GrayLightning

This has to rank as one of my favorites from djp. As a fan of the source material, I personally loved the arrangement. The highlight for me was the very cool sax work and the piano, something which djp has consistently been showing is his forte. Great mix. Happy 5th OCR!

This isn't that bad. We have heard far worse, this is decent. Two main issues for me here is this needs more of a unique arrangement and better production/mixing. The bell pads have quite a lot of decay for this kind of fast mix, it creates a bit of chaos in the mix. Synths/samples on the whole are average and aren't capitalized on by either good sequencing or processing. The ride at around 3:20 gets annoying, the velocity is also way too constant and the sequencing of it is too robotic. Fade out endings are fine if done well, but this is a fade out of the drums and percussion only. A bit too standard of a conclusion in my view. Decent mix, not horrible, but not passable either. Keep working at it. NO

Lo-fi and poor encoding problems seriously damage this mix. Without the production, what's left is a simplistic arrangement that sounds incomplete and unfinished. The concept has not been developed enough, and as such feels unsatisfyingly short. This isn't ready for the panel yet. Please work on the arrangement and production next time. NO

Though this is not my cup of tea genre, I can easily appreciate quality work. The way Dennis puts together this mix in concept and excecution is just impressive. The arrangement, production is all there. While it may be acceptable for this genre, I feel the rhythm distortion at times overpowers the vocals too much. I'd personally prefer the vocals have more presence in the mix. Minor complaint though. I personally liked the guitar sections the best where the distortion wasn't overpowering the rest of the mix. Quality work that shines through regardless of whether or not one likes the genre. YES As a special guest voter, I have invited one of OCR's most crazed metal heads, EdgeCrusher, to unofficially weigh in on the mix. Edit: readding prior guest vote.

This is definitely too conservative a take on the mix to be called an arrangement. Next time expand on the ideas more, play with the theme, change the structure - something. What's here is pleasant though. The ending is also abrupt, as if you just stopped. Is my download incomplete? I have 2:48. NO

Yeah there's a lot of problems here, sad to say. There's a lot of audio problems/distorting/clipping/popping, etc that Liontamer mentioned. The whole tone of the mix is very muddy. Bad mixing and processing. Everything sounds washed in mud, there's no shimmer. On top of it, it's a very conservative mix. I actually liked the guitar work that appeared at 1:54. That part is quite cool, however, it's mixed in poorly. That too sounds too quiet, too heavy, and dark. This needs more arrangement and production work at this point. NO

Pretty good arrangement. Some parts strike me as a bit gimmicky, like the intro. I'd say on the whole it's pretty stylish. There are some fairly solid displays of competency here, like the gated synths that sit well in the mix. The whole mix is put together fairly well too. Instrumentation throughout it is also well chosen. I particularly like the percussive sections. By the end some sections tended to drag on a bit, although I liked the actual ending section with the vibe/marimba and sax. This doesn't take too many chances, it's pretty straightforward, by the same token there's not much wrong in this mix either. I'd say it's a nice mix and a passable one at that. Nice work. Yes

I'm impressed DJP made this so long ago, and yet it still stands the test of time. Being very familiar with the source material - DJP capitalizes on the source material extremely well and expands on it with a great new take. Love the instrumental choices here too and the intimate mixing decisions taken. Not only one of my favorites by the pretz, but definitely one of the best on this site. Impressive and beautiful work.

I think what Zyko's trying to say here is, the mix suffers from quite a few problems. It sounds underdeveloped compositionally and too simplistic. Production is well below average. You can get free piano soundfonts that are light years ahead of this. There's no effects processing going on here either. Everything sounds dry and dull. The electric guitar sample sounds fake, and very piercing in the high registers. I actually liked the ending sequencing sections with the guitar. Neat moment in the middle of subaverage work. This needs much more work, polish and attention. NO

Good arrangement, good complexity, good stuff all around like analoq mentioned. My minor complaint is I felt the mix as a whole was just a touch muddy, would have liked a little more shimmer personally. The pan shifting tubular bells got a bit monotonous by the end though. Minor gripes, overall definitely one of the better mixes of the project. Solid. YES.

