Nutritious

I agree with the above comments regarding volume. I simply can't listen to this comfortably on my normal music listening volume. While everything is audible, it could be a little more clear as well. Simply pulling the levels back may even just fix that. Cool arrangment and great performances. Should be good to go with another production pass. NO resubmit, please

I'm interested. Not sure what game, but I'll check out the OSTs.

That's the right one. Thanks! Actually, I'm glad it didn't work out because I think it turned out much better this way. I wanted to do something different this round and my initial idea wasn't really cutting it. As a matter of fact, all the entries are quite solid this round as well. Forget the self-deprication, this is good stuff guys, well done .

1. Gario 2. Hylian Lemon 3. supercoolmike

About to render my track. I also had to completely scrap my original idea, but such is the writing process I guess

I really like your approach here. The melody nails down the source connection, while you took a completely different approach with the supporting instrumentation. Production wise, the shaker sounded like it sizzled too much in the high end when it came in at 1:31. It's a bit more subdued in double-time later, though it still bugs me a bit. Nice use of various percussion elements throughout that. Great little touches throughout, to be honest. Great stuff. YES

Cool choice of source track. Liking the intro so far. Man, once the guitars and drums kick in, this really pushes the levels to the limit (no pun intended). The kick levels plus the really loud rhythm guitars are creating clutter within the louder sections. The arrangement work is solid. There's plenty of strong source usage along with a lot of personalized writing and changeups of structure & flow. I'd love to hear some other J feedback to make sure I'm not grandpa-ing this track. But I feel like just pulling back some of the mastering levels so it doesn't hit the compressor so hard may be all that's needed. If not, just lowering the rhythm guitar levels a bit to let the mix breathe more and let elements (like the snare, synths) have a bit more room. It's entirely possible others will disagree with me, which is fine, but for now I'm gonna have to go NO resubmit, please

Gotta co-sign with the above J's. The brass parts specifically feel like a big step back from the realism of the original. The note changes are awkward as the samples can't hold up to it. I should add that this is extremely hard to do As Kristina mentioned, there's not much going on in sections like :42 except whole notes, which ends up feeling somewhat pointless/undeveloped. 2:48 is another example of a similar issue. Some odd note choices in the counter lead starting at 1:48 that sounded like it was in a different key. This whole section is really throwing me off as the arrangement feels like it's plodding at this point and doesn't really grab me back until the beat kicks into double time again. Ending is a bit abrupt and didn't sound like much effort was put into it. I think this would've been better served with something a little more climactic or at least with a bit more finality to it. As mentioned, I think this one would have a ways to go to reach the bar. That said, you've obviously shown promise here and with other mixes, so I know you're up to the challenge. NO resubmit, please

Not sure I can add much more beyond co-signing with the above J's. There is a lot of EQ overlap between the various elements here and quite a high amount of compression that's really muddying up the whole thing. Jive gave some really good specific advice. I'll double-up on the suggestion that the mid-high crunch in the guitars is conflicting with the drums. Even quiet sections like 2:21 sound really indistinct, due to a lot of mid-range clutter without anything coming through clearly in the higher EQ range. I'd recommend trying some narrow-band EQ cuts in specific ranges for various instruments. It's hard to be specific without behing hands-on, but here are a few ideas to try: -Narrow ~2dB-ish cut in guitar and/or drums (try snare, cymbals) around the 2-4khz range -Look at narrow cut around the 200-500hz range for either kick or rhythm guitars to see if you can clean up the lower end. The arrangement is fantastic. The performances are fantastic. I should add that it is INCREDIBLY difficult to mix an arrangement like this properly and to a certain extent, I'm giving you a couple shots in the dark to see if they help. I agree with Jive that this really is close. Would love to get this one on the site for sure. NO resubmit (borderline)

Nice opening here. I'm getting a bit of Wingless piano vibes here . Great atmosphere here. Very clean production work. Might be my 'phones, but the bass sounds slightly overpowering when compared to the piano lead. Really enjoying the arrangement. Not much more to add to what's already been said other than YES

I'm very close to the same mind as Kristina on this one. I wasn't quite as sold as Emu on the production for the first 1:55 or so. The general track sounded empty with pretty basic-sounding synth tones. 2:08 until the outro is so freaking cool, BTW Man, it's odd to have this unbalanced of a track. The intro isn't up to standards in arrangement or production (IMO), but a couple minutes in everything suddenly clicks in such a good way. Not gonna disagree that it did sound like it could have wrapped up nicely around the 5 minute mark. It's not that an extended, cool-down type ending can't work, but I think it would really need a big build-up leading into it, and then give the extended chillout to help the listener come down from the top. That's really not what this track is about though, so you're probably better off trimming things down a bit. Man I really hope this comes back. NO resubmit, (not please, just do it )

