MindWanderer

I can't argue with any of the above. It's a clever idea, but there needs to be more interpretation and better production for us. NO

Interesting approach. The intro is basically a sound upgrade, but from there it trades off between metal, violin solos, and synth work. It's eclectic but for the most part it works. However, the mix still isn't quite there yet. The bass is frequently overpowering, and the leads often struggle to stay on top. There are a lot of parts, and some of them, like pads, arps, and SFX, are much louder than they need to be. Regarding the drums, I don't think that they're too quiet per se. The main problem is the hats, or rather the lack thereof. Drums need to have some high end, usually hats, sometimes claps. Sometimes snares can fill this role, but your snares have no high in them. There are hats, on occasion, but they have their highs filtered out as well. The result is that the whole mix seems lethargic. I'm not great at writing drums myself, but my impression from listening is that this isn't the only reason the drums seem lifeless, and that the drum writing also needs improvement. Hopefully one of my fellow judges can provide some more constructive pointers on this front. There's some great work here, and it's a fun arrangement. It just needs a little more work to get it over the top. NO (resubmit)

Kind of wild how many times I've heard this music and never really "heard" anything past the first part. Salmon Run clearly leaves no room in my brain for anything but "AAAAH!" Crazy, however, is one word that does not describe this remix. It's very repetitive. Most of it consists of short loops of a simple phrase repeated several times. The most problematic is 0:42-2:35, which is nearly two minutes of just a few measures repeated over and over; 3:46-4:21 reprises even more of that same section, then it repeats the beginning again. I'm afraid this comes across as a 2 minute arrangement stretched out to over 5. The performance chops are certainly there, production seems fine to me for the genre, and it's a solid genre conversion of the source material. It just needs to introduce new material or interpretations more often, or else be drastically shortened. NO

The lo-fi instrumentation here certainly is... something. I don't think it's even PS1-quality; I think it's more similar to 90's Sound Blaster audio. "Charming" isn't the word I'd use. The cymbals aren't great, but they're fine IMO. The gongs do have a problem in that they have enormous tails---so long that they're still going 10 seconds later when the next gong hits. Given that it's clearly, obviously fake, I don't see how niggling with humanization is meaningful. It's not like robotic timing breaks verisimilitude. I also don't have a problem with the mastering, for the most part. Everything can be heard comfortably at one volume level. Things do get a smidge mushy at the crashes. That said, my setup doesn't has as much sub as proph's does, but I can see in a spectrum analyzer that yeah, there's no rolloff at those frequencies. And I can hear enough of the sub to know that's why Larry had a problem with 0:42-1:04. That's an issue that will clearly need to be addressed, making this a Conditional at best. And there is indeed a long tail that needs to be trimmed by about 7 seconds. Proph's also right in that there are no highs here. I didn't even notice at first because the crude PC music this is imitating usually had the same problem, but it's still true. There's enough reason there to send this back, but in closing I'm going to add that I'm just not a fan of the aesthetic choice here. I don't think it's close enough to a specific chipset to work as an homage. To me it just sounds like you're trying to remix on a 386. I can't even tell how much of it is intentional. If this is resubmitted, even with all of the above issues fixed, I'm personally going to have a hard time YES'ing it because I just think the palette sounds bad. It doesn't mean I wouldn't, and it's not a dealbreaker, but it'll be harder to hear the strengths of the arrangement despite it. NO

I was a borderline YES on this the first time around, so it's an easy vote for me. I don't totally care for the mushy lo-fi intro, but otherwise this is a rubber stamp. YES

Funny enough, this doesn't sound as quiet as most of Rebecca's remixes, though I can certainly see what looks like almost 9 dB of headroom. Not a lot going here, but the source is super simple, so this does do an adequate job of expanding on it. I too would have liked to hear more than just bells out of this, as it does get pretty boring. I don't think it's as clearly above the bar as proph does, just because it's quite monotonous. I think it does meet our standards, though. YES

I'm with proph on this one. The cinematic arrangement is great overall, but production has notable issues on several levels. The brass in particular sounds like an ensemble of childrens' toys; the tone is harsh, tinny, and unrealistic. There's not much presence in most of the bass range, but there's huge sub-bass. And the timing in the climax is just bizarre---the drums hit some strange interval before the beat, and it's really jarring. The levels aren't great but I don't think they're as problematic as proph suggested. I can hear everything comfortably without adjusting my volume, which is more than I can say about many mixes that pass. However, I suspect that if I were to listen to this on a setup with strong sub response, that might not be true; they're loud even on the headphones I'm using now, which are light in that range. Lots of excellent ideas, but the execution just isn't there. I recommend taking this to the Workshop and iterating on it a few times with feedback. NO

I have to agree. There's good energy here, even if the synths are a little old-fashioned, but 44 seconds of copy-pasta out of 188 seconds of remix is an awful lot, and it fees like even more with the relentless percussion and repetitive accompanying lines. There are some more sections that aren't strictly copied but are very similar to other parts. I don't think it's too far off, but it does feel like not enough ideas to fill out a whole remix. NO

"Soft" is the right word for how the drums feel, for sure. They're quite quiet and it sounds like they're aggressively filtered in both directions. The other instruments sound filtered as well, especially the rhythm guitar. The organ is much louder than everything else, and it's an odd choice to accompany the rest of these instruments. The arrangement is excellent, and the guitar sequencing is more than adequate; it's great. But the soundscape needs to be a lot more robust. I'll be adding my NO vote to Larry's, but I'll agree that more detailed feedback on how to make these instruments pop and not sound so muffled would be helpful to have before moving this into the Decisions queue. NO (resubmit)

