MindWanderer

The panning was certainly a bit wide, but nothing was 100% to either side. To me it sounded naturalistic, as if the instrumentalists were in a physical space on opposite sides of a stage. Nowhere near as distracting as the ping-pong panning one often hears on Hammond synths, for instance. Otherwise, this is a nice arrangement. Conservative on the face of it, but with accompaniment that riffs on the theme in interesting ways, and the trade-offs between the lead instruments also help keep it engaging. Some of the brass work sounded a little flat, but I don't think it's enough to hold this back. YES

On the plus side, the composer's name is Trevor Morris. If that was supposed to be a sneaky Castlevania-themed pseudonym, it couldn't have been better.

The balance was, to me, more interesting than it was concerning. I didn't feel like there was anything I couldn't hear. Sometimes the sections that play the role of accompaniment in the source were louder than the melody, but I don't see that as bad, necessarily, just different, as long as the loudest instruments are dynamic and engaging, which they are here. Humanization was a bit of a concern, but I didn't feel like it was under the bar. A few sections stuck out--2:13-2:49 has some really mechanical vibrato in the flutes and the high violins--but not so much that it bothered me. The orchestration and mood are right where they should be, and there was plenty of interpretive elements despite sticking close to the source's melody in most cases. There's definitely a lot of room for improvement in those articulations, and I can see how many listeners would prefer a more traditional melody/accompaniment balance, but I think this is good enough to post as it stands. YES (borderline)

Not much to complain about here. Intro drags a little, but otherwise this is some stellar psytrance with some top-notch sound design. YES

The Phantom of the Opera one is highly quantized and lacking in dynamics, and even the samples don't sound great. The bass end in particular sounds synthetic. The FFVI one sounds less mechanical, but at the expense of actually being good. It's full of errors, both in timing and just using the wrong notes.

I felt like background was an issue throughout. It was most pronounced in the intro, which was messy to the point of drowning the music, and during the riser DA mentioned (2:45-3:02 or so), but the layered arps and pads, sizzling cymbals and snares, and SFX combine to make the backing highs sound extremely cluttered in most of the arrangement. On top of that, the leads are extremely meaty and cover nearly the whole frequency spectrum, which conflicts with those highs. It's a little repetitive, of course, especially towards the end (4:00 on) but as EDM goes, it fits the bill. And I think the production would probably work just fine in a club setting. But in a controlled listening environment, the highs sound really cluttered. There are a lot of clever things going on there, but they're all stepping on each other like crazy. Pull them apart and use more use of your frequency and stereo space and I think this will be a winner. Right now I can't sign off on it, though. NO (resubmit)

My biggest concern is actually the production: there's severe clipping and pumping in a lot of places, too many to list. The overall levels need a much closer look here. However, I didn't feel like any of it was excessively busy; there's a lot going on in places, but I could hear everything distinctly and actually enjoyed the complexity. DA's absolutely right about the cover-ish nature of this arrangement being a dealbreaker as well, although I infer that maybe she wasn't able to hear all the layers of personalization you added. It would certainly benefit from some more substantial structural transformations, so there's clearly originality even to a casual listener. I thought the ending was fine, personally, but I see why DA objected to it: there's a riser in it that just leads into a final hit, which does feel a bit anticlimactic. I'd personally cut elements rather than adding them, so that you're left with just that guitar playing the final hook. That's just a suggestion, though. The performance and additional accompaniment is spot on, and there was a lot here that I really enjoyed. It just needs a little bit more interpretive content and a good hard look at the compression/limiting, and I'd be happy to see this posted. NO (resubmit)

Details on the Japanese Super Famicom Classic have been revealed. A different list of games, as with the NES/Famicom Classic, but the choices are interesting. Japan gets, that US doesn't: Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem Legend of the Mystical Ninja Panel de Pon Super Soccer Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers Japan does not get: Kirby's Dream Course Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting Super Castlevania IV Super Punch-Out!! Earthbound I'd just like to point that last one out. The U.S. doesn't get localized versions of Mother or Mother 3 for decades after their Japanese releases, but then they decide to give us Mother 2 and not Japan for once. I'm also completely baffled as to why the U.S. and Japan get different versions of Street Fighter 2.