Good stuff here from Hakstok. Very tight performances, great drum writing. As Emu mentioned, as a whole, the arrangment doesn't heavily deviate from the original progression, however, there is a lot of personalized touches throughout, original soloing, as well as revamped percussion to take it from a techno-y rock song to more traditional rock. Great soloing work, by the way. Breakdown for completionist sake: :00 - :23 OST main melody :24 - :32 Rhythm guitar continues pattern from rhythm guitar in original :33 - :39 Original :40 - :45 Rhythm guitar backing pattern again :46 - :55 OST second melody section :56 - :59 Original 1:00 - 1:24 Bridge melody from :58 in OST OK, forget "completionist," I'm taking it any further than this - that's about half the song and it's nearly all referencing the OST. One gripe on production: the drums had a dull tone to them, which gave them a bit of a muffled tone and prevented them from cutting through as well as they could. Great stuff. YES

1. Garpocalypse 2. Cyril 3. gercr

Great round this week, guys Thought I'd leave some feedback as I'm putting together my vote. -gercr: Nice, moody intro. Good idea to transition into rock. Timing gets a bit loose at places between guitars & drums, which can sometimes be fixed in post-processing, so perhaps something to look into. Very good energy too; enjoyed it. -Cyril: Great intro with gritty guitars and the orchestral backing. I was thinking of doing this source myself, but was a bit intimidated by it . Great job really utilizing everything the source has to offer. Bass was just awesome. See if you can get more energy from the orchestra to stand up to the guitar powah. Great track. -Shaggy: Wow, very creative instrumentation and approach here. Tough source to tackle. Solid sound design/sample usage here. I can tell you put a lot of care into the writing as there is constant changes and variations happening throughout the track. Make sure you don't lose sight of your source tune, so the listener can make connections as well. By nature, I think this type of genre approach may not share as broad appeal as something like Rock, but you shouldn't let that take anything from what you want to create. Nice work -Garpocalypse: Great energy throughout this one. Really solid arrangement too. Probably the best ending of the bunch too. Loved how things progressed throughout in general. I'd focus on trying to get a little more "meat" in the drums mid range and overall mastering compression to level the soundfield out a bit and help this to really shine. This really is going to be a tough vote. I like elements of all the tracks, TBH.

Not much to add. I didn't really find the mix overly crowded either (though it is a bit dense at times), though I can also see the point about the kick tone. The snare fill that comes in a couple times seemed overly loud to be and could be toned down. Arrangement is pretty solid, with clear connections to the source and creative interpretation of both the backing parts and melody of Cry of Sorrow. The writing at :48 was a bit odd, almost like the song lost its way for a few seconds before getting back on track. I also wasn't 100% on board with the transition section at 2:32, as it also seemed a bit aimless/unfocused. The integration of Sazh's theme definitely felt more forced than the Sorrow theme, which is understandable given the loose, jazzy feel of the original. Still, as a whole, this is clicking for me. YES

I was pretty concerned during the first half of this track that it would be too conservative, given it follows the melody lines and backing parts almost verbatim. However, after that things branch out quite a bit in arranging the B section of the original with a simplified take on the melody and backing part, some original transitioning, and later riffing on the source chords. Guitars sound super strong here and well performed. Drums are distant in the soundfield relative to the guitars as Kris mentioned, but it's not enough of a detriment to be a deal-breaker for me. Ending was a bit of a letdown, TBH. Would've liked a little more work into resolving it. Overall, solid work. Based on your submission letter, it sounds like you've only improved from here, so I'm really looking forward to hearing more from you. YES

Excellent votes above that really nail both the strengths and main issues with this track. The drums stay on essentially the same pattern for so long (with the occasional fill thrown in). As mentioned, there isn't much dynamic contrast throughout, just a very gradual increasing of intensity throughout the entire piece. The elements don't quite all gel together here. For example, the bagpipe lead (uilleann pipes I guess?) are really dry and mono sounding, which sticks out above the wider, wetter backing parts. Another example is the whistle (irish whistle? I need to learn these names) that plays at :00, :46, etc is another example of the same issue. Some tasteful reverb applied to both orchestral and lead parts and better stereo spacing could really help in this regard, you just need to be careful not to overdo it. The arrangement really is the high point here. There's SO much content from various sources in the game, but you've integrated them to compliment the underpinning source pieces (like Star of Tears throughout). Really would like to hear a better blend of instruments and the drums looked at for sure, as well as a bit more contrast in the flow, so we can hear this one again. NO resubmit, please

