MindWanderer

Sounds great, just tiny performance mistakes that I'd be nitpicking, but I'm not hearing almost any direct source usage. If another judge can help make those connections, I'll happily give this a YES. Update 4/21: I went through section by section using the breakdown, and I sort of hear it, but I have to work really hard and use a bit of imagination. I don't doubt that it's there, on a theoretical level, and maybe if I saw the sheet music side by side I'd be able to see the common patterns. It's even less recognizable than the controversial Reflecting Pool. I NO'ed that one; I'm doing the same for this. NO

Yep, I don't have a lot to add. It's good clean fun. I didn't even notice how shrill the glitch effects were because they're short and fit in well. They're hard to ignore now that I'm aware of them, though. YES

Dee dee dee, ba ba ba da! I definitely got the influence. It's a great swing arrangement, and a superb job of extending a simple source. Production isn't perfect, with the guitar chugs overlapping with pretty much everything, but I don't hear an issue with the drums. 0:39-0:48 is pretty problematic, where the lead and bass are smack on top of each other, and 1:23-1:40 is real mid-heavy, but I think the rest is more than passable. I don't think realism on the brass is even remotely an issue; we've passed brass that sounds much worse than this. I wouldn't be too sad if this got sent back to get the mixing cleaned up a little, but I think it's well above our bar as-is. YES

Unfortunately I have to concur. Great performances, really enjoyable as a piece of jazz music, but it's too far removed from Dire Dire Docks to be postable here. I'm sure we could boost it on social media if you shared it some other way, but we just can't host it ourselves. NO

There's some fun sound design here, but most of what you've done is a 1:1 instrument swap. The most problematic is the droning pad of the original, which you kept, and sounds really unpleasant. Compositionally, it's two loops of the source material, with very few changes between the first and second loop. The drone changes timbre, but I'm not hearing any other differences. There isn't even an intro or an outtro, just an extremely long decay into over nearly 20 seconds of silence. Production sounds mostly pretty good, but we're looking for more in terms of arrangement. This sounds like it's a MIDI rip, taking the exact source material and swapping the instruments out, as well as being two loops of that same source material with little variation and no addition. We need more in terms of both transformation and dynamism. NO

Funny thing is, I got very different impressions but came to the same conclusion. The first thing I hear is a really loud bass triangle wave. Like, so loud I feel it in my gut, even with my fairly low-end headphones. The whole thing is mixed unnecessarily loud, and even clips, but that bass triangle is overwhelmingly loud even beyond that. I can only listen to this for so long, so I apologize if I missed any issues. I don't have a problem with rigid piano in an otherwise synth soundscape. And I don't hear a noise at 2:07, but there are about 9 seconds of silence at the end that should be trimmed out. I do totally agree with Larry about other points, though: it loops the main hook far too many times, and the percussion kit is underwhelming (I mostly here just a severely low-passed snare). It is a good start, but watch the volume levels and try to use more than just the main hook to tie it together. The source material has several other melodic sections you can borrow from, as well as changes in harmony, and you can always throw in some original writing as well. NO

Great sound, great beat. Nice mix of techno and ethnic-sounding synths. A lot of fun to listen to. My one concern is repetitiveness. Now, it's trance, and trance is supposed to be repetitive. And there's not much copy-pasta here. It's progressive trance, done the way progressive trance is supposed to be done. It works for me, with the genre consideration. YES

Opens with a massive wash of reverb, a little off-putting as an opening. 0:50-1:40 is looped exactly at 1:40-2:30; 50 seconds of the first two and a half minutes — a full third of the arrangement at this point, and also a pretty conservative cover — is also an early deterrent. However, after that point, it picks up. Nice riffs on the theme, and the soundscape is a pretty solid example of synthwave with chiptunes. The piano breakdown is a particular highlight. The ending is a bit of a letdown, though; 4:45 and 5:00 were both more natural endings, and it just kept going until it sounds like you ran out of ideas. Production-wise, it's a little mid-heavy, but I can hear most everything clearly. The pad conflicts a little more than I like, but I can live with it. Overall, there's a bunch of things that could be improved, but they're not huge and I don't think they add up to a rejection. I'm happy to go with a YES

Really nice melancholic black metal here. A really long arrangement, but it's not even remotely repetitive. Mixing blastbeat (thanks for the vocab word, proph) is extremely difficult; I don't care for it at baseline, but this is done as well as it reasonably can be. The rest of it is mastered better than most black metal. Since it's so long, timestamping source material is tricky, but subjectively it seems like there's enough. Really strong work here overall. I wouldn't have objected to this being a DP. YES

