Rozovian

There's _a lot_ of bass here. Probably too much. I like the first minute, feels very slow and deliberate. The second minute not so much. The timpani at 2:12 does quite fit in. The concept is right, but the sound doesn't work. With the new drum rhythm, the 2:32 part works better than the previous take on this part of the source. There's a slow compressor on the timpani, which affects its reverb a bit too much. You can probably relax that one with a higher threshold and a lower ratio. Not necessary a lot, but some. Some good, some bad. There's pieces in here that would make a great atmospheric metroid remix, and other parts that don't quite fit. Cool stuff, dude.

This is marked mod review, and nothing's happened in the past months? Our bad. Unless it was only recently tagged. I only noticed it because of your username, when this thread appeared among others marked for mod rev. We should look into how we do things so stuff doesn't fall between the cracks like this. High sustained strings, and the choir when exposed feel rather sample-y, but the rest of the instrumentation is convincing enough for me. If orchestras weren't rather expensive to hire for realz, and judging only by the sound and not the game music remix context, I might believe this was a real orchestra. What samples and reverb are you using? No source link, but I looked it up anyway. I think cover is a good description for it. Good orchestral covers are a bit more elaborate than guitar or electronic covers generally are, in that there's more arrangement that goes into it, but it feels a lot like a cover rather than a brand new arrangement. I don't think it's too conservative for ocr, but I can't say for sure. It's rather short, but I think there's plenty of expanding on the source in there. It depends on whether the conservative structure of the remix is too cover-y for ocr, but I can't think of anything else that would warrant a NO for this. Possibly too short or too conservative, but I leaning towards this getting accepted if submitted. Really nice track.

I'm not sold on the orchestra. Whether it's the samples, the reverb, or some other part of it, it's not convincing enough. The percussion especially stands out, but there's the usual slow attacks on strings and other typical realism/performance issues. I think part of the problem is that the sax performance, the strings, and the percussion don't quite fit together. This could be a mix issue, but I think your insistence on maintaining the bombastic feel of the source is the cause of it. A smaller-scale percussion set and a smaller reverb size might be more fitting. Everything is doable, something are just more difficult to fit together than others. You're not making it easy for yourself with this combo. The sax is a lot more lively than the rest of the track, which is good since it's the lead instrument. It's also mixed too loud. I'm not sure panning the lead sax so far right is a good idea. It might work once the levels are brought down to something a little more balanced, since it plays in tandem with the melody panned left. Difficult to say. Overall levels are fine, so it's just about finding the balance between tracks. The arrangement is rather conservative to its structure. There's a few things missing, and the sax performance does a few new things. I tend to be a lot more liberal with the source, so this is too conservative for my own style... but I also know I'm lean on the liberal side in this. It's entirely up to whether the subtractions, slightly different instrumentation, and sax performance is enough. There's a few really cool details in here. What the strings are doing around 2:00, the sax (if a bit excessive with embellishments at times), and the transitions between parts especially. It's got a nice flow, and I can't attribute that solely to the source. That said, I don't this is a pass. Not yet. The arrangement is definitely conservative, but I don't think it's _too_ conservative. The orchestral parts aren't quite on the level, and there are still mixing things to do. Overall, nice work. Not quite there yet, but it's close.

First, apologies for the very late mod review. Some weird timing things in the intro. I don't terribly mind, but I'd be remiss not to mention it. Slow attack on the string thing 0:50 makes it sound like it's lagging behind. Sounds like a crash is missing from 1:01, and from similar places later as well. Nice piano sound 1:13. Hats and cymbals could be a little louder and a little brighter, because I can barely hear them. It's not just my ears, is it? Overall needs to be louder. Not necessarily by much, but it's lacking impact on my setup. I would probably fiddle with the compression, add side-chaining or give the parts that should have more impact a tiny nudge in level, maybe all of these. At 2:50 I'm hoping it'd end. Seeing it's only about half way, I'm a bit concerned about how it'll work. I'm glad you're changing it up after that point, but I wonder if it's a little too late. Giving the earlier parts more impact might solve this. I would look into mixing up the chord sequence some, though. It's currently just Em-D-C-D through most of the track. No wonder it gets repetitive. Even if you don't change it much, you can do a lot by switching one or two of the chords every once in a while, to signal a new part, to serve as punctuation, whatever. You can swap out either D for a Bm(7), the C for a G or Am, depending on the notes you use in the other parts. The Em works well to keep the mood, but you can swap it for an Em7 or a G/E from time to time. Modifications to an otherwise repeating chord sequence is a way to signal progression to the listener, and helps keep the track a little more interesting. It might not always be necessary, but it often helps. Snare sounds like it's lacking mids. You could easily bring down the synth lead and give the snare a bit more mids instead. Ending is really cool. Source is there, nicely adapted. I'm cool with the source usage. Overall, nice work. It might be a pass, but I would personally want it to be better before I was satisfied.

