Gario

Mmm, very chill, very relaxing. Lovin' the jazzy chords used throughout. Nice production, too. I like it, if this is a WIP (like it says in the tag) I hope to hear the final product.

Adding my two cents to the mix, this is a gorgeous arrangement that stays in the same place sonically throughout. I love where the sound is, don't get me wrong - it's a great combination of clean and crunchy that gives a lot of flavor - but it centers around the same arp loop and drum pattern (with fills) throughout. With a whole theme that one could play with and the ability to drop out that admittedly great sounding arp periodically (as well as change up that drum pattern from time to time), there are so many more places that you can (and probably should) take this, as right now this sounds like a proof of concept. Mind you, a great proof of concept, but still otherwise incomplete for what it could be. I look forward to where you take this one, because it sounds fantastic so far.

Pretty much a fantasia on the Temple of Time theme, and it sounds just fantastic throughout. It's not hard to hear the source in this one throughout (especially with that lovely timestamp that Prophetik gave), and due to how short the source is there are a lot of nice slices and dices of that source material to expand it as musically as possible. Production is also clean, and that organ is just sounding delightful. I must disagree with adding a compressor to the track, though; dynamic range of this scale is not only not bad, it's necessary to have this level of variance if you want the instrument to sound realistic. This is just how solo organ performances sound, if you're familiar with organist solo music (here's a lovely example of that dynamic range, in practice). Please do not compress it, as that would drain quite a bit of realism out of the track. Yeah, one of the easiest votes of the year for me, great work! YES

There isn't much to add that the others haven't hit: great arrangement, solid orchestration, and a awesome source, to boot. The sample quality is a hair under par, but they're not terrible, either. The piano has a different reverb setting so it doesn't sound like it's being played in the same space as the rest of the instruments so it sounds pretty jarring when it comes in. That all being said, it's a tough call on my part since what's good here is really good, but it's certainly not without it's flaws. I think it's just good enough to be posted, though. In the future, though, while your dynamics and phrasing are good do try to be on the lookout for some better sounding samples since these do hold your skill back, here; you might give something like BBC's free orchestra VST a shot, if you haven't already. Also be careful to make sure your instruments all sound like they share the same space; that piano's disjointed reverb almost tipped me into giving this a NO, but fortunately it doesn't last too long, in my opinion. Orchestral arrangements can benefit from one reverb effect applying to all the instruments at once rather than instruments individually, just to avoid this particular problem. Good remix, not perfect but I think good enough, and something that you can use to springboard into something fresh and new moving forward. Well done! YES

EVAL Mmm, glad I've been following this gem - it's matured into something really cool, not gonna lie. I think the arrangement is pretty clear, though I still recommend sending timestamps with any submission e-mail; makes the judgment process much faster. Actually, that's really advice that any submission could follow: timestamps make judges happy and less likely to miss any references in the track, if they're subtle. Anyhoo, the production is quite good, and for the most part the mix is clear. The supersaw at 1:56 could come out more to the front of the mix, as it carries the most recognizable part of the source. 4:04 could use less going on there, too, since the mix get crowded for a short time there, which I'm not sure a mixdown could fix. The overall EQ balance sounds heavy in the upper range, to my ears, though I'd probably need to put it through a spectral analyzer to be sure. Could use some high pass on a few of the noisier instruments to give that space some breathing room. To be frank, though, these are nit picks; if you submit this as is I'd be very surprised if it got anything less than a YES. You've been working on this for some time, so I recommend sending it out there so you can explore new territory. Great work!

Ooo, more Octopath Traveler - never a bad thing! Also a fairly underappreciated track from the game, since it's from the "secret" final dungeon; so much excellent content hidden behind side quests. Well, what can you do. Smooth as butter synthwave, excellent cello and sax performances from your partners, and an arrangement that fits the source like a glove. Mixing is clear, as well, and the production is good. I've one nitpick on this track: it doesn't sound like it has as much low end as it could, for a synthwave track. The genre is made on having nice and healthy lows, and while this isn't bad the track has headroom to play with where you could've gotten more out of it. The high end is also non-existent after about 19k, too, so the overall track doesn't quite sound as crisp as it could. Mind you, these are granular nitpicks; the production is still very good, and the arrangement is far above par. An easy pick for the front page, for sure, so great job! YES

