Emunator

Alex... how should I put this... the sounds you've chosen here just aren't very cohesive :\ It gets better as you add more instruments in, but from the start, the distorted, crushed synths/drums and the low-quality string samples just don't fit. It sounds like you're trying to get a bit of a grunge flavor in the track but the rest of the soundscape doesn't jive with that. In general, this sounds like a track that doesn't really have a strong sense of direction or identity. The drums sound kind of grungy, kind of retro, the synths sound kind of serene and kind of harsh, and it's not necessarily unpleasant to listen to but it just feels very... ambivalent. Mixing-wise, I think you did a pretty good job EQing your sounds though, everything is very clear and audible, nothing is too muddy. Great work on that Arrangement wise, you play it pretty close to the source. To your credit there's plenty of moments of personalization in the melody and I think the arrangement here is borderline OCR material. Still, the conservativeness in the instrument choices and the structure/melodies isn't really working in favor of the track either. If this was solely an experiment in doing better EQ work, I'd say it was pretty successful. However, overall I'm just not really feeling this remix. Sorry dude NO

The backstory behind this was pretty touching, and after listening to the original I feel like you picked a great source to help convey what you were going for. Absolutely beautiful, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon material never fails to surprise me. Overall, when I first listened to this, I remember being somewhat put-off by weaknesses with the performance/timing, though on this listen I don't feel like it's as noticeable as I remember it being. It's not the most solid performance I've heard but it's passable as far as I'm concerned, and it conveys the emotion of the song pretty well. I'll echo Drew by saying that the arrangement is the problematic part of this equation. As it stands, your arrangement is pretty long without a great deal of development in the soundscape over that time. Jamison's synthetic additions are very welcome and help give a more full-bodied, ethereal quality to your guitar performance, and those little moments where a new instrument comes in helps to give this some textural variety, but at the core this remix remains roughly the same through its 5:20 runtime. There's two ways you could fix this issue, I think. I understand that you guys were probably going for a more minimalist approach with the instrumentation, and to your credit I think it works phenomenally. If you were to trim a minute or more off of the arrangement and shorten it up, the lack of dynamics in the soundscape likely wouldn't be as big of a deal. I can't speak for halc or anyone else, but personally if this was a shorter remix that cut out some of the extra repetition I think I'd be okay with passing this without any change to the instrumentation. However, if you're okay with expanding things a little bit, there's so much you could do with the synths if the guitar took a backseat for a section or two. Undoubtedly this would require some modification to the arrangement, but if you were feeling ambitious, keeping the arrangement the same length but by expanding the presence of the synthetic instruments you could help bring some life to the texture of your song. Either way, I think you've got a concept worth sticking with, for sure. Your source choice is absolutely fantastic and the remix itself is very endearing. If you could employ some way to make your soundscape more dynamic or shorten the arrangement overall, I'd be okay with passing this. I really hope to see this one again! NO

Drew is right, the compression is pretty strong here and it's making some of the atmospheric/high-frequency synths and sounds a little too intense. I also felt like the drum sounds were almost too marginalized, and that a more dominant beat might have been a good option. Overall though, the mixing job on this holds up for the most part, and certainly gets the job done for this particular song. The mixing is a little average and could use improvement, god damn I love everything else about this song. Your entire soundscape just exudes tension and the dramatic synth melodies/solos are the perfect complement to that. The whole arrangement is very fluid and ever-changing, I'm never quite sure if I'm at the peak of the song or still building up to something greater. Your transitions, climaxes, and breakdowns are all very powerful though. They all craft a very cool experience for the listener, and overall it's an incredibly impressive product for only a day and a half of work. Nice work dude! YES

Wow, that's a wall of sound. I'm sensing a lot of strong compression on this one, but fortunately since you kept your master volume relatively low, this isn't particularly painful to listen to, and fortunately all of the individual instruments are readily discernible. I don't really have any problems with the mixing here, it's pushed hard but it definitely gives the drums the necessary raw strength they need to survive in a harsh D&B climate. It's brutal, and I love how it sounds. Overall, the performances are pretty spot on. The only issue I had was the fast-picked guitar riff right before the drums came in, which I don't feel was up to par with the rest of the live-performed elements. Minor quibble but it does kind of break the illusion in a song full of otherwise-perfectly-timed elements. Arrangement wise, I like what was done a lot. You merged the themes very tastefully so that each source is given its time in the limelight, but there's occasional moments of crossover that makes you second guess exactly what you're listening to. Another very small issue is how cut-and-paste some of the material feels (in the outro, it's obvious that you guys were strapped for time and had to slap something in) but at the same time, in the body of the song you cover plenty of melodic ground and you've got plenty of solos and original writing to fill in the gaps between source usage. Honestly I like this quite a bit. Much more than when I first heard it in the compo, to be honest. Glad to hear this one come through again though, it's a pass for me. YES

Just to clarify though, OA, this isn't a project mix.