If you're talking about modern video game music, you're not likely to make it _better_, even after yours of experience. But making it better shouldn't be your goal, either. Your goal should be to make it your own. Have a listen to a few remixes of recent games and compare them to the originals. You'll find that the remixes are often in a new genre, have a new mood, or does something very differently. With older source materials, especially chiptunes and their like, they were limited in polyphony, instrument realism, and mixing. Those are easier to just upgrade, but that's not nearly as much fun as taking the melodies out of them and putting them in a new context, be that a specific instrumentation, genre, mood, rhythm, or something else. You can look at the different remixes of the same source to find how people have used the same melodies to different results. Another way to approach it is to think about your skills, your sound, the kind of music you can make. What source would be a good fit for that? Some remixers are guitarists and most of their remixes rely heavily on guitars. Some remixers are club-oriented producers, and make music that'd fit the club scene. Some remixers mostly just play piano. Some remixers make orchestral arrangements. Some remixers are real-life jazz bands. Some remixers make things more like covers. Some remixers twist the source so it's barely recognizable. Some remixers play cello and make chiptunes. Whatever your skillset, whatever the style of music you make; what would be a good source to remix in that style? A very educational approach is to pick a style (eg Pendulum) and try to remix something into that style. It'll teach you structure, it'll give you a reference track to compare production and performance to, and you'll be forced to adapt the source in different ways to make it fit. Some melodies are easier than others. The theme from Halo would be easy to adapt to almost anything. Some sources can be very difficult because what makes them recognizable is the style more than the melody itself, like the strange scale used in the Left 4 Dead games' music. If your thing isn't "better than Koji Kondo" but instead "what if x... had lyrics" or "everything can be a waltz" or "all synth, all original synth patches" or something like that, you've got your own thing. Do that instead. Have many things of your own to try, and see which ones work. In my case, it's been chopping up the source, and basslines. Mostly. This isn't an exhaustive list of ways to remix things, either.

Keep in mind that the final result is a combination of things. I generalize those things into three groups: the writing, the performance, and the production. Music theory is all about the writing, or what to play. Performance is how to play it. Production is how to make it sound good for the listener. You can think of music as voice acting. Writing is the words, obviously. Performance is the voice. Production is the microphone. In electronic music, the performance takes a back seat to sound design, but they serve to fill the same role, which is to infuse the notes with emotion that the notes themselves don't have. Changes in timbre, timing and strength combine to create an illusion of performance. In your case, I would just keep making music, seeking out criticism and advice, trying new things, studying new things, listening to all kinds of music, and overall engaging with music in every way. I've seen that OCR is a pretty good community for this stuff, as it takes around 2 years for remixers to get their remixes posted here. Some have more experience than others, and get there faster. Others come here with little or no music skill and it takes a little longer. Those with more time and energy to put into the remixing get there sooner. It takes years to get good at this, years of making music, learning new things, finding mistakes, and developing your skills. The most important skill to develop is your critical ear.