Yeah, that's a rough call. The problem is, it's not just the chorus. The bass is also Thriller's, and it's playing all the time. The notes of the melody are from Ghosts 'n' Goblins, but the rhythm of them is from Thriller. It's very clever, the singing is great---not MJ but credibly done in his style---and the production is superb, but it's far too close to Thriller. Only the bridge is a clear and obvious departure, and even that keeps the Thriller bass. I wish we could post this. I really do. But our standards say, "Any incorporation or arrangement of source material not from games (mainstream, classical, etc.) should be extremely limited" and that's just not true here. Regretfully, NO

It's true that it's an overly conservative approach, although it's a well-done orchestration. The sample quality, though, is really not great. The strings especially are super fake, and the horns aren't much better. The vocals and bass play bit parts but still prominently falls short (and the bass is really loud during its solo). The attack on the strings are also slightly slow, putting it behind the beat in places. There's room for improvement on the production front, too. There's no presence in the highs; the flutes sound like they've had the highs cut out, and the cymbals are nearly inaudible. Sounds to me like the sub-bass might be filtered a bit too much, too, but I'm not listening on studio cans and it's hard for me to tell for sure. Thanks for the submission, and it's pretty good for what it is, but I do think this needs more than an interpretive expansion to pass here. NO

it may be an overdone source, but that's because it deserves it. This isn't a groundbreaking treatment, but it's some solid synthwave for all that. Great synth choices, good progression. Practically a textbook example of how to do a creative bridge for an OC ReMix track: clearly derived from the source material yet clearly original. It occurred to me that if you trained a really, really good AI to create OC ReMixes, it might come up with something like this; it's essentially the archetypal track for us in terms of source material, structure, genre, and approach. 2:23-2:53 is a repeat of 0:16-0:46, but 30 seconds of a 3:16 track is acceptable. The weak ending makes it feel more repetitive than it really is, since there aren't any new ideas for nearly the last full minute. It's not a dealbreaker, though, and nothing else about this is. YES

This is a fun, creative arrangement with some production decisions bringing it down. The track opens up with an entire ensemble of bells with massive amounts of reverb. In fact, in place of a pad, it's using what sounds like a bell with infinite reverb. The result is that the sounds overlap significantly and everything conflicts with everything else. This bell/pad continues into the main melody, without variation in tone or volume, for two minutes, and it felt fatiguing to me within the first 10 seconds. I'm not too picky when it comes to guitar realism, but the lead and rhythm guitar here fall short of even my bar. It's clearly sampled, although the samples are good. The bass is better. They also have very strange timing, especially the rhythm guitar, which is so far offbeat that it's unclear what they're even trying to do. At 1:50, a bell synth joins in that has the same problem of being strangely behind the beat in a way that doesn't sound intentional; it just sounds like it has a really slow attack. And of course there's no ending to speak of, it just stops. I love your use of the themes here, integrating all four into a neat little ballad. Other than the ending, I felt like the arrangement was great. It's a solid direction, it just needs some tweaks in a few key areas. NO (resubmit)

I'm gonna disagree with my peers here. It's true that there's very little bass presence here, but there isn't zero. The transitional sweeps that Emu hated so much have plenty of bass presence, used for emphasis. I don't think it's too loud at all, and I definitely don't think the arrangement on the whole is too quiet by any stretch of the imagination. The arrangement on the whole is meant to be light and ethereal, and having rumbly bass throughout that would defeat the purpose. The samples, while imperfect, are still pretty darn good. If the piano were solo, or even the lead, for more than the last 4 seconds, I might have more of a beef with it, but as it is it's perfectly acceptable IMO. The drums seem fine to me as well; they're on autopilot for long periods, but not that long, and the sample quality seems well above our bar to me. I've been listening to this for a week trying to figure out why this got two NO's, and I'm just not seeing it. It's an elaborate and creative if short arrangement, with great sound design and an evocative soundscape. Its few flaws are minor and easily forgivable, by me at least. YES

It's not bad for a first attempt. The performances are excellent, no complaints there. However, it does seem like it's an early effort on your remixing journey. What leaps out immediately is the production. It's very dark and heavily filtered. The bass is pretty quiet, but there's no treble at all to speak of; even the cymbals have been almost completely cut away. The bulk of the sounds are smushed into a pretty narrow range in the mids, resulting in a thin soundscape with not much clarity. It doesn't help that the instrumentation is very busy, with not only the usual metal instrument set, but some deeply resonant cinematic synths, which sound like they're pretty epic but I can barely make them out. Arrangement-wise, it's very conservative. The only original content is in the form of an intro, a bridge, a transition, and an outtro (0:00-0:23, 1:34-1:58, 2:25-2:30, and 3:18-end respectively), which together make up only 38% of the track. The rest is pretty much a cover. Furthermore, 2:30-3:18 is an abridged repeat of the first time through the source; I know it's not copy-pasta since each is performed separately, but the treatment is identical, and it's 20% of the track. Either one of these issue by themselves isn't necessarily a dealbreaker, though they're borderline, but together they make for an arrangement that doesn't contain as many interpretive ideas as what we look for. I might be giving the interpretation less credit than it's due because of how much I'm losing to the production issue, though. I'd work on that first, because even with no changes to the arrangement, this will sound pretty sweet with more frequency spread and cleanliness. Then we'll be in a better position to evaluate the transformation. NO (resubmit)