MindWanderer

I have to co-sign on all the above. I didn't look at this in a frequency graph, but the production lacks clarity in a big way. It's all mids and highs, and the mids are muddy. Nearly everything is fighting for a very narrow bandwidth. Proph is right about the loudness, too; the example of the solo organ hitting the limiter just as much as when the whole ensemble is playing is a striking one. The waveform isn't even a normal sausage, it's like... a linguica? Mostly one long tube. It's a fun arrangement, great performances, but needs a lot of work in the levels and and EQ departments. proph told you what to do, so please go do it. NO (resubmit)

I agree with proph, for the most part. The sound design is underwhelming but adequate; the saws and orch hits in particular are fuzzy and lack impact. The whole thing doesn't seem to be able to make up its mind whether it's mellow synthwave or driving synth rock. The weirdest part is the ending: we're clearly out of danger, so why is the voice back, yet sounding so calm? That said, while it violates genre and mood expectations, I think that's a subjective criticism and not an objective one. It's not my cup of tea, but I don't think there's any part of our standards that it falls short of. It's a novel arrangement of the source material, the production is clear, the sound quality is good. YES

I held off on voting on this one until it could be fixed, and didn't notice until now that it had been. What a strange and interesting way of integrating these sources. Red Wings hardly receives any treatment at all, though it's certainly there (I first spotted it at 1:39), and it's so subtle you could easily miss it completely. I do find it pretty monotonous. The Jon Hopkins pieces that served as inspiration are as well, so it's understandable. There are plenty of textural changes to hold the listener's interest, even if there aren't many melodic ones. It's definitely a showcase of fantastic sound design. So much richer and more vibrant than the Hopkins songs. Absolutely gorgeous soundscape you can get lost in. This one's an easy YES

Co-signing on the above. The drums are better but still mushy, and the performances are not where they need to be (0:59 is a notable flub that wasn't mentioned above). The arrangement is still on the plodding and conservative side, but I did enjoy the bridge in 1:46-2:09. I'd probably vote in favor, though with hesitation, if we got this arrangement but the production and performances were perfect. But they're not. NO

Took me a while to find the problem, because the part of Sun of Nothing that's referenced doesn't start until 7:50 in that song. I'm actually borderline on the Strauss; it's very obviously derived from Also sprach Zarathustra, but there are differences. They're not major differences, but they are differences. If I had to make a judgment call about it, I'd be waffling a lot. Fortunately I don't have to, because the Sun of Nothing reference is much longer and closer to the original, as well as more complex. I don't like rejecting this, and it's a real shame that we have to. NO

Yep, this is, unfortunately, not what we're looking for. Any of the issues of how close it hews to the original, how quiet and un-produced it is, the vanilla sound design with little complexity and virtually no percussion, and how it consists of two loops of the same thing, would be cause for rejection. NO

I have to admire your persistence! Unfortunately, proph is right on all counts. It's not loud in an absolute sense, but it is overcompressed, bitcrushed, and pumping. The parts are stepping all over each other, crammed into the mids without much if any EQ work going on. There's no consideration for how much louder simple waveforms sound than complex ones, so the perceived volume is inconsistent. I will say that the arrangement is an improvement over earlier versions. The original writing from 1:24-1:43 is still kind of rambling and strange, but it's better than previous efforts and ties in better to the source material and the rest of the remix. Unfortunately, I still need to give this yet another NO

I have to echo the above. The arrangement is just so one-note. Vocal pieces like San Jacinto can get away with having a fairly static backing because the focus is on the singing and the lyrics. But even that song does have some textural development, even ignoring the vocals. I would like to add that I'm impressed you were able to make something with LMMS that didn't get dinged for synthesis or production issues. Free DAWs, especially ones that run on Linux, need more love, but they're a challenge to use. To my knowledge we haven't had an LMMS ReMix get posted yet, but I'd love to see it happen. NO

I actually find the retro synth approach a little off-putting. Not objectively so, but still. Maybe because I've heard so many remixes of this exact track using that same approach. The organ in particular is overused. I also have a problem with one of the percussive synths you used, first at 0:30, exposed in 0:52-0:58. Sort of a cross between a chime and a hat. It has a crazy long tail that sometimes gets sustained for several seconds, and it just turns into a wash of high-frequency white noise for me. It's really irritating. That's probably just my old man ears, though; I imagine it won't bug most listeners. Otherwise, this is a perfectly serviceable take on this track. Lots of interpretation, lots of original content, never loses track of the source material. I particularly liked the ending, starting at 2:54, that messed with the harmonies. It's a little busy but not in a way that obscures anything that I could pick out. Good stuff, which I'm sure a lot of fans will enjoy. YES

