Gario   Judges ⚖️

Pretty much just Jarski/PsyNES that posts psytrance that I know of (I do miss him on OCR and the WIP boards - hope we pass some more of his stuff soon!). He used to post all sorts of Psytrance on the WIP boards back in the day, and even opened that whole genre up for me.
I wish you the best on the panel, too. 

Good luck! We don't get a lot of psytrance, last I recall, so it'll be nice to have some more!

Hey there, welcome to OCR! Always nice to see a fresh face on here. Let's see what we've got going on here.
Magus, heavy metal cover, good start for sure - can't go wrong with such an iconic source, imo. The opening strings do a good job setting up the mood (much like in the source), and the performances are solid, as far as I can hear. On the mixing (which was a concern for you), I can hear what you're saying here. The balance of the mix sounds like it's favoring the bass over everything else, which can be an issue since a bass waveform is so large. A strong bass is great, but too loud and it takes the space that everything else could use. Toning down the bass will give you more room to raise the mixing levels of your guitars, so I would suggest playing with your other levels in order to give some room for your other instruments in the mix. Taucer's suggestion to tweak the wetness will help, too - the heavy reverb can also make it difficult to raise your levels without causing production issues.
Noticed the minor slap on the wrist you got from using the wrong prefix on here. Taucer is correct on changing the prefix. No worries - just look over the rules of the forum & eval tags and you should be just fine.

Hey there, welcome to OCR! Always nice to see a fresh face on here. Let's see what we've got going on here.
Magus, heavy metal cover, good start for sure - can't go wrong with such an iconic source, imo. The opening strings do a good job setting up the mood (much like in the source), and the performances are solid, as far as I can hear. On the mixing (which was a concern for you), I can hear what you're saying here. The balance of the mix sounds like it's favoring the bass over everything else, which can be an issue since a bass waveform is so large. A strong bass is great, but too loud and it takes the space that everything else could use. Toning down the bass will give you more room to raise the mixing levels of your guitars, so I would suggest playing with your other levels in order to give some room for your other instruments in the mix. Taucer's suggestion to tweak the wetness will help, too - the heavy reverb can also make it difficult to raise your levels without causing production issues.
Noticed the minor slap on the wrist you got from using the wrong prefix on here. Taucer is correct on changing the prefix. No worries - just look over the rules of the forum & eval tags and you should be just fine.

Seems like we're pretty much in unison about the ending and vocals being an issue, even if whether it's passable or not is in debate, so I sent the artist a request to fix that ending specifically while mentioning the issue with the vocals. Here's hoping for a fix.

JSYK, the "ready for review" tag is intended for use on tracks that you plan on submitting to the judges' panel. Since you don't plan on submitting this, I'll switch this track to "work-in-progress," though feel free to switch it to "completed" if you prefer.

As for the lead tones, I agree that they sound too thin. My first impulse would be to decrease the wet/dry ratio on the reverb, and slightly bump up the level, but there's probably more that can be done. What are you using for the guitars? (ie, are you recording an amp, or using a vst amp modeler and if so which one?)

I think you'll be fine if you submit this, tbh. I could hear some complaints on the panel come up about some random mixing elements or another, or someone else might say the drums are a hair static, but I doubt it'll be turned away as long as a decent time stamp is sent with it (still not an easy track to parse the source from, lol).
Looking forward to it!

Thank you so much to Theory of N, DaMonz, and every artist on this album for bringing us this wonderful music!
Brandon Strader's track, All Bark and No Bite, has gotten some particular hate in this thread, so I wanted to chime in and say that I love it, both as a song on its own and as a ReMix of Beware the Forest's Mushrooms. I don't have a particular love for sound bytes in songs, but I don't hate them on principle either, regardless of their "relevance" to the song. Personally, the "bullshitting me" thing neither enhanced nor detracted from the song for me, and I thought the "doo doo doo" thing (which sounds like it could be SpongeBob "steppin' on the beach"???) was amusing and added to the energy of the song. I don't see why a ReMix on this album having them is an indication of a special amount of gall or ego -- if you don't like them, all it takes is someone with different values from yours (which it appears the directors do, because they included the song) to put them into a song. I think it shows a lot more gall to make assumptions about why the artist put them in there, e.g. as a "signature" instead of possibly just something they thought was fun.
Everyone listens to ReMixes, and music in general, for different reasons. I'm sure that the majority of users on this site came here due in no small part to nostalgia. However, I think a ReMix's only real job is to be enjoyable, not to be "full of nostalgia". If I'm ever desperate for nostalgia, I'll just go listen to the original chiptune or find a different ReMix that sounds more like it.
Everything is offensive to someone, so there's no way to please everyone in that regard. Personally, I'm offended by censorship, so I'm glad it was allowed in there.

