Gario

Mmm, the racing mode from Sonic 3. The arrangement is really good - metal with synths,with a peppy style that kind of reminds me of Rush. It holds the energy of the source while introducing plenty of interpretation on the leads. It's a solid arrangement. I think Chimp hits this one pretty solidly - the track is very overcompressed. The balance of the instruments is also pretty inconsistent. The lead is very often too loud when there isn't as much going on (such as at 0:40 - that synth is a big culprit, in general), but in other parts (such as 1:28) nothing stands out at all, so it ends up sounding cluttered and disorganized. The balance of the mix will need a lot of attention, in order to bring out the important portions appropriately without those parts sticking out like a sore thumb. The performances are solid in this, and the arrangement is great. The balance of the mix needs some attention, though, and the overcompression only compounds that issue. Re-balance the mix, adjust the compression so it doesn't smash everything into the same volume range and this should pass pretty easily. NO

Well, I did give it a listen, so here are some thoughts on it. It's a pretty fun arrangement. I enjoy the instrumentation on this - the wubs, the slab bass, the pads and especially the lead work. The drums are meaty enough to act as a solid grounding for this track, too, so it has that going for it. The leads are mixed a bit quiet throughout, though - they get a little bit lost behind the rest of the track. They get pulled even farther behind the track purposefully at 2:49, which works, but they never really seem to come back to the front (even at 3:49, where it makes sense that they would). The vocal clips are a little loud in comparison to the music prior and after. It sticks out a little, but I don't think it sounds particularly poor. I think it'll do alright, on the panel. Sorry I didn't respond sooner - work, and all

Well, this is a pretty fun arrangement. This is the first time I've heard this (well, my second time, actually - I did catch it in the WIP forums right before it popped up here!), so my ears are pretty fresh on this, as well. I enjoy the instrumentation on this - the wubs, the slab bass, the pads and especially the lead work. The drums are meaty enough to act as a solid grounding for this track, too, so it has that going for it. The leads are mixed a bit quiet throughout, though - they get a little bit lost behind the rest of the track. They get pulled even farther behind the track purposefully at 2:49, which works, but they never really seem to come back to the front (even at 3:49, where it makes sense that they would). The dry vocal clips didn't really bother me too much, other than they're a little loud in comparison to the music prior and after. It sticks out a little, but I don't think it sounds particularly poor. Overall, it seems to cover the source, while taking it in a new direction. The leads being as quiet as they are bothers me, but I don't think it's a dealbreaking issue. In the previous decision it seems that the groove didn't change enough, but that seems to have been corrected in this version. I think it's over the bar, myself. YES

Very rich interpretation of a pretty empty source. I really enjoy the overall re-interpretation of the chords that's present in this arrangement. Changing things from simple chords to 7ths, 9ths, etc., and reinterpreting just what each chord is allows you to expand on the source beautifully. The chiptunes and guitar blend quite well together. I'm not sure downgrading your drums through 2A03 was such a good idea - that bass drum has nearly no presence, which does affect the track negatively. The rest of the percussion is alright, but that bass drum is very weak. The end has about ten seconds of silence that should be sliced off, too - no reason to have that, there. Thanks for providing the sample that you used - I think that should cover you, as far as complying with site policy for SFX usage. This is a very powerful re-imagining of this source. The faults that this holds are pretty minor in comparison to what it brings to the table. It sends chills down my spine, so needless to say I love it. YES

First and foremost, yeah, this track is arranged very often, but let's face it - it's a great source. The arrangement focuses on the real guts of the source (at least, the most recognizable part) before exploring the other elements present. It's a good idea, and a good way of putting your own spin on something like this. The guitar playing and drum work is spot on in this, but the other instruments sound pretty mechanical. The piano doesn't utilize any dynamic range from what I hear, which is atypical for that instrument. The strings, on the other hand, have the same attack swell for every note, the vibrato is ever present (string players will only use vibrato for longer notes), and are also pretty dynamically stagnant, like the piano part. When sequencing "real" instruments, it's always important to make them sound as close to a real performance as possible. Very often, the strings carry the theme, but it gets lost behind the attack swell every attack it has. This issue is compounded by the fact that the string part holds the same range as the guitar part, so it gets a little lost in the mix, as well. When everything is going all at once, it's wise to avoid having many instruments doing something in the same range - the violin part would be easier to pull out of the mix if it were playing at a higher range than the accompanying guitar. The Fus-Ro-Dah part at 2:24 gets drown out by whatever other sound effect you have there, as well as by the other instruments present. It would have a better impact if it were mixed closer to the front of the mix at that point. It's not bad, but I think it needs some real TLC involving the humanization of the instruments. The violin part especially needs some attention, as it often carries the theme. NO

