Emunator

Nice! DK64's got a great soundtrack that deserves a lot more love than it's gotten on OCR so far I'm having a bit of a tough time evaluating this arrangement, because you do go a lot further than most people who submit straight medleys in terms of adding your own personal touches to the track. That extra attention to personalizing the arrangement definitely did not go unnoticed. However, this still falls into some of the same pitfalls that we tend to reject medley arrangements for. While you do have a lot of unique material going on with your rhythm guitar writing, the melodies of the actual themes are largely untouched, save for a few moments in the DK Isle section where you actually do your own thing with the melody quite a bit. If you had applied that same level of interpretation to the rest of the themes, this would have been a lot closer to passing. However, that's unfortunately not the case, and although your backing track is pretty innovative and creative, the bulk of the remix is pretty conservative. The arrangement itself also presents a few problems. As a listener, there's nothing wrong with how you've strung these two themes together, but what OCR is looking for is a cohesive arrangement that evolves and develops. Your remix does have some sense of that, but the evolution mostly occurs within each individual section and then resets as soon as you transition to a new theme, so the end result feels more like a series of sketches linked together with pretty solid transitions, but not very much direction overall. I feel like having some sort of reprise that you go back to multiple times in the song would really tie this together a lot more cohesively, so that you don't just play a theme and then forget about it for the rest of the song. OCRemix is definitely not opposed to remixes that utilize a lot of sources, but if they do, they need to be tied together more tightly with a more directed structure. Nitpick: The transition between Frantic Factory and Angry Aztec stands out as one of the weaker ones, personally, I think you could lose the few bars of solo drums and things would flow a lot more smoothly. The Banjo-Kazooie reference was smooth, I liked how that fit in there and really tied the song together even though it wasn't linked to DK64 at all. Aside from that, there's a lot of elements on the production side of things that could be tuned up. Right off the bat, your guitar tone is sufficiently brutal but the overall master is not making good use of the headroom you've got left, even with your rhythm guitars being mixed as high as they are. Your orchestral elements too are pretty weak samples, but they'd probably work just fine with the style if they were more audible. The same issue is present with your lead guitar a lot of the time, especially during the machine-gun drumming sections where they're most noticeably drowned out. Basically, this needs a re-balancing job so that pretty much everything aside from the rhythm guitars and drums are more clear, and the overall master is bumped up louder so you don't have so much unutilized headroom. I kind of wrote an essay for this submission but only because I like it and I like your style I'd love to see something like this on the site but there's several things that you need to overcome before that can happen. I do hope you continue submitting, whether it's a redone version of this song or something new, but you've got great source material and some really great performance skills on the guitar. Good luck whatever you end up doing dude! NO

Holy sheeeet so this is what it sounds like when SonicthHedgog finally finishes a remix Seriously, this is really impressive. It's up there with PrototypeRaptor's take on the theme, in fact, although at this point some may find this style redundant, I still think this one's got plenty of neat tricks that help it stand on its own feet. The production is pretty good, all of your sounds are really phat and punchy, but not overcrowded or too compressed, and your synth choices sound great. Your drops/ A few issues: some really nasty distortion comes in at 3:12 to 3:26, I'd like to see that removed before posting. In addition, your bass modutlation mostly sounds good, but as soon as it starts wobbling, it's too jittery and not really synced up with anything, 2:40, 3:58, etc. are the worst offenders. Lastly, you need to trim all that silence off the end of your track. This is really solid and one of the most enjoyable mixes I've heard in my time on the panel, but those 3 issues all need to be addressed. They should all be really quick fixes though, so I'm not gonna NO (resub) you here. NO (resubmit with distortion, bass timing, and trimming fixes)

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Sounds great man! I'll leave the mod reviewing to the mods but I'm glad you took another look at this one!

Totally got chills from this, you guys <3 I'll give some feedback tomorrow but I just wanted to say that the vocals here are friggin STELLAR and the backing track works great with it.

