Gario

ReMixer name: Spad3s Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI3yrh11iHUTDdFx3ePAbdw Userid: 37731 Submission: https://soundcloud.com/user-787968468/a-cybers-world-remix-by-spad3s Game arranged: Deltarune Chapter 2 Name of arrangement: A Glitch Hop's World Song arranged: A CYBER'S WORLD? FL Studio, Serum, Kontakt The moment I listened to this song in-game I immediately thought of the melodies of TheFatRat and decided to try and make a glitch hop style song using the composition of cyber's world

EVAL Oh, I remember this one now - the pretty piano with the choral parts behind it to give it depth. There were a few criticisms that I had with the original, and I appreciate that there was some effort to address it. You took my reverb criticism to heart, and matched the piano's reverb to the choral parts, and it does help blend the track significantly overall. As DarkSim mentioned it's now overall too wet (the choral part was very wet in the original, too, as mentioned in that review), so the track is now oversaturated with reverb. That's a much easier thing to address than mismatched reverb, though; just decrease the reverb on everything a couple notches so it all sounds like it's in a church rather than in a cave. The piano still follow the source pretty strictly, but with the choir being better mixed into the arrangement I can better see where you were going with this. You'll likely still be called out by the judges for being too conservative since the piano still follows the source pretty directly, but something interesting did happen when listening to this version: the piano gets buried by the choir sometimes, which gave it the illusion of not being there - and the song actually benefitted from that. If you want to make no changes to your original vision, that's fine, but if you want to tweak it so it's not as conservative I suggest cutting some of the piano or it's textures from time to time and let your more original writing come through. If the judges don't have the piano plin plin plon'ing away behind or in front of them the choir for the whole song the choir can do it's job of being interpretive with the source, as far as OCR is concerned. Give your interpretive parts some room to shine! I see the improvements, and it's helped the track quite a bit. It'll probably still be rejected for being conservative and being too wet, but those aren't nearly as difficult of issues to tackle as they were in the original track. I believe it's closer than you think.

Oooh, this is nice and funky - great choice of chord choices to keep the track nice and fresh. The little melodic flourishes are pretty excellent, too. Could use a little more stereo separation to give the track the illusion of space better, but it otherwise sounds pretty slick. Nice work on this.

I like the soundscape of this one, those twangy instruments work pretty well for a Bramble remix. I think the harmonic variance from the source are also interesting, and the textures overall compliment the source pretty well. There's definitely a winning arrangement under the stylistic choices made for this arrangement. The choice to cut frequencies like this doesn't compliment your music, though. Technically speaking, unnecessary parts of the high or low end in a mix is decreased or cut in order to give the rest of the mix some room increase the overall volume without noticeable loss in quality. Since there can only be so much sound that comes from a sound file before it overloads the file and starts clipping the sound, it's often important to make space wherever available to maximize your sound. The important caveat is to do this "without noticeable loss in quality"; this arrangement cuts most of the bottom end of the arrangement and a considerable amount from the higher EQ range, resulting in a song that sounds like it's coming out the other end of a telephone. Cut back on the EQ high and low pass and allow these frequencies to come through, they're important to making the arrangement sound full. The mixing of the arrangement isn't terrible, but the drums are almost impossible to hear. Some of this is because of the EQ cuts, but much of this is just mix balancing. Make sure your drums aren't lost in the mix, as they could add some depth to the overall arrangement. The guitar part in this adds some nice variety to the arrangement - in fact, this mix has a few nice texture changes to give the listener some breathing room from time to time (like at 4:00, for example). The direct repetition 0f 0:20 - 2:00 at 2:20 - 4:00 does make the arrangement drag on without anything new or interesting to grab the listener's attention, though, and while the moments of relief from the static arrangement are welcome, they're too few and far between. Too much of the arrangement sound too similar to the rest of the arrangement, and the direct repetition does little to keep the arrangement interesting. Don't be afraid to cut textures to make them sound fresh when they come back into an arrangement, or introduce new ideas when you feel a repeat of the overall arrangement is warranted. Keep things fresh and interesting throughout. The instruments sound pretty good, actually, though I do need to note that the guitar sample sticks out like a sore thumb, quality-wise (is it FL Slayer, by chance?). If you don't have a good guitar sample, I would suggest replacing it with a different sample or synth. A poor instrument amid an overall good soundscape can really take a listener out of the experience. I don't think the arrangement is too conservative, but it is too static, and the repetition does no one any favors, either. The EQ cutting should be decreased significantly or removed, and the mix needs to balance the drums better. Again, I really do believe there is something cool under all of this, but right now I don't think this is a pass. Great work on an early music arrangement; it's not bad for a week of work, it just need some fixes and polish. NO

