Rozovian

@Gario, in his own words in a remix thread in the workshop: How horrible. It got me wondering what methods and procedures the judges use when judging. Do you use the resub tag, when, when not, why, why not? When do you say conditional and when do you say resub? What are your dealbreakers? What if there are random fart noises in the middle of an otherwise excellent track? Larry has his stopwatching and 50% standard for assessing source content. What else do you guys have? Similar to our meet the evaluators, can we have a meet the judges thread?

Not an eval. I'll leave that to @Gario or @Wiesty. Just posting to drop you a suggestion: use reference tracks. Well mixed tracks in a similar style, from ocr or elsewhere. Figure out if yours is similar enough in frequency balance, loudness, proximity/distance, stereo balance, and everything else that matters. Also, it still sounds rather 80s. That's not a bad thing.

Why is this so familiar... oh! This one! One of my recent favorites. And apparently that's the only Sonic Colors source remixed on the site. eval: Voice thing is super annoying. Personal pet peeve. Do what that feedback what you will. Mixing needs work. It's obvious from the first kick and snare appearance, but the other elements need work as well. Your kick is very exposed, and it stands out from the mix. The snare lacks impact because it's high-passed, and can't stand on its own. It's okay when it coincides with the kick, but on its own it's too weak. Getting those elements strong enough on their own is difficult. I had to abandon an idea for one my own current mixes because I couldn't get it right. Hopefully you'll have an easier time figuring it out. The hihat rhythms are rather loud, and there are times when they don't fit the pacing of the other elements. Like at 0:34. The hihat rhythm suggested something high-tempo. That's not what happened. But the hihats are still pretending that's what's going on. From 1:01 it's better, but I'd still look into alternative rhythms for them here. While on the subject of drum writing, the drum fill you use it not very good, and when you repeat it rather often it just makes it worse. Sound design is otherwise fairly good, the choice of sounds works well. It's eclectic, but that's not a problem. It draws from the source in that regard, and I like some of the instrument choices you've made here that set it apart from the source. That somewhat chiptune-y lead, for example. A bit excessive and inconsistent use of reverb and other effects. 1:29 marks a huge difference in sound. I get the change in dynamics, but the whole sound changes to something much drier than before. It's rather jarring. You might want to use a different set of drums for those parts, too. The arrangement seems to be a 1:1 copy of the source. Too conservative for ocr. There's some changes to the dynamics and sound which always happens when you adapt a source to your own instrumentation, and some differences in drum rhythms and obviously instrumentation, but I don't think that's enough. Study some posted remixes of sources you know well, and pick them apart, figure out what they did to make them different. Some will be largely unchanged in arrangement but get a completely different mood going, others will mix in original solos or play the original on an original groove, others still will disintegrate the original and put the pieces together in a completely different way. There are many ways to make the arrangement your own. And if you want to make it an OCReMix, that's what you have to do. The end cuts off abruptly. It shouldn't. It's a great practice track for mixing and sound design, and the end result is fairly pleasant to listen to. Nice work. There are issues, though, and the one that is the main obstacle to getting this posted on ocr is that the arrangement is essentially unchanged from the original. As a cover or source remake, it's fine. But that's not what ocr posts.

eval: "I tried to sample the beat" - Yeah no. You can't sample anything from Square-Enix for something to be posted on ocr. We've got a deal with SE that, as I understand it, prohibits us from posting remixes with audio assets straight from their games. You'd have to recreate those elements yourself if you want this on ocr. There's some weird harmonies happening here. Either you've misheard which key the original is in and the clashes stem from your elements clashing with the sampled elements, or you need to read up on harmony and key and stuff. Listen more closely to find the elements that sound out of place, harmonically. I'm hearing clashes at 0:50, 1:02, and 2:29, and the parts that repeat those things. Learn to recognize and avoid this. The structure is really difficult to hear. I have no idea where in the arrangement I am at a given point. Two tricks I've found that helps with this is signalling and punctuating. Signalling is when you use something to indicate that a part is nearing its end, and the most obvious example is a long reverse cymbal in electronic music. Punctuation is when you end a part and start a new one with a big hit, such as a regular big cymbal, like a crash. There's a lot of ways to signal and punctuate. Even in my own meandering and messy arrangements, the parts are made distinct through signalling and punctuation. I'll reserve comment on source usage until after you've removed/replaced the directly sampled elements. This would get a NO, OVERRIDE currently. Sorry dude. Cool source. The arrangement might still work, provided it's cleaned up and more clear to the listener.