I re-listened to this without first checking on my original vote, so I was really surprised when the SMM1* mashups began. In retrospect they make perfect sense as a way to extend the original without making it overly repetitive. And I would say... it almost works. The problem is that some of the mashed-up sections sometimes sound great (the first 5 notes of Underground are especially great), and sometimes clash badly. 2:39-2:41, 2:55, and 3:24-3:30 are the bits that clash. 2:55 is just a single clashing note, but 3:24-3:30 is a whole key change that really doesn't flow with everything around it. It feels worse than it is because the two longest problematic parts are (almost) at the start and the end of the mashup section, so they're the most impactful. After a bunch of listens, I find that the problem bugs me less the more I listen to it rather than more, so I'll add in my own YES * And one SM64 cameo — cheeky, since SM64 isn't one of the game modes that SMM2 covers. Bob-Omb Battlefield isn't even one of the SFX you can choose in-game.

Interesting. It starts off almost like a sound upgrade, especially with the FM lead. I don't think that was an effective choice, since it diminishes how extensive the remix is otherwise, and the sound quality is just so primitive in comparison to the rest of the track. However, other than that, this is firing on all cylinders. It makes effective use of the second source to expand on the first, it has a lot of neat textural elements and a unique soundscape. Great way to make an overall dark tone without neglecting the high end of the sound spectrum. I'm not even sure how it does that, but it does. Nice work. YES

I'm just going to point out that the spoken word element of that remix is just the lyrics of the original song. There's no question that they constitute source material. Also, they only play for 1:07 of a 5:26 arrangement, and are in no way the dominant element.

It's massively better, I'll say that much. Production is excellent, no complaints on that front anymore. The performances are tighter overall. But the timing is still pretty loose, and the singing at the end is still notably pitchy. There's still the larger question of whether a submission in which the dominant component is spoken word can also count as one in which the "source material" is dominant ("source material" being music as defined by our standards). I personally see that as a conflict. So for this to get a YES from me, it would need both cleaner performances and a ruling by djp that this counts; otherwise, I see it as a standards violation. Either way, I still have to give it a NO

Nice juicy bass soundscape to open things up. Transitions into pretty classic EDM fare. The soundscape does drop off sharply at about 10,500 Hz, which I checked because I could tell there's a distinct lack of highs. The lead supersaws have some high presence, but the snares and cymbals are aggressively low-passed, and there's no reason for that. I do think there's a certain amount of running-out-of-ideas, and is basically done at 2:25. You can easily tell in 2:10-2:24 that there's an extra layer compared to 0:40-0:54, and I do hear some extra parts in 2:25-3:10 that weren't in 0:55-1:40, but the mids are really crowded here, and it's hard to make them out. Altogether it's a minute out of a 3:17 mix, about 30%, that's very close to copy-pasta. I don't think this is a bad remix, per se. It's certainly entertaining. But between the lack of highs and the extent of repetition (which is itself made more problematic because of the mixing), I think there's cause enough to send this back for revision. NO

That intro synth is really bright. And yeah, it's odd synth choices throughout, including some that are unpleasantly detuned. They don't go together, either. 0:52-1:08 is a particularly weird example: there are only 3 parts, and they're not coordinated at all. The synth at 1:24 is a bold choice that doesn't pay off; when you have literally only one instrument playing, that instrument had better knock your socks off in terms of sounding interesting and having a rich timbre, and this one does the exact opposite. I hate to come down hard on this, but it's really not nice to listen to. Please consider sending your arrangements through the workshop forums when you're trying something new. NO

The arrangement doesn't excite me, but it's well-realized enough. Great performances overall, though the flute is a little breathless in places. I don't have any particular objections. YES

Eh... I've been listening to this for a while now, and that basic arp is playing nearly the entire time. It gets old really, really fast. The only time it takes a break is in 0:49-1:15. Even if, on paper, 26 seconds of break out of a 2:18 piece were enough, subjectively it's just relentless. There are some cool ideas, and I love the beat, but I do think it's ultimately too much of the same thing. NO

Better! The arrangement is still great. The melody is always audible, and usually sits at or close to the top of the mix. But production still needs some work. 1:01-1:14 is a "great" example of what not to do. It's a mostly-indecipherable wall of sound. There are a dozen instruments playing at once there, all stepping on each others' frequencies, hardly any EQ or separation going on that I can hear, and the dominant sounds are the flute and tambourine, which are absolutely not the leads there. The actual lead, the guitar, sits below them — at least, I think it's a guitar, and not horns or something, because all the timbre is smushed out of it — and then you have a bunch of what seems to be very nice part-writing below that that I can barely make out. That's an example of the worst mixing, but there are smaller issues throughout. The tambourine is nearly always too loud, and whenever you have more than 4 or so instruments playing at once, something's getting buried. Orchestral metal is really, really hard to mix, because it involves multiple instruments that really chew up the frequency spectrum and have really rich timbres. It takes a lot of EQ to let all that get through. This submission definitely shows a lot of progress on that front, but there's a more yet to do. Keep at it! NO (resubmit)

