was one of my favorite tracks at the time. Great combination of riffs and different sounds that ends up being quite cohesive considering how long the arrangement goes for. The acoustic breakdowns are great. When I saw the runtime for this track with an artist I was largely unfamiliar with taking the reigns, I wasn't sure what to expect. However, this was one of the most pleasant surprises off of Random Encounter and even with a more critical listen as a judge, I'm not finding anything even remotely suspect about this. I'm VERY impressed guys You're on my radar now, Mithius! YES

Yeah, right off the bat the guitar tone is extremely thin and cheap sounding. It's a shame, because I really enjoy your guys' performance but the guitar tone is a dealbreaker for me, without even considering the medley aspect. Sorry guys :\ Not much more that can be said here. You've got some talent for sure, but this type of arrangement isn't really what OCR is looking for. Good luck with future subs! NO

Yep, unfortunately I'd say this falls under the territory of NO override. This would be a pass in my book otherwise but I think we need to get Larry/Dave to chime in on this one. Damn shame, I love this mix NO

It always seems like me and Vinnie are the ones hating on piano mixes together ( ) but I have to agree that this sounds SUPER flat. The lack of dynamics is a huge concern for me and I can't sign off on it for that reason alone. The timing is too robotic as well, it feels like there's a strong lack of life to the performance that's dragging it down. Sorry, this is gonna need another resub in my opinion! Good luck with the vote. NO (resub!)

I love the unique rhythms created from the interplay between your delay and your melody lines, especially in the intro. The whole mix is very easy to get lost in, your sounds all have a very retro edge to them (I particularly liked the guitar-style synth) but the production is extremely smooth and polished. It's an excellent combination that makes this track very, very listenable. Patrick, I'm convinced that you can do no wrong as an artist, and thus far you have yet to prove me wrong. Keep it up! YES

Very cool concept, you captured the aggression and tension that might come with being in the line of fire. The voice clips, while they may be a bit overdone and hackneyed, are a pretty solid idea, but the integration is distracting at times and doesn't always work with the flow of the music. It would be really cool if you could better sync them with the tempo/beat of the song. In addition, there's some problematic elements in the mix, particularly the drums, that sound low quality and poorly produced. Nutritious gave some excellent pointers on elements of the mix that need touchups, I generally agree with his critiques on this one. Some work to be done here, but it's not bad for a first submission! Lots of energy and a great concept, just needs some additional work. NO (resub!)

This is a pretty lively arrangement that's very reminiscent of Guifrog's work. I love what you've got going on here. However, the samples still sound very much like general MIDI-quality soundfonts and the mixing isn't helping. You need to work on balancing the levels of your various instruments/tracks so that all of your instruments aren't competing for space. Gui has been able to pull off similar-style arrangements with similar-quality samples, but to get to that level you need to give your mix some more breathing room in the production area. You're doing great so far but this needs some production help before it'll be passable. NO (resubmit please!)