Definitely feeling crits from both votes here - Palp's for the simplistic partwriting/execution & Chimp's for the production quality. Arrangement manages to avoid sounding like a medley with good cohesion between them. I wasn't able to pinpoint every element used from all 9(!) sources as it's difficult not being familiar with the original soundtrack. But I did connect most of them. Most of the performance relies on repeated left hand patterns, with pretty straightforward melody lines on the right; hence the comment about simplisticity. Not sure it's enough to carry what's essentially a solo piano piece with a couple supporting elements. Also, occasionally (like :57, 2:28, etc) a third piano part pops in, which feels a bit odd if it's meant to sound like a live performance. Unfortunately, I'm much more on Kristina's side of the fence regarding production. The overall track volume is very quiet. The piano tone is pretty small (as in centered, without much body or stereo presence) and has a very dull tone - indicative of a poor quality recording. As integral as the piano is to the arrangement, it realy needs to be more strongly produced IMO. The shaker has a very thin tone and is barely present. Overall, I really feel like it would need quite a bit of work on the production side to meet the bar in that respect. Sorry to sound so negative here. You've clearly got a lot of talent when it comes to piano playing and singing, so I don't want you to feel discouraged. This piece in particular just isn't up to the bar that's been set here. Keep at it! NO resubmit, please

Production is hot (no surprise there). Great balance and nice synth lead work throughout. Lots of good ideas on display and an always progressing flow keep it interesting throughout. Man, loving the arrangement work on Aquatic Ruin for the first 50 seconds of the song. Having trouble making connections on the rest, so I'm gonna stopwatch this one based on what I can concretely hear: :00-:46 - Aquatic ruin :46-:57 - Original. The chords from the cited section of Rusty Ruin sound somewhat similar to OST; original bassline. Not enough to call a connection IMO. :58-1:16 - Heavily modified melody from :23 of Rusty Ruin Act 2 (This was really hard to pin down). It basically uses the first 8 notes of the 15 note melody line, but in a significantly altered progression. Too much of a stretch to count IMO. 1:17-1:44 - RR Act 1 :43. Based on the piano part, but sped up. Repeats twice. 1:45-2:03 - Back to the same heavily modified melody from :58. Again, too liberal to count for me. 2:04-2:31 - Original soloing over the same chords from :58/1:45. 2:32-2:58 - Back to Aquatic Ruin melody line. Total song is 3:04 or 184 seconds, needing 92 seconds to hit the proverbial 50% bar. Counting above, I get 102 seconds of source connection or 55.4%. Despite having to rule out 3 of the 4 cited Rusty Ruin arrangement sections, this squeaks over the line by 10 seconds - and, honestly, I'm not as stringent as Larry on negating seconds between melody iterations and such, so his count would likely be lower. That said, I'd love for a second J opinion to make sure I'm not missing anything. YES

Not much to add to what's already been said. Writing is up to Rexy's usual high standards. Arrangement is fun and explores various ways to interpret the original melody lines. Snare does kinda stick out like a sore thumb, but it's not terrible, just sort of there. The later stringed lead wasn't as strong as the earlier synth lead to me and the sequencing had some overlapping/unnatural note transitions. It was a bit hard to tell if it was trying to be a natural sounding violin or a synth-y one. Overall, these are more than made up for by the general clean production and great writing. YES

