GrayLightning

Eh, that's an overgeneralization. I can see that statement being true like 3-4 years ago, but not now. Almost everyone that passes does arrangements not remixing. Are you not reading a lot of judging decisions in the last year? OCR "Remix" is just a cool name, almost all the stuff, if not all the stuff we pass are arrangements. The only remixing I can think of that may or may not fall into this is techno/trance stuff, but even in these situations we hear a lot of real arrangement vs the stuff you cited.

I may be outdoing djp in the most ROFL correction in panel history now. That's not a slap bass. But in this case, the performance sounds like a keyboard, because it indeed is - It's an electric piano, not an ocarina. That's not an ocarina.

Hmm?

Yeah I'm still in. I'll pm you about this soon rexy. Been busy working on some IRL stuff, and also the TA mix.

I hate to be so brief, but TO and Larry hit up already all the points I thought of. I heard this a while ago and enjoyed it, but the straightforwardness of it and all the vocal clips are a bit of a turn off. This would have been a great mix like 3-4 years ago, but now it's just a tad dated. Surprisingly good work considering the tools at your disposal and the age of this mix. Fun listen. But a NO.

First of all file size is over 6 MB Second, congrats on a fairly good mix for a first submission. I like the drum work, some sections remind me of some of Israfel's works. But the repeating toms that go on and on and on without variation gets old, especially for how long this mix is. Second I think you should consider the length of the piece. It ends to move from new theme/arrangement/concept to another jumping from one to the other almost like a megamedley. For OCR purposes more cohesion and thought needs to go into this. I'd like to hear more instrumentation here. More instrumentation, change ups in instruments would help break up the monotony. Most of the time it's just the bells, strings and woodwind. I'd like you to consider evolving the concept instead of sticking with the same execution going on. Considering this is a 7 minute mix, it gets tiring. Production and samples are decent. I think you can back off the reverb a bit though. The effort and submission is one of the better first entries I've heard from a relative beginner. Keep working at it, you have potential. I recommend you post this in the Works in Progress/Completed forum of our site to share the mix with others. As is though, this is a NO.

Splendid work in incorporating all the Zelda 3 themes into one cohesive whole. Solid performance and care in the dynamics pushes this one over the edge. Great arrangement, easy YES.

I like the synths, classic and fun stuff. But beyond that everything sounds too basic. The lead guitar synth is ugly and grating, I'm afraid. Production in general is pretty basic and vanilla. The mix is a bit muddy. I'd like the kick drum to be exposed more. Carve out more room for it in the mix by EQing the other elements. In the arrangement department this doesn't do much to make it stand out either. It's a basic and safe interpretation that feels very underdeveloped. Consider adding elements and more ideas in here. More instrumentation and compositional ideas would aid this in many ways. I hope to hear more of your newer work, but this ain't gonna cut it. NO

Basic, thin, sparse and lacking in any production detail. Consider the concept here and work on focusing the execution. The basic production and samples don't help much either. Decent mix for what it is. Keep working at it. NO

Cool use of drums, loops and fx processing. Very cool in fact, but beyond that there's not much substance to the mix. Just a lot of synths almost sounding random with no direction. There's not much meat to the composition here. I'd like to see you focus more on that next time and give it a cleaner sound. Some of the elements didn't sit as well in the mix for me as they could have. Like the lead synth at around 1:15. I'd like to hear the beats varied more, they sound like generic loops, especially in the last minute where things seemed to be repeating and repeating and repeating. This is probably the best submission I've heard from you to date. Good work on that and keep improving, but this mix as is, needs quite some work. NO

Yeah in a live setting the panning on these drums might work, but for listening purposes such as this case, it sounds totally off balanced - move the kit dead center. It's a bit overbearing right now, especially at the end. The rest of the mix is pretty basic. The arrangement is straightforward, and simple. Production is equally so. This isn't a bad mix by any means, it's just not up to bar right now. Consider improving your samples, production techniques and adding a lot more elements to the mix. Consider using our Works In Progress/Completed forum for mixes before submitting. This needs a lot of work. NO

Let me encapsulate this vote - Wonderful work all around guys. The great violin solo puts this way over the top. Definite YES

