Rozovian

I don't know to what extent you guys listen to early WiPs. I don't see your comments on early WiPs on the forum, that's why I'm saying this. You're hearing what's supposedly the finished product, or something close to. On irc, you're hearing wips in various stages, but I think most people work on their wips using other people's feedback before asking a judge. AFAIK, anyway. I'm just saying, the feedback form should cover as much as possible with as few items on the list as possible. The current number of items is good. ..."if they're done properly", no, there's nothing bad with that. But I've heard a number of WiPs with an ending that was neither good nor abrupt.

The checklist, although named "feedback checklist", isn't exclusively for the reviewers to use. I see no reason why a remixer couldn't listen to their own track while looking at the checklist and considering the items on it. Compiling criticisms from the feedback onto a single checklist is another use of it. Neither of tehse uses exclude its use as a feedback checklist. The checklist items are fine, imo, with the possible exception of "Abrupt ending". It could also cover an ending that just never ends. It'd have to be renamed, tho. Since the Judges mostly hear (supposedly) finished or nearly finished remixes, they might not be fully aware of the many problems the wip forum has been able to find and point out. I'll have a closer look at the list, in case you missed something.

So do I. But that's because I still don't know where the bar is, exactly. If they'd occasionally post here, I could compare the quality of a WiP to my own and hear if my WIP is closer or farther from submittable.

Coop's point: People might not be able to specify what they like about a WiP. Coop's solution: A form for the good stuff. Problem: Aside from making it a big form, the idea of a template easily kill the personalized feedback, even with comments fields. The Judges' point: The feedback people get is often not good enough. The Judges' solution: A form for the bad stuff. Problem: The template focuses on the checklist of negative aspects, which is likely to take precedence over the positive feedback. As a template, it easily kills the personalized feedback. Rozovian's first point: Templates easily kill the feel of someone actually having taken the time to listen to the music, not just the things on the list. Rozovian's solution: Use the judges' form as a checklist (not template) for the bad stuff. And let's work out a checklist for the good stuff. Problem: Now there's two lists to keep track of. Rozovian's second point: With or without a template, people don't always have the production ears needed to fill out the form appropriately. Rozovian's solution: The Judges can occasionally visit the WiP board to review a WiP, to show where the bar is at for the reviewers who have already reviewed that particular WiP. Problem: Aside from that this can make other reviewers lazy, the Judges have neither time nor interest in this. -- As a "feedback form", it's implied it must be used. With comments at the bottom, the much more dominant checklist takes precedence. I'd lose the "other comments" from the checklist and instead state the list is only half the feedback. Maybe the comments field should be moved to the top of the list, written like this: I'm liking it better now that it has been renamed "checklist".

ARRANGEMENT / INTERPRETATION [X] Too conservative - sticks too close to the source PRODUCTION [X] Unrealistic sequencing [X] Generic/cliche sound choices PERFORMANCE (live recorded audio/MIDI parts) STRUCTURE [X] Pace too plodding [X] Too repetitive OTHER COMMENTS (positive feedback, and specifics on criticisms from the form) It's an improvement. The lack of bold chunks of text make it more easy on the eye and kills some of the formal tone, although the language might still need some humanization. The inclusion of an example at the end makes it feel more complete, and here the language is human. What bothers me most is how intuitive the checklist is and yet you find it necessary to explain its use at "Place an "X" within the brackets next to any critiques you feel are applicable". Speaking of which, this doesn't emphasize enough that the feedback is still not on the level the submission standard is, regardless of how elaborate the form is. Listeners are not judges, and might think they hear things the judges don't. "...you are strongly encouraged to use the WIP feedback form at the bottom of this post" seems to me like it's a demand in disguise. Since you've already established that the site offer the checklist "as a tool to help with WIP critiques", the whole "strongly encourage" part feels redundant. One last thing, the comments should be more emphasized, not placed at the bottom, as it makes the checklist take precedence. Alternately, the form could be renamed checklist and "other comments" removed. This post could then merely state that using the checklist, copy-pasting it into a feedback post is encouraged. It's an improvement, but I think it's not quite there yet. It doesn't cover all the ground it could, tho another guide could cover what the remixers can do to get the best feedback and how they should deal with the feedback given. Overall, better. Still needs work tho.

