djpretzel

I'm personally bummed animeremix didn't catch on, but I did have a lot of fun on the three mixes I did there... that being said, we've got a laser focus on VGM at OCR, to such an extent that we're pedantic enough to not allow the Wii menu music since it's *technically* not a game, but part of the operating system

Production is phat AND fat, with some buttery-smooth synth brass & bass, and generally I think this instrumentation is rock solid & absolutely suits the source. The arrangement is equally intuitive, and perhaps TOO intuitive - this is definitely a relatively conservative arrangement that leans on production enhancements more than gobs of original writing or harmonic alterations. What's here & additive is good, but there are also extended swaths that run parallel to the original, more or less. I would have liked to have seen a bit more addition and alteration in the arrangement department, but I concur with the above that it meets our standards in this regard, and from a pure joy/funk/production perspective, this is ace. YES

@Damashii!! I'll talk to Brandon and see how things are going on his end; very real possibility that Thanksgiving time frame will work, and would be awesome to include your work. We sent some emails your way, trying to make sure everything's okay. Let us know what's up, and also I have a spare PSU I can send you, if it helps.

@Lashmush I do sorta feel like you glossed over my response and simply repeated your many misgivings about the overall process; your second post here reads very similar to your first. We do seem to have a fundamental difference of opinion - and yes, it's opinion, not fact - regarding what's off limits or counterproductive when it comes to criticism, specifically of music. When a judge points out that a piano part "doesn't sound playable" and it's intended as criticism, you can infer that not only does it not sound like someone could play the part - which I agree isn't really an issue by itself - but that it sounds unplayable in a way that is displeasing to the judge, doesn't sit well with the rest of the arrangement, etc. Your definition of criticism would eliminate some of the best, most specific feedback I've seen the panel provide, over the years, which in countless cases was implemented and resulted in a better mix - with the judges AND the artist agreeing about the improvement. It does happen, and frequently enough to reinforce to me that such efforts are not in vain, as you imply. You mention some fringe cases, where a musical work defies orthodoxy in one way or another and would presumably run afoul of our standards, but... we've passed a ton of material that is experimental, unorthodox, or otherwise "challenging" over the years. In the case of your arrangement, the piece wasn't really out of left field - it has familiar aspects of structure/genre and doesn't strike me as a particularly unusual VGM arrangement. As I've mentioned, I liked it. And I agree, with several judges, that the bass is poorly mixed. Your response is that you meant to do it that way, you love the piece as-is, and you question our ability to isolate any single element as being problematic; I profoundly disagree with this thinking, because it would mean that judges could NEVER hone in on muddy mixing, weak drums, abrasive high frequencies on a guitar part, an out-of-tune trumpet, etc. - all of that COULD simply be how the artist wanted it, and who are we to judge? Except, that's just it. It's a judges panel. A panel of judges. That judge. Always has been. And inherent in having any sort of evaluative mechanism of subjective/creative material - whether it's a panel of judges, or a "Quality Control" team, or whatever - is going to be an analysis of what's presented, how it works, and what is or is not preventing it from being featured on one small corner of a very large Internet.

@begoma I've been in contact with Brandon and we hope to put things behind us, make this the best album possible, and release something both OCR & he will be proud of - given that it's the third leg of a trilogy he started, I thought we should at least try to make this happen, and @Rexy has been helping make that possible. Right now mithius is working on some epic material that I know will elevate the final result - I still hope to release this year, and we'll be discussing timeline soon. So, short version: Not dead, trying to work with Brandon to make something happen, stay tuned.