Nice bass to open up with. Fun choice to do a genre transformation of a track that has such an iconic ethnic flair to it, which you mostly managed to strip out. I thought the pacing was perfect, not too slow at all. However, I think the judges above glossed over the amount of repetition. 0:07-0:42 is repeated nearly verbatim in 1:31-2:20 (with two loops of 0:07-0:27). 49 seconds of repetition out of a 2:38 track is 31%, nearly a third of the whole arrangement. Cut out the copy-pasta and there isn't even 2 minutes left. I like what's here a lot, so I'm actually more borderline on this than I normally would be for a submission with so much repetition, which would normally be disqualifying. So even though it's close, for the sake of consistent voting standards (at least for myself), I feel like I need to come down on the side of NO

I agree with proph. The personalization is maybe borderline (though I'm on the side of NO there), but the fact that the second half is nearly identical to the first is a dealbreaker. The repetition is exacerbated by the low-fi, mellow, static beat and lack of dynamic interest. I feel like I'd heard everything this had to offer 30 seconds in. I respect that intent is to be chill, but this is too chill, the loop aside. NO

I played the living heck out of this game, but the soundtrack never registered on me. I can't say this source really grabs me either, so it's interesting to see what someone's done with it. Those phat industrial beats certainly dominate the soundscape. There's a lot of overcompression going on here. It's pumping like mad and frequently distorted. Some of the distortion sounds intentional, but not even close to all of it. I can see how this would have played well over loudspeakers at a crowded venue, where you lose a lot of sound quality anyway, but on personal speakers or headphones, the issues really leap out. I honestly don't see where proph is coming from in regards to repetition. Sure, the source material is only so long, and it's used a few times. Some of the sections are pretty long, notably 0:23-1:49. But wholesale repetition? I'm not seeing almost any. Every pass through is notably different from every other. The intro returns in the outtro, as an appropriate bookend. 5:12-5:35 is similar to 0:23-1:49, but that's 23 seconds of not-quite-repetition out of a 6½ minute piece, hardly worth mentioning. Still, the production is not where we need it to be for our purposes. I like what you did with this in every other respect, it just needs some TLC to get rid of the pumping and distortion, and to let each instrument shine through distinctly. NO

Let me start off by saying that I love the passion and enthusiasm that went into this. This was clearly a labor of love for everyone involved, and it was a joy to experience that. The solos in particular were clearly fun to make. That said, I feel like this was a trifle ambitious for a lot of the people involved. Michelle is definitely straining to hit some of those notes, and not just the high "sleep"; she's pitchy in a few notable places, and has to hunt for a note or two, notably in the choruses. Not uncommon when adapting a melody that was never meant to be sung; it's fast and has awkward intervals. Cyril's breath control isn't entirely there, and Jess is a little squalky at times. Both saxes' timing is a little off. It doesn't help that the sax issues are most severe in the first 10 seconds of the piece, making a bad first impression. There are some issues in the production as well. 1:21-1:45 and 4:00-4:26 are far too busy, most notably burying the vocals, but everything else is crowding the mids and shutting each other out. The overdriven guitar in 3:47-4:00 is a lot, absolutely dominating the entire soundscape and not letting anything else shine through; it doesn't help that it barely made a couple of cameos earlier in the track, and now here it is just taking over. For me, the production is the main dealbreaking issue. I can live with performances that aren't 100%, though I'd strongly prefer a re-recording of those opening measures following some warmup, but the issues are adding up to enough where I'm having a hard time rubber-stamping this. There's so much here that I like, and I really want a more polished version of this on our front page. But I don't think this is quite where we need it for it to get there. NO (please resubmit!)