Regularly? What I was saying was that if a judge, once in a while, would listen and comment on a WiP, the casual reviewers would correct themselves upon comparing their feedback to the judges', and thus are reminded of where the bar is, in practice rather than in theory. The number of constructive replies would increase, which Zircon said y'all wanted. I wasn't saying the judges should run the WiP forum, what would the rest of us do then? I was saying that with a little more attention to the WiP forum, you'd be killing two bords with one stone. One bird is that reviewers then know what NOed remixes sound like, and how far a particular remix is from being accepted. Another bird is that the remixers get quality feedback from the judges. Just giving us a form isn't really helping that much. I'll admit that the form will be useful to people who have difficulty finding words for what they hear is wrong... which is good. And like I've said throughout, the checklist is good. But it can just as well make reviewers lazy so they're just filling out the form, and just a bunch of forms can be discouraging. And like I've said, the tone of the feedback form post implies that good reviewers use the form (whether or not they use it properly), and bad reviewers don't, regardless of encouraging words, useful suggestions, and other comments. The checklist serves better as a summary than a template. And the checklist doesn't turn people's ears into production ears, regardless of how well written the feedback form post is!

And you missed mine. Again. As I read in the Ask a Judge thread, you don't email people about the final decision, and they don't read the feedback you state in the votes (and when they do, they resubmit after a too quick fix). A solution to this would be if the WiP feedback was on the same level as the Judges' votes - which means that a) we WiP reviewers must either learn to hear the standards before posting anything but our own WiPs (which would reduce the amount of feedback psots significantly), the standards must be changed to fit the varying understanding and ability to evaluate WiPs of each individual WiP reviewer (which is just stupid), c) the Judges must reveal the standards more clearly in order for WiP reviewers without the necessary training and/or experience to recognize them. I'd go with C. Since links are removed from NO-decisions, we generally can't hear them to learn what's just under the bar. If the J's would more clearly display the bar for us who haven't had the years of professional training and/or practice and/or otherwise gotten the ability to evaluate music on the appropriate level the feedback would be more effective and more accurately reflect the Judges' votes.

I'm with Zircon on this. While I've come to see the need for a form for people unable to phrase their feedback, I still don't like the idea of the form. The smaller, the better. But even with a form/checklist, it doesn't make people understand music. The form isn't suddenly gonna make people able to tell if something is sequenced naturally, if it's too far from source, or if the samples are good.

Not a valid answer. I asked the question: how busy are the judges? Comparing past 6 months posts in WiPs and Decisions revealed the following: Liontamer, 167 posts Zircon, 102 posts DarkeSword, 97 posts The rough 100 might be equivalent to my 180 posts in the past 6 months, since WiP feedback seems easier, therefor faster, methinks. Cutting back a little on voting to visit the WiP board to remind both remixers and reviewers where the bar is, to let us know your vote on a WiP in its state at the time... is that unrealistic? Do you need more judges? Do you need an officially appointed group of WiP "judges"? Do you need to make more time? I'm not saying a judge should be the the most frequent wip reviewer, but it would be nice if the judges would post more than a hundred posts a year in the WiP board. -- Let's do some math. I have a lot of free time. I am also not a judge. I've also posted my own WiPs here. Let's say I've posted an average 0.5 WiP reviews per day. This would make it 3.5 in a week, roughly 15 in a month, 180 in a year. There are twelve judges. Liontamer has, presumably, a ridiculous amount of work managing submissions and stuff like that, and like Zircon and TO, he's a moderator. The three of them, as well as DS and Vig are irc channel operators according to the Staff page. If we assume none of these have the time to do any WiP reviews, we're still left with 7 judges. Since they also judge stuff, let's say they should post a quarter post per day, that's almost two posts per week. Is that impossible? Let's say it is, they're all busy with work, school, possibly life. One review per week per person makes it 364 reviews in a year, about 3.5 times the number of posts we're currently having. One review per person per two weeks would still make it an increase. If each of the 12 judges would post (on average) a quarter post per day, we'd be looking at almost 1100 posts. I'm not saying any of this should be a requirement of the judges', but some action would be nice, besides the occasional post and the checklist. Judges, why not set a good example, once a week?

ARRANGEMENT / INTERPRETATION [X] Too conservative - sticks too close to the source PRODUCTION [X] Too loud [X] Unrealistic sequencing [X] Generic/cliche sound choices STRUCTURE [X] Not enough changes in sounds (eg. static texture, not dynamic enough) [X] Too repetitive OTHER COMMENTS While a nice attempt at raising the bar for the wip feedback, I find this annoying and restrictive. The language is correct as far as I see, but it's rigid and unappealing. At "If you genuinely have no complaints then do not check anything off - just leave comments at the bottom", you state that an empty checklist should occupy most of the reply. Seriously, lose that. On the other hand, that would be an invitation to omit the checklist alltogether. IMHO, that's for the better - if it's still used when evaluating the WiP. This looks mostly like a nice try but keep working. While still conforming to OCR's standards, you can make it more encouraging rather than restricting and demanding. You may have to change the tone of it by using other words. The way they're arranged isn't very appealing, I think you should work on that. While I don't find this, as a whole, the least bit enjoyable, there were parts I like, such as the checklist. If more emphasis was put on the checklist rather than the rest of the post (which should be more encouraging), this would be a very useful tool. Good luck!