Neblix already covered melodies rather well, so I'll focus on instrumentation and mixing. There's also rhythms, but I'll let someone else cover that. Let's use Prisoners for this example. 0:00 Right from the start, the drums stand out in a bad way. This is when you need to figure out what kind of sound you want, and design that sound. Drums are often layered, so that eg two snares with different good qualities are combined into the same snare sound, maybe one with a nice strong attack and the other with a nice long body and tail. They are also processed with different effects to make sure they have their own place in the mix... that they're the right amount of loud at the right time at the right frequencies. 0:04 Once the chords come in, the bells are probably too loud and clutter up the soundscape with their shrill sound. I would bring down their levels quite a bit there, and again when the piano comes in, if I wouldn't remove them entirely at that point in favor of a cleaner mix. I could also combine the bell melody with the slower melody that comes in with the chords, to cover that range and bring a bit more rhythm to the track, but that's not mix/sound design. 0:13 The piano is rather loud and rather exposed, and has an annoying reverb. I would soften its reverb. I'd adjust the piano's sound to give it a little more punch, just so I could play it at a lower level and still have it get through enough. 0:30 The bass is panned. Don't do that. Most of the time, the bass works best centered, for both technical and aesthetic reasons. I won't go into the bass' rhythm or melody. It plays on top of the kick drum, and has a similar kind of sound. That doesn't work, because I can't hear the kick anymore after the bass started playing. For some genres, you'd want the kick to peak at a lower frequency than the bass, for some genres vice versa, but you don't want them to fight over the same frequency. This is where you change one of them so it has different qualities, eg stronger sub, punch at a different frequency, brighter overall sound... The synths/samples you use affect this the most, so adjusting those is the best course of action here. Other solutions include transposing the bass, and separating them with an equalizer. 0:48 The trance synth doesn't quite fit the aesthetic. There's also a ton of stuff happening in the track right now, making it a mess to listen to, especially as there is no clear lead. This is both a mixing and an arrangement issue. The mixing issue is best solved by picking a track to be the lead, deciding a frequency range that it's got a clear sound in, and cutting down that frequency a little from the other instruments. It's good to do, but it's not a replacement for solving problems in the arrangement. My guess is that you're using a lot of presets without modifying them much. timaeus already suggesting learning to make your own sounds. Even if you go back to presets after that, you'll know how to adjust those presets to better fit the rest of the instrumentation. Beyond fiddling with the instruments themselves, you should learn how to use effects. the basic ones, the ones everyone into this should know the basics of, are equalizer, compressor, reverb; and most importantly and often neglected: track level (volume). This track isn't that different than the stuff I made when I was 16, except you've turned to people for criticism much earlier than I did, and are taking music courses in college. Learn to identify things you're not happy with, and find solutions to those things. That's how you learn.

No idea what was shown, but ocr staff has the release schedule, so they'd know what gets released this year, and several of them are involved in OCU. The album is done and being evaluated by ocr staff. There's still a few things (art and website-related, mostly) that we need to do before we could release this. You're not the only one looking forward to this album's release. With the music being done, it irks me that we can't just release the album right now (or even months ago), but ocr has an album release schedule and queue for a reason. We should be ready for release this year, but the actual release seems to be next year. Can't cut in line.

I'm on it. PMd.

This is a tough one. The sources are there, the performance is there... I'm a little concerned about the sound of the piano. It sounds... boxy, or something. It's not a noticeable problem for most of the track, but the louder, lower notes sound weird to me. I'm not sure this is an objective or subjective criticism. It's difficult to find a groove. Or rather, it's difficult to follow the grooves, since you break the rhythms a lot. To my ears, not that well accustomed to jazz piano, it sounds like there's problems with the timing. I get that the breaking of the rhythm is intentional, but even when I'm expecting it, I'm not hearing them as quite as intentional as I would like to. There are some cool harmonies in here, cool chords. Sometimes they fit really well, other times they seem odd for the sake of oddity. I think the main problem with the track is that I can't tell what's intentional and jazz, and what's sloppy or arbitrary. Maybe that's more my fault than yours. I don't know. But either way, it makes it difficult for me to listen to the track. I really can't say much about this track with any certainty. Can another mod, someone with a better ear for this kind of music, have a listen?

Probably. But as long as it doesn't inflate the posts' vertical space, I don't care where the buttons are. Right now, each post is made up of -a bar with username and post number -posted date -actual post -like button -sig -report, quote, and multiquote buttons Even with sigs disabled, the posts take up a lot of vertical space, most of which is white empty nothingness. the Like button shouldn't be its own row. The posted date shouldn't be on a row all by itself. I'm okay with these things sharing a row with the quote buttons or username or something, but where they are now is making the posts unnecessarily tall. Short posts, like my previous one, have a lot of unnecessary space because of things in the left-hand user information bar, which is made up of -title -avatar -user group/rank -two dots that mean something, or two stars that mean mod or admin -post number -warning points, which only shows up on my own posts -location This stuff inflates the short posts unnecessarily, and I would suggest this stuff be optional and only appear when there's actually room for it.