eval: Starts off quite conservative. As far as arrangement goes, I'm gonna have to figure out if this is just a genre adaptation with new instruments or something more ocr-oriented in terms of arrangement. That's always difficult to tell. I think it's in the clear, but we won't know until it's been through the panel. The piano sounds mechanical and not well mixed into the track. The levels are fine, but you might want to look into stuff like EQ and reverb to give it its own place in the mix. Some of the synths are also rather mechanical, but given that they're synth it's less of an issue. Still an issue though. Some of the guitar melodies sound fake. I'm not too concerned about that, but hide it better, or embrace it and take advantage of it. I like the ending, or endings, but I wonder how intentional that whole thing is. If it's intentional, see if you can make that more obvious. If it isn't intentional... uh, make it? It's pretty cool. Sequencing and mixing issues, but other than that it sounds okay. Cool source, cool stuff.

eval: The woodwind at 1:20 has a couple of notes that stand out, listen for the little jumps in intensity, up or down but especially up. You might want to clean up the velocities around there. You might want to fiddle a bit with the EQ around 2:15 and on, since the guitar arpeggio is brighter and more clear than the woodwind, making it unclear which element is in focus. The ears are drawn to the louder, brighter, clearer element, and when that seems to be one that's intended to be in the background, it gets confusing. I'm a little concerned about some resonant frequencies during the busy section in the second half, but I know my speaker setup hypes the highs a bit, so it might just be that. Test it out on a couple of different listening setups (eg pro audio monitors, phone, earphones, headphones, car, computer speakers) to see if that part needs some EQ trimming or if it's just my setup. There's also some rather prominent lows, even in the soft sections. I get that it's intentional, but it's a little loud at times, and I wonder how balanced it is. That's another reason to check it on multiple listening setups, and on different listening levels. I've realized with my own work that it can sound fine on one setup and not so fine on another. It's quite dynamic. This makes it an annoying track to listen to on low listening levels, but very rewarding to listen to on higher volume. Consider whether you want to raise the level of the softer sections. Maybe you should. Maybe it's fine. I can keep finding little annoyances to nitpick, and can tell you my personal preferences, but I don't think you need another eval on this. Any issues this still has are minor and/or subjective. And it's quite enjoyable regardless. Nice work.

For some bizarre reason, Tindeck's music player doesn't load. Not in Safari, not in Firefox. Link directly to the file or use a different host, like box or dropbox.

My ears can't do another eval right now. So this is a bump for the others, or so I can more easily find it.

I'm gonna be lazy with my typing and just randomly copypaste whatever judges and posters in this thread have said that I think applies. eval: Pick 3-4 instruments that you want to be your focal point in your track and mix those together and then add the others as support around those. The track is really top heavy. I find the mix too bright. Sections like 1:50 get too lost in the noise and distortion (and are a bit resonant as well), and the lead basically disappears in the mix most of the time. The key to writing particularly atmospheric drum & bass is control over your reverb. And yes please fix the ending. (Specifically the pops at the very end. Make sure your tracks end cleanly. This means listening not just in your DAW, but to the audio render as well. I've been having weird distortions in my renders that don't appear in the DAW. While I've solved it for the track I was having it in, I'm still not sure exactly what caused it. You never know what the output sounds like until it's actually outputted. So do have a listen to your track once it's bounced to audio.) I do really like this track. Lively and lots of energy. You've got some lovely purposeful distortion/bitcrushing. This track has some really nice energy behind it, and it never lets up. The textures and synths you use work great against the drum and bass style you've got going, and I'm loving every bit of it. The drums are nice and meaty, too, so great work on the style and presentation. (/lazy copypaste) Nice sound design, nice adaptation, nice energy. You've made a track that makes me smile hearing it. So if you get this posted, you're in the same category as The Cynic Project as far as I'm concerned. But the mixing is still too bright and as a result ends up sounding so much more heavily compressed. Chill. Trade a dB or two of loudness for a good clean sound. Ease up on reverb to reduce clutter. Do some more cleaning work on it. I think this is still in resub territory. Needs a bit more work. But man, what a cool track this is. Nice work.