Oh, this is really good stuff. The direction you took it was perfect to get nearly four minutes out of such a short source - breaking up that arp in the beginning, then expanding on the source in a more recognizeable way later. It has the effect of making the source almost obvious on a second pass, even though it was elusive upon a first listen.
I love it. It's up to you, but have you considered sending this to OCR? I'd love to hear it there, if you're willing.  

Hey guys. As you can see, this is my first post here as I just created the account, but I've been with OCRemix for quite some time. Though I didn't have the use for my account here, after what happened recently I decided to create my account and create a post about it...
As some of you may know bLiNd and his great works in music industry, whether in game remixes or his sole tracks that he's created - he's a musician to the bone and by heart! Every track of his is special. In fact, he was the one that invited me into game remixes.
And recently I have found that he went through a lifebreaking incident - his whole home has been damaged in fire that broke out and he lost not only his place to live, but also pets and his way of living - musical equipment...
So I decided to create a post in the forum, as for some of you guys you may have know him, if you can or know someone that can as well back him up - please do so. We can't let Jordan's faith go away!
This is the link to the fundraiser that Jordan started - https://www.gofundme.com/aguirre-fire-fund
If you feel that his post is somewhat inappropriate, please do as you see fit with it. I have absolutely no interest or any gains in this, other than Jordan's well-being and getting him back on his feet.
I thought about this forum as a first thing I could go on, because this is the place I first met Jordan on and thought of you guys...
I will thank backers in my stead, as Jordan is not aware of this post - so each and every backer has my own personal - thank you! Though it may not mean much, I really appreciate everyone's help!

Not exactly offtopic; so I moved it to Community. @bLiNd has been a significant part of our community. Let's help him get back on his feet!

It's going to seem like cheating, but seeing that I hunted for source back when he posted this in the WIP board I'm going to say the source usage easily clears our bar. It's a medley, but it's one that makes sense as a stand alone track - each part seems to show progression of a journey, and there are elements of the main theme that tie it together at the beginning and the end. I very much enjoyed this approach.
It was brilliantly orchestrated when I eval'd it, and he took my advice and made it even more phenomenal with some more subtle touches to the humanization. Legitimately great stuff coming from Ganaé, here - hope to hear a whole lot more from him!
YES

Seems like we're pretty much in unison about the ending and vocals being an issue, even if whether it's passable or not is in debate, so I sent the artist a request to fix that ending specifically while mentioning the issue with the vocals. Here's hoping for a fix.

Seems like we're pretty much in unison about the ending and vocals being an issue, even if whether it's passable or not is in debate, so I sent the artist a request to fix that ending specifically while mentioning the issue with the vocals. Here's hoping for a fix.

Not sure if this tidbit of advice will help, but here's how I finished American Pixels. That was a 5+ year project, tons of excitement at the front-end, and then it turned into... work. And here's the problem, I have a family and a full-time job, so I kept hitting the snag where I'd work all day, spend time with the family, have a pocket of free time at night, and then... not have any energy left. That, or there'd be this sense of "yay, I have time to work on music... and oh no, I feel obligated to work on that project and I'm really not in the mood..."
So, that happened over and over, and occasionally I'd have a magic day off (holiday, whatever) where I'd get a wonderful 4 hours in a row to myself... and during those moments, I could tap into the creative juices and get it going again... but man, those little magical windows were rare. Like, once every few months rare. It got really frustrating seeing an album inch to completion in those sporadic bursts.
The answer for me: wake up earlier. I'd set my alarm for 4:30am, be in my studio by 5am, and get in a solid hour, hour and a half every morning. My brain wasn't yet tired from the day job, I was rested and fresh, and the stuff that seemed like work before now seemed fun again. And, it actually helped my happiness level, so even though I was sleepy, I was giddy at work considering the progress I made in the early morning hours. And then I just had to ride and chase that feeling until things were done. It was tough to get started, but then it became strangely addicting.

Ah, I've been enjoying this one quite a bit. I didn't feel it was all THAT cheezy overall - if that bowflex ad wasn't in the middle of the track, I would've actually taken it at face value. Also, Ab Solution... I just got it. HA!
Anyhoo, it's much bouncier than the source, seeming to take you on a less serious, more fun filled adventure, and I'm digging it. The production is pretty solid, save for a rendering error in the beginning of the track (it sounds like the mic was being turned on). The arrangement is pretty spot on, with some pretty neat cameos thrown in there (I'm thinking of the 'Moves like Jagger' reference at 2:20).
Yeah, it's really good - you certainly earned Bentley Jones' praise. Let's see this one go up!
YES 

Oh cool, something in my field of expertise!