Holy shit, this combination works incredibly well - I was not expecting this at all. It changes the Zelda theme completely, and yet... it makes perfect sense. Granted, the first three notes of Zelda's theme occur in Moog town, as well, but kudos for expanding on that idea. I'm on the fence, as far as this being a track that doesn't develop enough. On the one hand, it presents a solid idea, and takes it a few places with that build-up. On the other hand, there's a second half to the Zelda theme that I know could be expanded on, here. There's also the fact that I hear the Moog portion being followed quite closely, as far as the form of the arrangement goes. Not to say this is too conservative (blending the themes like this alone means you took quite a liberty with it), but perhaps branching away from the structure of Moog Town a little may generate a few more ideas. At 1:49, there is some distortion that pops up. It's not technically clipping, as the track never gets above -0.5 dB, but it sounds a lot like it, as if there's a hard limiter that the track is hitting against. You should certainly look into that distortion and clean it up. Overall, I really like what is here, but at the same time I agree with Chimp on both the clipping and development of the track. I will also suggest breaking away a little from the form of Moog Town, in order to help generate ideas as far as developing the track goes, though that isn't mandatory. Great work, though - I still got a kick out of this. NO

Well, this is a pretty conservative arrangement. It's as Sir_nutS says, there are little changes all over that make it pretty distinct, but the source is unmistakeable. The pacing of this arrangement is also completely different - whereas the source is fast paced, this track takes a more chill'd pace. I hear tons of synths in the background of this, doing tiny little things in the background almost constantly. Unfortunately, many of the synths in the background are so wet that the smaller flourishes in the background become incredibly difficult to hear, which makes a lot of the song sound the same, from part to part (even though it actually isn't). I like the drums that you use in this, but the primary beat sounds like it has a little copy-patsa action going. The break in the middle changes it up, but overall the pattern is pretty similar throughout. I love the bass drum used, though I think it could punch through just a little bit more. The bass notes in the square seem to have a few odd choices throughout the song, which while they sound intentional, they also sound off. Since the bass repeats the moments I'm thinking of also repeat, so I'll point out the first time these bass notes come up. At 0:40 the chord is based on scale degrees 5/7/2, but the bass remains on scale degrees 1/3, so it sounds odd there. At 1:10 the bass does a little arpeggio of the root chord, but the third is raised for no reason that I am aware of, so it sounds very out of place in comparison to the rest of the track. The chord that's being played there is also 5/7/2, so it's strange (but not completely odd) that the bass arrpegiates 1/3/5 there. There are a few notes in the background that clash against the harmony as well, aside from the bass moments pointed out above. At 1:09 the bass does a cool thing with that 7th scale degree where it raises up, but there's a texture in the background that holds that lower'd 7th scale degree that clashes with the bass. It'd be best to simply drop the note in the background texture (or change it to something else completely), in order to resolve this conflict. At 2:06 there's a lowered 2nd in the harmony that doesn't sound good, nor does it sound intentional. It should be changed to a normal 2nd scale degree note. There are a lot of little issues with this track, but the overall feel of it is actually quite solid. A poor note here and there wouldn't affect me much, but having so many notes sound off is throwing me on this arrangement. The wet reverb levels of some of the instruments are also getting in the way of the cool background elements that you have to keep things fresh, so it ends up sounding like it's all the same (even though it isn't!), so it would be a good idea to decrease the reverb and/or release of your extra wet instruments. The drums also seem a little lacking in variety, in the overall pattern it uses - changing it up once or twice more would help get more mileage out of this. It's good stuff, but a lot of little things added up to my vote on this one. EDIT (04/20): This applied to v1; there were significant changes made that addressed many of my grievances. Apologies for not returning to this one in a timely manner. --

