Palpable

We figured adding dates to the queue was good for giving us some more accountibility. I believe that Marathon/Halo mix actually isn't that old, but was subbed to us in July, then revoked, then a new version was sent later.

Halo 3 - Finish the FightMight be missing something but I heard very little Finish the Fight in your arrangement. Maybe some similar chord progressions but nothing that directly references the melody. It's a pretty nice arrangement, but it's more like a track that matches the mood of the Halo soundtrack rather than an arrangement of a specific song. If someone can point out connections, I'd be ok on the arrangement end. The guitar though! Man, that really hampers the piece; the quality is much much lower than the rest of the song. And you used it a fair bit too, so it's hard to overlook. I'm gonna call it a NO on that basis. It really needs to be more natural to match the realism of the rest of the song, consider asking someone to play it. Sorry that it comes down to that, but it's a big detail. NO

Not a bad recording, but won't cut it as an arrangement for OCR. The bass is the only thing connecting this to the original song and you can't hear it most of the time. It'd have to be a more prominent element and used more creatively. What you've got here is mostly original. NO

Arrangement was not bad, a sort of light funk take. There were some cool sounds and moments. Lot of elements felt thin though and I think some beefier instruments would have worked better. Ending was weird, not sure what to think of it. Mixing needed some work. Lead is too loud, 1:00 section is too loud, 2:23 doesn't have the fullness it needs. Overall the mix feels unpolished. I wouldn't have minded more reverb or elements that filled out the background too. A lot of stuff feels foreground-y. I don't think it's quite there yet, and I'd like to see another go at it. NO (resubmit)

Yeah this is too similar to the source, and on top of it, repeated a lot for its course. Even though you added new elements, the repetitions were really apparent, and this needed more of a dynamic curve to withstand such repetitions. Sound is decent, but that won't cut it. NO

Yeah this was excellent, especially for being improvised. I liked that you invoked quotes from the melody in your soloing, but I don't think we can pass this. The progression is definitely not enough of a tie in my mind to count so much of it, so the arrangement is too liberal. On top of that, it would have to be >96kbps avg to fit our sound quality criteria. But yeah, I'm glad you are still eager to submit more to us. I think with a shorter arrangement that uses the source more directly, you could definitely hit the front page. NO

I'm sorry, I just don't get this soundtrack. The voices! They hurt my brain! Here's my breakdown: 0:00-0:04, 0:06-0:10 - similar to guitar at 0:00-0:02, but different in notes and rhythm 0:23-0:32, 0:35-0:45: verse melody 0:45-0:52: chorus melody 0:56-0:58: guitar lead-in to chorus 0:58-1:02: chorus melody 1:17-1:24: verse melody 1:36-1:38: guitar lead-in to chorus 1:38-1:44: chorus melody 1:48-1:50: guitar lead-in to chorus 1:50-1:54: chorus melody 2:40-2:42, 2:51-2:53: guitar lead-in to chorus Giving Sixto credit for all this stuff and rounding numbers in his favor still puts this pretty far below passing, about 37%. So it basically comes down to whether you give him credit for the chord progression, which he altered a little but keeps for nearly the entire song. I always have difficulty with decisions like this, but in this case, I thought it wasn't a particularly unique progression so it wasn't a good enough connection, and 37% direct source is too little to make up the difference. Could easily see this swinging the other way, so I wish you good luck (feel like I end up on the wrong side of these more often than not). It's a pretty tight song, as I expect from you at this point. NO

Sounded like there might have been a little distortion at times, the drums got loud. Felt ok to me though, since it was just for brief moments. What are you going conditional on, Larry? I liked the feel here, a lot of the same instruments but a very different feel. This is pared down to the strings and martial drums for a lot of it, which gives it a cool mood. Huge shift in volume from the quiet sections to the loud ones, but handled well. The strings felt a little unrealistic at times, but I was alright with them. Good take on it, seems like a pass! YES

