Gario   Judges ⚖️

Not as familiar with DKC3 as the others (like most, I imagine), but surprisingly I pretty easily recognized the source in this even before listening to the source myself - it's pretty distinct, and this arrangement does a good job representing it. There's a lot of cool harmonic switch-ups done throughout the arrangement, and I think they all work great. Overall, the arrangement is great, especially with all of the pad work and textures behind the guitar. Sample is soupy sounding for the guitar (doesn't really have any sense of strikes or strums), but it also chugs nicely so it works well enough. Speaking of the guitar, though, I think this is my main hang-up with the arrangement - the mix is just drowning in that guitar. There are so many cool things going on behind it, but I had to really strain to hear it all. I know it's an important instrument for this genre, but the mix needs to be better balanced between all of the other instruments, particularly the leads. Listen to 3:07 for the potential this arrangement has when the guitar isn't dominating over everything else - it's fantastic and you hear every detail of that lead. I like this, I think it would be significantly better with a better mix so I'm sending it back hoping you'll be able to clean this up. NO

Didn't do too much PRC back in the day, I was more an ORC fella (wanted an excuse to have folk remix old originals I had on hand). I don't think I can help too much since from my time, the only tracks that aren't currently available of mine that I can grab are from ORC 114 & ORC 115 (I think I won 115 so there is no Gario 116). ORC 114 (Off the Rails To Infininty) A Willrock MIDI, iirc, you can ask him for the source, if he holds his MIDIs from 2008. ORC 115 (Invigorating Air) No idea whose source this was, I forgot the winner of the prior round (it wasn't me, lol) Sorry I can't be of more help than that, good luck on your hunt. EDIT: lol Bundleslang's list was big enough for me to miss the ORC tracks in there. Would be pleased as punch if I had a shot to hear Willrock's version of Innocent Evil again, it was a banger :)

Dang, bring my childhood onto the site, why don't ya? My first Playstation game I ever played, can't forget that iconic title music. Solid performances, great flourishes to make it stand out (that slow section borrowing from that snow section was a great way to break it out of sounding too conservative). At first I was pegging it as being too conservative because this does have a similar style and bounce to the source, but I'm glad I won't have to do that since listing to this arrangement brings a smile on my face. :) Not too much I can add, this is a great little tribute to a solid piece of Playstation history, ship it. YES

What a pleasant source, and what a chill interpretation of it. It's calming, a touch conservative but the personality of the performance shines through so I don't think it's too much so for OCR. The performances are as loose as intended, it really sells the "we're just chillin' and jammin'" vibes that it's going for. I agree with Liontamer that the arrangement has enough of a shift in energy to keep things interesting throughout the performance. The production values on this are an issue, though. I suspect there's a lowpass on this that's keeping the arrangement all in the lower and lower/mid range of the spectrum, which while sounding *warm* also introduces the issue of introducing artifacts and fuzziness when instruments play together. There's small moments where the track clicks unintentionally thoroughout, but moments like 2:36 - 2:38 really take me out of it with how crunchy the artifacts get. I like this otherwise, but I do think the production quality is below the bar. I believe lifting the lowpass on some of the instruments and remixing the arrangement would pretty much fix the production issues that I hear, so I hope to hear this again soon. NO

Project update: Album's done, there are no more loose ends (When it was submitted in October there were one or two items that I was tying up behind the scenes). It's now entirely up to OCR and their staff to create the package, trailer, etc., and deliver some fantastic music for y'all. Thanks for your immense patience, it will be worth it!

Well, isn't this an interesting twist to the theme - what an effect switching from major to minor can bring. It's not a difficult change to make, but I don't see people making the switch and really capitalizing on it very often, so nice work taking this idea as far as it can go. The swing beat in the middle is a very nice way to spice it up, too - could've used more of that in the song, in fact, as it's all over as soon as it begins, it seems. This is a short and sweet judgment, itself, but if my biggest complaint is that I could've listened to this longer on a three minute arrangement that's not at all a bad thing. Send it up! YES

I don't even need to listen to the whole thing to tell this is great, that Out of this World voice clip at 1:03 sold it. Helps that Contra Hardcore has a highly underrated OST, ripe for some great and fun arrangin'. Great stuff!

Man, most votes on a track ever? More likely than you think! So the good: this does a very nice job blending the sources, and it uses both in ample amounts (mostly using the C64 source as texture), and I like the soundscape. The production values are decent, as are the instruments used. However, the mixing is dense, and sometimes is easy to lose track of what people should be listening to in the arrangement, with the lead often being no louder than the accompaniment. This leads to a larger issue of the arrangement sounding like it's meandering aimlessly - there's little for the listener to grab as important so the overall arrangement sounds like a bunch of textures and ideas put into one package rather than an arrangement. After the 2:41 there is a melodic hook that's easier to follow which helps the song close off strong, and there's some material from 0:30 - 1:00 that could be used to grab the listener's ear if it wasn't so washed in reverb and mixed to match the levels of the rest of the texture. There are a lot of good ideas here, but I don't hear enough to keep the listener's attention over the textures, and there's too much going on to consider this minimalist or atmospheric music. I *hear* elements that could be used as leads in various points of the arrangement, but they need to blend less with the rest of the texture and not be washed out with reverb as well as be mixed more in the lead to work as such. I hear an arrangement in this, but it needs to be mixed better so that the listeners can hear it, too. I like it, but it needs more focus. Better mixing and cleaning up the likely intentional leads so they don't wash out so much would bring this the focus it needs. NO

I say we should give Netscape Navigator 9 another shot.