Ah, Aquaria. Such a lovely soundtrack. I bounced off the actual gameplay a couple of hours in, but it was a delight to listen to. I have to agree that the big synth foghorn intro doesn't do a good job of telling you what kind of song this is going to be. It does have a certain amount of that Daft Punk-like bassy soundscape up through the 1:40 mark, but after that, while we do keep that kind of bass, it plays a supporting role and not a lead one. That said, it's not so different from a lot of scores and other cinematic music. FFVII's Bombing Mission comes to mind. Certainly not a dealbreaker. It is indeed structurally similar to the original, other than the intro, but the instrumentation is plenty enough to differentiate itself. I will say that the soundscape is surprisingly light. The bass is definitely there, although after the intro it seems over-filtered to me and lacks presence. The arps, pads, and hats fill out the top. But the leads are the only thing in the mids, and they're pretty simple synths that don't have the harmonics to really fill out that space. It's not until 4:30, when everything is firing at once, that the soundscape feels properly full and lush, and that's 75% of the way through the arrangement. Still, it's pretty, it's novel, and none of my concerns are enough to send this back over. YES

I hate to be a negative Nancy on this, because the faux-performance is fantastic, the production is excellent, and the execution of the individual sections is beyond reproach. But everyone praising the sources flowing together seamlessly or naturally... I don't get it. It's not quite a medley, the transitions aren't as abrupt as all that, but several of them are really abrupt, and there's no integration of them into each other. It just flip-flops the whole time. Rachel, Tifa, Rachel, Tifa, Rachel, (Terra), Tifa, Rachel, Tifa, and then not much of an ending. Now, granted, it's hard to mix two themes together on solo piano, you only have two hands, but you did manage to do it a little bit with the Mako Reactor theme. While I do think that the chopped-up nature of it is a substantial minus, I don't think it outweighs the other strengths. I think it would have been much stronger as an arrangement of one theme or the other, but it is strong enough to pass. YES

These are both personal favorite sources of mine, though I couldn't easily imagine them going together. And it sounds like Emu struggles a little bit with that as well. The sound design is cohesive, but it still sounds like the two sources are chopped up and spliced together somewhat awkwardly, with a lot of filler gluing them together. If I were voting on this in the remix compo, I'd ding it for that. However, this isn't for the remix compo, and smooth integration of the two sources isn't one of the factors we judge on here. And what we do judge on is impeccable. The Asian sound design works fantastically (which we already knew works for Cosmo Canyon). The padding may be padding, but it's very good padding, and the little insertions of the themes' leitmotifs are brilliant. Sounds great, post it. YES

This is certainly a vast improvement on the repetition front. There's a lot of re-use of the main hook—a lot—but there's plenty more here. I particularly like the new last section, where the change in the harmony line changes the character of the hook. I'm not as big a fan of the big church bells, though; they sound off-key to me. I can't explicitly hear the brickwalling issue Kris mentioned, but I can certainly see it. There's just no reason for that kind of aggressive hard limiter. Please apply some proper compression instead. It'll make everything sound that much better. I actually think the bass solo is fine, given its length; the bass is rich and has a lot of harmonics in the mid frequencies that help it stand alone, for a little while. There's a lot of room for improvement here, for sure. I wouldn't mind seeing this get sent back for some tweaks. But I also wouldn't mind posting it as-is. YES

The bass dissonance stands out to me, as well. I think it's detuned in a problematic way. It's not an instant dealbreaker for me, but it does bug me. They're a little on the loud side, too. I see what Larry is talking about with the end being a little aimless, but I can tell what it's doing up until 4:18. After that it seems really chaotic, but it's only a bit over 20 seconds. The tail... what is with those pop/click noises? There's a music box motif in the beginning, but a music box would never make those noises. They sound like really awful clipping, or maybe a phonograph needle skipping. It's terrible. I really like the overall tone of this, and I think the arrangement is fine. The detuned bass detracts from my enjoyment, but doesn't eliminate it. I think the only thing I object to strongly is the artifact-like sounds at the end. That makes me a CONDITIONAL

Ooh, SID sounds. I love the tone to start off with, wondering why it got a NO already. And I do see why: the source usage is funny. It's hard to tell in the YouTube video, but I actually downloaded the MIDI you referenced (and attached it to this post for reference), and the harpsichord line is much easier to pick out there. And this is a remix of that line, not the main hook. It's an odd choice, but we allow this; it's not technically a standards violation. So let's move on to the other aspects of the mix. It's very loud, for one. Chiptunes, especially SID, sound a lot louder than other instruments of similar absolute volume, because they have basically no timbre, and thus use the full waveform "efficiently." That's something to watch out for. This makes it so that when things get dense, which pretty much everything after 1:34 does, it's kind of overwhelming, with everything slamming into the limiter full-force. It's especially shocking that things get so loud given how quiet it is for the first 44 seconds, even the drums; less dynamic range would be appropriate here. But the other main problem is the ending. There just isn't one. At all. I don't know if this was a render error or what, but we need to have something that sounds like an attempt at an ending and not the audio file just being cut off. It's too confusing. I don't think this is too far off the mark. An ending of some sort is mandatory, and you should work on the levels so there isn't so much difference between the quiet and loud sections and you're not hitting that hard limiter so hard all the time. But I think the arrangement and composition are fine. NO Edit: I could have sworn I downloaded the current version, but I guess not. This does have a fade-out ending. Not the most overwhelming ending, but it's better than nothing. I still have a beef with the levels; it especially bugs me how the drums in the intro are straight-up quieter instead of having the velocity decreased. It's not totally necessary with a synth drum, but it still sounds weird. I don't think the levels are quite a dealbreaker by themselves, though it's borderline. I can give this a YES (borderline) mi2escap.mid