This is undoubtedly a very conservative mix when you take away the vocals. While the beat didn't necessarily take very many risks, I appreciate the synergy it has with the vocals, which are performed wonderfully. There's a lot more nuance to the lyrical flow than I usually hear from rap submissions, so props to 2p for really bringing his A-game on this track, both on the performance and the lyrics! Good stuff, I think people will enjoy this a lot despite the conservativeness. YES

I think I see what you were going for with the intro, but it honestly feels rather detached from the rest of the arrangement because there's no sound design or any processing done to those synths to help them mix with the rest of the track better. Watch your humanization on the harpsichord at the end too, it's sequenced very rigidly with no dynamics in the velocities/timing. The production is not bad, but your guitar tones could still use some work and the mastering is also very quiet. More importantly, this is pretty much a straight cover and would need a lot more personalization on the arrangement to stand up to OCR's standards. However, there's some strong parts in this mix that definitely have merit. Your performances are pretty strong, and I really like how you integrated non-rock instrumentation elsewhere in the song (the piano breakdown was well-executed particularly.) Your drumming was really neat, too. Keep sending stuff our way, I think you've got a ton of potential but this track's not doing it for me. NO

This is the kind of song that definitely takes a few listens to really wrap your head around. This is one of the most unconventional sound pallets I've encountered as a judge... On paper, you wouldn't think that hip-hop beats, heavily-modified vibraphones, live violin and a very liberal helping of dBlue Glitch would really click. In practice, though, the combination actually works spectacularly, and you couldn't have picked a better source to use it on. If I had to critique anything I'd say that the glitching effects felt phoned and random at times, like there wasn't a ton of thought put into making it sync up well with the rest of the song. It doesn't really affect my enjoyment of the song, but a little more delicacy in applying glitch effects would have improved this, I think. Still, well above the bar, thanks for throwing something truly unique and creative our way. I really appreciate listening to this sort of thing! YES

Umm, so... stuff. Enchanted is now a collab between The Concrete Men (Jason Covenant, Flexstyle, and AkumajoBelmont) and I've heard an updated WIP for it. It's like the 6th different iteration this track has gone through but with any luck, this latest concept will stick! Water World (ambient) is getting there, Theophany gave me an update today and it utilizes some really cool sampling techniques... specifically, sampling instruments from other project remixes! I'll leave the details a surprise but it's sounding killer. Stilt Village GBA is about 90% done, and veteran-badass Fishy is gonna be laying down some sex to round the track off. It's officially the longest song on the project now, so be prepared! That's it. Once that's done, we're pretty much ready to prep for release. Project eval is already underway and it's looking fine... so this is really truly wrapping up now. I swear.

Your intro serves as a really cool buildup but I feel like the soundscape is just too empty for it to really be effective. Analyzing your arrangement overall, I really don't feel like I can tell what your intention is with each section. I can never really tell when the track is supposed to be at full intensity and when you're in intro/breakdown mode, and I think a lot of it has to do with how quiet your master volume is. At a normal listening volume, the entire song sounds like it's still supposed to be building up to something. Your drums are also problematic - while they're well-written, the lack of any sort of audible kick drum contributes to the same problem I mentioned above. Some of your synth leads are really quiet too Basically, this boils down to a balance/production issue and, to a much lesser extent, conservativeness problems. I think this track is definitely salvageable and thanks to some awesome soloing/synth writing (the guitar performance was absolutely killer,) it would be very well worth it to do so. However, you'd need a revamp on the production to really make it work, I think. NO (resub)