Well, I'm not familiar with the Kingdom Hearts series, but from what I gather it has a very solid soundtrack. Fortunately this source doesn't disappoint - nice, dark energy pulsing from it. The arrangement does a nice job transforming it into more of a rock ballade. The mix is generally a nice, balanced mix with clean production values. In the beginning the acoustic guitar sticks out in the mix, though it seems to correct itself at 0:34. Mixing the acoustic guitar from 0:00 to 0:34 like you do at 0:34 on, so the acoustic guitar doesn't punch through as much. The arrangement does a great job incorporating the source while adding it's own spin on it, but there's a single issue that dogs the arrangement consistently throughout - the bass doesn't seem to act like a bass in this. Functionally, there is no bass that holds the harmonies together - the bassist has a tendancy to follow what other instruments are doing, at the cost of giving the song a solid bottom line for the rest of the instruments to play off of. Moments like 1:25 - 1:59, for example, hold the bass at the 5th of the chord in question, which sounds incredibly odd. 2:11 - 2:33 sounds like the bass is following one of the accompanying parts rather than allowing the rest of the harmonies to build off of it. I'd detail more cases, but past the 1:25 mark the issue is consistently there. This isn't a slight against the bass performance - it's well played, certainly - but the part that it plays doesn't function well as a bass part. There are two ways to address this - either the bass could be performed again to function as the bottom of the chord (with embellishments, but still functional), or if a lower bass part is added to the track that can act as the functional bass. Either fix would work. Aside from the slight mixing issue in the beginning (which is an easy fix) the bass is the only issue I take with this song, but it's such an important part of any arrangement, and it's such a consistent issue throughout this track that I have to consider it a dealbreaker. With a more solid bass this would be an easy pass, but without that the chords simply don't sound right throughout the arrangement. NO

Well, you can still submit to OCR on your own - as far as how you distribute your music otherwise we don't have a say. It's your music, after all. From OCR's content policy page (Submission agreement, point 7): However, if you're planning on having the music distributed via a label, be sure that OCR's policies do not conflict with their own (if they require being the sole distributor of your music, for example, that would be an issue for them). While other distributions shouldn't cause problems on this end - it's still your music, after all - it perhaps could cause some issue with your other distributors. This is OCR's content policy, so you can look this over and see if it will cause any issue with any other distributor you plan on utilizing. Hope that helps!

Mmm, interesting approach to this, almost like Cusco on crack with the flute + electronics. Cusco is great, so you already have my attention. I like the pan flute in the beginning - it could use some vibrato, the lines could've sounded smoother (rather than like the pan flutist was restriking every note), but overall I liked the effect. The percussion at 0:27 is very well done, but that pan flute that I enjoyed earlier gets completely drown behind them. Changing the range of the flute would help significantly, but when everything comes in at 0:53 I don't see much you can do to bring the flute over everything else. By its nature the pan flute doesn't have the power to play above such a dense arrangement - for that portion perhaps utilize another instrument to cover the theme. At 1:46 the pan flute is once again too far behind the mix, which is a shame considering it carries the theme. At 2:15 you bring in the violin and piano combination. I agree with Emu that these are not very well humanized. The attacks all sound the same, rather than reducing the attack swell to tie the phrases properly, and they sound very dry in comparison to the rest of the instruments. The piano in the background also sounds too dry, and has no dynamic variation. I like the change from the beginning to 2:15, and you do some great things with the source past that point. After 3:05, however, it seems you repeat the same ideas over and over again until the end of the song (5:08). You build on it more and more, but that doesn't change the fact that after 3:05 the arrangement doesn't move anywhere, which gets pretty boring pretty quickly. Personally I was waiting for the original material from the beginning to return (it would've bookended the piece nicely), but any sensible change in direction would've been great rather than repeating the same idea nine times to close the piece off. The arrangement and instrument realism has issues, but I really do like the percussion and synth work in this. It really grabs your attention, and the power of the percussion really drives this piece well. If the pan flute was balanced properly in the mix, the strings and piano humanized better and the arrangement past 3:05 given more direction rather than repeating the same idea until the end, this would be a fantastic addition to OCR. However, for now there is still some work to be done, which I hope Noah does. NO

Mmm, the soundscape on this one is very tasty. Those drums just have a whole lot of meat on them, and the complimentary instruments really do compliment one another. Great use of that funk guitar at 1:45, too - I am a real sucker for that. The lead synth you use throughout could use a softer attack, so there's less 'pop' on the attack for every note strike. It doesn't sound objectively bad, but due to the style you have (the more serene sound of the synth) it doesn't sound intentional, either. Not that this will affect my vote (as there isn't anything wrong with the synth, technically), but if you ever want a synth with the same amount of lead time but without that hard strike, just set the attack on the synth about two notches above zero - this will have the same lead time, but the attack will sound much softer. Just thought I'd point that one out. The instrument introduced at 0:46 is difficult to pull from the rest of the track. It would've ideally been put closer to the front of the mix. I'm not really feeling the ending on this one, either - it sort of dies down after repeating what it's been doing prior. A better ending would've done a lot of good, for this track. Honestly, there isn't more to say on this, though, as the rest of this is pretty slick. I'm digging this, overall, and I'm glad you stuck with it for as long as you have. Great work! YES