Hard to get a handle on how the source is used in this. 2:10-2:15, 2:15-3:06, and their repetitions I picked out from stage 2 (track 3 of nsf), but that's pretty much all I found. That's a minority of the song. I get the feeling I'm missing something big here, but it might not matter... I think your sound design is fairly cool, much like Zelda Heineken, but this felt less polished than that song. The transitions were weak and the song felt very segmented. 1:19 dropped the energy you were building up, and the 1:19-2:09 section didn't build much. The guitar sections were cool though the space sometimes felt empty, there could have been more to fill the space. Some additional time spent on mixing could have helped too. So to me the only thing left to decide is whether this should be a NO or NO (resubmit). I'll leave that up to someone else, because I feel like I don't have a good handle there. I don't think this one cuts it either way, Mattias. NO

Yeah I agree with Jimmy. I think we're all saying the same thing here, probably doesn't need any more votes.

What an awful day. First OCR is squatted, then bugmenot decides to start requiring registration.

I have loved hearing this one progress over the past year. I've never been 100% behind the arrangement (those harmonies still sound weird to me in places), but you've given yourself as much chance as you can by improving the production each time. This is sounding great now apart from the piano, as Larry mentioned, but the piano stays in the background for most of the song. Bridge is awesome, perfectly captures Enya. The mixing was a tad crowded but I wasn't bothered. I felt there was enough clarity, and it is comparable to mixes we have passed. So I'm calling this one a YES. I wouldn't be surprised to see this go to conditional on improving the piano, making it sound less dinky, but it felt like a small part of the song to me, and now the rest of it outweighs it. I think this is ready to take the stage. YES Edit (7/3): Sorry, Bastian, but after reading the other comments here, I feel like I really wanted to pass and it's not actually ready. I had lost my objectivity, probably a lot of us had. Now that a few months have passed since I last heard it, and I'm getting to hear it on my home setup rather than my headphones, the problems seem more apparent. Those harmonies really don't sound good to me, and I think they never will. Maybe that could be overlooked if the production was great, but the mixing is still a problem. The vocals are indistinct, and the piano still sounds plinky and should be fuller with more sustain. I'm starting to think a lot of the mixing problems come down to the specific samples chosen - a lot of your sounds overlap with each other, and it might be tough to mix the ones you have into something where you can hear everything distinctly. The arrangement is fine apart from the out-of-tune harmony stuff, but the production just isn't there. Like Larry, I'd recommend getting someone else to help you finish the mixing and provide better samples. Not that I think you can't do it, because you have improved with each version, but someone else may be able to finish this one up quickly. I feel bad that I got so positive about this one only to pull back, but I think this is the right call. NO

Congratulations to you both.

I guess when there's only ~2000 songs to choose from, you've got to get to the dregs eventually.

It was an improvement over the last version, Rashad. Better balancing and filling out the soundscape. Not sure what you did there exactly, but it worked. I'm totally feeling this one up until 1:31. I feel bad telling you last version that the effects were what was making that instrument stand out, because I think it's more the instrument itself that doesn't work. You did work it in better, but it just isn't that compelling as a lead, and I think a sharper sound and maybe higher octave would suit the track better. Possibly reduce the flange. The instrument at 2:15 works better as a lead to me, though even that one could be more compelling. Basically my only concern with this track is 1:32-2:14. If you can fix that lead, I'd be cool with passing this. This pretty much makes this a conditional YES, but with a change that drastic, I don't like to call it a conditional. Please don't give up, dude. This type of dedication to your work will not only help this track, but future tracks. NO (resubmit)

Check out the Bemani series too (Dance Dance Revolution, Beatmania, etc.). They use a ton of classical dance mixes. Didn't you always want to hear Fur Elise with vocals?

You're making orchestral stuff sound totally effortless at this point. Very refined writing and usages of instruments, you can barely tell where your writing begins and Uematsu's writing ends. Loved how the strings handled the chord change at 2:24. It felt a little medley-like to me but not in an awkward way. Still a very cohesive piece. You keep putting out great work, Justin. YES

Nice title. I dunno, I got this vibe for some of the song. The underground music felt really shoehorned in. The overworld music was well integrated though and I liked those parts of the song much more. The way the melody slowly becomes part of the background at 2:08 was very cool. Instruments slotted together nicely. There was some repetition of ideas and some sections that disrupted the flow. I feel pretty ambivalent about it; a lot to like, but not as connected as it needs to be, and some parts that don't work. I was ok with the production, nothing to say there. With some arrangement tweaks, I could see myself liking this a lot, Dennis. NO (resubmit)