I YESed this before, and it's even better now. The bass is still a little loud, but it's a nice full soundscape, and it moves through ideas at a good pace, to a solid ending. There is some overlap between the chip arp and the steel drums, briefly, and the whistle lead is definitely too quiet, but otherwise I can hear all the parts clearly. I'm not picking up any problematic pumping. I concur that there's room for improvement in the mixing, but I think it's above our bar, I don't agree with the complaints about emptiness or overcompression, and if Larry thinks that bass is buried, something's wrong with either his setup or his ears. YES

I'm so used to only the intro, main theme, and victory theme being remixed that it's actually weird for me to listen to a remix of other tracks bookended by the stuff I actually know. It sounds great, though. The crashes cause a little bit of pumping in the louder sections (1:39-1:48, 3:30-3:50), but otherwise production is great, performances are great, arrangement is great. YES

Source usage certainly is the elephant in the room. I can catch suggestions of the source material, but they remain suggestions, and they're not very long. However, even with a source breakdown that justified it, I'd have a hard time passing this. It's a very slow burn, spending whole minutes on grooves than barely vary; even for vaporwave/trance, it needs to be more engaging. The drums are indeed LOL-worthy, being barely audible. As proph said, it's very quiet, except for the one tire-screeching section, which is far too loud in comparison to everything else. The soundscape is quite narrow, with a lot of sub (which I can't hear on my setup, but I can see it on the frequency plot) but no mid-bass or highs to speak of. NO

The interplay between the two sources is much more complex than Larry's "breakdown" suggests; the two themes trade places frequently, to the point that it's difficult to tell which is which at times. I don't think the two sources are similar at all, other than that they're both waltzes, so good job blending them together as if they were. The relentless beat of the piano is indeed a detraction. The two sources do have stronger, more consistent beats than most classical waltzes, but not nearly to this extent. Anyone actually dancing to this would get pretty bored: there's nothing there for them to work with. Still, that's the only reservation I have. Strong work overall. YES

Agreed with the above. I don't think it does enough to stand apart from any of the three versions for our standards. Only about the last 30 seconds leapt out at me as something really different from the source material. (Also the tail of the last note is cut off.) For the record, this would need a different name to be posted. Sounds great, just not what we look for. NO

Wow, that modulated detuning. That... that's a choice, for sure. A very loud choice. As Kris and Brad pointed out, it's actually pretty conservative up until the halfway point. The instrumentation changes, but not the mood or pacing, and I'm not picking up any original part-writing. If it were just the first half, I'd agree with Brad 100% about it being too conservative to pass. The second half is definitely not too conservative. The connections to the source material get much more tenuous, but they're there. If this were just the second half, I'd want a breakdown with timestamps, but the first half easily (too easily!) takes this over the 50% mark. Unfortunately we haven't had a consistent voting consensus regarding arrangements like this (which we get fairly often), which are too conservative in the first half and too original in the second half. We've passed some of those and rejected others. This isn't even a particularly extreme example of that sort of issue. So that's certainly a weakness, but not a dealbreaker. Source usage is clumpy but overall sits in the safe range. While I'm in agreement with the judges above that I found this unpleasant and didn't enjoy it at all, I'm not really finding anything that's a standards violation. The synths vary quite a lot, and while they're technically "vanilla," they're chosen in a genre-appropriate, consistent, mindful way, and they're used in clever, engaging (if abrasive) ways. The soundscape gets thin frequently, but again it's intentional and done for aesthetic reasons. I do think the ending (5:17+) is weak, with only two instruments for nearly a minute and then an extremely abrupt end, and if I had one objective reason to say NO to this, it would be that. But out of a 6+ minute piece, I don't think that sinks it. I certainly respect a NO vote here, but I can't justify giving this one myself. YES