GrayLightning
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Posts posted by GrayLightning
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This was a difficult mix to judge. I felt the material was handled well, but the arrangement was very subtle, it is there and it is definitely not conservative enough to reject. But there were a lot of intricate additions here where several listens were needed in order to appreciate. The orchestration is well done all around. I agree with Israfel, this certainly is not cliche. However I still enjoy the bombastic hollywood fare once in a while.
Honestly this isn't something I'd personally listen to often. It sounds very backgroundish anime film type music that fits a scene, but is neither melodic to attract attention to, nor for me, absorbing in an atmospheric sort of way. It is technically very nice and passable though, so it's a YES
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Everyone knows I love my reverb, but this whole mix sounds drenched in one reverb. Everything sounds wet, muddy. For the kind of style, instrumentation here, I question how appropriate it is.
Definitely plodding, but not in any relaxing or interesting way. It's just a little dull. I like the first sections and last sections of the mix. The rest of it is kind of all potatoes, where's the compositional meat here?
Not bad, keep at it eon. When your mixing skills mature to the point of your design skills we're going to be in for a treat. This however I think is average. Keep at it. I hope to hear more from you soon.
NO
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I love the throwback sounds here. Very classic. I really enjoyed this one.
It's also a bit overly drawn out and sounds a bit too repetitive. I really like the toms section. But I think the conservative take of the mix and the decent production make it a borderline NO from me.
I'm keeping though, it's fun, but really doesn't meet the standards at this point.
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I agree with Zyko and Liontamer on this one. The synth bells and piano are the strongest elements of this mix.
My main problem here is the mixing. Volume levels are all over the place. There's lots of clashing in my opinion. For example the shakers all are loud, cover up other elements of the mix. It simply does not work in this context in my opinion. For me the best parts of this mix are when it's simpler, when it's just the bells and piano. My suggestion is go back to the mixing board and rethink which elements should dominate. I think everything needs to be softer and the organ should have more presence during the fuller sections.
Pretty nice otherwise, the execution just drags this one down. NO
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This is kind of a mess. The construction, mixing and arrangement results in a disappointing mix.
Thin, boring synth leads. Check out zircon's review for more on that.
Without repeating on and on what the other judges rightfully said, this needs better arrangement and better production. The ending made no sense for me, it had an awkward transition then it repeated the melody. Generic and the pause was weird and abrupt. Keep practicing. I hope to hear more from you next time.
NO
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Arrangement is minimal, and yes it is underdeveloped, but there is some level of arrangement here. New rhythms and the harmony is altered. There are a number of subtle changes. The entire feel is different enough also. This reminds me of the Brad Secret of Mana mix issue; while conservative it had a lot of minor additions, subtlety where the feel was changed to an extent. I don't feel that is done anywhere as well here, but it definitely moves it into an arrangement category for me.
Obviously there are problems here. The main one is conservative arrangement. I would expand the guitar and background work. Certainly lengthening works, but the issue here isn't really that it's too short, but more can be done with it. Another main gripe I have is the lead. It sounds so twangy, harsh and loud in relation to everything else.
I do like the vibe, and the production is definitely passable in my opinion.
Needs more work in various areas of composition. Let the vote continue. I think our guitar players on the panel, Vig and Israfel might be able to shed helpful light for this mixer.
NO
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Thanks for the comments everyone.
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Very generic Fruity Loops sounding mix. Try downloading free soundfonts from hammersound.net and try looking into free vsti's. The arrangement, execution, production are below the bar. At this point I don't really know what specific advice can be used other than to keep practicing.
Better luck next time. NO.
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There's nothing wrong with the reverb here. It's perfectly valid in this context. I could be wrong but it sounds like a steinway piano to me. Of course it's not gonna sound too bright. Excellent, superb in every aspect.
YES
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Thank you for the kind words Ravi, they will get you everywhere,
but not in the panel. 
You are making tremendous progress and this is your finest work yet. I agree with my compatriots that the mix feels like a mix with pasted percussion, vocal and performance phrases. More harmonic or melodic expansion would be so much more helpful in this regard rather than the reliance on performance samples. I also think another serious issue here is the mixing. All the volume and panning of every element is all over the map. As if you randomly assigned them anywhere. Work on creating more balance with volume and panning. Subtlety is key as some elements just completely drown out others.
Great concept piece though.
Borderline, NO. Keep at it, you're making great strides.
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My good friend snappleman is whiny and is a pussy. Yes
Good performance, nice drum sequencing and good arrangement. Frankly the only problem that one needs to worry about with snappleman is that he likes to arrange conservatively. That is not an issue here. Good job.
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Very much lacking some arrangement, production and execution work here.
I suggest spicing things up arrangement wise with some melodic, harmonic or rhythmic expansion. Change things up some more, how about changing up the form, structure, anything? Play with the theme more. And don't quantize your mix.
I hope you keep at it, you show promise. Best remedy is practice, practice, practice. Better luck next time.
NO.
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Problems galore. The two main transition points here are really awkward and abrupt. I thought the last half of the mix was definitely its strongest section. But parts like at 2:50 have a lot of tonal clashes for me. It just sounded like a mess. Enjoyed the tempo changes and style of the mix.
Problems aside I thought this was decent. It's quite fun, but several issues pointed out by myself and the other judges make this enough of an underachiever for me to NO. Having heard your other stuff, I know the quality you're capable of, this falls short for me.