Given that you're looking to add vocals, an eval now would be incomplete. But with that in mind, here's an eval of what you've got so far. eval: The snare doesn't quite seem like the right fit for the sound. It stands out in a weird way. You might want to experiment with a few different drum sounds to find a better fit. I like the dynamics of the arrangement. Those little breaks are just great. The dynamics of the audio not so much. Careful with how you compress the output. Random vocal clip. Pet peeve of mine. But it also doesn't seem to fit. I get the idea of prefacing the dubstep breakdown with a voice clip. But the transition into the clip's part doesn't work imo. There's some weird chord stuff happening in the 2:37 part. I get that the source has some cool key changes and key-breaking chord sequences (and not always good ones, imo), but the ones in that part stand out as particularly awkward. The ones from 2:48 and on are cool though. I like the sound design, but there might be some odd overtone in one of the instruments used here that's adding to the chord troubles I'm hearing. See if you can identify something like that. The dubstep breakdowns are cool. I don't think I could do that any better myself. I'm looking forward to hearing them with vocals in there. They both end rather disappointingly, though. Transitions, dude. Do them well, and the whole track flows so much better. That applies to the changes to key as well, eg 1:09, 1:38, 2:37, 2:42, 3:23, 4:42. I'm wondering if transposing those parts stuff might help, or if the problem is best solved by other means. The sound design overall is good, with occasional exception I think will be swapped for vocals. But not all of them. There's that one mono creaking synth in the intro and ending (cool but doesn't fit, might be better if stereo spread). There's the backing to voice clips. And there's the snare, though by now I'm not finding nearly as distracting. And there's some mixing things that could be better, but it's difficult to pinpoint those with the placeholder saw in stead of the final vocals there. I can tell you the lead melody in the last chorus part is too loud. But I'd want to hear the vocals in there before going after any other parts. Source is handled creatively, and is dominant. It has issues, some bigger than others. It's pretty cool, and I really want to hear this with vocals. But as it's not yet ready for ocr, placeholder saw and all, I'll tell you it's not yet ready for ocr.

All right, time for the eval proper. eval: The idea is good. Metal plus piano and violin are a good combo. It's difficult to do it well without real performances though. The drums are mechanical, and could use some work on the mixing as well. You'd need to work on both the sequencing and mixing of them, possibly get a different drum kits. I'm noticing the cymbals in particular end up sounding very same-y, but whether this is because of the kit used or the sequencing I can't say for sure. The violin is similarly mechanical, sounds sequenced rather than performed. There's a lot of techniques involved in making a passable fake performance, but it does take a bit of work. The piano has similar issues. The guitars' timing is a bit off. The sequenced elements are rigidly in time, but the guitars seem all the more sloppy because of it. Subtly spreading the timing of the sequenced elements can help here, though ideally the guitars would be tighter as well. Just don't fall into the trap of thinking that a human performance is inherently sloppy. There's method to the madness, there's a difference between humanizing and randomizing notes. The guitars are rather bright and sharp. I guess they're mixed to be the focal element of the track, but I think you've overdone it. The snare should punch through more. The rhythm guitars have too much bite. There's little use of space in the track (this could be par for the style, though).Arrangement-wise, it's a genre adaptation, swapping the orchestra backing for metal and speeding it up accordingly. That's too conservative for my understanding of what ocr accepts. I know I can be a little too strict on this issue, though, bear that in mind. Too mechanical, mixing needs work, too conservative. Those are the issues I hear. It wouldn't pass the panel. As a cover, not intended as an ocr-style remix, it's still got those production issues. There are some really cool moments in here, 2:43's guitars in particular, and that's one of the more creative takes on the source in this remix. It's a good source to work with, there's a lot of melodies and parts to use. And now that you know the source, you can do so much more with it, if you're so inclined. Either way, you seem to have the tools you need, just gotta hone those skills. Good luck, and have fun remixing.