It'll scare off the newbs and bother the regulars. That's my prediction. Time will tell if it'll work or not. I agree, and am probably guilty of it myself, often. I understand that the submissions contain loads of these. But how many of the submissions come via the wip board? I've recognized a handful of names in the decisions, I see many more that I don't recognize. I've replied to post wips here in the past months, I should recognize most of them. How busy are the judges, really? Are they too busy to come here to show where the bar is at in occasional wip replies -which would help the reviewers (such as myself) as well as the aspiring remixers (such as myself). I did a quick search for your name on the wip board, as well as a few others. Here's the number of posts we've posted the past year: A fraction of the posts are on our own wip threads... and this includes some Judges. Btw, my number would be higher, but I haven't been here a full year yet. I think it'd cancel out our own wip threads. I'm not saying this to show off, I'm saying this to let you know how the most frequent reviewer feels about the feedback form. I don't want to use it as anything but reference. If other wip reviewers feel the same way, we're looking at a significant decrease of wip feedback, unless the Judges are willing to spend time on the wip board being good examples for the rest of us. Yes, it says "strongly encouraged", I know. What happened to "please" and "thank you"? -- Note that my objections are towards its formal language and implied requirement, I appreciate the checklist and will most likely use it if I continue reviewing wips.

The checklist is good, it covers everything I can think of, it's the tone and its implications that I'm concerned about. However, I think the formal tone is a bit detrimental. It can easily feel like a robotic reply. I think that the best feedback is encouraging, constructive, and personal feedback, the kind that says that someone took the time to listen to the music and not just the flaws. The form will easily become a restriction. Knowing how the posters can lazily write a wip post, the formal feedback can get very discouraging. The near-requirement also an unnecessary complication. A similar form could be applied to the Reviews forum, which would most likely reduce both quality and number of reviews. Or the Requests, which nobody would read or care about... For that matter, I've been reading the Judges' decisions since I joined, they're some of my favourite things to read on ocr. Shouldn't the form first and foremost apply to the official votes posts? While the judges generally comment in-depth (some more than others), the structure of many votes is haphazard and the language casual or lazy. I think the list will be a useful resource. It's a good idea. The formal tone, imho, is neither.

I'm with the coat guy on this. Trackers! I also think GarageBand should be added to the list (or the "Other DAW" box). Sure, it's limited, but there's still people using it, even pros, if Apple's articles are to be believed. There's the thread on ReMixing about using it, and it turns out there's a number of remixes that were done with it. Also, GarageBand projects can be imported into Logic, which makes collabs between the DAWs possible.

I agree. People come here for remixes. If they're looking for info on the game, they can click an "info" tab (the one called "main"). I also agree on how great it all looks.

1/3 through, it finally changed. While cool, it got repetitive. Half way through, finally anotehr change. You've done it really repetitive. While I dig the sound, the constant repetition quickly make this difficult to listen to, it's just not enjoyable. You've got maybe half the tracklength of material, the other half is repetition. That's really not good. Towards the end... Argh! We've heard it! Production is okay to my ears, except that last second volume jump, which really just clips and annoys. It's a goood idea, but execution is flawed. I can get more in-depth when you've got more content in it. This wouldn't get on OCR. And listening to source, I hear there's more content to use from there, so you can't say there wasn't enough source material. Cut repetition, add more from source, be more creative with the source melodies... Arrangement is boring, but you're in luck - arrangement is easier than production. I wanna hear where you can take this. Good luck!

Man, 0:41 and forth in double-speed drums would be awesome. Now, it's powerful but choppy and ultimately, not as energetic as it could be. The club section that follows isn't bad, but it feels like it's not much of a re-arrangement, just melody + drum, + bg guitar, could use something more original. Tom fill is awful. All the drums feel a bit poorly processed, dunno what exactly their problem is. Plate or room reverb might help, but like I said, I don't know what the problem is, they just sound poor. Except the kick and snare, or whatever's bring the punch to the 0:41 area. Transition to club section is a little choppy, but it works. I'd like to see a return to the hard rock stuff towards the end, like a half-minute grande finale. 2:58 does lend itself to a bigger, grander finale (with double-speed drums?). Especially since you just end the music, let it die, and play with a kick 'til the rest is dead. I'm not sure, but it might need more bass, low bass. High mids and low highs might need a few dB's boost in the master EQ. Overall, this is impressive, but it's not OCR-quality yet.