Cool OST. Very atmospheric, though, and not a lot of content to work with. Let's see what you've done with it... Opening is very quiet/subdued, but it does start to get my attention once the main percussion elements come in. So far, this is sounding pretty similar to the original in both style and flow with some swapping of instruments from synths to guitars. Finally, we do get some meaningful expansion & personilzation with the addition of the orchestral elements. Nice, gritty sound coming out of the guitars/synth & powerful drums. The sfz orchestral parts starting at 1:23 were a good idea, but sounded awkward in execution. Like the samples weren't quite up to the writing. The soundscape was already getting a bit dense before with the addition of orchestra at 1:12, but the song gradually gets more and more cluttered with the increasing volumes of the orchestra hits and added guitar lead, peaking around 1:51. Because of this, the guitar lead gets almost lost within the soundfield (I didn't really notice it was there initially, TBH). Gotta work on balancing various parts so they don't overlap too heavily on each other, even in loud, intense sections. Back to arrangement, I can't help feeling that this one is underdeveloped as is. You've got some excellent ideas and a really nice, dark feel to the song. But it feels like we get a quick survey of your ideas and then the track ends. Really would like to hear if you can squeeze more out of this source, despite how short it is. As is, a full third of the track is dedicated to intro - you could argue that it doesn't really get going until 1:41, honestly - and as good of ideas and cool sounds that you've brought here, I'd really love to hear more. In and of itself, I not sure whether or not the arrangement is developed enough is a dealbreaker for me, however, combined with the mixing issues, it's pushing me to NO territory. I can't stress enough though that the ideas and sounds you've established here are awesome and I really hope we get this one on the site in one form or another. NO resubmit, please

Arrangement-wise, the intro plays it really close to the source with just a key changeup. However, it gets quite a bit more expansive as soon as the main elements all join in. Good use of source material as the main driver of the melodic content in the mix. The production side is when things get problematic for me. As soon as it kicks in at :25, things are already sounding indistinct with the way they are mixed heavy in the mid range and reverb levels. Once 1:04 pops in, more instruments join in the same mid range eq, which clutters up the soundscape a lot. Once you layer the drum tom fills on top of this, things start sounding distorted due to pushing the compression too hard. I'd recommend taking another look at the mixing and try to get the guitar parts & low strings not to overlap too much in their frequency levels. Also, watch the high mids between piano, trumpets, & strings to try and give each section their own space. Drums sound a bit distant, but that's not necessarily a bad thing in symphonic rock. One could argue they could come forward a bit, but that's a matter of taste I think. Speaking of drums, I would've liked to hear a bit more variation in their writing. I do hear where it fills either every 4 or 8 bars, but there are times in the piece where a long stretch of the exact same drum pattern will play. It's a relatively minor point for me, but worth noting. I've focused a lot on criticisms here, but overall this is a really sweet track. The writing is really well done and there are excellent ideas on display here. I just think it could use some production tweaking to get it to reach the bar in that regard. NO resubmit, please

Really enjoying this track. Great palette of sounds you've put together here. I felt that both sources were well integrated here and actually liked the change-up that the Edward theme brought. Very clear use of both sources with a good amount of personalization in the writing and structure. Production is solid overall; not much to say there. Ending felt a bit underwhelming & tacked on, but not a huge deal. It's a short track too and I do kind of wish more material was used from Penlo, but what is here works. YES

Good points already brought up in this thread. This really feels like it gets stuck in second gear throughout the track. There's a good deal of repetition throughout, with subsequent iterations of the melody line being joined by an extra hihat hit or a doubling of the melody line with a guitar synth. In general, this needs more development and possibly some trimming as well given the song length. Sound choices are a mixed bag for me. I'm not quite as put off as Emu on the sound choices, but I do feel like certain elements aren't working here. The chip lead feels out of place in the context and doesn't have enough power to carry the melody lines in the genre context IMO. Hihat pattern is really robotic and sounds low quality/lossy. Core beat work sounds pretty strong in general, though it could use a lot more variation. Guitar lead sounds a bit weird with the vibrato and doesn't really cut through the mix as it should (lacking upper-end eq). As mentioned by Kristina, beyond the repetativeness this does sound pretty empty and could use some supporting parts & writing to flesh out the track. Good start, but needs quite a bit more development and production love. NO resubmit, please

Very beautiful take on the source here. I like the variations you've added in the first two go-arounds with the melody. Original part writing was also a nice touch. But Larry makes an excellent point above regarding the arrangement - as a whole, it just feels underdeveloped. Once the piano/pad/sfx is established, it basically stays in that same gear for the remainder of the piece while reiterating a slightly different version of the same melody line. It only clocks in at 2:09, and while it's possible to achieve a fully realized arrangement in that length of time, I don't think this quite does. That said, there's plenty of time (musically speaking) to work with here. There's some unused source material as well if you wanna go there. Man, I don't know if it's the specific download source here, but this sounds really loudly mixed, especially in the mid/high range. No one else mentioned it, so I guess I could be grandpa-ing it. It really is a beautiful track here, but I feel like it needs some further development/writing. NO resubmit, please