It was strongly rumored and seems like an obvious idea (despite the early discontinuation of the NES Classic). Note the higher price point. Since the internal hardware is probably nearly identical to the NES Classic, this is probably the number they needed to make it sustainable and keep production high. No word on whether the controller wires are longer, probably the #1 complaint about the NES Classic. Looks like special functions (e.g. save state) may be on the console and not the controller again. The lineup is mostly close to what one might guess, but there are some surprises. Of course Star Fox 2 is the biggie, but I wouldn't have guessed Super Mario RPG, Kirby's Dream Course, or Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts either. No Final Fantasy II or Chrono Trigger, bummer--odd to include Earthbound and not Chrono Trigger.

Got a really nice WIP shaping up from Moiré Effect, I'm pretty hyped about getting it in here! Might be a good opener. Please note that the next check-in deadline is just 3 weeks away! If you haven't sent me anything since the last checkin, now's the time to crack down and get it done!

The remix starts off great, building into a nice energy level, but then it sort of peters out. The rise going into 0:37 promises an explosion of depth and energy, but then it doesn't really deliver. The percussion is very thin, distant, and limited. There's also a significant lack of bass presence, just a simple pad in the mid-low range, used throughout. The highs, on the other hand, get very complex and busy: 1:15-1:27, for instance, has what sounds like four different synths, all similar in timbre, competing for a very narrow range of frequencies. They're crisp and don't step on each other as badly as they might, but they still fight for the listener's attention--and that's not counting the percussion, which is also stuffed into the same spectrum. They're a little shrill in general, and you only use a couple of different leads (the saw and the square) the whole time, which is fatigue-inducing. 1:34-1:39 doesn't sound right to me either. Sounds like there are some clashing notes in there. It sounded unusual but OK to me up until then. The arrangement is a lot of fun, and while it was a little conservative there was more than enough additional accompaniment and riffing to make it interesting. Spread those frequencies apart, go somewhere a little more interesting with your synths, come up with a better ending, and fix that clashing section. Sounds like a lot, but you have a lot of strong work here that actually has you most of the way there. NO (resubmit)

The first half is certainly a very close orchestration to the original, and if that were all there was to this remix I think it would hard to justify. However, at about 2:12 it does branch off into more creative territory. It's not quite half of the arrangement, but it's close. Historically, remixes that are half very close covers and half more original do have the potential to pass overall. That being said, the original content here doesn't go very far. 2:25-3:28 consists entirely of variations on the same simple 8-note progression, and the next and final 30 seconds are wind-down. So what we have is a first half that's arranged too conservatively and a second half that's arranged too simply and repetitively. Either way, there's a lack of the creative interpretation we look for. Production and composition are strong, but I think for our purposes this has to be a NO

What he said. Borderline creepy but lovely. I thought the lead theremin in the middle was a little on the piercing side, and it definitely could have done without the fadeout ending, but otherwise the length, repetitiveness, and lack of exploration are what's holding this back. It's a great start, it just doesn't go far enough. NO

I'm increasingly happy with my Switch purchase, too. Odyssey looks amazing, Mario + Rabbids looks surprisingly promising, Splatoon 2... looks like an incremental improvement, anyway, I'm still not sure about Salmon Run mode and its impact on the game. Games I'm not personally interested in, like Metroid Prime 4, help to cement the "Nintendo is getting it right this time" impression, which will help with 3rd party support. They've brought out nearly every one of their main IP's, just missing Smash and a core Fire Emblem at this point, that I can think of.

Not quite cornered. There's a strong jazz presence and some "orchestral lite" (~4-8 live instrumentalists and/or vocalists). But for 100% live instruments, rock/metal is definitely the most popular supergenre.

