Emunator   Judges ⚖️

Going to just chime in on this one quickly... lots of great ideas in here, as I've come to expect from Brandon's arrangements, but this time around I feel like the execution sounds sloppier than usual, mostly on the mixing side of things. However, the guitar performances also feel loosely timed and lacking in energy to me. Re-recording some of your solos and lead parts would help, as well. Lots to work on but I don't think it's beyond your capabilities to bring this up to par. NO (resub!)

Damn. I LOVE this track in a bubble. Banjo-Tooie is such a great underrated game, and your instrument performance, sequencing, and sound selection is perhaps one of the most perfect ways of capturing Grant Kirkhope's quirky style that I've ever heard. But yes, it's just too much a cover of the original song. I'm keeping this in my personal library for sure, and I hope people track this down and get to hear what Leandro has done here, but it's not for OCRemix. Sorry! NO

This mix creates a lot of space and tension. I love how delicately you crafted your buildup to the point where your track finally reaches full intensity. This is bombastic, extremely well-mixed, and dynamic. The fadeout is definitely not an appropriate choice for this mix, though. I'm not nearly as anti-fadeout as a lot of judges, but in this case I'd agree that it just doesn't work. This track would have been much better with a proper, climactic ending, but I can forgive it since the rest of the material is rock-solid. Good stuff! YES

I loooove this source, but it's very hard to do justice to. I will say that, right off the bat, you captured the energy and intensity of the original quite well. The opening transition into the main melody was a great idea that was not executed very well, IMO. That transition lacks a lot of impact, perhaps adding some sort of crash or tweaking the timing of your filter would make it feel... bigger, for lack of a better word. You use a similar effect later on in the track a couple of times, but it just doesn't feel effective. You need to work on making your moments of impact more Lots of very dynamic writing throughout the track, nothing ever clashes or seems too busy. That guitar solo kicks ass and jives well with your synth lines, and your own solos immediately after are also awesome. Definitely going to agree with OA on the kick situation too - the jungle-esque break usage that you've got going on isn't bad, but I feel like another thing that's holding your song back from having a greater punch is the lack of any dominant kick, too. That alone wouldn't be a dealbreaker for me, but the transitions need some work in my opinion, so I'm going to opt for a resub on this. Good luck with the vote! NO (resubmit!!)

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