@Atomicfog It's pretty much up to OCR staff to get the albums they plan on releasing ahead of this out in a timely manner. XPRTNovice will likely release his track ahead of the album with a nice music video attached to it, so there will likely be some opportunity to hear at least one track ahead of the full release (and it's one heck of a track). The music itself is done, though, and the album does sound pretty darn good if I do say so myself, just gotta get the rest of the behind-the-scenes work finished for it. Sorry it's taking even more time, but it will be worth the wait, I promise!

Damn, wish I did my job and gave some judge commentary on it - it's literally my favorite Final Fantasy theme from the series, and they did a great job on it here. The steel string lead sounds like it's picked a bit too hard, makes the notes sound forced, but that's my only real criticism here (and it's really nit-picky) because this sounds really cool otherwise. Fun fact about how this theme integrates into the rest of the score, by the way: it's pretty obvious how it's blended into the first Overworld theme and the "Deception" theme of the OST, but did you know Lenna's theme is beat for beat, nearly note for note rehash of the second part of the main theme? It's got a completely different feel and is reharmonized to some degree, but it's the same lead - and then it uses the first section of the main theme as it's second section. Just another fun tidbit about my favorite main Final Fantasy theme - great choice for a track to arrange. Nice work, y'all. :)

Ha, someone's pretty bold to try and tackle the Pictionary theme. Sounds a bit like this was a MIDI file with an instrument replacement - not the most interesting arrangement ever, but it sounds like you had fun with it regardless. Yeah, Tim Follin kinda went nuts on this track for absolutely no reason, not gonna lie.

My favorite track from Undertale getting a chill arrangement? Don't mind if I do! Not that this impacts it's place on OCR, but it's funny how this arrangement does the opposite of what the source does and makes it sound more like the other tracks in the game, whereas the original takes the style everyone is used to and turns it on it's head with that loose live acoustic guitar. It's like you transformed the source back into an Undertale arrangement. Really neat. On to the arrangement itself, it's subtle in the beginning, but the way the source is implied by the synth textures is a great way to ease the listener into the meat of the arrangement. A great example of subtractive arranging - taking the source and removing elements, making it sound similar yet very different all at once. I appreciate good subtractive arranging when it's done well, like it's done here. It's shorter than the source so it doesn't get everything, but it doesn't have to; it's your arrangement, after all. Nice touch bringing up Hopes and Dreams at the end there (at 2:49), considering how closely related the "Undertale" track is to "His Theme". It's a solid arrangement. The production is great, for what it is. It's extra warm, as lo-fi should be. Just the right temperature to warm you up this holiday season, I'd say. Hope we don't keep folk waiting on this one, it's great. YES

Well, this one's definitely done a circuit around here. It's one I usually catch on it's way out and it gets it's last vote before I can get my thoughts out. No more - time to give my two cents. The arrangement has an interesting vibe going for it - heavily electronic, yet leans into a more middle eastern vibe. It's short and sweet so it doesn't outlast the audience's interest, and has plenty of variety in it's textures to keep the listener from experiencing too much fatigue. The production values are plenty good enough for OCR, as well, though that's to be expected with how much refinement this one's experienced. The kick isn't bad, but it could've used more... well, kick to it. That is to say, the attack on the kick would've benefitted from being sharper and more pronounced, because as it stands it both takes a little too much space on the bottom while being a little hard to hear. It's not nearly enough of an issue to sink the arrangement, but with everything else being cleaned up over the iterations it's the only thing that sticks out. Yeah, can't say the persistence didn't pay off, because this is one polished little arrangement you got here. I like it, and I hope others will too when it's on the front page. YES

I think we need to be careful when considering whether this is a performance vs a vocal arrangement, as when we've had similar material in the past that was considered a performance with a backing track we rejected it on the grounds that it was not in fact a video game arrangement but rather, y'know, a performance piece, and that's not what this site is about, fundamentally. I don't think the arrangement is a performance piece just because the vocals are often spoken, however - there's plenty of that in genres like rap, for example, and that's perfectly acceptable for the site - it's just a bit more... experimental with it's use of vocals. They're pretty rhythmic and are often sung with pitch, so I think this still works as a vocal track, personally - I think this is acceptable on the grounds that this is an arrangement and not a piece of performance. That all being said, concerning the arrangement itself while the source is a little tricky to hear in passing due to the rhythmic changes made to the texture it's still pretty apparent that it's there, when it's there. The production values in this are pretty nice, as well, and the instruments are pretty well blended. The vocals catch you off guard in the first pass, because they're raw. It's obvious that's also the intent, it doesn't sound unintentional or having amateur mistakes - it sounds more like Schoenberg's Sprechstimme (Speak-Singing). It's interesting. Not everyone is gonna "get it", especially at first, but give it a few listens. It'll grow on you, I promise. YES