Man, lots of disagreement with me on this. I had to give this another listen, to double check... Ack, nah, my vote IS off. I can hear the most important drum pretty solidly throughout - I think the headphones I had prior were not catching the frequencies correctly. My bad on that. The other percussion was alright, though still a little on the quiet side. My point on the synth sticking out like a sore thumb still bugs me, but it's not something that I'd NO this for alone. It was close for me, so that change in perception alone is enough to sway me on this. Yeah, my vote was off, giving this another listen on a different setup. What you have works great, for the genre you have going (even if the production is still a bit hot). I rescind my prior vote on this - give this man the front page. YES

I like it - lots of energy, and the mix sounds pretty clean. The violin at 0:22 really sounds like it should be at the front of the mix, though - sounds odd to hear it pushed so far back into the mix. That being said, with that violin part coming out a little, you should submit it on OCR, if you haven't already. It's pretty good.

Oh no, your link is broken. I wanted to listen to it, too. Sadness.

Well, it sounds pretty good, but it's difficult to evaluate it for the panel if there's no link to the source. From a (very) quick glance, though, it sounded pretty solid, so nice work. We can't really eval it without a source link, though, and since it's a weekend I'm too lazy to find it myself.

This is a pretty soothing track. Interesting ideas in this - I really enjoyed the Gumshoe theme at the beginning, the section after that flows nicely and there's some more activity toward the end. Unfortunately, the parts really don't come together and form one piece - they sound like smaller songs, in their own right. Even the Gumshoe theme, while nice, does not transition into the other source. If you want to incorporate themes like that, you'll need to make the transition sound more cohesive, as if the multiple sources actually belong to a single song. Right now that's not what I'm getting out of it. I don't know if it's a filter of some sort, but the muted guitar sounds a bit muffled. If there's a low pass on the track, consider lightening up on it a little and letting more high end EQ through on it. The delay is a cool effect, but as Deia said it's a little too much, so it ends up sounding like a wash of sound. Lighten up on that delay. The whole song sounds very quiet. It's trivial to push another dB or two out of it, and with a little limiting on the master after it'd be easy to get another two dBs. There's no reason for the track to be this quiet. It's a good start, but I don't think this is there yet. The arrangement sounds like multiple songs strung together, the low pass on the guitars are a bit extreme, the delay is a little too heavy and the overall track is too quiet. Deia gave a great suggestion in getting even more feedback in the WIP forums - plenty of people would love to give you more advice on how to improve your music, and this track would benefit from people's advice in there. Good luck! NO

More Guile! The one track it's impossible to have too much of. This arrangement takes a pretty conservative take on it, but the track knows when to pull back on the energy, and when to shift things around to spice it up (like at the second half of the track). The arrangement is fun, and it works. The bass has a pretty heavy stereo spread. I once heard a rule of thumb that one should lean toward spreading the upper mids to the highs for space, and keep the bass centered, and I think I can hear why in this - the bass takes up a LOT of acoustic space, and the overall effect is disorienting. I've spread the bass in a few songs, to make the music sound "warmer", but you need to be careful not to spread it more than necessary. The mix is pretty cluttered - it's really hard to pull some of the cool background elements from the supersaw pad you have through a good deal of the track. I disagree on the leads, too - they don't quite rise above everything enough when they're at their strongest, and there are enough moments like 1:56 where the lead gets completely drown in the mix. Making the mix cleaner will be difficult before you fix that bass, but there's another element that's putting heat on your production - your limiter on the master. That's causing quite a bit of heat throughout the track. You'll need to turn that thing off and mix your elements so they sound good together first, then use the limiter to give the track a little boost in overall volume. It shouldn't be used to mask clipping, as it seems to here. It's a start, but I'm not feeling this one. The mixing, bass spread and limiter are giving you a much less-than-ideal production of the track. I can see the arrangement working alright, but before we can pass it you'll need to focus on addressing these issues, which would improve the production considerably. NO

