Palpable

Lots of diverse sounds here, very interesting. It can be difficult to execute something like this well, but I thought it was pretty cohesive and certainly unique. The first third of the song is a little conservative, keeping the mood and melody similar, while adding new backing parts. But it only gets more interpretative as the song goes on, culminating in the final third, which has a great, prominent triplet piano part. The full pause after the first third was a little strange and I think it might have sounded better without that extra beat of silence. I also think at times instruments are too soft (like in the intro), but it never hurts much. These are small complaints, I'm happy to pass this. YES

My freakin' ears! I played a little bit of Animal Crossing, but this source is... something. Another solid effort, Andrew. Very gentle, and I like the way you highlighted the original melody in different ways. I like your choice of leads throughout, but the one entering at 1:37 was a little overpowering and upfront. That minor key section was a cool addition though. The only other thing I could suggest is maybe using a snare with more bite. There was some space in the higher frequencies of this song and I think a snare with more presence might have filled the gap. A nitpick for sure, but that's pretty much all I can do on this song. Definitely a pass. YES

Sorry to have to put the kibosh on this. Great song for sure, but too liberal. A lot of it hinges on the new chords that open the song. I'd say it's a little closer to 50% than Larry gives it credit for - 2:10-2:34 and 3:14-3:39 uses the same chord progression as the original (but no parts from the original) - but that still puts it dead near 50% with a tenuous connection to the source material for 50 seconds. Your production is nice and clean, but you do hear pops in louder sections. Watch out for those. Definitely want to hear more from you, Tony, cause this was pretty awesome. If you've got something closer to the source, send it in! NO

Great sound, dude, starts atmospheric but becomes so heavy. I haven't heard the original but I could see this fitting a game really well in its own right.

You're starting to make this stuff sound effortless, Justin. This is one of those pieces you can just sink into. The lush atmosphere, the string triplets, and the seamless blending of two themes reminded me a lot of Nick Singer's Forerunner Mixes, but this certainly had your stamp on it too, with the way the strings handled the main melody. The retro synth gave this an unusual character - surprising addition but a creative one. Easy YES, says I. YES

Basically just echoing everything Larry said. Very rough sound overall, and it wasn't far from the original, at least for nearly the first two minutes. There needs to be more substantive interpretation like you have later on - the 1:39 section and the soloing that follows it. The vocals get really off-key and those sections are weak in comparison. Your voice doesn't need to sound professional or anything, but you've at least got to sing the right notes. I realize you're going for an 8-bit sound but some of these sounds are awful. The drums sound even thinner than NES sounds. Some bass presence would give this much more of a groove. The mixing also makes everything blend together. It's hard to make out the different instruments, it sounds flat. Sorry for getting a little harsh here, but you've got a lot of room for improvement. Keep working on your stuff. You've got good ideas but you need to learn how to execute them better. NO

Sorry, but it's pretty much just a cover for the majority of the song. The sounds are gentler than the original, maybe closer to what we'd hear if the game was released today, but pretty much the same notes and parts. I thought that the song was a little thin until 3:20, where there was a pretty dramatic change. I'd like to see a more gradual build-up to that climax. I also thought your drums sounded a little repetitive and the hi-hats maybe a little too loud. Little things like that can have a sizable impact on a mix given enough usage. In short, not right for OCR. Keep working on music, and play with some new parts and ideas if you decide to send us another mix. NO

Yeah, great job with the guitars, guys. I really like the tones you have here too. I wasn't feeling the piece overall though. Besides being mixed strangely, I didn't feel this was very cohesive, even for a more ambient piece. The drums coming in at 1:40 were out-of-place and that was around the point it started feeling a little aimless. There wasn't much in the way of dynamics to that section. The bridge to the Metal Gear Solid main theme was also out-of-place and didn't transition that well. The minimalism of that last section was cool (sort of Durutti Column-esque) but again, felt like it should have been in a different song. You definitely could stand to work on the mixing. The overall volume is too quiet and the sound is washed out. The textures are too thin with what you have, and I think some higher-frequency instruments and maybe more bass would create a fuller picture. This will have to come some way before it could pass. Keep working on it, guys. If this isn't the one that gets you there, try something new. NO

I like some of the ideas here. The second section was really strong (honestly, I think the song would be a lot stronger if it just focused on this section), and the soloing all around was cool. Nice blend of instruments. There are some weaker moments scattered throughout, the intro unfortunately being one of them. The new partwriting there doesn't work that well and the playing is a little too loose. Not a good start. I also think that first section is too conservative, though the soloing and later sections may make up for it. Transitions are abrupt. The drums are weak here, sounding sort of like a keyboard accompaniment. Writing on those drums was not bad, but the sounds are muted. I thought there needed to be more fullness and stronger attacks there to lock in a beat. Other instruments like the guitars and organ sound pretty good. Not quite there, I'm afraid. Good ideas certainly, but they will require some more development. NO (resubmit)

Love the atmosphere here and the freestyling. It's a very smooth listen. I love how you used the item pickup song in the places you did - extremely creative usage, especially those short bursts to cap the phrase. I feel disappointed to say NO to this, but it's definitely too liberal in the other sections, which are the overwhelming majority of the song. If you worked another Metroid song into this and used that as the basis of the other sections, I could see this passing. But I'd totally understand if you didn't want to. The piece is great as is, but to me not right for OCR. Love to see something a little more connected to the source from you guys. NO

Happy birthday, guys. Hope you're both having a good one.