The first half is a conservative take of the source material, intermingled with some original stac/marc strings. The second half I have to say grew on me quite a lot. I enjoyed the creative aspects in the second half. The mix feels incomplete though, it's underdeveloped. Production as a whole is pretty average too. Drums don't sound that great - "GM-tastic." Phased metallic percussion at the end sounds a little out of place in my opinion. Abrupt ending too. I hope you consider working on this more, there's a lot of potential and I enjoyed this and the vibe is quite cool. But at its current state it just doesn't have enough to pass. NO.

As someone very familiar with this theme, I'd say the biggest issue of the mix is there's not much here that stands out beyond a concept that's typical of the genre. There's no major hook in the mix either to help make it stand out. However, I don't think it's at all bad. I think it's actually quite enjoyable for what it is. It's a decent arrangement. Instrumentation is typical, but it works. The hihats when exposed at around 30 sec into the mix sounded a bit strange. Also I think the main issue here, is the mix is underdeveloped, by the time I got into the mix, it was over. Not a bad attempt, and definitely for a first submission you're definitely well on your way. Next time work on fleshing out the content more, polishing up the mix. Keep at it, you have potential. NO

I just wanted to chime in before this decision was released. I agree with the panel's decision. The arrangement is too conservative, and certainly too conservative to pass. However, to be clear, whether the piece used a 1MB GM soundfont or if came from Zimmer's private collection, should have little bearing in judging the actual arrangement. High end samples are often even harder to use than free counterparts, due to complexity and issues with attack/decays with articulations or patches that should be designed with the type of note being played. A number of people like Israfel have recently mentioned in the remixing forum complexity of high end samples often makes composing more difficult. I think the amount of time and work that must have been put into this is quite impressive, especially from an "amateur." You've displayed a lot of skills required to get on OCR, spend time on working on your arrangement and composition next time, expand the source material, etc. and you'll be set.

Bladiator and I discussed this and he's decided to pull this one from consideration as he and I are going to collab on it and work on it some more. We'll resubmit when it's done. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks.

I agree, the arrangement part is the main and for me the only issue here. I'd like to see beatdrop resubmit this with a more expanded concept/arrangement, cause I really like everything else. Not my cup of tea music, but this has a lot of impressive aspects, and the synths and drumwork were quite enjoyable. Pretty sophisticated production skills on display to boot. No, resub please.

Too simplistic an arrangement. As with larry, I love your reverb drenched harp lead, it works very nicely in this context. The atmosphere is great throughout. There's also clipping or audio issues like at 1:31. Drums and percussion throughout are too basic and simplistic. The orchestral hits were ok, but extremely overused and way too loud. They get a bit monotonous after a while. It's getting there, but this needs much more work, particularly in the compositional content/arrangement aspect. Keep at it, you show promise. NO

My vote is sort of unnecessary at this point, but I would like to chime in regardless. I've been listening to this for some days now, this was a very difficult one. I think there's a lot of things done right here, but there's a lot of things that could be improved on. Particularly, the arrangement content being on the conservative side of things, the repetitive strumming could have been changed up more as sometimes the monotony of it does drag on a little. Neat mix for sure, but I think this is slightly short of being there. Darangen's mixing skills continue to improve and certainly he has the talent to make a return to OCR after his awesome debut DKC mix. But this falls a bit short. This has a lot of potential, with some more work/polish. I am definitely looking forward to Darangen's next submission. Borderline NO.