I decided to test how much space I could get rid of by moving some post elements around. The result is about 130 pixels. That's actually a lot, especially on a small screen, where only two or three posts are visible at a time.

I remember your tracks from a while back. This feels like an improvement since then, more deliberate, more cohesive. Consider space. The first instruments are very dry and exposed. Some subtle (or even not-so-subtle) reverb would. The guitar, about a minute in, has plenty of reverb, as does the snare. They might need a bit less. Experiment with how much reverb you give each element. If you're concerned about processing power, just make a reverb bus, and duck it under your foreground elements. Around 2:20, there's some noticeable compression issues. I don't think the track needs to be this loud, but if you want it this loud, see if you can find a better way to raise the loudness. Consider and experiment with limiters, multiband compressors, harmonic distortion, and EQ. Performance, of the guitar especially, is a bit lackluster. I'm not buying it as a live instrument, but I'm okay with its level of fakeness. More human, performance-y qualities would help it be a bit more expressive, which it could use, being a lead and all. I like the arrangement. It could be tighter, transition better between parts (eg the 0:57 transition comes with no forewarning, no "punctuation", it just happens; 1:16 is much better simply from increasing intensity rather than reducing it), but it's a pretty cool take on the source. Most remixes of anything Norfair are thick, dark, and aggressive. This is more minimal, clean, even a bit groovy. It's far from perfect, but it's enjoyable.

Just ignored all signatures, still a lot of scrolling involved in reading this place, especially on a laptop screen. So far, that's the only issue I have. Besides not recognizing people by their new avatars.

Stylish. Soooo much space. So much scrolling. I miss the ability to login without having to click a login link.

I'll just check to see if I agree with the judges. Drums do feel repetitive at times. The first pattern isn't a problem imo, since it gets a few more layers added to it. The second pattern has more problems. I can't tell whether you were building up or breaking down around 1:40. Although the rhythms fit together, the drums are more driving than the rest of the instrumentation which becomes a problem. 3:00 you're again either building up or breaking down, but the track isn't giving any indication as to which it is. I would recommend building some dynamics into these parts. You can EQ out some particular element of it, and automate that eq band's level. You can have an additional layer that supports some of the elements in the loop, but not all of them, while lowering the loop's level. Something like that would give you more control of the dynamics and rhythms, which I feel is the source of the repetition problem your drums still have. From 2:10 you find a groove and just sit at that level. And the drums have their own groove, separate from the rest of the instrumentation, and from the dynamics of the track. I think that's the problem with the drums, not repetition per se. The panning of stuff is a bit left-oriented. Our ears pick up the direction best from high frequencies, so having multiple high-frequency sources panned left while few panned right makes everything seem like it's coming from the left speaker. Around 2:30, the xylophone is a bit too loud compared to the rest of the instrumentation. There might be a little too much reverb on it too, try reducing its reverb slightly, see if it sounds cleaner without sounding dry and exposed. Transitions are clunky. The first one is fine, but when you've already done one clunky transition, the second one stands out. I get that it leads into the ending. It might work if the dynamics of the preceding part felt more climactic, so this ending part feels more like a bonus tacked on at the end, than something that _must_ be there. The orchestral elements, which I know soooo much about, seem better than Palpable covered in his vote, although in places like 2:50 there are still late notes and other things to improve. There are other oddities, like softer notes on the beat when you'd expect the notes to be a bit stronger. Integrating the orchestral elements' dynamics into the groove of the drums might help. I don't have any realism concerns, in part because the orchestra is good enough for its background role and only the xylophone would is far enough in the foreground to be an issue imo. What's with the weird stray note at the very end? Slightly softer xylophone, and the drums better integrated with the dynamics of the track, and I'd be okay with it. The judges might want more edits than I do. Cool track. I'm especially digging the DnB-ish first minute. Nice choice of sources, nice take on them.