Haha, this one HAS to be inspired by the Gorillaz' "Dare" track. The stylistic similarities are too similar to ignore I was really enjoying the first half of this, you've got some very cool sounds accompanied by a thick, punchy beat that sounds really well produced. I feel what OA was saying in his amusingly-metaphorical vote, though, and while I do think this could be a pass in the end I agree that this could really use one of your epic solos to round this piece off and hold my interest a lot better in the second half. Real real close, the production and sound choice aspect is totally spot-on here, but I too think a resubmission would push this mix into absolutely epic territory. EDIT 2/3/12: Ok looking back this is actually a pretty shitty reason to reject a mix and I'm kind of kicking myself for voting the way I did in the first place. This mix is definitely above the bar as it is, I was just projecting my wishes a little too much. YES

Wow, some really cool stuff going on here! I like the arrangement and unique sound fusions here, but the production is falling short of the bar. Some things to watch out for: your rhythm guitars are pretty mid/high-heavy and don't really have any bass to them, and I couldn't even hear your bassline at all (if you even have one in the mix ) Your kick drum is almost inaudible too. Basically, you need to beef up your levels in the low end particularly and maybe compensate by EQing the highs/mids down just a touch so that you end up with a more balanced mix. Aside from that, I was feeling this quite a bit. There may be other issues with the remix in addition to the mixing, but I'm having a hard time evaluating this mix when it feels like an entire frequency range is missing from your track. Maybe some other judges can expand on the stuff I may have missed, but definitely rework your mixing and resubmit this! NO (resubmit)

Uhhh, where's the remix?

Really nice drumwork here, that's definitely the part of the song that's grabbing me most. I like the soundscape that you've built up but the problem here is that you're pretty much relying on it for the whole song without much of a change. By the halfway mark I'm really hoping for something to break the monotony but it never really happens. On the production side of things, I'll echo the complaint about the overall muddiness caused by too much reverb on a lot of your sounds, you need to ease up on that significantly. The rhythm guitars too are working pretty hard and making it hard to hear a lot of the other stuff that's going on. Overall, the mixing needs a re-balance and some other tweaks to reach a passable state. Also, throw a more complete fadeout on your ending NO (resubmit)

Ooohh, this is a really cool arrangement you've got here. But owww, the mid-high frequencies are really hurting my ears as a listener, and I actually listen to a lot of dubstep. You need to tone down the EQ on some of your most screechy synths so they still retain some power, but are more listenable. Overall though, this is actually surprisingly close. As chopped up as your melody is, I can still make out the source pretty apparently. You keep things changed up frequently and introduce a lot of cool sounds. I'm really like it and would like this to pass, even though you've said you're not interested in touching this again, but I think you should definitely tweak the EQ on some of your synths (particularly the ones in the intro) and this would be good to go. Let's see what the other judges have to say about this. NO (resubmit cond. on EQ fix)

Some pretty cool stuff going on in here, I like the overall mixing of themes and the production (for the most part) and particularly your lead guitar performances, those are pretty sweet but not utilized nearly enough in my opinion. I think you rely a little too heavily on the piano riffs for the first half of the song, and it's not until later on that you change up and add in a synth lead and the lead guitars. Because of how often that piano repeats, the track has a pretty conservative sound to it that could easily be rectified by applying some of the same personalized touches you've got in the second half to the irst half of your track, as well. Those additional sounds are clicking a lot better than the piano, so I'd suggest working them in earlier in the song, fixing up your piano with a different sample and some more humanized timing, or preferably both The Final Fight source has a pretty unrelenting bassline and unfortunately, it carries over into the remix in a way that gets kind of tiresome after a while. I'd love to hear more changeups in your rhythm guitar patterns as well, but this is more just a personal suggestion. If you can tackle the issues mentioned in my first paragraph I'd be quite happy passing this. You've got some nice production and a really energetic style going, but it's not there yet for me either. Good luck dude! NO (resubmit!)