I definitely concur that a minority of tracks include even one live instrument--most are 100% synths and/or samples. But a substantial minority do include at least one live instrument, as well. That number goes up if you include vocals. I will add that we come down pretty hard on sequenced instruments when they lack humanization. You can go through old judges' decisions to see for yourself: when an instrument is lead or exposed, it's much more likely to get rejected when it sounds obviously fake. Being able to play lead violin and electric guitar yourself is a huge boon if you'd like to use those instruments--I think that as leads, those two instruments tend to trip up mixes the most when sampled.

Really? I mean, they wouldn't be developing a whole new pair of Pokemon games for release in 2018 if the 3DS were really done. There was less support for the Wii U by the time the Switch's name was even revealed. And there's Metroid: Samus Returns coming, too.

Gario's breakdown is nearly identical to what I came up with last time, though I didn't count the chord progressions and I didn't pick up on that heavily transformed main LoZ theme during that extra-busy 2:26-2:50. While this is a distinct improvement, a lot of my criticisms still stand. I don't think the voiceovers add anything on a musical level, and without them a lot of this is pretty repetitive (especially 1:00-2:12). I don't mind voice clips on principle, but they have to be used either as musical elements or in addition to musical elements. Here they're used in place of musical elements, and I don't think that works well at all. For instance, 0:48-1:00 has SFX used as part of the music, and while the application seems kind of random to me, the're used appropriately there, and I thought the the "recharge" effects and voices in 3:14-3:35 worked quite well. That cluttered section is only better by comparison to the first submission. It's still extremely messy. The "hey hey"'s and the one booming percussive element conflict with a lot of the other instruments, and the synths are stepping all over each other the whole time. 2:50-3:05 still has some conflict as well, especially with the piano getting muffled by the synth with the sweeping filter. It's progress, but I don't think this is quite there. The source usage is adequate IMO despite the inherent challenge of using this particular source, but 2:26-3:05 still needs some attention in production, and the sections with voiceovers could use something other than voices to hold the listener's interest (and I'm still not on board with including story spoilers). NO

Really? There's something strange in my settings or something then, because when my powers recharge I just get the sound effect, no voice clip at all. I have it set to Japanese voices, English text. Maybe I'll fiddle with it and see if I can get the behavior to change.

I'm in complete agreement with Gario about the excessively long intro, but it's not the only issue I have. The lead guitar in 1:44-2:15 is far too quiet, getting muffled by the vocals, rhythm guitar, and percussion especially. It's better in 2:15-2:47 but still muddy. The outtro is also on the long side. It's also pretty quiet overall. Not egregiously so, but it could definitely stand to be at least increased to peak closer to 0dB, and I personally think a little bit of limiting or compression to get it just a little louder than that would be welcome. There are some neat conceptual elements here, and I also agree that the atmosphere is excellent and definitely interpretive enough for our standards. But I think the balance needs quite a bit of work in the meatiest part of the arrangement in addition to the intro being shortened. NO (resubmit)

The whole new dungeon is supposed to come with Expansion Pack 2. Although now that I've finished the game and learned how short the dungeons are (15-30 minutes for me), that's still not a good value. Interesting note relating to this, now that it's in the Judges' Decisions: I was initially really confused when I heard the voice clips Chimpazilla referred to ("Revali's Gale is now ready" for instance), because I had switched to the Japanese voices before completing any of the dungeons, and those clips simply don't exist in Japanese. I guess they figured the American audience is so unobservant they need a voice cue to know the abilities have recharged, instead of just the chime?