About 120 bpm, easy to analyse. Thanks for that. What I did was to break it up into ten-second segments and draw what they did for the track, if they made it more or less exciting. Here's what I found. Sadly, it doesn't really get much more exciting that the 0:00-0:20 section. The breaks and progression keep it from being a wash-rinse-repeat kind of mix, but it still gets repetitive. The break at 1:20 is a great idea, it's also the perfect place to change chord progression. If you do change chord progression, you have to adapt the melodies. This will make it different enough. Instead of the same four chords over and over, why not make an eight-chord progression, starting from the same but being... different. The second voice at 2:30 reminds me I should work on my Seiken Densetsu 3 project tracks. Very Hiroki Kikuta-like. Good, but we're back in the same old melody. By then, you should have raised the key signature by a note (two seminotes) to give it more energy towards the end. And while on the topic, the end needs to be bigger. It does work with the long high notes, but they're a bit too shrill and stale. It also takes too long for it to die out after that. Bigger! I noticed that I could play F#m, A, D, E on top of what you've got. You could use those chords in the end (transposed if you do a key sig change). Would make it less minor and more enjoyable. You could use these chords in the ending, in the break, whatever. You'd only have to make minor changes to make it major... okay, pun too bad to finish. That's what I got from half an hour's analysis of the arrangement and how it can be adapted to be more enjoyable. Then there's the synths that should be less shrill and more organic. There's a few that are too simple, some that are painfully phased, and some that are just noisy and shrill. Take a backup and replace _all_ synths with softer ones. If it sounds better, post it. If not, revert. Then I could comment on the drums too, the rhythm gets pretty boring too. The drums are overall weak, but I think this is a track that could do with drums, honestly. Mute the tracks, see if I'm right. If not, unmute. -- I said that in the first feedback I gave this wip. It still applies. This all, while not very positive feedback, it's constructive. I hope this won't discourage you, cuz this track's arrangement is a few key changes from great, imho, and the production should be easier once you get a soundscape that's more enjoyable. -- To answer your question, how do you know when its submittably good? The answer: I dunno. I thought several of my works were, but I asked some of the judges over irc and they said NO. The best answer is probably "when they sound as good as the recent stuff posted on ocr". This has the potential to get on OCR, it's just a production job and some arrangement tweaks away from it.

I had totally forgotten how this sounded. Three notes in, I remember again. Let's start from the bad news. This would get a NO. The overall sound is the same throughout, and that's a problem. It's not a very enjoyable sound. It works for a while, but it gets boring quite quickly. Since this isn't a very upbeat remix, I don't think you need this rude leads. Soften the whole track by adding key-relative, weak cutoffs, possibly reworking the synths or starting them from scratch. I'd keep it for the intro, but around 0:20, I'd swap most, if not all of them, for softer ones. Imagine this on piano, it'd be pretty. the arrangement might not work as well on piano, but soft sounds in that direction would make it great. Do key signature changes, change the chord structure, chop up the melodies... It needs to be different. The arrangement might appeal to the judges, I like it, but the synths and the (sorry to say) boring sound is ultimately earn it a NO. I'm in the mood for some in-depth feedback, so I'll just post this and get back to you with a more detailed analysis.

Best advice I can give you is to download everything by the artists you've mentioned yourself, then pick random remixes and see if you run into something you like. I've found lots of cool stuff that way, and I haven't heard everything yet. Here's from my calm stuff playlist. Some are more relaxing than others. Note that some of them aren't listed with their game, it's because they're from when I was bothered by seeing the game in the song name. I'll contain it in a quote box to make the post cleaner.