Hoi! Remixer name: Jorito Real name: Jorrith Schaap Email: Userid: 3899 ReMixer name: Chromatic Apparatus: https://ocremix.org/artist/17324/chromatic-apparatus ReMixer name: Bobbie Jane Desforges Email: (and with her recording engineer Eleanor Hébert at , with whom I did all communications) Website: https://www.eleanorhebert.com (Bobbie Jane doesn't have an artist profile and is fine with linking to Eleanor's site) Submission information: Name of Game(s) Remixed: Octopath Traveler Name of Arrangement: At Finis Gate Names of songs arranged: The Gate at Finis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNyLiLlP-DM) Link to the remix: Comments about the mix: Wrote this track for the Pixel Mixers Octopath Traveler album, "Echoes of Eight". Originally I opted to do the main theme, but got stuck and wasn't feeling it, so I was glad that this particular track, "The Gate at Finis" became available again. Due to the arp that's one of the main motifs of the source track, I was instantly inspired to do a synthwave/chillwave style track again. Since it was a collaboration album, I also needed a minimum of two guests (something I initially almost forgot about). I already had a saxophone part written and was originally wanted to just stick with samples for it, but due to the collaborative nature of the album, I decided to reach out to find a saxophone. Help arrived in the form of Eleanor Hébert, who handled the sax recording and recruited Bobbie Jane Desforges to perform the part. I also needed another instrument, and decided to go for the cello for this track, an unconventional choice for this genre. I think it works very well in the more cinematic middle section of the track, and it also goes hand in hand nicely with my vague notion to create an EP in this style, with some less conventional instruments, similar to the Okami track I created earlier. As is usual with my electronic/synthwave inspired tracks, there's lots of synth layering and octaves going on to create this particular sound, some effects and transitions to keep the flow and bounce in it, and in general a good amount of care to make the entire track flow nicely. I'm rather proud of how it all came out, especially since the past 2 years have been pretty unproductive musically, and it's good to get back into the swing of things. And of course a big thank you to Bobbie Jane, Eleanor and Chromatic Apparatus for their performances that brought the track to the next level. Arrangement, production, vocals, electric guitar: Jorito Saxophone: Bobbie Jane Desforges Saxophone recording engineer: Eleanor Hébert Cello: Chromatic Apparatus Doeidoei, Jorrith

Not enough Turtles 2 in here, and glad to hear something solid from a respectable arranger approach it. Seems the big issue with this prior was that the bass was too heavy in the mix which caused the other instruments to get drown out. While I do still some mud in the mix in the upper-mid range (1k-6k), which does have the lead get drown behind everything else from time to time (such as at 0:49), but the effect isn't so extreme as to make it impossible to hear the leads. Just something that could be improved. Not easy to take old arrangements (with different workflows and such) and make everything perfect, so I'll say it seems you've fixed the initial issue just fine, and whatever lingering issues aren't enough to bring it below the bar. The arrangement is spicy, and the production is pretty darn good regardless. Wasn't around for the original judgment, but I think this works for us now. Nice work! YES

Hmm, do you mind if I ask what you mean by pre-made phrases? Despite my experience in the field I've never heard of em', so perhaps I can learn something new.

Well, this has been a soundtrack that I've been listening to more and more since it's come out, and it's one of the best from the chapter, to boot. Great choice on source, and the amount of meat added to the arrangement is on full display right from the outset. The production is clean, the instruments all sound great, and the drums hit you hard in the face. Stylistically it's very fitting to the source material, as well. The mixing overall is quite good, but there are moments where we lose the lead behind everything else that's in play. This is evident at 0:47, but it's even more prominent of an issue at 2:52 when there are more textures that are in play. Everything sounds great, but be sure to remember who the main hook in the show's gonna be, which is generally your lead. The arrangement is pretty conservative, but it does take some liberties with the lead and harmonies from time to time, and the shift to a heavier glitch hop style does some real lifting in making the track your own. Some of the counter melodies aren't really hitting me right, particularly at 2:36 - 2:43 and 3:07 - 3:38. The fourths held under the lead don't blend well with the harmonies below, and sound stiff when played in parallel like that. If you're gonna double in parallel always make sure it makes sense in the harmonies you're laying out, at the very least, otherwise the doublings can sound odd or even wrongly dissonant. Compared to the rest of the overall quality, though, these are relative nit picks. This is a nice, strong package given what's here, and even if it's a hair on the conservative side I believe it's got enough personality to have it stand out as your own. Nice work! YES

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.