Emunator   Judges ⚖️

I had a dream this project wrapped up and released last night and I got to listen to the whole thing, I'm now really curious to see if my subconscious assumptions about various songs were even remotely correct

Yeah, sorry to say. I don't mean to be discouraging by any means, but you'd definitely get dinged for the piano writing and, as somewhat of a pianist myself, I could really see a lot of room for improvement here with a more dynamic piano arrangement on top of the backing track you've already made. I think it could turn out really quite awesome, in fact. Keep at it man!

Yeah, I'm gonna have to make this quick for now but I don't think this could pass the panel simply because of the piano writing. The sound is ok but the instrument really doesn't work when it's just playing notes. It sounds very mechanical... turn some of those notes into chords and see if you can sequence it in a way that's a little bit more evocative of a real performance. I think that would shoot my interest in this remix through the roof and would definitely help it stand up much better against the judges. I'll edit this with more feedback when I have the chance, but since we've been making you wait for far too long I figured I'd post the biggest preliminary critique so you could get started on fixing it, if you're still interested in submitting. This is a pretty nice remix with a lot of cool ideas flowing, so I definitely think it's workable, but it'll need a lot of effort to make it shine and give the track a bit more personality. Best of luck for the time being, and sorry for the lateness!

I'm all over this

Yeah guys, get in on this. This is actually really fun

Sixto and Cyril aren't really coordinating, per se. More just producing, for the most part, and a little bit of consulting. I'm not even sure if melody/myself are actual codirectors anyway, but even if we were, we'd just be on par with Echoes of Betrayal in terms of staff count

Still working on it... at least, me and Dyne are! I think Cyril and sixto are doing some mastering but I'm not sure what the status is on that. Melody, if you're out there, hit me up dawg!

Dayuuummmm. I like this a lot. No critiques, it sounds fantastic. Very dramatic and almost cinematic. Finish this! Ok, maybe one critique. I second eilios that the sine synth is a really cool addition but it would be even better if it was a little bit more prominent at times, perhaps interjecting just to play a few harmonizing notes here and there.

Yeah, this is some quality orchestration. I definitely feel like this is more dynamic and dramatic than the previous versions that I've heard. Some of the rhythm timing on the piccolo is a little off, and in the highest notes the sample just ends up sounding weak. That's the only thing that really stands out to me in a bad way, everything else about this rocks. Should have no problem passing

Wow, I never would have thought this could be adapted to bossa nova while keeping so much of the original song song intact. I'd love to hear what this would sound like as a properly arranged ReMix, but even what you've got here is pretty neat. I like!

Phew, I was hearing a lot of distortion in the low frequencies on this one but when I lowered the in-browser volume there wasn't any problems anymore, so I think it was just a problem with Tindeck's volume control. I'm gonna leave this point here just in case any other mod decides to come along and listen for it, too. Probably nothing to worry about though. Aside from that, this rocks pretty hardcore. This does end up feeling a little bit coverish, especially given how similar your remix style is to the original source, but I am hearing a lot of personalization, altered melodies, and solos that help keep things fresh so I don't think you should have a problem on that front. You've got this one wall-of-sounded pretty heavily, but I can't help but feel like it'd be beneficial if the pianos and strings could be a bit more prominent in the mix. I'm assuming this would have to come a bit at the expense of those chugging rhythm guitars, so you might end up disregarding this advice entirely. However, I feel like the strings and the piano especially is a rather integral part of the soundscape and it keeps this from being just another plain ole' rock remix, so my personal recommendation would be to try and give those a bit more prominence. I didn't have a problem with the kick like hewhoisiam did, in fact the drums sounded fine to me. I dig this mix though, I think it should pass no problem even as-is, but perhaps there's a few little tweaks that could be made so that it's even more of a solid pass. Good work dude, you're improving!

Wow, this is really good. Fantastic ambiance, good chords and melody writing, and some unexpected stylistic choices that actually work very well (like the guitar.) This IS pretty conservative, but there's moments like the outro that definitely help give this a bit more unique character. I would like to hear a bit more original writing in here too if you're looking for submitting to OCR. If you're just sharing though and not trying to adhere to OCR standards, I wouldn't change anything on that front. I will say that the very first transition with the reversed cymbal was a little underwhelming, but I don't really have any fantastic ideas on how to improve it either, so my only suggestion is to just tweak with it a bit. Also, that arp that's playing in the end over the piano solo needs more reverb/delay, like someone else said. It feels a bit out of place, sound-wise. Fortunately the writing itself is spot-on. Not much negative to say on this one, it's a fantastic mix! If you do submit this, good luck! I'd love to see it on the front page.

Ain't got a WAV from you yet, brah!

Brandon is a Fruit Loop! Get it? Cause he's always fruity like a gay homosexual and he's looooooooooooopy!! Notjk Also, Proto, I would be happy to treat you to a dinner out on the town at a fine restaurant, on me. As long as you put out afterwards. ... :pokerface: I mean, with your remix.