Weird drum stuff. Seriously, count-in on a ride, using a china and a... something... It's like you're attempting a genre fusion and are really turn it into a half-pony half-monkey monster. For most of the track it works, when it's calm, but the intro is awful, drumwise. The section that should rock 0:41-0:56... too much snare. And those bizarre drum choices... they don't work. From 0:56 and forth, there's that main body of the track. The lead doesn't work here, it's too rude. Also, it all gets a little repetitive. try adding more of the background melodies from source, inject some of those into it. Play them at half speed if that works for you, just do something more. You should also make it more appealing to musicians - keyboardists/pianists. More elaborate doesn't mean jumbled and cluttered. See if you can add countermelodies or a chord rhythm or something make it more... well, more. Arrangement is minimal, but not bad. Needs more depth, more width, as it's kind'a one-dimensional as it is. You should also work a bit on the mix, with levels, compression, and EQ. There's advice on that all over the site and the net. I'll leave it at this. Still needs work, but it's really enjoyable to listen to when it's not trying to be rockin' hot. This could be great chillin' music, it just needs more work. Nice job so far, keep at it!

Interesting. Strings sound too synthy, replacing them with a warm pad might help (as it'd be intentional then). Piano could use some more elaborate writing. I'm not saying it needs lots of new stuff, just those chords, those rhythms, that little stuff that makes pianists actually enjoy playing it. As far as I can hear, there's at most two keys struck simultaneously. Most pianists have two hands, write for them both. This is better than your usual mess, man. I'll hire someone in your area to throw stuff at you if you go to dnb or trance or something half way through this remix. Seriously, this could be great. Just, make it more intentional, more elaborate, more original take... You know, the stuff. production headaches come later, but with something as clean as this, production should be _relatively_ easy. Or I could be wrong, and it's twice the ordeal, twice the headache. We'll see. Good stuff, man. Would be cooler if it was some compeltely different game tho, something under-remixed instead.

This source has been remixed a lot, so let's see what's new here, or otherwise worth noting... Worst first. Bass is a jumbled mess of what sounds a bit like guitar "bass" pitched down a couple of octaves. You can accomplish pretty much the same sound by playing sampled bass way too low. It sounds organic enough to be recorded, tho. It would need a much cleaner recording to work, and dropping overdrive or whatever's been applied probably won't do enough. Bass is noisy, grainy, and jumbled. The arrangement isn't bad, but the recording and processing is. Guitar sound is pretty generic. A faint auto-wah or other volume-triggered effect would be nice. Recording is a little messy. The strigns and the first synth don't really come in at the same time. It's a cool effect, but it sounds too accidental here. Longer strings before the synth, or have 'em come in much closer to each other. There's also a bleedthrough from something in the very beginning. It's a later concern tho. Drums are really quiet, most of the time, I'm only hearing the hihats and crashes, tho occasional snare fills can be heard. Overall, the mix is just raw. More attention to track/channel levels, even in this early stage. Arrangement is a little difficult to judge in the mess. I like the second half of the wip more, as it's not what we've all heard before. What I've heard before, at least. Do more stuff like that! This could end up really cool, it'd just take a lot of cleaning up - cleaner recordings, cleaner mix... which takes work, takes time, takes patience. The Tal Tal Mountains and the Zelda overworld themes are both used in a lot of remixes, I recommend listening to those to get ideas of what you could do that nobody else has done. With sources this remixed, you gotta find something new to bring to it. Good luck!

Yep, I'm hearing source. hard to miss. Up the key somewhere! That would be cool. Also, do re-arrange it. The sections are all pretty, see if moving them around is gonna make it better or worse (take a backup before you do anhything as drastic as that). See what happens if you add a middle section based on the ending. I like its sound. I know there's nitpicks that are gonan spot stuff to change, but I can't really tell what needs work. Those samples are great... if they are samples. Anyway, I like it. Needs some more re-arranging and variation, but other than that, I don't know what you should improve. Oh and if Chaser can record ocarina (and is any good at playing it), use it. Would be cool.

Not gonna get too in-depth tonight... this morning. There's improvements abounds, mostly in production (if memory serves). A few notes that feel like they don't belong in that key sig. Some of the drums, the snare and the crash at the end, they sound a bit cheesy and cheap. Tweak or replace. But this is cool. Was getting tired of it just about when it ended, so it's a good length, at least this time of day. Overall cool, but unless I missed something, it'll need more source, methinks.

Using orchestra hits isn't really helping the realism. I think the biggest improvement you could do isn't the samples themselves, but how you're using them. Working with pitch bend, modulation, and velocity, you can create a whole lot of interesting effects. Using multiple tracks of the same instrument with different ADSR and filter settings is yet another way of varying the sound of the same old samples. It needs some better EQing too, it's really dense to listen to. More high frequencies. The breaks at about 1:05 and 1:20 sound beautiful, the rest are drowning in lows. I should look up the source, but I'm lazy. I did recognize the Kirby music used in Smash Bros. Arrangement is cool, and you've done a great job making it sound powerful. I like.