Some quick tips:
-pitch up a bit the closed hats so that the drum groove is tighter
-raise the volume of the open hat
-change the snare sound, the current one sounds too "boxy" like some general MIDI drum, try something more snappy
-tone down the resonance on the bassline filter and open the filter a little bit, shorten a little bit the notes so you have a tighter 16th sequence and less mud
-you can sidechain the low freq (250hz and down) of your main leads to get a clearer sounding mix, same for the snare
-work on the dynamics of the tracks, so far it sounds like you've laid down one idea after another to check if they go well with the kick/bass combo, add at least one breakdown in the track to control the overall energy

Dude, are you kidding? This is legit one of the sources I was thinking of posting if I won that freebie round.
Need some more arrangements of P5 on OCR, it's criminal how there's not an arrangement of it yet.
Man, now I REALLY would like to produce something for this, but if I tell anyone about it then it wouldn't be a... last surprise.

It's a fun idea to have the Marvel universe all come together and all, but I'm thinking more in terms of Disney's monopolistic tendancies when I say I don't think this is a good thing for the rest of us. They have the tendancy to dig their copyright-law claws hard into IPs and franchises that make them lots of money. I'm still rather pissed at em' for changing copyright law to extend their Mickey Mouse rights constantly, which is preposterous.
If the merger happens I think there'll be some cool short-term gains, but I don't think it's healthy in the long term to have one company in control of so much IP, especially when they've got a record of not letting things go once they've got hold of it.

Eh, submitting something that's not remotely finished deserves the spoon, that's for sure.
Ah well, congrats to Jorito!

Texas?
That's a strong maybe, on my end. Not the greatest state, but it's one hell of a lot closer than the east coast...

Well, I submit something. Not something that I'd say was finished, but what I had was pretty cool so I submit it anyway.

Nice to hear Jorito sub something too, though.

We're open to posting things like this, but it would take quite a long time to post. If the issues that I brought up in here were enough to sway votes to a NO, it would take some time for the panel to reach that decision (possibly even years), by which point the artist will likely have moved on, dejected. Even with an unanimous YES vote it would definitely sit on the panel for some time prior to posting (longer than the average track). This potential issue is what the submission standards is alluding to when they warn "Anything longer [than seven minutes] and evaluation may be delayed."
It's not impossible to post, nor does OCR reject tracks based purely on length. However, very long, complex tracks take much longer to review and submit than many short songs of equivalent length - that's just how a human volunteer panel on things like this works. I've got to keep it real on this front, since it does no one any good to say such a long track won't hit some bumps in the road upon submission solely due to it's breadth. Hopefully, some of my advice averts these particular issues.  

So let's see, this thing has 29 sources, from my count, being:
Song of Time (OoT)
The Creation (OoT)
Main Theme (LoZ)
Intro (LoZ)
Sunrise (OoT)
Serenade of Water (OoT)
Minuet of Forest (OoT)
Requiem of Spirit (OoT)
Nocturne of Shadow (OoT)
Ballad of the Goddess (SS)
The Sky (SS)
Power of the Gods (LTTP)
Gerudo Theme (OoT)
Ganondorf's Theme (OoT)
Hyrule Castle (LBW)
Deku Tree (OoP)
The Legendary Hero (WW)
The Great Sea (WW)
Main Theme (BotW)
Lorule Castle (LBW)
Ganondorf Appears (OoT)
Zelda's Lullaby (OoT)
Farore's Courage (SS)
Song of the Hero (SS)
The Great Fairy Fountain (OoT)
Fi's Theme (SS)
Hyrule Castle (LBW)
Ganondorf Final Battle (TP)
End Credits (LTTP)
Nice timestamps - this will be VERY helpful in the future, I promise.

For the people who are interested in analyzing video game music, I recommend checking out the Ongaku Concept community. We're tight knit community spanning Youtube, Discord, Facebook and Discord and we're dedicated to the study and creation of video game and anime music. The community consists of passionate amateurs, music students and professional composers, and is based around the video essays and expertise of Joshua Taipale.
Check out the Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAa1ld_G99694y8a3N68opg
The Discord server is here: https://discord.gg/XUCGSBp
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ongakuconceptvgm/
Myself, I spend most of my time there and have benefited greatly from the knowledge shared.