Not a big fan of the synth design in the intro, but the other sounds there are fine. 0:37, something's iffy about the instrumentation, either its not fake enough, or its too fake. It finds itself in a slightly middle-eastern sound. the only problem I have with it around 2:00 is that it's kept essentially the same rhythm throughout. Though that gets broken up shortly thereafter, an easrlier rhythm variation or break or something might make it feel less reptitive. The break around 2:40 seems like it could be, at least for the first notes, more... broken, breaky. Dynamics. Not sure that'll fit your idea for the track, but it's something I advise you to consider. 3:20, getting repetitive again. You're relying a lot on the same elements, and they're getting old. 3:40, finally a properly new part. 5:04, I've lost interest. Sound-wise, it's not bad, although it could use more high-frequency rhythm content. Consider cymbals, tambourine, and shakers. There might be some stuff in there, but it's buried quite far in the mix. Ending on the NES source. Nice choice. Source usage isn't a problem imo, nor is interpretation. There's stuff everywhere, appropriately adapted. The main problem I hear is the repetition and the length, two problem that are both solved by the terrible prospect of cutting out some length. I think that there's stuff in the 0:36-2:00 part that could be cut. I'm not saying this can't work at this length, but it'd need either a stronger groove, or more dynamics. Figuring out how to do that when you're too close to the arrangement is tricky, so I recommend cutting unnecessary repetition, possibly some of the really cool transitions and things along with them if necessary. The lack of a strong bassline or beat makes it easier to get lost in the track. On one hand, this can be a good thing, for more floating-vibed things. But for a track like this, I don't think it works. Not at this length. Length/repetition, some sound design, some lack of dynamics. These are, fortunately, among the better problems to have, the ones that are more easily solved than problems with the interpretation or big production problems. Nice work.

No worries, I'm still here. I recommend you keep the most recent update in the first post. Nothing wrong with keeping older version too, but the first post is where I, and possibly others, go to get the source link, and it's convenient to have the remix there too. Alternative, post the source link in the newest post when you update the remix for mod review. This has those additional ideas I wanted from the first version, but some of the technical problems persist. Transition at 0:10 is a bit too subtle. The reverb is still too heavy. If you can (depends on the sound library you're using), reduce the reverb, switch to a closer mic position, or something. The snare is annoying. Not sure if it's the panning, the reverb, the level, or the writing, but something about it bothers me. The glockenspiel near the end is a bit too loud. The brass could still use some work. The slow attacks of the low brass makes them feel sloppy and lazy, but they could be moved back (in time) a little to align better with the beat. The supporting brass melodies (and stabs) feel a bit too mechanical though I can't figure out exactly what the problem is. The sustained strings notes in the melodies have a similar problem. They don't feel real. I'm not sure where to draw the line whether this is good enough for ocr or not. It still has things to improve on, but the most important thing, the arrangement, sounds fine to my non-orchestral ears. You could sub it and wait for the judges' feedback on it. Maybe it'll pass, or maybe you just get a No(resub) set of crits. You could ask someone better versed in orchestral mixes (and EWQL's stuff) for feedback before submitting. Nice take on the sources.

First post, since it was recently edited, I assume the link is updated. Which seems like a wrong assumption in this case. I'll check out the correct version later.

Appropriate title. Nice. I'm not sure if it's terrible or brilliant sound design to have aggressive guitar and drums and nice soft vibraphone things. I guess it depends on your intent. But I like it. Yeah, drum writing is simplistic. Pretend to be a drummer, wave your arms around and imagine what you hit. There's more than just snare, hat, kick, and crash in a drum kit. Mixing seems to have trouble deciding what's important. Drums and guitar fall way into the background towards the end of the track. Not sure how intentional that is. There's a few other parts where things jump out of the mix, or seem buried way too deep. Sort out how loud you need each element to be, and what's most important at any given time. Source is there, most noticeably the altered lead that drops out a few of the shorter notes. Might need a take or two where it's more obvious. Not sure. Melody around 1:30 is rather weird. I guess it's supposed to reference the 0:22 part of source, but it sounds like random notes. Needs to be more deliberate to work. The guitar being so soft makes it sound like random scratches in the background. Starts around 1:30-ish, but gets really annoying when the vibraphone comes in at 1:54. Arrangement seems to be a fairly straight adaptation of the source, but I think it's sufficiently personalized to not be a problem. I'd give it a NO (resub). It's has potential, and feels like a good track to get up to ocr level. Most of the problems are technical rather than creative, so you don't have to deal with the interpretation/direction/arrangement issues that a technically good but too cover-ish track would have. Work on the mix, the drum writing, and the weird writing around 1:30. Not done yet. Nice work so far.