Well, this arrangement goes pretty balls-to-the-walls all the way through, here. Four-to-the-floor, and proud of it, this really takes you for a ride, and it's a ride I actually enjoyed. As far as source usage, it stays pretty true to the source for the first half of the track (with little background flairs, to mix things up), and then it really opens up into some awesome material for the second half. Great use of subtractive arranging - dropping instruments can be just as effective as adding them, and you do a good job showing just how effective that can be. Arrangement aside, though, the production really drags this track down. From the get-go, the master is very likely too loud, and the limiter that you use to compensate for the clipping that would come out of it causes distortion because of it. A mix that's too loud doesn't give you any room to mix it properly, so there are many moments where just too much is trying to be the lead at once, which makes for a messy mix. Listen to 2:47, for example - listen to how no instrument can really be pulled out of that, and it ends up just sounding like a sound wash. Moments like 0:17 are better (though not perfect); the lead stands out enough, but the other elements are easier to pick apart, and nothing really clashes with the other instruments to the point where a listener cannot distinguish the instruments. The synths are very appropriate for the style, and you switch them up enough before any particular one gets boring. The drums sound repetitive, with the simple boom-tis throughout, but I suspect I'm actually missing something with them. The snare is virtually nonexistant, for example - I only caught it after a few listens. There could be a lot of cool things you're doing with the drums to keep things interesting, but other than the bass and a few snare fills and toms from time to time I simply don't hear the drums. You need to balance the other drum elements in the mix better. The end of the track isn't very conclusive, as it just plays the source a few times then ends. An ending should close the arrangement off more convincingly than that. The arrangement has a lot of good ideas, and the material is there for something really fun, but the production and mixing really prevent this from being everything that it could be. Remove the limiter and fix the levels so the mix doesn't redline, then push for volume with a limiter afterward. Also, mix your elements so the focal instruments are front and center, while the more supportive elements don't fight for space as much. Also, give this a more defined ending than it does. It's a lot of work, but I can see this being a decent resubmission, if the work to improve the production and mixing is put into it. NO

Great performances all around, and solid sound to the production on this, too - very meaty. The arrangement sticks very, very close to the source. I can overlap the source and this song on top, and save for a moment or two where they get out of sync they line up perfectly (I literally did this). Even a lot of the backing instruments are of the same type (Strings in the beginning, piano for the arpeggio when the song picks up, etc.). It's a great cover, and there's nothing wrong with a great cover. However, OCR by design requires a little more interpretation of the source, as per site rules. While the production is great, the backing instruments are pretty mechanical. The dynamics have little variation, the attacks are all the same, no vibrato for longer notes, etc. Take a look at how performers play their respective instruments, and utilize the different parameters on your samples to emulate this for your instruments. The more you make the sampled instruments sound more like a live performer, the better, so I hope my advice in this area helps. Overall, it's a great cover with mechanical backing instruments, but the biggest reason we can't post it on OCR is due to the arrangement being too conservative. The performance is great, though - you guys continue to impress, as far as your musicianship is concerned. Rock on. NO

Just popping in to point out that my review of this track was from the initial version that was posted - the newest version improves the overcompression issues that I had considerably. I just wanted to put that out there, in case anyone was wondering what I was blabbing about on overcompression. Kind of redundant at this point, but seeing that's more or less fixed in the newest version, I figure I'll give my approval, as well. YES

Honky tonky, and a little bit wonky. Taking such a dark, flavorful source and turning it into festival fair is amazing. Great arrangement of the source, here. The instruments are fairly disappointing, though. There is little humanization on the instruments present - no volume envelops to simulate how a performed would phrase their music, no tweaking the strikes of the notes (particularly the strings), and no vibrato on your accordion leads. This makes your instruments sound artificial. Really fun arrangement, but the mechanical instruments is a bit much. As much as I'd like to pass this, I'm afraid the instruments are going to need some more humanization before I can pass this. Good luck, and great work on this arrangement. NO

Well, this is a powerhouse of a track. Great arrangement of the sources, and some great performing. The layering of the two sources together in particular is great - using Knight Man's recognizeable intro as a rhythmic backing behind the Dr. Wily stage material was brilliant. There sounds like there's an off note at 2:07 in the synth part, like one of the notes is a half step lower than it should be. It's minor, but it's there. The synths are awesome, and things feel like they're where they're supposed to be, mixing-wise. The whole track sounds very overcompressed, though. Everything is loud and in your face, but the whole track sounds like things are dipping in and out of the mix, based on how dense the music is at any point. That overcompression isn't a dealbreaker, and the rest of the arrangement and performances really are amazing. I would actually love a cleaner submission of this, with the overcompression corrected (even if that means the arrangement will be a touch quieter), but this is a pass even if we don't get that. Awesome work! YES