I'm pretty much in agreement here with the other judges, this is a strong arrangement with a lot of merit that would sound right at home in a console version of Pokemon G/S, but your production/sequencing is hindering the track just a bit too much, as well as a rather directionless progression. Basically, with some work on some of your backing instrumentation, like the strings, to make them sound a bit less rigid when they're exposed (i.e. during the intro) and a revamp on your drums so they're more defined and a little bit less distorted/indistinct, this would be okay on the production side. Arrangement-wise, I don't feel like your original writing is detached from the source usage. My concern is that the arrangement just doesn't seem to go anywhere, there's no dynamic curve. It feels like you should be working towards a more dramatic climax instead of staying at the same energy level for pretty much the whole song. I think that altering your supporting instrumentation to rise and fall with the rest of the song would also help solve the cut-and-paste issue that DragonAvenger pointed out during the second half of the remix. This is really neat though, I love hearing old Pokemon chiptunes updated to be more reflective of the area they represent. This does a great job expanding on the source, but the production/arrangement just need some more TLC. We hope to see you again soon! NO (resubmit!)

This feels significantly more full-bodied than a lot of the mixes I'm used to hearing from you, and the results are spectacular The much-needed low end presence helps balance your overall mix so that the chiptune sounds don't come off so grating on the ears. Instead, you were able to utilize those sharp chiptune sounds in a much more relaxed, mellow context and I'm extremely happy with the results Glad you took some feedback to heart, this really does sound like some of your best work to date. The arrangement here is pretty basic but I feel like the expansive soundscape, coupled with a lot of original countermelodies is enough to sell me on this mix. Keep it up Greg! YES

Really neat track, I love the warm atmosphere set up by the pads/acoustic instruments and how they contrast with the more aggressive/raw sounding synths. It's a cool experimental mix that shows off your knack for coming up with unique hybrid soundscapes that have probably never been done before, and I think people will appreciate the creativity that went into this. I'm also impressed with how quickly you picked up the saxophone and were able to learn it well enough to include in a mix. Not much to say here, it's quirky, fun, and reasonably well-executed. Dig it! YES

Honestly, I have no idea when it's coming out We were initially looking at March, but there's a lot of other albums that we're really just not sure where they'll fit in the release schedule. All I can say is that I'm really trying to put the pressure on the remaining artists to get this finished up, but the eval process is already underway. I was being a bit facetious in the conversation with Strader (as I always am when talking to him) so I don't think March is out of the question but it's far, far from set in stone. Hopefully that clears up any confusion about what the status is here. Sorry to unintentionally get your hopes up and/or crush them prematurely. When I know, you guys will know. EDIT: Also, Brandon, you a stupid ho! you a, you a stupid ho!

By far the best happy-hardcore offering on the site, I mentioned in my vote (and I believe this might have been my first vote cast as a judge, as an aside!) that this toes the line nicely between being a serious attempt in the genre and being a self-parody, of sorts, and I think you know exactly how to meld the best of both worlds. I'm not gonna lie, I laughed when that obnoxiously loud happy-hardcore kick/bass combo dropped in, rocked out for a few bars, then it moved right back into the kind of clear, punchy Flexstyle production I know and love. Very slick mix dude, I think you achieved everything you wanted to with this track!

Great debut, Greg The mix runs pretty long but I think the length is warranted, you've got a very dynamic arrangement that stays pretty safe for the most part, but covers a LOT of melodic ground. The arrangement almost feels like a one born from a stream-of-consciousness train of thought, which I think is the best way to handle this particular source. Nice to actually be able to hear some bass in one of your mixes too, dude

Reminds me of the kind of happy vibe one would encounter in Mario Kart or Animal Crossing. The slow-building arrangement really lets me get lost in this track, it's easy to just chill and zone out with all of the pleasant melodies bouncing around my headphones Quaint and very enjoyable.

Just chiming in to say that I can totally feel the BoC influence and think you chose a wonderful set of sources to apply the style to. The workshop mods nailed the issues but I think you need some more dynamic, interesting noise samples. You can definitely get away with using a lot of distortion and noise in your mix throughout but right now it just sounds like a poor-quality recording. Experiment with sampling some record scratching or ambient noise samples and EQing/fx'ing the hell out of them to see what you can come up with so that your use of noise sounds more deliberate. Great track though, hope to see this on the panel soon

