MindWanderer   Members

Okay, I'm not going to listen to an entire hour-plus-long OST to review one track. This also opens with an 81-second rendition of the main TMNT theme song, which is originally from the cartoon. Our guidelines say the following: The music must have been composed specifically for the game or first published (or recognized) as the game's soundtrack. Movie themes such as Star Wars or licensed songs from games like Gran Turismo do not qualify. Any incorporation or arrangement of source material not from games (mainstream, classical, etc.) should be extremely limited. So that's immediately disqualifying right there. As for the production and arrangement, proph hit all the relevant notes. It's a thin, treble-heavy soundscape, and the arrangement is an overly-conservative medley with no connective tissue. proph gave plenty of good advice, so please take it to heart. NO

I know this source like the back of my hand, so the fact that I didn't pick up on the melody until 20 seconds in means that the mixing really could be improved. The bass, drums, and chugs just stomp all over it. I understand that the melody line is often not the loudest part in heavy metal, but it still shouldn't be quite this hard to pick out. The subtractive stuff really is quite neat. Too hard to hear, but it's riffing on the melody in a creative way that I don't hear often enough. It just skirts that line between "uses the source" and "is inspired by the source." It's tough to judge vis-a-vis our standards. Here are my timestamps: 0:03-0:32 (direct) 0:48-1:13 (subtractive) 1:42-2:03 (half direct, half subtractive) 2:03-2:08 (direct) 2:35-2:38 (direct) Total: 81/180 seconds = 45% Ugh. Even giving generous credit, I can't come up with 50%, and I think some of our stricter timestamper judges would come up with even less. It's a real shame, because other than the mixing, I like what I'm hearing a lot. I absolutely want to see some of those ideas on the panel again, whether it's a revision of this or something new, but this submission has to be a NO

Loud, loud, loud! I know it's the genre, but I still had to drop my volume to 2/3 thirds of my usual listening volume. And the opening (and ending) sound like 95% literally random notes; it sounds really similar to what happened in old programming languages when you overflowed the frequency range. Growling vocals are totally indecipherable, but that's understandable. The sung vocals are also 99% indecipherable, and that's less so. It's hard to make out the words even in the vocal solo. Oh, it's Brandon, that tracks. He's always had great pitch control but not so great enunciation, and this is no exception. I can barely hear the guitar melody either; it's all drum kit and overdriven guitar. And because the melody is so hard to hear, and that's where the Shovel Knight is, it loses a lot of that connection. I have no doubt it would pass 50% timestamping, going carefully and listening carefully, but it's a weaker link than it needs to be. While I personally think the mixing should be improved, I respect that most fans of death metal don't expect, need, or particularly appreciate clean mixing. (I actually really enjoy well-mixed death metal, but not most of it.) I'm not a fan of this, but I think it does what's intended. YES

Far too quiet, right off the bat. Even maxing out my player volume, about a 50% increase in my usual volume, it's too quiet to hear clearly. From what I can hear, there are quite a few issues, but proph covered them pretty well. The soundscape is minimal, the layers aren't in the same key, and the arrangement is underdeveloped. I hate to be harsh, but I think spending some time in our workshop areas would be helpful to you. NO

I'll be honest, I didn't really think getting improved performances was in the cards. But you managed to pull it off. It sounds really good now. No complaints. YES

I missed the first version, but I certainly don't hear anything problematic with this one. Sounds clean as anything to me, even the section proph pointed out. Really nice job filling out a soundscape with very few instruments. I wasn't expecting something so chill with a title like that, and because it's a little slow and ends inconclusively, it feels short and incomplete, but that's my only beef, and it's no big deal. YES

A surprisingly odd remix. It's quite quiet, even though there's hardly any headroom and it's clearly been through a leveling process. Part of the reason it feels so quiet is that the synth leads are pretty quiet, especially the saw, which is having to fight for space. The arps, kicks, snares, and hats are stomping all over the leads. But it's also quiet in an absolute sense, and I had to turn my volume up nearly to maximum to make it all out clearly. Fake ending at 2:11, with a complete restart and swap to the other source; though it takes only another 25 seconds to tie Within the Giant back in, it does so with a mostly different sound palette. Some really weird harmonies in there, too; if proph hadn't weighed in first, I would have tagged him to explain what was going on here, but it sounds unpleasant nevertheless. Very loud SFX in this section. 2:58 on is really busy, and it's hard to make out anything but the lead guitar. That fades out to another almost fake ending, and we tie back into the first part with the vocoded flight attendant. That's only about 30 seconds, and then yet another fake ending and non-transition, this time oddly to a section that's not all that different from what came before. It begins to fade out yet again before abruptly pumping the volume back up, to its loudest yet, at 4:40, with so much going on that even the electric guitar is slightly smothered. And finally, it just ends, with no resolution. I'm afraid I have reservations about both the production and the arrangement here. There are so many awkward transitions, most of which are completely unnecessary, given how similar the sections before and after are. The changes in volume seem capricious, and combine with the mixing issues to make it hard to make out. The section with The Chase just doesn't work for me, because it sounds like Within the Giant is just playing on top of it without consideration to harmony. There are a ton of good ideas and some fun sections. The guitar work is good, and the guitar solo especially is a highlight (although, again, it's brought down by production issues, the clashing bass line, and the fade-out mid-ending). I'd love to hear a version of this that's cleaned up and tightened. NO (resubmit)

Yeah, the garage-y tone is definitely a turn-off, notably because the synth is so quiet you can barely hear it, even on headphones. I think it's actually playing nearly the entire time, but is frequently inaudible. Otherwise it's a nice fun arrangement. I agree with Larry: ask Mauricio if he can clean it up a little, just so we can appreciate everything he put into it, but if not, it's still a YES

I'm afraid I have to agree. The drums vary in intensity but never in pattern, and the second half is pretty similar in structure to the first, so it feels longer and more repetitive than it really is. I don't think the production is all that muddy, but it is loud, and the brass slips into the uncanny valley at times. Also the female vocals sound really strained on the high notes (0:26 and 0:47, for instance). I'm not totally on board with the moog-like synth used, either; it's really out of place in an otherwise quasi-medieval orchestral piece. Lots of great ideas and a good foundation here, just needs some tweaks to get it over the finish line. NO

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

Nice mellow take on the material, smooth integration of the sources. I didn't find a whole lot of dynamic interest in it---the whole main section was kind of static for my taste---and the wind-down is nearly a third of the entire piece, but those are minor criticisms and largely a matter of personal taste. It's a very "OA" remix, and that's not a bad thing. YES

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

What a strange soundtrack, and an even stranger remix. It's full of jarring dissonance, not just in a few places, but given the material, I'm inferring that's intentional. The transitions are a little awkward. Parts 1-2 are okay, 2-3 is a bit abrupt, and then 3-4... that's a really long gap, about 10 seconds of near-total silence. Long enough that it 100% sounds like the song is over, and I get that that's intentional, but it's so long that a listener with this on their playlist is likely to think there's a technical problem why the next song isn't playing, especially if they're listening in an environment with some ambient noise, like a car. Some MP3 programs and players might also have a problem with it: I've seen an issue before where there's a silent or near-silent gap on a track, and the player gets confused and just ends or skips to the next track. Otherwise, the sound quality is excellent for what it is, the singing is great (though the German doesn't sound sung by a native speaker). Definitely not pleasant fare, but again, intentional. So for purely technical reasons, I need to ask that the gap between parts 3 and 4 be tweaked. It doesn't have to be quite as long (I think the impact would still be felt if it were 5-7 second shorter), and making the tape hiss sound louder will help both humans and software be less confused. CONDITIONAL