Holy crap, you guys have some really awesome harmonizing and interplay between your two performances, there's some points in the track where I find myself really getting into it! Your cover of Vampire Killer is just stellar. However, despite how awesome it is your arrangement is still a pretty straightforward cover of the themes, and the moments of personalization from a purely technical viewpoint are too few and far between, as far as OCR's standards are concerned. Damn, I wanna pass this mix so bad because it's one of the coolest acoustic cover songs I've heard in recent memory, but it's just too close to the original sources to be posted on OCR. Don't be discouraged though, I for one would really like to see more from you guys with more personalization on the melodies and arrangement, I know our listeners would dig this sort of thing. NO

I'm actually on Jesse's side with this vote - this arrangement feels pretty long and, while I can see how the spastic structure might work with the genre you've chosen, but I'm personally not sold on it. It's pretty far off the rails, and honestly I think this bites off a bit more than it can chew. You're juggling so many different melodies, synths, and sounds that I'm having a difficult time focusing. The synth lead that you use at :43 and then later in the song is really a weak choice too, in my opinion. It's very static and unexpressive and just doesn't seem like an adequate sound to carry a melody. The same can apply to a couple of other synth sounds here, honestly, and for me THAT'S the dealbreaker that pushes me over the edge. I could live with the arrangement if your sound choices were more engaging, but those two issues compound even though one or the other would not have been a critical problem. This is a pretty close decision though and I have no issue with the YES votes at all here and wouldn't be all that upset if it ended up passing, but for me I fall just on the other side of the line. I think this has more than enough merit to warrant some further tweaking/adjustments. Good luck with the rest of the vote! NO (resubmit!)

There's a really cool vibe to this track and some very unique jazzy textures that I appreciated a lot, but there's a few issues holding this back for me personally. Overall, a lot of your instruments and even the drums are pretty blocky in terms of sequencing and the type of delay that you're using on all of your sounds, too. Some more humanization to the melodies/drums, and preferably some more personalization on the melody itself, would really put this over the top for me, I think. I dig the use of effects to give this more of a dreamy quality, but I think you went overboard here, so that there's never any melody or hook taking control of the track. It's on groove-mode almost all the time and would benefit a lot from something taking center-stage once and a while. The ending wasn't great but I wasn't terribly bothered by it either. Lastly, the repetitiveness of the arrangement and even the transitions you use really becomes noticeable on repeat listens and hurts my enjoyment of the track overall. Slimming this down or adding in more variations (you could probably kill two birds with one stone and throw in some unique solos to change things up throughout the song) would make your arrangement a lot more tight. Very cool track and I sincerely wanna see this again, but there's too many issues adding up for me to be comfortable passing it. NO (resubmit!)

I was really impressed by what you did with the intro and the vocal clip integration, that's spot on. I do think the buildup is a little bit misleading, but I can see how it would work in context for a more strategic, slow boss battle like the kind you'd find in Metal Gear Solid (or maybe Castlevania? haha, I don't know ) Anyway, onto the actual mix... the overall mix is pretty dynamic but I feel like you could bump up some of the quieter sections just a little bit without lessening the dramatic effect of the louder stabs. The section leading up to the very end is the most notable offender here. Your organ sample is really not very strong, and neither are the strings (there's other sample issues throughout but those two are the most noticeably under-performing elements in the ensemble. I also agree that there's some sections where there could stand to be more low end for the sake of balance. On the plus side though, your arrangement is extremely creative in blending themes and is pretty well-paced overall. The strength of the arrangement is pretty close to winning me over, but I'd like to hear a few fixes before I'll pass it. Very close vote though dude, I really wanna see this posted! NO (borderline/resubmit!)