This is quite an arrangement, spanning Simon's journey very nicely. It was a smart choice to keep the overall arrangement orchestral, as it sounds like one of those concerns that Square likes to put out of it's various franchises. The orchestration is varied and very well done, as well; I've no issue with the arrangement on that front. Agreed with Larry on the instrumentation and realism, though - it's not perfect, but it's certainly passable. This could've benefitted greatly from some reverb to help make the orchestra sound like it's in a hall of sorts, because as it is the instruments sound like they're not in any sort of space. I can see these samples and such working much better with some reverb to fill out the space better. Concerning the sources (thanks for that, Rexy) this definitely does include more than enough source reference to be recognizable, and there is plenty of reinterpreting of the source to consider this arrangement personalized. The sources sound pretty disjointed, though, specifically at 0:54, 1:31, and 2:10. 3:10 transitions to the material well enough (that hold gives the listener enough anticipation for the change to work, in my opinion), and 3:29 holds some textures over to help the transition work better. The transition at 4:08, relatively sudden as it is, does a really nice bookending the arrangement and uses a nice callback to prior material to tie the arrangement together, which allows the arrangement to just barely crosses my threshold of this not sounding like a bunch of disconnected arrangements of different sources mashed together. The sources in the beginning do sound like a mashing of sources together rather than a blend of the sources, but the track smooths out and ends on a strong note after the 3:10 mark. Certainly not without flaws, but I think I lean toward this being acceptable rather than not. I could see others arguing the opposite, though, so if this gets sent back give this some reverb to help give the arrangement a grander feel, and tie your transitions up better at 0:54, 1:31, and 2:10. Overall, though, it's a great arrangement, and I'm glad you sent it our way! YES

the fact that things can be streamed at HD quality and the cost of flash storage approaching parity with blue ray discs means that these optical storage methods are going to become out of date sooner rather than later why create an ultraviolet optical storage device when you'll have cheaper flash storage at a higher capacity a few years down the line? why create new methods of delivering movies to the small screen when streaming is such a viable alternative? R&D takes time and money, and frankly there is no real incentive to create new optical technologies when what we have works as well as it does right now

Damn, I missed an 8-bit rendition of what I believe is one of the most underrated RPGs on the Playstation? Say it ain't so! Yes, purists will not be satisfied with this, but the phasing, delays, and stereo definitely do nothing but help elevate the track to new heights. There is a lot of depth to the sounds because of this, but I could easily hear this being a fantastic VRC6 arrangement as well that sounds close to this overall quality. Sounds great, awesome work from DDRKirby, as usual.