I like the choice of chords here and approach given to the source material, I wouldn't have expected this song as such a driving song. The runs in the lead were cool. It felt simple at times, but the arrangement is probably just above the bar. Production is a killer though; after two votes, I'm not saying anything new. Everything sounds so muffled and muddy. Take a good listen to some professional music to get a sense of instrument shapes. Definitely need more high frequencies. Sometimes the playing was unnatural too, but that's a lesser concern. Give it another try, John. NO (resubmit)

The arrangement is similar in sound, but the personalization is obvious. You took a mood implied by the original and made it much stronger, IMO. Both of you are in top form here; DA's voice sounds the strongest I've heard it, and OA's production is smoother and more well-balanced than his previous subs. Great effects on the vocals. I wouldn't have minded the song building up more - bringing in a heavy trip-hop beat halfway through would have been awesome - but this was very cool as is, an easy YES. YES

My own thoughts: I tend to find that tags are just a tool for finding things. I don't think the existence of these tools results in any less music, even less variety of music, being heard, but usually has the opposite effect. The downside mentioned in the FAQ is that it means people won't give things a chance, but I think that is absolutely not true. Technically this information is already there in the form of write-ups, it's just not easy to use. If you can't stand to listen to country, djp's write-up will mention it's country, and the people who truly didn't want to hear it will stop right there. If people who aren't usually into country end up checking it out, it's because they want to give it a chance, or it's featured on the front page, or it's from a game or artist they like. To give you an example from my own life, I couldn't stand jazz for a while until my friend turned me on to Steely Dan. My first reaction to them was "yuck, jazz" until I realized it was the group that did "Do It Again" and "Peg", songs I liked which are more pop than jazz. I got way into the group and got exposure to their more jazzy songs, eventually starting to appreciate the genre more, and because of them I branched into a lot more jazz. In my mind, more information is only a good thing, because it's the connections between things that help you branch out, not the lack of them. With tags, I could see a techno-head finding out that a techno song he likes uses steel guitar and then checking out more songs with steel guitar, dipping into genres he thought he didn't like. Or checking out a techno/rap hybrid song that he might have dismissed initially, if he scanned over djp's write-up and just saw "rap". Then of course, you just get the advantage of helping out the person who really does only like one genre. Even they would get to listen to more music as a result of tags.

Ha. I thought I remembered him saying something like that but I did a quick scan through Morse's thread and didn't see it so I thought I'd made it up.

I'm not sure how long ago that part of the FAQ was written, but I know the idea of tags has been floated by several people (check out this thread, for starters), and without having talked to him, I'd guess djp is probably not as averse to having functional tags rather than genre tags; something that objectively describes the song (violins, synths, vocals) rather than labelling it with a genre which could be contentious. You can practically already do searches on write-ups to get all the mixes where a certain instrument is mentioned, so using tags would just facilitate that.

1:14-1:35 was the only clear usage of the source that I heard. The rest uses the chord progression (a not particularly unique one) and similar melodic lines, but nothing close to 1-to-1. (I'm not the best at picking out source, so obv point out anything I've missed etc.) So to me, the arrangement was nice, good vibe and writing, but not connected enough. It was also a little underdeveloped, going through some repetitions even though it was only two minutes. Weird chord to end on, I didn't think it worked. A more natural guitar lead, preferably real playing, would have helped the song. Strings were also not great, but less noticeable. I was more concerned about the arrangement than the production details, and I don't think it's a pass there. Sorry, Damon. NO (resubmit)

Feel like most everything's been said. The sampled drums make this a NO. It's too much of the track. Arrangement was still cool, certainly not a style we get often, though could have used more variation. The synth and mallets threw me for a bit of a loop, they weren't typically used in 70's boogie songs (at least synth patches like that weren't). But by the end, I was getting used to them. Production was a little off. The synth and mallets didn't sound like they were in the same space as the guitars and drums - needed some different shaping, and adjustment of volume levels. It would take some work to replace those drums, but if you feel you're up to it... NO