I'm actually with Deia on this one, and I tend to be a little more critical of the production on metal tracks. I think this one sounds above the bar, it's a pretty straightforward take on the theme, but you stay within your comfort zone as far as production and performance goes and the end result sounds pretty nice. I liked the lead guitar tone, though it felt got buried in the mix sometimes when it was competing with your rhythm guitars. That issue was a little disappointing but it's not a dealbreaker. The clean guitar breakdown was really neat, that definitely changed things up in a very welcome way. I'm cool with this. YES

This mix is a nice way of really evolving your subdued, understated rock style that you've been building for yourself around here. The heavy ambiance and synth work definitely complements your traditional guitar work. Listening to the source, this direction is even more unexpected but I'm pretty sure I've wrapped my head around how you used it. Very unexpected style, given the source material, but I'm enjoying this a lot Good job dude. YES

I hate to say this, but this mix just feels really generic to me :\ The arrangement and the transitions are pretty cookie-cutter trance. It's not to say you're lacking in detail necessarily, and your cool ambiance work and sfx were not lost on me (I actually thought the intro had some cool ideas but just ran a little too long) but when you get into the meat of the track it's just pretty plain. The synth choices across the board, the beat, and a lot of other elements are stretched pretty thin throughout the mix and end up sounding pretty repetitive. I may be unnecessarily hating on this mix, which is by all accounts pretty solid and, despite some repetitiveness and some sections that were longer than necessary, might be technically above the standards, but I just wasn't really feeling this one Sorry guys. NO

Yeah, there's nothing mindblowing about the arrangement or production here but I definitely think it's good enough, despite the slightly-annoying lead synths. You've got some cool sound design in your breakdowns that I enjoyed. Great drum writing here, I always like your snare sounds particularly Not bad man, keep sending stuff our way, you're improving! YES

I can sign off on your source usage breakdown as well, the drums that you're referencing are definitely unique enough to be recognizable in your remix as a direct source reference, and the other melodic parts work in your favor. I'm not really even gonna talk about the production/arrangement as it's pretty clearly over the bar, you've got some awesome processing, effects, and transitions that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to. The fact that the actual mix is so strong doesn't really have any direct bearing on whether or not the source usage is acceptable, but I'm glad it checks out for me because this is a really strong submission. Keep it up Brent! YES

Yep, pretty much OA and Deia nailed it. The arrangement's pretty much of a cover and overall, it's lacking in personalization. The performances are cool but your song pretty much goes through the motions and doesn't throw anything memorable into the mix to really make it your own. In addition, I wasn't really thrilled with a lot of your guitar tones or the mixing, some of the leads were really buried into the mix and the rhythm guitars are really encroaching on everything else. What you've got rocks pretty hard as a straight cover song, but that's not what OCR is looking for, sorry NO

Something about the mixing on this sounds just a little bit off, like there's some sort of hole in the frequencies in some point. I'd like to hear a slightly more fleshed out soundscape for this, and it's actually a pretty conservative remix, but overall there's a lot of strong positive aspects that push this way over. The prog rock elements are well executed and give this track a dose of personalization, you've really grasped onto some of the most memorable moments from the source and made them more pronounced in your remix (the bassline sounds really awesome in this context, particularly) and your koto lines rock hard Good song man, I'm definitely comfortable passing this. YES

Yeah, this is a pretty straightforward call. I really enjoyed your work off of Harmony of a Hunter, you've got a very expressive, dynamic playing style and your songs are produced just fine. Keep sending stuff our way man! YES

This is actually a pretty borderline call for me, I do personally like your lead writing, and you do a good job changing things up in your soundscape so that no single synth takes too much time in the limelight. I'm with Deia though, the arrangement feels pretty bland and I think it's got a lot to do with the generic/repetitive bassline. This is gonna sound vague, but I think you need to do more with the patterns you've got and change up your progression at some point so it doesn't grow stale. Production issues: your rides are way too up-front, the snare has a muffled sound to it (too much on the EQ cuts, maybe?) and in general your drums don't feel like they've got the same level of stereo width as your synths, which makes for a bit of an odd listening experience. The drums are all confined to the center and don't have the same kind of expansive, enveloping feel that the rest of your sounds have. That's a relatively minor issue in the big picture and I'm not sure if it's something any other judges would even notice, but I thought I'd bring it up anyway. This has a neat vibe and, while I'm not really blown away by any of your synth choices or the arrangement, this was an enjoyable listen that didn't feel like it quite lifted off the ground. See what you can do to bring your arrangement up to the next level and iron out some production issues, and I think this'll be good. NO (resubmit!)