eval: Source is clearly there, and treated creatively. I listened to the remix before the source, and while the connections aren't hard to find, the source certainly isn't what I expected. Quite the adaptation. And intricate and intense too. Nice work. On the technical side, there's not much to say, crit-wise. Maybe the orchestral hits' short releases and lack of reverb, where the samples seem to end mid-sound rather than decay naturally. You could argue it's part of the aesthetic, and some would agree. But in case it's not intentional and it now starts to bug you as it bugs me, I thought I'd bring it up. The one concern I have is the use of samples from the consoles. Squeenix can't be sampled for ocr. If any of the samples you're using are from one of Squeenix' IPs, you'd have to replace them if you want to get it posted. Check your samples, check the track's levels against posted chip-aesthetic remixes, do whatever changes you feel like, and sub it. Cool stuff, dude.

This is going on my chill playlists. Some cool, interesting sound design stuff going on around 1:30. What even is that?

So, judging by the title, this year we're making a single remix?

Not an eval. Not yet. Unfamiliar source, long remix, tired ears. But some crits for now. Some strange mixing decisions. I guess they make sense when the violin is the lead, but they sound weird the rest of the time. Kick drum is really exposed, though I'd have to check with some metal mixes if it's par for the genre. The low end is a weird mess. The arrangement seems to repeat itself, and seems rather conservative (need to listen more before I can say more).

eval: Minimalistic intro. Then the eighties kick in. Cool. The sound design could use a bit of work, maybe using different drums and an additional layer of pads for the intro. The less there is going on, the more you have to pay attention to the sound design and expression of the instrumentation. Sound design is much less of a concern in the busier parts of the mix. The mixing could use some work. The whole track sounds a bit dark and muffled, even on my speakers which I know hype the highs a bit. Giving the bass and leads a bit more of their (individual) higher frequencies should help. Just don't overdo it. There are moments where the pads dive deep into the lows, seemingly arbitrarily (eg 2:25). Get your lows under control. It's an interesting take on the source, no complaints about source usage. The arrangement overall works well, but it lacks signalling and punctuation. Eg at 1:00 the track stops and goes into a breakdown. Nothing to signal it or accentuate it (in this case, signalling would probably work better than accentuating, punctuating the change). Same at 1:53, where the only signalling is two tom hits. It could use more, and start earlier, and cover more of the instrumentation. How to do this is a matter of taste, as there are a lot of techniques to use for punctuating and signalling change. It's a chill piece. I like it. But it needs some work before it's ready to eb subbed. Some mixing and a few arrangement edits are probably necessary. I think those are the critical issues. Cool stuff.

No source link, no source comment. I don't think it's too much to ask to have the remixer supply this when you want us to evaluate your remix. You'd have to supply ocr with one when you sub it anyway. eval: The vocals are buried. The strings lead isn't very expressive, and there's some mechanicalness in the sequencing that stands out in the more exposed parts (2:42). The sound design is really cool. The mixing, aside from the weird decision to bury the vocals, is pretty good. Can't comment on source usage. Maybe we can bother Gario about that, since he seems to know the soundtrack. The arrangement isn't very dynamic, but it has some variation to the intensity, and a nice break. And it has groove. So no complaints there. It's a bit repetitive, though, despite the groove. The ending is rather abrupt. Without considering the source, it's impossible to say if this would pass or not. But unless arrangement/source is an issue, it could pass, despite the strange mixing choice regarding the lyrics. I'll defer to someone who knows the source, or wait for a bump with a source link. Cool stuff.