Mmm, I'm diggin' the soundscape on this one - it's very fleshed out and has a lot of creative timbral choices that keep the arrangement distinct enough from the source. It utilizes song form very nicely, using that guitar riff as a grounding point for the listener to return to as the sections in between are pretty well varied, which gives the listener some nice grounding so they don't get lost. To be honest, I think y'all are being overly critical on this one. There are elements that are not varied when they return (such as the guitar lead), but these repetitions are pretty short and are followed by well varied material. The production is quite good overall, and the use of space is pretty varied throughout (which breaks up the potential of this getting too stale). The song just isn't long enough for the relatively static elements to grate against the listener's ears; at three minutes there's really little opportunity to have the repetitive elements stick out in a negative way (unless the song is actually 1:30 on repeat, or something). The track is reverb heavy, but I had no issue hearing all of the individual elements so at the end of the day I can't say the track is muddy to a fault, either. This sounds like a pretty uncontroversial YES, to me, but if it does get sent back add some variety to the lead guitar & drums, and bring the reverb down so the mix doesn't sound as much like a wash of sound. YES

Got some aggressive beats, some nice psytrance basslines, good production values in general, and hey it's Dragonball Z vocal clips (and GT's shadow dragon thrown in, for good measure). Glad this is a part of the game's soundtrack, otherwise how would we be able to show off some love to Dragonball on here? That sidechaining is appropriate, though the lead at the beginning (0:52) is buried too deeply in the mix to be sidechained that aggressively; it gets lost and is a little hard to follow. Don't be afraid to make the lead stand out a little more, especially if it's gonna be sidechained; you aren't going to cause big production issues if it's getting sidechained anyway! The key change is led into in an interesting and sensible manner, but it doesn't leave nearly as gracefully; suddenly changing key and overall texture is jarring and doesn't seem justified, here. You know how to modulate into a key pretty well, so use that knowledge to move yourself out of a key, as well. The portion at 4:00 to the ending seems like it should be a bit longer before closing the song out; right now it's quite a bit shorter than prior sections, so it doesn't sound proportionally like an ending, but rather like an incomplete song. The song should've ended on a more complete note (and the cut off sound at the end doesn't help, either, as others have pointed out). Be careful with your harmonies there, too; the melody ends with a major chord, and the harmony is in minor, so it clashes. Since the melody is so strong it's hard to hear, but when you hear it the parts do clash. Be careful with that moving forward. It's a close one in my mind; the issues do add up. There is a lot of good that this song does too, though - the strong production, aggressive beats, DB vocal clips - they also produce something pretty awesome. It's a bit of a tough vote, but considering the biggest issue for me is that a four and a half minute arrangement sounds like it should be even longer that's a little on the strange side to hold the track back for that. Keep proportion of a song in mind when arranging in the future, though. YES

It's the usual excellent package from Nostalvania, jazzed up and very well interpreted. I agree with the others that the bassline is more than recognizable enough as the lava path source bassline, and with the rest of the source available it's more than enough to satisfy the 50% rule of thumb quota. Great production, excellent arrangement, and some great performances all around to boot, I'd say this is an easy post for us. YES

I'm working on finishing the last track, then I'll be trying to send it back to staff. I am working on this pretty actively, atm, so I'm hoping I'm able to get this out soon. Looking forward to providing the update when I get this back to staff.

This is definitely a fun interpretation of the sources - out of the criticisms that I have, arrangement and creativity ain't one of them. We don't have enough polka on OCR, and this would be a great addition in that regard. I can't really ignore the instrument quality, though; the samples really feel like samples throughout. It's not only the samples are bones dry with very little to no reverb to add depth, but more importantly everything - everything - sounds like it's playing staccato. I understand a lot of it is stylistic, but the overuse of these staccato hits really pulls the listener out of the experience. Many free samplers (Bigcat and BBC Orchestral Sampler, for example) have options for many different kinds of attacks on the instruments, so take advantage of this. It's a great idea, but it's not quite up to par for quality. I'd love to hear this again sometime with better sampling and some more reverb, though! NO