We don't, or at least we try not to, but perhaps I'm confused about precisely what you mean... we may not be the "arbiters" of someone's creative direction, but we're each the owners of our own opinion/experience, which we can bring to bear when evaluating a track. If you're trying to say that only the original artist can evaluate whether a specific instrumentation or mixing/mastering choice makes sense, you seem to be taking issue with the idea of... evaluating ANY music, ever, unless... you yourself made it? Our judges make every effort to listen on higher-end phones, but to be frank... the issue with muddy, somewhat overblown bass on your OTHERWISE AWESOME recent submission would have been noticeable on $10 airplane earbuds or the DT-880 PROs that I just listened on. I do not believe each of our judges need to list their headphones - when one of them hears something the others don't, that's when they need to get together and figure things out and potentially listen on different phones/speakers to figure out what's going on. In this case that wasn't necessary - we could all hear how awesome your mix was... and we could all hear that the bass was muddy and not sitting right. This is necessarily going to be different for each judge. The nature of having a panel of different musicians/listeners with different, diverse backgrounds is that, for any given mix, some of them are out of their "preferred" genres or comfort zone, but the goal is to evaluate on some common principles. One of those principles is clarity - are parts discernible, or is there a situation where one instrument's frequency spectrum is cluttering the soundfield? That's a *fairly* genre-agnostic issue that will negatively affect dubstep, classical, jazz, and cha-cha alike, and that's exactly the type of issue we're dealing with in this case... Yes. We all loved your track, for the tenth time It would have passed easily without the prominent issue with muddy low-end, and will pass easily once this is addressed. I don't know who wanted to hear what, but everyone enjoyed the mix... and everyone hears the issue. Your question is a bad faith attack on the judges panel, essentially accusing them of being biased against metal... and I mean.... we've posted a LOT of metal. And I damn sure hope we can post this particular metal mix, as well. Sometimes panel feedback can be less than ideal because it's contradictory - different judges might hear different issues, or prioritize different concerns. That's one of the worst outcomes from the evaluation process, because it doesn't yield the most actionable feedback. In this case... nah, that wasn't the situation. Everyone digs the mix, everyone hears the issue with the bass. Thanks, legit appreciated. I assure you, though, we do get tired One of the things that's most tiring is bad faith accusations when someone doesn't take our feedback well on a specific mix, and turns that into a giant referendum on our overall process/staff. It doesn't happen THAT often, but it does happen. If you've listened to the mix in question on a variety of hardware and you don't hear an issue, we're kind of at an impasse - perhaps you could get a second, third, fourth opinion from others that you trust, and see if any of them notice the same issue? The bass is literally the only thing any of us took serious issue with, and all of us noticed it. Either we're all wrong, or bad, or listening on crap headphones, etc., or... perhaps there's ***something*** to our observation? At any rate, once more for good measure: we all loved the mix, we all heard the bass issue. I don't believe this observation reflects poorly on the judges panel - if anything, it's an instance where there's unanimous agreement about a single, actionable issue... which is actually a pretty good outcome, if music's going to be evaluated at all...

Yeah the lead, when it comes in (interesting sound, I must say), ends up repeating itself almost verbatim, and then we start fading out before the two minute marker. A second lead could help extend things, or a solo, with maybe a hi-hat groove or something, to differentiate... and then I would actually consider a duet of sorts and having the original intervals somewhere in there, alongside your modified version. As-is, this is more of a "good start" than a finished arrangement - some good things happening, but not enough variety/substance yet, as both @Emunator & @prophetik music have pointed out. NO

Quirky AF and I'm loving it; absolutely dig being surprised like this, a wonderfully creative & still very recognizable take on the source that relishes exploring interesting instrumentation combinations. Muted trumpets flutter by, a wide slide guitar lazily recounts the melody, bass walks around a bit, pads swell in & out like an inflating/collapsing lung, and.... well the whole thing feels like an organism, exhaling & inhaling with its own confident, off-kilter swagger. Almost Cowboy Bebop-esque - not in any similarity to Kanno's score, but to that show's irreverent wild west futurism. We haven't posted anything from Geoff since 2005, and now I'm scratching my head on that.... either way, I enjoyed this rather a lot, and believe it succeeds in a worthwhile & utterly unique concept. YES

OH HELLO THERE. Not really an intro, per se, just kinda... throws you right into the action. When I was a kid we used to wake up in the summer at 6:30AM and jump into a freezing cold local pool at 7:00AM for swim practice, and this kinda feels like that, right at the beginning - no ceremony, no build, just trial by fire. Would I have preferred *something* more... introductory? Perhaps, but by the time the mix was over, it wasn't a big deal Great transitions & sense of unity, and great use of both guits AND rock organ (yeah!!) to help make that happen. Exciting, inviting, and never overstays its welcome, while also serving up a heapin' helpin' of Celeste rock/metal. Cool. YES