I actually wasn't a big fan of the voice and SFX usage before the 2:26 mark. I'm fine with them used melodically, but here the voices are just used as voiceover for the most part, and at 0:48-1:00 they're just thrown in seemingly at random. They don't add anything to the music. At 2:26-2:50 they're more a part of the music, but that section is massively overcrowded and chaotic, very muddy, crowded, and loud. It's actually still kind of crowded and loud from 2:50-3:05 or so, too; it's not just the SFX. It's worth noting that the "Temple of Time" theme from BotW is itself a remix of the Song of Time from OoT, with the gaps significantly lengthened and the melody simplified for solo piano. I'm not willing to count just the first two notes of that as source, and I can only pick out more than that in 0:49-0:58, 1:13-2:25, 2:51-3:14 (interpreted liberally), and 3:14-end = 142-165 out of 255 seconds, or 55.7%-64.7%. But it's worth mentioning that a lot of the source is literally silence, and every time it repeats its main 6-note refrain, there's a 3-second gap after the second and after the sixth notes. Even though yes, the source is present in more than half the remix, if you count the gaps, I'd be hesitant at best to say its use is "dominant." As a sidenote, the vocal clips do contain story spoilers. Not a whole lot, and the biggest reveal is something most players will learn within the first hour or two of the game, but still, that's kind of uncool IMO. Gario's crit about the muddy middle section is more than enough to be a dealbreaker, but I'm not 100% sold on the arrangement with all the SFX in general, or with the source usage. I'm a little more on the fence about those aspects, but regardless this is still a NO

I'm not as enthused as my colleagues and the issues they described bother me more. I'm not feeling the samples here. To me their low-fi nature doesn't sound like a deliberate, aesthetic decision but just vanilla sound design. It doesn't sound like a Genesis track at all to me; only a few of the synths sound like they could have come out of the YM2612. It reminds me more of PC games from the early '90's or so--in other words, like a really primitive MIDI. That's not a good thing. If I'd run into this "in the wild," I'd have guessed it was literally an SMB3 remix made in the days before OC ReMix even existed, and wouldn't be surprised to find it on vgmusic.com. That ending really is pretty disappointing, completely anticlimactic. It very much feels like you just ran out of ideas, and just repeated the last section a few times while dropping instruments out. I'm sorry, but I for one can't get behind this sound design. It would have been a reasonable addition to the site in its earliest days, but I think we've moved well beyond this now. NO

Takes a while to get going, but that's typical of the genre. The source material is little more than hinted at in a lot of the mix; I heard it from 1:32-2:46, 3:19-4:16, 4:24-4:39, 146/306 seconds, or 47.8%. That works by me, since there's definitely subtle reference to make up the remaining 2.2% in my book, but I imagine Liontamer will want to listen carefully to see if he can pick out any explicit references I didn't. The dynamic range of this was pretty wide. I had to keep lowering the volume while listening to it, since it starts off moderately quiet and slowly gets a lot louder. I agree that the balance is frequently an issue. 2:02-2:16 is an example of a particularly crowded section where several instruments are stepping on each others' toes. Gario's right that cutting the release/reverb/delay a little shorter would help the instruments stand out against each other much better. I actually really liked the flute-like synth at 4:02, but I agree with Gario that it needs to pop out more there--it's a big impact moment, since it's the part of the source melody that hadn't been used yet, and it's stylistically unique. I didn't notice a panning issue with it, but I might if it were more prominent. I like the arrangement for the most part, and it's a cool approach that I think worked out quite well, but it has several small issues that add up. I think it needs to be a little cleaner to be front page material. NO (borderline, resubmit)

It's a pretty conservative metal approach. There are enough stylistic changes and flourishes that I think it's interpretive enough, although it suffers by duplicating the source's repetitiveness, especially the lengthy intro. it is a bit on the loud side, but it is metal, after all. This source is light on melody, so I don't think it's quite as important that the lead be a lead. Letting the rhythm guitar come forward isn't as big of a problem here as it would be in most remixes. However, frequently the instrument that's doing the most interesting thing is difficult to hear. For instance, there's a cool change in texture at 0:52 that's nearly impossible to pick out, and 1:13-1:34 is chock-full of interesting riffs that I can only catch hints of. As a result, this sounds a lot more repetitive than it actually is, because the parts that are being switched up are being drowned by the more static elements. On the one hand, I think the final result is borderline at worst. On the other, there's a hell of a lot to appreciate here arrangement-wise that can't be heard because of the production. This can be so, so much better with some balance work. I'd personally recommend dynamic balance changes that allow different instruments to shine in different places, because what constitutes the most interesting instrument changes frequently, and they all deserve to be heard in their turn. This has the potential to be amazing, so please make it happen! NO (resubmit)