I've listened to it a bunch more and I do believe the pros certainly outweigh the cons here so my vote is slanting the other way with a vote change. Cool arrangement, decent execution. I am inclined to say this is certainly above the bar, but the production and to a much lesser degree the woodwind sequencing weigh this down slightly. The woodwinds are as others noted very dry, I think the same is true of the piano. Even if you were going for an intimate sound, a small room would with a bit wetter ambiance would have worked - I personally like halls though. I would have wished the the instrumentation/orchestration was beefed up a little. From that standpoint I think in this context, the simplicity could have been expanded on more ornately. Still, the overall result is there and not that much of a deterent I suppose. Arrangement is done extremely well, production is not as good as it could have been with more polish, but still passable at the end of the day for me. Cool mix. YES

Not the most daring arrangement, but what's here is put together incredibly well. There's no reason to deny it, good arrangement, very good production = yes. YES

I like reverb too, but this is definitely too much. I also think the reverb and delays used here sound a bit cheap sounding, in terms of sound quality. Cool flute and flute bends to start off the mix. I agree that once the guitar came in, it became cluttered. Also the guitar didn't seem to fit well at all with the style. It was far too abrasive for the background material. Great job with the chromatic ethnic percussion, along with the flute, they provide a good anchor for the intended style. The bass choice doesn't really work for this style in my opinion. I think you should balance the high strings out with either a low string synth pad or cello/double basses. I actually like what you've done here beyond the mention aspects. I really like the concept in general, but the execution and production values weigh this mix down. Getting there...but not quite there yet. NO

Well considering some of the general reservations discussed with some of the issues here, it's moot to continue the vote. I think the vote should be closed so as to give Jean a chance to resubmit. Unless he can produce a version of this within a few days, then it should be moved and he can pm one of us judges with fast-track status resub.

Nice to see ReaktorZer0 expanding and collaborating with some other people. This might be one of the better works I've heard from him in terms of polish. I actually found this entertaining and enjoyable on some levels. But my main problem here really is the conservative arrangement and basic execution. Try and mix it up more, add your own flava to the mix. I actually liked the sounds in the mix, it reminded me of early 90s videogame music gems. Cool, enjoyable mix, and definitely good source material, but on the technical side of things this needs to be worked on more particularly by expanding the arrangement and adding more meat to the mix. I also thought the mix was overly long. This doesn't make the grade at this state, at least not yet. Keep it up bros, I hope to hear a collaboration from you three again. NO

There's minimal arrangement, there's some nice things going on here too. I do like the pad work. But there's not much creativity in either the arrangement or production/design work. I do like the drumwork, it's understated and certainly an improvement over the original. The mix is an improvement over the original. I personally didn't care much for the chiptune-ish sounding section here. It kind of sounded out of place and ruined the chillout experience for me. Pretty decent, but not enough in various mentioned categories. NO

The intro didn't bother me too much, such an intro is quite acceptable for electronic genres. However, here it just isn't pulled off that well or as catchy as it should have. Simplistic take of the original with very weak, boring synths. This might have been acceptable 4-5 years ago, but now it just sounds shallow both compositionally and production wise. A mix of this nature could also have been shorter. Production wise, the synths and samples sound slightly above average, but the mixing is pretty bad. It's a bit muddy, there's no sheen. I'd do some EQ work on this, particularly some roll offs in the lower/mid sections and some slight boosts in the treble sections. Fairly decent attempt for a first effort. The most important thing at the end of the day is whether you alone like your work. Keep at it, mix more and post to the OCR WIP/Completed forums before submitting. This simply isn't enough to pass though. NO

It's almost like Israfel was a fly on the wall, Larry and I had a short discussion about this mix days ago and Israfel's conclusion is basically what I mentioned I was thinking at the time. It's not so much a problem of the marching band performance, but more of the content for me. I'm not expecting all star college marching bands that you see on ESPN. The bar is certainly not that high. I thought the intro was fine, but I definitely agree the outro was a bit odd. It's a very cool mix for what it is, but my main issue here is the unfulfilled arrangement. This is one of those cases where for me length/shortness of a mix definitely comes to play. More minorly, the recording wasn't too great either. The ending sections start to pick up steam with the best sections of content and performance of the piece, but by then it's over. NO