Both @prophetik music & @Emunator have a ton of great feedback and I agree with most if not all of it. There are some neat instrumentation/production choices in the second half, but a clear melodic line never materializes, and in a sense it's tied too closely to the source - deviation would be necessary to give the piece more direction as a standalone arrangement, as opposed to something explicitly designed for looping while playing the game. Without a melodic identity, this ends up feeling like a chord progression in search of a lead. The intro orchestral is okay, but a little robotic - the subsequent funk is a lot more fun/colorful, but in both cases there's no central melodic voice, so it's two different progressions, in two different genres, back-to-back. I would advise trimming the intro and fleshing out the second, funkier, more engaging portion, and either utilizing a secondary source or getting creative with this source to provide a melodic voice that is, at the moment, somewhat absent. NO

Right out of the gate, really like the FX application on the intro synth; some combination of flanging/phasing/delay/widening/etc, and it sounds great... Like some of our judges, I'm not a huge fan of the hardstyle sound/genre, but I dig this more than a lot of what I've heard, AND I think it makes sense for the source... No huge missteps on production or major glaring issues, but what I'm missing is a sense of focus/direction & development - it kinda feels like patterns with similar instrumentation, placed next to one another, as opposed to something that flows along, as a continuity/stream. For example, the relatively basic bassline doesn't modulate or throw in any curveballs, but it also doesn't even transition from section to section with any sort of a bridge/lead-in - it just starts a new pattern, right on the beat. The bass part in general needs *something* - a few surprises, and/or alternate FX application at select points, or even a different patch. As-is, the bass feels underdeveloped - not exactly the kiss of death, but more noticeable & more of a problem in a sparser setting + with this genre. Everything else is solid, it just needs to be glued together with transitions/variations that give the listener points of reference & foreshadowing, as opposed to discrete patterns executed in sequence. NO (would love to a see a resubmit, Scott's style has always been unique and plenty to like here)

Sticks the landing. The progressive vibrato (i.e. baked into sample and not dialed in via controller, I believe) is doing a lot of the heavy lifting on the flute lead - from a certain perspective, I'm glad it's there, because otherwise the notes would just... sit. From another perspective, it comes in predictably, with the same envelope, each time... I think this could have been masked to some extent with some expression modulation (or if sample doesn't support, just modulating volume), but.... I'll live. I've certainly heard far worse, and the sequencing is lovely. Kudos for slowing the intimate, very cinematic (as @MindWanderer points out) piano bits down and giving them temporal breathing room. I don't really enjoy listening to the original, to be honest - I hear the promise, but it's on tempo rails and hits me wrong - but I dig this treatment, and found it engaging and well-conceived. Repetition/reuse wasn't flagrant, but in the future for extended passages you intend to repeat... just alter something, even if it's one interval, so we know you know, and to give the listener contrast... and, more importantly, to further explore the possibilities of the melodic line. Right on. YES

This right here. Bam. SUPERB example of a single decision that was make-it-or-break-it, for me. I was about to reject this for lead fatigue - the issue to me is not so much one of EQ and no mids (imo the mids are in the main lead, and there's good separation & clarity throughout), but one of a static, overused lead sound. Sure, it's cross-panned (or on every note?) initially and then sits still, but it's the same sound, and had it remained all alone for the whole mix, I would not be passing this. But, as @Emunator points out (I read his decision AFTER listening & coming to the above conclusion, and it made me happy to see it echoed) at 2'37" we get the additional lead.... which is rather interesting/unorthodox, a slightly nasal, distorted, buzzing affair... but it works, and more importantly it adds absolutely-critical timbral variety to the main melody. Without this **one** element, no way. With this **one** element, yes way. Sometimes that's how it is. YES

Source melody meanders in a way that kinda had to be addressed for a synthwave structure, and I think the artist has done a good job with that - it's liberal, but not too liberal, and even that varies, as some parts connect more. Essentially I'm just echoing @prophetik music & @MindWanderer's votes - read 'em both, agree with 'em both. Lovely warmth and grit to the lead synth, I might add. YES

I basically agree with @MindWanderer's vote, but I want to throw in some extra praise: love the production, here. With lofi each element has to be "just so" and then they all need to work together, and I feel like what's here does exactly that - from the silky, rubbery bass to the subtly effected tails of samples, the texture is on-point, and lofi is all about texture. That being said, just needs to.... do more. Two minutes and change, and the first minute is essentially the same as the second. This is such a fantastic foundation and I'd love to see some soloing, melodic embellishment, etc. on top, extending to a three-minute marker and differentiating itself a bit more. NO (but sweet production & I'd love to see a resubmission w/ more meat)

Given the new effort/thread, I'm going to lock this thread now, and archive it soon, to prevent confusion.