Kris nailed this vote. The detuned sounds and the conflicting frequencies make this not very pleasant to listen to. I'd prefer a more conclusive ending, as well, but otherwise just ditto to the above. NO Edit: The April 2 revision fixes the tuning, which was the biggest problem I had. I do think it's mid-heavy and mushy; in particular, the ending, from 2:25 on, has five or six synths all crowded into the mids, and it's 40 seconds of this, not 20 — about 20% of the track. It's super borderline for me on that front. However, I noticed something this time that I didn't notice before: there's a quiet popping noise that comes up frequently. I hear it pop up occasionally throughout, but it's really noticable in 1:40-1:58. It sounds like clipping, but it's not, unless it was pre-rendered clipping that got saved as an artifact. Now that I hear it, it sounds really awful and I can't abide it. I checked on the old version as well, and it's there, too. My apologies for not catching it then. I'm leaning towards passing this, just, but that popping has got to go. I'd still much prefer the ending be separated out a bit; there's a lot of instrumentation there that just can't be heard. Let us appreciate your work! The arp in particular is absolutely annihilated, and could really stand to be separated out, if not shifted up an octave. CONDITIONAL

Yeah, those loud, muffled snares in the intro are an instant turnoff. They drive out everything else, from the "lead" violins to the vox choir. It immediately gets better than that, but there are still some issues. The iconic arp becomes the loudest element, again dominating the lead. You've got this four-on-the-floor beat, and some sweeps, but none of the other EDM elements one expects from that approach. It sounds incomplete. Adding to that feeling, it's basically done at 1:32. The rest is a loop into a fadeout. As my fellow judges said, it's a good fadeout, but it comes far too early to showcase a completed arrangement. You've got a good start here, but it's just a good start. Feel free to add to it and send it back our way. NO

Source is definitely a concern, but it's easy to check since the source is nearly all melody and bongos. The remix has the same chord progressions throughout, but that's not enough to count. Here's my timestamping: 0:14-0:26 2:54-3:20 4:44-5:34 ...and that's it. That's all I got. Other sections are clearly inspired by the source material, and flow well, but I don't actually hear source in them besides chord progressions. That's a mere 88 seconds out of 400, or 22%. I'm also in agreement with Kris about the entire mix being too hot and bright. It's less of an issue than the source usage, but it leapt out at me immediately and would also be enough reason to send this back. Unfortunately, since it's already on the album, I don't expect a revision. It's still a ton of fun, though, and I did enjoy it immensely. NO

Some nice chillwave going on here. Nice tones, good soundscape. Not too many sources can be sped up and still be mellow, but this sure works out that way. You picked two tough sources to use, but it sounds like they're pretty well present. I don't see a need to timestamp. Checks all the boxes for me. Nice work. YES

Pretty straightforward metal take on the Cascade Kingdom theme. It's pretty close to a cover for everything but the first 34 and the last 22 seconds, but there are a few little twists, as well as an original intro and outtro, and original, if simple, part writing for the accompanying instruments. I'm concerned with production a bit on this one. The lead guitars sit pretty quiet in the mix, and get partially drowned out by the rhythm and harmony guitars. The bass guitar is really quiet, too; I took several listens before I even realized it was there. Most of what I'm hearing is chugs. I'm a little on the fence about whether this is interpretive enough — leaning towards yes on that front, but borderline — but I don't think the production is where we need it. Please give this another pass where the lead sits properly on top and the bass is audible. That shouldn't take much work, but if you could add more original transformation above and beyond the source material, it would make this a much stronger submission. NO

Solid trance. Nothing really surprising here in terms of style or content; it does exactly what it says on the tin. Everything comes together exactly as it should. I was slightly concerned about source usage, but I started to timestamp it, and listening closely, some sort of source is always present between 1:15 and 6:07, so it's fine on that front. I have nothing else to add. Simple approach, simple vote. YES

Nice classic EDM, for the most part. The supersaws are a little lo-fi, but otherwise this hits all the beats. There's something about the production that's bugging me, but I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps another judge will. Those bongos crack me up. They're so clean, and cut through the mix so much. I mean, it's DKC, so bongos make sense, but still, these are very silly bongos. My biggest concern is that it's really short. EDM tends to be a little repetitive, but good EDM is progressive, transformational. This has a great hook, then a breakdown, then a return to the hook, and then it ends out of nowhere. The phrase in particular not ending on the tonic is really unsatisfying. I'm on the fence about this one. What's there is pretty good, but that ending is such a letdown, it makes the whole thing feel incomplete. I'm coming down on the side of it not being a dealbreaker, but only just. I may revisit this vote. YES (borderline)