Hey, wasn't this one of those Castlevania Remix compo tracks? I knew I recognized it from somewhere, lol (nice job winning that compo, btw!). Oh, I like the approach in the beginning of this; using the N64 castle center theme leaves you with more to work with when you get into the meat of the track (which is the SotN castle theme), and it doesn't sound like a different track being slapped onto the beginning. I could see some complain that the sources aren't integrated, but I think they compliment one another well enough side by side. The instruments are pretty clean and bouncy, too, which fits the theme of fightin' dancin' monsters. That transition to Symphony of the Night wasn't my cup o' tea, though. I think it could've worked had the key changed been avoided by either transposing the intro or later material to match the other, but as it stands the key change sounds like something important is supposed to be happening, but the rest of the instrumentation and textures suggest otherwise. While I stand by my belief that these sources work quite well side by side as an intro to the main portion of the track, the key swap makes the two parts of the track sound disjointed. I like the instruments and textures, once again, but I feel that texture at 1:28 is overpowering that lead. You can still hear everything well enough, but some mixing TLC could've helped make the leads stand out better. This doesn't affect the track much as the song moves along, and when the lead ain't there to overpower the texture at 2:38 sounds great, so it doesn't ultimately take this track down too much. That bridging material at 2:53 is a really great way to make the returning material at 3:35 sound relatively fresh. I could slap you on the wrist for repetition, but I think it works well enough as a nice contrast to the bridging material. The melody playing over different harmonies at 2:59 was a really cool touch, too. Overall I think this does a great job at what it wants to do, despite one or two hiccups. I think this'll work out well on the front page. YES

wow, last time i saw you post off-topic was still a living forum, lol glad to see you kickin'

If you're looking to learn how to write independent lines that compliment an existing lead, there's an entire compositional art dedicated to just that called "Counterpoint". You can read "Fux Gradus Ad Parnassum" for a fairly complete presentation on how to do counterpoint, but for the short-short version: Four types of motion (aka two notes moving at the same time) are used to create independence between lines, from "most" independent to "least": Counter Motion (notes move in opposite direction) Oblique Motion (one note moves while the other stands still) Similar Motion (notes move in the same direction but by different amounts) Parallel Motion (notes move in the same direction and by the same amount) All of this motion can (and should) be used, but be careful when moving in parallel motion to not move in parallel unison (the notes will sound like the same note, losing the independence), parallel octaves (same issue as moving in unison - you lose the voice), and parallel fifths (fifths discourage motion in music, moving in parallel makes the lines sound disjointed). Furthermore, do not move in similar motion into an octave, unison, or fifth. Oblique motion shouldn't lead into a dissonance, but it can lead out of one. Overall chord intervals shouldn't be dissonant, so don't lead into dissonance between your two notes, but decorative notes (like passing or neighbor tones) can be dissonant without too much issue. Aside from that, go nuts, the world is your oyster and all that jazz. This is a primer on traditional counterpoint, which kinda ignores some modern music (dissonance is generally more accepted nowadays, for example), but it should act as a nice guideline if you're having trouble making independent lines in your music in the first place. This has been a crash course on basic voice leading and counterpoint from yours truly. Hope it helps.

Hmm, I'll need to play the game first and really get a feel for it. I like the genre choices, tho; I can do symphonic electro epic. Since I own the game, I'll give you a heads up sometime later, when I finish it, lol.

This is definitely an interesting arrangement, with some strong instrument choices and nice, meaty opening. The biggest thing that holds it back, in my opinion, is the relative lack of structure and pacing; it doesn't quite sound like it knows where it wants to go or what it wants to be. The first minute is a cinematic, wide ambient sound, ghosting the theme (really cool, btw), then at 1:32 it has a dry, almost personal or chamber feel to it with that initial wide synth behind it. Then it moves to a nice groove at 3:24, followed by stark glitching at 3:41 on the lead (which goes on for over a minute), then to a solo piano, then... yeah. I like these ideas on their own, but the arrangement needs to tie these together using more than the source. Right now things are just not coming together as a coherent piece where things stand. The other judges have covered the other issues fairly well (tuning in the bass, sour notes from too much motion in the texture, melody mixing, etc.), but the most important thing is that structurally it needs to have more focus and cohesiveness. Each part could be made into an arrangement on it's own, but you need to focus on what you want to take from this and make it into a track that adds up into more than just a sum of it's parts. NO

Very nice and clean arrangement of Storm Eagle, and it sounds pretty different from most versions that I've heard, taking on a more "airy" tone than most that lean more on the rock and metal side of things. I dig it, nice work.

