Emunator

Truthfully, I wasn't quite as sold on this for the first half of the mix. Right off the bat, I wasn't liking the drum samples used. The kick here seems very aggressive and sharp, where something a little more smoother with some EQ cuts in the mids/highs would probably work a lot better for this style. Like halc said, the rest of the drum sounds felt kind of slapped together, and there wasn't all that much cohesiveness there in how they were mixed or which sounds were used. The drum writing itself is also a bit problematic in my opinion. Most of it was passable but I do feel like there's some parts (such as that ride cymbal or some of the tom fills) that you'd do well to revisit and polish up a little bit. Also, consider doing something different with how you actually bring in the kick, it kind of just drops right in there without very much of a lead-in. (That's definitely just a personal suggestion, but maybe you can come up with an entrance that's a little more nuanced and creative? I think it would make the intro a lot better.) Drums are pretty much my biggest issue here though, everything else is sounding much better, especially for your first time working with a DAW Your melodies are great and reasonably well-sequenced. I wasn't bothered by the piano sequencing or the tone, really - I thought it fit pretty well. The writing is pretty restrained and the synths are pretty basic for the first half of the song, but when you start getting some more solos and dynamic writing going, this really kicks in and I can see why the other judges enjoyed this so much. The organ/synth solo at the end is practically euphoric, and I'm really getting into the mood of the song at that point. The supporting writing on the piano and your secondary synths is really smooth, no sore spots there as far as I'm concerned. Your overall mastering is troublesome. I had to crank my volume way up to get this one to sound right, which means you mastered this too quietly. That's definitely something to fix too before you resubmit. The mixing and levels was pretty solid, I'm impressed that you were able to get such a good sound out of your first submission! Lots of great stuff going on here, but it needs some polish. Hopefully between the 5 votes here you'll have plenty of advice to take into consideration and you'll be able to fix this up and send it back. Really looking forward to a resub on this NO (resubmit!)

Hey, I checked out your song and it was really quite nice. However, I don't think straight club/trance/dance music is really what we're looking for in terms of style for the project Everyone else who's subbed a WIP in the past few days, I'm gonna talk to Theo soon and we'll get an answer back to you. Thanks for your past and future patience!

Yup, I noticed that the production sounded more whack on this version than last time. I was okay with the overall production on the last version but this just sounds odd to me. Good thing is, you fixed the arrangement up so that's definitely passable as far as I'm concerned Production needs some work though, as Larry stated. NO (resub!)

Not much to add, I still feel like the timing on some of the drums is sloppy or cluttered but this is over my bar. Good stuff Vurez Good job capturing the source vibe and merging it with the rock instrumentation, I love your work with genre fusions. YES

Oh. My. God. *_* I'm really stunned here. I've been listening to a lot of Sigur Ros and Death Cab for Cutie lately and this feels like the immaculately-conceived lovechild of the two styles. So, right from the start I feel like I've already got a personal investment, so to speak, in this mix I wasn't familiar with the source, but I have a general idea of how the Skyrim soundtrack sounds so I was curious how you could have adapted that kind of material into a mix like this. However, as soon as I listened to the source, the connection became undeniably clear, despite the fact that much of the source usage is chord based. If I can listen to a source that I've never heard before and I can instantly feel the connection to a remix I've only listened to once, that's pretty strong in my eyes. I think my favorite part about this is how delicately you handled the arrangement. It takes a lot of restraint to pull off a slow-burner like this but you really seem to have a good sense of when to bring in each new instrument or when to ramp up the energy of the song in order to create the strongest effect. The mix of acoustic and distorted elements is pretty seamless, and the mixing is pristine, right up there with what I'd expect from professional bands that employ this style. I'm gushing at this point so I'll cut this short, but I genuinely enjoyed listening to this and I know it'll be going on many a playlist of mine in the future. Thanks for submitting this dude YES

SO glad we got a resub on this one This doesn't completely address all my concerns but it does more than enough to push it over the bar. Very nice work, I look forward to seeing this one on the site YES

I personally love this intolerable piece of noise Keep it up guys!