Yeah, it's a hard one. I don't think CSS alone will do it, unless inline styles could be consistently overridden using !important or something like that. jQuery is an option, and possibly the best option; here's a lead that might help: https://dev.to/gamesover/using-jquery-to-fix-background-foreground-color-contrast-automatically-538i

@Ramaniscence Nice! Just FYI, there should (finally) be some changes coming in a couple weeks to the navigation header, and eventually the forums. Overall theme will be darker, but regions with a lot of text will remain white-on-black, perhaps making a dark theme a bit easier since it will just be toggling those specific sections. With post content itself, one of the challenges is that Invision allows copying & pasting that includes background & font colors, so while the thread you screencapped looks fine, some posts will look quite wrong (white regions, potentially with light gray text, depending on what's being formatted within the post) - I imagine even this could be fixed with some fancy jQuery, and if that's something you're up for, that same logic could eventually be incorporated into the actual site.

Would always be interesting to have more PC98 representation! Catchy source. I get that you're keeping the vibe, but have you perhaps sped it up a bit? I'd consider dropping 2-3 BPM down, I feel like it's running a bit fast. I've got individual observations & you can pick/choose which if any you agree with Drums end up having almost a hybrid EDM vibe because the dynamics are static across large patterns - I like that there are fills/breaks, I could even stand for some more of them - but I'm talking mainly about the melodic parts where you've got the downbeat going; because they're sampled & not explicitly electronic drums, and because the fills/breaks are more humanized, these stand out due to the velocity of the kick/snare hits being maxed out, basically all the time. I think humanizing these would give a bit more organic vibe & more contrast... either the chorus or the verse could be significantly quieter, for example.... hopefully the drum samples you are working with are multi-sampled and respond differently at lower velocities - if not, I think there are some free options out there that do, but I'd have to check. In short: humanize the drum line a bit to prevent listening fatigue. RE: listening fatigue in general, I think a breakdown might help... something to reduce overall intensity, noticeably. Not that waveform is everything, but right now you can tell just by looking at the Soundcloud visualization that it's basically a non-stop proposition... something to cut that up a bit would help. Drum dropout, then fill to back-in, etc. I like the organ solo, but I do like it better for a dirty B3 than the churchier option employed here... if you can get something with more grit, maybe Leslie... You're asking a lot of the sampled guitar, on lead, and I'm wondering if a straight up synth lead might work better.... perhaps for just one of the variations? Right now it's being a bit overused, as a lead, with nothing sonically to distinguish it from section to section. One way of addressing this would be via creative FX application, where it's widened/delayed/modulated in some manner in one section, but not the next. Another is to simply swap the lead out to a different sound, and I think synth could work. If you wanted to get a little cheekier, instead of just making the third variation more elaborate on a single lead (whether you keep the guitar or roll with something else), you could do a call-and-answer style duet between the previously-introduced organ and the main lead, introducing some harmonic combinations, having a couple notes in unison, that sorta thing. Just a notion; could be fun. In terms of is-it-ready-to-submit, I don't speak for the judges panel, but I imagine they'd pick up on some of the same things, all of which I think would improve the track. Hope that helps!

You can do that for yourself, for your personal collection - absolutely, no one's stopping you, and why would they... The key word here is "redistributed" - if you're hosting/mirroring portions of the collection for *others*, yeah, we want the files to be official & unmodified. If you're remixing them, that's no longer redistribution of the original audio, it's a different ballgame entirely. Conversion to OGG wouldn't make much sense (lossy to lossy?) - @Liontamerhas done work on silence trimming so if you find mixes w/ 10+ seconds of true silence (no signal), let us know here. The bigger no-no that we're especially concerned with would be modifying tagging/attribution, FYI.

Yep, agreed. Will add it to the list, might make this change sooner rather than later.

I think FF3 is actually further along, because @Rexy has been a bit more available - @Gario was supposed to be coordinating Lufia 2 but I haven't seen him around much. We'll def. regroup in the new year & figure something out.