Heh, and I thought I was the only one who did this to tracks from time to time (I just use Audacity when doing this with other people's music, personally). TBH it's pretty cool to do this to your own collection, sprucing it up for personal use, but do remember that while OCR distributes the music with a non-exclusive license to do so, we technically don't have the right to go put out "updated" versions of other people's music without their permission (nor does anyone else, for that matter, since it's still their music), so I would say unless you can manage to get people's permission for putting out remastered versions of their music it's probably a no-go in general, as far as distributing remasters go. That's not to say you can't do it on your own - it's sometimes really fun to have a personal copy at home of a remastered version - it's just not something that you should distribute on a wide scale without talking to the artists first.

this guy knows what's up the candy corn series of EPs are also excellent, in my humble opinion

Well, lightening up on the reverb (decreasing it's tail/length of time it rings out) will likely solve both the muddy issue and the clipping, so at least that's not a difficult item to resolve. Concerning the EQ question, believe it or not a real rough-and-dirty way to check that is to look at the "Bars" visualization in Windows Media Player; while it's not quite as informative as a spectrum analyzer it's certainly easier to read and make decisions on the fly with. Glad I could help, and good luck with the arrangement.

EVAL Well lookie here, a Corridors of Time arrangement. Can't ever go wrong with that source! I really like the instruments in this, particularly the vox lead that you have throughout the track. There's a lot of personalization that went into making that lead sing, and the work shows beautifully. The production values are alright, though you've got to be careful about that clipping that happens at moments like 1:27 & 2:22; there's too much going on in the same frequency bands and the overall production quality suffers for it. This ties into the next point: lighten the reverb on this track, as it creates an overall muddy atmosphere that makes the midrange EQ overwhelming and difficult to hear everything that's going on. I understand that this is a dreamy arrangement, but the reverb is cutting into your mixing space quite a lot. Cleaning that up will likely clean up any clipping in the production, too. I really think the instruments are great, and the arrangement itself has something good going for it, but it does sound static from end-to-end. In this case the culprit is easy to spot: that vibraphone doesn't stop for the entire piece, and it gets pretty tiring to listen to toward the middle. Don't be afraid to cut it from the arrangement from time to time, particularly at important section changes (such as at 1:30, for example) - we all know the infamous Corridors of Time ostinato by this time, so little is missed by removing it from time to time. Also, the more contrast between sections you have the easier it is for the listener to follow the flow of the arrangement, and the less tiring a piece of music will be on the listeners' ears from any instrument or part outstaying it's welcome. When these changes are all put into place, some mastering on the EQ (carving the mids, raising the high EQ for shimmer) would do this a lot of good, but that's not really a requirement - just a suggestion to take a piece from good to great. Rich instrumentation and cool atmosphere, and I really enjoyed it, but I think there are some steps one could take to clean this up before sending it to the mailbox. Best of luck on this, and I hope to hear an improved version on the panel sometime.

You've got some tasty lead work goin' on in this one. The synths used sound very similar to the FM synths used in the source, matching almost identically with the texture, in fact, and some healthy pads to fill the space where the genesis couldn't. The arrangement definitely has some fun with the lead melody of the source, too, playing with it in every section of the arrangement rather than just at the climax, which runs the risk of everything sounding a little "same-y" but with an arrangement this short it presents no issues. I thought it was cool, thanks for sharin'!

vaguepost updates are the best updates :3

Oh, well then that means I might have an excuse to remix Man with the Machine Gun again, which I've been enjoying as a track recently in a playthrough of FF8. Couldn't think of someone better to take hold of this project, tbh, so I look forward to seeing what you have in store for this.