I was on the fence about this from the start about the same issues the other judges pointed out, so let's just close this one out and hopefully Joe will be willing to take another stab at the arrangement, since it seems pretty clear this isn't going to pass. Shouldn't take too much more to get this over the bar! NO

Congratulations on the successful artwork relea-- oh fuck it. Nice album dude

I agree that the mixing issues are causing some ambiguity over what you're really trying to do with the arrangement. Because everything is so subdued with heavy reverb, I can never really tell if the song is supposed to be in buildup mode or if it's in full-swing. The mixing and overall balance should reflect where you're at in the progression of the song, and I'm not feeling that. On top of that, there's a few jumps in the arrangement that I wasn't prepared for - the dubstep part in the middle just sort of dropped in there and I did a double-take and had to check if I was still listening to the same song. Ultimately, because of the lack of solid transitions or buildups, I feel like I'm listening to a set of really cool sketches that are strung together without much connection/flow. I think if you either take a few of these ideas and run with them... the chillout dub feel you've got in the first half, the more energetic dubstep half with the aggressive drums and crazy synth soloing that appears later, each one is a solid concept on its own but as a whole arrangement, it just feels jumbled. You've got a lot of promise here and I actually really enjoyed listening to a lot of this. You're obviously a pretty talented musician with some great creative ideas, but it would take some significant work to bring this remix to a point where it would pass the bar, IMO. I'm interested to hear if you're willing to take a second pass at refining what you've got here. NO (resub)

Pretty much what the good lady and gent above me said - you've got some energetic lead writing going on here throughout the track and some nice original chords, but the details aren't there to support it. The song is pretty empty overall, because of the lack of reverb and generally-sparse writing, there feels like there's some gaping holes in the track that could be filled by different sounds and padding. Production is also off-balance, leaning heavily toward the highs which gets grating on the ears. You've got some great ideas here, now bring the rest of the track up to that level and you'll be golden NO (resub)

Yikes. Personally, this is about as close to the bar as you can get as far as sample quality goes. I definitely found myself wrestling with this one for a while, and as I write this I'm still not sure whether it's a YES or a NO. On the plus side, you've got some really intricate writing going on that builds off of the mood of the chosen sources, but fuses it together in a very clever way that evokes the feeling of the originals even when the melodies aren't directly being played. Your percussion writing is great across the board, but I echo Deia's critique about the glass shattering being overused. On the other hand though, the samples are all very weak and unfortunately, the overall mix feels very puny as a result. I think I understand the sound you're trying to go for, but I feel like with stronger samples/production this could make a much stronger impact without losing the understated feeling that you've built up. The sequencing on some of the orchestral instruments isn't terrible, but the lack of any sort of articulations/expression on any of the instruments is hurting this track overall. In terms of balance, I also felt like the bassline was pretty buried when it finally made an entrance. I'll also echo the arrangement critique that the ending kind of comes out of nowhere here. Maybe it's just me subconsciously wanting to hear more of the remix, but when the song ended it caught me off guard, like the song hadn't really experienced the climax it felt like it was building up to. Gahhhh... I really do love this arrangement and I hate to start a split vote, but I know we've rejected songs for smaller sample/production issues than this, and there's a lot of small things that are adding up for me. I don't feel like this has reached its full potential yet, so I'm gonna throw in a lone dissenting vote. No hate at all if this passes, I think most listeners will enjoy it for its merits regardless of the problems, but as far as OCR's bar for production and sample quality is concerned, I feel like this falls short. We'll see how this plays out, I guess. NO (resub!)

This definitely reminded me of TheGuitahHeroe's work, your sound pallet is very bland but you do some cool stuff with it. I see what you were going for with the very dreamy, reverb-heavy soundscape but I think you overdid it. The drums particularly sound so washed out, it stops really feeling like an intentional stylistic choice and instead just seems like a production flaw. Overall, I feel like this needs some rebalancing, the mids are so muddy and crowded. Tone back on the reverb, get a little bit more separation on your instruments so everything isn't bleeding together quite as badly and you utilize more of your available soundscape to its fullest potential. Also, as much as I love your drum writing, those fills have a tendency to come out of nowhere, making your transitions really startling for a track that seems like it's supposed to be more chilled out. Not a dealbreaker by any means, but it's something that bothered me a little bit so I figured I'd mention it anyway and see if the feedback resonated with anybody else. The arrangement/writing here is killer, and I love the Mario Party-style vibes I'm picking up, but I feel like it needs some balancing and mixing polish before it's ready to go. We hope to see you again soon! NO (resub!)

Okay, I don't see a need to drag this out any longer. I'll concede that, after reading some other votes and listening again, the loose timing bothered me more than I remembered. This might be confirmation bias, but I do think some further touchups would do wonders here. I'm cool with switching my vote to a very emphatic NO (RESUB!)

Got some awesome new artists on board, I'm really happy to see some unposted/new remixers showing their talents for the project Welcome to Wiesty, Calum, and Jean of mArc who've all turned in some really killer works in progress so far! Things are still moving, but we still need a lot more people involved so if you've got a good idea, don't be afraid to submit it!