Now that these issues are fixed, as promised my vote switches to yes. This mix really grew on me. I gotta say, I think it's fantastic. This is probably one of the more interesting arrangements I've heard in a while. I like the creativity, I like the instrumentation, the synths. My one little production gripe is I wish there was a bit more reverb to create a sense of spacing. Everything seemed a bit upfront and lacking in dimension for my taste. I like the style, the sound this is going for, and it's executed wonderfully. Fun, sophisticated and enjoyable work. Great use of Reason software to boot. Definite YES

The guitar issue was readily apparent to me as well. It's definitely an issue, but I think I could overlook it if other elements were much stronger. The arrangement as a whole was quite strong. I liked it. It generally had good pacing and the ending sections were good. But I thought the segue to it could have been much smoother. It was abrupt, as was the actual ending. I wasn't crazy about the 1:50 part. It really sounded pointless for me. The mix had a lot of bottom end and no high end, almost like it was either a very poor recording or you put a lot of reverb on the bottom frequency/instruments. I wish the bass was a bit sharper, cleaner and stronger. I'd like more clarity and EQ work - tweak the low to middle end and high end to bring some air and clarity to the mix. Drums were plain, but a lot of rock music have used them simply as timekeeping so I'm not really gonna deduct points off. I'd work on tweaking the arrangement, particularly at the end, clean up the performance a bit and work on the production some more. This is definitely a good candidate for resubmission material. Consider it, but for now a NO.

Has there been some kind of windfall lately? There's a bunch of Battle of Olympus mixes lately. The synth lead rubbed me the wrong way. I don't think it works in this context. It's also sharp, piercing. I think you could reconsider the lead next time. I think some of the arrangement ideas here are actually good. Some of the harmonic and bass line had a good deal of interesting expansion. I'd like to hear you rework and expand the arrangement a bitmore. The melody for example could use more. The production is average. Can renoise use soundfonts? There are some good ones available. Check our remixing forum to see if other renoise users can help you in this area. It's a product I'm not familiar with. I think better samples would help here. Also you put too much reverb on everything. Low quality reverb too, I'm afraid. Everything sounds blanketed in mud. The reverb design sounds basic. I'd like to hear this addressed. Some eq work is in order here as well. Rolling off some of the mids slightly and boosting the treble before it goes to the reverb or delay (if this is possible in renoise) would help. Your bass could be a bit stronger too. I thought it sounded really light and weak. I should note, the section at 1:55-2:15 and right before the 3 minute mark was beautiful. This is really promising. Please consider working on this more for a resubmission. NO, resub.

The source is really basic, so I can understand why this is ended up a bit straight-forward. One thing you might want to consider is creating a medley properly using other themes from the game, if not only to mix it up. Beyond this, I can't really add anything to this vote that the others already didn't cover. Too straightforward, too much potato, and not enough meat in terms of the composition. I would consider making the piece gradually change over time beyond what is presented here. My other beef is during the busier sections, things tended to get lost within itself; the textures didn't blend as well as they could have. The elements just sounded very disparate. Production was was bland, but passable. Above average. Keep working on it. NO

I like this. It's very catchy. I like how the concept was executed. It's a very enjoyable and accessible quality to it. As noted above, like the others, I want to hear some sort of evolution here. I think you can incorporate some rhythmic changes with the instruments playing a supporting role. I like your choice of synths in this context, but I do agree they are a bit thin, especially when there's a lot of instances where there's not much going on in the mix. Sometimes it's just the thin lead and bass with nothing else. Consider adding a pad or strings to help fill things out more. Being a huge xenogears fan and extremely familiar with the source (even tried to arrange it once) - I think I appreciate the work here a bit more than the others. I'm at the brink of giving this a yes, but I want to hear some of the concerns I laid out, as well as the others addressed. Please consider working on this more and resubmitting. Borderline NO.

I actually liked the piano moving back and forth. It's definitely not realistic, but it instantly reminds me of music conveying the crashing of waves. I didn't think the synth was loud on my side. Larry, I think it's cause your monitoring equipment might be overly trebled. But I do agree the textures and combinations of these instruments don't really gel. The lead is also very very thin sounding. I really liked the bending of your synths though - it added an ominous quality that I enjoyed. I'd like to hear more expansion here, more evolution, whether it be more dynamic contrast or rhythmic contrast, especially with the piano. I think I enjoyed this one a lot more than the other judges, I personally think there's a lot of promise here with a lot of work. I dug the concept, but the execution and production hold this back. NO