Very space-y. This evokes a very other-worldly sound, even moreso than the source does. Nice synth choices on this one, as they really add flavor to the overall track. This does feel pretty close to the source, but I do hear some variation in the chord choices and such - it's conservative, but it has enough interpretation in it to distinguish it from the source. The drums are pretty weak in this. They don't have to be booming, but the garage band style of drums seems to clash with the overall mood of the track. I can't fault you too much for that - that could very well be personal taste - but the bass drum in this is nearly non-existent. It definitely needs some more presence in this, as I almost can't hear it, as it is now. Overall, the track seems to be lacking in the bass EQ levels. It's not too extreme of an issue, as the overall ethereal affect the track has compensates for this a little bit, but it does make the track feel like something is missing. The bass you have now is a quickly decaying FM synth that doesn't really carry any weight, and the bass drum has virtually no presence, so the bass frequency range is noteably lacking. For such a short track, there is an excessive amount of repeating, which wears on the listener pretty quickly. The primary portion of the track starting at 0:29 is alright, as it introduces a new element at 0:51 to break it up a little bit, but when it comes back at 1:28 it's virtually unchanged, and it repeats four times, to boot. It feels like padding, at that point, rather than expanding the music in any meaningful way. If you want to organize the music like this, you'll need to make the 1:28 section really stand out as something different from the 0:51 section. Considering how much of the mix these parts actually are (~1:30 min of a 2:30 min piece), this is a pretty big deal. The style is good, and the overall atmosphere is great, but I'm not feeling this one. The bass drum is weak, the bass range is lacking, and most important of all the song relies too much on straight repetition to pad it past the two minute mark. Introduce something more to the sections mentioned above to really differentiate the sections from one another (like you do between the sections from 0:29 and 0:51) - variety is the spice of life, after all. EDIT: I forgot to mention the levels of the volume - it's needlessly quiet. Without any other processing, I can raise this by nearly two decibels without clipping. No need to make something this quiet, but that's an easy fix. NO

Very nice orchestration, and nice attention to the detail on tempo and time signatures (that 11/16 shift in the middle is great!) - there's a lot going on in this track, which really helps this rise above the source its based on. The orchestration is on point, and the arrangement is solid. The mix has a few issues of clarity that make it easy to get lost. There are some great ideas that tie the whole piece together, but it can be easy to miss them the first time around. For example, the mixing of the horns at 0:26 makes them sound like background elements, but at 0:50 it becomes clear that they were the antecedent of the antecedent/consequence you have set up. If they're not prominent, the section doesn't make sense, which can lose the listener. The main elements of the mix are easy to lose against the background elements, unless one is listening carefully for them, so be careful to mix your defining elements more to the front of the mix. The samples aren't the best, but you get a lot of mileage out of them using volume envelops and the like. One more thing that could help push your samples even further would be to incorporate the appropriate amount of vibrato on your lead instruments, as they sound dry and mechanical when the notes are held for long periods of time without it. Other than that, I appreciate the level of detail that went into humanizing the instruments, even if the samples are merely serviceable. Overall, I think it's solid. Some elements could've been done better (mixing important elements to the front, use of vibrato), but nothing stands out as a really crushing issue, especially considering the cool aspects you introduce into the arrangement, such as the meter changes. I certainly think this is well within the bar at OCR - great work! YES

Damn, this is on point. Lyrics are amazing, and the vocals are perfect for the RnB style. The chorus at 1:14 and later doesn't really stand out compared to the rest of the track, which is a shame considering the rapping really builds up to that point. Some different processing of the vocals, or even some doubling in a different octave would've made that chorus more poignant. The background instruments are mixed just a little too far into the background, but they do give the space the voice needs. It would've been nice to hear them just a little more, though. The ending is a bit disappointing, fading out like that. It feels like it should've at least completed the line it was on when it faded out. Overall, though, the issues I have with this are minor - this really does a great job nailing that old school RnB rapping style. It's smooth, the lyrics are on point (even sending me chills as I listen to them), and it's a unique approach to this very popular source. Great work! YES