Guifrog's a personal hero of mine for many reasons, but his quirky musical style and his various tributes to the Diddy Kong Racing soundtrack are definitely one of the biggest reasons. This track is so unlike most of what you'd hear on OCR these days, and I can really respect the unique genre fusion and attempt to break out of the electronica-rock-orchestral triangle that seems to encompass the majority of the material that gets submitted to the site. This is really good stuff man, don't stop

I'm completely useless with compositional feedback but as soon as you start producing this and need advice, please hit me up This is my favorite song from Animal Crossing and so far your arrangement sounds awesome. Good job dude, can't wait to hear more!

I wouldn't be surprised if I'm the lone YES on this mix, but I really enjoyed this to the point that I find it so endearing I'm willing to forgive the fact that it's obviously not sequenced realistically, and is somewhat of a cover. The JRPG soundtrack vibe is extremely strong, and I'd argue that the lack of dynamics in the sequencing could easily be viewed as a deliberate stylistic choice. The samples themselves are pretty high quality and the whole song sounds very nicely-produced. I particularly love the panflute, that sounds absolutely ethereal and gorgeous! Your arrangement starts off sounding almost identical to the original, but fortunately your writing is a lot more expansive, and you find little ways to make it your own as the song plays out. I don't have any problem with that aspect of this mix. This is definitely an unconventional style that we don't see on OCR very often, but I invite the rest of the judges to compare this to some of Darkesword's posted mixes (that's 3 separate links) that also utilize that unique JRPG soundtrack feel, and I think you'll find that they're very similar in style, production quality, sequencing, and overall enjoyability. This is an awesome mix that I can't get enough of, and I don't think that more realistically-sequenced instruments would necessarily make it any better in the end. The way they're currently written gives this mix a great deal of its charm. I love what you've done here Patrick, this is staying on my playlist whether this passes or not YES

Honestly, I've got nothing to really add here, the production is sufficiently brutal (I love the lead guitar tone on this, Splash Woman's theme sounds awesome this way!) I think the vocals are a little bit too up-front and covering up a lot of the backing instruments, but it's not a huge issue in the grand scheme of things. The aim here is obviously silliness and humor (the lyrics are totally cornball but that actually makes them more endearing. The one fish, two fish bit is hilarious) and the genre choice works well to further that goal, but the song is still very listenable on its own thanks to some great performances on the guitar. I'm pretty impressed with how well this little experiment worked, actually. Good job you guys! YES

yeah bradon strader, stop say that. what the matter with you? EDIT: Grammar. EDIT 2: Prophecy im sorry i frustrate you, did u try turning emulator off and on again?

I think this falls under Goa more than psytrance, per se, but I'll throw in a recommendation for Juno Reactor. Tracks like "Pistolero" and "Conquistadors" (parts 1 and 2) off the top of my head take a lot of psytrance elements but mix them with a lot of world sounds and very organic instrumental performances. And yes, Shpongle is unbelievably good, too. Check out "Nothing Lasts... But Nothing is Lost" and listen in its entirety, ideally under the influence of something mind-altering.

Right off the bat, the clean guitar in the intro was pretty well-written and captured my attention because I really couldn't tell where you were planning on going with the song based off of that. Once the distorted guitars dropped in, it made perfect sense. Your performances are really great across the board, and they do help compensate for what I think is slightly sub-par mixing/mastering. I think you could have pushed the volume a bit more, I find myself having to turn my system volume up to hear this at a comparable volume level to most metal tracks. It's a small issue though that doesn't really inhibit my enjoyment of the song though, I think this is a pretty solid effort. Nothing mindblowing or groundbreaking here, but it'll be a strong debut nonetheless that people will enjoy. YES

I get the feeling from listening to this that the reverb is an attempt to cover up some really weak synth samples and a not-fully-fleshed-out soundscape. The mixing is an issue, with a lot of the synths sounding like they're in a totally different room when compared to the drums, for example. The synth sounds themselves are just too generic to pass my bar, unfortunately. If the production/expression was spot-on, it'd be a different story, but overall I feel like the sequencing was weak (the plucked one at the end of the mix sounds like it's completely out of time) and there was no real personality to any of the sounds except for the lead guitar. On a positive note, your drum writing was really great. The dance clap is the only sample that's not working for me, and it's sparse. The production on the drums is another story though, it has the same reverb issue as the rest of the track, except a bit more exacerbated, for whatever reason. I hate to come off so negative on a mix, but I really don't feel like this one was ready for submission. It's a pretty good foundation, but there's a lot of things to work on before this is ready for posting. NO