BOOM TSS action. I actually found myself enjoying this a bit. It's catchy, but it is indeed too generic and basic. I don't mind generic, but you gotta pull it off well - this doesn't. The intro starts out really cool with the automated processing. But after that things tended to all apart. There was one section after the intro where it repeated one bar for what seemed like forever. That part I found of little interest. There's way too much reverb here too, particularly on the driving beat. Too straightforward an arrangement, ultimately. Mix it up, add your own melodic expansion. Something to show this is your mix. Adding a beat, changing the rhythm slightly doesn't make an OCR mix. I'm not crazy about the beat either to be honest, it feels out of place, such as at 3:10 area. I don't mind the lack of harmonic support here, it works for this genre and in this context. The mix still feels fairly full. Let's be honest, a lot of electronica and trance isn't complex from a compositional/theoretical standpoint. What sets them apart is cool synth design, processing and great production. Those aspects are lacking here, in my view. I also agree this is too long and just repeating a lot of same passages. Cutting them out and focusing on the meat of this mix would yield good results. Not bad at all for what it is, definitely post this in the WIP/Completed forum - there will be listeners and forum goers that'll enjoy this. Take the information we've given and try to incorporate it in a future mix. Looking forward to hearing more from you with these suggestions in mind. NO

I didn't find the beats that overbearing on my end. The hats did cut through though. But certainly that aspect could be brought down a little bit to sit in the mix a bit better. The leads usually were fairly dry and upfront too, and they were able to cut through the density of the mix, though in this case there wasn't much density. I'd definitely like to hear more supporting material here. Something to sit under the lead and beats more. A nice soft pad on the lower and mid octaves would settle in this mix nicely as a supporting material. The synths to be honest, I didn't find all that interesting. They were pretty basic, in sonic terms and in execution. Underdeveloped and more importantly very abrupt fade out ending didn't help much in my view. If you're gonna use a fade out, it needs to be better thought out and more gradual. Not bad at all, it's a fun mix, but this needs quite a bit of work at this point. Keep at it. Better luck next time. NO

Great ideas here, very creative. Execution on the other hand damages this mix too much. No instrument stands out, and in this context that idea doesn't work at all. Everything just sounds like a mass of sounds. The lead, harmony need to be a bit more distinct. Bring the distorted guitar more forward. Work on the EQing of all the instruments to create specific spacing for them on the mix, as well as tweak the levels. Not everything has to take the centerstage. The 1:46 as noted was really distracting. It almost sounded like you cut and pasted two wav files together with no transition? Regardless, not very pleasant there... I also thought the arrangement was too short and unfulfilled. There was a sense of lack of follow-through and majorly underdeveloped. Keep at it, as this has very promising ideas. Hope you consider working on this more. NO

The big reverb doesn't bother me much in this context. It reminds me of a lot of classical music recorded in European halls. A lot of tchaikovsky recordings for example are this deep/wet. Though I agree the groove is overly wet. That should be a lot more upfront and sparkly. The arrangement is alright. I think this needs to be a lot less straightforward, and as mentioned by others it seems to just repeat the same motif over and over and over. Try to change up things, evolve the concept over time. The rhythm by the cello/double bass does get a bit too redundant, I agree. I'd also like to hear some evolution in the instrumentation as this progresses. Throw in some brass, woodwinds, synth...something. Keep working at it and definitely use our WIP/Completed forum for getting more feedback before submitting. Better luck next time. NO

I liked the composition, the progression in particular was nice. But man this has so much distortion, and it's overly muddy too. Everything sounds crunchy and lo-fi. Too straightforward an arrangement was the final straw here. Though there was some nice change ups to your credit, this still needs a lot of work in the arrangement and production department. The less than appealing ending doesn't help matters much, I'm afraid. As said above, check out the two forums linked to for further advice and feedback. Keep at it. NO

I like some of the creative concepts being expressed in the mix, the execution on the other hand, I'm not too sure about. I liked things until the rhythm guitar appeared. I don't think it really worked in this context. It sounded a bit thin and ugly. For me it clashed texturally with everything else. It sounded very synthish. The rest of the material is pretty well done. I liked your usage of the tubular bell. The stop and starts in the composition added interest to the pacing. Nice ending too. Overall, I thought this was definitely above average. But this is in need of some better conceptual ideas, direction and execution in the mixing and mastering as well. Pretty good stuff, but I don't think it's ready at all yet. NO

I contacted josh about the piano volume issues. A new version may be on the way soon. Status on hold. Edit: Vote is resumed with new tweaked version.