This track clearly has a great deal of merit, there's no denying the creativity and level of talent involved here. I've listened a lot though, and I'm siding with Deia despite Larry's invocation of the "clear YES" card The positives: the vocal performances are very strong across the board, you've got a very unique voice that works great for this mellower rock style. The lyrics are pretty neat too, though there's a few lines that just feel slightly clunky ("I'm wanting all my fans to know" is one that comes up multiple times and doesn't sound like the timing is quite right.) It's a very minor issue, for the most part I think the performances here are spot-on. The problematic stuff: the mixing, as the other judges have mentioned, is probably the most prominent issue here, and I don't feel like it's necessarily a quick enough fix to be a YES (conditional) vote like Larry decided, and I think that, despite the killer arrangement and performances, it's too much of an issue to warrant a YES either. I think this is a strong track that would really shine and become an OCR favorite if the production quality matched the arrangement. Throwing some reverb on the vocals and rebalancing some of your instruments would be a great start. If this does end up getting NO (resub) vote, here's a few other things to consider. The transitions work in theory, but sometimes I think the stop transitions last a little bit too long. Might not be an issue but it's definitely something worth checking out. I also think you could benefit from a stronger lead synth. Even though it doesn't show up very frequently, the current sample lacks any expression or energy. A more defined, sharp lead that cuts through better, perhaps with portamento or any other effect, would really make those sections a lot more memorable. The current one isn't a dealbreaker but it feels like a very noticeably weak aspect of the remix in its current state. The ending is also mildly awkward, perhaps just throwing an open cymbal crash after the last word of the final verse would give the song more closure. Larry is also right on the money about how to make your delay effect work better as a transition and an ending. Lots of stuff to consider, I really think that with a mixing overhaul this would be a pass in my book but there's lots of other small things that could have a sizeable effect on the mix overall if they were tweaked as well. Loving what you've got but I think this needs another round of edits. NO (resubmit!)

Deia hit most of the points solidly, my biggest issue here is with the sequencing. I feel like the production is fine, but your sitar sounds really awkward when it starts to play fast notes, like you need a sample capable of more articulations than just the one that you're using here. The strings have a similar problem that I've noticed with some of your other submissions, and I think Deia was absolutely right when she pinned it on your attack being too slow to keep up with some of the melodies you're throwing at it. Koto, piano, and drums all sound really good to me. This is mostly a really solid track but I too am having issues hearing the source usage on top of the production. I get the feeling that there's a lot of it in there but not used in the most obvious way, so it's hard to pick up on. If you choose to resubmit I'd really appreciate if you could accompany your own personal breakdown to help us figure out what you've done here On the production/sequencing side of things this is real close, but there's a few critical issues I feel like still need to be addressed (and I remember mentioning them as the track was being created for the project) before this can be a pass, and the source usage is still sort of up in the air. Since it seems like this is going to be a resub decision anyway, hopefully it'll come back to us with a source breakdown attached so we can be more thorough! Good luck man, hope to see this one again. NO (resubmit!)

*lighters up* Yeah, I'm not hearing much source usage here either This is one of my favorite rap submissions I've heard but the source is just not making itself apparent. There's some parts that sound kinda like Ride ze Shoopuf but they're not very plentiful. Pains me to put a mix like this down when it's such an enjoyable listen, but yeah. Resubmit this. NO (resubmit!)

I really like the soundscape on this track, even if it pulls very heavily from a past remix. Comparing this to Eye of the Storm though, I don't feel like your mixing/sound pallet is quite as strong. Some issues that I notice right off the bat: your bass is super-loud! It sounds good for the initial bass drop, but past that point it's too dominant in the mix. Your piano sound is also problematic, in my opinion. I can see how this might be somewhat of a personal preference issue, but the sample you've got right now seems annoyingly bright, mid-heavy, and a lot more harsh than this genre calls for (perhaps it's overcompressed? Not sure about that.) It's most noticeable when the sample is exposed, such as during the last minute of the song. Your writing is pretty solid across the board. Despite a few sections where things get crowded (2:10 comes to mind, for instance,) most of the melodies play well together. The arrangement has the same meandering quality as Eye of the Storm but I never had a problem with that approach to begin with, so all's good here. Source usage definitely checks out. Ultimately I feel like this is a close call due to a strong arrangement, but there's a few mixing issues that are really detracting from my enjoyment of the mix. I'll keep this even if you choose not to resubmit, but I think you've got a very solid foundation that just needs another coat of polish before it'll be an easy pass for me. NO (resubmit!)

This honestly feels polished and unique enough to be a standalone submission to OCR, I'd highly suggest submitting this dude