My take is basically Anso's take. I liked the sound of the song, I think it's a good concept but I don't feel that it's quite ready yet. Zebes Rising is a good comparison, but I think that song had a lot more in the way of detail and dynamics, thereby altering the feel of the source material. I thought this song didn't do enough for 6 minutes. The beats were repetitive, and the new backing parts weren't prominent except for the new counter-melodies that Larry noted (some of which were just mimicking the background synth that's from the original). Some changes to melody, some changes to the beat, dynamics, and texture, and maybe even making it shorter would probably put this over the top. I think the production is where it needs to be and the overall concept is solid. I'd like to see another shot at this. NO (resubmit)

It's hard to give anything specific on what is too conservative, because there are a lot of factors involved. I think that's why you get answers like those from zircon and DS above. It takes into account everything listed in the standards: You can't point to any one of these and say there has to be this many changes or this percentage of changes. Even Larry's trademark 50% borderline for a song being too liberal is just a rough guideline, because changes can be significant or marginal, can lose or retain the feel of the original. And there have been songs that have passed with no change to melody, because the remixer changed other parts of the song significantly. Unfortunately, the best way to get an understanding of the standards is just to listen to as many recent, posted mixes as you can.

Wow, can't believe how awesome some of these solutions are. Y'all are a bunch of geniuses. I was pleased I was able to beat Down Under (I think it was the only one I didn't look up the solution for after... The Wall ).

Haha, maybe this is me showing my naivete, but I figured it would be licensed. Yeah, I definitely wouldn't pay for something that wasn't. But assuming it is licensed... I got no problems with people charging for stuff. Sure, this site among others has plenty of free arrangements at the same levels of quality (or higher), but if people want to pay for their arrangements, more power to them.

Wasn't too hot on the Chemical Plant clip, but the Mario World and Street Fighter clips sounded great. Yeah, I dunno why people are getting so down on this. There should be a place for more coverish stuff like this. I even thought the Mario World clip had some sizable additions.

Assuming you've reg'd FLStudio, they've got some video tutorials on their site. I remember finding them somewhat useful a few years back, they may have better stuff now.

I didn't feel there was much to this. The textures hold pretty much the same past a point, and the lead is somewhat buried. I also think the instruments compete a lot and it would have served you to experiment more with sounds and try to find more complementary ones. In fairness, I think the initial synth that kicks off the song is pretty badass, but I was expecting stronger drums, a stronger lead, and more clarity. On top of that, the song needs to be more dynamic, more variation between sections. AnSo is dead on that the delay makes the chords bleed. It's not a good effect here. I think you're gonna have to develop your skills more, dude. Keep working on that. NO

Awesome arrangement, but I really really love the third section, where you go wild on guitar. I was actually anticipating what you would do with that section from the beginning, and you didn't disappoint me at all.

It was quite pleasant to listen to, and I thought you had a lot of neat ideas. There's the positives. The problem with having a lot of ideas is making them sound cohesive. I thought this was all over the place and too random, and I'm typically a fan of the random. Every ten seconds this changes styles and there's little continuity. Also, for every five ideas that work, there's a slowdown or a section like 4:16-4:28 that doesn't work. Definitely too much empty space in this too. Some extra reverb or thicker instruments would help. Some of the instruments have quality issues, again, a problem of having so many ideas. Take a look at your drums especially. Basically you've got to take a more critical eye and remove sections that don't work as well, and replace instruments not as strong as the rest. I think with some tightening up this could be a very cool song. NO

Am I crazy or is the volume the same in the new version?

Always happy to see a resubmit that takes our comments into account. It's nice to know there's a purpose to me explaining my YES or NO. I don't have the last version anymore, but looking at my old comments, I think they're addressed pretty well here. Volume is good, lead is stronger, good balance and clarity. It feels more dynamic. I think I'm comfortable with this as is, no conditional. Nice work! YES

I think you've got a solid groove but a lot. of. repetition. There's small details but I don't feel they're substantial. I totally agree with Mattias that around the 3-minute mark I really wanted to hear some changes, if not before that. The groove holds the same too long, with minor changes, and the melody is pretty much playing the same thing for huge chunks of the song. I just wanted to see more variation all-around, and an intro that gets to the source sooner. Also thought the ending could have been trimmed. Production was pretty good - like I said, I dug your groove. Can only echo previous comments about that synth at 1:54 though, not a great sound, notes were random, and it didn't sit well in the soundscape either. There's good stuff here, but you'll have to do some heavy modification for this to be accepted. NO

Yeah, you can definitely learn to like music, though I'm not sure it's something there's a standard process for. Maybe understanding is a better term, like Kanthos says. I used to hate rap when I was younger. Then at some point in my life, after hearing it so much on the radio and all, I started to like certain rap songs. Strangely then, when I'd hear old rap songs I used to hate, it felt like I was hearing them for the first time, and I even started to really like some of them. I finally understood the underlying appeals of rap. If you've never had a knee-jerk dislike of a genre, I'd say count yourself lucky.

Yeah I think this track is one of the most successful from the project in terms of keeping the original mood. Awesome drums, as has been noted, and I think the theremin adds a lot. Would be a great song for a film soundtrack.