That snare thinks it's a hihat. I'll just go by the judges' comments to see if I agree wit their crits. If not, it should be good to go. Not sure the timestamps are the same, but I'll pretend they are. Mix needs tightening? Nah. Snare timbre issue, too breakbeat-y? Yeah, I'm not a fan of the snare(s). Not a lot of lead to grab until 1:11? Nah, the bass from 0:24 is enough for me. In the 0:09-0:26 part I might agree, but it's a much smaller part of the track. Melody 1:11-26 lacks contour? It's softer, but I'd chalk that up to dynamics or something. I'm cool with it. 1:59-2:15 filler-y/out of place? Might be a bit more performance-y than the rest of the track, but not a big deal for me. 2:46 anticlimactic? Well, it's _missing_, so... The ending doesn't have a lot of oomph, and I think going from the high-pitch melody stuff straight to an ending without a reprise of a chorus part is what makes the ending feel a bit weak. Lacking something to sound cohesive? Not imo. Lacking expressiveness in the leads? They seems to have some automated filter on them. This could instead be a more deliberate thing for added expression, manually screwing with a parametric EQ peak or something. I think automating some parameter of the synths and using that to add some expression to the synths would be the best solution here. The background melody at 1:47 has a filter on it, and it moves expressively in that area. That's cool. The leads could use something for added expression, too. Needs EQ work? Not imo. Maybe in sorting out the snare. 1:59-2:15 no clear lead? I'm cool with this part. Mid freqs should be tamed? Nah. Seems fine to me. For the most part, I think you've addressed the issues the judges had. I'd look into the snare and the leads a bit more; the rest seems good enough to me. Lead timbres are fine, they just need a little extra for expression. Mod wheel vibrato, filter motion, something deliberate. Snare might need replacing altogether. It seems you've got multiple snares, it might be enough to swap the supporting snares for a softer alternative. Not sure. Still things to do, but whether those things are necessary to get this track posted is difficult to say. Nice work. I especially like the little fm percussion/ring mod elements in there.

No. I don't think a one-minute piece is enough length for this to be a complete song on its own. Just on that I'd reject this. I'd also reject it on a lack of "performance", that it sounds written but not performed. The writing, isn't a problem (except the drums), but you'd need to go mess with it more, velocities, timings, midi cc, to make it sound less like something sequenced and more like something performed. The brass melodies are quite good, but the brass stabs in the background really aren't. Oh and the drums. You treat the snare less like an orchestra snare and more like a rock snare. I'm sure it's been done, but I don't think it works, at least in this context. It seems a bit too heavily reverbed. Not sure this is something you can change in EWQLSP. You should also sort out your mixing. The xylophone is really loud compared to other elements of the track. Nice interpretation, nice writing. I suggest you play around with the melodies, in a separate project or on a real instrument, just to come up with some new things you can do with it. Try different chords, different modes, different rhythms, different registers. You could just stretch the ideas you currently have, but I don't think that would make for a good arrangement. Needs more humanization, mixing, ideas on where to go with the track.

Don't I know it. My sample of two indicates it's Probably Not Techno (Maybe). Been looking forward to a proper but easy-to-use genre system that can handle the mixed genres and stuff on ocremix. This makes a lot of sense. Glad to see it's finally out, even if it's just beta.

Seems like a good track to use to improve your mixing chops. I'd bring out the kick and snare more, and leave more highs in the lead guitar.

It was off to such a great start, but then the dry lead piano came in too loud and messed it up. It's a difficult track to harmonize well, and it shows. There's small parts that work well, others that don't, and it'd take a long time for me to list them all. There's a few rhythm issues between delays and note timings might need some cleaning up, and the guitar that comes in near the end doesn't quite mesh with the overall sound. I see you're aiming for ocr. The intro makes me believe you can do it. There's a few other really cool things in here, and the thing holding the track back is how you've used the source. The sound design of the source-playing lead, the very one-handed feel of that instrument, the harmonization; I find the source to be the biggest problem here. Sort out how you incorporate the source into the track, and you've got a really promising track here. Digging the concept? You bet I am.