A reminder to you and everyone: evaluators are supposed to give you your evaluation within a week or two of marking it for evaluation. If we don't, bump it, pm us, say something. We've promised you a review. Hold us to it. eval: The compression is strong here. The pumping is really apparent. That's really annoying. The sound design is quite simplistic, as if it used snes soundfonts. That can work when the arrangement and mixing supports it, but that's not the case here. I suggest you rethink the sound design entirely. The stuff around 3:30 stands out, but it's stemming from the issue of simplistic sounds in an arrangement that doesn't have a lot going on. You can make this work, I think, but it'd require a lot of work in the sequencing and mixing. So I recommend changing it. It's hard to tell at times what's supposed to be the lead. Sometimes the lead is just really loud and annoying. The mixing needs work. Give each einstrument its own space depending on its role in the mix, and its qualities. You don't want a background instrument to take the spotlight, and you don't want the drums to overpower everything else. Find the balance. Make space for the important instruments. The arrangement is a fairly straightforward take on the sources. The sources fit really well together, so there's definitely something here worth developing. The transition to the triplet beat of the second source was particularly cool. But I think it's too conservative in its current state. The second half has a lot more interesting stuff going on, but I'm concerned it's not enough. It needs work. Good mix of sources, conservative arrangement. Simplistic sound design and poor mixing. Cool idea, worth developing.

We're not doing this for every artist's approval. We're just doing this for the ones who're concerned and available. PMs to everyone here, emails if we have them. And they have whatever time it takes to get the other things in order, minus whatever Usa needs for any revisions.

I'll do it here, so it'll be useful to more ppl. Parallel compression is when you mix a signal with a compressed copy of it. You can do any kind of parallel processing, but if there are any phase shifts or delays, these will cause phase issues. Some effects are all about these phase issues (phaser being the obvious example), but they're usually not something you want. A compressor without any filters or delays doesn't cause phase issues, so you can mix its output with the original signal without any problems. Unlike regular compression, this mixed result will not have that same squashed or pumping sound, even if you compress it really hard (depending on the mix ratio). you can use multiple compressors in sequence too. This is often done on a bus that's mixed in with the main signal. But it's so much easier when you can just turn a single knob in an effect you're using anyway. As for the rest of the signal chain, I'll probably have an EQ in there, and it'll end with a limiter and some monitoring, but the key element of the chain is probably the multiband compressor. It lets me control how much space the lows get to take up. It's like a dynamics-sensitive EQ. I usually don't put any of the other output effects on (except the limiter) until I have the sound design and most of the arrangement in place, because I don't want to use the end of the chain to correct things I should correct earlier. If I can easily solve something with a touch of level automation, I do that rather than make the multiband compressor work overtime.

I discovered there's a mix knob on the compressor I use. That made parallel compression a lot easier. So I did subtle parallel compression into moderate multiband compression into more parallel compression, on the output/master channel.

Not sure what I'd do in this situation. Maybe I'd give a single word response: "no". Maybe I'd explain I don't have time to do every request, even if it was of my favorite sources. Maybe I'd direct him to my remixing guide, teach a man to fish, teach a fish to remix and all that. Maybe I'd tell him I'd never remix that game if he bothers me again. Not sure.

Ayup. We still need to make sure the artists are cool with the mastered versions, so we'll get them uploaded somewhere for artists to check. That's, I think, the most time-consuming thing left to do. But that means there's not much left that's delaying this thing. I've been waiting for this for a long time. No more unexpected delays pls.

By "you dont have the version", you mean it's none of these?

eval: Guitar parts are cool. Bass part could stand out more. Drums seem to be the same loop throughout the whole track, not much variation. And seem to be just an open hihat and a snare. There's probably a need to separate kick and bass from each other with EQ. More variation to the drums is needed. The whole thing ends rather abruptly. The pause in the middle is an unusual arrangement decision, but I'm not bothered by it. Aside from the drums in it. But I already covered that. I recall the source being a fairly short loop, so I'm not concerned about the short length. A couple of repetitions of it, with variation, is what the arrangement seems to be. A guess, because a source link was not provided. We provide the ears, you provide the comparison. I'm okay with that style of arrangement if it takes some interesting deviations from the source. Can't say about this one. No source link, no source comment. The performance is nice, the solo is both fitting and cool. Can't comment about source usage, or much about arrangement. I suspect it'd fall into the category of faithful cover (with original solo) rather than an ocr-style arranged remix. Mixing needs work. Drums need writing. Cool stuff. Clearly you have the guitar chops for this stuff. Just gotta get the other things in order.