Pretty beefy production on here, I can see you're following in the footsteps of artists like PrototypeRaptor or Mr. Ben Briggs in your production and arrangement style here. Yikes, it's a long one though. I find your lead writing is pretty diverse and varied, but that constant variation isn't really reflected in the rest of the track, which leads to this feeling pretty stale after going on for almost 6 minutes. I feel like this could be condensed down to about 4 and still have the same impact. In a similar vein, some sections aren't clicking as well as others, too (for example, the section with the organ lead just isn't working for me. Might be a personal preference thing, but the writing doesn't feel as strong.) Also, random side note: for your kick, are you using just one sample, or are you layering in multiple samples? If you're not, give it a shot to get a little bit grittier of a sound that I think might fit better with the rest of the dirty leads. This isn't an exhaustive list of critiques by any means, but I'm kind of fatigued at the moment so hopefully this will get you going on the right track at least. Some pretty cool sounds going on here though, I dig the direction you're going here!

This is pretty damn good, but what's with your kick sound? I can't quite place it, but it feels super-clicky and too up-front for my tastes. It just sticks out like a bit of a sore thumb but I can't quite place why. Would love if one of the other two workshop mods who specialize in guitar-driven remixes could chime in here Everything else about this sounds pretty solid - there's room for production improvement but if the kick sounded different, I'd probably YES this myself as a judge

Well, you definitely did a solid job of addressing the left-hand issues. After having a long time away to let this one grow on me, though, I'm definitely noticing the rigidity of your timing that some judges pointed out in the decision thread, and it's making this piece feel a bit more robotic than I'd like. Some subtle timing/velocity (more on the former than the latter) changes to make your song feel a bit less like it's being played by a sequencer would really go a long way. Other than that, I dig. Honestly, you could probably edge by with what you've got since the major issue with the previous version has been addressed, but while you're at it, fixing up some of the robotic-ness in your timing would push this from "really good" to "fantastic" status

Yeeaaaaahhhh, this source ROCKS. Always wanted to remix it myself. Wow, there's some really cool soloing going on in here! I dig it Unfortunately, as far as OCRemix is concerned, this is mostly just soloing based off of the original song without a ton of overt source connections going on. I really did enjoy listening to this one, it's definitely got a lot of improvements on all fronts compared to your older mixes. Production is not too bad once this kicks in, though I feel like the gradual fade-in at the start didn't work well. It felt like you've got two separate buildups starting off the song that are ultimately clashing. Your drum samples don't feel like they're cutting the mustard either, they feel very dry and low-quality, nothing packs much of a punch on the percussion front, although your writing is pretty decent. You can try throwing some compression/EQ/light distortion on your drums to give them a bit more strength, but ultimately you'll probably have a hard time working in the confines of the low-quality samples you've got My best suggestion would be to track down some better samples or try using a kit with a bit more personality, to feed some uniqueness into your mix. I'm not convinced this one could really be OCR ready without a significant arrangement overhaul to include some more overt source usage (though I will say that you kept the soloing in the same spirit as the source, which definitely helps your case here) but even as a non-submission track I think there's ways you could improve the quality. Either way, it was a nice listen on a source I was really hoping would get tackled sooner or later!

Listening to your newest render, I like the ambiance and the general soundscape you've got going on, and I'm appreciating the pretty crazy lead writing/synth choices, but your panning is throwing me off, especially in the intro. Having your kick hard-panned rarely seems like a good idea; if you're going to go for crazy panned percussion, you'd be able to get away with that most on the hats, which aren't going to sound distracting if they're bouncing around the stereo field because they're not mixed as loudly as snares and kicks. Basically, I'd suggest bringing some of your percussion elements closer to center (maybe not panned 100% center but not all the way to the right/left, either.) This issue becomes sort of moot once the song builds up but it's definitely worth noting as it really distracted me while I was listening to the first minute or so. The kick needs some beef to it, I get the feeling that fixing that one issue would even help with things like the underwhelming transition that I mentioned earlier. Stevo mentioned more specifics in his Mod Review regarding the percussion that I'm inclined to agree with as well. Other than that, your production seems pretty solid actually. The arrangement starts off pretty deceptively - the first minute was a neat intro, but it felt a bit too stretched out and didn't really accomplish as much as I was expecting. I didn't really have much faith in the mix's prognosis when the beat dropped in either, I like the vocal clip but the transition there just felt weak overall. However, despite the slow start, this mix actually really takes off and gets super-energetic, and feels very much like something I could imagine hearing on OCR. Great breakdown section with the piano (this is actually a rare instance where I think a noticeably-sequenced piano works just fine, actually) and a strong climax after that. Where's the ending, though? Bring back the notorious Star Fox vocal clip motif for an ambient outro, or do SOMETHING for an outro. I'm sure you could find a clever way to end off the track instead of just letting it fizzle out like that Basically, the bulk of this mix is really solid and definitely OCR quality in my opinion. There just needs to be some work on the mixing, as well as some arrangement fixes to bring the intro/outro/initial beat drop up to the quality level of the rest of the song. Very enjoyable listen though, I can't wait to hear this one tweaked a bit!

One of the most grand, memorable rock collabs on the site. Pretty much everything I have to express about this mix has been stated much more elegantly by the previous two posters, but I wanted to chime in because I almost let this one slip out of my routine, and I deeply regret it. Absolutely amazing, but I guess I shouldn't have expected anything less from the two involved parties