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I hate it when other judges cover the exact same things I'm feeling on a mix. I played this in my youth so the arrangement came across for me quite well. I did like the style of the arrangement. The execution on the other hand I thought was not handled as gracefully as it could have been. For one, the vocals seem to be drowned with everything else. I would make that louder and boost the eq on that for both clarity and presence. More eq work on the entire mix is also needed in my opinion. I feel the treble areas are lacking a bit, also perhaps rolling off somewhere in the 300-800 hz region would balance out the mix more.
Needs more work, but as already mentioned this shows a lot of promise. I hope you consider reworking this for a resubmission.
NO, for now.
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Well said by the other judges. Main issue here for me is this doesn't offer much new to the many schala mixes already available. I would add to that, considering the many Schala mixes already at OCR more innovation is required here. Straightforward, but it certainly had its interesting moments. NO
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With the rapping element we get to something which I'm not entirely comfortable commenting on, it being a type of music that I don't listen to regularly. So if these observations are useful, all the better, otherwise don't hesitate to disregard them.
It seems that at times you want to rush the rhythms of the rap, particularly when there is a long string of words. More rhythmic clarity might also give the mix more energy and "punch" which I feel is lacking from the rap section. There are instances as well where the words are spoken so quickly and run together such as to them entirely uncomprehensible - 1:10 for example.
I think Mike meant to say that these are truly some icy hot flowz.
Or in liontamer speak "There's some hot shit there aight; no doubt bro."
Reference material: OCR Comic #4
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Awesome sax. A little gripe, I thought the sax was way way upfront, on headphones it was kind of harsh. Personal taste, but I would like to hear some reverb or delay on the sax. Still excellent work in that aspect. Beyond that, the background was a bit generic. Ending also did not make any sense and the transition was nonexistent. Main issue here repetitive loops, and lack of arrangement make it a NO for me.
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I already mentioned to the panel what I thought of this. Great arrangement, great mix, great production.
Good job, trenthian and compyfox. YES
This may be our first recorder mix at OCR!
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Yeah most of my mixes are combinations of stuff. My most Reason oriented mixes are my Legend of Mystical Ninja - Asian Twilight Mix and Battle of Olympus - Eros collaboration. My Star Ocean - Space Travel is all reason though.
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I'm not sure what you mean or what demos you were listening to. But reason is far from midi-ish. I thought the demos that came with reason sounded quite good.
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I know the source material well and I had no trouble spotting the arrangement. It's a really cool arrangement overall. It certainly helps to have good source material and you take advantage of that.
Instrumentation quality and usage is slick throughout and works very well with the vibe.
I still thought there were some grave mixing, mastering and volume and dynamics issues. It simply is not even as good as previous quinn mixes comparitively in this respect it's not as good.
I agree with prot about the drumloop, it is used here kind of wholesale without chopping, editing, mangling and not as much attention was paid here that Quinn normally does. But for a nongroove based mix, I don't think we can reject it on those grounds.
Still the arrangement is good, if not a bit simplistic in composition and production. Atmospheric music can take advantage of more complexity to create more interesting ambiance. But I don't think it matches quinn's works from last year. Still a capable and nice mix, and a yes.
YES
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Well considering the source material is almost nonexistent I think the mixer did a good job here. Overall I thought this was simplistic in composition and in production, but due to the source material it's hard to be too harsh here. The intro is a bit drawn out I thought. I do like the choral pads and string work, the other percussive effects are also nice. Production as a whole I thought was rather average. This is in serious need of major effects processing imo. More delays, lush ambiance and so forth. I also felt a lot of this sounded lofi. Passable production, neat, if not simple arrangement.
Borderline Yes.
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Judging mixes like these are always tricky since the original material is so sparse compositionally. I honestly don't know how one could even mix that to begin with. I felt the source was mostly just a groove based piece.
The Faith No More material to me is the most obvious and for me the mix is clearly weighted towards Faith No More rather than Arkanoid. As stated considering the source material, perhaps this was a natural execution on how the mix came together. But regardless, to me, the point still is I felt this was more of a Faith No More slanted mix with some Arkanoid work underneath it.
I frankly don't hear much arrangement here that is consistent with the requirements of this site. Most of the more liberal arrangement I hear in this is the natural evolution of blending two different pieces of music together. But without the FNM source material I think this would have been much more exposed as lacking in the arrangement department. But on the other hand, given the Arkanoid source material - it's hard to see how this could have been arranged to the standards we have come to expect.
Now for the sake of arguement - let's take out my personal judgement above and assume the opposite end of the arguement mentioned by Makke of 50/50 of Arkanoid vs FNM is true; then this alone makes the reliance on non-video game music material too much in my opinion. This isn't a hybrid arrangement site.
Very good mix, and greatly produced but the violation is clear for me. NO
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A couple of issues I had with this mix, I thought this could do with more padding or instrumentation. It felt sparse. Also the snare's sharpness isn't too pleasant on headphones.
This really has a very japanese feel as far as the synth design goes. A very good thing.
The sequencing and programming of the synths are great. Prot did a great job on it. Could do with more short reverb or delay for the whole piece imo. Sounds a little dry for my taste. Didn't really dig the ending personally.Really loved the series when I was a kid, and given my familiarity, I thought prot did a very nice job on the arrangement.
Good job prot. YES
*NO* Final Fantasy Mystic Quest 'Prohpecy Fulfilled'
in Judges Decisions
Posted
Lack of arrangement that is slanted towards a cover make this almost an automatic no. I also felt the guitar sound was kind of thin, and ugly. The playing is very solid though.
Next time arrange the piece more. Change the structure, tempo, change the form, expand the melody/harmony, add things, something. Pretty fun to listen to, but without proper arrangement, as is, NO.